Shortage of Accountants in the US Leads to Tax Returns Prepared from India

[OhioChick]

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Pune, Maharashtra, India, 11/25/2006 - ValueNotes estimates that in 2006, approximately 360,000 Returns were prepared by Indian vendors, garnering $40 million in revenues. Shortage of accountants and the grueling tax season are the prime offshoring drivers.

A report by Pune-based ValueNotes, estimates that as many as 360,000 US tax returns were prepared in India in 2006. It anticipates further growth, estimating at least 1.6 million returns will be prepared here in 2011. The estimates are conservative and the potential is much larger at 22 million returns per year by 2011, but actual offshoring will be limited by CPA firms’ inhibitions about offshoring. However, competitive pressures could force many more firms to offshore.

Says Glen Keenan, President of Xpitax, a facilitating outfit “The whole outsourcing business requires quite a shift in thinking for the CPA firms, so comfort factor has to be really high in order to do that”.

The accounting and audit services are relatively new in offshoring and are gradually gaining maturity with each passing tax season. Unlike other services, which are traditionally outsourced due to cost pressures, the demand for Returns offshoring is stems from the lack of accountants and excessive workload during the “tax season”. The number of CPAs and other qualified accountants in the US are just not enough to meet the increasing demand from increasing tax compliance, Sarbanes–Oxley related work, estate planning, advisory etc. The demand-supply mismatch has led to severe competition for experienced accountants and salaries are skyrocketing, even at starting levels. CPA firms are discovering that offshored Returns are not only turned around faster, but are also 40% to 60% cheaper. CPA firms after initial success with Returns preparation is slowly sending more work offshore: bookkeeping, financial statements analysis, etc.

http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/11053/

[pooja]

1. that's a bunch of bullshit... I know a lot of people who have graduated

with accounting and have a shit job because they can't find an accounting job....

[pooja]

5. When you are younger and starting out.. you know people who

have the skills and they are serving other's dinners at a rest. American co. just doesn't want to pay for the skills.... Its like the whole scientist/ math thing... plenty of people out ther (myself included)... highly trained-- terrible job perspectives... bunch of b.s.

[Joanne98]

2. LIARS! There is NO shortage. Just more OUT-SOURCING!

[DianeG5385]

3. This is crap. This is being done for filthy lucre, nothing else!!

I'm a CPA and have been doing taxes for 30 years. We need to stop allowing this nonsense or pretty soon they'll be outsourcing our lives to India, they're just trying to break our high expectations of a better life to cheap us down. Don't patronize outsourcers! The next job outsourced could be your own!

[Bozita]

4. Didn't we already go through this with programmers and H1-B visas?

[brokensymmetry]

18. Yeah. And the programmers lost.

So did everyone else in IT.

But the billionaires made more money, so
on average it's good. :sarcasm:

[Lisa0825]

6. TOTAL bullshit.

I had 6 accountant positions to fill with a major hospital, and we got over 200 applicants for each one of them. And that's not counting the other more advanced job titles, like Financial Analyst I and II, which also got over 100 applicants each. And furthermore, at least HALF the applicants I reviewed were actually qualified. That's a lot of accountants out there looking for work!

[filer]

7. What shortage?

When I examine my competition, there never seems to be a shortage.

[whistle]

8. Noam Chomsky recently made the comment that our political and

...economic system is designed to keep the wealthiest 10% of Americans both rich and happy while the remaining 90% are kept in fear so that they will pay to keep the wealthiest 10% that way. Out-sourcing is one of the ways this is accomplished. This and more of what Chomsky said is at this Google Video link.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3556931934798596578&q=noam+chomsky

[acmejack]

9. But, but, we need more H-1Bs!

There aren't enough skilled Americans, I had it explained here how in my own field, that despite the fact I and my unemployed contemporaries were not working in the field, there was such a shortage of skilled workers they needed to immediately expand the number of H-1B visas and get more foreign workers over here. Ballmer said Microsoft had to have more foreign programmers NOW! There were NO Americans capable of doing the job.

We are either too stupid, too incompetent or as we all know this is the reality TOO EXPENSIVE!

[Gin]

10. I call BULLSHIT! It's all about the bottom line...not this line they are

feeding us. There is either a shortage...or we are lazy...or we need to get more training....all bullshit.....it's all about money...nothing more...nothing less.

[OhioChick]

12. Bingo! n/t

[acmejack]

14. Exactly!

I saw the era begin with Jack Welch's ascension at GE, he introduced the bean counter mentality. Everything changed, where every quarter had to exceed the previous one. Just in time production became the thing, all the mid level managers were fired. Mid level managers were the usually the long term employees who were never going to run GE. They ruthlessly sold off pieces of the business, screwing people out of their pensions, he closed the company store where you could get great deals on GE appliances and consumer goods from light bulbs to TVs. They called him "Neutron Jack", the line was when he visited a facility, that by the time he left all that remained was the buildings. He was, of course, Business Magazines CEO of the Year.

[Blue Diadem]

11. What's so darn sad is that people will believe we lack qualified individuals.

I wish they'd speak the truth. They don't bother to hire in the US because they are attempting to increase their profits by outsourcing to a foreign country.

[AngryOldDem]

13. This is the same line of bullshit IT companies sold

"There are no qualified programmers." Horseshit. They're all over the place, but the trouble is, they expect to be paid a salary commensurate with their experience and education. Thus, the myopia on the part of a lot of companies -- they can't "find" them because they won't look for them.

Jesus -- what jobs AREN'T we willing to offshore?

[gemdem]

27. Your question's rhetorical, but the reality is

There are NO white collar jobs that can't be outsourced -- or to be more exact, offshored. If it requires a computer, a phone and a desk, it CAN and WILL be offshored.

Computer programming. Accounting. Management. Preparation and review of medical reports (transmitted and returned by way of the Internet). Banking and finance. Customer support. The list is endless. Any job you can think of that is office-based and done on a computer either is already being offshored or SOON WILL BE.

It's not hysteria. It's reality. And it sucks.

[Odin2005]

15. Neo-Liberal Corporatist bullshit.

This crap goes in the same catagory that "Mexicans do jobs American's won't do" is in.

Oh, and my mom has a degree in accounting, they should be hiring her so she's not stuck working in a bar instead of brining in Indians.

[aggiesal]

16. My Bull-$hit meter is set on HIGH with this story. n/t

[notadmblnd]

17. I worked one year for a national tax service

pay is minimum wage and a commission on the "bank services" you push on the people. I felt like a vulture being forced to prey on people who could least afford it. Needless to day I didn't make much money that tax season.

[KSU Wildcat]

19. I do not need an accountant to do my taxes..

I use a program called "Tax Cut" and it does my taxes better than any accountant-tax preparer I ever used before. Mine is not a simple one either with some farm income, investments, retirement income and rental property.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. What's next? CEOs? Lawyers?

How exactly does it work after none of us have a job?

[Bozita]

23. biglaw firms have begun outsourcing word processing and admin. functions - NYT link

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0A11F73F5B0C748EDDA90994DE404482

Law Firms Are Starting To Adopt Outsourcing


By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: October 27, 2006

For years, outsourcing has been a dirty word inside the world of white-shoe law firms.

While certain law firms hired companies to handle travel or records storage, most drew the line at sending client billing or confidential documents out of their offices, let alone out of the country.

A number of large law firms, though, are starting to tiptoe onto far-flung shores.

The latest is Clifford Chance, one of the largest law firms in the world with 29 offices in 20 countries, which will announce plans today to consolidate and move big chunks of its administrative functions like accounting and technological support to an operation in Delhi, India, by next spring.

The shift to India could eventually result in up to $18 million a year in savings, the law firm estimates.

more...

[pooja]

21. It now makes sense that Walmart is spiffing up in the area... since,

proffesionals have now been outsourced... they will have to work at Walmart like everyone else.

[Ezlivin]

22. What non-outsourced jobs will be left for Americans?

Okay, so this is a "global" market now.

What the hell are we going to bring to the table? Every skilled job we can do can be done overseas for less money. And what non-skilled jobs remain that pay enough to allow someone to make a living? It seems that the illegals are filling those slots.

Perhaps this is why crystal meth is spreading so rapidly: It's a non-outsourced, non-skilled job that can create big non-taxed profits. And it sells itself.

[Greyhound]

24. We've seen this before, starts with the mythical "shortage" of a worker class

then the off-shoring, then the increase in H-1(b)/L-1 visas, then $tarbuck$ is awash in applications from college educated baristas.

[gulliver]

25. Just what I want to invest in! A company who outsources...

... their books to India! Where do I sign up? I'm sure those Indian accountants will keep things on the up-and-up. And I absolutely love the idea that my tax records might be going over there. Republicanism. An endless, boundless cornucopia of good things for America.

[OhioChick]

26. Your credit card

information is most likely over there already.....

on edit: spelling

[area51]

28. kick. (n/t)

[sweetheart]

29. complexity of tax code makes meaningless work

...for somebody... and squanders the serious economic contribution of millions,
billions if one considers the trade distorting subsidies the code lavishes upon
undeserving corporate citizens.