Last week a student asked me a question that took me by surprise. She asked me why I prepare tax returns for individuals. Normally I am quite nimble on my feet when facing questions, but this one threw me off. I told her I would have to get back to her with my answer.
Back in 2004 when I left the public accounting world and entered academia, I expanded into the tax return preparation business to make money. Before long, however, I realized I couldn’t bring myself to charge rates high enough to earn a ton of money. Coupling that with the fact that I earn higher rates consulting with large corporations makes it easy for me to focus my CPA practice mainly on corporate consulting, with just a bit of individual tax preparation thrown in.
Today, one of my favorite clients showed up 15 minutes early, as always. He sat in his car until exactly 9AM and then knocked on my front door. As we worked through his simple tax return and I entered in his W-2 earnings, I realized that I once made more money in a 6 week span than he did in all of 2011. Yet, despite his low income, he still gave away over 10% of his earnings.
He is a very unique client. He is somewhat socially awkward and has certain physical disabilities. It took him nearly 5 minutes to write out a $20 check to pay me for my services (believe me when I say that I battle with whether I should charge him anything - but I question whether he would be insulted if I offered to do his returns for free).
This individual does not trust many people, and before I became his CPA several years ago, he prepared his tax returns himself. In doing so, he made errors, costing himself hundreds of dollars in refunds.
As I bid farewell to him at the end of his appointment, I reflected a bit: if I took the advice of many friends and stopped preparing tax returns, what would happen to this individual? Who would help him out in this very personal area? While there are certainly some qualified, caring, and affordable tax preparers out there (H&R Block NOT included), I question whether he would trust them sufficiently.
So, I can now answer my student’s question of why I prepare tax returns for individuals. I am blessed (some of you would say cursed) in this area, and this is just one small way I can maybe help some people out.
Way to go, Prof! This shows that even those who prepare other people's tax returns have the heart of extending their hand to assist people in ways outside their job description. These little things that we do to help others can go a long way in fortifying our reputation in our chosen field. It’s also a good way to gain client trust.
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ReplyDeleteYou must have a lot more interesting experiences with people asking for your service aside from those you stated. You also seem to have a very interesting job because you get to meet different kinds of people.
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