The NATP National Conference in Baltimore
has come to an end. In my 25-years as an
NATP member (and 41 seasons as a paid preparer) I have attended probably 20 of
these conferences. At this point I find
that I really do not learn anything new of consequence at Conference - but I do
pick up, or am reminded of, an occasional deduction, credit, loophole,
technique, or strategy that would apply to a client.
However, despite my personal reaction, I do
say to tax pros - like Iowa, “You Ought to Give the NATP National Conference a
Try”!
And many did this year. I heard that this was the highest attendance in
Conference history, with over 1300 attendees.
First and foremost - attending the
annual NATP National Conference is an excellent way of taking a tax-deductible
vacation (see my recent TWTP post). Over
the years I have visited Anaheim, Atlanta, Arlington, Alexandria, Austin, Boston,
Corpus Christi, Minneapolis, Orlando, Sans Antonio, Diego and Francisco,
Washington DC, and other locations as a registrant at the NATP and other membership
organization tax conferences.
You can arrange your schedule so
as to have a full or half-day off for sightseeing. Here in Baltimore the conference was Monday
through Thursday. I worked it so that I
did not have any educational sessions on Tuesday. While I choose to “sleep in” and start my
classes at 10AM and end after 4PM, I could have begun at 8AM and finished by
3PM. You also have the day before and
the day after for local activities. And
of course there is always the evening for dining, theatre, concerts, and the
local nightlife.
The cost of a room is the same
whether there is one person in the room or two – so you can bring your spouse
and still deduct the full cost of the room.
And, while on a vacation, your primary purpose for being where you are
is attending the tax conference, so all of your travel is deductible.
If staying an overnight on a
Saturday results in a reduced airfare an IRS ruling allows you to deduct all of
your out-of-pocket costs of staying the extra day, even though there are no
business activities on this additional day.
The tax savings from the
deduction will usually cover at least the cost of the Conference fee, and often
ends up providing “reimbursement” for some of the actual travel costs.
While Conference offers the
opportunity to stay at a luxury hotel, often excellently located in downtown or
waterfront areas, at a discount, sometimes a deep one, you do not have to stay
at the host hotel. Here in Baltimore (on
the waterfront) the Marriott room rate was $149 for conference attendees (actually
over $170 per night after taxes and other charges). I stayed in the Mount Vernon Cultural District
at a mid-level chain for just under $70 per night (total cost) and about $20
per day in taxis to and from Conference.
If I were in better shape/condition
I could have taken a free bus from my hotel to the waterfront area and walked
to the host hotel.
Now that the IRS requires RTRPs
to maintain at least 15 hours of annual CPE in federal taxation, the Conference
allows you to fill some, or all, of these credit hours. You can easily earn more than 15 hours of CPE
at Conference. And the offerings include
the required 3 hours of “updates” (I.e. Current Developments for both
individual and business tax issues) and several hours of ethics preaching.
I am unique.
·
I do not accept any new 1040 clients, and I do
not do any partnership, sub-S corporation, or estate tax returns.
·
I have no desire to represent taxpayers in
dealings with the IRS (other than to attend the audit of a return I have prepared).
·
While I do believe that you can teach an old dog
new tricks, this old dog does not necessarily want to learn new tricks,
especially when it may apply to only one or two, or none, of my current clients
once or twice.
·
Because I write extensively during the year on
tax topics I must keep abreast of “current developments” as they happen via
independent reading and research. And I
always attend the NATP’s year-end “Famous 1040 Seminar” (or as it is now called
“The Essential 1040”), which covers current developments through November.
So there are only so many sessions offered
at Conference of interest, or actual value, to me.
However, for a younger preparer, or one wishing
to develop or expand his/her practice, there is a multitude of sessions on a
wide variety of tax preparation and planning and practice management topics
taught by, in most cases, excellent speakers who are experts in their
particular topic.
FYI – the 2013 conference is July 8 – 11 at
the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix, Arizona, and the 2014
conference is August 11 - 14 at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, Florida
(again, extremely hot locations, weather-wise, at the hottest times of the year
– my main complaint with NATP about the conferences).
RDF
Robert,
ReplyDeleteThe next two conferences are in Pheonix and
Orlando, if you were a betting person, where would bet 2015 will be?