Richard J. Garcia CPA

What’s it like trying to reach IRS by phone? It’s kind of like dialing in multiple times to win a radio contest…except my prize is being able to reach a person on the other end of the call.

I just utilized chat GPT for the first time looking to identify a seasoned tax professional for part time seasonal tax help.

I’m posting this to “spread the word” and hopefully find a qualified candidate.

If you know someone who may be interested, have them reach out to me.

On hold with IRS on behalf of a client.

Sometimes calling IRS requires multiple attempts as they are really busy. Sometimes you can wait then it hangs up for some reason. Sometimes you have to deal with an agent having a bad day. Being in my business, you just have to have patience in order to get things done for clients.

So tax season has started for the 2025 tax returns. I just prepared my first tax return which included a qualified overtime compensation deduction. Interesting!

Employer related reports due but what happens if they aren’t sin correctly? Well, tax agencies have thought of that to allow corrections on various payroll related tax forms. Is it fun to clean up payroll messes? It’s about as much fun as school homework was back in the day. No, payroll corrections are tedious and not fun but necessary when things went wrong.

Electronic filing for 2024 tax year for individual and business tax returns is today at 11:59 am E.S.T. per IRS. You may still mail them in…or possibly wait until the electronic portal opens up again to efile for the new tax season usually the last week of January.

If I read the article correctly, accountants…or rather an accounting degree will not
be considered to be a professional degree per the U. S. Department of education.

I remember a short while ago reading a story about how 75% of CPA’s are at retirement age.

What happens to the industry if there is no one filling the spots left behind by retiring CPA people because students can’t get money to attend school to become one?

Sometimes new clients seem to all have the same idea to call me within a short window. I just had 5 new calls all within a 10 minute window.

I can go a half hour or more with no phone call then multiple ones back to back.

I’m thankful but also curious at the odds of that happening.

Did you know a CPA is required to take 40 hours of continuing professional education hours every year to maintain their license?

I just submitted my 40 hours in order to continue to serve my community. I believe the education requirement is a good thing to help to keep CPA’s up to date on tax changes and such.

My recent hours taken cover the big beautiful bill changes, changes in 2025 taxes and changes in 2025 individual income taxes as well as ethics rules. The more you know, the better prepares you can be.

I’ve chosen to acquire CPE dealing with the big beautiful bill of 2025.

Whenever a new tax bill goes into effect I get calls asking for the impact. Oftentimes I’m working on a prior year’s tax return.

Now I’ll be able to answer questions on this one when the question come which will definitely come before the end of year.

Guess what? We can now accept payment for services through Zelle.

In the past we accepted cash or check. Years later we listened to our clients and added payment by credit card.

Thanks to a recent meeting with a very good friend who explained to me how people like paying a different way, I worked with my banker to be able to accept yet another form of payment.

Should I consider any other methods?