2017: Resolutions or Resignations?

The other day at my health club, they were offering each member a complimentary body fat test via a new state-of-the-art contraption they had just purchased.

After mulling it over I declined. The tandem of holiday eating and my mother-in-law baking endless trays of fried dough cookies, would, in my estimation, put my fat-to-muscle percentage at or near the current Dow Jones Industrial Average.

So as you can imagine, one of my resolutions for 2017 is to forge an intimate relationship with a treadmill.

But as most of you know, now that the holidays are over, it signals that filing season is around the corner – figuratively and literally.

So in the space of say, four to five weeks, it probably is as good a time as any to step back and evaluate your practice in terms of what needs to be done, once the piles of 1040s begin winding down.

By the way, for those unaware, you have three extra days this year as the deadline is April 18^th.

Along those lines, it might behoove you to compile a laundry list per se of what can and what will affect your practice this year.

For example, if you’re the managing partner in a multi-partner firm, have any of your fellow stakeholders’ career or retirement goals changed over the past year?

Just as importantly will any critical staff be retiring in the near future?

On a longer term basis, are there any partners who want to reduce their time commitment over the next several years and more importantly do you possess the internal capacity to replace them should that happen?

Is your ownership agreement up to date? Do you even have one and if so, do you know what’s in it?

While that may sound like a no-brainer, incredibly, in a recent survey some 25 percent of large firms and more than 50 percent of small firms do not know what is contained in their ownership agreement.

Now think about that one for a minute.

So before your firm becomes a warehouse for the truckloads of tax organizers that will invariably pour in over the next several weeks, it’s recommended you set aside some face time with your partners and determine what needs to be done to keep your practice humming along.

Either that or resign yourself to the fact that it will be business as usual – and that’s not necessarily a good thing these days.