Hello, everyone,
I am sorry if I offended anyone. I know I am new on this forum so my post may seem suspicious. ProfHenryHiggins points out only some of my background, so let me expand a little by way of an introduction.
I have been working in the tax preparation business since 2004. I did work for H & R Block as a preparer and a manager. I also taught their tax education courses. After leaving Block, I formed a partnership with a bookkeeper and we began offering bookkeeping and tax services in a small town in Northern California. Also, at that time, I started a tax education program to train new preparers that were working for us. Since that program was not compatible with our core business, I spun it off into a private company, Accelerated Education System which I formed in 2007. We are approved by the State of California and the California Tax Education Council. I am also approved by the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility. Offering educational programs on tax is actually a pretty tightly regulated area and I have continually met the annual and other periodic requirements to be re-certified.
In 2007, I was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to serve on the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, a group of volunteers, many of whom are in the tax business. In that capacity, we advised the IRS about ways to improve IRS customer service and programs. I served on several committees, including Small Business / Self-Employed Burden Reduction and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Programs. In 2009, I was named national chair of that organization. In that capacity, I met with IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson on several occasions to present recommendations about IRS programs. I was asked by Commissioner Shulman to prepare a recommendation on his new RTRP proposal. Many of the recommendations we made to him were included in the final regulations under which those of us in the industry now practice. I was also asked by the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to present a recommendation to the President on ways to lower the tax burden on middle class Americans. I testified before the committee in Washington, D.C. in December of 2009.
I have a Master of Science in Education from Drexel University. My thesis was on developing curriculum for the tax industry. I am currently enrolled in a Doctoral Program in the field Education.
Even as I continued to operate my tax education company for the last five years, I have worked in the tax preparation business. My current position, which did begin in December of last year, is as a manager for a large franchise company in the Sacramento area. Preparing taxes is secondary to my role as an educator. I stay current in the field as much as I can, including in the areas of tax law, business management, and customer service. I take this experience in the field with me back into the classroom. By doing this, I have plenty of stories and examples to tell my students that are based in real situations. I don't just teach theory in my classes. I pride myself on training tax professionals who understand the law and understand the practice.
As ProfHenryHiggens also points out, I have a lot of my writing in the field posted on Yahoo Answers.
http://answers.yahoo.com/activity?show=vwVWfzi4aa. This includes answers to questions on tax-related matters but also in general business questions. I have a 91% "Best Answer" rating.
I operate several websites, most of which cater to professionals in the tax industry. While many of my properties are up and running, many more are dormant while I develop them. I have also purchased a variety of domain names with different TLDs to protect my brands. All of this information is public record. I do not hide any of my online activities. My response to your questions is not to dispute claim made about me, but to fill-out the story and provide information about many of my activities that are not so easily found.
But I will dispute any phishing activity claims. I have not nor do I ever engage in illegal activities such as phishing. Since you did not provide any backup for this claim the only thing I can do is state that I use shared server space for many of my domain names. If there is phishing activity that originates from a shared server, it does not belong to me or one of my websites. I would be more than happy to provide any backup to my innocence of this claim if you were to provide more details about the alleged incident.
Wserra provides a sample question included in my survey. It's true, there are questions about the products and services I provide, including the one he provided. As I mentioned in my original posting, this survey was developed for my students but I am looking for input and opinions of practitioners in the field. If you take the survey, you will quickly find that once you answer "no" to a few questions about my particular courses, you are taken to a different part of the survey and the emphasis is on general professional development programs and preferences - not on my specific programs.
It is what is it. I am asking for opinions from professionals in the tax industry about what kinds of products and services they would like to see that would help them build a tax practice. Using this information, I can better develop programs geared toward specific demand in the business instead of trying to guess what people want. Is it specific toward my business? Yes. Do I have the credentials, experience, and education to develop these products? Yes. And I have been doing it for years.
I am conducting market research which I will use in product development. If you are a tax professional engaged in professional development, you may want to respond. I do ask for contact information but it is completely voluntary. The survey is otherwise anonymous. I do not require people to sign up to a newsletter or give me an email address. If you want to complete the survey, then go ahead. I am using a $25 gift card as an incentive because I know that, unless you are a former student, you might not appreciate the value of a discount off my continuing education programs. It's a bribe to complete a survey. Take it for what it is.
I thought this forum might be a place where professionals in the tax industry might hang out. Is it spam? That was not my intent. If you think it is, then I apologize. It was not meant that way.