ANTHONY DeFRANCO - Taxes Can Be Fun

The normally serious Anthony DeFranco, CPA, actually lit up as he gave his vocational talk on taxes. After testing the waters for other potential occupations, a young Anthony found that numbers were fascinating. And while his photo may suggest he is very SERIOUS, just ask Anthony about tax regulations and he gets almost giddy. 

Anthony established his firm, Couto, DeFranco and Magone (now Couto, DeFranco, P.A.)  in South Orange in 1992 at 15 Village Plaza, a location he maintained for at least 15 years before he moved to West Orange, across from Essex Green. He joined the Rotary Club of South Orange in 1992 - on the invitation of Sigrid Novak, Welcome Wagon Lady (there are other South Orange Rotarians can thank Sigrid for introducing them to Rotary). Anthony has served in various positions in Rotary, including Club President, and is now the Club Treasurer.

Anthony's firm not only handles taxes, but also handles estate planning and administration. His presentation offered insights into new regulation over the tax return preparer industry (as of December 2009 between 900,000 and 1.2 million individuals were preparing taxes for a fee - and a large share of those individuals did not have to pass any government or professionally mandated competency requirements before they prepared a tax return). New regulations will require registration of tax preparers, competency testing of all preparers who are not attorneys, certified public accountants or enrolled agents, and continuing professional education. 

Anthony also provided a Summary of Tax Relief regulations and some of the penalties that exist for those who want to bypass the regulations. Time ran out before Anthony could get further into the really interesting information - sounds like another program on taxes in the future.