CPE & Event Calendar

A discussion of recent law changes that impact capitalization, depreciation, and disposition of assets. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The employer-employee relationship strains both sides in uncertain times, and businesses need CPAs, controllers, and other advisors to provide understanding of the complex legal, tax, and health care issues associated with all aspects of employment. This course provides in-depth coverage of this critical area.

Elevate your data reporting skills to new heights with our cutting-edge course, "Create Paginated Reports with Power BI Report Builder." This two-hour, expertly crafted training is designed to transform the way you visualize and present data, leveraging the powerful capabilities of Microsoft Power BI Report Builder. Ideal for professionals who aspire to turn complex data into compelling, print-ready reports, this course is a game-changer in the realm of data visualization and business intelligence. Delve into the world of paginated reporting with a curriculum that balances theoretical knowledge with practical examples and demonstrations. You'll learn how to navigate the Power BI Report Builder interface with ease, design intricate report layouts, and connect to diverse data sources for comprehensive reporting. The course covers a spectrum of skills, from creating eye-catching visualizations to utilizing advanced features like sub-reports and drill-through capabilities. By the end of this session, you'll be adept at publishing and sharing professional-grade, paginated reports that can inform and persuade your audience. Enroll now and take the first step towards mastering the art of paginated reporting with Power BI Report Builder. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Elevate your data analysis capabilities with our focused course on Power Query. Tailored for financial professionals, this training will show you how to get started using Power Query and teach you some of the ways to take advantage of its ability to handle messy data and automate repetitive tasks. Harness the efficiency of Power Query to revolutionize the way you work with data. Learn how to "program" your tasks once and set them on repeat, eliminating the need for repetitive, robotic work. This automation not only saves time but also ensures consistency and accuracy in your data processes. Whether you're dealing with complex datasets or simply looking to streamline your reporting processes, this course will equip you with the tools and knowledge to make Excel work for you like never before.

Two college graduates built impressive careers: One worked in sales, the other in technology and investing. Both of those people made decisions in the course of their business that led to government investigations. They had to hire attorneys, go through judicial processes, face charges, and plead guilty. Each of those people are on their way to prison. Learn from the lessons they offer. We interview both financial professionals, and they tell us more about how their decisions influenced the consequences that followed. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Explore the intricacies of federal income taxation as it intertwines with rental real estate activities. This course delves into the calculation of rental income, understanding the nuances of deductions, and unraveling the complexities of passive activity loss rules. Whether it's mastering Schedule E or understanding Congress' intent behind tax laws, professionals will leave with an enriched understanding.

Many partnerships and S corporations are now required to complete the voluminous Schedules K-2 and K-3 to report foreign-related tax information. Updated for the 2024 tax year, this course is an essential guide for tax preparers on how to identify which entities need to complete these schedules and how to identify which parts are applicable to a given taxpayer. The filing requirements are broad and often not very intuitive, catching many practitioners unaware that more schedules and parts are applicable to more taxpayers than anticipated. This course includes a deep dive into the domestic filing exception, a discussion of filing requirements of each part of Schedule K-2, and numerous examples of common taxpayer scenarios. Please note: Surgent also offers a companion course, "Schedules K-2 and K-3: Preparation of Forms" (KPF2).

Globalization continues to make it easier for taxpayers to live abroad, do business in other countries, or invest in foreign enterprises. This creates significant complications and tax planning opportunities when it comes to filing U.S. tax returns. This course provides an overview of the unique tax challenges and solutions presented to U.S. expats or investors living or investing abroad. It examines how foreign-source income is taxed in the U.S. and how the tax consequences could be mitigated by applying the tax treaties, claiming credit for foreign taxes paid, or excluding foreign-earned income. Additionally, the course discusses the numerous foreign informational form reporting requirements and the significant penalties that could be imposed by the IRS. Examples from real-life client scenarios are included.

Recent legislation in Congress has provided the IRS with substantially increased funding to bolster its human staff and purchase software that will allow the IRS to audit many more taxpayers in a more effective way. The IRS believes it can target the right kinds of taxpayers for audits so that it will not waste its time on audits that produce little, if any, revenue. The purpose of this program is to discuss the current state of IRS audits and the anticipated increases in the IRS's ability to audit wealthier taxpayers in an efficient way. The course will discuss the state of the IRS's current audits and where the IRS is headed with audits in the coming years. Tax practitioners should also be aware of the state of the IRS's efforts to target efficiencies so as to produce the most revenue.

Most financial leaders would agree that budgeting is easy when business and the economy are stable. When revenues and expenses are expected to remain the same, the process becomes merely an exercise in carrying over what was done before to the current year. However, what happens when we are not sure about how the market will react to our product? What happens when the competitive landscape changes? In this course, we will discuss budgeting techniques and considerations when business lacks stability. Through a combination of theory and real-world examples, we will explore how to build flexibility into our budget - so that it can inform and drive decision-making when we don't quite know what is ahead. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Many CPAs are becoming full-time or fractional CFOs for small businesses. In that position, they are the resident expert in finances, cash flow planning, and budgeting. But what about dealing with the IRS? The IRS has broad powers to administer the assessment and collection of taxes. From removing penalties to criminal prosecutions, this presentation focuses on how CFOs can prevent problems with the IRS and how to develop winning strategies if the IRS knocks on the door. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

For the past two decades the trend has been to move away from brick and mortar offices and have a greater number of people work or telecommute from home. Because of the upheaval caused by recent events, the rate of this move has been accelerated. This has and will continue to create control challenges and organizations must work to address these. Such things as moving from time based employee value to task completion based measurement and the ability to drive needed inter-company communication are just a sample of the issues with which entities must contend. This session looks at the benefits and pitfalls of workers that telecommute. It then discusses important risks and controls to consider as this trend continues and evolves in the business world. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This seminar reviews situations in which a CPA or accounting professional may be in danger of being sued. We cover common law causes of action, such as negligence, and the relevant standards and case law defining what constitutes reasonable practitioner behavior. This course is ideal for lawyers, CPAs, EAs, tax preparers, accountants and insurance personnel. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

As the population of the United States ages, tax practitioners will be asked to advise their individual clients with respect to when they should begin to take Social Security benefits. This program will provide you with the background to knowledgeably discuss the benefit options available to Social Security beneficiaries and the alternative payment options available to married couples, dependents, a surviving spouse, and a divorced individual.

In this cutting-edge course, participants will gain a deep understanding of how to leverage ChatGPT, OpenAI's powerful language model, to innovate and enhance business advisory services in the accounting sector. The course integrates theory and practice, demonstrating how various enterprise evaluation methodologies can be applied in conjunction with ChatGPT for increased business analysis efficiency, profitability, and growth. It also provides hands-on training for implementing these techniques in real-world scenarios. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Organizations and individuals enticed by the siren song of artificial intelligence cannot ignore ethical considerations. Professionals must consider accuracy of information, data privacy, independence, source citations, organizational policies, security, data retention, and other ethical matters. This course discusses ethical issues associated with the utilization of AI in a professional setting and provides suggested best practices. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Managerial accounting provides economic and financial information for managers and other internal users. Managerial and Financial Accounting have similarities and differences. Each field of accounting deals with the economic events of a business. Both managerial and financial accounting require that a company’s economic events be quantified and communicated to interested parties. This another course in our series on the controller’s role. The controller’s role encompasses many traditional functions. Within this segment of our controllership series, we discuss the area of managerial accounting and the basic concepts that surround this discipline as it primarily relates to cost accounting issues.  

The AICPA revised the Statements on Standards for Tax Services, providing the framework for the AICPA ethical guidance for tax practitioners. This program will review the new standards that apply to all members who provide tax services, effective January 1, 2024.    This course does not quality for IRS credit.

The new Global Internal Audit Standards were released on January 9, 2024, and will become effective January 9, 2025. The previous version, the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing, released in 2017, remains approved for use during a one-year transition period. The Global Internal Audit Standards guide the worldwide professional practice of internal audit. They serve as a basis for evaluating and elevating the quality of the internal audit function. The Standards use 15 guiding principles with five separate domains that enable effective internal audit implementation and examples of evidence of conformance. The Global Standards are organized into five domains. Domain I: Purpose of Internal Auditing Domain II: Ethics and Professionalism Domain III: Governing the Internal Audit Function Domain IV: Managing the Internal Audit Function Domain V: Performing Internal Audit Service

Join us for our next monthly Accounting & Auditing Committee meeting! All MassCPAs members are welcome and you don't have to be a member of the committee to attend a meeting. CPE credit: In order to verify your attendance, you must log into Zoom with the same email address you used to register for this event. This email address should also be linked to your MassCPAs profile. To review or update your account, please click here.  Join the committee! By joining the committee roster, you'll have special access to the Accounting & Auditing Online Community on The HUB-an exclusive space for committee members to connect, post messages and access meeting resources. If you have any questions, contact Melissa at MNystedt@masscpas.org