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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Changing nature of work and technology

I've written about this a few times before* and hope to someday (soon) complete a more thorough analysis of economic, social, technological and environmental trends and how they illustrate where our tax laws are out of date and how we might change them to make the most of current technologies and ways of doing business.

I saw a short video today released by the AICPA to recruit young people to become CPAs, that highlights some of these trends, such as that young people entering the workforce today will want to work from outside of the office. After all, why be tied to an office from 8 - 5 (although I recall it was 8 am to 2 am most of my days in public accounting - a long time ago) if you can reach clients and conduct research from anywhere? Even client and employee recruitment will continue to change.

Some of the tax questions this raises is the reality that we will have a more mobile workforce and location will really matter less in a firm's ability to generate revenue. People will expect to be able to communicate with their advisers and tax agencies just as they might on a social network.

The video can be found here. Here is more of the AICPA "Start Here, Go Places" recruitment campaign.

What do you think - (1) of the direction the tax law needs to move to be in the 21st century - and (2) of the video?

* Some prior posts and writings on trends and tax reform:

2 comments:

Monica said...

I've wondered where tax law is going to go in relation to telecommuting. The last big news I heard was a few years ago in New York. If I remember correctly, the state Supreme Court upheld New York's ability to tax a Connecticut resident on income earned from a New York employer, even though the taxpayer usually worked from home. Has there been more recent activity in this area? I actually ask because of more than just curiosity, as I happen to live in one state and telecommute for an employer in another!

Professor Nellen said...

Monica - thanks for the comments. I don't believe there has been a change. There was a federal proposal to address it, but it was not enacted. I have a bit more on this here - http://21stcenturytaxation.blogspot.com/2009/09/state-taxes-and-mobile-workforce.html