January 19, 2018

Brave New World

Brave New World

Marcum’s first busy season of the year is about to start, and it promises to be gripping. We come face to face with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for the first time, and that means new tax planning opportunities for our clients, along with a lot of really interesting new intellectual challenges for Marcum’s tax team.

This is where the old stereotype about accountants with lead pencils in their shirt protectors gets blown apart. It’s a really exciting time in the world of accounting, well as exciting as accounting can be. There’s nothing more fascinating going on for us right now than helping our individual and corporate clients figure out how to take advantage of the new tax law to achieve their objectives and save their tax dollars.

In addition to preparing tax returns for 2017, we will be meeting with many of you in the coming weeks and discussing new tax strategies customized to your personal circumstances in 2018 and beyond. This will be an ongoing conversation between you and your Marcum tax professional, but it is important to start now. Don’t wait until later in the year, when it might be too late to derive full benefit from new tactics.

The new law fundamentally changes the tax landscape for both individuals and businesses. Many of the tax planning techniques that were standard protocol in the past are now obsolete or in need of revision. To help you understand the new planning opportunities, we will be holding three webinars this month addressing specific sections of the new tax law: Corporate and Pass-Through Entities (Jan. 30), Individuals/Trusts & Estates (Jan. 31), and International Taxes (Feb. 1). The webinars are free – a way for us to help you try and make sense of all the changes. If you haven’t registered yet, I urge you to consider participating. You can visit our events website at www.marcumevents.com for details.

It’s a brave new world out there. We’re here to help you figure out the best path forward.

And since I didn’t win the Powerball or Mega Millions last week, it was off to Las Vegas this week for me for another international accounting conference. Not quite James Bond, tuxedos, martinis (shaken not stirred) and casinos, but rather two days of technology, efficiency, new service offerings and the like, with the goal of figuring out how to make Marcum a better place to work for our associates and to continue to improve the Marcum client service experience. As this column posts, I’m at 35,000 feet somewhere above the mountain states on my way back home.

Have a great weekend, everyone.