It’s now been five years since this website was created, publishing its first article on December 29, 2014 (Memo Analyzes Proper Deduction of Mortgage Interest Where There are Multiple Obligors on the Note). At the time I was writing the site for Nichols Patrick CPE, Inc., using material I was writing for the database I was in charge of managing to create our annual tax update course.

The course, originated by Lynn Nichols many years back, has always been called Current Federal Tax Developments, so that became the website’s name once I confirmed the URL was available.

An annual tax update course is always a bit challenging, since tax news happens all year long, but most of the sessions would be booked in late fall/early winter. And, unlike most courses that deal with a specific topic, an annual update course has virtually nothing that can be used from year to year--each year’s manual is completely new material, or virtually so. After all, it is supposed to be an update for the year, so it needs to look at what has changed.

Since it would be a virtually impossible task to start from scratch in early September to develop a full manual for the first courses in October starting with nothing already written, material had to be drafted during the year as news came out. Decisions were made in September and moving forward on which developments “made the cut” to be included in the 8 hour course.

Not surprisingly, that means a lot of material gathered during the year ends up not making it into the course, since an 8 hour CPE session can only cover so much. Putting a development in the course necessarily means having to leave out some other item that took place over the year.

The website has provided an outlet for the material as it is developed. I still rely on this material for source material for those year end courses, but this way the material that “wasn’t important enough” to fit in the 8 hours can be made available rather than never to be seen. Because often material “isn’t important enough” to devote time to in the full course because it only impacts a small percentage of those attending the course. But that doesn’t mean that item isn’t crucial to that small percentage of CPAs and their clients.

Shortly after the website got started, in early 2015, we expanded our already existing audio podcast to add a video version and a page on the website to contain that podcast. The Current Federal Tax Developments podcasts predates the website by many years, actually being started when the firm was called Mares Nichols CPE, with the late Michael Mares being the co-owner of the CPE organization along with Lynn Nichols at the time.

Originally the podcast was recorded on a rotating basis by Mike, Lynn and me. Following Michael’s untimely passing, for a while Lynn and I recorded on a rotating basis, with Lynn taking over full time in early 2011. A couple of years later it shifted over to me recording the podcasts each week.

In 2016 Kaplan, Inc. acquired Nichols Patrick CPE, at which time the site and podcast became part of the Kaplan organization. Initially the accounting CPE division was called the Loscalzo Institute, so for a while the site was rebranded to use that name. Eventually we came under the Kaplan Financial Education umbrella, which is what you now see as the subtitle in our header on each page.

But despite the name changes and ownership changes, the website is still pretty much as it has been since the first items were published in late December 2014. I appreciate the freedom that all of the owners have allowed me in dealing with the course and site. And I am also grateful that readers come back to the site and refer others here.

The education of a CPA in tax goes far beyond the formal training in college or the CPE courses the CPA attends each year. This site was started as a way to help CPAs get that additional “beyond CPE course” knowledge.

Obviously, we also hope this reminds you that we here at Kaplan Financial Education, with our state CPA society partners, are here to provide you with useful formal courses to fulfill both your legally mandated licensing requirement and, at the same time, help meet the educational needs you have regardless of the formal rules.