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Tax News Now Ep. 19 - Beyond Compliance: How CPAs Become Trusted Advisors in Times of Change with Chris Wittich
205 Plays3 days ago
In this episode of Tax News Now, Mark Gallegos and his guest, Chris Wittich, Partner at Boyum, discuss key lessons learned from navigating the PPP and ERC landscape as well as the evolving role of CPAs as trusted advisors beyond traditional compliance work. The episode also explores the future of the profession through the lens of AI integration, talent retention, work-life balance, and the critical importance of practitioner involvement in shaping tax legislation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Chris Wittig and his Achievements
00:00:09
Speaker
What does it take to lead a tax practice through ERC chaos, build a niche in the salon and beauty industry, become one of AICPA's go-to voices on tax policy, and host a podcast called Traction with the Tiger.
00:00:22
Speaker
My guest today has done all of that, and he's about to tell us how.
Welcome to Tax News Now Podcast
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome back to the Tax News Now podcast, a Becker accounting podcast where we talk tax, leadership, and the future of the accounting profession.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm your host, Mark Gallegos, tax partner at Forty Brown.
Chris Wittig's Career Overview
00:00:36
Speaker
Today, I'm joined by Chris Wittig, a partner and head of Tax at Boyum. Chris's career spans business tax, international estate and trust, and advisory work, plus the salon and beauty industry.
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm excited to dig into that today. Many of you also know Chris from his leadership during the PPP and ERC years, going back to COVID, his extensive involvement with the AICPA.
00:00:59
Speaker
He's a national speaking legend. His work on tax policy and legislation. And again, he's his own podcast with Traction with the Tiger. Chris and I have also served together with the AICPA Strategic Tax Reform Advisory Group, where we spend a great deal of time discussing the future of tax legislation, policy, and how all this is in affecting the accounting profession.
00:01:19
Speaker
So today we're excited to have
The Origin of 'Tiger' Nickname
00:01:22
Speaker
Chris here. So Chris, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Now, before we get into anything technical or anything like that, I got to address your nickname.
00:01:31
Speaker
um So you go by Tiger or so, but the Raven is Tiger. give Tell the audience how you came up with this nickname or how it was given to you.
00:01:42
Speaker
Uh, I mean, it came from high school. So as many good jokes do, they started in high school. Uh, so in tenth grade biology class, like we had brand new textbooks that year that must've ordered.
00:01:57
Speaker
And there was the picture on the front of the textbook was just a tiger, just a tiger. That was it. And I said, Oh, that tiger looks ravenous, just like me. And i don't know what kind of stuck. it It's either ravenous tiger.
00:02:12
Speaker
um You know, was I talking to a girl at the time? And like, yeah, that's what, you know, started it. But a Ravenous Tiger. And then but wasn't really doing much taxes at that point. So some people prefer to call it sort of the tax tiger.
00:02:30
Speaker
But Ravenous Tiger is how it started in high school and even in college. No, that's awesome. And, you know, one of the things, you mean, obviously you could see right now if you're watching this video that there's a tiger.
00:02:42
Speaker
There is. in back. of his wall. um And Chris tends to wear some form of orange at different times. So if you run into him and you see an orange. I look good in orange. What can I say? Yeah, I love It's my favorite color.
00:02:56
Speaker
Orange tigers are the best tigers. It just all goes together. i love it. I love it.
Starting 'Traction with Tiger' Podcast
00:03:02
Speaker
And, you know, the podcast that you host called Traction with Tiger, um what pushed you to start that podcast or kind of got you to want to do it?
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, we were. i mean, we're talking about ways to you know grow the firm and ways that we can reach out to clients. We had a lot of success with webinars and I'm fine with speaking. And so.
00:03:31
Speaker
The idea was, well, let's let's start this podcast and we can have a bunch of guests on and we can sort of highlight some of the industry groups at the firm. And so that would be like a 15 minute way for people to get out there, talk about their niche, talk about what they're doing, reach their clients. They might be able to sort of repurpose that for their own sort of marketing efforts and.
00:03:58
Speaker
you know, 15 minutes at a time is not super daunting and it's just a conversation with me. So people are more willing to do that. And then like, I'll do the heavy lifting. I'll do all of the episodes because that's fine. I'll talk into a microphone and, you know, jibber jabber about taxes. Right.
00:04:17
Speaker
And at the time we also started it kind of knowing, Hey, there's, there's probably going to be a tax bill this summer. And when this tax bill passes, we're going to be doing webinars and like writing articles and resources and all sorts of stuff.
00:04:36
Speaker
The podcast was just going to be another way to reach our clients and, you know, let them know what's going on. Are there specific conversations or topics that mostly resonated most, with you know, the accounting professionals from your firm, but also the audience on the outside?
Making Complex Tax Topics Accessible
00:04:54
Speaker
i mean, certainly the... the series about the the tax bill, the one big, beautiful bill, as we called it, um you know, that series, they were a little bit different structure, but I don't even know how many I did, like 20 or something on 20 different topics.
00:05:12
Speaker
And it just takes these topics, which can be very complicated, like you can talk about some of them for an hour, but What you really need most of the time is like, hey, let's talk about this for eight minutes or 10 minutes and just get a pretty good overview of what's going on.
00:05:30
Speaker
Because both clients and staff here, you know, they like to get things in bite sized chunks. Yes. Can they listen to me drone on for a two hour session about stuff? Yeah, sometimes they do.
00:05:44
Speaker
but If they can just get eight minutes about, you know, no tax on on car interest. Right. i don't they don't need to hear me drone on and on about it. So just making it bite size so they can listen when they want and.
00:06:00
Speaker
Just make it easy enough to digest without going super deep into the weeds of the tax law. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think podcasting has helped humanize this profession a little bit.
00:06:12
Speaker
Obviously, people want technical expertise. They also want that perspective, right? Authenticity and honesty from people who actually, you know, like yourself, living it day to day in the trenches, right?
00:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, I love doing it. Awesome. Now, as far as your career, um you know, obviously technical tax person. mean, you one of the smartest people out there, in my opinion. um Leadership.
00:06:36
Speaker
You know, you're involved at a high level with with AICPA, but also you've got with all that being said, you also have a very specific niche um in you do in your firm, which I find fascinating. And so kind of tell us about your journey from, you know, what got you into the profession and and the journey to where you're at today?
Chris Wittig's Journey into Accounting
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah. So, i mean, the journey into the profession started a long time ago. i actually started when I was in 10th grade. um I was looking for volunteering to do you know, we got to put it on the college resume.
00:07:12
Speaker
What do I want to do? do I want to, you know, build a house with habitat or like soup kitchen or what, do you know, what do you want to do? And i said, I wanted to do something with my mind.
00:07:25
Speaker
And so I worked at a VITA clinic when I was in 10th grade. Nice. um My dad had to do it with me. He's not a tax professional, but, you know, he was doing his own return. So he signed up, volunteered because I couldn't actually drive myself. I didn't have a driver's license yet. Right.
00:07:43
Speaker
so i couldn't drive myself to the to the place so my dad would go with me so i could drive because i had a permit um so i got started then um certainly i went to college and i wasn't sure i would do taxes but i had that tax background and then i mean pretty quickly into it i was i was still volunteering and i was doing that like a couple nights a week i ended up starting a like a vita clinic at the university of minnesota for students nice which i kind of ran entirely myself with a friend of mine helped get me set it up and so at that point i was like oh i'm definitely going to be like a tax guy i'm i'm pretty good at this i like this i think it's interesting we save people money by doing it correctly
00:08:35
Speaker
But there's quite a spectrum there of VITA sites where you know your clients are making $10,000 and they have two kids and like they maybe can't read, they don't speak English as their first language sometimes, to the elderly people, right? They're on a pension and social security and they're just trying to get by.
00:08:53
Speaker
um so it's quite a wide range um but then came here boyam after i finished um so i'm one of the very i think very few perhaps foolish people who i did undergrad right and then i went directly into the mbt program with no break at all so i don't know who else would do that um But like before I did the CPA, I did the MBT. So I was like that. I don't recommend that, honestly, to people. That's not a great way to go. But um I was convinced that's what I wanted to do right away. So, you know, when I started, i started in the tax department here. I've been here 20 seasons now.
00:09:38
Speaker
And so I was in the tax department until... basically COVID. So COVID was big news here. We could talk more about that, but i ended up shifting over to our business advisory service department which is more small businesses and they do more accounting and i don't i'm not good at accounting but um i work with a lot of small businesses plus the you know the larger businesses here so i switched over and that's where a lot of the ppp and the erc stuff that's where it was happening and that's the clients that were really impacted by it you know we have some large clients
00:10:20
Speaker
they file in all 50 states right they have an accounting department of 20 people right um they did not need my help figuring out what to do with a ppp loan it was the it was the clients with a million dollars where the owner is trying to do everything and they have no idea what a ppp loan is so um i sort of shifted over there and then couple years ago i shifted back to the tax department so it's been uh it's been a ride i've been a little here there and everywhere but Always, always focused on, especially when the tax law changes.
00:10:54
Speaker
i think that's when I thrive. That's when I love it. um And just finding the ways to to help clients. that I mean, it's amazing in that, you know, tells the journey of, you know, you know, from your 10th grade, you're a sophomore in high school and, you know, and just, you know, like goodness your heart. Hey, I'm going to help out. I'm going to just volunteer my time and you kind of end up falling into tax and you're still in the tax. Right. So. It's pretty amazing. um Now, obviously shifting to the advisory, smaller client side for a while, obviously, is that how you got into the salon and beauty industry specifically?
Developing a Niche in the Salon Industry
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah. So I had some clients um that were kind of in the industry or they worked with salons in the industry. And PPP was a humongous thing for all of our clients.
00:11:49
Speaker
but in talking to this one client in particular like they had hundreds of salons as their clients and i was like oh well these salons are they're closed right like covid was bad for everybody it was weird for accounting firms even but the salons and like the restaurants they were just entirely closed so it was definitely harder for them the way that salons pay people also made some of the ppp i'll think a little confusing um so for like how should we administer this and the bankers weren't helping people so it occurred to me that like i could take this same information that i know about ppp and just hey i will give it to my client so they can give it to their
00:12:43
Speaker
hundreds of salon owners and so that's kind of how it started and we helped lots of them figure out their ppp and i found that in a lot of ways they resemble some of the other clients that i liked working with and so it's sort of built from there ppp that was 2020 and then the you know january twenty twenty one came the ec And the same thing, you're like, ERC is, you know, it's it's good for a bunch of different clients, but like all these salons qua qualify.
00:13:21
Speaker
Right. They were closed just like our restaurant clients. There's another partner here that specializes in restaurants. All of the restaurants in Minnesota qualify right for some amount of ERC. So um really led to helping them because.
00:13:37
Speaker
I'm a big fan of any time I can do something and even record it. That's how I can reach a lot of people at once. I like meeting with clients one on one.
00:13:48
Speaker
I do. People don't always believe that. And if I can help one client in one hour, that's terrific. But if I can record a webinar in one hour and then have 500 salons across the country,
00:14:04
Speaker
view it, learn something from it, improve their business, it's kind of like, well, I'd rather do that. Right. um Even though they're not, they're not even my clients.
00:14:15
Speaker
um But if you can get out there and and help them and sort of meet them where they're at, um I found it to be, i don't know, I found it to be rewarding and i enjoyed working with them. So we kind of went from there and expanded the the beauty and industry group.
00:14:31
Speaker
That's great. I mean, and that's why you're a trusted advisor. And and I think that the trusted advisor framing is actually what ERC became because you were and essentially one of those practitioners that, you know, a lot of people out there were reading about, you know, figuring out what PPP was, ERC, what you were speaking on.
00:14:49
Speaker
ah Whereas others were just kind of like, I'm just a preparer and I'm just relying on whatever and sitting back, you know, waiting to see what happens, right? You were you were kind of just say, I'm going to take the lead on this and let's do something.
00:15:01
Speaker
And so during the COVID you know period, you know we have ERC and PPP going on and You're doing what you're doing. What did leading under that kind of speed versus accuracy pressure teach you about your own decision-making during that timeframe?
00:15:17
Speaker
It was certainly a strange time. you know I've never had that kind of pressure and opportunity at the same time. um But what we found is that It was okay not to have all of the answers, especially with PPP.
00:15:36
Speaker
right We were doing updates like every week, similar to you know AACPA town hall and stuff. And so what we found, especially in PPP, was, hey, we think the answer is this, but we don't actually know, or this is unclear, or that's unclear, and we're hoping the SBA or the IRS clarifies this or that.
00:16:00
Speaker
And we learned that we really shouldn't be afraid of saying, i actually don't know. And so clients got to appreciate that because we weren't just blowing smoke and we weren't claiming to have all the answers. We would claim to know, hey, this is how we think it works. This is why we think it works this way.
00:16:21
Speaker
and I just don't believe it's possible to be 100% accurate right now. right like I don't think there's anyone in the country who can be 100% accurate about a question like you're asking. you know the The clients are asking these questions. I'm like, wow, that's a really good question.
00:16:39
Speaker
I haven't even considered that. And I don't think an answer exists. So it's sort of acknowledging that, hey, we are going to do our best. We are going to put our best foot forward. We are going drop everything and do just as much research as humanly possible.
00:16:56
Speaker
And i mean, i was thankful that in my firm i was able to do that 2021. and twenty twenty one ah I spent, well, even in 2020, I basically just didn't work on any of my client stuff, right? I was a partner. I had a book of business. I was, but and I just said, I'm not doing any of it.
00:17:18
Speaker
And I spent an absurd number of hours doing PPP and then ERC instead so that I could help all of the firm's clients and the other partners here and and the other staff, like everybody understood that. So it was ah team effort to like, hey, you guys can do my all my client work.
00:17:35
Speaker
which is hard enough, right? ah Because I'm just going to kind of drop off the face of the earth. And every day I'm going to have an update for you guys. Like every day, every two days, every three days, I'm going to be posting stuff. I'm going to be recording webinars.
00:17:51
Speaker
I'm going to be going crazy writing stuff. And all of this will be helpful to all of the firm's clients. But in the meantime, i need you guys to actually do my, you know, I need you to do my work.
00:18:04
Speaker
um So it was, I don't know, it was it was a wild time, but certainly over time you get to be more accurate, you get more of those answers.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I enjoyed tax Twitter at the time. I mean, I still do. right um But there was a lot of idea sharing and and you sort of figure out who's really reading the law and who's just...
00:18:30
Speaker
waiting to see what happens. I'd be like, I'm going to check in in six months. I'm like, ah six months from now, I'll help my clients figure out how yeah ERC works or PPP.
00:18:40
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. And obviously that, that mean you dialing in like that really was beneficial, obviously for your firm too, because, you know, generating revenue from something that was needed is yeah special.
00:18:54
Speaker
And in 2020, we tried to create some revenue. We created almost no revenue from PPP stuff. Our goal was to keep our clients in business.
00:19:07
Speaker
was This is not much of a firm if all of our clients go bankrupt. So the primary objective there was like, we got to keep these clients in business. so that they can still be clients.
00:19:19
Speaker
ERC certainly was ah far more profitable than that. Like PPP, we didn't make any money at all. recal I think at some point we calculated we had dumped a million dollars of time into PPP and we had recouped like none of it.
00:19:36
Speaker
yeah but We still had clients because they were in business, which was useful. But um Yeah, I mean, we did it because we had to. It was a <unk>s a wild time.
00:19:48
Speaker
That's for sure. Absolutely. And then, you know, there was a shift, right? And obviously, we had the aggressive ERC marketing wave that came out, right? And so how did you handle clients who had already been pitched or sold by an ERC mill, per se?
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, these aggressive promoters, of the same thing you're doing, but a different way.
Handling Aggressive ERC Promoters
00:20:09
Speaker
Well, they were doing it illegally. Right. um I mean, we had lots of clients experience that. And we sat down with them and showed them the law.
00:20:23
Speaker
And we said, you know, we sort of gave them some of the questions to go back to the providers on. um Like, well, why don't you ask them which government order it was?
00:20:35
Speaker
Right. Since you're so convinced that, you know, this white collar business where revenue was up 50 percent and all the rest, they're like, I don't think this qualifies. um Why don't you ask them what the government order was and be like, well, they don't really have one. They just.
00:20:51
Speaker
You know, just OSHA, everyone in the mayor could qualify. OK, this is not this is not how it works. Right. And think a lot of times people, after they got the education, they got to the point where they're like, yeah, this is I understand they are selling me this in exchange for 20 percent or 25 percent credit.
00:21:13
Speaker
like they can see the conflict of interest there. And then they come to me, um their trusted advisor, or more often it was someone at the firm and they say, oh, talk to talk to Chris. So I didn't know a lot of them. They're just other people's clients.
00:21:30
Speaker
And if you know if Andy says, hey, talk to Chris, I trust this guy. And the client trusts Andy, then the client's going to trust me and I'm going to tell him hey, this is not how it works.
00:21:43
Speaker
I would love for you to get ERC money. I would love it. And I can charge you to do it. And if I'm not willing to do that, I think that's a pretty good sign you don't qualify.
00:21:56
Speaker
Like it is definitely in my best interest for you to get however much money this ERC mill is claiming. but i'm still telling you hey i don't think you qualify and so people appreciated the honesty you know there were a handful of clients who didn't and we told them hey look if you go and do this you're not a client anymore and we lost a handful of clients but you know we're not gonna allow our clients to do stuff like that and and remain clients and you know you sort of figure out who's the
00:22:34
Speaker
who are Who are the clients who are maybe up to no good? Right. And you're like, I could do without you. It brings ethics and professional responsibility back to the forefront when you kind of look. It really does. Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker
I mean, yeah. I mean, we should always be thinking that way, but definitely it was a challenge because we had people that were, and I'll give an example. I had a client that was approached by a guy that was promoting ERC and I actually spoke to the guy and he said, you know, and said what have been doing in the last 10 years? He said he'd been running a roofing company and now he decided to shift into this. And I thought, wow, and this is the guy telling my client that you qualify for something.
00:23:15
Speaker
so yeah it was always a telling it was always a tell when there were no cpas right working and you're like oh the founder was in real estate or roofing or like whatever and you ask him like oh how many cpas do you see on their website of 10 people are oh there's none okay i think that's telling you something yeah they're not qualified to read the text law and understand this stuff so they're it's just they're just in it for a huge money grab absolutely Now, and obviously, you know, we saw we were always I mean, I felt like every day or every other day we were waiting on is there guidance coming? And then the discussion on Twitter at the time and just the constant discussion.
00:23:56
Speaker
If you had to go back and look at this and you were let's say you were the IRS commissioner and you were in charge of policy, how would you want things to be handled as far as the rollout of guidance and that, you know, should have happened or could have happened along the way?
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah. IRS commissioner certainly was in a hard spot. Yes. um But at the same time, I don't think they handled it super well.
00:24:24
Speaker
um there There are just certain things or certain times when you really have got to deviate from sort of the normal process, right? And the IRS was unwilling to do that. right And they sort of couldn't do that, right? So it's insane that people were filing 941Xs on paper no...
00:24:53
Speaker
with absolutely no definition or qualifications or reasoning behind why they were claiming these enormous credits. right In hindsight, that was insane that you'd let people say amending for ERC.
00:25:13
Speaker
one million dollar refund claim on my 941x right that i paper filed with the irs like that is obviously going to be a disaster in terms of processing and just their ability to sort of differentiate so they were certainly put in a hard spot but if i was the irs commissioner i would have had a separate processing unit and i would have just said hey you should we could have seen this coming i think you know you could have said there's we're making a new schedule but and you got to attach it to every 941x and you got to mail it to a separate office not just your ogden utah not just your cincinnati office where you normally file stuff let's have a separate schedule and we're going to explain exactly why you qualify
00:26:09
Speaker
Hey, if you qualify in gross receipts, attach them. It's not that hard. Just attach them. right And then they could have processed these things way quicker way more accurately and sniffed out the bad actors.
00:26:23
Speaker
The bad actors were getting away with this stuff because you could just say, I'm ending for ERC with no explanation whatsoever. You don't have to reference the... you know the law that was restricting you you don't have to say what your restrictions how they impacted you you don't have to say any of this stuff so i think in hindsight that's what became clear you needed to be doing like in the summer of 2021. yep
00:26:51
Speaker
I think, because it was about it was about May 2021 when we filed our very first one. I remember which client it is. it was a long term client. And I we told the guy like, you're the first one.
00:27:06
Speaker
We want to use you as a test case. And he's like, OK, sounds good. And, you know, you had big revenue decline and all the rest. We got it. We got to figure out how this works. We got it submitted.
00:27:17
Speaker
um But after that, by the end of the summer 2021, it was going crazy already. Right. They didn't really identify there was a lot of bad actors going on, but they, so they started like in the late summer or fall of 21. Right.
00:27:35
Speaker
And then it took off from there. Right. So sure did. um So during that timeframe, did that change the CPA client relationship in your opinion at all along the way from all of that?
Pandemic's Impact on CPA-Client Relationships
00:27:49
Speaker
Or did it strengthen it? Did it create a void in there? What what were your thoughts on that side?
00:27:55
Speaker
I certainly think it it changed it a bit and strengthened it. you know um i was a tax guy. I'm still a tax guy. Right. PPP loans, they weren't really a tax thing, right? It was, i'm I'm looking at payroll records, I'm dealing with the SBA, I'm dealing with banks.
00:28:20
Speaker
This is not a tax topic. um And so it shifted us into this mindset of like, well, how can we just help clients um Do we normally go out of our way to sit down and like like help them figure out a line of credit at the bank?
00:28:41
Speaker
i don't I never did before. But I do i do now. like it's It's opened up the a little more possibility for the tax-focused people to expand their horizons. Our small business department, they were doing that kind of stuff already. Our bookkeeping people, they do that kind of stuff all the time.
00:29:04
Speaker
But it's expanded the horizons a little bit to understand that like we got to be able to help clients with whatever is going on at the time. And that may or may not be something directly in the tax code. okay Sometimes it's sort of related to the tax code.
00:29:24
Speaker
But the the problem is really in their payroll system. And I got branch out and can't I just can't stay in the box of, hey, I'm the income tax guy. I don't know what's going on with your PPP. You figure that out yourself. I can't say that to clients.
00:29:39
Speaker
um And i think it showed us sort of what is possible in terms of advisory work. in terms of advocating for the clients and tough so helping them make decisions on things that often have nothing to do with income tax.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah. No, you hit it on the head. I mean, I thought a lot of people that were like, hey, I'm comfortable sitting behind my desk, just grinding out tax returns became, you know what, if I want to help these clients in a time of need, I need to put on my advisory head or at least figure out how to become an advisor and and and help them through. And like you said, a lot of but PPP and ERC has nothing to do with tax.
00:30:18
Speaker
Now, the questions that came is you'd help them achieve. Maybe they got the PPP loan or one or two, and or they got the ERC money. Then the question was, well, is this taxable? And now you had to put your tax hat back on.
00:30:32
Speaker
And here was the thing. We didn't have answers when in that moment, did we? No, we didn't. But by talking to the clients about these things, I know for us, it became very clear and very easy to pick up new clients.
00:30:49
Speaker
right Because if there are those practitioners that they just have their head down and they're like, I don't know, this PPP is your problem. right Well, if I'm going to help them with their problem, ah they're probably going to have me do their tax work too.
00:31:03
Speaker
And they're probably going to have us do their bookkeeping work too. So we got a lot of new clients because some people were, you know, they put their head in the sand or they said, i I'll get to it later. Or they pushed it off.
00:31:16
Speaker
Right. And meanwhile, we're in there. We're diving in. We're talking to them about it. Sometimes have answers. Sometimes we don't. But we could always eventually we got the answers, you know, knock on wood. Eventually we got the answers and just telling clients, hey, these are the options.
00:31:35
Speaker
Even with the ERC, you have some options of what year now to report it in. There's not really a right or wrong answer, but our job is to inform these clients. so that they understand pros and the cons of these options.
00:31:50
Speaker
How does that impact you know your tax liability, the interest and penalties? the How does it impact the state filings? Because some states do it and some states don't. And it gets to be messy, but it it can sort of circle back around to taxes.
00:32:07
Speaker
but it required the investment in the learning, the curiosity to help the clients with something that wasn't necessarily tax related. And then you can pay it off with some good tax advice at the end. Oh, love that. That's so good. So like, obviously your firm and what you did became a crisis advisor overnight and it wasn't just compliance anymore, right? Clients wanted their interpretation of these new rules, reassurance. They wanted leadership. They wanted someone there they can trust. And because of that, you've built relationships that are still paying dividends today. So way to go with that.
00:32:43
Speaker
Absolutely. And now I want to kind of focus a little bit, change gears a little bit, focus, you know, from that into the human side of practice management in a CPA firm, you know, from talent, leadership, culture, sustainability, things that, you know, a lot of people are talking about and some people should be talking about.
00:33:02
Speaker
And I would just start off by saying, you know, from your opinion, how would you describe what's actually broken in the traditional CPA firm model right now, just from practice management in general?
Challenges Facing CPA Firms
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think about this stuff a lot and i go back and forth, but I think what I've i've settled on as broken or the the thing that's really at the root of it is i think it's kind of a lack of imagination or a lack of understanding the possibilities because there are so many firms or so many people they do the same thing as last year right and so whatever the model was 30 years ago they're still doing it today
00:33:51
Speaker
because they just don't want to or they cannot imagine a different outlook, a different future. They just get stuck in I'm busy.
00:34:04
Speaker
got to reply all these emails today. got to do these tax returns today. And they don't spend time to think about what's possible. So to me, that's that's at the core of what's broken.
00:34:19
Speaker
is understanding that you you can transform your practice if you want to. you There are a lot of different models out there you can use.
00:34:30
Speaker
There are a lot of different clients that you can have. There's a lot of different timing of doing the work. And just imagining what's possible, i think, is holding back so many firms.
00:34:46
Speaker
And I know even for myself, prior to 2020 i'm not sure i imagined what was possible so i was one of those i mean prior to 2020 you know i was 30 35 years old i didn't think all of this stuff was possible but now i do and so once you see what's possible or you start to imagine what's possible then you can work on the solutions to get there right and if you don't see what's possible
00:35:18
Speaker
You just, you will never see any of these steps and you will never have the motivation to take any of those steps or be brought along on those steps. So to me, that's, you know, that's a lot of the people that are running firms today.
00:35:34
Speaker
Obviously they're the ones making the decisions, um but just imagining what else could be possible is to me, the number one thing that holds everything back. right And I think measurements the way some people historically have measured success and how things have kind of shifted, you you kind of have different viewpoints out there, right on that. And I think that is something that, you know, we hopefully will continue to see change in the industry.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the the billable hours and the mentality, I mean, i remember I came to this firm because the hours were less than some of the other firms.
00:36:20
Speaker
And the work-life balance was real. I mean, that was 20 years ago. right And you know we we we worked probably 60 hours a week on average. And there were other firms working 80 hours a week. right That hasn't really changed in 20 years. There's still firms that work a lot. And if that's what you want to do, that's fine.
00:36:41
Speaker
There are firms that work even less than we do. So that brought me to the firm um because they they just had a different, a slightly different mindset.
00:36:54
Speaker
I'm not sure it was as intentional as maybe it has become today. i think they may be a different mindset. i don't know. they They just weren't, I think 20 years ago, it was a much smaller firm.
00:37:08
Speaker
They weren't as intent on growth. It was more of a you know a family atmosphere. So it just wasn't a ton of hours, um but it's it's come a long ways. And I think the the world of possibility is even more with technology these days, with the the staffing these days, with how COVID, I that i think it's still changed how a lot of people view work.
00:37:36
Speaker
Didn't change it for everyone, obviously, but and enough people that there's going to be more and more models available. Right. As far as the industry and public accounting, you know, how is it misunderstood about attracting and retaining manager or, you know, mid-level talent?
00:37:57
Speaker
Seems like, I would say, post-pandemic, this has kind of been a bottleneck in, you know, different size firms, right? Maintaining that manager level, supervisor level, and or going out getting that.
00:38:11
Speaker
Where do we see that changing and how do we how do we continue to fill that void, do you think? Yeah, I think the the void or the sort of perceived void of these managers, i think there's a couple of solutions.
00:38:25
Speaker
ah And it's certainly something we're looking at internally. So a lot of times, you know, the staff people, 22, 23, 24 year olds,
00:38:38
Speaker
I was 24 years old. I was single. I didn't neville didn't have a life outside of work, right? I didn't have kids. didn't have a ah spouse. I didn't have a cat.
00:38:49
Speaker
I didn't have all this stuff. So you can kind of get away. I don't think you should, but I think you can get away with working those 22, 23, 24-year-olds a lot of hours because they need and they want money and they have nothing else demanding their time.
00:39:12
Speaker
The managers tend to get married and they have kids and now they have other hobbies and other interests and they got a house and they're, you know,
00:39:23
Speaker
They have a lot more going on in their lives. Right. And suddenly their desire to put in the same kind of hours is different than when they were 23.
00:39:34
Speaker
And so many times it's like the spouse who is saying, why do you have to work so much? I think the main, if I had to guess, the number one reason people leave public accounting is because of their spouse. They they don't like when they are working 80 hours a week and they're leaving the other spouse with the kids or they're not able to make it to the hockey game or the basketball game or whatever.
00:40:11
Speaker
There's i think there's a lot of that. And so how do we retain them? How do we keep them? i think we need to imagine the other possibilities. There are going to be some managers who are perfectly content with working 80 hours a week, and that's fine.
00:40:24
Speaker
go There are firms like that. Go work at those. Right. But the ones that are not content with that, there have to be other options for them. There have to be other outlets, other firms that can retain them by having a variety of things. So one, certainly like flexible schedules in terms of what time during the day you work.
00:40:48
Speaker
That's, I think, super easy to do. Having hybrids so you're not you know wasting time commuting. If you're 24 years old if it takes you half an hour to commute, you probably don't care.
00:41:01
Speaker
If that half an hour you're taking it away from spending it with your kids, well, now you care right about the commute. So being flexible with, you know hybrid work or remote work and just a the timing of when you work during the day, because, oh I got to go, you know, get the kids on the school bus. And that isn't until 845 or whatever, like being flexible in that sense.
00:41:26
Speaker
But then the other thing for me is certainly part-time schedules. I'm real big on just allowing, hey, if you want to work 75% time 50% time or 60% time, whatever threshold, that's fine. I always enjoy when...
00:41:40
Speaker
threshold like that's fine um i always enjoy when there's a person here or a staff or a manager who comes and says, Hey, I've been thinking about going part time.
00:41:56
Speaker
Is that okay? Like they're asking me for permission. And I, usually kind of laugh at him. I'm like, yeah, they're like, oh good. I was nervous. I was nervous is going to like say no. right Of course.
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah, whatever you want. um Obviously, like you're going to get paid less. They know that already. um But having having those options available, I think, can help retain a few.
00:42:23
Speaker
But then just re-imagining the whole thing so you are driving the hours down for everybody in the firm. Those managers, you're not gonna lose a ton of managers or that mid-level if they're working 40, 45, 50 hours a week during tax season.
00:42:44
Speaker
You're not. You're gonna lose them if they're working 60 hours during in tax season or 65 hours or 70 hours 80 hours. So I think there's there's a couple of different options there where you can make, hey, let's at least make this as flexible as we can.
00:43:02
Speaker
But then we have got structure this in a way so that we're not as we're not allowing you to be flexible with your 65 hours. we're We're only aiming for 50 or 55.
00:43:15
Speaker
And we'll be flexible within there. Right. But just throwing out the possibility of these 80 hour weeks, because that drives people to leave the profession.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, you know, i mean, we're seeing more firm culture having to try to pivot towards, you know, as you say, reimagining what this looks like so that, you know, people have options on the table for their lifestyle. And and and when firms provide that value,
00:43:46
Speaker
Then one, you take, hopefully you're helping take exhaustion off the table, burnout. But at the same time, you're giving them the option to say, hey, I really like working here, but I can't sustain your 60, 70, 80 hours a week.
00:43:58
Speaker
I want to do something less because I i value my family. i value my personal time. I do value the firm, but, you know, ah there has to be some level of balance. So I think I think this is, you know, I know what you're doing with, um you know, when you speak about this, but also what you guys are doing as a firm is is very, you know, changing out there. And I think that is specific, especially considering we have discussions. It's like, hey, well, if this isn't working, we could just sell the PE or we can merge upstream. But but that's not solving the um equation that you're constantly trying to figure out, right? Yeah.
00:44:35
Speaker
And I think for me, it's it's how can we set up the firm to allow this? Right. But then the whole thing crumbles to dust if I don't also live it as the boss. Right.
00:44:51
Speaker
It's this is it's such fake. um It's ah just a fake policy. If I say, hey, it's flexible. But then I'm in the office from 7 a.m. till midnight, seven days a week during tax season.
00:45:07
Speaker
You can't have it both ways. Right. You got to you got to live by those values for everyone. And i think that's something that I think sometimes firms I see out there, they say that they're flexible for these managers and they they're offering some of this stuff.
00:45:25
Speaker
But then you ask them, like, well, how much how much do the partners work? and like, oh, well, the partners all work 80 hours a week and they come in the office every single day. Well, like, what is it? Which is it? Either this is good for people or it's not.
00:45:42
Speaker
I think it destroys your credibility if you don't also live by it. um And so for better or worse, I certainly live by it.
00:45:53
Speaker
um During tax season, I aim 50 hours a week. Outside of tax season, I work about 30 hours a week.
00:46:04
Speaker
And my schedule says i have every Friday off from April 15th until basically February 1st. um I make a few exceptions here and there.
00:46:16
Speaker
But i'm I'm dead serious about it. I've got kids. They're young. I work at home. I'm in the office today because I'm i'm going out. But I work at home, I work weird hours sometimes.
00:46:34
Speaker
you know If ah the cat wakes me up at 4 a.m., I maybe I'll go work a couple hours at 4 a.m. Sometimes I work late at night. Sometimes it's 2 p.m. in the afternoon and you can't find me.
00:46:46
Speaker
Oh, it's because I went to the park with my kids. I don't know. like I put that stuff on my calendar, so it's not a mystery. I'm not saying you should just vanish at work. um But when I live it out, people can tell I'm serious about it.
00:47:04
Speaker
And I think that's the key thing that some firms do and some firms I think could get a lot better at is having the leaders live out those values that they say they support.
00:47:16
Speaker
And I think, you know, for everyone listening, I think Chris is someone who, and I can test this, that does live by those values. And I think that says a lot about your character and your integrity of who you are. Obviously, no one's perfect, but, you know, like you said, you can't say to somebody, hey, we'll be flexible with you and then turn the other way and be like, but I'm going to work 80, 90 hours a week. So then why would that person say, okay, I'm fine right now, but why would I ever want a leadership position in that firm knowing,
00:47:45
Speaker
You have to kick it up at that point. then If I get if I get a promotion, this promotion seems horrible. Right. Right. Like you need to make it seem like it's still useful.
00:47:58
Speaker
um Your life shouldn't get worse when you get a promotion. um So you got a model that I think you got a model that behavior and live it out every day. i agree.
AI's Role in Tax Research and Compliance
00:48:10
Speaker
Now, let's pivot real quickly to ai because, you know, every conference I go to every article I read, and seems like every leadership discussion comes back to AI. um Where is AI genuinely creating value inside your practice today or is it not?
00:48:28
Speaker
um i think it's creating some value. i think we're still working on... better ways or other ways to to implement that. So few examples I will give.
00:48:39
Speaker
In the tax area, I think it is great at research. It is great at research. I am shocked how good it is at research. right um I had an MBT, like I was 21 years old, I had an MBT.
00:48:58
Speaker
the The key course there is a research course. Right. And so I was, you know, for the last 20 years, I've been one of the guys who's good at research around here because I had that foundation.
00:49:13
Speaker
I mean, I'm not saying that the first year staff people are as good at research as I am now, but. Hmm, man, it's pretty close.
00:49:23
Speaker
You know, I had a 20 year head start on them. Right. And I know so much about all these tax code sections. they're They're pretty good. They're pretty good at doing the research themselves because the AI is helping them. So to me, that's the number one thing.
00:49:39
Speaker
um Even on that, like I'm not saying. use co-pilot for tax research. I am not saying right i know Google Gemini for tax research, chat GPT. Don't use those things.
00:49:52
Speaker
Actual tax law. um So we use co-counsel. It's the Thomson Reuters project. I think Blue Jay is very similar. Very good. It's founded on actual tax research materials. um Other internet chat GPT stuff. Don't do that. Please don't do that.
00:50:10
Speaker
um So I think that's the first thing. And I think it's super telling that I love it. And the other guy here, who's the the most technical guy in our office, who's 62 years old and just loves the tax code more than life itself, he thinks it's great.
00:50:30
Speaker
And so when we're when we're singing the praises, it makes it easy to get some of the staff people or the senior accounts into it, be like, I don't know, the two guys who know the most about the tax code thinks this is great. I guess I should be using it too. um So I think that's number one.
00:50:47
Speaker
And then as a firm, this first sort of trimester during the year, we had a group that was going through and trying to get AI embedded in like our HR functions and our IT t functions and our finance functions. So those more administrative ones.
00:51:06
Speaker
This next trimester, we're going to focus more on like the audit and the tax areas. So i I'm intrigued about what it might be able to do for 1040 intake process.
00:51:21
Speaker
I think that is something we're definitely looking at this summer. And I think that's where some AI solutions can can assist us um on the sort of bookkeeping or financial modeling.
00:51:34
Speaker
I think there can be some stuff there more with Claude in an environment where, you know, how do you help clients project and do budgets and stuff like this where There's a lot of numbers to crunch, right?
00:51:49
Speaker
And I need a place to start. yeahp um So I think using some of those, certainly we use, you know, copilot and that helps write some emails and stuff. I think that's fine.
00:52:01
Speaker
But i think some of the big impacts are still coming. But i I'm intrigued to where it's going. I think if you ask me this next, this same time next year, i think my answer will be definitely different than it was now.
00:52:20
Speaker
and What would you say, like, you know, put your magic hat on and say five years from now, how will our polar counting look differently because of AI, do you think? I think there's going to be less compliance work to do.
00:52:36
Speaker
Right. There's. I can you can see the path toward and we're getting some of this already and it's not even a. But we can see the path toward.
00:52:48
Speaker
Hey, we gathered all their 1040 documents. This 1040 can be 95 percent done. By some kind of computer system with a little bit of a. I was some reading of documents with some standard forms like.
00:53:05
Speaker
that we're we're close to that stuff. um I'm curious to see what it does to offshore. I think we're kind of, we don't really offshore any tax work.
00:53:16
Speaker
And at this point, I'm not sure we're going to. i kind of think we won't. We'll be kind of a never offshore group, remains to be seen. But I think AI can replace that kind of stuff. And we're going to turn into more advisors who can take this information and explain it to a client in a way that they understand and so that i think is of all the things i might be good at i think that's the one that i'm best at and i actually credit that to my start to bring it back to the beginning my start in the vita world
00:53:58
Speaker
So in VITA, you are sitting across the table from a taxpayer and you are explaining to them why their deductions are not deductible.
00:54:11
Speaker
Why is their dog not a tax deduction? Like all sorts of crazy questions. why Why can this W-2 employee not deduct their mileage driving to work?
00:54:26
Speaker
And so you get this skill and I did it for 25 years. You know, you get this skill of, Hey, I got to explain it in a way that you understand it. So I got to meet you where you're at.
00:54:38
Speaker
And a lot of those people are, know, they don't have college degrees that don't even speak English. Sometimes it's their first language. So I got pretty good at that.
00:54:51
Speaker
And, like salon owners, I work with a ton of them. I got to explain stuff in a way that makes sense to them. I love my salon owner clients, but like not a lot of them have and MBAs, right?
00:55:07
Speaker
You got other their clients that have MBAs and they've, They just come at it from a different standpoint. You gotta be able to speak their language, which is different. So each client's a little bit different. You gotta to be able to sort of reach them where they're at, explain it in a way that they understand it, that makes sense to them so they understand why they are doing these actions.
00:55:30
Speaker
You have to be able to explain these things. They can read it, chat GPT and all of this stuff. They can find this stuff on the internet. or with AI, but do they understand it? Is it really speaking to them? Do you have the sort of background and and information to connect with them? And then be like, oh, Chris actually knows me.
00:55:54
Speaker
When I take advice from him, a it makes sense because he can talk, he understands how to talk to me. um And so I think that's where it's headed is, yeah, there'll be tax returns that need to get filed.
00:56:10
Speaker
I think the time involved to file those tax returns is going to go down. And the time required to give advice to business owners needs to go up because that's what they can't replace with AI.
00:56:28
Speaker
That's true. and ah And again, you know, you even said it yourself from when you were volunteering in high school, but even when the pandemic, COVID pandemic started and you kind of shifted to, hey, I'm just not going to be this compliance person and I'm going to put on the advisory hat and help these clients.
00:56:45
Speaker
do stuff through loans, through PPP and yeah ERC credits, and and just became this advisor. And now, you know, with where we're going with AI, it's just going to say, hey, the stuff that is, you kind of get hidden behind the desk, you're still going to be able to do advisory because, again, like you said, you got to speak the language of the client, understand them. Yeah.
00:57:08
Speaker
Now, one of the things that I think that you have been involved in and um and you're brilliant with too is, you know, with your volunteering with the AICPA and various committees and strike forces there is tax policy legislation as it comes.
00:57:26
Speaker
um And we've seen this along the way with TCGA. We've seen this with HR1 now last summer. But again, seeing that, you know, as things come out and, you know, you you play a role in understanding, interpreting what the language of the law is and helping the profession, practitioners out there understand what's going on. And then obviously clients.
00:57:47
Speaker
um Why is practitioner involvement in legislation, especially tax legislation, very important, do you think?
Involvement in Tax Legislation
00:57:54
Speaker
Oh, man, tax policy. If only I could write it all myself, the world would be a better place. man, it would be lovely. I mean,
00:58:03
Speaker
oh man it would be lovely i mean I think back TCJA that you mentioned, when they craft this legislation, a lot of it is extensions, right? And you're like, oh, bonus depreciation was here, and now it's back, all right, fine.
00:58:25
Speaker
When they're crafting the brand new stuff, this occurred to me, and I mean, like I saw this in 2017 and it It really levels the playing field, which is interesting. So the the guy who's the head of the tax department at the time, Joe, he had 30 years of head start on me and he was brilliant.
00:58:47
Speaker
ah But then QBI came around and he didn't know anything about it and neither did I. And so we were on the exact same footing, which was a remarkable thing, which i I knew it was gonna happen. And I said, hey, this is my opportunity.
00:59:03
Speaker
But whether it's the QBI or the way PPP ERC was handled or all of this stuff in HR1, man, there are, when you sit down and read the actual code, I think it's very,
00:59:21
Speaker
I don't know if empowering is quite the right word, but it's very empowering to understand like how this is, how this stuff is written. And then you can see the flaws. Right.
00:59:33
Speaker
Right. Because you look at it with our lens and you're like, okay, I read this and I understand this, but you see the structure of it. And then you're like, oh, what about this?
00:59:44
Speaker
Oh, I guess the congressional staffers did not consider that. Right. they should They should have talked to like a CPA. And the first thing out of their mouth would be like, oh, what about this?
00:59:59
Speaker
And so I think the more people can be involved and certainly be on top of this stuff when it comes out, um I'm still very optimistic that at some point.
01:00:14
Speaker
there's ah There's a bill that we helped to to craft of for the SAFE Act, I think is what it ended up getting called. But it would dramatically improve extensions of 1040s.
01:00:30
Speaker
It would save the CPA community a ton of time and hassle. It would save clients a ton of time and hassle. It would cost the IRS very little.
01:00:42
Speaker
if hardly anything, it would make the whole tax compliance realm so much nicer. And it's an easy fix. it's It's an easy thing to understand.
01:00:55
Speaker
But we wrote it. Right. So we came up the idea. We wrote it down. I hope Congress passes it at some point, but I also hope Congress doesn't get in there and, you know, muck it up with their own, right with their own authors. But um there's just a huge difference when you can see the influence of the CPAs being like, hey, how are we going to actually administer this?
01:01:21
Speaker
That would help the IRS so much too, because Congress sees it and they're, they're trying to figure out what is this cost and how do you score this And to get the IRS perspective of like, okay, well, how do we actually administer this thing?
01:01:36
Speaker
Like that's totally different. And then how is it going to be implemented by CPAs? Ideally, you get all three of those sort of pulled together and that'll improve the tax policy. Whether you want taxes to be higher or lower, i don't really care.
01:01:52
Speaker
and just want it to be administered properly and effectively by the IRS and by practitioners and able to be understood by the clients. It doesn't matter to me if the taxes are higher or lower. That's not really my place to say, well, let Congress decide that part. Right.
01:02:11
Speaker
we can craft it just a little bit better, ah make a world of difference. Yeah. And I think this is why CPAs and practitioner voices matter in policy than most people realize. is You know, the people, like you said drafting, you know, the legislation um usually have no experience with what a tax return looks like, let alone how to prepare it or how to advise a client based on that. So therefore, that gap, we need, you know, more practitioners to step up to help fill the void if we can.
01:02:43
Speaker
So, yeah, I know it's also a big issue here in Minnesota. You don't probably have to deal with nonconformity here in Minnesota very often, but you um It's a big, big problem here in Minnesota. And they just, they don't understand the incredible effect that it has on the business owners, on the CPA community, on the, on the business, the world of business here in the state, when there's this convoluted nonconformity going on, because, you know, it got written by people scoring what stuff costs.
01:03:19
Speaker
Yep. All right, let's finish off with a few rapid fire questions, just quick answers. mom So tell me, do you like what's your favorite, golf or ultimate Frisbee?
Personal Insights into Chris Wittig
01:03:32
Speaker
Golf, too old for ultimate. Never too old for golf. If you had to travel to a city for a conference, what's the one city besides where you live that you'd be like, wow, I'm excited to go there?
01:03:47
Speaker
I am excited to go to D.C. So they have the tax conference there. right There's something about flying in or then driving and you see the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument. You're like, oh, yeah, that's that's pretty cool. Yeah.
01:04:04
Speaker
Most underrated skill for a young CPA.
01:04:09
Speaker
Picking up the phone and talking to a client. I like that on the telephone. One thing firms waste too much time on.
01:04:20
Speaker
Oh, firms waste too much time on billing. Agree. If you had subscription or prepayment, you wouldn't have to spend any time on billing. Right.
01:04:35
Speaker
What's the most important leadership trait? One word only, you think?
01:04:43
Speaker
Curiosity. i get harry And to finalize, one thing you hope changes in public accounting over the next decade?
Future of the Accounting Profession
01:04:52
Speaker
The hours. It's all about the hours to me.
01:04:57
Speaker
All the rest will fall in place. If you're working less hours, I think you'll be doing more advisory work. If you're working less hours, I think the turnover and the churn out of the industry will be much less. I think the clients will get better experiences.
01:05:12
Speaker
If you're not working crazy hours, um so it's the hours for sure. I love it. I love it. Well, Chris, thanks for this. This was very enlightening and actually a great conversation. So I appreciate it I also appreciate how you've built your career.
01:05:29
Speaker
um You didn't just pick one lane and stick to it. You know you started, it like you said, in 10th grade, you know and you just kind of put yourself out there and you did some something good by helping people. And it kind of has taken off. And each step along the way you've seen in your journey, yeah you continue to kind reflect back to that. How am My role is to help it advise people.
01:05:50
Speaker
be a resource to people? And how do I take a profession that to some level is very conservative and stuck in their ways? And how do I so continue to have a voice to shift it?
01:06:01
Speaker
And I think that is a weird combination. And honestly, it's a blueprint for where the profession needs to get to next. So thank you for what you're doing in this profession. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And obviously, I think more important than that, too, is the profession finally knows the story behind the the name Tiger, which is the tiger very important. so And where can people find you, Chris?
01:06:23
Speaker
ah LinkedIn is probably the best way. I'm on Twitter. I don't really post on there anymore. But LinkedIn, Chris Wittick is the best way to track me down. Great. And thanks to everyone listening to Tax News Now, a Becker Accounting podcast.
01:06:38
Speaker
If today's conversation was valuable, be sure to subscribe, share the episode with a colleague and check out Chris's podcast, Traction with the Tiger. We'll see you next time on the Tax News Now podcast.