Where to find help online.Need expert help on an esoteric tax question, a unique depreciation problem or, for that matter, any issue relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc business and accounting? Help is only a few mouse clicks away. All you have to do is tap into any of the tens of thousands of online services on the Internet and, presto, you have a virtual office that is staffed with experts on nearly every conceivable subject. This article provides a listing of where CPAs can turn for some of the best online services. ACCOUNTANTS FORUM One of the handiest online tools is the American Institute of CPAs Accountants Forum, which is on CompuServe (the address is GO AICPA AICPA See American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). ). The Accountants Forum resembles an electronic bulletin board, where any CPA (Computer Press Association, Landing, NJ) An earlier membership organization founded in 1983 that promoted excellence in computer journalism. Its annual awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. The CPA disbanded in 2000. with access to CompuServe can post questions or messages on a wide assortment of professional topics ranging from auditing to underwriting. Users label their notes with brief titles, so scanning the list to find subjects of interest is easy. CPAs can read any posted message as well as any replies to those messages posted by others. On one occasion, I was asked by a local attorney client to prepare an application for tax exemption tax exemption, immunity from the requirement of paying taxes. Federal, state, and usually local law provide exemption from taxation for a wide variety of organizations, usually not-for-profit, such as churches, colleges, universities, health care providers, various for a trust created for the benefit of several charities after the death of a wealthy client. Since I wasn't fully familiar with the process, instead of declining the engagement, I raised the question on the Accountants Forum. A CPA in Illinois with experience on this issue responded and offered to help. Thus, I was able to provide the client with a valuable service, earn a fee and pay the practitioner in Illinois a fee for his guidance. In addition to online messages, the Accountants Forum has a library that contains files on many professional issues uploaded by the AICPA and state CPA societies that visitors can access. CompuServe also runs a wide variety of other forums of interest to accountants--the Legal Forum (GO LAWSIG), the Accounting Software Vendor Forum (GO ACCOUNTING), the Entrepreneur Forum (GO USEN) and the Working From Home Forum (GO WORK). Each contains sections devoted to accounting and tax and software. Also of value on Compuserve are dozens of specific sites for software and hardware vendors. Many vendors maintain these sites to offer technical support, provide a library of files that can be downloaded--such as new drivers, virus definition files and frequently asked questions--as well as to provide a place for users to share solutions to problems. Many vendors offer similar download services on their Web pages, but only CompuServe sites have such comprehensive user interaction in addition to the very high level of technical support assistance. Here are some hardware and software vendors with CompuServe forums and their addresses: Timeslips (GO TIMESLIPS), Peachtree (GO PEACHTREE), QuickBooks (GO QUICKBOOKS), Microsoft Word A full-featured word processing program for Windows and the Macintosh from Microsoft. Included in the Microsoft application suite, it is a sophisticated program with rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities that has become the most widely used word processing application on the market. (GO MSWORD), Microsoft Excel (tool) Microsoft Excel - A spreadsheet program from Microsoft, part of their Microsoft Office suite of productivity tools for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. Excel is probably the most widely used spreadsheet in the world. Latest version: Excel 97, as of 1997-01-14. (GO MSEXCEL), Microsoft Office Microsoft's primary desktop applications for Windows and Mac. Depending on the package, it includes some combination of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook along with various Internet and other utilities. (GO MSOFORUM), Symantec (GO SYMNEW). To subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day" subscribe, take buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; CompuServe, call 800-524-3388 and ask for the AICPA package, which includes a discount rate for the service. NEWSGROUPS This is a list of newsgroups that are significant for their popularity or their position in Usenet history. As of October 2002, there are about 100,000 Usenet newsgroups, of which approximately a fifth are active. AND MAIL LISTS The Web is only one part of the Internet. In addition, there are e-mail and newsgroups. A newsgroup newsgroup Internet forum for discussion of specific subjects. Newsgroups are organized into subjects (e.g., automobiles); each typically has several subgroups (e.g., classic cars, Formula One racing cars). is similar to an automated e-mail processor: A newsgroup receives e-mail from a participant and it sends out copies to all newsgroup subscribers. Some newsgroups are moderated; that is, each message is intercepted by the moderator and reviewed before it's sent to subscribers. Following are other mailing lists that are of possible interest to CPAs: ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING STANDARDS LIST centers on auditing and review standards and is sponsored by Kent Information Systems; John Graves is the moderator. Send subscription requests to 1istserve@tapnet.com. Include in the body e-mail request the following text: "subscribe tax-aa-stds-app" ACCOUNTING AND TAX LIST is from Australia but is widely followed in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Send subscription requests to listproc@scu.edu.au. Include this text in the body of the message: "atax-l@scu.edu.au." ACCOUNTING TECHNOLOGY DISCUSSION GROUP is an unmoderated mailing list, with a very active following and postings in the information technology arena. Although Canadian, the topics often apply equally well to non-Canadians. Send subscription requests to owner-can-acctech@hookup hookup, n in the Trager method of therapy, the practitioner enters into a meditative state along with the patient, which allows him or her to work more intuitively and to feel subtle changes in the patient's movement and tissue texture. .net. BANKRUPTCY AND INSOLVENCY LIST, sponsored by Bankruptcy Creditors' Service, Inc., is a collection of attorneys, consultants and accountants involved in insolvency consulting. Send subscription requests to tci@bankrupt.com. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE MAILING LIST, from the Pacific-Northwest District, is the only mailing list I am aware of that is sponsored by the IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. . It provides IRS news. Send subscription requests to majordomo@pen-west.irs.gov. MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING LIST is on management and cost accounting topics and is sponsored by Tax & Accounting Professional Network; Jim Snell is the moderator. Send subscription requests to listserve@tapnet.com, with this text in the message: "subscribe mgmt-acct" PRACTICING CPA AND INTERNET LIST focuses on Internet usage for practicing CPAs and is sponsored by Kent Information Systems and moderated by John Graves. To subscribe, e-mail subscription requests to listserve@tapnet.com, with the following in the message: "subscribe cpa-inet-use" TAX ANALYSTS serves more than two dozen specialized discussion groups. For specific instructions, log into http://www.tax.org/notes/default.htm. TAX PRACTICE ISSUES LIST focuses on tax practices and is sponsored by Tax & Accounting Professional Network, moderated by Jim Snell. Send subscription requests to listserve@tapnet.com, with this text in the message: "subscribe tax-prct-issues." TAX TOPICS, moderated by Dick Adams Dick Adams can refer to:
UB recently opened a brand new student center as well as changing the colors to blue and green, and the "UB" logo. , is the only newsgroup I subscribe to. It is an interactive forum of use to the general public and tax professionals. You can subscribe to this newsgroup (misc.taxes. moderated) through your Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. . INTERNET WEB PAGES The Internet's World Wide Web also is a major link to thousands of online resources. Following are Web pages that CPAs would find valuable: BIG YELLOW is essentially a nationwide Yellow Pages directory. It contains a list of businesses in the United States. You can conduct multidimensional searches by company name, address, business category, city, state and zip code zip code System of postal-zone codes (zip stands for “zone improvement plan”) introduced in the U.S. in 1963 to improve mail delivery and exploit electronic reading and sorting capabilities. . http://www.bigyellow.com CONSUMER PRICE INDEX is provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. http://www.stls.frb.org/fred/data/cpi.html CPA FIRMS WITH WEB PAGES is a directory created and maintained by Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University, at Bowling Green, Ohio; coeducational; chartered 1910 as a normal school, opened 1914. It became a college in 1929, a university in 1935. . It claims to have the largest directory, with links to more than 812 firms. http://www.cba.bgsu.edu/amis/cpafirms CPAs AND FIRMS is a directory of CPAs, CPA firms and state CPA societies. It includes telephone numbers, addresses and other useful information. http://www.accountingnet.com FOUR-11 provides e-mail addresses and telephone numbers for individuals and businesses that have chosen to list their electronic addresses. http://www.Four11.com KENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS' home page provides information on accounting and tax software, providing several hyperlinks to various vendor Web sites. http://www.kentis.com/acctxpub.html WHO IS provides a list of the individual or company behind a domain (Web site address) name. This directory includes each domain name registered with InterNIC--the domain name regulator. A query of "aicpa.org," for example, discloses the address, telephone number and contact person responsible for this domain registration. http://www.homecom.com/services/domain.html TAX SITES BARRY RUBIN'S STATE TAX LINKS provides hyperlinks to state tax forms, regulations and state tax codes when available. It's a no-nonsense Web site developed by a tax practitioner. http://home1.gte.net/brcpa/statelnk.htm CCH CCH Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades (Spanish) CCH Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist CCH Cook County Hospital CCH Certified in Classical Homeopathy CCH Country Club Hills (Fairfax City, VA, USA) FEDERAL AND STATE TAX NEWS contains free highlights of daily tax news items, such as IRS letter rulings, court opinions and legislative updates. http://www.cch.com/f_s_tax/master.htm COOPERS & LYBRAND TAX NEWS NETWORK is available by subscription only ($540 a year) and features daily tax news, uploads from Bureau of National Affairs BNA (The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.) is a Washington, D.C.-based publisher of news and information on legislation, regulations, and court decisions for professionals in business and government. It is the oldest wholly employee-owned company in the United States. , Tax Analysts and Warren, Gorham & Lamont. It also contains a search capability for all tax sites on the Web. http://www.taxnews.com CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS The New Deal program of legislation enacted during the administration of President franklin roosevelt established a large number of new federal agencies, which generated a shapeless and confusing mass of new regulations. is operated by the House of Representatives Internet Law Library. http://law.house.gov/cfr.htm COURT DECISIONS ONLINE is maintained by the House of Representatives and includes U.S. Supreme Court and appellate court A court having jurisdiction to review decisions of a trial-level or other lower court. An unsuccessful party in a lawsuit must file an appeal with an appellate court in order to have the decision reviewed. cases. Some of the material is original and some is hyperlinked to Villanova University Villanova University (vĭl'ənō`və), at Villanova, Pa., near Philadelphia; Roman Catholic; est. 1842 as a men's school, coeducational since 1967. , the University of Maryland University of Maryland can refer to:
http://law.house.gov/6.htm DENNIS SCHMIDT'S TAX SITE is one of the better tax pages on the Net. Schmidt is an accounting professor at the University of Northern Iowa The University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls, Iowa, was founded in 1876, as the Iowa State Normal School. It has colleges of Business Administration, Education, Humanities and Fine Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Sciences, and a graduate school. . Although this site contains no original material, it is an excellent resource of hyperlinks to many primary sites, including several federal court sites, state tax sites, articles and international tax sites. Like many Web pages, the availability of hyperlinks makes the navigation process very convenient. http://www.uni.edu/schmidt/tax.html GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE is a searchable database Refers to databases on the Web that are searchable by typing in a query. The term is quite redundant because all databases are searchable. In fact, that is one of their major features. that also provides the latest information on pending legislation, the congressional directory and the Supreme Court calendar. http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html INTEREST RATE INFORMATION for tax calculations (applicable federal rate) is maintained by Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol . http://www.pmstax.com/afr/index.html INTERNAL REVENUE BULLETIN is available for viewing or downloading. At the time of this writing, only weekly bulletins numbered 96-01 and higher and the 95-02 semiannual bulletin were available. To read the bulletins, you need the latest Adobe Acrobat application, which is available free at http://www.adobe.com. http://www.fedworld.gov/ftp/irs-irbs/irs-irbs.htm INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE maintains a library of current forms and publications, in addition to old forms dating back to 1992. Be forewarned that form availability is hit-or-miss: sometimes a common form is hard to find and sometimes rarely used forms are surprisingly available. To read the forms, you need the latest Adobe Acrobat application (see above). http://www.irs.ustreas.gov IRS MARKET SEGMENTATION Market Segmentation A marketing term referring to the aggregating of prospective buyers into groups (segments) that have common needs and will respond similarly to a marketing action. is an IRS analysis of audit and collection issues for those involved in certain high-risk industries. http://irs.cpa.state.tx.us/texas/tax_prac/newinfo/mssp/mssp.html IRS STATISTICS PAGE is operated by the Transactional Records Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. This site offers information on audits and criminal tax matters by district, audit rates by income classification and tax prosecution by type of offense. http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/home.html PPC See Pocket PC, PowerPC and pay-per-click. PPC - PowerPC TAX ACTION BULLETINS from Practitioners Publishing Corp. (PPC) are provided every two weeks and contain highlights of the latest revenue rulings, court opinions, legislation and other timely tax topics. This is an abbreviated version of the PPC print publications. http://www.ppcinfo.com/5-min.htm RIA (Rich Internet Application) A Web-based application that approaches the speed and elegance of a local application. An RIA may refer to a browser-based application that uses AJAX or another enhanced coding technique. HOT WEEKLY NEWS is a page that includes several brief news items on federal, state and international tax issues as well as on benefits and estate planning Estate Planning The overall planning of a person's wealth, including the preparation of a will and the planning of taxes after the individual's death. Notes: Contrary to popular belief, estate planning involves much more than preparing a will, and it is not only for the . http://www.riatax.com SOCIAL SECURITY RESOURCES includes information about Social Security taxes, rates and legislation. It also features an online benefits calculator. http://www.ssa.gov SOCIAL SECURITY TOTALIZATION to·tal·ize tr.v. to·tal·ized, to·tal·iz·ing, to·tal·iz·es To make or combine into a total. to TREATIES is maintained by Frank McNeil, an expatriate and tax hobbyist who has designed a page with hyperlinks to places that list totalization treaties with other countries. http://www.best.com/%7Eftmexpat/html/taxsites/ssa.html TAX BASE ON THE WEB is a daily service available by subscription ($247.50 a year per user) from Tax Analysts. It offers Tax Notes Today, Sales Tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. Daily, Worldwide Tax Daily and Court Petitions and Complaints. The site contains news items, as well as proposed regulations, comments on proposed regulations, letter rulings, internal revenue bulletins, court opinions, Treasury tax correspondence and other timely information. This Web site dovetails with Tax Analysts' CD-based historical archive. http://taxbase.tax.org TAX CODE ONLINE is run by Cornell University. The Web page begins with a table of contents that is hyperlinked to take you anywhere in the code; however, the text is not searchable by word. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26 January 16, 1997 TAX COLUMNS from the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Law Publishing Co. feature scholarly articles. http://www.ljextra.com/public/daily/SJtxco.html TAX NOTES NEWSWIRE is posted three times daily--at 10 A.M., noon and 4:30 P.M. eastern time--and features highlights of the latest tax news from around the country. http://www.tax.org/news.htm TAX NEWS AND VIEWS THIS WEEK from Deloitte & Touche features a brief but insightful analysis of goings-on in Washington. Much of it is devoted to upcoming congressional committee meetings, pending legislation and Treasury initiatives. http://www.dtonline.com/tnv/tnv.htm TAXWEB STATE TAX ISSUES is a collection of hyperlinks to nearly all state tax sites. Included are hyperlinks to a wide assortment of tax resources--from state government information to state code, regulations and current legislation. Also included are some federal links. http://www.taxweb.com THOMAS site includes the status of current federal legislation as well as other congressional documents. This is of value to CPAs seeking the latest information on pending bills. http://thomas.loc.gov WALT WALT World Association for Laser Therapy WALT We Are Learning To (primary education) WALT Warning Assessment Logic Terminal WALT West's Automatic Law Terminal BRISTOW'S WEEKLY TAX NEWSLETTER highlights estate tax, deferred compensation issues and other timely tax information. http://www.fiverights.com/current.htm WEST DOC CASE RETRIEVAL contains state and federal cases. It's word searchable and text can be downloaded for a fee of $8 per case. http://www.westpub.com/westdoc/docabout.htm ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING SITES FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD's Web page contains information compiled by Rutgers University. The site includes FASB's publications price list as well as summaries of its pronouncements. http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/fasb/welcome.htm GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD's home page includes general information about the activities of the GASB GASB Governmental Accounting Standards Board . http://www.financenet.gov/gasb.htm OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET's home page carries information about the OMB OMB abbr. Office of Management and Budget Noun 1. OMB - the executive agency that advises the President on the federal budget Office of Management and Budget . http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/omb#docs PPC ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING UPDATE is a sampling of Practitioners Publishing Corp.'s monthly print series. It is posted monthly, and while it contains only a partial list of what subscription readers receive, there are valuable updates on Financial Accounting Standards Board Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Board composed of independent members who create and interpret Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). pronouncements, auditing guides and recent FASB FASB See: Financial Accounting Standards Board FASB See Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). emerging issues task force consensus positions. http://www.ppcinfo.com/5-min.htm STATE AUDIT AGENCIES information is provided on this site, which includes hyperlinks to various state comptroller and auditing offices. The page is made available by Kent Information Systems. http://www.kentis.com/gaapro.html PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SITES AICPA CONFERENCE CALENDAR is available at this site. http://www.aicpa.org/calendar/index.htm AICPA DAILY NEWS FLASH includes news releases on financial, tax, accounting and membership matters. http://www.aicpa.org/news/index.htm AICPA FAX-BACK CATALOG lists documents available by fax-back service to AICPA members, including AICPA library acquisitions, CPA Letter articles and tax division documents. http://www.aicpa.org/members/faxbak/index.htm AICPA ONLINE contains a wide assortment of accounting information including selected articles from the Journal of Accountancy monthly magazine and the CPA Letter and the Practicing CPA newsletters. http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/index.htm ELECTRONIC ACCOUNTANT NEWSWIRE, published by Faulkner & Gray, is updated three times a week with timely news from Washington, software vendors, the AICPA and other sources. It also contains archives of previous highlights. http://198.80.144.22/eac/index/html/news.htm HARCOURT BRACE CPA WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE is a compendium of weekly articles on topics relating to tax, practice management and nonprofit issues taken from the pages of various accounting newsletters published by Harcourt Brace. Also included is an archive of past issues. http://www.hbpp.com/weekup.html MICROSOFT ACCOUNTING NEWS NETWORK is published in cooperation with Faulkner & Gray. The site contains excerpts from Accounting Today, the Practical Accountant and Accounting Technology, along with tips and infomercials from Microsoft about productivity enhancements using Microsoft products. Once you cut through the commercial clutter, there is some information, as well as complimentary downloads of templates for Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint applications. http://www.microsoft.com/smallbiz/ann/default.htm PPC SAMPLE CLIENT LETTERS are posted by Practitioners Publishing Corp., and they can be downloaded free. Recently, the Web site had letters on medical savings accounts, new S corporation rules, estate planning and long-term-care tax planning Tax planning Devising strategies throughout the year in order to minimize tax liability, for example, by choosing a tax filing status that is most beneficial to the taxpayer. . http://www.ppcinfo.com/5-min.htm STOCK QUOTES, GRAPHS, ANALYSIS CHARLES SCHWAB provides a free service for stock quotes and stock market charts. http://schwab.quote.com/fq/schwab/quote HOOVER'S CORPORATE supplies stock quotes and corporate summaries. It also contains hyperlinks to Fortune 500 Web sites. For a fee it provides detailed reports from stock analysts. http://www.hoovers.com SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION's Web page contains corporate SEC filings, in electronic form. The database is called EDGAR--for electronic data gathering, analysis and retrieval system--and is word searchable. http://www.sec.gov WALL STREET JOURNAL, INTERACTIVE EDITION, contains stock quotes, stock market charts, company financial ratios, analysis of industry and market indices and company financial highlights and news and analysis. This is a subscription service: $29 a year for Journal print subscribers. http://update.wsj.com Web Pages Come and Go Because interest in Internet Web pages has grown so rapidly, stability is not one of the enduring attributes of home pages. In many cases, individuals and organizations have been quick to create home pages--but some time later simply abandon them. So don't be surprised if you cannot access one of the addresses mentioned in this article, especially if you try to log on months after publication. Armed with this arsenal of electronic resources, CPAs can obtain timely information and provide added professional service to clients and employers--even without a large staff of experts. JOHN J. GILL, CPA, CMA CMA - Concert Multithread Architecture from DEC. , is a sole practitioner in Newport News, Virginia Newport News is an independent city in Virginia. It is on the southwestern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the north shore of the James River extending to its mouth at Hampton Roads. The origin of the unusual name of "Newport News" is unclear. , specializing in tax and information technology consulting Information technology consulting (IT consulting or business and technology services) is a field that focuses on advising businesses on how best to use information technology to meet their business objectives. . A member of the American Institute of CPAs, he serves on the information technology committee of the Virginia Society of CPAs. His e-mail address is jgill@taxlaws.com. |
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