What happens when technology really takes off and allows people to file complex tax returns on their own or technology starts cutting into our review and audit work?

The severe changes we see around us are not going to stop. In fact the rate of change is going to increase. This will turn our lives as CPAs upside down just like it is going to drastically affect everyone else.

Think about this:

Don’t believe me? Try this one on for size. What happens, tax preparers, when someone releases a mobile app that files your taxes for you? That ain’t science fiction — it’s already happened. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine a day when CPAs won’t be doing tax returns at all. What happens then?

That is from Bill Sheridan of the Maryland Association of CPAs in his post Good at your job? So what? Time to learn how to do something new.

Mr. Sheridan says we need to continuously learn how to do our work differently.

We have already seen radical changes in delivery of bookkeeping and simple tax returns.

What are we CPAs going to do when technology starts cutting into complex tax returns and reviews & audits?

I don’t have any clue. Neither do you.

But that won’t slow change for even one day.

You may be reading this post and have an unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach that there something going on that you don’t know about but probably ought to figure out. If that is the case, you don’t have any idea where to start.

A good first step would be reading the post from MACPA: Good at your job? So what? Time to learn how to do something new.

A superb second step would be to read every blog post MACPA publishes. Subscribe by e-mail, set up an RSS feed, or go to their site a few times every week. Just get started.

For another post on the same day as the one above which points out the exact same risk and the exact same solution, check out Mars Dorian writing at {grow}Why Human Competition is the Least You Have to Fear. By the way, reading everything Mark Schaefer posts would be a good third step. Seth Godin, a fourth step. Or maybe Godin is first, and CPA success second. 

Well, you get the point. Get started.

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