What I’m Doing Now
As of April 30, 2025
💼 Steadfast Bookkeeping
We’re entering our second phase of our tax return preparation calendar. We started using a calendaring system where each client chooses a document review week. If we have everything we need by the end of that week (Friday), then we commit to having the return done within two more weeks. It’s helped even out the workload and has drastically reduced client status request messages.
🚀 Tax Learning Center
Last week, Brad Messner, EA, Tara Hendrickson, EA, and I publicly launched our tax professional education provider, the Tax Learning Center! We’re focusing on progressive tax education that grows with you (or your staff): We provide three levels of IRS CE-eligible education on each topic, so whether you’re a new preparer or a seasoned pro, we have a course for you. And you can do a full deep dive on a topic with our course bundles.
🎙️ Tax in Action podcast
The first episode of the Tax in Action podcast should launch soon! Episodes will release every other week. Each episode provides one CE hour (50 minutes) on one topic, with practical examples and tips that help you understand how to apply tax law. A few topics recorded so far include the §41 research and experimentation (R&D) credit, the refund statute of limitations, and the §25D residential clean energy credit. Let me know if you have a topic you want to hear about! And be sure to subscribe to Earmark CPE to earn CE/CPE!
📖 EA Journal
After serving on the editorial board under current editor in chief Tynisa Gaines, EA, for two years, this summer, I’m taking the reins of the EA Journal. We’re accepting submissions for our upcoming issues:
Fall 2025: Representation (submissions due May 19, 2025)
Winter 2025: Tax season preparation (submissions due July 21, 2025)
Spring 2026: S corporations and international tax issues (submissions due September 15, 2025)
If you want to see your thoughts in print, let me know!
🌴 FL NATP
I took over as treasurer for the FL chapter of NATP in January. We're getting ready to host our annual conference in Daytona Beach, FL, in about a month. I'm looking forward to learning from our speaker and hosting a practice management workshop.
✈️ Travel
After FL NATP’s conference, I’m heading to Washington, D.C. for a week to attend NAEA’s Capitol Hill Fly-In and Schuldiner/Smollan Leadership Academy. I’m also attending Bridging the Gap with my business partner, Andrea, in July.
🎓 Pronto Tax School
I started group mentoring and teaching at Pronto Tax School in March. I host a weekly one-hour Q&A session and field questions in our discussion groups. It's great to be part of the development of new tax pros. This is a program I could've benefited from a lot when I was getting started.
👨🏻💻 Technology
A few months ago, my 2019 16” MacBook Pro was getting pretty sluggish (and I don’t push my computer that much), so I bought the base model M4 Mac mini. I love this machine, but it’s a desktop, and I’m about to do some work-related traveling. The 2019 MBP’s battery was pretty much shot; even plugged in, I got low battery notifications. I have my iPad Air (4th generation), but I knew I’d need more. So, last month, I traded in the MBP for an M4 13” MacBook Air (in Midnight, which I’m still getting used to).
The leap in speed from the Intel Core i7 to the M4 is enough to be really happy with these upgrades, but there’s more: about three years ago, my wife and I noticed it was becoming more and more difficult for me to hear her and our daughter. I was leaning in more when the talked and needing them to repeat themselves. In November 2023, I got a hearing test and found out I need hearing aids. The Jabra Enhance Select 500 works with Bluetooth devices, including my iPhone 16 Pro Max and my iPad, but they did not work with my MBP. This meant switching from my hearing aids to my AirPods Pro and back for each video call, and running a virtual accounting firm, Im open a lot of video calls throughout the day. Not only was this annoying, but it also led to four ear infections in the first year of wearing hearing aids. Now that I have M4 devices, my hearing aids connect to them, so I Neve need to remove my hearing aids throughout the day. This has been significant improvement in my daily quality of life.
🏡 Personal
We just registered our daughter for four weeks of summer camp through her school and weekly swimming lessons in June. Speaking of swimming, we’ve been to the beach twice this year already, and she’s so much braver this year than ever before. She was always skittish around the ocean, never letting the water go past her ankles. This year though, she’s jumping into the waves, and pushing out farther than even I feel comfortable going! She loves playing in and around water, so it’s great seeing her get to grow up around the ocean.
Hey, thanks for reading my Now page! What is a Now page? The idea came from Derek Sivers, and some of my favorite people (such as David Sparks, aka MacSparky) include one in their websites.