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88–718 2014

CASH ACCOUNTING: A SIMPLER METHOD FOR 

SMALL FIRMS? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, TAX AND 

CAPITAL ACCESS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 10, 2014 

Small Business Committee Document Number 113–074 

Available via the GPO Website: www.fdsys.gov 

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Congress.#13
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri, Chairman 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

RICHARD HANNA, New York 

TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

KERRY BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

NYDIA VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

YVETTE CLARKE, New York 

JUDY CHU, California 

JANICE HAHN, California 

DONALD PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

GRACE MENG, New York 

BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

ANN McLANE KUSTER, New Hampshire 

PATRICK MURPHY, Florida 

LORI SALLEY, Staff Director 

PAUL SASS Deputy Staff Director 

BARRY PINELES, Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL DAY, Minority Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Page 

Hon. Tom Rice .......................................................................................................... 1 

Hon. Judy Chu ......................................................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Donald Williamson, Professor, Department of Accounting and Taxation, 

Executive Director, Kogod Tax Center, American University, Washington, 

DC .......................................................................................................................... 3 

Ms. Sarah Windham, Senior Tax Manager, Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, 

Charleston, SC, testifying on behalf of the South Carolina Farm Bureau ..... 5 

Ms. Terry Durkin, Owner, Durkin Associates, Burlington, MA, testifying on 

behalf of the National Association of Enrolled Agents ..................................... 7 

Mr. Stephen Mankowski, Partner, EP Caine & Associates CPA, LLC, Bryn 

Mawr, PA, testifying on behalf of the National Conference of CPA Practitioners ................................................................................................................... 9 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

Mr. Donald Williamson, Professor, Department of Accounting and Taxation, Executive Director, Kogod Tax Center, American University, 

Washington, DC ............................................................................................ 26 

Ms. Sarah Windham, Senior Tax Manager, Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, 

Charleston, SC, testifying on behalf of the South Carolina Farm Bureau ................................................................................................................ 37 

Ms. Terry Durkin, Owner, Durkin Associates, Burlington, MA, testifying 

on behalf of the National Association of Enrolled Agents ......................... 42 

Mr. Stephen Mankowski, Partner, EP Caine & Associates CPA, LLC, 

Bryn Mawr, PA, testifying on behalf of the National Conference of 

CPA Practitioners ......................................................................................... 46 

Questions for the Record: 

None. 

Answers for the Record: 

None. 

Additional Material for the Record: 

American Bar Association (ABA) .................................................................... 52 

American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) .................................. 59 

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) ....................... 62 

CTA Statement ................................................................................................. 70 

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) ............................................. 73 

National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) .................................. 76 

Jeffrey Wald, Chief Executive Officer, Kennedy and Coe, LLC ................... 79 

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(1) 

CASH ACCOUNTING: A SIMPLER METHOD FOR 

SMALL FIRMS? 

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, 

TAX AND CAPITAL ACCESS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2360, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Tom Rice [chairman of 

the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Rice, Chabot, Mulvaney, Hanna, 

Schweikert, Chu, Paine, and Schneider. 

Chairman RICE. Good morning. This hearing will come to order. 

First, let me thank our witnesses for taking time to be with us 

today to talk about how to help small businesses prosper. 

As a former tax attorney and CPA for nearly 30 years, I know 

firsthand that tax complexity is a big problem facing small business owners. Today, we are going to examine one way to simplify 

life for small firms by looking at the issue of the cash method of 

accounting, which offers a simple, straightforward solution for entrepreneurs to record business income and expenses. In cash accounting, a business records incoming expenses at the time the 

funds are received or paid, just like with a personal checkbook, and 

it makes it fairly easy to track cash flow, the lifeblood of many entrepreneurs. Perhaps because of this simplicity it is a preferred 

method of accounting for small businesses. 

The other, more complicated method, accrual accounting, requires a business to record income at the time a sale is made or 

an agreement to provide services reached, regardless of when the 

payment is actually received. By the same token, expenses are recorded when they are obligated to be paid, regardless of when the 

funds were actually dispersed. 

In determining which accounting method to use, small business 

owners must comply with the Internal Revenue code. Most businesses are required to use the accrual method, though exceptions 

exist which permit firms of certain types and sizes to use the cash 

method. 

Ultimately, whichever method is used can have very real effects 

on how a small business operates. Given this, it would be in the 

interest of us here in Washington to ensure our nation’s job creators have the flexibility to use the accounting method that best 

suits their operations and gives them the best chance to succeed. 

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We are fortunate to have with us a group of leaders within the 

accounting community, both industry experts and small businesses 

that help other small businesses with their accounting services. I 

look forward to learning firsthand how they perceive the utility of 

the cash accounting for small businesses and how we can make 

cash accounting even easier for small businesses to use. 

With that, I would like to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for being here today, and I now recognize the ranking member for her opening statement. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

For many, starting a successful business and seeing it grow is 

the American dream. During that process, many big decisions must 

be made—where to rent, what to call the business, and how much 

capital is needed. Besides deciding which business organizational 

structure to adopt, one of the most basic decisions is which accounting method to use—accrual accounting or cash basis method. 

On the surface, the question may seem easy, but small business 

owners must learn several rules and complicated nuances associated with each technique. These methods primarily differ in when 

and how income and expenses are reported. The cash method accounting is widely used by small firms because it is simple to understand and makes day-to-day recordkeeping easier. It generally 

requires taxpayers to report income and expenses as they are received and paid, so it mimics how individuals handle their own personal finances. Simply put, income is reported when cash comes in, 

and expenses are reported when cash goes out. 

On the other hand, the accrual accounting method generally requires taxpayers to report income and expenses as the transactions 

are established, regardless of whether cash is received or paid. 

While accrual accounting offers the flexibility to delay or advance 

income and expensing to more accurately reflect business operations. The cash method more accurately reflects cash flow. 

Most small business owners track the profitability of their business during the year based on the balance in their checking account, which is more in line with the cash accounting, so it is not 

surprising that the National Federation of Independent Businesses 

found that 41 percent of small business owners utilize the cash 

method of accounting, while only 19 percent use the accrual method. I have also heard repeatedly from small business owners in my 

district how much they depend on the cash accounting method. 

Today’s hearing will examine the differences between the two accounting methods and discuss what makes the cash accounting 

method more advantageous for small business owners. We will also 

discuss the tax reform proposal for expanding the cash method revenue limit and the draft language limiting its use to certain organizational structures. The proposal was introduced earlier this Congress by Chairman Dave Camp of the Ways and Means Committee. 

Reforms that lower the burden on small businesses by reducing 

recordkeeping and paperwork help to lead to increased entrepreneurial activity and a stronger economy. Under current law, C corporations and certain partnerships may not use the cash method 

once average gross receipts exceed five million. However, some 

partnerships and S corporations are permitted to use the cash 

method regardless of their level of receipts, provided they are not 

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required to maintain inventories. The draft proposal generated 

much debate surrounding the cash accounting method because it 

would expand and limit the availability of this critical accounting 

scheme. 

Despite increasing its use to allow businesses with up to $10 million in gross receipts, the draft language prohibits S corporations 

and partnerships that previously qualified for the cash method 

from continuing to use it, and that means that personal service corporations, like businesses performing accounting, dentistry, and 

legal services would no longer qualify if they hit the gross receipts 

ceiling. 

This raises many questions and concerns for those small businesses, and this hearing will highlight some of them. Providing relief for thousands of small firms is critical to moving forward with 

tax reform. However, we must be cautious as to how that simplicity 

is provided. Today’s hearing presents the opportunity to have a real 

debate on the accounting methods used by millions of small business owners and how certain tax reform proposals can affect their 

bottom line. 

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here, and I look forward to your testimony. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman RICE. Okay. Just some formalities to get out of the 

way. 

If committee members have an opening statement, I ask that 

they submit it for the record. 

I would like to take a moment to explain the timing lights for 

you. You will each have five minutes to deliver your testimony. The 

lights will start out as green. When you have one minute remaining, it will turn yellow. And finally, at the end of your five minutes, 

it will turn red. I will ask that you try to adhere to that time limit, 

although we are not going to be very strict. 

Our first witness today is Professor Donald Williamson of the 

American University where he teaches and serves as the director 

of Masters of Science and Taxation Program. He is also the executive director of the Americans Kogod Tax Center. Prior to his time 

at American University, he served as senior manager for international taxation at KPMG. A certified public accountant, Mr. 

Williamson is a frequent lecturer to professional groups throughout 

the nation, and has published over 50 articles in professional and 

academic journals. 

Thank you for being here, sir. We look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENTS OF DONALD WILLIAMSON, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING AND TAXATION AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KOGOD TAX CENTER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY; SARAH WINDHAM, CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT 

AND SENIOR TAX MANAGER, DIXON HUGHES GOODMAN, 

LLC; TERRY DURKIN, OWNER, DURKIN ASSOCIATES; STEPHEN MANKOWSKI, PARTNER, EP CAINE AND ASSOCIATES 

CPA, LLC 

STATEMENT OF DONALD WILLIAMSON 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Thank you, Chairman Rice. 

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Chairman Rice, Ranking Member Chu, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the need to 

simplify the tax reporting requirements on small businesses by 

means of adopting simpler methods of tax accounting, most notably, expanding the circumstances whereby small business may use 

the cash method rather than the more burdensome accrual method 

of accounting. 

My name is Don Williamson, and I am a professor of Taxation 

at American University’s Kogod School of Business, where for the 

past 30 years I have directed the school’s Masters in Taxation degree program. The MST program at American offers graduate 

courses in federal taxation to CPAs, experienced accountants, attorneys, and others who wish to expand their knowledge of our nation’s tax law. Our course offerings not only include traditional 

classes in subject areas such as taxation of corporations and partnerships, but also more specialized areas of the tax law, such as 

accounting periods and methods, which is the topic of this hearing 

today. 

As part of my responsibilities at American, I am also the executive director of the Kogod Tax Center, which conducts nonpartisan 

research on tax issues affecting small business and entrepreneurs, 

and for the past 25 years, I have had my own tax preparation and 

tax planning practice for small businesses in Falls Church, Virginia. 

My written testimony describes the key differences between the 

cash and accrual methods of account for the reporting of income 

and expenses on the tax return of a small business. For now, let 

me simply say that the accrual method is undeniably the more 

complex method of accounting and that it offers few advantages to 

small businesses whose chief concern with regard to their financial 

condition is their cash flow. It is important to note that the method 

of accounting adopted by a business, whether it be the cash method 

or the accrual method, only affects the timing of when a business 

reports income or deductions on its tax return. The accounting 

method a business uses does not determine whether an item of income is taxable or an expense deductible and does not affect the 

total income and deductions a business will recognize over its lifetime. 

However, despite the greater simplicity and better fit of the cash 

method for small businesses, the Internal Revenue Code denies the 

cash method to corporations with average gross receipts exceeding 

$5 million. I urge Congress to increase the current threshold for 

use of the cash method to $10 million. Raising the threshold to $10 

million will mean that almost 90 percent of all businesses in the 

United States could adopt the cash method of accounting. 

But even when the cash method is available to small business, 

certain judicial doctrines, such as constructive receipt for the recognition of income impose unnecessary complication on a small 

business simply to accelerate the reporting of income by, in most 

cases, a few months before the actual cash is received. Also, the requirement that a cash method small business may not deduct its 

cash outlays to purchase inventory until that product is sold may 

satisfy accounting theorists but offers no immediate tax benefit to 

small businesses that expend considerable sums creating jobs. To 

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address these needs of small businesses, I urge Congress to go beyond simply expanding the number of small businesses eligible to 

use the cash method of accounting and consider enacting a simplified cash method of accounting along the lines described in my 

written testimony. Under this method of accounting, a small business would be able to look at its checkbook to determine its taxable 

income. It sounds simple, and it is. Permitting small business to 

elect a simplified cash method of accounting will reduce tax compliance costs, ease the burden of tax administration, and clarify the 

measurement of taxable income. 

I thank the Committee again for the opportunity to testify. I welcome any questions you may have. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, sir. 

Our next witness is Sarah Windham, certified public accountant 

and senior tax manager at Dixon Hughes Goodman in my home 

state in Charleston, South Carolina. Mrs. Windham has been in 

public practice for 15 years and has extensive experience preparing 

tax returns and consulting with small business clients, with particular expertise in the agriculture and construction industries. She 

is testifying today on behalf of the South Carolina Farm Bureau. 

We appreciate you being here. You may now begin your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF SARAH WINDHAM 

Ms. WINDHAM. Thank you. Chairman Rice and members of the 

Committee, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify 

today. 

My name is Sarah Windham, and I am a senior tax manager in 

the Charleston, South Carolina office of Dixon Hughes Goodman. 

We are the largest CPA firm based in the southern U.S. Our commitment to our clients’ success has led to the development of specialized practice groups, such as agribusiness. With nearly 60 years 

of experience serving the agribusiness industry, DHG has developed a deep understanding of the operations and issues affecting 

the agribusiness industry. I am a CPA with 15 years of experience. 

I have extensive experience with agriculture clients, construction 

and real estate clients, as well as many other small businesses. I 

am here today on behalf of South Carolina Farm Bureau. 

I am testifying before you today on the potential negative ramifications of the various proposals in Congress that would eliminate 

for many taxpayers the use of cash accounting for the purpose of 

calculating income tax liability. These adverse effects include a significant increase in the time dedicated to tax compliance, which 

will defer farmers and other small businesses from focusing on 

making a living, as well as an increase in the cost of tax compliance that will reduce the profitability of many farms and small 

businesses who already work on very thin margins. 

Another effect would be a significant acceleration of the tax liability without cash available to pay the uncollected, yet taxed income. These adverse effects would fall disproportionately on small 

businesses, such as farmers, and on professionals, such as those in 

my farm. Most farmers do not employ professional accountants. 

Many farms’ books and records are maintained by family members 

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ance and/or spend additional funds on accrual accounting systems, 

thus creating additional costs in an industry that continues to face 

rapidly rising production expenses. 

One story I would like to share with you reflects the strain accrual accounting can put on farms. One of our farm clients was 

being asked by his financial institution to provide accrual financial 

statements on a quarterly basis. As with most farms, they keep 

their books and records on the cash basis. After explaining the additional fees that a farmer would incur to have us assist their staff 

in converting the books to accrual basis, it was agreed that cash 

basis statements would be a better option. 

Farmers, by nature, manage risk and volatility. They are literally at the mercy of nature, the effects and aftermath of weather, 

and commodity prices. Since their income can fluctuate wildly from 

year to year, accrual accounting, coupled with our progressive tax 

system, would likely cause farmers to pay more tax over time than 

a company in a different industry with stable income over the same 

time period. Cash accounting also allows them the option to evenout their taxable income comparable with long-term earnings with 

other industries. It gives them the ability to plan for capital investments and large purchase of inputs without incurring debt. 

An independent research firm, Informa Economics, revealed that 

U.S. agriculture producers required to switch from cash to accrual 

basis under the proposed new laws could pay out as much as $4.84 

billion in taxes over the next four years. According to this study, 

those same farms have only 1.4 billion in cash reserves to pay the 

additional taxes. If the tax proposals associated with accrual accounting are effective in an unprofitable year or farm owners cannot otherwise meet their capital requirements, the farm may be 

forced to downsize. Over 17 percent of the U.S. workforce is employed in the agriculture industry. The estimated 4.84 billion in tax 

that would be required to be paid by farmers may cause them not 

to hire additional employees or to lay off employees they already 

have due to downsizing. 

We have many clients required to use accrual basis accounting 

for various reasons in the Internal Revenue Code. As I mentioned 

in my introduction, I have expertise in construction. Especially in 

today’s economy, many contractors are experiencing the pains of 

collecting receivables and managing cash flow. Contractors may not 

receive payment until well after they have invoiced their customers 

and recorded income under accrual accounting. Oftentimes, they 

may be filing their tax return well before those receivables have 

been collected. 

In a recent experience I had with a contractor I have been working with, he was faced with extending his tax return several years 

in a row in order to collect the revenue that he needed from his 

receivables to pay the taxes, incurring penalties and interest. After 

many years in public practice, I believe that the proposals required 

for farm operations to use accrual accounting would have a detrimental impact to food producers whom it would affect and impact. 

These proposals would have no additional cash available to pay tax 

payments, cash that would otherwise be used to grow business, create jobs, and serve communities in which those businesses operate. 

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Thank you for allowing me to testify today. I would like to thank 

Chairman Rice and other members of the Committee who have 

supported opposing limitations on the use of cash accounting. I will 

be delighted to address any questions from any member of the 

Committee today. Thank you. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, ma’am. 

Our next witness is Terry Durkin, an enrolled agent and owner 

of Durkin Associates, a tax preparation and representation practice 

in Burlington, Massachusetts. Mrs. Durkin started Durkin Associates in 2006, after 21 years in the software industry, and was recently chosen as the president-elect of the National Association of 

enrolled agents for 2014 and 2015. She has a B.S. degree in applied 

mathematics from Yale University and an M.B.A. from New York 

University. 

Ms. Durkin is testifying today on behalf of the National Association of Enrolled Agents. We appreciate you being here, and you 

may now begin your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF TERRY DURKIN 

Ms. DURKIN. Thank you, Chairman Rice, Ranking Member 

Chu, and members of the Subcommittee. I am Terry Durkin, an enrolled agent and president-elect of the National Association of Enrolled Agents, which represents the interests of over 46,000 enrolled agents across the country. I am also a sole proprietor. My 

practice is primarily focused on individuals and on small business 

of less than 500,000 in gross revenues, what I refer to as microbusinesses. Today, I share with you my perspectives as both a tax 

practitioner and a small business owner. 

Over the years, it has become clear to me that the business 

checking account is the focal point for most small business bookkeeping. Small businesses use the business checking account to 

measure cash flow and profits, and to a great extent is their tax 

accounting. As a result, any change to the tax law that requires 

small business owners to move away from the simple checkbook accounting or cash basis accounting, has two negative effects with increased complexity and restricted cash flow. 

As Congress begins reforming the tax code, I urge you to keep 

in mind how essential cash basis accounting is to startup businesses, especially these microbusinesses. I have six recommendations. 

First, increase expensing under section 179. Because Congress 

has not enacted legislation to extend expired tax provisions, expensing of capital purchases is currently limited to $25,000. This 

is a big drop from the $500,000 deduction that was available for 

the last several years. Also, the purchase limit for section 179 property is $200,000. This, again, is a big drop from the $2 million total 

purchase limit of the past several years. 

You can see the tax planning challenge we face when taxpayers 

do not know in advance which provisions may or may not be extended. I urge Congress to extend the section 179 expensing to at 

least $250,000, and to increase the total purchase limit to at least 

one million. 

Second, remove uniform capitalization rules for small businesses. 

The uniform capitalization rules which were enacted as part of the 

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Tax Reform Act of 1986, requires certain direct and indirect costs 

attributable to real or tangible personal property produced by the 

taxpayer to be included in either inventory or capitalized into the 

basis of such property. I recommend that Congress consider removing this rule for small businesses and allow them simply to expense 

the costs. 

Third, allow small businesses to use pure cash accounting even 

if they have inventory. In general, taxpayers must account for inventories if the production, purchase, or sale of merchandise is material to the production of income. In these circumstances, taxpayers must maintain inventory records to determine the cost of 

goods sold. 

Fourth, allow small businesses to expense leasehold improvements. While the current list of potential tax extenders would provide some relief from having to depreciate improvements to lease 

property over 39 years, I urge Congress to allow these costs to be 

expensed under either section 179 or its own specific tax code section. A 15-year depreciation is certainly helpful but it can still be 

a problem for small businesses. 

Fifth, allow small businesses to deduct all startup and organiza- tional expenses. A taxpayer may elect to expense up to $5,000 of 

startup expenditures in the tax year the business begins. A corporation or partnership may elect to expense up to $5,000 of organizational expenditures in the taxable year the business begins. I 

urge Congress to allow all of these costs to be expensed for small 

businesses. 

Sixth and finally, increase the limit on repairs and improvements. Under the new IRS rules, small businesses that lack a applicable financial statement, such as my microbusinesses, may expense amounts paid for property costing less than $500, rather 

than depreciating that property over several years. 

Taxpayers must elect this new provision annually and must have 

documented business procedures in place. You can see, taxpayers 

must do a lot of paperwork here for a small benefit. I would recommend a rule that allows small businesses to expense these costs 

in the year made. 

Based on my experience as a small business owner and as a tax 

practitioner, I believe the above recommendations would substantially simplify operations, ease paperwork burdens, and improve 

cash flow for many businesses. 

Thank you for your time and attention. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, ma’am. 

I will now yield to Mrs. Chu, who will introduce our final witness. 

Ms. CHU. It is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Stephen 

Mankowski, the national tax chair and national secretary for the 

National Conference of CPA Practitioners. He is also a partner at 

EP Caine and Associates CPA, LLC, where he advises individuals 

and small businesses on issues related to accounting, taxation, 

business consulting, and litigation support services. Mr. 

Mankowski has a unique view of running a small business and also 

representing small businesses that rely on him for business management and accounting advice. He is a graduate of LaSalle University. 

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Welcome, Mr. Mankowski. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN MANKOWSKI 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking 

Member Chu. 

Again, my name is Stephen Mankowski, and I am a CPA. I am 

the national secretary and tax policy chair of the National Conference of CPA Practitioners, and a member of the American Institute of CPAs. 

If I were to ask the average taxpayer about the difference between cash and accrual basis of accounting, most would not know 

the answer. The same is true for today’s business owners. Several 

times each year I am asked to write off bad debt. It can be written 

off under the accrual basis, yet not under the cash basis. Why? Because in the cash basis of accounting, if the income was never recorded on the books, it cannot be written off. Part of a CPA’s job 

is to ensure that taxpayers comply with tax code. Many business 

owners do not realize that there are other considerations to operating a business, including keeping separate books and records, 

paying themselves a salary, additional tax filings, et cetera. 

LLCs have become a common business structure for new small 

businesses. Often, the business owners, however, are not aware of 

the tax ramifications. LLCs can be taxed as sole proprietors, partnerships, or even S corporations. The choice of business structure, 

however, does not affect the accounting basis. I have found that 

small business owners simply think in terms of cash in and cash 

out. Many started their businesses after being downsized. They 

have lived their lives on the cash basis, so operating their business 

in this fashion simply makes sense to them. They provide us with 

bank statements, check stubs, and invoices to analyze their business activities and prepare reports that are used solely to prepare 

their tax returns. These owners do not have systems in place to 

fully track accounts receivables or payables. Further, they do not 

have the excess funds to put the systems in place. To convert their 

financial information into an accrual basis would require adjustments for uncollected revenue, unpaid payroll and related liabilities, prepared expenses, inventory, et cetera. The owners will not 

only be responsible for knowing what adjustments need to be made, 

but also their valuation. 

Ultimately, despite the business owners’ reliance on accounting 

professionals, the fiscal responsibility still falls on the owners. Converting to an accrual basis of accounting might simply be a onetime benefit for the government. Once the conversion is completed, 

the annual effect might not be significant depending on the type of 

business. Newer entities or entities with minimal accounts receivable or accounts payable would likely have a small tax increase 

and possibly even a tax decrease. Entities with a larger receivable 

base, however, would not be so fortunate. To convert, they would 

need to record all open receivables as current income and all unpaid bills as current expenses. The impact of this added income 

could propel the owners into higher tax brackets, which could lead 

into phase outs of itemized deductions and personal exemptions, 

phase-out of other deductions and credits, including tuition and 

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student loans when the increased income is reported on their individual tax returns. 

In addition, taxpayers may find themselves subjected to the new 

3.9 percent net investment income tax surtax that went into effect 

this past filing season. These tax increases will not only affect the 

taxpayers’ federal income tax. Additional state and local taxes may 

also be due because these returns usually have to be filed on the 

same basis as the federal tax returns. Further, many municipalities also impose gross receipts taxes on all businesses. 

If there is one common thread resonating from the IRS, it has 

been to reduce taxpayer burden. While this can mean many things, 

ultimately, I believe the IRS realizes that business and taxes in today’s economy have become even more complicated. Requiring businesses to change their accounting method without any specific reason would truly be in conflict to what the IRS has been working 

to achieve. 

In conclusion, the majority of businesses are permitted to choose 

their accounting methods. With the guidance of financial professionals, they are able to elect the most appropriate accounting 

method for them. Forcing a business to use the accrual basis not 

only complicates their business but also requires the owners to 

take time away from operations to focus on changing an accounting 

method. Ultimately, one does not start a business simply to focus 

on accounting. Forcing this change will do just that. 

I would like to thank Representative Rice and the other members 

of the Committee for their ongoing support in opposition to the limitations on the cash basis of accounting. Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony today, and I look forward to your 

questions. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, sir. 

I am going to defer my questions until the end. I think we have 

some members who are in a little bit of a hurry. 

So Mrs. Chu, would you like to start? 

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Mankowski, the goals of our tax system should be to encourage investment and ensure economic competitiveness while limiting 

complexity. I understand that cash accounting is easier and requires much less recordkeeping for small businesses. Most importantly, a business owner may not need formal training to understand how it works, and I hear this from my constituent small 

business owners time and time again. Can you describe how losing 

the ability to use cash accounting will affect the small businesses 

that you advise? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Certainly. I will try to be as brief as possible 

with this. 

Cash accounting is how many small business owners think, and 

that is how they have been making their living. Their goal is to 

just pay their fair share of taxes and to just manage their business 

and to pay their family expenses. Losing the ability to function 

under the cash basis and have to go into an accrual basis could 

hinder the growth of the businesses. If they know that adding a 

specific partner onto their practice would then result in that firm 

having to convert to an accrual basis of accounting could really 

hinder the operations of the business and could really question if 

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they need to add or where their growth is really going. In essence, 

it would stagnate growth, not promote growth. And ultimately, if 

the goal is to be competitive, that would make the firm that has 

to now account on an accrual basis of accounting, it could, in fact, 

make them less competitive in the environment or in their business 

environment, and ultimately, it is making their business more complex, not less complex. And ultimately, it would result in higher 

taxes to the owners of the business. 

Ms. CHU. Okay. And Mr. Mankowski, Mr. Camp’s draft language proposal is raising the gross receipts limit to $10 million, 

meaning any qualified personal service corporation over this limit 

must use the accrual method. Can you discuss the concerns about 

treating some business structures differently than others based 

solely on their income level? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. By treating them based on their income 

level, it will actually—again, it will really create a situation where 

that business might not be competitive against their competition. 

If they know that if they continue to grow their business they are 

going to end up paying more taxes, there are issues that could relate with pass-throughs to retired partners that now may end up 

getting a larger tax liability for income that the firm has not even 

received yet. And further, in going through, many of the small 

businesses, as was mentioned by Ms. Durkin, the small businesses 

do not necessarily have ample cash flow. And when it comes time 

for paying their taxes, especially newer businesses, they may not 

have planned accordingly even with the assistance of their accounting professionals for what their liabilities may be. And ultimately, 

making this more complex makes it much more convoluted for the 

owners and takes them away from what their goal is, which is operating their business. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

Ms. Windham, personal service businesses, like lawyers and architects, often work on a contingency basis for their clients. I understand you have personal experience working with construction 

contractors whose payments are often delayed. Can you explain 

how these payment structures work with both cash and accrual accounting and which method is preferred by businesses that you 

work with? 

Ms. WINDHAM. Well, as I mentioned in my statement earlier, 

I had the example of a client who received his receivables very late 

and was forced to extend his tax return. And actually, in his case, 

incurred a fair amount of interest and penalties because he was 

forced to use the accrual basis of accounting. So I think that is a 

perfect example of the effect it would have. Had he used cash basis 

accounting, he would have waited another year to report that income in the year that he actually received it as opposed to having 

to extend his tax return and pay the interest and penalties that 

were calculated due to that. And he was in a situation where it was 

very close to the filing deadline, so had he not been able to collect 

those in time for the filing deadline, he may have been forced to 

borrow the money to pay his tax liability under the accrual basis 

of accounting. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

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Professor Williamson, in support of simplifying the cash accounting method, your testimony detailed the differences and difficulties 

that small businesses face when complying with current cash accounting rules, such as various judicial doctrines and exceptions to 

expense reporting. Does the Camp draft proposal alleviate some of 

your concerns, or what recommendations would you make to the 

current Camp draft proposal? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Representative Chu, I am here today to represent small businesses, and our view is that small businesses need 

the cash method of accounting. Period. I know many large businesses also are on the cash method and feel very strongly they 

need to stay that way despite the Camp proposals. But I would like 

to emphasize that taxpayers be given as much latitude as possible 

in electing their method of accounting, be it cash or accrual method. I just see constantly my clients—I have a practice in Falls 

Church—simply do not understand the accrual method. They are 

cash basis people. Cash in, cash out. It is the balance in the bank 

account that concerns them most month to month, and that is what 

I am here to speak to today. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

Ms. Dunkin, you suggest allowing small firms—I mean, Durkin. 

You suggest allowing small firms to use pure cash accounting even 

with inventories, which is currently disallowed as inventory accounting can be complicated. How would such a recommendation 

make it easier for small operations with inventories? 

Ms. DURKIN. Sure. 

So I think it really is a matter of timing when you can take the 

income and the expenses. So by allowing a small business to really 

keep to their checkbook, what they bring in and what they take 

out, whether there is inventory involved or not, really does make 

it easier for them to do their operations. So by having the ability 

to not have to deal with inventory really does, although it is a matter of timing, to make it simplified and stick with the pure cash 

accounting. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman RICE. I am going to start with Mr. Mulvaney because 

I think he has some other obligations. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the accommodation from you and from my fellow colleagues. 

Back when I was a normal person, before I had this job, I had 

experience with both cash and accrual methods. I had a restaurant 

company that we used to run on a cash basis, a law firm that was 

on a cash basis, and then I ran a real estate company that was 

forced because of the nature of its business and the size to run the 

accrual method of accounting. So I have sort of seen it from both 

sides. And I remember very vividly the ugly reality of being in the 

accrual business, having to pay taxes on earnings that I had not 

collected yet. And I did not care for that very much. 

Ms. Windham, you have mentioned that you have got a large Ag 

business, agribusiness stable of clients and it is something that is 

important to me because where we are from, both Mr. Rice and myself, we have large ag businesses in our district, tell me what it 

means to a farmer, and do not talk as an industry, because every 

time we talk about $4.8 billion of this it sort of gets lost. Tell me 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

13 

what the individual farmer, what it means to him or her if the law 

changes and they have to change from accrual to cash. What does 

that mean in terms of what they have to go through and what they 

have to pay? 

Ms. WINDHAM. Sure. I think to address the first part what they 

would have to go through, you know, we have dealt with this with 

clients who have banking relationships. For example, in my testimony, that just do not understand that farmers operate on a cash 

basis and the bankers ask them to do it on an accrual basis. It is 

very difficult for them to track their work in progress or their inventory, to estimate what their corn may be worth at the end of 

the year as commodity prices fluctuate. 

Mr. MULVANEY. And let me stop you there for just a second, 

because you mentioned—I want to drill down on this a little bit because you just mentioned words that make sense to you and me 

but not to ordinary citizens, which is estimating your work in process, and in this particular circumstance, what your corn is worth 

at any particular time. Tell us what that involves? 

Ms. WINDHAM. For example, the work in progress. Throughout 

the year, as the farmer starts, usually in our state at least, sometime in the spring, planting. So they have seed, they have fertilizer. 

They are spraying throughout the year. They have labor cost, 

which can be extremely high for the planting, as well as the picking or whatever they may be doing. And that would entail their 

work in progress. So throughout the year as they spend money on 

the cash basis, for example, they expense these items. On the accrual basis, they would have to track these items throughout the 

year and accumulate them as inventory and then determine as 

they sell their corn or their peaches or their blueberries or whatever it may be, how much of those expenses they have accumulated 

are attributable to the blueberries or the peaches or the corn they 

just sold. 

Mr. MULVANEY. And that is subject to be second guessed by 

the IRS, is it not? 

Ms. WINDHAM. Absolutely it could be. I could see it being very 

difficult, for example, we will use corn because I have a lot of farmers that are row crop farmers. If they have hundreds of acres of 

corn, and they buy seed and fertilizer in large bulk quantities, how 

do you determine I sold all of the corn in these five acres today and 

three weeks from now I am going to sell the corn on the other 10 

acres? You know, what portion of my seed and fertilizer did I use 

on these five acres versus those 10 acres when I bought it all at 

the same time in March? It could be very difficult for them. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Tell me about the process, because I have 

never gone through a conversion. I have never had to take a company from cash to accrual. Tell us what that means for a farmer. 

Ms. WINDHAM. For a farmer, it means bringing someone like 

me in usually, which can quickly add up, depending on what kind 

of recordkeeping they already have. Most of the farms—— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Because the recordkeeping for the two methods is entirely different? 

Ms. WINDHAM. It is entirely different. Correct. They are used 

to maintaining basically like a checkbook, which several people 

have mentioned, and that is easy for them. They can know what 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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they start the year with in their checkbook and what they finish 

the year with in their checkbook, just like we all do with our personal checkbooks. Switching it to accrual basis can be very costly 

from a standpoint of having someone assist them, as well as just 

difficult in that the records do not convert very easily and that is 

not how they operate their businesses. Commodity prices fluctuating on a regular basis can make it difficult. Which price do you 

use today and which price do you use when you make the conversion three months from now? So it can be extremely challenging, 

not to mention we do not have many farms in downtown Charleston or in Washington, D.C. They are out in very rural areas and 

you do not see too many CFO controller-type people living in those 

rural areas. So it may be very difficult for a farm owner to hire on 

staff the talent that they need to make that conversion on a regular basis. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, Ms. Windham. I appreciate the 

testimony. 

Ms. WINDHAM. You are welcome. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, Mr. Mulvaney. 

Mr. Schneider? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Chairman Rice. Thank you for 

calling this hearing. It is a critically important issue. 

I bring my own personal experience to this. My father is a CPA. 

Had an accounting firm. At the time, it was one of the largest ones 

in Denver with 35 partners. I started my career in consulting at 

Price Waterhouse as I am thinking about it, 30 years ago this 

week, and before coming to Congress 10 years ago, I was in consulting with what was then the largest single-office private accounting firm in the country, a firm called Blackman Kallick. I understand the issue on a personal level having my own consulting 

firm, so thank you all for being here and talking about this critically important issue. 

Professor Williamson, I know you talked about this being an 

issue for small businesses, but it is an issue for a lot of businesses. 

An accounting firm, or in my case a consulting firm that just needs 

a couple of partners working together quickly exceeds $10 million, 

but the impact on these professional service firms that have to 

book expenses and then not get paid many times for six to 12 

months later would be profound. And to that end, I am circulating 

a bipartisan letter. I am pleased to have people on both sides of the 

aisle working on this issue with Congressmen Luetkemeyer, 

Quigley, and Hudson, and we want to draw the attention to the importance of cost accounting. I would invite my colleagues to all join 

us on that letter. 

Speaking of agriculture, Ms. Windham, you know, my district 

does not include a whole lot of agriculture, but we appreciate the 

value of the food—the corn, the blueberries, the peaches, that we 

eat. And understand that a vast majority of that still comes from 

the family farm. And those farms require the ability to do their accounting in such a way that makes sense for their business, and 

that is crucial. The burden of having to transfer from cash to accrual accounting for a farmer, for a professional service firm, obviSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

15 

ously is significant. Farmers and ranchers rely on this flexibly to 

deal with the commodities and weather. There is a lot of uncertainty in business. We all deal with that regardless of the business 

we have. Adding another level of uncertainty is, I think, the last 

thing we should be doing. And that is why this is important. 

But it is not just agriculture. It is not just consultants and accountants. It is dentists. It is engineers. It is architects. So many 

of these professional service firms, partners working together individually rely on this, and as I mentioned before $10 million for a 

group of people working together adds up fairly quickly, but the 

impact on the individual becomes severe, and oftentimes it is going 

to affect retiring partners as was said before, and we need to touch 

on all of those. 

I guess, Ms. Windham, I will touch with you. The impact you 

talked about, the cost to convert for a farm, what is the cost to convert for an accounting firm? What would be the impact there? 

Ms. WINDHAM. I think one of the biggest costs for an accounting firm would be, one, keeping up with the receivables and 

payables, but two, as you bring partners in and out, new owners 

in and out, and I believe someone mentioned it in their testimony 

earlier, you could have a retiring partner who is forced to pick up 

income that may be received after he leaves the firm and retires, 

because it is an accounts receivable, and I know we have experienced in the prior five or six years with our clients struggling, you 

know, it may take six to 12 months to collect a receivable as you 

mentioned. And then the other side of that would be new partners 

coming in. It may be difficult for them. If a new partner were potentially to come in in a year of this conversion, they could be hit 

with a tax liability that they were not expecting, not to mention, 

a tax liability they do not have the cash to pay. So I think that is 

one of the biggest potential challenges for an accounting firm or a 

law firm or a professional service firm, is transitioning partners in 

and out and then the massive amount of tax liability that may be 

experienced with no additional cash. It would take cash away from 

hiring new accountants or attorneys, from creating jobs, from giving back to our communities, from those types of things, and we 

just do not have the cash savings to be able to afford to do that. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Mankowski, you talked about competition 

briefly and the challenge it is for companies to compete. If you take 

two small businesses, one on a cash basis, one on an accrual basis, 

what are some of the disadvantages to the cash basis having to 

make the switch or compete? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. One of the advantages, or disadvantages, 

rather with the business that is going to be forced to switch over 

to an accrual basis is that within an accounting firm, as an example, there is generally not a lot of accounts payable they are going 

to be having, especially as you get towards yearend. However, you 

could be sitting with a considerable account of accounts receivable 

from some clients that may have done their yearend or with a 

plethora of clients that file tax extensions, and also clients that 

may have been billed for yearend tax planning that you may not 

receive the funds until the following year. The firm that is on the 

cash basis, they are not recording that in as revenue, so that may 

potentially allow their partners to keep those rates maybe a little 

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16 

bit lower for their clients because they are not going to have to absorb in a higher tax liability for the individual partners. So in that 

situation, the firm that is now going to be converting or has already converted into an accrual basis, the owners may be at a disadvantage due to the receivables at the end of the year and higher 

tax liabilities. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Great. Well, I have many more questions. I 

am out of time. Thank you for the extended time. I want to thank, 

again, the chair and the ranking member for calling this crucially 

important hearing on an issue. As our economy grows, we need our 

small companies, our middle market companies to grow, and this 

is important to allow them to do that. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman RICE. Chairman Hanna. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you. Thank you for letting me in on this 

Committee. I am not normally here. 

I have never heard such unanimity in my life between people. It 

is nice. And I agree with you as a guy who was in business for 

many, many years. 

One of the things you mentioned, Ms. Windham had mentioned 

it also, Mr. Williamson, is that the possibility exists when you 

make someone convert to accrual who was on a cash basis, to actually wind up paying taxes on money, and you talk about construction, Mr. Mankowski did and Ms. Durkin did, those people have 

the possibility of actually owing money on money they may never 

receive. Owing money on litigated construction that they may ultimately win, having to go to the bank, borrow money, pay interest, 

pay taxes, and find themselves holding the bag. Because everything 

does not come in in a few months. Some things come in—and then 

you have the conversion issue of 10 years, trying to—recapture I 

think is the language that you used—built-in gains, which is a 

problem that a lot of people face. 

So let me start off by saying, you know, I agree with you, but 

I want to understand the other side of the issue a little bit because, 

Ms. Durkin, when you talk about being able to write off inventory, 

one of the problems with that for the IRS is simply if you are a 

growing business, all you need to do is grow your inventory and 

you may never pay taxes as you grow until you close. And Mr. 

Williamson made a wonderful point, and that is that everybody ultimately winds up paying the tax they owe, but it is all a little bit 

about timing, is it not? It is a little bit about how do you manage 

your taxes and postpone it? How do you, as gamblers use the word, 

kiting checks, you can kite money. Right? You know what I am 

talking about. 

So from the IRS’s point of view, if you are going to take the other 

perspective, because I am guessing this is about making it a little 

bit easier for people to company and for them to actually understand the nature of what you are doing. So Mr. Williamson, what 

would you say if you were an IRS agent? How would you respond? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. If I were an IRS agent I would welcome this 

proposal of going more on the cash basis because some of the nuances of the accrual method, some of the uncertainties—when did 

you receive the income, when can you write it off as a bad debt— 

I think going on the cash method takes so many uncertainties that 

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IRS agents have to interpret when they apply the law when they 

go out to a client or to a taxpayer. I would think the IRS would 

applaud this. And as you have already said, Mr. Hanna, this is all 

about timing because over the life cycle of the business the amount 

of economic income and the amount of economic expenses will be 

incurred. And ultimately, the same amount of tax will be paid 

under either the cash or accounting method, no question about 

that. And your point is well taken. This is about timing. And I can 

understand why perhaps the Treasury Department and certain 

members of Congress would want to be on the accrual method because that would, in some cases, accelerate income into earlier 

years for purposes of scoring a tax bill. 

Mr. HANNA. Right. So basically, what we are saying is you can 

pay now or pay later, but you are going to pay, and it is just a matter of whether you hold your money a little longer and the IRS gets 

theirs a little sooner is really—— 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. And as Ms. Windham pointed out, whether 

you have to borrow the money to pay the tax. 

Mr. HANNA. Do you agree, Ms. Windham? 

Ms. WINDHAM. I do. Yes. I think it does, quite honestly, make 

it easier for the IRS as well because they are attending the same 

continuing education and the same training that a lot of us are attending as CPAs. And as you are well aware, the tax code is pretty 

tremendous. Even for an IRS agent knowing every part of it can 

be challenging. So simplicity I think is better. 

I think, as well, unless there is some type of individual tax return that coincides with tax reform for S corps, C corps, and partnerships, that under a progressive tax system you could potentially 

pay more taxes over the same period of time as you would even 

though you are going to incur the income or expenses. For example, 

with farmers, it may be really high in a good year and the next 

year we may have a drought and it would be really low, and the 

year that they have high income, they are going to pay a higher 

rate. 

Mr. HANNA. And we have no more income averaging. It used to 

be around. It is not anymore. So that is an issue for someone in 

your business. 

Ms. WINDHAM. Right. Correct. 

Mr. HANNA. I want to ask you, I have just got a few seconds 

left here, but the economic value of letting people keep things simple I would say is huge, and it benefits the country ultimately because they make more money. Do you all kind of agree with that? 

Anybody? 

Ms. DURKIN. I do, and I think taking some comments that 

Chairman Rice has said in the past, small business owners are 

America’s economic engine, and we need to fuel that engine, and 

cash is that fuel. So by allowing the small businesses to use the 

cash accounting really does fuel that and powers the economy. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you. My time is expired. 

Chairman RICE. Mr. Schweikert? 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, a one-off question just because of an experience we had a 

couple years ago. Have any of you had the experience of doing a 

conversion and someone that uses one of the online softwares for 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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the management of their business and having some real troubles 

getting it to work in regards to bad debt, some inventory issues? 

So I guess it is sort of a universal question of for right now, any 

experiences, first of all, on the cash basis, small business accounting softwares, what they do with bad debt, and then particularly 

a small business that might be using accrual? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Mr. Schweikert, first, under the cash basis, 

although many of our clients do think that they can write off bad 

debt, currently, if they are filing under a cash basis, they are not 

permitted to write off bad debt. As I had mentioned in my testimony, every year I get asked the same question by a number of clients. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. But to that point, have you ever had someone present to you saying here is my software and look, it has a 

category for this? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Absolutely. And I go through and I tell them 

that they are not allowed to and they ask why. And I tell them, 

well, you never declared the revenue, so you cannot turn around 

and take the expense. We will gladly put the revenue in this year, 

and it is only going to offset and you will get zero impact from it. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Ms. Dunkin? Or Durkin? 

Ms. DURKIN. I have had the same situation as far as clients. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Hit the mic. 

Ms. DURKIN. Thank you. 

I have had the same situation of clients saying I never got paid 

for this and then the discussion is, well, did we ever claim it as income? No. So you are not allowed to claim that expense. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And I am going to skip to the professor because I want to come back to Ms. Windham. 

Professor? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Yeah. I think what you are illustrating, Mr. 

Schweikert, is exactly the confusion that taxpayers have and small 

businesses have and why we are advocating the cash method of accounting. Why can I not take a bad debt? They did not pay me. 

Well, you never recognized the income in the first place. And I cannot tell you, and I think all of us at the panel have had the experience with our clients where we try to tell them this and they just 

do not get it. And what that demonstrates is how we need the cash 

method of accounting to show them cash in, cash out, and really 

eliminate the bad debt issue entirely, other than for those firms 

that should be on the accrual method. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Ms. Windham, because you actually personally generated my memory of this question in a couple of your comments in regards to difficulty in collections and sometimes negotiated settlements on pay as this percentage of our bill and then 

complete write-offs, and the difficulties sometimes that causes for 

even cash accounting when you are breaking over your year, and 

then the difficulties I have seen with a couple of our personal businesses and those we have helped on that they are using software 

and the software keeps popping up. Why are you not telling us 

this? Am I the only one to have experienced this? 

Ms. WINDHAM. I can speak to a very similar situation actually 

that has happened in the past month or two. We have a client who 

has an investor who is an attorney who uses the cash basis in his 

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firm because he is an attorney and is allowed to. This particular 

client of mine is required to be on the accrual basis and prepares 

their books on an accrual basis. Well, he has asked for a cash basis 

statement from my client because that is what he understands. 

And in this particular situation they are using QuickBooks, which 

is a software that many, many, many clients use across the country. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I was trying to avoid mentioning any—— 

Ms. WINDHAM. Well, I started not to, but anyway, and it is extremely common in small businesses. And because of the way my 

particular client operates, and obviously, I do not want to disclose 

their financials, hitting a button, so to speak, to convert to cash 

basis is an option. However, because of the way they track certain 

things, the software does not do it correctly because of the way 

they have to input it. And it is not a software issue, it is an input 

issue, and there is no other way to input this data for it to convert 

correctly. So we have been struggling with explaining to this attorney why we cannot produce cash basis without a lot of work. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Have you run into the other externality 

when there are other partners that you are paying out and the 

problem of we have not recognized the income but—— 

Ms. WINDHAM. Yes. We see that a good bit where we have 

questions on, for example, a partner has a tax liability on their individual tax return because they are receiving a K1 with income 

from the partnership. However, they have not received the related 

cash. And the first question is how can I have income and tax if 

I do not have the cash? And you have to explain to them, well, you 

have half a million dollars in accounts receivable which you have 

yet to collect, and when you collect those you will have the cash. 

And it can be a very difficult pill for a partner in a partnership to 

swallow when they have a large tax liability and no related cash 

to go with it. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having run into 

some interesting issues in this sort of mechanic where a lot of partnership agreements are written where you owe a certain rate of return or pref on sometimes not actually realized income but in 

booked income. You do end up in this kind of cascade of problems 

and borrowing money to pay your partners. So with that I yield 

back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the patience. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Payne? 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Windham, I understand that you support the cash accounting method, but as someone who assists small businesses, do you 

also believe that some of the current cash accounting rules are too 

complex and seem to unnecessarily try to match accrual accounting 

as Mr. Williamson suggests? Based on your experience, do you believe that the current Internal Revenue Code cash codes should remain as is or need changing? 

Ms. WINDHAM. I think the current cash accounting rules and 

the Internal Revenue Code are pretty easy for businesses to follow. 

There are quite a few exceptions and twists and turns as with anything in the Internal Revenue Code, but for the most part, small 

businesses can use a checkbook-type method of accounting. There 

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are some, as Ms. Durkin mentioned, some issues in there with inventory, depreciation, repairs and maintenance that could, quite 

honestly, be simplified, and I think she made some great points in 

her testimony on simplifying repairs and maintenance. There is a 

new regulation written on that recently that complicated it in my 

opinion. Depreciation could be made a little more simple with making it permanent instead of extending it every couple of years and 

causing uncertainty for small businesses. Inventory, obviously, as 

she said, is another issue that can be a challenge for small businesses to track their inventory and not expense it when they actually write the checks. So I do think there are some ways in there 

to simplify accounting for small businesses, and I think her testimony spelled that out pretty accurately. But true cash accounting 

needs to continue for small businesses to allow them to be able to 

deal with the challenges of running the rest of their business and 

not have to focus on their books on an hourly or daily basis. 

Mr. PAYNE. So it can be very easy but then you also say it is 

very complex? 

Ms. WINDHAM. Yes. 

Mr. PAYNE. Okay. All right. 

Ms. Durkin? 

Ms. DURKIN. Yes. I will give you one example of a client who 

became a client, who was in the theater production. He was starting up to create a theater. He bought—leased a building and put 

$300,000 into leasehold improvements. And sadly, he thought that 

whole $300,000 would be depreciated in that year because he spent 

it in that year, and I had to be the one to tell him. And when he 

came afterwards to me to prepare the return, well, you cannot take 

the whole $300,000. Some of it we can do 15 years, some of it we 

have to do 39 years. So this cash basis person all of a sudden then 

had these three different ways he could take this deduction and not 

the deduction that he wanted to. So you can see some challenges 

like that. 

Mr. PAYNE. Sure. Thank you. 

Mr. Mankowski? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Payne. 

I can agree with some of the comments. One of the things that 

ultimately I think we need to look at is not just if we are going 

to move the threshold from a $5 million to a $10 million, the $5 

million threshold I believe went into effect with the Tax Reform 

Act of 1986. Similar to many of the items in the tax code, they have 

stayed there and stayed there, but they have not been inflation indexed and now they are just looking to come up with a number. 

If they are going to increase it and actually keep a threshold, they 

should probably look at some level of an indexing, starting from ’86 

moving forward, or potentially even look to remove the threshold 

and just allow a business to operate so that as many of us have 

mentioned, we are not going to all of a sudden you have a good 

year, whether you are a hedge fund or whether you are an attorney 

who lands a big case, all of a sudden you need to convert to an accrual basis the following—after you are out of that three-year averaging. If you are now below the threshold, are you then allowed to 

convert back to cash basis because you are no longer in that 

threshold? There are some of the complexities that simply doing 

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away with any type of a revenue threshold, even on an average 

basis, would really work towards simplifying and allow the owners 

to do what they do best, which is operate their business. And that 

is why all of us are in the accounting profession. That is what we 

do best, which is help them manage their accounting aspects so 

that they do not have to worry about that part of their business. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. And in the interest of time, I will yield 

back. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, sir. 

Well, this has truly been a very interesting hearing. I have 

learned a lot from you guys, and I appreciate you all being here. 

My concern in all this is that here we sit six years after the Great 

Recession, and we have still an economy that is struggling, negative 2.8 percent growth in the last quarter. Millions of people 

dropped off the employment—the workforce because they find it so 

difficult to find employment. American jobs, every day you turn on 

the TV and you see more companies moving over to corporate inversions now, but that is really more jobs moving overseas. And I 

think a lot of that comes from anti-competitive policies that come 

out of Washington, D.C. I think we make it too complicated. I think 

we make it too difficult. And I think we cost businesses too much. 

Too much in taxes. Too much in red tape. And I think that is what 

I hear from you guys. It is one thing to not create impediments, 

but it is another thing to actually throw up impediments to hiring 

and expansion. And I see that in government. And Mr. Mankowski, 

I think you referred to that earlier when you said the accrual 

method could actually put up impediments. Is that correct—to hiring and to expansion—is that right? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. That is correct, sir. 

Chairman RICE. Can you explain that further? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Certainly. If you have—and I will take my 

position. I recently merged my accounting practice. If we continue—and we have been growing our practice daily with more and 

more clients—if we bring on additional partners that may bring additional revenue into our firm, expand our services, if we get to a 

point where we, at this point we hit a $5 million threshold, the 

firm would then have to go through converting to an accrual basis. 

At that point, is it really worth bringing on an additional partner 

who may kick you into having to go to accrual basis? Or maybe go 

and, not that we, as accountants, know our way around the system, 

but potentially spin off part of a practice. I will stay a partner in 

my firm. I am going to spin off part of the practice to one of the 

other partners. That will be a separate entity, and now we are 

staying under the thresholds. 

Chairman RICE. And that does not add to complexity at all, does 

it? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. None. It does not add to the complexity, but 

it—— 

Chairman RICE. Oh, it does. When you maintain separate entities. 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. But in that case, it is keeping you out of the 

thresholds which is not what we want to do. 

Chairman RICE. Does that make you more productive? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Absolutely not. 

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Chairman RICE. All you are trying to do is work through some 

loophole. Is that correct? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Unfortunately, that is what it comes down 

to. 

Chairman RICE. Ms. Windham, do you agree that this law, forcing people to apply with the accrual method, that that actually 

makes firms consider not expanding and not hiring and not bringing on new employees? 

Ms. WINDHAM. Yes, absolutely. I mean, some of the statistics 

I have seen with taxes that would have to be paid without the lack 

of additional cash, obviously, that prohibits firms, attorneys, accountants, whoever, from taking that cash that they have been reserving for growth, expansion. It may be in the case of a farm, 

building a new building or purchasing a large piece of equipment 

or adding a production line. They are going to use that cash to pay 

tax instead of growing jobs, growing the economy, and growing 

their business. 

Chairman RICE. And I know this is a hot button topic, but the 

Affordable Care Act forces people to limit their workers to 30 hours 

a week, forces them to stay under the 50-person threshold. So you 

see these policies out of Washington who everybody stands up here 

and says we are for jobs, but what they do is something different. 

The policies that come out of Washington actually stifle expansion 

and stifle job growth. 

Do you agree with that, Ms. Durkin? 

Ms. DURKIN. Yes. The example of the new IRS regulation about 

the repairs versus capitalization, for the small businesses, they 

have to do a considerable amount of paperwork, declare a capitalization policy, and put it on their return each year for $500. I had 

a client who had a rental property and he bought an $800 washing 

machine, so he did all this paperwork and he still could not use it 

for this purpose, so there are—the intention is a good one, but 

practically when it gets down to it, some of the thresholds are just 

too low. 

Chairman RICE. There have been reports coming through this 

Committee that fairly routinely say the cost per—small businesses 

employ 70 percent of the people in the United States, and the cost 

per employee to a small business in terms of regulatory costs, 

which includes tax compliance, is like $10,000 per employee. It far 

exceeds the tax liability. 

Professor Williamson, do you see this as a meaningful—— 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. As I hear you speak and the other panelists 

speak, what I think is going on here from an academic perspective 

is our advocation of the cash accounting method does indeed violate 

the matching principle of accounting, which is somewhat of a catechism, that you want to match your revenues with your costs, and 

that is the basis of the accrual method. And people in the Academy 

would agree that the accrual method is a more accurate method for 

keeping track of your books and records. 

That said, for small business, as we have said, all of us here in 

our testimony, it is about the cash. And we can set different 

thresholds—$5 million, $10 million. I even hear some rumblings 

that maybe it should be even higher. And for small businesses, it 

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is all about the cash and it is not about some theoretical matching 

principle of revenue with cost. 

And with respect to the repair regs, we advocated in the Tax 

Center that $500 be $5,000, which they gave to the large businesses, but not to you and me. 

Chairman RICE. I hear you. And I agree with you. But the average small business guy, he does not know what you just said. And 

the average person out there watching C-SPAN does not know 

what you just said. So my bottom-line crux issue is the effect on 

American competitiveness and jobs. And my theory is that the complexity created by Washington, and the accrual method being one 

of those, decreases our competitiveness and puts burdens on job 

creators. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Absolutely. For small businesses, no question. 

Chairman RICE. Okay. 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. They can hire Ms. Windham or they can hire 

a new employee. 

Chairman RICE. What I am worried about is my sons and my 

grandsons and my granddaughters getting jobs. And what I want 

to do is put us in a position that makes them more competitive in 

the world. 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Absolutely. 

Chairman RICE. This is just one more addition, one more burden 

on farmers and small businesses. Is that correct? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Yes. Or advocacy here with the cash method 

of accounting is lighting a candle. We have heard some candles 

about cursing the darkness. We are advocating here, we are lighting one candle to ease the burden upon small business with respect 

to the method of accounting they choose in their business. 

Chairman RICE. Let me ask you this. The Ways and Means proposal, Dave Camp’s proposal they referred to earlier, does that simplify the burden on small businesses or does that exacerbate the 

burden on small businesses? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. As I understand it, it enables small businesses to continue the cash method of accounting. 

Chairman RICE. And it increases the threshold generally? 

Mr. WILLIAMSON. Yes. 

Chairman RICE. Ms. Windham, do you agree with that? 

Ms. WINDHAM. It does increase the threshold. I think it could 

have some consequences that people may not be aware of though. 

For example, farms would be a great example of that. You know, 

farms are traditionally passed down from one generation to the 

next, and obviously, as you continue to pass down, you may be adding more family members, so there may be other businesses that 

are created, especially with the movement across the U.S. for farm 

to table and those kinds of things, you may create a retail market 

or a restaurant or a processing component. And if you have a related party that owns the farm as well as some of these other businesses, you may be forced to pull in the revenue for all the businesses together to calculate your gross revenue. So the farm may 

be, for example, forced to switch to the accrual basis of accounting 

which was not intended because the farm owner’s sister happens 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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to have a retail market and they are forced to include revenues 

from both. 

Chairman RICE. Okay. So the way I understand what you just 

said is Camp’s, the Ways and Means proposal, actually expands the 

availability of the cash method but there are some particulars that 

you would like to see changed to make it even more available? Ms. WINDHAM. Well, in his proposal specifically, the $10 million threshold, currently there is no limit on most farms, and that 

would obviously put a limit on farms specifically. So in both sides 

of it, putting a limit on farms, as well as putting a limit on other 

businesses who may be forced to use these aggregation rules to include multiple lines of their businesses because they are related 

family members or owners. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you. 

Mr. Mankowski, you said something at the very beginning of 

your testimony, and I do not want to mischaracterize it, and I do 

not think you meant it this way. It almost sounded like you said 

the accrual method had an advantage and that you could write off 

bad debt. But under the cash method, that money would never 

have been taken in income anyway. So the net result is zero under 

either method. Is that correct? 

Mr. MANKOWSKI. Yes, sir. That is correct. 

Chairman RICE. All right. Well, unless anybody else has any additional questions they want to ask. 

Ms. CHU. I would just like to enter into the record the written 

statement from the American Bar Association, which lays out their 

concerns on how the draft tax reform proposals would affect these 

small law firms throughout the country. 

And I would simply like to thank the panelists. I was impressed 

by the unanimity of your statements and also your very vivid examples of how this would affect small business. 

Chairman RICE. And I appreciate your specific recommendations 

for how we can make things better, you know, your list of items, 

Ms. Durkin, you listed in yours; particularly, Professor Williamson, 

so. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, if I can, as well, I would like 

to enter into the record testimony of Jeffrey Wald, who is the CEO 

of an accounting firm, Kennedy and Coe, LLC, that specializes 

working with agriculture businesses and understands and says I 

think very—clearly states some of the challenges these businesses 

face and the advantage of the cash accounting method. 

Chairman RICE. Thank you, sir. 

Okay. Thank you all for participating today. While tax and recordkeeping complexity causes concern for so many small business 

owners, it is clear that the use of the cash accounting promotes 

simplicity. Moving forward, we must ensure that our nation’s job 

creators have the flexibility to utilize the accounting method that 

allows them to thrive. Today’s testimony will be helpful as Congress looks for ways to make our tax policies more simple, predictable, and rational. It has been an honor for me and the other members of the Subcommittee to hear from this group of industry leaders and small business owners. 

I ask unanimous consent that the members have five legislative 

days to submit statements and supporting material for the record. 

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Without objection, so ordered. 

The hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

Testimony of 

Professor Donald T. Williamson 

Howard S. Dvorkin Faculty Fellow 

Executive Director, Kogod Tax Center 

Kogod School of Business American University 

Washington, D.C. 

Committee on Small Business 

Subcommittee on Economic Growth, 

Tax and Capital Access 

United States House of Representatives 

Hearing on 

‘‘Cash Accounting: A Simpler Method for Small Firms?’’ 

July 10, 2014 

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Chairman Rice, Ranking Member Chu and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the need to 

simplify the tax reporting requirements on small businesses by 

means of adopting simpler methods of tax accounting. 

My name is Don Williamson and I am a professor of taxation at 

American University’s Kogod School of Business where for the past 

thirty years I have been the Director of the School’s Masters in 

Taxation degree program. The MST program at American University offers graduate courses in federal taxation to CPAs, experienced accountants, attorneys and others who wish to expand their 

knowledge of our nation’s tax law. Our course offerings not only include traditional classes in subject areas such as the taxation of 

corporations and partnerships, international taxation and tax policy but also more specialized areas of the tax law such as accounting periods and methods which is the topic of this hearing today. 

As part of my responsibilities at American University, I am the Executive Director of the Kogod Tax Center which conducts nonpartisan research on tax issues affecting small business and entrepreneurs. For the past 25 years, I have had my own tax preparation and planning practice for small businesses in Falls Church, 

Virginia. 

The Kogod Tax Center has previously testified before the House 

Small Business Committee on the most burdensome tax problems 

faced by small businesses. Today I would like to focus my remarks 

on one area in the Internal Revenue Code that can easily be 

changed to substantially reduce the record keeping and tax compliance burdens on small businesses namely, liberalizing the law to 

permit more small businesses to adopt the cash method of accounting rather than being required to use the more burdensome accrual 

method. 

My testimony will describe and highlight the burden placed upon 

small businesses when the Internal Revenue Code requires them to 

be on the accrual method of accounting. However, even where the 

law permits a small business to use the simpler cash method of accounting, the general requirement to maintain inventory records 

creates burdens that may only influence by only a few months the 

timing of a small business’s taxable income. Therefore, we urge 

Congress to not only expand the number of businesses eligible to 

use the cash method of accounting but to also enact a ‘‘simplified’’ 

cash method of accounting for small businesses that would further 

reduce unnecessary record keeping and compliance burdens. We believe such simplification will neither adversely affect the accuracy 

of tax returns nor impact the ability of the IRS to collect tax. 

I. Cash Method vs. Accrual Methods of Accounting 

Before describing our proposal for a simplified cash method, I 

would like to explain, for the benefit of the members of the subcommittee who may not be familiar with tax accounting rules, the 

two major tax accounting methods used by businesses, i.e. the cash 

method and the accrual method. I believe this explanation will 

highlight why for small businesses the accrual method is more burdensome than the cash method; and demonstrates that while the 

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accrual method may in some cases more accurately measure economic net income, why the complexity and cost of any additional 

precision is unnecessary and ultimately provides no greater tax 

revenue for the IRS. 

Once a business adopts a tax year, and for most small businesses 

this will be the calendar year, it must adopt an accounting method 

which determine the time at which the business recognizes an item 

of income or may deduct an expense. It is important to note that 

a business’s accounting method only affects the timing of when a 

business reports income or deductions on a tax return. The accounting method a business uses does not determine whether an 

item of income is taxable or an expense deductible and does not affect the total income and deductions a business will recognize over 

its lifetime. 

Publicly traded corporations and many large businesses generate 

financial statements for the SEC or commercial banks based on 

generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Small businesses 

usually do not keep their books and records in accordance with 

GAAP, almost always relying upon their tax returns to provide 

lenders and owners with sufficient information to determine the 

success and credit worthiness of the business. 

Under the Internal Revenue Code a small business is only required to choose an accounting method that ‘‘clearly reflects income’’ and apply that method consistently from year to year. Consistent with this requirement, most small businesses adopt the 

cash method of accounting unless the law requires them to use the 

accrual method. 

A. Cash Method 

A business adopting the cash method of accounting recognizes income when it receives actual payment for the goods or services 

sold, regardless of when the business sells the good or performs the 

service. Similarly, a cash method business is entitled to a deduction 

on its tax return only when payment for an ordinary and necessary 

business expense is actually made. However, even cash method 

businesses may not deduct certain types of payments when made. 

For example, a cash expenditure that creates an asset of the business with a useful life of more than one year but rather must ‘‘capitalize’’ the cost and depreciate (deduct) the cost over a prescribed 

‘‘recovery period’’ in which the tax law presumes the asset will be 

consumed in the business. There are other types of cash payments 

subject to similar treatment. Thus, even the cash method adopts 

certain principles of the accrual method described below resulting 

in a mismatch of the time an expenditure is made and the time at 

which it can be deducted. 

1. Judicial Doctrines of Income 

In addition to requirements to capitalize certain expenditures 

there are several other technical requirements for a business computing taxable income under the cash method that are unnecessarily complex. Under the judicial doctrine of ‘‘constructive’’ receipt, 

a cash basis taxpayer must recognize income even when cash has 

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not come into the physical possession of the business but is merely 

available to the business at its discretion. Similarly, the mere receipt of a promise results in recognizable income under the cash 

method if the promise is convertible to cash before it matures, in 

which case the fair market value (that is, the ‘‘cash equivalent’’) of 

the obligation is recognized at the time of receipt of the promise. 

Finally, under the ‘‘economic benefit’’ doctrine, a cash method business must immediately recognize income on the receipt of property 

whenever the business’s right to the property is absolute, even if 

not immediately assignable and even though it cannot be immediately converted to cash. 

Such judicial theories that require a business using the cash 

method to pay tax on income deemed received prior to the receipt 

of cash unnecessarily imposes a severe cash flow problem on small 

businesses—a problem that creates only a marginal timing benefit 

to the IRS, since small businesses would most certainly receive the 

cash shortly after constructive receipt, economic benefit, or a cash 

equivalent arises. While these concepts offer comfort to theorists, 

small businesses must pay next month’s bills, and the acceleration 

of any taxable income before the receipt of cash under these theories requires small businesses to use their operating cash to pay 

tax on amounts they have not yet received instead of using that 

cash to run their businesses. 

2. Accounting for Expenses 

An even more challenging problem encountered by small businesses using the cash method of accounting is the compliance costs 

and complexity associated with computing deductible expenses. 

Generally, the cash method permits a deduction for ordinary and 

necessary business expenses when actual payment is made. Thus, 

a promise to pay is not deductible until payment is actually made. 

Although there may be confusion surrounding when and if a payment has been made, small businesses confront even greater difficulties when computing allowable deductions under the cash 

method because of four exceptions to the general rule that a deduction is permitted when payment is made, i.e. prepayments, depreciation, inventory and capitalization of some expenses. Prepayments for property or services are not deductible if the goods or 

services are provided more than one year after the prepayment. 

Costs exceeding $5,000 associated with creating a new business are 

not deducted when paid but amortized over 15 years. For inventory, the costs of its acquisition or production are deducted only 

when the inventory is sold. Similarly, property with a useful life of 

more than one year is generally subject to depreciation, requiring 

its deduction be spread over recovery periods ranging from three to 

39 years. 

These examples demonstrate that the current cash method of accounting is too often not based upon cash receipts and disbursements, but rather on principles that attempt to match costs with 

income similar to the accrual method. For small businesses that 

have no government regulators to whom financial statements must 

be submitted and have no banks or other creditors in need of profit 

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and loss determinations that conform to the rules of GAAP, tax 

rules based on the accrual method serve no practical purpose when 

economic success and taxable income can simply be measured on 

cash receipts and expenditures—that is, cash flow. In short, while 

the current cash method is substantially simpler than the accrual 

method, certain refinements to the current rules could make the 

cash method even simpler and more easily enable allow small businesses to comply with tax record keeping and reporting requirements without the loss of accuracy on their tax returns. 

B. Accrual Method 

The other major accounting method, the accrual method, attempts to determine the time at which ‘‘all events’’ occur that give 

rise to the right to income and the amount of that income can be 

determined with reasonable accuracy. Similarly, an expense may 

be deducted when the obligation to pay an expense is fixed, the 

amount of that obligation can be determined with reasonable accuracy and economic performance has occurred. Thus, businesses 

must report income on their tax returns when earned and may deduct expenses when incurred without regard to the receipt or payment of cash. 

The accrual method and its ‘‘all events’’ test creates substantial 

complexity in an effort to better identify the financial success or 

failure of a business. This complexity calls for small businesses, 

whose every day well being centers upon its cash position, to determine its financial well-being in a manner that adds no value to its 

success. From the perspective of the IRS, while the timing of income and expense reported under the accrual method may provide 

some acceleration of tax upon income that must be recognized before any cash is received, such acceleration is clearly unfair if the 

cash is never received, and may only accelerate tax collection by no 

more than one year if the cash is subsequently receive shortly after 

the accrual. 

The complexity of the accrual method is illustrated by prepayments. In the case of prepaid rent or interest received, income 

must be reported immediately upon receipt even if ‘‘all events’’ entitling the business to the income have not occurred. Similarly, 

where goods or services have not been delivered but cash payment 

has been received, the general rule under the accrual method that 

delays reporting the cash receipts on the business’s tax return until 

‘‘all events’’ have occurred, i.e. the goods are delivered or services 

performed, is disregarded. Thus, in the case of prepayments a business otherwise on the accrual method finds itself using the cash 

method for prepayments. Not an easy concept for a small business 

owner to understand. 

Another complexity of the accrual method is the necessity to account for bad debts when a business reports as income an account 

receivable for which it never receives actual payment. Each year 

businesses on the accrual method must determine which previously 

reported receivables are uncollectible and claim them as tax deductions. This can be a time consuming, confusing and expensive procSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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ess. Businesses using the cash method do not deduct bad debts because they do not include receivables in taxable income. 

Finally, even when a business on the accrual method meets the 

‘‘all events’’ test with respect to an expense, a deduction may be 

claimed only when ‘‘economic performance’’ occurs. Therefore, in 

the case of receiving goods and/or services from another party, the 

business may deduct the obligation to pay the other party only as 

the goods or services are received regardless of when the business 

pays for the goods or services, subject to an exception permitting 

deduction in the year of prepayment if the other party provides the 

goods or services within three and one-half months of the next taxable year. Again, not such an easy concept for small businesses to 

understand. 

The above illustrations of some of the complexity required by the 

accrual method of accounting demonstrates that in the case of 

small businesses the technical accuracy resulting from these rules 

offers no practical benefit to the business in measuring its economic performance, and over the life cycle of the business, offers 

no additional tax revenue to the government. 

II. Tax Accounting for Inventories 

Regardless of whether a business is on the cash or accrual method of accounting, if inventory is a material income producing factor, 

the business must account for gross profit, i.e. sales minus cost of 

goods sold, using the accrual method, even if they have adopted the 

cash method as their overall accounting method. Thus, a business 

cannot deduct the cost of the inventory (finished goods) to the extent it has not sold the product by the end of the business’s taxable 

year. Businesses selling inventory must maintain records documenting their cost of unsold, finished goods, partially finished 

goods and ‘‘raw’’ materials on hand that will be used in the future 

to manufacture or produce inventory. In addition, inventory cost 

accounting principles call for the deduction of indirect costs (overhead) associated with manufacturing or producing the inventory 

only when the inventory is sold. 

In determining its cost of inventory, a business must adopt an 

inventory costing method, i.e. the first-in, first-out (FIFO) method, 

the last-in, last-out (LIFO) method or the specific identification 

method. The FIFO and LIFO methods relieve businesses of the 

need to keep track of the cost of each item its sells, but where the 

items are unique or relatively high-cost, low volume products (e.g., 

jewelry, antiques, cars, etc.) the specific identification method is 

used. 

As an exception to the requirement to maintain inventory accounts, the IRS (not the Internal Revenue Code) permits a cash 

method business to use the cash method to account for their gross 

profit from the sale of inventory if the business’s average annual 

gross receipts for the three year period prior to the current year do 

not exceed $10,000,000 and the business’s primary activity is to 

provide services to customers but also offers a product for sale incidental to the performance of services. Thus, a veterinarian using 

the cash method of accounting need not use the accrual method to 

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account for the sale of medicines or other goods associated with the 

business of caring for animals because such sales are incidental to 

the veterinarian’s professional practices. But when the average 

gross receipts of the business exceeds $10,000,000, businesses must 

not only account for inventory using the accrual method, but also 

must apply certain ‘‘uniform cost capitalization’’ (UNICAP) rules 

that require an allocation to inventory of an array of indirect costs 

beyond those ordinarily associated with producing goods. Thus, 

under the UNICAP rules, a business must add to the cost of inventory a portion of compensation paid to employees who may not be 

involved in producing the inventory but may merely indirectly support the production process. 

A final illustration of the complexity of the accrual method deals 

with the perceived abuse of an accrual method business accruing 

(deducting) an amount owed to a related party using the cash 

method. In this case the business using the accrual method may 

not deduct the amount owed to the related party until the amount 

is actually paid and recognized as taxable income by the cash 

method party. This issue frequently arises where a business employs the owner or a relative of an owner. Related parties, for this 

purpose, include family members and certain businesses owned by 

the same individual(s). 

III. Comparison of Cash and Accrual Methods 

As the above descriptions demonstrate, the primary advantages 

of the cash method over the accrual method are its clarity and 

flexibility in measuring income and expenses and its less cumbersome bookkeeping and record keeping requirements. While the 

accrual method is generally considered a more accurate reflection 

of a business’s financial condition, the price of this accuracy is 

mind numbing complexity and inevitably increased compliance and 

record keeping costs. 

However, the Internal Revenue Code limits the adoption of the 

cash method to the following businesses: (1) sole proprietorships; 

(2) S corporations; (3) certain corporations engaged predominantly 

in the performance of services by their owners; (4) corporations 

with average gross receipts over the preceding three years of 

$5,000,000; (5) partnerships with no corporate shareholder whose 

gross receipts exceed $5,000,000; and (6) farms. 

Suggestions for simplifying and liberalizing the use of the cash 

method were made by the Treasury Department in 2007, and by 

the Bowles-Simpson Commission in 2010. These studies concluded 

that simplifying the reporting of income and expenses on tax returns filed by small businesses would result in the reallocation of 

resources to more productive purposes, ultimately stimulating job 

growth. In addition, the IRS Taxpayer Advocate has consistently 

recommended simplifying accounting methods for small business as 

a way to ease compliance burdens and reduce tax administration. 

IV. Simplified Cash Method of Accounting (‘‘SCM’’) - The 

‘‘Checkbook’’ Method 

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Based on this brief description of the accounting methods available to small businesses and the observations of Treasury, IRS and 

independent tax reform studies, I believe that small businesses 

need and deserve legislative relief in measuring and reporting their 

taxable income and deductible expenses. In my view, the Internal 

Revenue Code should be amended to not only permit the adoption 

of the cash method by more small businesses, but also the adoption 

of a ‘‘simplified cash method of accounting’’ (‘‘SCM’’). This proposed 

simplification of the existing cash method of accounting will reduce 

time-consuming, expensive administrative burdens on small businesses in keeping records and reporting their income and expenses 

on their returns, thereby unleashing resources that will create 

more productive, job creating activities. 

Besides reducing compliance costs the SCM will enable small 

businesses to better understand their tax returns, thereby reducing 

the general public’s cynicism that the Internal Revenue Code is replete with loopholes only accessible to businesses with resources to 

employ expensive tax professionals. In short, I believe that simplifying reporting on tax returns will increase compliance, ease the 

burden of tax administration, increase tax revenue and ultimately 

reduce the gap between what taxpayers should pay and what the 

IRS actually collects. 

Under the SCM the computation of taxable income is reduced to 

the following formula: 

Cash Receipts 

Less: Cash Expenses including: 

• Inventory 

• Prepayments 

• Materials/Supplies 

• Depreciable Property 

Taxable Income 

In short, the derivation of taxable income is based solely on 

amounts actually received or paid during the tax year, by means 

of examining the business’s checkbook for when checks were cut 

and deposits made. Under SCM, income consists only of cash, property or services received during the tax year without regard to imputed income under the constructive receipt, cash equivalence, or 

economic benefit doctrines. While determining and valuing the receipt of in-kind goods and services would continue to be a problem, 

small businesses would otherwise be able to arrive at their income 

by adding up their bank deposits for the year. Any timing advantage to businesses from not being subject to the judicial doctrines 

just mentioned would be minimal given that small businesses cannot, as a practical matter, defer recognition of cash by more than 

a few months without creating severe cash flow problems for the 

payment of their own bills. The complexity of the judicial doctrines 

does not warrant their application to small businesses. 

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SCM offers even greater simplification for the determination of 

deductible expenses. Under SCM, all current expenditures, including those for the acquisition or construction of inventory, would be 

deducted when paid. Although a technical violation of GAAP’s 

matching principle of accounting, GAAP is not a particularly useful 

concept in measuring the ability of a small business to pay tax, or 

even stay in business. More than one small business that had a 

profit under GAAP has failed because of cash flow problems. Allowing for the immediate deduction of the cost of inventory simplifies 

small business record keeping at relatively little cost to the government. For a small business to stay in business, inventory paid for 

and deducted in one year likely will be sold no later than the next 

year to ensure sufficient cash flow for business operations. Also, 

permitting the expensing of inventory before its sale recognizes the 

fact that by the IRS’s own admission, small businesses are not following the rules for the computation of cost of goods sold, in that 

audits reveal more than 50 percent of cost of goods sold calculations are incorrect. 

Finally, permitting the immediate expensing of depreciable property simply continues 100 percent bonus depreciation approach for 

acquired property with a useful life in excess of one year and the 

current section 179 expense allowance for purchased depreciable 

property. Thresholds and limitations similar to the present 

$10,000,000 limitation for uniform capitalization rules and the current IRS allowance for the cash method may be adopted to restrict 

SCM to small businesses. Exhibit 1 compares the treatment of 

many items under the current cash and accrual methods with the 

SCM. 

With a $10 million threshold for the general adoption of the cash 

method coupled with an election to adopt the SCM, simplification 

would be available to approximately 99% of all businesses in the 

United States, thereby reducing the tax compliance burden for almost every person owning and operating a business in America. 

IV. Conclusion 

The cash method of accounting is undeniably simpler than the 

accrual method of accounting. Expanding the number of businesses 

eligible to use the cash method by substituting the current statutory limits on its use with a $10 million gross receipts threshold 

would benefit not only small businesses but the overall economy. 

In addition, codification of the SCM would reduce the tax record 

keeping and compliance burdens faced by small businesses even 

further and improve the ability of small businesses to maintain 

their own accounting records and prepare their own tax returns 

eliminating the need to retain expensive tax professionals. Such a 

reduction in the reliance on tax accountants and lawyers will foster 

a greater appreciation by average Americans that the tax law is 

not benefitting only special interests but is, in fact, attempting to 

measure a business’s true economic net income. In short, I believe 

that a simplified cash method of accounting such as the SCM will 

improve tax compliance at lower cost to businesses with little or no 

loss of tax revenue. 

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Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I welcome any 

questions from any Member of the Committee or its staff. 

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Testimony of 

Sarah Windham, CPA 

Senior Manager 

Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP 

Charleston, South Carolina 

Committee on Small Business 

Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access 

United States House of Representatives 

Hearing on 

Cash Accounting: A Simpler Method for Small Firms? 

July 10, 2014 

Chairman Rice and Members of the Committee, thank you for 

the opportunity to testify on Cash Accounting: A Simpler Method 

for Small Firms? 

My name is Sarah Windham. I am a Senior Tax Manager in the 

Charleston, South Carolina office of Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP. 

With over 1,800 people located throughout the region, we are the 

largest CPA firm based in the Southern United States. Our commitment to our clients’ success has led to the development of specialized practice groups, each dedicated to a specific industry and 

offering comprehensive solutions. One of the firm’s professional 

service areas is Agribusiness. With nearly 60 years of experience 

serving the agribusiness industry, Dixon Hughes Goodman has developed a deep understanding of the operations and issues affecting 

various agribusinesses such as food processors, growers, industry 

associations, cotton ginners and co-ops. 

I am a Certified Public Accountant with 15 years of experience. 

I have extensive experience with agriculture clients, construction 

and real estate clients, as well as many other small businesses. 

I am here today on behalf of the South Carolina Farm Bureau. 

The South Carolina Farm Bureau is a grassroots, non-profit organization celebrating and supporting family farmers, locally grown 

food and our rural lands throughout legislative advocacy, education 

and community outreach. 

I am testifying before you today on the potential negative ramifications of the various proposals in Congress that would eliminate, 

for many taxpayers, the use of cash accounting for the purpose of 

calculating income tax liability. These adverse effects include a significant increase in the time dedicated to tax compliance, which 

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will deter farmers and other small business owners from focusing 

on making a living, as well as, an increase in the cost of tax compliance that would reduce the profitability of many farmers and 

small businesses who already work with very thin margins. Another effect would be a significant acceleration of tax liability without the cash available to pay the taxes on uncollected, yet taxed, 

income. These adverse effects would fall disproportionately on 

small businesses, such as farmers and professionals engaged in the 

fields of law, accounting, engineering, architecture, health, actuarial science, performing arts, or consulting. 

Almost all farmers use the simple, straightforward cash method 

of accounting in which income is not recognized until cash or other 

payment is actually received and expenses are not taken into account until they are actually paid. This method is used in determining profitability because it most accurately reflects the true financial picture of a farming operation. Currently the tax code (Internal Revenue Code Section 446) recognizes that to require a separate method of accounting solely for calculating income tax liability 

is an unnecessary burden and states that income tax liability ‘‘shall 

be computed under the method of accounting on the basis of which 

the taxpayer regularly computes his income in keeping his books.’’ 

Section 446 goes on to specifically provide that the cash method is 

a permissible method of calculating tax liability. 

Many taxpayers today, especially small businesses, find complying with the Internal Revenue Code burdensome. The cost of tax 

compliance for small businesses is 67% higher than that of a large 

business according to the National Federation of Independent Business. Agriculture is an industry that would be negatively impacted 

by the proposed changes to require accrual basis accounting. 

Farms, regardless of acreage, are perfect examples of small businesses. The definition of a small farm has changed dramatically 

due to advances in science and technology. According to the USDA, 

in 1945, 100 bushels of corn was produced on 2 acres of land. In 

2002, that same 100 bushels of corn were produced on less than 1 

acre. As you can see, fewer farmers produce more food on less acreage meaning many family farms may have larger gross revenue but 

not necessarily larger profits. The gross receipts thresholds proposed for accrual accounting would increase the cost of a family 

farm’s compliance burden in an industry that is facing over increasing input costs each year. Our nation may see further rises in 

our food prices passed along to the consumer by these growers. 

Why cash accounting? Cash accounting is a simple method of 

record keeping. As illustrated in its most simple and basic definition, the differences between cash versus accrual accounting is a 

matter of timing. For example, if Farmer Brown sold a bushel of 

corn in November with the understanding that he would be paid 

in January, under the cash method, Farmer Brown would record 

the payment in January when he received payment from his customer. Any expenses associated with growing and preparing the 

corn for market would be recorded when Farmer Brown paid his 

suppliers. This method is not dissimilar to maintaining and reconciling a simple checking account. 

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Most farmers do not employ professional accountants or bookkeeping staff. Many farming operations are in rural communities 

that do not have a large population from which to draw high level 

CFOs, controllers or even accountants. Many farms’ books and 

records are maintained by a family member or the farms’ owners 

themselves. They are already saddled with the burden of hiring 

professionals to prepare payroll and tax returns as well as financial 

statements. Requiring them to switch to accrual basis would force 

them to hire bookkeeping assistance and/or spend additional funds 

on accrual accounting systems, thus creating additional costs in an 

industry facing rapidly rising production expenses. The simplicity 

of the cash accounting method can also offer a ready window into 

tracking cash on hand and current profitability. One story I would 

like to share with you reflects the financial strain accrual accounting can put on farms. One of our farm clients was being asked by 

his financial institution to provide accrual basis financial statements on a quarterly basis. As with most farms, they keep their 

records on the cash basis. After explaining the additional fees the 

farmer would incur to have us assist their staff in converting the 

books to accrual basis it was agreed that cash basis statements 

were a better option. 

Farmers by nature must manage risk and volatility. It’s endemic 

to their industry. They are literally at the mercy of nature, the effects and aftermath of weather, and commodity prices. ‘‘Whether 

caused by unpredictable weather that affects crop yields or uncontrollable markets that set the price of goods sold, it is not uncommon for farmers and ranchers to have years with little or no taxable income,’’ Farm Bureau wrote to Senate Finance Committee 

Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Orrin 

Hatch (R-Utah). Since their income can fluctuate widely from year 

to year, accrual accounting, coupled with our progressive tax system, would likely cause farmers to pay more taxes over time than 

a company in a different industry with stable income over the same 

time period. Cash accounting allows them to accelerate expenses or 

defer income giving farms the option to even out their taxable income comparable with long-term earnings of other industries. This 

also gives then the ability to plan for capital investments and the 

large purchases of inputs based on improved cash flow without incurring debt. 

Most farmers and ranchers consider themselves to be small operations. Their operations are often divided into multiple businesses 

where some family members operate the farm while other family 

members may operate a related business, such as a processing facility or a retail market. Often times the farm may not have high 

gross receipts compared to the related business. Some proposals 

would decrease the threshold for switching to accrual accounting 

from $25 million to $10 million of gross receipts for C corporations 

and would also apply to S corporations, partnerships and sole-proprietorships that currently do not have a gross receipts limitation. 

Under the aggregation rules, the related businesses under common 

control would be combined. When combined, each of these related 

businesses, including the farm, would be required to use the accrual method of accounting. Most farms are structured as S corSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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porations, partnerships or sole-proprietorships and would be subject to accrual accounting under these proposals. It may also be argued that the transition from the cash to the accrual method of accounting may be unfair to current owners of an enterprise if the 

switch to accrual penalizes current owners and compels them to 

pay for the benefits received by a previous owner. 

As stated previously, the differences between cash versus accrual 

accounting is a matter of timing. Using the same scenario, if Farmer Brown sold a bushel of corn in November with the understanding that he would be paid in January, under the accrual 

method, Farmer Brown would record the income on his November 

books even though he’s received no money. Farmer Brown also 

would incur the tax liability on this income even though he’s received no money. Though receivables are definitely an asset that is 

an important measure in determining financial posture, only 

cash—and not receivables—can be used to pay income tax. 

An independent research firm, Informa Economics, revealed that 

U.S. agriculture producers required to switch from cash-basis to accrual-basis accounting under proposed new laws would have to pay 

out as much as $4.84 billion in taxes during the next four years. 

Additionally, borrowing capacity of these operations would decrease 

by another $7.26 billion over the same time period. According to 

the study, these farms have less than $1.4 billion in current cash 

on hand to pay the additional taxes. If the tax proposals associated 

with cash accounting are effective in an unprofitable farm year or 

if growers cannot otherwise meet the capital requirements, the 

farmer may have to downsize to survive. Over 24 million people, 

or 17% of the US work force, are employed in agriculture industries. The estimated $4.84 billion in tax that would be required to 

be paid by farms could very easily limit the ability of those farms 

to hire additional employees or may cause them to lay off employees if they are forced to downsize. 

We have many clients that are required to use accrual basis accounting for various reason in the Internal Revenue Code. As I 

mentioned in my introduction, I also have expertise in the construction industry. I have many examples of clients in this industry 

that have felt the challenges and burdens of accrual basis accounting. Especially in today’s economy, many contractors are experiencing the pains of spending much of their time and effort collecting accounts receivable and managing related cash flow instead 

of growing their business or building buildings and homes. Many 

contractors may not receive payment until well after they have 

invoiced their customers and recorded the income under the accrual method of accounting. Often times, they may be filing tax returns and paying tax on those receivables before the cash has been 

collected. In a recent experience, a small contractor who I work 

with has been faced with extending his tax return for several years 

in a row and incurring penalties and interest until he was able to 

collect the receivables needed to pay his income taxes. Under the 

cash basis of accounting, these hardships are less likely to happen 

since the taxpayer would not pay income tax on the money until 

it was received. 

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Summary 

The proposed requirement that farm operations use the accrual 

accounting method for tax purposes introduces complexity and expense to an industry that is already hobbled by gross receipts that 

do not necessarily indicate an increase in profitability. Producers 

operate at very low margins, usually under 20%. 

After many years in public practice, I believe that the proposals 

that would require farm operations to use accrual accounting would 

be determined to the food producers whom it will affect and impact. 

Under these proposals no additional cash would be available to 

make tax payments—cash that would otherwise be used to grow 

business, create more jobs and serve the communities in which 

businesses operate. 

In addition to being a CPA, I am the mother of two small children. The $4.84 billion in taxes that I referenced earlier from the 

projection made by the independent research firm, Informa Economics, reminds me of the fable I have read to my children—The 

Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. $4.84 billion dollars is, indeed, a 

golden egg. Unfortunately, in its pursuit, the forced switch to accrual-basis accounting may kill or do irreparable harm to the very 

enterprise that feeds the U.S. and the world. Golden eggs can be 

replaced. The goose, once dead, is gone. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify today. I would like to thank 

Chairman Rice and the other members of the committee who have 

supported opposing limitations to the use of cash basis accounting. 

I would be delighted to address any questions from any Member of 

the Committee or your staff today. I, and others at Dixon Hughes 

Goodman LLP, would be pleased to address any further questions 

with you at any future date. 

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Statement of Terry Durkin, EA 

President-Elect National Association of Enrolled Agents 

Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on 

Small Business, 

Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access 

July 10, 2014 

Thank you, Chairman Rice, Ranking Member Chu, and members 

of the Subcommittee, for asking me to testify today. I am an enrolled agent (EA) and President-Elect of the National Association 

of Enrolled Agents (NAEA), which represents the interests of over 

46,000 enrolled agents across the country. The enrolled agent license is the highest credential granted by the Department of Treasury. EAs are the only tax practitioners who are directly approved 

by the Department of Treasury for competency and ethical behavior. 

I am also a sole proprietor. My practice is primarily focused on 

individuals and on small businesses of less than $500,000 gross 

revenues—what I refer to as ‘‘microbusinesses.’’ Today I share with 

you my perspectives as both a tax practitioner and a small business owner. While I am testifying as an officer of NAEA, the opinions I express in this testimony are mine alone. 

Over the years, it has become clear to me that the business 

checking account is the focal point for most small business bookkeeping. Small businesses use the business checking account to 

measure cash flow and profits, and to a great extent it is the basis 

for their tax accounting as well. As a result, any change to the tax 

law that requires small business owners to move away from simple 

checkbook accounting, or cash basis accounting, has two negative 

effects: 

1. Increased complexity: Other methods of accounting, for example accrual or hybrid, create complexity by forcing small businesses 

to track certain expenses and capital outlays separately from their 

basic income and expense ledgers. For less sophisticated taxpayers, 

these separate accounting systems can be counter-intuitive and create expensive paperwork requirements. 

2. Restricted cash flow: Small businesses are commonly undercapitalized, which results in severe cash flow problems when they 

make payments but are unable to expense them for tax purposes 

in the same calendar year. A common complaint I hear in my practice is, ‘‘How do I owe taxes when I do not have any cash in my 

business checking account?’’ 

As Congress begins reforming the tax code, I urge you to keep 

in mind how essential cash basis accounting is to startup businesses, especially micro businesses. I believe Congress can do more 

to help them. Both Chairman Camp and former Senator Baucus’s 

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proposals are good first steps, but I strongly recommend that Congress go even further. I have several recommendations: 

First, increase expensing under section 179. Because 

Congress has not enacted legislation to extend expired tax provisions, expensing of capital purchases is currently limited to 

$25,000. This is a big drop from the $500,000 deduction that 

was available for the last several years under the provisions 

that expired. Also, the purchase limit for section 179 property 

has dropped to $200,000. This, again, is a big drop from the 

$2,000,000 total purchase limit of the past several years. I 

have a client in the medical field who is a sole proprietor (single member LLC) and planning to purchase a $100,000 piece 

of equipment this year. With the current rules, she will not be 

able to take the whole $100,000 amount as a section 179 expense. Given her situation, she needs to pay estimated taxes 

to account for the limited expenses she can take this year. 

However, if she were able to take a section 179 expense on the 

whole purchase, her tax liability and thus estimated tax payments would be much less. You can see the tax planning challenges we face when taxpayers do not know in advance which 

provisions might or might not be extended. I urge Congress to 

increase the section 179 expensing to at least $250,000 and to 

increase the total purchase limit to at least $1,000,000. Section 

179 is essential to creating a true cash basis system for small 

businesses. 

Second, remove uniform capitalization rules for small 

businesses. The uniform capitalization rules, which were enacted as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, require certain 

direct and indirect costs allocable to real or tangible personal 

property produced by the taxpayer to be included in either inventory or capitalized into the basis of such property, as applicable. I recommend that Congress consider removing this rule 

for small businesses and allow them simply to expense these 

costs. 

Third, allow small businesses to use pure cash accounting even if they have inventory. In general, taxpayers must account for inventories if the production, purchase, or sale of merchandise is material to the production of 

income. 

In those circumstances in which a taxpayer is required to account for inventory, the taxpayer must maintain inventory 

records to determine the cost of goods sold during the taxable 

period. Cost of goods sold generally is determined by adding 

the taxpayer’s inventory at the beginning of the period to the 

purchases made during the period and subtracting from that 

sum the taxpayer’s inventory at the end of the period. I recommend that Congress allow small businesses to use pure cash 

accounting for their operations, even if they have inventory. 

Fourth, allow small businesses to expense leasehold 

improvements. While the current list of tax extenders provides some relief from depreciating improvements to leased 

property over 39 years, I urge Congress to allow these outlays 

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to be expensed, under either section 179 or its own specific tax 

code section. For example, under the currently expired provisions, leasehold improvements were allowed fifteen-year treatment for qualified property. This treatment covers qualified 

leasehold improvements, retail improvements, and restaurant 

property. I represent a small business owner that leased part 

of a building to create a performing arts theatre. He made 

$300,000 worth of leasehold improvements to the building. 

Sadly, he did this before consulting anyone and thought he 

would be able to write off the whole $300,000 in one year since 

he spent it in that year. Being able to expense these costs in 

the year spent or at the very least to depreciate the $300,000 

over 15 years would be much more palatable and better for his 

cash flow than depreciating it over 39 years. 

Fifth, allow small businesses to deduct all start-up and 

organizational expenses. A taxpayer may elect to expense 

up to $5,000 of start-up expenditures in the tax year in which 

the active trade or business begins. A corporation or a partnership may elect to expense up to $5,000 of organizational expenditures in the taxable year in which the active trade or 

business begins. I urge Congress to allow all of these costs to 

be expensed for small businesses. When one of my clients 

starts a business, he or she inevitably asks, ‘‘I spent much 

more money on the business than I received in income. How 

can I still owe taxes?’’ I try to explain that some of the expenses cannot be written off in the year they are expended, 

even though the client is on a cash accounting system. As you 

can imagine, this does not go over well for microbusinesses. 

Sixth and finally, increase the limit on repairs and improvements. Under rules created by the IRS, smaller businesses that lack an applicable financial statement, such as my 

microbusinesses, may expense amounts paid for property costing less than $500 rather than depreciating the property over 

several years. Taxpayers elect this new provision annually by 

including a statement on the tax return. In addition, taxpayers 

must have in place appropriate and documented business procedures. Although the idea is a good one, taxpayers must do 

a lot of paperwork for a small benefit. I would recommend a 

rule that allowed small businesses to expense these costs in 

the year made. 

I had a client with several rental properties document his intentions to use this new regulation, but his question to me 

was, ‘‘When I buy a washer for the rental unit this year for 

$600, I cannot take advantage of this new regulation and will 

have to depreciate it anyway, right? What good is it to have 

the ‘under $500’ threshold?’’ I had to agree with him. He would 

see more benefits from this regulation if he could expense his 

$600 washing machine purchase or his $1,000 dryer purchase. 

Based on my experience as a small business owner and as a tax 

practitioner, I believe the above recommendations would substantially simplify operations, ease paperwork burdens, and improve 

cash flow for many businesses. 

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In closing, I would like to draw the Subcommittee’s attention to 

the recommendations of President George W. Bush’s Advisory 

Panel of Federal Tax Reform: 

The Panel recommends that most small businesses file taxes 

the same way they pay their bills—with their checkbook. 

Under the Panel’s options, most small businesses would report 

income as cash receipts minus cash business expenses. This 

rule reduces compliance costs by relieving small businesses 

from keeping a second (or sometimes even a third) set of books 

for tax reasons and allowing them to use records they already 

keep for their businesses. 

President Bush’s panel of experts clearly saw the advantage of 

simplification and the importance of cash flow for small business 

owners. 

Thank you for your time and attention. 

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Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Stephen Mankowski. I am 

a Certified Public Accountant, member of the American Institute of 

CPAs and the National Secretary and National Tax Policy Chair of 

the National Conference of CPA Practitioners, (NCCPAP), as well 

as the Vice President of the Delaware Valley Chapter of NCCPAP. 

NCCPAP is a professional organization that advocates on issues 

that affect Certified Public Accountants in public practice and their 

small business and individual clients located throughout the 

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United States. NCCPAP members serve more than one million 

business and individual clients and are in continual communication 

with regulatory bodies to keep them apprised of the needs of the 

local CPA practitioner. 

Accompanying me is Mr. Edward Caine, President of NCCPAP. 

We recently merged our practices. 

We have been preparing tax returns for over 30 years. Our firm 

annually prepares well over 1,100 small business and individual 

tax returns as well as sales tax and payroll tax returns. As a result, we are in the trenches with clients discussing their tax, financial and personal issues, and the impact of events on them. Although our clients are mostly in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and 

Delaware area, we have clients in New York, South Carolina, Ohio, 

Florida, Michigan, Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Nebraska, 

Tennessee and Washington, DC. In total, our firm files serves clients in over 30 states and also services clients in Canada and Europe. In this respect our practice is the same as many members of 

NCCPAP and other smaller CPA firms throughout the United 

States. 

Discussions surrounding the proper basis of accounting most 

likely began the moment a second basis was developed. Today, we 

not only have the two primary bases—cash and accrual—but also 

others including tax, regulatory and ‘‘other’’. Any basis other than 

accrual method is referred to as an ‘‘Other Comprehensive Basis of 

Accounting (OCBOA)’’. For purposes of this testimony, I will be discussing the cash and accrual bases of accounting. 

To further complicate the discussion, there are two distinct cash 

bases of accounting—cash and modified cash. Pure cash presentations in financial statements are very rare because cash receipts 

would not only include sales receipts but also proceeds from debt 

and fixed asset sales, and cash disbursements would include expenses, purchases of fixed assets, and loan repayments. This approach does not provide useful or realistic financial statements. 

Rather, a modified presentation has evolved to address these concerns. Therefore, when the term ‘‘cash basis of accounting’’ is used, 

the presenter is truly using the modified cash basis of accounting. 

As such, when discussing the cash basis of accounting, it is really 

a Modified Cash Basis, but hereinafter will be referred to as ‘‘cash 

basis’’. 

Under the cash basis of accounting, a taxpayer can defer income 

until cash is received but must also wait to deduct expenses until 

the amounts have actually been paid. Currently the cash basis of 

accounting is available for businesses operating as sole proprietors, 

S Corporations, partnerships that do not have a ‘‘C’’ Corporation as 

a partner, and personal service corporations (PSCs). A PSC performs activities in the fields of health, law, engineering, accounting, etc. whereby substantially all of the stock of the corporation 

is owned by employees performing services for the corporation in 

connection with those activities. In addition, some C Corporations 

and partnerships with C Corporation as partners can use the cash 

method if their average annual sales for the previous three years 

are less than $5 million. 

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Accrual accounting is considered to be the standard accounting 

method for most other companies. The accrual method provides a 

more accurate picture of the company’s current financial condition, 

but its relative complexity makes it more expensive to implement. 

Generally, a small business that receives income from producing, 

purchasing or selling merchandise must computer its inventory and 

use the accrual method of accounting. However, a small business 

with average annual receipts of $1 million or less can still use the 

cash method and account for inventory as materials and supplies. 

The costs of these materials and supplies would be deducted in the 

year the business sells the merchandise or pays for the items, 

whichever is later. Resellers with gross receipts of $10 million or 

less are not required to use the accrual method of accounting. 

Currently, if a small business has sales that require an accrual 

method of accounting or if the business simply wishes to convert 

from the cash method to the accrual method they must file IRS 

Form 3115, Application for Change in Accounting Method. The filing of this form is a request for a change in accounting method, not 

a guarantee. In preparing this form, the taxpayer must take into 

account any and all changes required to convert to an accrual basis 

as well as pay a filing fee. 

The need for the accrual method arose out of the increasing complexity of business transactions and a desire for more accurate financial information. Selling on credit and projects that provide revenue streams over a long period of time affect the company’s financial condition at the point of the transaction. Therefore, it usually 

makes sense that such events should also be reflected on the financial statements during the same reporting period that these transactions occur. 

The form to request a Federal Employer ID number (EIN) requires that an accounting method for the business must be selected. This form is completed prior to the business opening. Often, 

the primary understanding of accounting and record keeping of the 

business owner(s) falls under the cash basis of accounting. 

Throughout their adult lives, as individuals they have received 

W2s, 1099s, 1098s, and/or real estate bills. All of these documents 

were prepared under the cash basis of accounting. In fact, almost 

all personal tax returns are prepared on a cash basis of accounting. 

Therefore, when opening a business or even purchasing a rental 

property, the cash basis of accounting is the initial thought that 

comes to mind for the taxpayer. 

In establishing a business, hopefully the business owners have 

consulted with professionals—attorneys to incorporate the entity, if 

applicable, and CPAs to ensure the proper business structure. Part 

of a CPA’s job is to ensure that taxpayers comply with the tax 

codes so that they pay their fair share of taxes. Many business 

owners went to incorporate their business believing that there are 

special tax advantages, such as fewer tax audits. They don’t realize 

that there are other considerations including keeping separate 

books and records, paying themselves a salary as an incorporated 

business is required to do, additional tax files, and the list goes on. 

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In recent years, Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) have become a common choice of business structure of the new small business. Often, however, the business owner is not aware of the various tax ramifications. If there is only one owner, the business is 

taxed as a sole proprietor and all of the business activity will be 

reported on Schedule C of the owner’s individual tax return. With 

multiple owners, the entity would be taxed as a partnership. The 

entity can elect to be taxed as an S-Corporation regardless of the 

number of owners provided that none of the owners are corporations. Under the rules of S Corporations, owners with greater than 

a five percent ownership interest are required to draw reasonable 

compensation in the form of a salary where the tax withholdings 

can be sufficient to remove the burden of making quarterly estimated tax payments as individuals. 

Regardless of whether the entity is taxed as an S corporation or 

partnership, the owners are subject to pass-through income based 

upon their ownership interest or partnership agreement. Often, 

this income relates to fund that are not always immediately available for distribution to the owner(s), which may be another challenge to taxpayers who have to follow accrual based accounting as 

this may trigger phantom income. Owner(s) may choose to keep the 

net income in the business to help fund expansion, debt service or 

unpaid bills. Countless times during tax season after the owner(s) 

receive Form K-1 from their partnership or S corporation, we have 

to explain to business owners why they are paying taxes on business income that they have not received. This is what is referred 

to as pass-through income of the business and is taxed at the individual level—frequently at lower tax rates than if taxed at corporate levels. Further complicating pass-through income is the fact 

that most partnership income is also subject to self-employment 

taxes. 

Many small businesses still operate under the cash basis for tax 

purposes but opt to prepare accrual basis financial statements, as 

this MAY show them in a better financial position. This is often 

the case when there is a need for financing. In addition, many 

banks prefer an accrual basis as it provides them a more comprehensive view of the financial position of the entity because of 

the inclusion of accounts receivable and accounts payable in the financial statements. 

Often business owners do not have the accounting background to 

properly and adequately track and report revenue and expenses in 

any manner other than cash basis without the assistance of CPAs, 

EAs, accountants and bookkeepers. Many owners simply think on 

the basis of cash in and cash out and give their accountants their 

bank statements, check stubs and invoices to prepare their financial books which are used solely to prepare their tax returns. Many 

small business owners do not have systems in place to fully track 

accounts receivable or accounts payable. Once the financial activity 

is recorded, small business owners would then need to adjust these 

statements into an accrual basis. These adjustments can include 

uncollected revenue, unpaid payroll and related liabilities, prepaid 

expenses, inventory, etc. Not only will the owners be responsible 

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for knowing what adjustments need to be made, they also must be 

able to determine the valuation of these adjustments. 

Despite the business owner’s reliance on accounting professionals, the fiscal responsibility still falls on the owners. The business owners are and will remain responsible for all of the information that appears on their tax returns. The fact that their tax returns are professionally prepared does not alleviate the taxpayer 

responsibility for the accuracy of the data contained in the tax returns, but many business owners may not have the financial background to make this determination using the accrual basis of accounting. 

If small businesses were required to convert their accounting 

method to the accrual basis, the overall impact might simply be a 

‘‘one-time’’ hit. Meaning, once the conversion is complete, the annual effect might not be as significant as one might expect. The 

‘‘one-time’’ hit, however, could be very significant depending on the 

business. Newer entities or entities with minimal accounts receivable or accounts payable would likely have a small tax increase 

and possibly even a tax decrease. Entities with a larger receivable 

base, however, would not be so fortunate. To properly convert, they 

would need to report ALL open receivables as current income and 

all unpaid bills as current expenses. The impact of this added income could propel the owners into higher tax brackets, which in 

turn could lead to the phase-outs of itemized deductions and personal exemptions, phase-outs of other deductions and credits including tuition and student loans when the increased income is reported on their individual income tax returns. In addition, taxpayers may find themselves subject to the 3.9% Net Investment Income surtax that became effective last year. 

These tax increases will not just affect the taxpayer’s federal income tax. Rather, additional state and local taxes may also be due 

because state and local tax returns usually have to be filed on the 

same basis as the federal tax returns. Further, many municipalities also impose a tax on gross receipts of all businesses. 

As discussed throughout the testimony, taxpayers often are unaware of the differences in accounting methods. If they were required to convert, this obviously creates a major business opportunity for CPAs, EA, bookkeepers, etc. Unfortunately, this will also 

open the door for unregulated preparers to take advantage of unknowing taxpayers and utilize creative accounting. 

Over the last few years, I have attended many IRS meetings, including National Public Liaison (NPL) and Working Together Forums. If there is one common thread that has been resonating from 

the IRS, it has been to reduce taxpayer burden. While this can 

mean many things, ultimately I believe that the IRS realizes that 

business and taxes in today’s economy have gotten even more complicated. The current tax codes makes compliance even more complicated. In working to reduce the tax compliance burden, the IRS 

representatives have stressed the importance of e-Filing tax returns and have improved upon this every tax season, added additional features to their website such as ‘‘where’s my amended return’’ that allows taxpayers to track the processing of amended tax 

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returns. Further, discussions have also centered on what can be 

done to ease the stress of taxpayers from regular tax filings and 

to respond to IRS notices that are sent. Requiring taxpayers to 

change their accounting methods without any specific reasons 

would truly be in conflict to what the IRS has been working to 

achieve. 

In conclusion, after reviewing the facts surrounding the differences between cash and accrual basis accounting, I feel that the 

use of cash basis for small firms remains of great importance and 

should be continued. It is a method that is consistent with how the 

owners have been taxed throughout their lives on their personal 

tax returns and how they realistically live. Converting to an accrual basis would add an additional burden onto them—financial. 

They would need to retain accounting professionals to guide them 

in this process. The Federal Government would achieve what can 

best be described as a ‘‘one-time’’ boost of tax revenue from the conversion. Taxpayers would be paying taxes on net income that neither they nor the business has received and this tax increase will 

include federal, state and local taxes. If the taxpayer has uncollectable aged accounts receivable, the taxpayer will be able to then 

write off this revenue and potentially send cancellation of debt notices (a 1099C) to those who owe money to the business. If the business subsequently pays the old accounts receivable, the income 

would be reported at that time and a method would have to be developed to reverse the cancellation of debt notice. The end result 

would be that the taxpayer has reduced his or her tax burden and 

the effect of the conversion to accrual basis is further diminished. 

All businesses have the opportunity to elect to track their accounting on an accrual basis. Not all have the opportunity to account on a cash basis. Some larger entities and many of those with 

inventory are required to account on an accrual basis. However, the 

majority of businesses are permitted to choose their accounting 

method. With the guidance of financial professionals, they are able 

to elect the most appropriate accounting method for their specific 

business. Forcing a business to use the accrual basis not only complicates their business but also requires the owners to take time 

away from operations to focus on changing an accounting method. 

Ultimately, one does not start a business to focus on accounting. 

Forcing this change will do just that. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. 

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1The text of the draft ‘‘Tax Reform Act of 2014’’ is available on the House Ways & Means 

Committee’s website at http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/statutory—text—tax—reform—act—of—2014—discussion—draft—0226214.pdf. 2 At least 21 state and local bars have expressed opposition to the mandatory accrual accounting legislation, including those in Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, 

Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. A complete list of the national, specialty, state and local bars opposing the proposal and other resources on this issue are available 

at: http://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental—legislative—work/priorities—policy/ 

independence—of—the—legal—profession/mandatory-accrual-for-law-firms.html. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

My name is William Hubbard, and I am the President-Elect of 

the American Bar Association (‘‘ABA’’) and a partner at Nelson 

Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Columbia, South Carolina, 

where I practice in the area of business litigation. On behalf of the 

ABA, which has almost 400,000 members, thank you for the opportunity to express our views regarding the advantages of the traditional cash method of accounting utilized by most law firms, as 

well as our concerns over draft legislation prepared by House Ways 

& Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) that would substantially limit the continued use of cash accounting. We request 

that this statement be made part of the hearing record. 

The proposed legislation, contained in Section 3301 of Chairman 

Camp’s draft ‘‘Tax Reform Act of 2014,’’ would impose substantial 

new financial burdens and hardships on many law firms and other 

types of personal service businesses throughout the country by fundamentally changing the manner in which they must pay their 

taxes.1 In particular, the provision would require all law firms and 

other personal service businesses with annual gross receipts over 

$10 million to switch from the traditional cash receipts and disbursement method of accounting to the much more complex accrual 

method of accounting. As a result, many small and medium sized 

businesses—including many thousands of law firms, accounting 

firms, medical firms, and other professional service providers— 

would be forced to pay taxes on income long before it is actually 

received. 

Although we commend Chairman Camp and the Ways & Means 

Committee staff for their efforts to craft legislation aimed at simplifying the tax laws—an objective that the ABA and its Section of 

Taxation have long supported—we are concerned that Section 3301 

of his bill would have the opposite effect and cause other negative 

unintended consequences. This far-reaching provision would create 

unnecessary complexity in the tax law by disallowing the use of the 

cash method; increase compliance costs and corresponding risk of 

manipulation; and cause substantial hardship to many law firms 

and other personal services businesses by requiring them to pay 

tax on income they have not yet received and many never receive. 

While the ABA has expressed its views on many different policy 

issues during the 113th Congress, this particular issue has become 

one of the most important issues to our members—and many state 

and local bars throughout the country 2—because of the serious 

negative effects that the proposed legislation would have on practicing lawyers, their law firms, and their clients. In addition, many 

other leading associations and other entities have expressed serious 

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3The ABA has been working in close cooperation with a broad and diverse coalition of organizations including the American Institute of CPAs, American Council of Engineering Companies, 

American Dental Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Institute of Architects, American Association for Justice, Americans for Tax Reform, and over 50 law firms, accounting firms, and other entities in an effort to raise awareness of the proposed mandatory 

accrual accounting legislation and its unintended harmful consequences. 

concerns regarding this and other proposals to impose substantial 

new limits on the use of cash accounting.3 Therefore, the ABA appreciates this Subcommittee’s efforts to highlight the benefits of 

cash accounting and the very serious effects that mandatory accrual accounting would have on law firms and many other types of 

small and medium sized businesses throughout the nation. 

Advantages of the Cash Method of Accounting 

Under current law, businesses are permitted to use the simple, 

straightforward cash method of accounting—in which income is not 

recognized until cash or other payment is actually received and expenses are not taken into account until they are actually paid—if 

they are individuals or pass-through entities (e.g., partnerships or 

subchapter S corporations), or their average annual gross receipts 

for a three year period are $5 million or less. In addition, all personal service businesses—including those engaged in the field of 

law, accounting, engineering, architecture, health, actuarial 

science, performing arts, or consulting—whether organized as sole 

proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies, or S corporations, are exempt from the revenue cap and can use the cash 

method of accounting irrespective of their annual revenues, unless 

they have inventory. 

Partnerships, S corporations, personal service corporations and 

other pass-through entities favor the cash method because it is 

simple and generally correlates with the manner in which these 

business owners operate their businesses—i.e., on a cash basis. 

Simplicity is important from a compliance perspective because it 

enables taxpayers to better understand the tax consequences of 

transactions in which they engage or plan to engage. In this regard, simplicity helps to mitigate compliance costs—which already 

are significant—and to improve compliance with the Tax Code. 

In addition to promoting simplicity, the cash method of accounting also produces a sound and fair result because it properly recognizes that the cash a business actually receives in return for the 

services it provides—not the business’ accounts receivable—is the 

proper measure of its true income. While accounts receivable clearly are important in determining the overall financial condition of 

the business and assessing its future prospects, they do not accurately reflect what is available for the business’ owners to spend (or 

their present ability to pay taxes on their income). If the tax rules 

are changed to disconnect cash collections from how income is 

taxed, the very business model upon which many law firms and 

other personal service business operate will be turned on its head. 

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4For a detailed discussion of the specific effects that mandatory accrual accounting legislation 

would have on law firms, see PwC’s Law Firm Services, Congressional Proposals Requiring Law 

Firms to Report Taxable Income on the Accrual Method of Accounting (December, 2013), available at: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/cash-to-accrual-white-paper.pdf. 

Mandatory Accrual Accounting for Personal Service Businesses 

Would Be a Major Change to Current Law and Would Increase, 

Not Decrease, the Complexity of the Tax Code 

Section 3301 of the Chairman Camp’s draft legislation would 

dramatically change current law by raising the gross receipts cap 

to $10 million while eliminating the existing exemption for law 

firms and other personal service businesses and for other partnerships and S corporations. Therefore, if this proposal is enacted into 

law, all law firms and other personal service businesses with annual gross receipts over $10 million would be required to use the 

accrual method of accounting, in which income is recognized when 

the right to receive the income is present and expenses are recorded when they are fixed, determinable and economically performed, both aspects of which present complications. 

Although Chairman Camp’s proposal would allow certain small 

business taxpayers with annual gross receipts in the $5 million to 

$10 million range to switch to—and thereby enjoy the benefits of— 

the cash method of accounting (a concept that the ABA does not 

oppose), the proposal would significantly complicate tax compliance 

for a far greater number of small business taxpayers, including 

many law firms and other personal service businesses, by forcing 

them to use the accrual method of accounting. 

For example, while law firms using the cash method of accounting simply pay taxes on the income that they actually receive, law 

firms that are required to use the accrual method will be forced to 

calculate and then pay taxes on multiple types of accrued income, 

including work in progress and other unbilled work, accounts receivable (where the work has been done and billed but not yet paid 

for), and accounts paid (where the work has been done, billed, and 

paid for).4 In order to meet these requirements, law firms and 

other affected businesses will need to keep much more detailed 

work and billing records and hire additional accounting and support staff. As a result, the proposal would substantially raise compliance costs for many law firms and other personal service businesses while greatly increasing the risk of noncompliance with the 

Tax Code. 

Other ABA Concerns Regarding the Legislation 

In addition to creating unnecessary complexity and compliance 

costs, Chairman Camp’s proposal would lead to economic distortions that would adversely affect all personal service businesses 

that currently use the cash method of accounting and those who retain them, including many law firms and their clients, in several 

ways. 

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5 Rule 5.4(b) of the ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct (‘‘ABA Model Rules’’) provides 

that ‘‘a lawyer shall not form a partnership with a nonlawyer if any of the activities of the partnership consist of the practice of law.’’ See also Charts Comparing Individual Professional Conduct Rules as Adopted or Proposed by States to ABA Model Rules, available at http:// 

www.americanbar.org/groups/professional—responsibility/policy.html. 6 ABA Model Rule 5.4(d)(1) provides that ‘‘a lawyer shall not practice with or in the form of 

a professional corporation or association authorized to practice law for a profit, if...a nonlawyer 

owns any interest therein, except that a fiduciary representative of the estate of a lawyer may 

hold the stock or interest of the lawyer for a reasonable time during administration.’’ Similarly, 

in many states, accounting firms may not have any passive (i.e., investor) ownership and a majority of the owners must hold active CPA licenses. 

First, the proposal would impose substantial new financial burden on many thousands of personal service businesses throughout 

the country—including many law firms—by requiring them to pay 

taxes on income they have not yet received and may never receive. 

Unlike the current law, where law firms and other personal service 

businesses need only pay taxes on income they have actually received, the proposal would require many of these firms to pay tax 

on ‘‘phantom income’’ that they have not yet received, including 

work in progress, other unbilled work, and accounts receivable. As 

a result, many firms would have to borrow money or use their 

scarce capital just to pay their accelerated tax obligations. In either 

event, the proposal would impose a serious financial burden and 

hardship on many of these firms. 

Second, the proposal would cause the legal profession to suffer 

even greater financial hardships than other professions because 

many lawyers and law firms are not paid by their clients until long 

after the work is performed. Many types of lawyers—such as business lawyers working on complex transactions and litigators involved in lengthy trials or appeals—often are not paid until the end 

of the case or project, which can be years after the work is performed. This sets lawyers and law firms apart from many other 

types of professionals—such as doctors, dentists, and accountants— 

who typically work on a pay-as-you-go basis. Therefore, requiring 

personal service providers to pay taxes on income that has accrued 

but not yet been received will create special hardships for many in 

the legal profession. 

The proposal also would disproportionately affect professional 

service providers that practice in regulated professions, like lawyers, because many of these professionals are subject to special 

rules that significantly limit their ability to raise capital. For example, lawyers must comply with state court ethics requirements that 

generally prohibit them from forming a law firm partnership with 

a non-lawyer 5 or allowing a non-lawyer to own any interest in a 

law firm partnership.6 As a result, many law firms must be capitalized solely by the individual lawyers who together own those firms 

and they are unable to raise equity capital from outside non-lawyer 

investors. Therefore, forcing these law firms to pay tax on income 

that has not yet been received and which may never be received 

could place a major strain on lawyers’ ability to properly capitalize 

and operate their firms. 

Third, the mandatory accrual accounting proposal could adversely affect clients, interfere with the lawyer-client relationship, 

and reduce the availability of legal services in various ways. Under 

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7See Tax Reform Act of 2014 Discussion Draft, Section-by-Section Summary at page 88, available at: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ 

ways—and—means—section—by—section—summary—final—022614.pdf 

dividual lawyers within the firm typically perform any necessary 

legal services for the client throughout the month and the firm 

then bills the client on a monthly (or quarterly, or some other periodic) basis. In other cases, law firms may agree to handle a client’s 

case on a contingency fee basis, in which a fee (typically a percentage of the total recovery, plus actual expenses) is only charged if 

the client prevails. In still other cases, a law firm may agree to represent a start-up company in return for an equity interest in the 

new business instead of a traditional legal fee. Many law firms also 

agree to represent a certain number of indigent clients on a pro 

bono basis in which no fee of any kind is charged. 

Unfortunately, if the proposed legislation is enacted and many 

law firms that currently use the cash method of accounting are 

forced to use the accrual method and pay taxes on income they 

have not yet received, the resulting financial pressures will force 

many firms charging on an hourly basis to collect their legal fees 

immediately after the legal services are provided to the clients (or 

at least much sooner than they currently do). In addition, many 

firms will no longer be able to represent as many accident victims, 

start-up companies, or other clients on a contingent fee basis as 

they currently do because the taxes on contingent fee income could 

become due once the court judgments or settlements become final, 

even if the firm does not actually collect the income for months or 

even years later. Perhaps worst of all, the serious cash flow and 

other financial pressures caused by the acceleration of their tax liabilities will force many firms to reduce the amount of free, pro 

bono legal services that they currently provide to the poor. 

Finally, the ABA opposes the mandatory accrual accounting proposal because it would constitute a major tax increase on small and 

medium sized businesses and would discourage economic growth. 

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the accrual accounting mandate in Section 3301 of Chairman Camp’s bill would generate $23.6 billion in new taxes over ten years 7 by requiring the 

affected businesses to pay taxes on phantom income up to a year 

or more before it is actually received (if it is ever received). Because 

this acceleration of a firm’s tax liability would be permanent and 

continue year after year, it would constitute a major permanent tax 

increase for the firm, when compared to the taxes the firm currently pays under the cash method, until the firm eventually dissolves, merges with another firm, or otherwise ceases to exist. 

In addition, the proposal would discourage professional service 

providers from joining with other providers to create or expand a 

firm, even if it made economic sense and would benefit their clients, because4 it could trigger the accrual accounting requirement 

in the bill. For example, solo practitioner lawyers would be discouraged from entering into law firm partnerships—and many existing 

law firms would be discouraged from growing or expanding—because once a firm exceeds $10 million in annual gross receipts, it 

would be required to switch from cash to accrual accounting, thereby accelerating its tax payments. Sound tax policy should encourSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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age—not discourage—the growth of small and medium sized businesses, including those providing personal services such as law 

firms, especially in today’s difficult economic environment. 

Conclusion 

In sum, while the simple cash method of accounting more accurately reflects the true income of most businesses and offers many 

other advantages, mandatory accrual accounting proposals such as 

Section 3301 of the draft Tax Reform Act of 2014 would likely 

cause numerous harmful unintended consequences. These include 

unnecessary new complexity in the tax law, increased compliance 

costs, and significant new financial burdens and hardships for the 

many law firms and other personal service businesses throughout 

the country that will be required to pay tax on phantom income 

that has not yet been received and may never be received. In addition, the proposal would harm the economy and discourage growth, 

without providing any corresponding benefits. 

To avoid these harmful results, the ABA urges you and your colleagues to protect the ability of personal service businesses to use 

the simple cash method of accounting and to oppose provisions like 

Section 3301 that would require many of these businesses to utilize 

the more complex and costly accrual method of accounting. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to express the ABA’s views 

on this important issue. 

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The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC)—the 

business association of the nation’s engineering industry—is 

pleased to submit this statement to the Subcommittee on Economic 

Growth, Tax, and Capital Access of the House Small Business 

Committee for its hearing on the cash method of accounting. 

ACEC members—numbering more than 5,000 firms representing 

hundreds of thousands of engineers and other specialists throughout the country—are engaged in a wide range of engineering works 

that propel the nation’s economy, and enhance and safeguard 

America’s quality of life. The Council represents engineering businesses of all sizes, from those with a single professional engineer 

to firms that employ tens of thousands of professionals working in 

the United States and throughout the world. 

A proposal is being discussed in Congress that would change the 

rules regarding the use of the cash method of accounting. The Tax 

Reform Act of 1986 requires most businesses, particularly those 

that have inventories, to use the accrual method of accounting. 

However, professional services firms of all sizes, including engineering firms, are generally allowed to use cash accounting for tax 

purposes, either under the QPSC exception or because they are organized as S corporations or partnerships. In addition, the law provides a general allowance in the use of cash accounting for any 

small firm with revenues below $5 million, as well as farmers. 

The proposal under consideration would change these long-standing rules and limit the use of cash accounting only to sole proprietorships and firms with less than $10 million in gross receipts. 

While increasing the basic small firm threshold from $5 million to 

$10 million makes sense, the larger impact of forcing engineering 

firms with revenues over $10 million to switch to accrual accounting presents major problems. 

At the outset, we would note an immediate contradiction in policy, as the current small business size standard for engineering 

firms is $14 million. Should the proposal become law, some firms 

that are classified as small by the Small Business Administration 

would be considered large under the Internal Revenue Code. 

The proposal presents more fundamental problems, however. Engineering firms normally carry large balances of accounts receivable and work in progress, representing work performed for clients 

for which they have not yet been paid. The primary cost for engineering firms is labor, and approximately 85 percent of a typical 

firm’s expenses can be attributed to payroll, benefits, and similar 

regular expenses. Engineering firms generally have to wait at least 

120 days to be paid for services rendered to their clients, and at 

the same time must pay their employees every two weeks. While 

this situation can create cash flow challenges for firms, the use of 

cash accounting helps to mitigate those challenges by allowing 

firms to make tax payments after receiving payment for their services. 

By contrast, forcing firms to switch to accrual accounting would 

require firms to use debt financing to cover the delta between expenses and receipts, which is much harder for small and mid-size 

firms to access today. The cash flow challenges that would result 

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from a switch to accrual accounting would create additional negative consequences, including workforce downsizing among some 

firms, delayed expansion plans, and decreased shareholder distributions. In fact, many S corporations utilize shareholder distributions to facilitate ownership transition, and any reduction 

could have a detrimental impact on a firm’s long-term viability. All 

of these outcomes would take money out of the productive economy, 

jeopardize well-paying jobs, and burden firms that continue to 

struggle in the soft economy. 

The simple premise of cash accounting allows engineering firms 

to pay income taxes on their revenue when they are actually paid, 

rather than when they submit an invoice. Conversely, they are not 

allowed to take deductions for expenses when they are incurred, 

but when the expense is actually paid. Once again, we believe this 

approach is fair for an industry whose product is intellectual capital, not hard physical inventory. 

For these reasons, ACEC strongly recommends that Congress 

continue to allow engineering firms and other similar businesses to 

use cash accounting as they have done for decades. 

On behalf of the nation’s engineering industry, we thank the 

Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital Access of the 

House Small Business Committee for the opportunity to submit a 

statement on this important issue. 

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AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CERTIFIED PUBLIC 

ACCOUNTANTS 

WRITTEN STATEMENT 

For the Record of the 

July 10, 2014 Hearing 

of the 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, TAX AND 

CAPITAL ACCESS 

on 

CASH ACCOUNTING: A SIMPLER METHOD FOR SMALL 

FIRMS? 

Introduction 

The AICPA commends Chairman Rice, Ranking Member Chu, 

and the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access for examining cash accounting, its utilization by small businesses, and whether the current policies should be changed to 

allow small firms more flexibility in choice of accounting methods. 

We wholly support the expansion of the number of taxpayers 

that may use the cash method of accounting. The cash method of 

accounting is simpler in application, has fewer compliance costs, 

and does not require taxpayers to pay tax before receiving the income being taxed. For these same reasons, we are extremely concerned with, and oppose, any limitations on the use of the cash 

method for small and service businesses, including those businesses whose income is taxed directly on their owners’ individual 

returns, such as S corporations and partnerships. Requiring these 

businesses to switch to the accrual method upon reaching a gross 

receipts threshold would unnecessarily discourage small business 

growth. 

The AICPA is the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession, with more than 394,000 members in 128 countries and a 125-year heritage of serving the public 

interest. Our members advise clients on Federal, state and international tax matters and prepare income and other tax returns for 

millions of Americans. Our members provide services to individSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

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1See section 446(c). 

2See section 446(c). 

3See section 446(c). 

4See limitation, however, under section 447. 

5See section 448(b). 

6See section 448(b)(3). 

7See section 448(a) and 448(b)(3). 

8See Treas. Reg. § 1.446-1(c)(2)(i). 

9 According to Rev. Proc. 2001-10, a qualifying taxpayer is an entity with average annual gross 

receipts for each prior tax year ending on or after December 17, 1998, of $1 million or less. 10 According to Rev. Proc. 2002-28, a qualifying small business taxpayer is an entity with average annual gross receipts for each prior tax year ending on or after December 31, 2000, of more 

than $1 million but not more than $10 million, and is not otherwise prohibited from using the 

cash method under section 448(a). 

uals, not-for-profit organizations, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as America’s largest businesses. 

Background 

1. General Rules 

In general, a taxpayer may use any method of accounting that 

clearly reflects income (including the cash method) unless the taxpayer is required by the Internal Revenue Code or Income Tax 

Regulations to use a specific method of accounting (e.g., the accrual 

method of accounting, the percentage of completion method for 

long-term contracts, etc.).1

For example, the following taxpayers are generally permitted to 

use the cash method of accounting: 

1. Sole proprietors; 2

2. Pass-through entities (e.g., partnerships and S corporations); 3

3. Entities that engage in a farming business; 4

4. Entities that primarily perform services by their owners; 5

and 

5. Entities that satisfy a $5 million gross receipts test (and 

do not maintain inventory).6

Currently, the Internal Revenue Code and Income Tax Regulations require certain taxpayers to adopt a specific method of accounting (e.g., the accrual method of accounting, the percentage of 

completion method for long-term contracts, etc.). For example, C 

corporations (as well as partnerships that have a C corporation as 

a partner) and tax shelters are not allowed to use the cash method 

of accounting (subject to exceptions),7 and a taxpayer must also 

generally use the accrual method of accounting if the taxpayer purchases, produces, or sells merchandise.8

On the other hand, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), by administrative action, has allowed certain ‘‘small’’ taxpayers (e.g., 

qualifying taxpayers 9 and qualifying small business taxpayers 10) 

to use the cash method even if inventories are maintained. 

In other words, most types of entities (e.g., sole proprietorships, 

partnerships, and S corporations) may use the cash basis method 

of accounting regardless of whether they maintain inventory, if 

they have average annual gross receipts of less than $10 million. 

As mentioned above, this threshold is lowered to $5 million for C 

corporations. 

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11See Section 481(a); Rev. Proc. 97-27, 1997-1 C.B. 680. 

In general, a taxpayer who changes its accounting method (e.g., 

from the cash method to the accrual method) is required to compute an adjustment (section 481(a) adjustment) to prevent items of 

income or expense from being duplicated or entirely omitted from 

the taxpayer’s taxable income. If the accounting method change is 

made with the permission of the Commissioner and results in a 

positive section 481(a) adjustment (increase in income), the adjustment is included in taxable income ratably over four taxable years. 

Whereas, a negative section 481(a) adjustment (decrease in income) 

is taken into account entirely in the year of change.11

12. Recent Proposals 

On February 21, 2014, House Ways and Means Committee 

Chairman Dave Camp released the Tax Reform Act of 2014, which 

provides that the cash method of accounting is available for natural 

persons (in other words, ‘‘individuals’’) and any other taxpayer who 

meets the gross receipts test and is otherwise eligible to use the 

cash method. Under the proposal, a taxpayer would satisfy the 

gross receipts test if the taxpayer’s average annual gross receipts 

for a three taxable-year period are $10 million or less. The proposal 

effectively would require certain pass-through entities (e.g., partnerships and S corporations) and personal service corporations with 

average annual gross receipts in excess of $10 million to use the 

accrual method of accounting. The proposal also would provide that 

a positive section 481(a) adjustment from an accounting change 

from the cash method to the accrual method is accounted over a 

four-year stepped period within eight years. 

On November 21, 2013, the former Senate Finance Committee 

Chairman Max Baucus released the 2013 Cost Recovery and Accounting Staff Discussion Legislative Language, which provides 

that the cash method of accounting is only available by taxpayers 

who meet the gross receipts test and are otherwise eligible to use 

the cash method. Under the proposal, a taxpayer would satisfy the 

gross receipts test if the taxpayer’s average annual gross receipts 

for a three taxable-year period are $10 million or less. The proposal 

effectively would require certain individuals, farmers, pass-through 

entities (e.g., partnerships and S corporations), and personal service corporations with average annual gross receipts in excess of $10 

million to use the accrual method of accounting. However, the proposal would permit a taxpayer to use the cash basis method of accounting, if the gross receipts threshold is satisfied, regardless of 

whether it maintains inventory. 

In summary, if enacted, these proposals would both expand and 

limit the availability of the cash method of accounting for small 

businesses by increasing the gross receipts threshold from $5 to 

$10 million and requiring pass-through entities and personal service operations with average annual gross receipts in excess of $10 

million to use the accrual method of accounting. 

Analysis 

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12See section 451. 13See section 461. 

Increased burden in adopting the accrual method of accounting 

The AICPA believes that requiring small and service businesses, 

including those businesses whose income is taxed directly on their 

owners’ individual returns, such as S corporations and partnerships, to adopt and use the accrual method of accounting imposes 

complexities and increases burden. 

Under the cash method, income is recognized when it is actually 

or constructively received, and expenses are recorded when paid. 

These are straightforward and easily applied tests. Therefore, determining taxable income using the cash method is much simpler 

in application. Thus, many small businesses, including the service 

industry, prefer using the cash method of accounting. 

Under the accrual method, income is recognized when the right 

to receive the income is fixed and the amount is determinable with 

reasonable accuracy,12 and expenses are deductible when they are 

fixed, determinable, and economically performed 13 (e.g., the ‘‘allevents test’’). These tests require analysis that is more complex 

than under the cash method. For example, under the accrual method, a taxpayer must determine the fact and amount of liability and 

determine if the property or service to which the accrual relates is 

actually provided or used. Therefore, determining taxable income 

under the accrual method is far more difficult in application, resulting in increases in the cost of compliance compared with the 

cash method. Thus, many small businesses oppose any requirement 

that the accrual method of accounting be used. 

Given that the cash method remains a far simpler method of accounting, the AICPA believes that simplicity justifies its continued 

use by non-natural persons (e.g., pass-through entities and personal service corporations), regardless of their gross receipts. 

Discouraging business growth 

The AICPA believes that limiting the use of the cash method of 

accounting by businesses (e.g., sole proprietors, farmers, and passthrough entities) would discourage their natural business growth. 

Every business hopes to grow. Businesses may grow organically, 

or by combining with similar businesses. As a result, although 

many businesses start out as a sole proprietorship, most eventually 

convert to a pass-through entity (e.g., general partnerships, limited 

liability partnerships, limited liability companies, and S corporations) to join forces and expand their operations. 

Under Chairman Camp’s proposal, many pass-through entities 

would need to change to the accrual method of accounting once 

their average annual gross receipts exceeded a $10 million threshold, inhibiting both organic growth and growth through combination. For example, assume a sole proprietor is currently operating 

a successful business with more than $10 million of gross receipts. 

If the sole proprietor rewards an employee by making the employee 

a partner in the business, the business is no longer operating as 

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14 IRS 2013 Form 1040 Instructions, page 101. 

a natural person (sole proprietor) and therefore, would be ineligible 

to continue to use the cash basis method of accounting—providing 

a disincentive to expand the business. 

Similarly, if two firms (each with $5.5 million gross receipts) intend to combine to share resources and expertise and better serve 

their clients, the combined firm would exceed the proposed threshold and be subject to the mandatory use of the accrual method of 

accounting—again, creating a disincentive to gain efficiencies 

through combination. In other words, a business’s inability to use 

the cash method of accounting would create an artificial obstacle 

to joint ventures or the joining of two or more owners or businesses. 

In addition, limiting the use of the cash method of accounting 

would slow down (even stop) business growth. As noted above, requiring businesses to adopt the accrual method would increase the 

cost of compliance. This increase would force these businesses to 

stop hiring and planning for future expansions. In other words, instead of these businesses focusing on their growth (e.g., hiring 

more employees, expanding to new markets), they would be required to shift their resources to comply with the requirement. 

Small businesses play a key role to the economic growth in the 

United States. According to the Small Business Administration, 

small businesses ‘‘accounted for 63 percent of the net new jobs created between 1993 and mid-2013 (or 14.3 million of the 22.9 million 

net new jobs).’’ The AICPA believes that small businesses need a 

sound tax policy and business environment that promotes simplicity and economic growth. The cash method of accounting provides simplification and allows small businesses to focus on their 

expansion and growth. 

Financial burden on individual owners of service businesses 

The AICPA believes that limiting the use of the cash method of 

accounting for service businesses and pass-through businesses 

would impose an undue financial burden on their individual owners. 

These businesses should not be required to use the accrual method of accounting. Such a requirement would accelerate the taxable 

income of many professional service firm owners (e.g., CPAs, attorneys, engineers), resulting in an increased tax liability on earnings 

they have not yet received. In order to pay this accelerated tax, 

some businesses would be forced to make cash distributions to 

their owners from other sources (e.g., new loans, reduction in workforce, slowing growth initiatives, etc.), potentially threatening their 

operations due to a tightening of cash flow. Other businesses would 

force their owners to deal with the financial burden regardless of 

the individuals’ ability to pay. 

Additionally, the acceleration of income may result in the only 

reason that a partner is taxed at a higher marginal tax rate. Under 

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15See section 68(a). 

plies to taxable income over $400,000 for a partner filing as a single person. Thus, the acceleration of income of a partner could be 

taxed at the highest marginal rate that would otherwise be taxed 

at a lower rate (e.g., 35, 33, 28, 25, 15, or 10 percent). In addition 

to paying the highest tax rate, the partner could lose some of the 

benefit of itemizing certain deductions. For example, itemized deductions (e.g., mortgage interest deduction, charitable deduction) of 

a partner with an adjusted gross income of $250,000 would be reduced by the lesser of 3 percent of the excess of adjusted gross income (AGI) over $250,000 or 80 percent of the itemized deduction.15 Thus, the partner is likely to have a higher overall tax liability with the acceleration of income. 

For those professional service firms that are subject to state regulations limiting ownership to individuals who actively participate 

in the business, the potential hardship created by restricting use 

of the cash method by pass-through entities would increase significantly. For example, in many states, a firm engaged in the practice 

of accountancy is specifically prohibited from allowing any passive 

(investor) ownership and a majority of the owners must hold active 

CPA licenses. As a result, many accounting firms must raise capital solely by the individual professionals who together own the 

firm; they cannot raise capital from outside investors. As a result, 

an acceleration of tax on income that has not actually been collected in cash would place a strain on the ability of such professional owner-operators to properly capitalize and maintain capital 

in their firms. 

We believe that a transition from the cash to the accrual method 

imposes undue financial burden and would have a negative impact 

on both a new owner’s ability to finance entrance into a partnership and a firm’s ability to grow either independently or through 

merging with another firm. 

Conclusion 

The AICPA supports expansion of the number of taxpayers who 

may use the cash method of accounting. As we have discussed, the 

cash method of accounting is simpler in application, has fewer compliance costs, and does not require taxpayers to pay tax before receiving the cash. 

However, we strongly believe that Congress should not restrict 

the use of the long-standing cash method of accounting for the 

thousands of U.S. businesses that rely on it. We have confidence 

that forcing more businesses to use the accrual method of accounting for tax purposes would increase their administrative burden, 

discourage business growth in the U.S. economy, and unnecessarily 

impose financial hardship on cash-strapped businesses. 

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Statement for the Record 

Cash Accounting: A Simpler Method for Small Firms? 

July 10, 2014 

Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access 

Committee on Small Business 

House of Representatives 

We, the undersigned, wish to thank Chairman Rice, Ranking 

Member Chu and Members of the Subcommittee for convening this 

hearing to examine whether current tax policies should be changed 

to allow small businesses more flexibility in using the cash method 

of accounting. We represent a diverse group of service businesses 

who rely on the cash method to simply and accurately report income and expenses. As Congress examines the merits of the cash 

method of accounting and considers whether to expand its availability to more small businesses, we urge you to oppose any proposal that would force businesses currently allowed to use the cash 

method to switch to accrual accounting. 

For several decades, Congress has recognized that the cash method is a simple, accurate, and transparent method of reporting when 

income is received and when expenses are paid. The cash method 

is used extensively by American service providers representing a 

wide array of large and small businesses, many family-owned, including medical, dental, accounting, law, architectural, engineering, 

landscaping, horticultural, financial services, and consulting firms. 

Limiting the use of the cash accounting method would impose a 

significant tax and compliance burden on these businesses—and 

the individuals who own them—and undermine a tried and tested 

method of measuring and verifying a company’s income and expenses. 

Under current law, the cash method of accounting may be used 

by individuals, most farmers, and service providers operating as 

partnerships, S corporations and professional service corporations, 

regardless of size. Certain C corporations with gross receipts up to 

$5 million also may use the cash method. The House Ways and 

Means and Senate Finance Committees have released tax reform 

proposals that would allow more businesses with gross receipts up 

to $10 million to use cash accounting. However, their proposals also 

would require partnerships, S corporations, and personal service 

corporations with gross receipts over $10 million to switch from the 

cash method to the accrual method of accounting; the Senate 

version also includes individuals and farmers. 

While we do not oppose measures expanding the use of cash accounting to benefit the smallest businesses, we do oppose measures 

that would prohibit us from continuing to use the cash method and 

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that could result in significant hardship and negative consequences. The cash method is good for all sizes of service businesses with common concerns about economic growth, job creation 

and competitiveness. Proposals to restrict its use are without any 

policy justification and are used solely for the purpose of raising 

revenue to pay for tax reform. 

Such proposals would force businesses to switch from a simple 

‘‘cash-in/cash-out’’ method of accounting for income and expenses to 

the much more complicated accrual method of accounting. Further, 

accrual accounting requires taxpayers to pay tax on accounts receivable and work-in-progress—phantom income that hasn’t been 

collected and may never be collected—creating cash flow issues and 

forcing some taxpayers to go into debt just to pay their tax bill. 

Compliance costs would escalate, adding to the already, overwhelming recordkeeping burdens and costs faced by many of these 

businesses. Ultimately, because most of these businesses are passthroughs, the cash to accrual proposal is an immediate and unfair 

tax increase on individuals. 

There is no policy justification to force service businesses to 

switch from cash to accrual accounting. There is no evidence or allegation of abuse of the cash method by the taxpayers who use it. 

Further, the impact of the proposal is not consistent with the stated principles of tax reform, including fairness, simplicity, certainty, 

economic growth, job creation and enhanced competitiveness. Indeed, banning a tried and true method of tracking income to arbitrarily pay for tax reform is entirely inconsistent with these principles. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments. We 

are pleased to serve as a resource to the Congress, the Committee, 

and the Subcommittee, and we look forward to our continued work 

together on this important matter. 

Adams and Reese LLP 

American Council of Engineering Companies 

American Institute of Architects 

Americans for Tax Reform 

Covington & Burling LLP 

Cozen O’Connor 

Federal Communications Bar Association 

Fisher & Phillips LLP 

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP 

Investment Adviser Association 

Jackson Walker LLP 

K&L Gates LLP 

Littler Mendelson, P.C. 

McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP 

Miles & Stockbridge 

Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP 

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP 

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Ogletree Deakins 

Pierce Atwood LLP 

Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A. 

State Bar of South Dakota 

White & Case LLP 

Wiley Rein LLP 

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The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) appreciates the opportunity to submit this statement for the record to 

the Committee on Small Business for the hearing entitled ‘‘Cash 

Accounting: A Simpler Method for Small Firms?’’ NFIB is the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization representing 

over 350,000 small business owners across the country, and we appreciate the opportunity to provide our perspective on this issue. 

NFIB represents small businesses in every region and every industry in the country. Accordingly, NFIB has a unique insight into the 

concerns of the small business community, and can speak with authority on these concerns. 

NFIB applauds the Committee for having this hearing today. 

Small business’ ability to use cash accounting can greatly simplify 

the time and costs associated with tax preparation by small business owners. But while the availability of cash accounting has been 

gradually expanded over the years, significant limitations to its 

availability remain that limit the ability of small business owners 

to take advantage of this simplified accounting method. 

Small Business’ Ability to Use Cash Accounting 

Cash accounting, when receipts are recorded during the period 

they are actually or constructively received, and expenses are recorded in the period in which they are actually paid, is the preferred method of accounting for small businesses. Forty-one percent 

of small businesses report using the cash method of accounting according to a 2006 NFIB National Small Business Poll. Small business owners prefer the cash accounting method because it is much 

easier for them to follow and more closely matches the way that 

small business owners maintain their books. However, the availability of cash accounting is not applied evenly by the tax code or 

the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Depending on a firm’s entitytype, size (by revenue), and industry-type, cash accounting may be 

unavailable to a number of small businesses. 

The Internal Revenue Code (the code) contains significant limitations to the ability of small business’ to use cash accounting. Section 448(c) allows C corporations and partnerships with less than 

$5 million in gross receipts to use cash accounting. This provision, 

however, does not include S corporations, which are one of the most 

frequently used types of business entity used by small business 

owners, Further, any taxpayer who maintains inventories is prohibited from using cash accounting regardless of their gross receipts. This prevents any small business owner who purchases and 

sells merchandise, such as retailers or wholesalers, from using the 

cash accounting method. Finally, the code prohibits taxpayers who 

manufacture goods for resale from using cash accounting. 

Since 2000, the IRS has taken meaningful steps to expand the 

availability of cash accounting to small businesses. IRS Revenue 

Procedure 2000-22 permits small businesses with gross receipts of 

$1 million or less (based on the preceding three-year period) to use 

cash accounting where the business otherwise would have to use 

accrual accounting because it is required to account for inventories. 

Revenue Procedure 2002-28 permits qualifying small businesses 

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with gross receipts of $10 million or less (based on the preceding 

three-year period) to use cash accounting. However, Revenue Procedure 2002-28 precludes many industries, such as manufacturing, 

wholesale trade, retail trade and mining. The procedure also does 

not apply to C corporations or partnerships with a C corporation 

partner. 

Due to these statutory and administrative limitations, many 

small businesses cannot use cash accounting. Many of these businesses would benefit from an expanded ability to use cash accounting for tax purposes. Permitting more businesses with higher gross 

receipts to use cash accounting helps small businesses to manage 

cash flow because it better reflects the business owner’s ability to 

pay taxes. This expansion is also logical given efforts by the IRS 

to expand the availability of cash accounting. 

Allowing any business entity with gross receipts of less than $10 

million meaningfully expands the availability of cash accounting 

for small business owners. Because of the large number of small 

businesses that maintain inventories, any expansion of cash accounting should also apply to these types of taxpayers. 

Conclusion 

NFIB greatly appreciates the efforts of the Committee to shed 

light on the importance of cash accounting for small business owners. Current law is overly complicated and fails to adequately reach 

many small business owners who might otherwise be able to lower 

their tax compliance burden. Expanding its availability would go a 

long way towards simplifying tax compliance and preparation for 

small business owners. However, expanding cash accounting is just 

one aspect of tax reform and it does not replace the need to reduce 

individual tax rates and ensure a level playing field between passthrough entities and C corporations. 

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Testimony of Jeffrey Wald 

Chief Executive Officer, Kennedy and Coe, LLC 

To the House of Representatives Committee On Small 

Business, 

Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access 

Cash Accounting: A Simpler Method for Small Firms? 

July 10, 2014 

Kennedy and Coe commends Chairman Rice, Ranking Member 

Chu and the entire House Committee on Small Business for examining the value of the cash method of accounting to U.S. small businesses. 

As CEO of Kennedy and Coe, one of the nation’s largest accounting firms specializing in food and agriculture businesses, I can tell 

you first hand that the cash basis of accounting is critical for agriculture. 

The agriculture sector, unlike many other sectors of our economy, 

is still driven by the small and family business. According to 

USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture, nearly 88 percent of the 2.1 

million farm businesses are considered small businesses. Without 

question, this makes the agriculture industry among the most reliant on the success or failure of the small business owner. 

Kennedy and Coe works with farmers and ranchers in nearly 

every state. And regardless of region or commodity type, our accountants find that the cash basis of accounting helps small farmers grow their businesses. We see three primary reasons for this: 

1. Cash accounting is simpler and requires less administrative work. 

2. Cash accounting helps farmers and ranchers manage volatile commodity and input prices; and 

3. Cash accounting ensures that taxes do not have to be paid 

until after income has been received. 

While these benefits may be universal among anyone utilizing 

cash accounting, the impact is particularly acute in the agriculture 

sector. 

Cash Accounting is simpler and requires less administrative 

work 

For those of us in the farming industry, we know just how wrong 

some perceptions of agriculture can be. Take the idea that our food 

and fiber comes from corporate farms, for instance. In reality, 97.6 

percent of all U.S. farms are family owned and operated. These 

farms are responsible for 85 percent of all U.S. farm production. 

Look a little closer and we get an even clearer picture of just who 

is growing our food: 

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-62 percent of farmers in the U.S. are over the age of 55; 

-77 percent have worked their land for more than 10 years 

Put simply: these operations are not large enough to employ an 

army of accountants and lawyers capable of navigating a complex 

tax code. These are family businesses that have to consider the 

trade-offs of maintaining complex accounting records. Because the 

more time most farmers spend doing their books, the less time they 

can spend on their farms and with their families. 

What farmers need is a reasonably easy, common sense way to 

accurately keep track of receipts and expenses. The cash basis of 

accounting provides just that. 

Cash Accounting Helps Farmers Manage Volatile Commodity 

and Input Prices 

The agriculture sector is widely recognized for its slim margins 

and extreme volatility. But just because these characteristics are 

inherent, doesn’t mean they are easy to deal with. 

Running a successful agricultural operation requires constant 

planning to adapt to wide swings in the cost of critical inputs such 

as energy, fertilizer, or animal feed. 

On the other end of the equation, farm operators need to be prepared for considerable changes in annual production volumes from 

factors such as weather or disease. They also need to prepare for 

major shifts in the prices they receive, as things like drought or 

policy changes can have a major impact on commodity markets. 

The cash basis of accounting is the one critical tool that farmers 

and ranchers can use to deal with this volatility. 

Under the cash basis, income is not realized until the business 

receives payment for its product; and expenses are not realized 

until that expense is paid. With this flexibility, farm businesses can 

elect to withhold a portion of their crop until prices improve. Or, 

they can elect to purchase large volumes of feed or fuel when prices 

are low, even if it will be used across multiple tax-years. 

The value of this flexibility cannot be overstated—this carried inventory or reduced expense is often what makes the difference between making and losing money in a given tax year. 

Cash accounting ensures that taxes do not have to be paid until 

after income has been received. 

Due to the commoditization of the agriculture business, and the 

vast amount of capital it takes to break into the food processing 

business, many farmers do not sell their products directly into the 

market. Instead, they sell to intermediaries who often only pay a 

fraction of the price up front, and provide the remainder of the 

compensation after the product has been sold. 

While such arrangements may effectively diffuse market risk, 

such an arrangement only makes sense under a system of cash accounting. Because under cash accounting, the farm operator is only 

responsible for paying taxes on the income he or she has received. 

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Should farmers lose the ability to use cash accounting, many 

would have to pay taxes on income they have yet to receive. In the 

asset-rich but cash-poor agriculture industry, this arrangement 

simply is not feasible. 

The phrase ‘‘not feasible,’’ isn’t just rhetoric. After the House 

Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee floated the idea of forcing farms with more than $10 million in revenue 

to use accrual accounting instead of cash accounting, Kennedy and 

Coe commissioned Informa Economics to study the potential impacts of the policy change. As the study shows, the results would 

be catastrophic. 

Informa Economics concluded that U.S. agricultural producers 

forced to switch from cash-basis to accrual-basis accounting under 

the draft tax bill would have to accelerate payment on as much as 

$4.84 billion in taxes over the next four years. Additionally, the 

borrowing capacity of these operations would decrease by another 

$7.26 billion over the same time period. 

To put that $12.1 billion loss in working capital in context, 

Informa estimates that the combined liquid capital of impacted 

farms is only $1.8 billion. This means that losing cash accounting 

would likely force farmers and ranchers to either sell assets or go 

to the bank, just to pay their taxes, in many cases on products for 

which they have yet to receive payment. 

The Informa study quantified what we’d heard from producers 

across the U.S.—losing cash accounting would have a major negative effect on American agriculture. Meeting the immediate tax 

burden is going to be very difficult or impossible for producers who 

simply do not have the cash flow to pay taxes before they sell their 

products. 

Conclusion 

I want to close by once again expressing my appreciation for the 

leadership of the many champions of small business and family 

farms on this Committee. The cash basis of accounting provides the 

lifeblood of rural America—our agriculture industry—with the ability to thrive even in today’s challenging market environment. 

Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, Members of the Committee, I am grateful for the opportunity to share the perspective 

of the agriculture community. I appreciate your efforts to call attention to the need to simplify and expand the use of cash accounting, and look forward to working with you to ensure that this expansion benefits our nation’s farmers and ranchers. 

Æ 

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