IRS plans to hire more accountants The IRS wants to hire more accountants, lawyers and other professionals to focus on high-income taxpayers and large corporations that are not paying all their taxes. "The IRS will focus the Inflation Reduction Act enforcement resources on hiring the accountants, attorneys, engineers, economists and data scientists needed to pursue high-income and high-wealth individuals, complex partnerships, and large corporations that are not paying the taxes they owe," the agency said in a statement. "Given the increase in filing populations over time, the complex nature of the tax filings and the IRS's inability to keep pace due to lack of resources, it makes sense to focus initial Inflation Reduction Act implementation efforts exclusively on increasing our capacity to assess compliance of high-income and high-wealth individuals, complex partnerships, and large corporations. The IRS has no plans to increase the audit rate for households making less than $400,000." Accounting Today National tax lawyers group urges US Supreme Court to take NC sales tax case A national group of tax lawyers wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case from North Carolina dealing with sales taxes on out-of-state transactions. The case stems from a Wisconsin-based company’s fight against a sales tax assessment from N.C. revenue officials. “[T]he decision below undermines the binding nature of this Court’s precedent and threatens to create sales tax jurisdiction chaos between states and non-resident sources of potential tax revenue,” according to the brief. “The opinion below, if followed and multiplied by similar opinions by other states, would have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for sales tax reporting, collection, and administration by taxpayers and the advice provided by tax practitioners.” The state Revenue Department faces a May 17th deadline to respond to Quad Graphics’ petition. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide at a later date whether to take the case. The Carolina Journal WEBINAR Webinar: Industry Insights on ERC Tax Insurance and IRS Substantiation Requirements Join EZ-ERC’s Managing Directors, along with top tax, legal, and insurance professionals from DLA Piper and Willis Towers Watson (WTW), to gain access to exclusive Employer Retention Credit (ERC) insights. Relevant for a wide variety of tax, legal, payroll, and finance professionals, this webinar will discuss one of the best-kept secrets used by sophisticated tax professionals: ERC tax insurance. Date: Thursday, April 20th, 2023 Time: 1:00 – 2:00 pm ET Register now! INDUSTRY Accountants call for changes to prevent burnout Burnout within the accounting profession has left CFOs with a talent problem. Many accountants of different experience levels expressed being overwhelmed by the growing scope of their responsibilities, which are now comparable to that of the overall board. A little over half (53%) of accountants are not sure they will be with their current employer by this time next year and over two-thirds (65%) of the people who said they might not be with their company a year from now aren’t even sure they will still be working in an accounting role, according to a survey published by FloQast, a Los Angeles-based accounting software vendor. The survey — which polled over 200 accountants with titles varying from that of accountant to VP of finance and internal audit — should be a huge wake up call for employers and the profession, according to FloQast chief executive Mike Whitmire. “With COVID, people are starting to rethink what they want to do with their life and where they are going,” he said. In order to avoid those within the accounting profession stepping away from their careers, finance chiefs should look to have private conversations with their teams and find out what their employees’ goals are, he added. CFO Dive ECONOMY Consumer sentiment rose in early April Sentiment among U.S. consumers rose slightly in early April, according to the University of Michigan, leading to improved sentiment among those in the lower-income brackets. The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment index rose to 63.5 in April from 62.0 in March, ahead of the 62 expected among economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. The index measuring current economic conditions rose to 68.6 from 66.3 the prior month, while the gauge assessing short-term expectations increased to 60.3 from 59.2. "While consumers have noted the easing of inflation among durable goods and cars, they still expect high inflation to persist, at least in the short run," said survey director Joanne Hsu. Sentiment is now about 3% below a year ago but 27% above the all-time low from last June, she added. Market Watch U.S. producer prices unexpectedly fall in March U.S. producer prices unexpectedly fell in March as the cost of gasoline declined, and there were signs that underlying producer inflation was subsiding. The producer price index for final demand dropped 0.5% last month, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Excluding often volatile food and energy costs, the PPI decreased 0.1% from the prior month and was up 3.4% from a year earlier. The year-over-year figure was a slowdown from the February reading. A decline in goods prices was a major factor in the cooling of supplier prices in March, particularly for gasoline, diesel and residential natural gas. A drop in warehousing costs as well as in machinery and vehicle wholesaling drove a more modest decline of the services supply index. “We expect the bite from the Fed’s previous rate hikes will further reduce business and consumer demand, pushing producer price inflation lower throughout the rest of the year,” said Matthew Martin, U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. Reuters Wall Street Journal SMALL BUSINESS The most expensive U.S. states to launch a business Starting a new business can cost a lot of money, and the costliest state for new entrepreneurs is Minnesota, according to small business advisor SimplifyLLC. The state has one of the country’s highest corporate income tax rates, at 9.8%. It also has relatively high labor costs, the ranking notes, with an average annual wage last year of $60,598, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was followed in second place by New York, with the top five rounded out by Louisiana, Alabama and Alaska. “What’s true in one state isn’t true in another, and all things being equal, some states give entrepreneurs an advantage by making it a bit more affordable to set up shop,” SimplifyLLC noted. CNBC OTHER Hiring shouldn’t be such a struggle Writing for Bloomberg, Sarah Green Carmichael says a tortuous and drawn-out vetting process that employers subject job candidates to – including multiple interviews and elaborate sample projects – can lead to the rejection of promising candidates who don’t meet an impossibly long list of requirements, and the overlooking of qualified internal candidates in favor of outside talent. Companies also sometimes want new staffers to come ready-made with the skills they need to do the job without any training - but such candidates often don’t exist, especially not at the salaries that most employers are willing to pay, says recruiter Laura Mazzullo, founder of East Side Staffing. Bloomberg Women still take on more of the unpaid labor at home The economics of marriage are changing as the primary breadwinner disappears from more homes, but women still take on more of the unpaid labor, according to new data from Pew Research Center. About 30% of U.S. opposite-sex marriages are egalitarian in earnings, according to the data, meaning each spouse earns somewhere between 40% and 60% of the couple’s joint earnings. A main driver of this shift is younger women making more money, said Pew. But the bigger financial contributions by women don’t mean that relationships are more equal. Even when women earn as much as their husbands, they still put in around two more hours a week on caregiving than their husbands do, plus another 2.5 hours more on housework, according to Pew. Wall Street Journal Accountancy Slice delivers the latest, most relevant and useful intelligence to accountants, practice owners, auditors, CFOs and accounting influencers, each weekday morning. Content is selected to an exacting brief from hundreds of influential media sources and summarised by experienced journalists into an easy-to-read digest email. Accountancy Slice enhances the performance and decision-making capabilities of individuals and teams by delivering the relevant news, innovations and knowledge in a cost-effective way. 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