As the world health crisis started to unfold in 2020, financial service firms observed the growing desolation among our clients watchfully. As part of the aftermath, the way people work has been transformed. In 2022, there is now a better view of what happened and what lies ahead. The economic storm, it seems, washed away a fair number of workers with the Great Resignation that followed the health crisis. Now employers are scrambling to evaluate their methods of recruitment and retention.

Many CPAs don’t realize how everyday tasks can easily expose them to malpractice litigation. Think about it. CPAs work hard at collecting client financial information, analyzing it to answer questions, and preparing government filings and crafting statements. This is complicated, time-intensive work that must accurately hit the mark. When it doesn’t, malpractice lawsuits can ensue.

What if colleagues shouted your name every time you entered the office? You’d probably feel a lot like Norm Peterson in the classic TV comedy series Cheers. Having rewatched the show recently, I began to see parallels with the functionality of a modern finance or accounting department.

In this issue: Budget Agreement a Growing Challenge for Pennsylvania Lawmakers; CPA-PAC Annual Report Available; Pa. Senate Committee Passes Bill to Improve Financial Literacy; and more.

As more companies offer hybrid or fully remote work environments, the effort to protect trade secrets will grow as a concern. Since March 2020, legions of employees have been working from home with nearly unfettered access to company information. Some of that information may be regarded as trade secrets. Much has been written about the general cybersecurity threat remote work creates, but the exposure of trade secrets and other strategic company information poses an equally serious threat.

Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 136, Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements of Employee Benefit Plans Subject to ERISA, requires auditors to communicate in writing reportable findings from audit procedures to management or those charged with governance on a timely basis. Prior to SAS 136, these items may have been communicated verbally or in a separate report discussing internal control related matters.

Remote work arrangements are becoming increasingly commonplace. What began as a COVID-19 necessity has come to be seen as an employee benefit. However, widespread remote work could expose businesses to additional tax risks and filing obligations.

Busy tax practitioners often focus on issues of immediate urgency, which can sometimes leave them susceptible to making errors when determining the tax basis of interests in business entities, including C corporations, S corporations, and partnerships. (References to corporations and partnerships include limited liability companies treated as such for tax purposes.)

Social entrepreneurship efforts tend to be industry-specific and lean on professional practices to enact valuable changes. This feature weighs how public accounting can adopt social entrepreneurship through an analysis of two important industry stakeholders: firms and millennials.

CPAs, in both public accounting and industry, are well-positioned to collect, measure, and interpret the financial data needed to navigate organizations through a potentially long inflationary period. Reevaluating operational cost structures, calculating unit cost for products sold and services provided, tracking changes in gross margins, and assisting with pricing strategies to maintain profitable operations are a few important ways CPAs can guide and support leaders and executives. This feature will help you identify and weigh the prospects of a potential inflationary period.

In this issue: Tax Cut Proposals Advance with Pennsylvania Budget Discussions; PHFA: Mixed-Use Development Pa. Tax Credits Open for Bids; Pa. DOR Updates Taxable and Exempt Property List; and more.

In this issue: Pennsylvania Pass-Through Entity Tax Bill Advances; Pa. DOR to Change Overpayment Offsetting; Longtime PICPA Ally Sen. Browne Concedes Primary; and more.

On our 125th anniversary, the PICPA would like to share a few highlights from the past and some of our plans for how we will continue coming together to enhance the profession, serve the public, and work together to resolve common issues, big and small. Specifically, this feature looks at our membership, advocacy efforts, professional learning channels, the pipeline of new CPAs, and the profession’s reputation and ethics.

As more tools become necessary for analyzing large and unstructured data sets in today’s digital environment, the open-source programming language Python has emerged as an important contributor to audits, internal audit, IT audit, business planning and forecasting, as well as traditional accounting roles. This feature explains why Python has gained popularity among financial professionals and discusses its relevance to CPAs.

In this issue: PICPA-Backed Pass-Through Entity Tax Bill Up for Committee Vote; Strong Pennsylvania Revenue Collections Continue; Gov. Wolf Pushes for $2,000 Direct Payments to Pennsylvanians; and more.

When the very first IKEA store came to the United States in 1985, there were signs and billboards two years beforehand declaring, “IKEA is coming!” I lived in Plymouth Meeting where it was built, saw the signs, and heard the news. Still, I had no idea what this store was about, let alone whether it would catch on. In my professional life, the new lease accounting standards exposure draft was issued in 2010, and we have long endured the “New lease accounting is coming!” promotions. Finally, it is here: Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 842 is in effect for 2019 for public companies and 2020 for nonpublic companies.

The universe of data continues to grow – in volume, velocity, and variety. For forensic accountants, that means the scope of potentially relevant evidence is growing too. Moreover, forensic accountants must increasingly contend with evidence that is unstructured – meaning the information format doesn’t fit with conventional databases. Between the complexity of emerging data types and the sheer volume, manual methods of data management and analysis can’t keep up.

According to CoinMarketCap.com, at the start of 2018, virtual currency markets were worth about $560 billion. By the end of the year, that same measure was $130 billion. Most people would characterize this as nothing but bad news. However, CPAs are skilled at finding an upside in a disaster. Now that Bitcoin mania has calmed, is there a tax-saving opportunity buried among the wreckage?

CPA firms and the services they provide continue to evolve as the profession responds to a changing business environment. Many are expanding into business advisory services. This can provide great opportunities for growth if firms clearly grasp their professional independence requirements.

The City of Philadelphia has been busy formulating its tax positions in response to both the South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. decision and Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. This column summarizes the changes affecting the city’s Business Income and Receipts Tax and Net Profits Tax.