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40 Seasons Now Done


Christian

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Well forty seasons now done. Some of these clients showed up as young adults, had children whose children now have children. Not in my wildest dreams when I accepted my Uncle August's suggestion to take over his small tax business when he quit it would go on this long. It has been a challenging and rewarding time. I have had countless laughs with clients and sad times when as with this year three of them passed on after more than thirty years. I have been much appreciated and sometimes less so. I have not been perfect but I rather doubt the perfect taxman has yet to walk this earth. And now you are doubtless thinking I am going to hang it up and bring in my rocking chair. Well I ain't ! I'll be back again next year. 😄

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Let's get some rest and wait for the next tax season. As much as we hate tax season, it comes with some $$$ that are missed later in the year. I am going on vacation in three weeks and for the last two weeks, I have thought about my coming vacation when tired. 

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Dang, ditto on the congrats to the long timers. I guess I'm just getting going good at 25 seasons. It has been a good one this year. I complicated matters by moving my home and office to another state (SC) and purchasing an RV as a mobile office to serve my existing clients in NC. Most of this occurred starting in October of 21 and bought the RV in December of 21. Granted the RV is 36ft and large enough and I was amazed at the reception from my clients. We made three trips with the longest stay being three weeks or so. Each trip takes 3 1/2 hours one way. We were blessed enough to have some friends that allowed me to setup on their property with all the connections except for sewer. They also allowed me to leave the camper for the season and not have to haul it back and forth. Had to make a few trips to dump tanks but that was a minor inconvenience. We even managed to pick up between 15 and 20 new clients.  All in all I can't complain. I just finished with 15 extensions filed. Now its time to relax and find a new office building to work out of. My wife wants her home to be her home and not a business location. 20 years of that is enough and I agree totally. My new home is only 4 miles from Myrtle Beach so guess where we are headed???

Here's hoping everyone had a prosperous tax season. Thanks to all who have provided insight and help from this board. It just doesn't get any better than this. It's time for all to get serious R&R. 

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24 years in business as a part time gig for my spouse and I.   100+ returns complete this year, 9 on extension (most ever extensions for us), lost about 20 clients due to the move from CA to TX.   

Finally get to give this a go full time next year as I am not working a day job anymore.   I "retired" to the tax business in February and I hope to expand it next year.  Will start some local advertising late this summer and into the early part of next year.   Would like to double revenue next year.   We will see how it goes.

Anyone going to NATP Taxposium in July?  PM me and we can meet up at Caesars.   It is nice to meet people from the board in person.

Tom
Longview, TX  

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44 years out of college, but I worked full time during college and mostly full time the last two years of high school. That's 50 years of working, the last 31 of which I worked for myself. Next year, taxes will be a hobby where I do about 10 mostly family returns. Not enough to pay for the software, but cheaper than me paying someone to do a 1065 and an 1120S for me. Plus if I efile and reactive my EFIN, the IRS should give me access to eservices again, and that will be nice. I've felt handicapped not being able to access eservices the past two years.

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I sold off about 3/4 of my practice four or five years ago. This was the first year I did not work with my buyers in their office, helping with the transition. I did provide quite a bit of email and phone support, plus did returns for a handful of "only Catherine please!" request returns for them.  For myself, I kept about 50 returns. Family, close lifelong friends, and the very elderly for whom transitions are hard (and they're not long-term clients, let's face it). Doing more estates and trusts because of those elderly clients. Also doing more representation (my buyers don't do that; they send any/all representation cases to me). So in many ways this has been the easiest year for me out of the past twenty-five or thirty.  I plan to keep going as long as it's not too onerous - and with time it should become less so, as those estate income returns, state estate returns, and trusts wind up. 

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30 years for me.  But I got a late start.  Accounting major right away but worked in the private sector.  Funny because I wanted to be a CPA right away, other things got in the way, first the draft, I chose the Navy, then private sector, later became a CPA.  I generally plan 3 more years give or take.  Maybe someone will give me an offer I can't refuse.  

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I have been doing taxes off and on since 1972.  Stopped for college, and to work in banking for a while (ended up in employee benefit plan administration with a trust company, so still compliance with IRS!) before returning to tax work part time.  Never wanted to be a self employed tax professional but here I am.  the more due diligence requirements are place on preparers and the less responsibility on clients, the less I want to do this.  I wont take a client whose information is unreasonable on the face of it, but I don't want to face penalties because i did not give them the third degree about the information they gave me.  Retirement looks better all the time.  Or at least changing to only doing tax returns for people I like and taking the rest of the year off. 

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37 Years for Me. Started in 1985 working for Farm Credit working with Farmers. Become

a Tax and PC Specialist over the 10 years working for them. I so love working with the Farmers.

Started my home base business in 1995 after having my second child on April 14th of that year! Learned

at lot there with Farm SP, Partnerships and s-Corps. Worked at Intertek Tax Department for a 

Very Large Global Corporation with companies all over the world. Moved Tax Department to Houston

and I was laid off after 15 Years of working for them. Have kept my Home Base Tax Preparation business

all during this time. Work now fulltime with an Environmental Consulting and Real Estate Dev company with

40 Different S-Corps and Partnership Returns along with all the accounting. I usually prepare around 80 to 100

Personal Tax Returns, mostly family and the Farmers I still work with after 30 years. Have no intention of retiring

either any time soon. Hope every one has a wonderful relaxing and well deserved break until next season. Stay Safe and enjoy!

 

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I am glad to see friends are working so hard, which makes me feel better.   I still have full time job, which is so difficult, I dont know when should I quit my full time job, so scared go solo and then find out not enough money, but I feel so tired.    How did you make the decision to quit the previous job?  It was a hard decision?

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I got fired (3/10/11), so I didn’t have a choice. Of course, I was at the point where, every check I got, I was “well another mortgage payment down”.  The irs had just ruled that same-sex RDP couples in CA had to follow community property rules.  I took a night off, then looked at the huge stacks of returns I had and got to work.

best thing that ever happened to me! Never looked back. 

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I started this as a business in 1992 with Parsons Technology.  I always kept a part time job until seven or eight years ago when I realized that I needed help with my own business.  Added an addition to the house for a home office and away we went.  Little by little, my business has entirely paid for itself, including the office addition.  I have passed the 250 client mark and two years ago looked for and found an assistant.  She is so totally with the program.  I am teaching her as well as paying her and she is helping me in so many ways.  Ultimately, everything that goes on here is on me because I have the credentials.  Hopefully she will take over when I am ready to quit, but that time hasn't come yet.  Once I get over this slump and finish my extensions, I will start preparing for next year.  Our services are so sorely needed.  Qualified preparers with integrity and the desire to serve are becoming more scarce every year.  We are dedicated to our clients and they know how important they are to us.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Gees, you all must be stronger than me.  On my 40th season and counting down until I can get on Medicare and wind down and only due friends returns.  Had a partner tell me once, "Tax season is like childbirth, you swear you will never have another, than the next year rolls around and you have another!"

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