To contact us Click HERE
Category: Miscellaneous Musings
According to Yahoo News, the US government is borrowing an additional $27 BILLION dollars. This is because the business that is our country spends more than it takes in. President Bush also just signed the new housing law package. "As part of the housing measure, Congress voted to increase the national debt limit by $800 billion from $9.815 trillion to a new limit of $10.615 trillion."
So, the US government is borrowing money to give to banks, so that the banks (who ran out of money due to their own bad lending practices) can give money to borrowers, who already can't pay back the money they already borrowed?
What??? And who is going to be responsible at the end of the day? You, me and anyone else who pays taxes, as that is the only way to raise revenue.
See Government announces plans to borrow $27 billion
3 Ocak 2013 Perşembe
It's A GO! New Jersey Combines Medicaid Waivers For Seniors & Adults With Physical Disabilities
To contact us Click HERE
MediLexicon News - It's A GO! New Jersey State Combines Medicaid Waivers For Seniors & Adults With Physical Disabilities: "Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) Commissioner Heather Howard announced today the State has received approval from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to consolidate three Medicaid-supported home and community-based service programs currently operated by DHSS into a single program known as Global Options (GO) for Long Term Care."
This is great news and hopefully will proivded needed efficiencies and consolidated review of services.
Category: Elder Law
This is great news and hopefully will proivded needed efficiencies and consolidated review of services.
Category: Elder Law
Haven't Paid NJ Taxes? Now Might Be the Time
To contact us Click HERE
Category: Tax Law and Planning
Courtesy of JH Cohn:
New Jersey Enacts Tax Amnesty Program
"New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed a bill creating a 45-day New Jersey state tax amnesty period that will end no later than June 15, 2009. Presumably the program will begin on or about May 1, allowing the New Jersey Division of Taxation some time after the April 15 filing deadline to gear up for the program.
Under the program, taxpayers who pay outstanding state tax liabilities for tax returns due on or after January 1, 2002 and prior to February 1, 2009, plus one-half of interest owed as of May 1, 2009, will not have to pay the other half of the interest owed, nor will they be liable for collections costs or civil or criminal penalties. Taxpayers under criminal investigation for a state tax matter are ineligible for the program. On the other hand, taxpayers involved with civil tax audits are eligible.
Similar to the most recent New Jersey tax amnesty program conducted in 2002, a five percent "amnesty eligible" penalty will be imposed after the amnesty period concludes on any additional taxes found due by a taxpayer that were not paid during the amnesty period for a tax period falling under the amnesty program."
Courtesy of JH Cohn:
New Jersey Enacts Tax Amnesty Program
"New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed a bill creating a 45-day New Jersey state tax amnesty period that will end no later than June 15, 2009. Presumably the program will begin on or about May 1, allowing the New Jersey Division of Taxation some time after the April 15 filing deadline to gear up for the program.
Under the program, taxpayers who pay outstanding state tax liabilities for tax returns due on or after January 1, 2002 and prior to February 1, 2009, plus one-half of interest owed as of May 1, 2009, will not have to pay the other half of the interest owed, nor will they be liable for collections costs or civil or criminal penalties. Taxpayers under criminal investigation for a state tax matter are ineligible for the program. On the other hand, taxpayers involved with civil tax audits are eligible.
Similar to the most recent New Jersey tax amnesty program conducted in 2002, a five percent "amnesty eligible" penalty will be imposed after the amnesty period concludes on any additional taxes found due by a taxpayer that were not paid during the amnesty period for a tax period falling under the amnesty program."
Daddy's Little Tax Deduction Takes a Tax on Accountant Mommy Both at Home and at Work
To contact us Click HERE
I heard from a working mother accountant yesterday. She works at Ernst & Young and has wonderful things to say about EY's treatment of working mothers. Just to give you a taste of how flexible EY was with maternity leave -- when she told them that she had decided to quit the firm rather than go on maternity leave because she wanted to take more time off to spend with her newborn than the existing maternity leave schedule permitted, the firm said, "Don't quit. Just take an extended leave of absence for a year and come back then."
So she did. She took a year off. Of course she did not get paid a salary after the normal maternity leave time period expired. But she was able to keep her low-premium medical benefits during this time so long as she paid the premium -- which was a great benefit.
When she returned after her time off, she worked out a reduced work schedule with the firm for reduced pay. Though difficult, the managing partner and other partners are very supportive in helping her stick to the reduced schedule. Hats off to EY for such great treatment of working mothers.
But despite the great efforts of the firm and its partners to accommodate working mothers, being a part-time working mother takes a serious tax on the enjoyment that a working mother would hope to get from her career. Here's a list of some big concerns:
1. Mid-level management. While the managing partner and other office partners are supportive of the working mother's reduced work schedule. Senior staff and managers just don't seem to get it. When they watch the working mother shut down her laptop and leave the office while it is still daylight outside (to go retrieve her toddler from day care) they stare and feel like she is playing hookie -- even though she is getting paid far less than the full-time workers. They see her leave early. They don't see the small pay check (which is barely enough to cover day care expenses). And they judge.
Often times, managers and seniors come to the working mother just as she is about to leave the office and say they need her to take care of something before she goes. They don't get it. Kids have to be picked up from day care by the close of business or you are in big trouble. There is little or no flexibility here.
A similar event occurs when the seniors and managers ask the working mother to come in to the office on the day that they know is her day-off. It is not like she spends her day-off alone sipping lemonade on the beach while reading Twilight. That's the day she does the laundry, cleans the house, and tries to spend some time with her child. And her day off is also the day care lady's day off. What is she supposed to do with the poor child if she can't take him to day care? Leave him with the creepy old man next door?
2. Lower Review Scores. Because the working mother is giving baths and cleaning up cheerios off the kitchen floor, or hunched over her laptop in a make-shift home cubicle, and not at the office in view of other team members on those late late nights, the team does not see the working mother as an equal contributor to the effort. Come review time, the very high review scores that the working mother used to get are reduced to just "average" because the review committee can't justify giving her higher scores when she didn't put in as many hours at the office as the other accountants at her level.
3. No Over Time Pay. The working mother tells me that if she goes far beyond her normally scheduled hours, she doesn't get any overtime pay. That does not make sense, as I know other working women on reduced schedule at other firms who do get overtime pay. Part time mothers are part time because the remainder of their schedule is spent taking care of children and is inflexible. If working mothers are forced to put their kids in day care longer so that they can work longer hours in the office, they should be compensated accordingly in order to cover the costs of day care.
4. Short-Term Deadlines. Most projects in the accounting world have a very short deadline. A 30-hour project often cannot be spread over the course of a working mother's 30-hour work week. The managers and seniors want it done in two days. The problem is that children's schedules are not real flexible. They need someone to feed them, bathe them, change them, and sing them to sleep every night, not just once every three or four nights. Consequently, short-term projects are killer on the working mother, who ends up staying up until 4 AM time and time again just to take care of simple projects with very short deadlines.
Anyone have any tips or advice to help our working mother?
I heard from a working mother accountant yesterday. She works at Ernst & Young and has wonderful things to say about EY's treatment of working mothers. Just to give you a taste of how flexible EY was with maternity leave -- when she told them that she had decided to quit the firm rather than go on maternity leave because she wanted to take more time off to spend with her newborn than the existing maternity leave schedule permitted, the firm said, "Don't quit. Just take an extended leave of absence for a year and come back then."
So she did. She took a year off. Of course she did not get paid a salary after the normal maternity leave time period expired. But she was able to keep her low-premium medical benefits during this time so long as she paid the premium -- which was a great benefit.
When she returned after her time off, she worked out a reduced work schedule with the firm for reduced pay. Though difficult, the managing partner and other partners are very supportive in helping her stick to the reduced schedule. Hats off to EY for such great treatment of working mothers.
But despite the great efforts of the firm and its partners to accommodate working mothers, being a part-time working mother takes a serious tax on the enjoyment that a working mother would hope to get from her career. Here's a list of some big concerns:
1. Mid-level management. While the managing partner and other office partners are supportive of the working mother's reduced work schedule. Senior staff and managers just don't seem to get it. When they watch the working mother shut down her laptop and leave the office while it is still daylight outside (to go retrieve her toddler from day care) they stare and feel like she is playing hookie -- even though she is getting paid far less than the full-time workers. They see her leave early. They don't see the small pay check (which is barely enough to cover day care expenses). And they judge.
Often times, managers and seniors come to the working mother just as she is about to leave the office and say they need her to take care of something before she goes. They don't get it. Kids have to be picked up from day care by the close of business or you are in big trouble. There is little or no flexibility here.
A similar event occurs when the seniors and managers ask the working mother to come in to the office on the day that they know is her day-off. It is not like she spends her day-off alone sipping lemonade on the beach while reading Twilight. That's the day she does the laundry, cleans the house, and tries to spend some time with her child. And her day off is also the day care lady's day off. What is she supposed to do with the poor child if she can't take him to day care? Leave him with the creepy old man next door?
2. Lower Review Scores. Because the working mother is giving baths and cleaning up cheerios off the kitchen floor, or hunched over her laptop in a make-shift home cubicle, and not at the office in view of other team members on those late late nights, the team does not see the working mother as an equal contributor to the effort. Come review time, the very high review scores that the working mother used to get are reduced to just "average" because the review committee can't justify giving her higher scores when she didn't put in as many hours at the office as the other accountants at her level.
3. No Over Time Pay. The working mother tells me that if she goes far beyond her normally scheduled hours, she doesn't get any overtime pay. That does not make sense, as I know other working women on reduced schedule at other firms who do get overtime pay. Part time mothers are part time because the remainder of their schedule is spent taking care of children and is inflexible. If working mothers are forced to put their kids in day care longer so that they can work longer hours in the office, they should be compensated accordingly in order to cover the costs of day care.
4. Short-Term Deadlines. Most projects in the accounting world have a very short deadline. A 30-hour project often cannot be spread over the course of a working mother's 30-hour work week. The managers and seniors want it done in two days. The problem is that children's schedules are not real flexible. They need someone to feed them, bathe them, change them, and sing them to sleep every night, not just once every three or four nights. Consequently, short-term projects are killer on the working mother, who ends up staying up until 4 AM time and time again just to take care of simple projects with very short deadlines.
Anyone have any tips or advice to help our working mother?
I Don't Like Working as an Accountant at the Big 4, Maybe I Should Go to Law School?
To contact us Click HERE
One of our readers asked whether we were aware of people leaving the Big 4 to take nice jobs. Of course. But it depends on what you call a nice job, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a good topic, so we will dedicate a few separate posts to it, exploring different avenues of departure from the Big 4.
One very smart/dumb move that a lot of Big 4 accountants make is to leave the Big 4 to go to law school. A few people we know worked at the Big 4 for a couple years, then went to law school, and are now doing pretty well for themselves at big law firms or having started their own business/tax law firm. For example, one guy we know went to law school after getting his CPA license, worked at a big law firm for a couple years negotiating big deals, and then left to start his own practice providing CFO and general counsel services to start-ups and high-net-worth individuals.
But law school and lawyering is definitely not for everybody. Although, if you are going to spend the rest of your days punching numbers in a dark cubicle at the Big 4 anyway, you might want to consider upgrading to a big law firm. Let's compare some of the high-level differences between entry-level lawyers versus entry-level accountants:
Lawyers v. Accountants
1. Starting Salary. This is by far one of the most obvious differences between Big Accounting and Big Law. Starting salaries at a big law firm are double and triple what they are at the Big 4, with most Big law firms in the big cities paying $145,000 to $160,000 to its starting lawyers, and those salaries usually go up $5,000 to $10,000 each year after that. On top of that, after the first year, starting lawyers are usually paid a year-end bonus of anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Of course, the recession has rained on that parade a little, and many law firms froze or lowered salaries this past year by 10-20%. Also bear in mind coming out of law school you will have lots of debt, maybe even as much as $100,000 in school loans unless daddy is paying for it or you go to a less-expensive state-run school like U. of Texas or a church-run school like BYU.
2. Your Own Office. Lawyers usually get their own office right out of law school at a big law firm. And we are not talking about a glorified cubicle with a door and four walls that go almost to the ceiling. We are talking a real office with a real solid desk and and other furniture, and a nice view of something spectacular: the city skyline, a famous bridge, a body of water, or in Los Angeles, a nice big freeway.
Accountant cubicle:
Lawyer office (note the large volumes of boxes and papers everywhere -- we'll get to that later):
3. Work. Junior accountants in general spend all day hunched over a laptop preparing spreadsheets and looking for numbers. Junior attorneys spend all day at their desks drafting agreements, or researching cases and writing memos, or going through boxes and boxes of documents looking for smoking guns (see the boxes in the picture above). It's tough to objectively compare whether the work of junior attorneys is any less tedious than the work of junior accountants. Some prefer working with spreadsheets and numbers because when everything balances out at the end of the day -- you know you have it right. With legal research and writing and document searching, there is no real check to make sure you have the right answer -- you may have missed something big and will never know, or you will find out when the other side discovers it and you lose the case.
4. Hours. Hours vary so much across firms, projects, and seasons, that it is tough to compare hours worked by junior accountants with hours worked by junior attorneys. As a benchmark, most big law firms require their attorneys to work more hours than the Big 4. For example, the billable hour requirement at a Big 4 firm might be 1500 hours, while most big law firms expect 1900 - 2100 hours of their attorneys. The major difference is that accountants usually get more breaks and longer breaks between crunch times, while attorney hours stay high all year long except for short vacations.
Please chime in with your own observations . . .
One of our readers asked whether we were aware of people leaving the Big 4 to take nice jobs. Of course. But it depends on what you call a nice job, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a good topic, so we will dedicate a few separate posts to it, exploring different avenues of departure from the Big 4.
One very smart/dumb move that a lot of Big 4 accountants make is to leave the Big 4 to go to law school. A few people we know worked at the Big 4 for a couple years, then went to law school, and are now doing pretty well for themselves at big law firms or having started their own business/tax law firm. For example, one guy we know went to law school after getting his CPA license, worked at a big law firm for a couple years negotiating big deals, and then left to start his own practice providing CFO and general counsel services to start-ups and high-net-worth individuals.
But law school and lawyering is definitely not for everybody. Although, if you are going to spend the rest of your days punching numbers in a dark cubicle at the Big 4 anyway, you might want to consider upgrading to a big law firm. Let's compare some of the high-level differences between entry-level lawyers versus entry-level accountants:
Lawyers v. Accountants
1. Starting Salary. This is by far one of the most obvious differences between Big Accounting and Big Law. Starting salaries at a big law firm are double and triple what they are at the Big 4, with most Big law firms in the big cities paying $145,000 to $160,000 to its starting lawyers, and those salaries usually go up $5,000 to $10,000 each year after that. On top of that, after the first year, starting lawyers are usually paid a year-end bonus of anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Of course, the recession has rained on that parade a little, and many law firms froze or lowered salaries this past year by 10-20%. Also bear in mind coming out of law school you will have lots of debt, maybe even as much as $100,000 in school loans unless daddy is paying for it or you go to a less-expensive state-run school like U. of Texas or a church-run school like BYU.
2. Your Own Office. Lawyers usually get their own office right out of law school at a big law firm. And we are not talking about a glorified cubicle with a door and four walls that go almost to the ceiling. We are talking a real office with a real solid desk and and other furniture, and a nice view of something spectacular: the city skyline, a famous bridge, a body of water, or in Los Angeles, a nice big freeway.
Accountant cubicle:
Lawyer office (note the large volumes of boxes and papers everywhere -- we'll get to that later):
3. Work. Junior accountants in general spend all day hunched over a laptop preparing spreadsheets and looking for numbers. Junior attorneys spend all day at their desks drafting agreements, or researching cases and writing memos, or going through boxes and boxes of documents looking for smoking guns (see the boxes in the picture above). It's tough to objectively compare whether the work of junior attorneys is any less tedious than the work of junior accountants. Some prefer working with spreadsheets and numbers because when everything balances out at the end of the day -- you know you have it right. With legal research and writing and document searching, there is no real check to make sure you have the right answer -- you may have missed something big and will never know, or you will find out when the other side discovers it and you lose the case.
4. Hours. Hours vary so much across firms, projects, and seasons, that it is tough to compare hours worked by junior accountants with hours worked by junior attorneys. As a benchmark, most big law firms require their attorneys to work more hours than the Big 4. For example, the billable hour requirement at a Big 4 firm might be 1500 hours, while most big law firms expect 1900 - 2100 hours of their attorneys. The major difference is that accountants usually get more breaks and longer breaks between crunch times, while attorney hours stay high all year long except for short vacations.
Please chime in with your own observations . . .
2 Ocak 2013 Çarşamba
Gov't Borrows Money to Give to Banks to Give to People who Can't Pay Back Current Loans???
To contact us Click HERE
Category: Miscellaneous Musings
According to Yahoo News, the US government is borrowing an additional $27 BILLION dollars. This is because the business that is our country spends more than it takes in. President Bush also just signed the new housing law package. "As part of the housing measure, Congress voted to increase the national debt limit by $800 billion from $9.815 trillion to a new limit of $10.615 trillion."
So, the US government is borrowing money to give to banks, so that the banks (who ran out of money due to their own bad lending practices) can give money to borrowers, who already can't pay back the money they already borrowed?
What??? And who is going to be responsible at the end of the day? You, me and anyone else who pays taxes, as that is the only way to raise revenue.
See Government announces plans to borrow $27 billion
According to Yahoo News, the US government is borrowing an additional $27 BILLION dollars. This is because the business that is our country spends more than it takes in. President Bush also just signed the new housing law package. "As part of the housing measure, Congress voted to increase the national debt limit by $800 billion from $9.815 trillion to a new limit of $10.615 trillion."
So, the US government is borrowing money to give to banks, so that the banks (who ran out of money due to their own bad lending practices) can give money to borrowers, who already can't pay back the money they already borrowed?
What??? And who is going to be responsible at the end of the day? You, me and anyone else who pays taxes, as that is the only way to raise revenue.
See Government announces plans to borrow $27 billion
It's A GO! New Jersey Combines Medicaid Waivers For Seniors & Adults With Physical Disabilities
To contact us Click HERE
MediLexicon News - It's A GO! New Jersey State Combines Medicaid Waivers For Seniors & Adults With Physical Disabilities: "Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) Commissioner Heather Howard announced today the State has received approval from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to consolidate three Medicaid-supported home and community-based service programs currently operated by DHSS into a single program known as Global Options (GO) for Long Term Care."
This is great news and hopefully will proivded needed efficiencies and consolidated review of services.
Category: Elder Law
This is great news and hopefully will proivded needed efficiencies and consolidated review of services.
Category: Elder Law
Haven't Paid NJ Taxes? Now Might Be the Time
To contact us Click HERE
Category: Tax Law and Planning
Courtesy of JH Cohn:
New Jersey Enacts Tax Amnesty Program
"New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed a bill creating a 45-day New Jersey state tax amnesty period that will end no later than June 15, 2009. Presumably the program will begin on or about May 1, allowing the New Jersey Division of Taxation some time after the April 15 filing deadline to gear up for the program.
Under the program, taxpayers who pay outstanding state tax liabilities for tax returns due on or after January 1, 2002 and prior to February 1, 2009, plus one-half of interest owed as of May 1, 2009, will not have to pay the other half of the interest owed, nor will they be liable for collections costs or civil or criminal penalties. Taxpayers under criminal investigation for a state tax matter are ineligible for the program. On the other hand, taxpayers involved with civil tax audits are eligible.
Similar to the most recent New Jersey tax amnesty program conducted in 2002, a five percent "amnesty eligible" penalty will be imposed after the amnesty period concludes on any additional taxes found due by a taxpayer that were not paid during the amnesty period for a tax period falling under the amnesty program."
Courtesy of JH Cohn:
New Jersey Enacts Tax Amnesty Program
"New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed a bill creating a 45-day New Jersey state tax amnesty period that will end no later than June 15, 2009. Presumably the program will begin on or about May 1, allowing the New Jersey Division of Taxation some time after the April 15 filing deadline to gear up for the program.
Under the program, taxpayers who pay outstanding state tax liabilities for tax returns due on or after January 1, 2002 and prior to February 1, 2009, plus one-half of interest owed as of May 1, 2009, will not have to pay the other half of the interest owed, nor will they be liable for collections costs or civil or criminal penalties. Taxpayers under criminal investigation for a state tax matter are ineligible for the program. On the other hand, taxpayers involved with civil tax audits are eligible.
Similar to the most recent New Jersey tax amnesty program conducted in 2002, a five percent "amnesty eligible" penalty will be imposed after the amnesty period concludes on any additional taxes found due by a taxpayer that were not paid during the amnesty period for a tax period falling under the amnesty program."
Daddy's Little Tax Deduction Takes a Tax on Accountant Mommy Both at Home and at Work
To contact us Click HERE
I heard from a working mother accountant yesterday. She works at Ernst & Young and has wonderful things to say about EY's treatment of working mothers. Just to give you a taste of how flexible EY was with maternity leave -- when she told them that she had decided to quit the firm rather than go on maternity leave because she wanted to take more time off to spend with her newborn than the existing maternity leave schedule permitted, the firm said, "Don't quit. Just take an extended leave of absence for a year and come back then."
So she did. She took a year off. Of course she did not get paid a salary after the normal maternity leave time period expired. But she was able to keep her low-premium medical benefits during this time so long as she paid the premium -- which was a great benefit.
When she returned after her time off, she worked out a reduced work schedule with the firm for reduced pay. Though difficult, the managing partner and other partners are very supportive in helping her stick to the reduced schedule. Hats off to EY for such great treatment of working mothers.
But despite the great efforts of the firm and its partners to accommodate working mothers, being a part-time working mother takes a serious tax on the enjoyment that a working mother would hope to get from her career. Here's a list of some big concerns:
1. Mid-level management. While the managing partner and other office partners are supportive of the working mother's reduced work schedule. Senior staff and managers just don't seem to get it. When they watch the working mother shut down her laptop and leave the office while it is still daylight outside (to go retrieve her toddler from day care) they stare and feel like she is playing hookie -- even though she is getting paid far less than the full-time workers. They see her leave early. They don't see the small pay check (which is barely enough to cover day care expenses). And they judge.
Often times, managers and seniors come to the working mother just as she is about to leave the office and say they need her to take care of something before she goes. They don't get it. Kids have to be picked up from day care by the close of business or you are in big trouble. There is little or no flexibility here.
A similar event occurs when the seniors and managers ask the working mother to come in to the office on the day that they know is her day-off. It is not like she spends her day-off alone sipping lemonade on the beach while reading Twilight. That's the day she does the laundry, cleans the house, and tries to spend some time with her child. And her day off is also the day care lady's day off. What is she supposed to do with the poor child if she can't take him to day care? Leave him with the creepy old man next door?
2. Lower Review Scores. Because the working mother is giving baths and cleaning up cheerios off the kitchen floor, or hunched over her laptop in a make-shift home cubicle, and not at the office in view of other team members on those late late nights, the team does not see the working mother as an equal contributor to the effort. Come review time, the very high review scores that the working mother used to get are reduced to just "average" because the review committee can't justify giving her higher scores when she didn't put in as many hours at the office as the other accountants at her level.
3. No Over Time Pay. The working mother tells me that if she goes far beyond her normally scheduled hours, she doesn't get any overtime pay. That does not make sense, as I know other working women on reduced schedule at other firms who do get overtime pay. Part time mothers are part time because the remainder of their schedule is spent taking care of children and is inflexible. If working mothers are forced to put their kids in day care longer so that they can work longer hours in the office, they should be compensated accordingly in order to cover the costs of day care.
4. Short-Term Deadlines. Most projects in the accounting world have a very short deadline. A 30-hour project often cannot be spread over the course of a working mother's 30-hour work week. The managers and seniors want it done in two days. The problem is that children's schedules are not real flexible. They need someone to feed them, bathe them, change them, and sing them to sleep every night, not just once every three or four nights. Consequently, short-term projects are killer on the working mother, who ends up staying up until 4 AM time and time again just to take care of simple projects with very short deadlines.
Anyone have any tips or advice to help our working mother?
I heard from a working mother accountant yesterday. She works at Ernst & Young and has wonderful things to say about EY's treatment of working mothers. Just to give you a taste of how flexible EY was with maternity leave -- when she told them that she had decided to quit the firm rather than go on maternity leave because she wanted to take more time off to spend with her newborn than the existing maternity leave schedule permitted, the firm said, "Don't quit. Just take an extended leave of absence for a year and come back then."
So she did. She took a year off. Of course she did not get paid a salary after the normal maternity leave time period expired. But she was able to keep her low-premium medical benefits during this time so long as she paid the premium -- which was a great benefit.
When she returned after her time off, she worked out a reduced work schedule with the firm for reduced pay. Though difficult, the managing partner and other partners are very supportive in helping her stick to the reduced schedule. Hats off to EY for such great treatment of working mothers.
But despite the great efforts of the firm and its partners to accommodate working mothers, being a part-time working mother takes a serious tax on the enjoyment that a working mother would hope to get from her career. Here's a list of some big concerns:
1. Mid-level management. While the managing partner and other office partners are supportive of the working mother's reduced work schedule. Senior staff and managers just don't seem to get it. When they watch the working mother shut down her laptop and leave the office while it is still daylight outside (to go retrieve her toddler from day care) they stare and feel like she is playing hookie -- even though she is getting paid far less than the full-time workers. They see her leave early. They don't see the small pay check (which is barely enough to cover day care expenses). And they judge.
Often times, managers and seniors come to the working mother just as she is about to leave the office and say they need her to take care of something before she goes. They don't get it. Kids have to be picked up from day care by the close of business or you are in big trouble. There is little or no flexibility here.
A similar event occurs when the seniors and managers ask the working mother to come in to the office on the day that they know is her day-off. It is not like she spends her day-off alone sipping lemonade on the beach while reading Twilight. That's the day she does the laundry, cleans the house, and tries to spend some time with her child. And her day off is also the day care lady's day off. What is she supposed to do with the poor child if she can't take him to day care? Leave him with the creepy old man next door?
2. Lower Review Scores. Because the working mother is giving baths and cleaning up cheerios off the kitchen floor, or hunched over her laptop in a make-shift home cubicle, and not at the office in view of other team members on those late late nights, the team does not see the working mother as an equal contributor to the effort. Come review time, the very high review scores that the working mother used to get are reduced to just "average" because the review committee can't justify giving her higher scores when she didn't put in as many hours at the office as the other accountants at her level.
3. No Over Time Pay. The working mother tells me that if she goes far beyond her normally scheduled hours, she doesn't get any overtime pay. That does not make sense, as I know other working women on reduced schedule at other firms who do get overtime pay. Part time mothers are part time because the remainder of their schedule is spent taking care of children and is inflexible. If working mothers are forced to put their kids in day care longer so that they can work longer hours in the office, they should be compensated accordingly in order to cover the costs of day care.
4. Short-Term Deadlines. Most projects in the accounting world have a very short deadline. A 30-hour project often cannot be spread over the course of a working mother's 30-hour work week. The managers and seniors want it done in two days. The problem is that children's schedules are not real flexible. They need someone to feed them, bathe them, change them, and sing them to sleep every night, not just once every three or four nights. Consequently, short-term projects are killer on the working mother, who ends up staying up until 4 AM time and time again just to take care of simple projects with very short deadlines.
Anyone have any tips or advice to help our working mother?
I Don't Like Working as an Accountant at the Big 4, Maybe I Should Go to Law School?
To contact us Click HERE
One of our readers asked whether we were aware of people leaving the Big 4 to take nice jobs. Of course. But it depends on what you call a nice job, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a good topic, so we will dedicate a few separate posts to it, exploring different avenues of departure from the Big 4.
One very smart/dumb move that a lot of Big 4 accountants make is to leave the Big 4 to go to law school. A few people we know worked at the Big 4 for a couple years, then went to law school, and are now doing pretty well for themselves at big law firms or having started their own business/tax law firm. For example, one guy we know went to law school after getting his CPA license, worked at a big law firm for a couple years negotiating big deals, and then left to start his own practice providing CFO and general counsel services to start-ups and high-net-worth individuals.
But law school and lawyering is definitely not for everybody. Although, if you are going to spend the rest of your days punching numbers in a dark cubicle at the Big 4 anyway, you might want to consider upgrading to a big law firm. Let's compare some of the high-level differences between entry-level lawyers versus entry-level accountants:
Lawyers v. Accountants
1. Starting Salary. This is by far one of the most obvious differences between Big Accounting and Big Law. Starting salaries at a big law firm are double and triple what they are at the Big 4, with most Big law firms in the big cities paying $145,000 to $160,000 to its starting lawyers, and those salaries usually go up $5,000 to $10,000 each year after that. On top of that, after the first year, starting lawyers are usually paid a year-end bonus of anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Of course, the recession has rained on that parade a little, and many law firms froze or lowered salaries this past year by 10-20%. Also bear in mind coming out of law school you will have lots of debt, maybe even as much as $100,000 in school loans unless daddy is paying for it or you go to a less-expensive state-run school like U. of Texas or a church-run school like BYU.
2. Your Own Office. Lawyers usually get their own office right out of law school at a big law firm. And we are not talking about a glorified cubicle with a door and four walls that go almost to the ceiling. We are talking a real office with a real solid desk and and other furniture, and a nice view of something spectacular: the city skyline, a famous bridge, a body of water, or in Los Angeles, a nice big freeway.
Accountant cubicle:
Lawyer office (note the large volumes of boxes and papers everywhere -- we'll get to that later):
3. Work. Junior accountants in general spend all day hunched over a laptop preparing spreadsheets and looking for numbers. Junior attorneys spend all day at their desks drafting agreements, or researching cases and writing memos, or going through boxes and boxes of documents looking for smoking guns (see the boxes in the picture above). It's tough to objectively compare whether the work of junior attorneys is any less tedious than the work of junior accountants. Some prefer working with spreadsheets and numbers because when everything balances out at the end of the day -- you know you have it right. With legal research and writing and document searching, there is no real check to make sure you have the right answer -- you may have missed something big and will never know, or you will find out when the other side discovers it and you lose the case.
4. Hours. Hours vary so much across firms, projects, and seasons, that it is tough to compare hours worked by junior accountants with hours worked by junior attorneys. As a benchmark, most big law firms require their attorneys to work more hours than the Big 4. For example, the billable hour requirement at a Big 4 firm might be 1500 hours, while most big law firms expect 1900 - 2100 hours of their attorneys. The major difference is that accountants usually get more breaks and longer breaks between crunch times, while attorney hours stay high all year long except for short vacations.
Please chime in with your own observations . . .
One of our readers asked whether we were aware of people leaving the Big 4 to take nice jobs. Of course. But it depends on what you call a nice job, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a good topic, so we will dedicate a few separate posts to it, exploring different avenues of departure from the Big 4.
One very smart/dumb move that a lot of Big 4 accountants make is to leave the Big 4 to go to law school. A few people we know worked at the Big 4 for a couple years, then went to law school, and are now doing pretty well for themselves at big law firms or having started their own business/tax law firm. For example, one guy we know went to law school after getting his CPA license, worked at a big law firm for a couple years negotiating big deals, and then left to start his own practice providing CFO and general counsel services to start-ups and high-net-worth individuals.
But law school and lawyering is definitely not for everybody. Although, if you are going to spend the rest of your days punching numbers in a dark cubicle at the Big 4 anyway, you might want to consider upgrading to a big law firm. Let's compare some of the high-level differences between entry-level lawyers versus entry-level accountants:
Lawyers v. Accountants
1. Starting Salary. This is by far one of the most obvious differences between Big Accounting and Big Law. Starting salaries at a big law firm are double and triple what they are at the Big 4, with most Big law firms in the big cities paying $145,000 to $160,000 to its starting lawyers, and those salaries usually go up $5,000 to $10,000 each year after that. On top of that, after the first year, starting lawyers are usually paid a year-end bonus of anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Of course, the recession has rained on that parade a little, and many law firms froze or lowered salaries this past year by 10-20%. Also bear in mind coming out of law school you will have lots of debt, maybe even as much as $100,000 in school loans unless daddy is paying for it or you go to a less-expensive state-run school like U. of Texas or a church-run school like BYU.
2. Your Own Office. Lawyers usually get their own office right out of law school at a big law firm. And we are not talking about a glorified cubicle with a door and four walls that go almost to the ceiling. We are talking a real office with a real solid desk and and other furniture, and a nice view of something spectacular: the city skyline, a famous bridge, a body of water, or in Los Angeles, a nice big freeway.
Accountant cubicle:
Lawyer office (note the large volumes of boxes and papers everywhere -- we'll get to that later):
3. Work. Junior accountants in general spend all day hunched over a laptop preparing spreadsheets and looking for numbers. Junior attorneys spend all day at their desks drafting agreements, or researching cases and writing memos, or going through boxes and boxes of documents looking for smoking guns (see the boxes in the picture above). It's tough to objectively compare whether the work of junior attorneys is any less tedious than the work of junior accountants. Some prefer working with spreadsheets and numbers because when everything balances out at the end of the day -- you know you have it right. With legal research and writing and document searching, there is no real check to make sure you have the right answer -- you may have missed something big and will never know, or you will find out when the other side discovers it and you lose the case.
4. Hours. Hours vary so much across firms, projects, and seasons, that it is tough to compare hours worked by junior accountants with hours worked by junior attorneys. As a benchmark, most big law firms require their attorneys to work more hours than the Big 4. For example, the billable hour requirement at a Big 4 firm might be 1500 hours, while most big law firms expect 1900 - 2100 hours of their attorneys. The major difference is that accountants usually get more breaks and longer breaks between crunch times, while attorney hours stay high all year long except for short vacations.
Please chime in with your own observations . . .
1 Ocak 2013 Salı
I Don't Like Working as an Accountant at the Big 4, Maybe I Should Go to Law School?
To contact us Click HERE
One of our readers asked whether we were aware of people leaving the Big 4 to take nice jobs. Of course. But it depends on what you call a nice job, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a good topic, so we will dedicate a few separate posts to it, exploring different avenues of departure from the Big 4.
One very smart/dumb move that a lot of Big 4 accountants make is to leave the Big 4 to go to law school. A few people we know worked at the Big 4 for a couple years, then went to law school, and are now doing pretty well for themselves at big law firms or having started their own business/tax law firm. For example, one guy we know went to law school after getting his CPA license, worked at a big law firm for a couple years negotiating big deals, and then left to start his own practice providing CFO and general counsel services to start-ups and high-net-worth individuals.
But law school and lawyering is definitely not for everybody. Although, if you are going to spend the rest of your days punching numbers in a dark cubicle at the Big 4 anyway, you might want to consider upgrading to a big law firm. Let's compare some of the high-level differences between entry-level lawyers versus entry-level accountants:
Lawyers v. Accountants
1. Starting Salary. This is by far one of the most obvious differences between Big Accounting and Big Law. Starting salaries at a big law firm are double and triple what they are at the Big 4, with most Big law firms in the big cities paying $145,000 to $160,000 to its starting lawyers, and those salaries usually go up $5,000 to $10,000 each year after that. On top of that, after the first year, starting lawyers are usually paid a year-end bonus of anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Of course, the recession has rained on that parade a little, and many law firms froze or lowered salaries this past year by 10-20%. Also bear in mind coming out of law school you will have lots of debt, maybe even as much as $100,000 in school loans unless daddy is paying for it or you go to a less-expensive state-run school like U. of Texas or a church-run school like BYU.
2. Your Own Office. Lawyers usually get their own office right out of law school at a big law firm. And we are not talking about a glorified cubicle with a door and four walls that go almost to the ceiling. We are talking a real office with a real solid desk and and other furniture, and a nice view of something spectacular: the city skyline, a famous bridge, a body of water, or in Los Angeles, a nice big freeway.
Accountant cubicle:
Lawyer office (note the large volumes of boxes and papers everywhere -- we'll get to that later):
3. Work. Junior accountants in general spend all day hunched over a laptop preparing spreadsheets and looking for numbers. Junior attorneys spend all day at their desks drafting agreements, or researching cases and writing memos, or going through boxes and boxes of documents looking for smoking guns (see the boxes in the picture above). It's tough to objectively compare whether the work of junior attorneys is any less tedious than the work of junior accountants. Some prefer working with spreadsheets and numbers because when everything balances out at the end of the day -- you know you have it right. With legal research and writing and document searching, there is no real check to make sure you have the right answer -- you may have missed something big and will never know, or you will find out when the other side discovers it and you lose the case.
4. Hours. Hours vary so much across firms, projects, and seasons, that it is tough to compare hours worked by junior accountants with hours worked by junior attorneys. As a benchmark, most big law firms require their attorneys to work more hours than the Big 4. For example, the billable hour requirement at a Big 4 firm might be 1500 hours, while most big law firms expect 1900 - 2100 hours of their attorneys. The major difference is that accountants usually get more breaks and longer breaks between crunch times, while attorney hours stay high all year long except for short vacations.
Please chime in with your own observations . . .
One of our readers asked whether we were aware of people leaving the Big 4 to take nice jobs. Of course. But it depends on what you call a nice job, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is a good topic, so we will dedicate a few separate posts to it, exploring different avenues of departure from the Big 4.
One very smart/dumb move that a lot of Big 4 accountants make is to leave the Big 4 to go to law school. A few people we know worked at the Big 4 for a couple years, then went to law school, and are now doing pretty well for themselves at big law firms or having started their own business/tax law firm. For example, one guy we know went to law school after getting his CPA license, worked at a big law firm for a couple years negotiating big deals, and then left to start his own practice providing CFO and general counsel services to start-ups and high-net-worth individuals.
But law school and lawyering is definitely not for everybody. Although, if you are going to spend the rest of your days punching numbers in a dark cubicle at the Big 4 anyway, you might want to consider upgrading to a big law firm. Let's compare some of the high-level differences between entry-level lawyers versus entry-level accountants:
Lawyers v. Accountants
1. Starting Salary. This is by far one of the most obvious differences between Big Accounting and Big Law. Starting salaries at a big law firm are double and triple what they are at the Big 4, with most Big law firms in the big cities paying $145,000 to $160,000 to its starting lawyers, and those salaries usually go up $5,000 to $10,000 each year after that. On top of that, after the first year, starting lawyers are usually paid a year-end bonus of anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Of course, the recession has rained on that parade a little, and many law firms froze or lowered salaries this past year by 10-20%. Also bear in mind coming out of law school you will have lots of debt, maybe even as much as $100,000 in school loans unless daddy is paying for it or you go to a less-expensive state-run school like U. of Texas or a church-run school like BYU.
2. Your Own Office. Lawyers usually get their own office right out of law school at a big law firm. And we are not talking about a glorified cubicle with a door and four walls that go almost to the ceiling. We are talking a real office with a real solid desk and and other furniture, and a nice view of something spectacular: the city skyline, a famous bridge, a body of water, or in Los Angeles, a nice big freeway.
Accountant cubicle:
Lawyer office (note the large volumes of boxes and papers everywhere -- we'll get to that later):
3. Work. Junior accountants in general spend all day hunched over a laptop preparing spreadsheets and looking for numbers. Junior attorneys spend all day at their desks drafting agreements, or researching cases and writing memos, or going through boxes and boxes of documents looking for smoking guns (see the boxes in the picture above). It's tough to objectively compare whether the work of junior attorneys is any less tedious than the work of junior accountants. Some prefer working with spreadsheets and numbers because when everything balances out at the end of the day -- you know you have it right. With legal research and writing and document searching, there is no real check to make sure you have the right answer -- you may have missed something big and will never know, or you will find out when the other side discovers it and you lose the case.
4. Hours. Hours vary so much across firms, projects, and seasons, that it is tough to compare hours worked by junior accountants with hours worked by junior attorneys. As a benchmark, most big law firms require their attorneys to work more hours than the Big 4. For example, the billable hour requirement at a Big 4 firm might be 1500 hours, while most big law firms expect 1900 - 2100 hours of their attorneys. The major difference is that accountants usually get more breaks and longer breaks between crunch times, while attorney hours stay high all year long except for short vacations.
Please chime in with your own observations . . .
What's the Tax Plan Mr. President-in-Waiting
To contact us Click HERE
Category: Estate and Inheritance Tax, Tax Law and Planning
Now that the candidates are known, what is that next question? What they propose to do with your taxes of course. A quick summary rundown courtesy of National Center for Policy Analysis - YOUR TAX BILL: HOW MCCAIN, OBAMA DIFFER:
Now that the candidates are known, what is that next question? What they propose to do with your taxes of course. A quick summary rundown courtesy of National Center for Policy Analysis - YOUR TAX BILL: HOW MCCAIN, OBAMA DIFFER:
Income taxes:
- McCain wants to make permanent the current federal income-tax rates.
- McCain opposes Sen. Obama's plan to lift the earnings cap on the Social Security payroll tax, saying such a move would be bad news for the economy.
- Obama wants to raise the top ordinary income-tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent on families making more than $250,000 a year.
- Obama's plan includes increased taxes not only on ordinary income such as salary but also on capital gains and most corporate dividends.
- Obama also plans to impose higher Social Security taxes on workers making over $250,000.
Investment income:
- McCain wants to keep the current structure of tax rates on capital gains and
dividends.- Obama wants to raise the long-term capital-gains rate for families making more than $250,000 from its current rate of 15 percent to around 20 percent, or even higher.
Estate taxes:
- Neither candidate wants to kill the estate tax permanently, as President
Bush has proposed.- Under current law, the federal estate-tax exemption this year is $2 million, and the top rate is 45 percent; in 2009 that exclusion is set to rise to $3.5 million, with the rate remaining at 45 percent.
- McCain proposes raising the exclusion to $5 million and cutting the tax rate to 15 percent.
- Obama proposes a $3.5 million exclusion while keeping the top rate at 45 percent.
Gov't Borrows Money to Give to Banks to Give to People who Can't Pay Back Current Loans???
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Category: Miscellaneous Musings
According to Yahoo News, the US government is borrowing an additional $27 BILLION dollars. This is because the business that is our country spends more than it takes in. President Bush also just signed the new housing law package. "As part of the housing measure, Congress voted to increase the national debt limit by $800 billion from $9.815 trillion to a new limit of $10.615 trillion."
So, the US government is borrowing money to give to banks, so that the banks (who ran out of money due to their own bad lending practices) can give money to borrowers, who already can't pay back the money they already borrowed?
What??? And who is going to be responsible at the end of the day? You, me and anyone else who pays taxes, as that is the only way to raise revenue.
See Government announces plans to borrow $27 billion
According to Yahoo News, the US government is borrowing an additional $27 BILLION dollars. This is because the business that is our country spends more than it takes in. President Bush also just signed the new housing law package. "As part of the housing measure, Congress voted to increase the national debt limit by $800 billion from $9.815 trillion to a new limit of $10.615 trillion."
So, the US government is borrowing money to give to banks, so that the banks (who ran out of money due to their own bad lending practices) can give money to borrowers, who already can't pay back the money they already borrowed?
What??? And who is going to be responsible at the end of the day? You, me and anyone else who pays taxes, as that is the only way to raise revenue.
See Government announces plans to borrow $27 billion
It's A GO! New Jersey Combines Medicaid Waivers For Seniors & Adults With Physical Disabilities
To contact us Click HERE
MediLexicon News - It's A GO! New Jersey State Combines Medicaid Waivers For Seniors & Adults With Physical Disabilities: "Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) Commissioner Heather Howard announced today the State has received approval from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to consolidate three Medicaid-supported home and community-based service programs currently operated by DHSS into a single program known as Global Options (GO) for Long Term Care."
This is great news and hopefully will proivded needed efficiencies and consolidated review of services.
Category: Elder Law
This is great news and hopefully will proivded needed efficiencies and consolidated review of services.
Category: Elder Law
Haven't Paid NJ Taxes? Now Might Be the Time
To contact us Click HERE
Category: Tax Law and Planning
Courtesy of JH Cohn:
New Jersey Enacts Tax Amnesty Program
"New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed a bill creating a 45-day New Jersey state tax amnesty period that will end no later than June 15, 2009. Presumably the program will begin on or about May 1, allowing the New Jersey Division of Taxation some time after the April 15 filing deadline to gear up for the program.
Under the program, taxpayers who pay outstanding state tax liabilities for tax returns due on or after January 1, 2002 and prior to February 1, 2009, plus one-half of interest owed as of May 1, 2009, will not have to pay the other half of the interest owed, nor will they be liable for collections costs or civil or criminal penalties. Taxpayers under criminal investigation for a state tax matter are ineligible for the program. On the other hand, taxpayers involved with civil tax audits are eligible.
Similar to the most recent New Jersey tax amnesty program conducted in 2002, a five percent "amnesty eligible" penalty will be imposed after the amnesty period concludes on any additional taxes found due by a taxpayer that were not paid during the amnesty period for a tax period falling under the amnesty program."
Courtesy of JH Cohn:
New Jersey Enacts Tax Amnesty Program
"New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed a bill creating a 45-day New Jersey state tax amnesty period that will end no later than June 15, 2009. Presumably the program will begin on or about May 1, allowing the New Jersey Division of Taxation some time after the April 15 filing deadline to gear up for the program.
Under the program, taxpayers who pay outstanding state tax liabilities for tax returns due on or after January 1, 2002 and prior to February 1, 2009, plus one-half of interest owed as of May 1, 2009, will not have to pay the other half of the interest owed, nor will they be liable for collections costs or civil or criminal penalties. Taxpayers under criminal investigation for a state tax matter are ineligible for the program. On the other hand, taxpayers involved with civil tax audits are eligible.
Similar to the most recent New Jersey tax amnesty program conducted in 2002, a five percent "amnesty eligible" penalty will be imposed after the amnesty period concludes on any additional taxes found due by a taxpayer that were not paid during the amnesty period for a tax period falling under the amnesty program."
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