May June 2022

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2021-2022 Year In Review

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By DeLynn Deakins, Today’s CPA Managing Editor

The 2021-2022 year continued the challenging and unprecedented time as we faced the impacts the pandemic had on our professional and daily lives. TXCPA remained committed to advocating for the profession and serving our members with critical updates and information, learning opportunities and connections to thousands of CPAs across the state.

Year in Review Video

2021-2022 Chairman Jason Freeman, JD, CPA-Dallas, and Jodi Ann Ray, TXPCA president and CEO, discuss our successes in 2021-2022 and take a look ahead at what’s planned for 2022-2023.

TXCPA is in year two of our current strategic plan. There are three pillars of success that form the foundation of our strategic plan: Community and Connection, Professional Excellence and Advocacy. Within the plan, there are three organizational goals:

  • Goal 1, Governance – Organize the Society’s governance and chapter affiliations to design an adaptable and unified structure that will act as a catalyst for growth and strengthening operations.
  • Goal 2, Technology – Acquire or leverage technology platforms to customize and expand delivery of education and member value.
  • Goal 3, Growth – Broaden member categories to reflect an evolving profession and identify complementary organizations to partner or affiliate with for expanded service capabilities.

The work done under this plan is helping TXCPA become a stronger and more future-ready organization.

Within the first year of the plan, we completed several objectives, including collaborating with all 20 chapters on the completion of affiliation agreements and completing an internal assessment of our technology resources and data.

Following is a summary of the efforts completed in 2021-2022 under the strategic plan goals and under the three pillars of success.

Goal 1 – Governance

In this second year of the plan, we consolidated some of the organization’s 501(c)(3) entities. The changes were made to increase the quality of our content and its delivery, expand our service of health and well-being to members, and to competitively position us for the future of education.

At the Midyear Board of Directors and Members meeting in January, the Board of Directors voted to merge the CPE Foundation into the Accounting Education Foundation (AEF). The work of the Accountants Confidential Assistance Network (ACAN), under the former Peer Assistance Foundation, will continue to be done through the TXCPA 501(c)(6) entity.

Goal 2 – Technology

We’re making great progress to move TXCPA and the chapters to common technology platforms and better serve our members. To date, 17 chapters have websites hosted by TXCPA, 19 chapters have nested career centers, and 16 chapters are utilizing NetForum for event registrations and engagement tracking (with all 20 chapters having access).

Goal 3 – Growth

Also at the Midyear Board of Directors and Members meeting in January, the Board of Directors approved revisions to the membership categories and dues rates, which included no state-level increase for CPA members.

Member categories were changed for simplification and clarity, as well as to provide expansion opportunities to connect more people to TXCPA. The number of member categories did not change. Please see Figure 1 for a summary of the changes that were made.

Three Pillars of Success

The following efforts were completed this year under the three pillars of success in the strategic plan – Community and Connection, Professional Excellence and Advocacy.

Community and Connection

We focused again this year on growing our community with the addition of new members. The goal this year was to grow by 1,000 new members (1/3 being CPA members). As of April 14, 2022, we had exceeded this goal, with nearly 2,700 new members added, including more than 600 new CPA members.

To engage the next generation of CPAs, we’re broadening our reach and increasing our metrics around our pipeline initiatives. We had a goal to reach at least 6,000 high school and college students with accounting career and TXCPA membership information. This is the first year we have tracked the statewide efforts related to the pipeline. As of April 14, 2022, TXCPA and our chapters reported nearly 3,200 student interactions. A statewide pipeline strategy plan is being developed to help us increase our reach and measurement going forward.

Professional Excellence

Digital learning opportunities have been critical over the past few years and they will continue to be a valuable way to provide value to members. We set a goal to increase our digital learning programs by 20%, which would be a total of 620 offerings. As of April 14, 2022, we had offered 633 digital programs.

We also began meeting in person again as pandemic conditions improved. We look forward to continuing to host in-person events and providing attendees with opportunities to network and enjoy some great destinations across the state.

To enhance state and chapter collaboration, we set out to work with at least one chapter on a CPE pilot project to have dialogue regarding a business model of CPE. TXCPA Fort Worth worked with us on a pilot this year. We thank the chapter leadership in Fort Worth for their willingness to work together on this important opportunity to deliver additional value in Fort Worth.

Advocacy

In the area of advocacy, we continued our work to extend the TXCPA brand to promote the profession to the public through our CPA Advantage campaign, with a goal this year of hitting 2 million impressions. As of April 14, 2022, we had more than 1 million impressions and our largest awareness campaign rolled out in the spring.

To expand the influence of the CPA-PAC, we set out to increase participation to at least 5% of members and strive for a fundraising amount of at least $250,000. As of April 14, 2022, we reached $235,000 of this goal.

TXCPA and AICPA leaders held annual hill visits virtually this past fall. We met with 18 Texas Congressional offices, including both senators. These important opportunities enable us to strengthen our relationships and have significant dialogue with our legislators.

When we visited with legislators, we addressed four key pieces of legislation that would impact the profession and discussed the following:

  • The bipartisan Filing Relief for Natural Disasters Act (H.R. 3574/S. 2748), which would allow the IRS specific authority to quickly postpone certain deadlines in response to state-declared disasters;
  • COVID-19 Tax Penalty Relief, H.R. 5155, the Taxpayer Penalty Protection Act of 2021, which would provide taxpayers with targeted relief from both the underpayment of estimated tax penalty and the late payment penalty for the 2020 tax year;
  • HCR 44/SCR 11, Fiscal State of the Nation Concurrent Resolutions, which require the Comptroller General to present the Financial Report of the U.S. Government to an annual joint hearing of the House and Senate Budget Committees;
  • Objective analysis of the nation’s financial position;
  • Supporting AICPA and the accounting profession’s enhanced awareness of the federal budget deficit and improving fiscal decision-making;
  • H.R. 3855, the Accounting STEM Pursuit Act of 2021, which would include or recognize accounting under the technology definition of STEM. TXCPA’s Federal Tax Policy Committee (FTP) was hard at work addressing issues that impact the profession and urging changes within the IRS. As of this writing, the FTP:
  • Urged sufficient IRS funding to improve taxpayer services (May 2021);
  • Recommended the IRS stop collection efforts and other administrative actions against taxpayers while related correspondence is unread or unresolved, address inaccessibility of the IRS phone system and implement the NTA’s recommendations for more efficient communications (September 2021);
  • Requested changes in IRS statute of limitation practices (December 2021);
  • Recommended that the IRS streamline and expedite the administrative adjustment request process of the Centralized Partnership Audit regime (January 2022);
  • Recommended TXCPA join other state CPA societies asking members of Congress to support bipartisan House and Senate letters to improve this year’s tax filing season process (January 2022);
  • Recommended that the IRS engage and seek comments from the tax professional community before moving forward with any additional third-party authentication process (February 2022);
  • Urged Treasury and the IRS to fully delay implementation of Schedules K-2 and K-3 filing requirements to 2023 for the 2022 tax year (March 2022);
  • Called for a balanced IRS budget in the Build Back Better Act (March 2022).

Get Involved

We are thankful for the many contributions of our members and state and chapter leaders who made the work possible this year and kept us focused on achieving our goals. We’re always looking for new leaders and volunteers at TXCPA. If you have not served in a volunteer role and are interested in participating, please contact your chapter or visit the “Get Involved” section on our website.

TXCPA’s Annual Meeting of Members and Board of Directors Meeting will be held on July 1-2, 2022, at the family friendly Kalahari Resorts and Convention in Round Rock, Texas. We’ll have a full agenda of engaging topics and opportunities for you to shape the future of TXCPA and your profession. We’ll also provide a full report on our progress as we continue to move TXCPA’s priorities forward. We hope to see you there!