In House Tax CPE advice requested

[ATVNCPA]

Please forgive me if this is not the appropriate place to post this thread. Our firm currently conducts what we call Tax Lunches about once a month where we eat lunch and watch a video where tax professionals discuss current tax issues and receive one hour of CPE.

I have been asked to review similar products available by different vendors in an effort to determine if what we are using fits our needs the best.

We are currently using Bisk Education's Network Tax Report DVD series and have been for at least the 11 years that I have been here. I would appreciate any recommendations, feedback, and reviews about about any similar products that you are using.

Thanks in advance,

Wes

[Roland Slugg]

Free CPE from Deloitte

Deloitte offers many free CPE courses via webcast, covering a wide range of topics. Many are industry specific, but a fair number deal with federal and state tax issues, as well as tax operations. There are also some on financial reporting issues such as IFRS.

Most webcasts start at 2:00pm ET, which may or may not coincide with your firm's lunch hour, but a few start earlier, and a few a little later. Most are 1 hour long, and a few run 90 minutes. Free CPE is awarded for attendees who stay at least 50/60 minutes and respond to at least 3 of 4 polling questions posed during the webcast. Multiple viewers can all receive CPE credit. Here's a link:

http://www.usdbriefs.com/calendar/thyme/thyme/index.php

Each webcast contains several slides and charts which can be downloaded and printed for future reference. Also, all webcasts are archived for 180 days, so they can be viewed again. CPE credit, however, is given only to those participating in the original, live webcast.

[erchess]

I get

many email solicitations from the (I think I have the names right) Wolthers Khluwer family of businesses, especially Thomson Reuters and CCH to attend webinars directly and or purchase DVD versions of same. I don't go for them because to me they're pricey and webinar is not my preferred format but they might be within your firm's budget and they might be quite good. You might investigate these while you are out investigating. Personally I learn best when I can stop the presentation and go back over something I didn't get. If viewing a presentation straight through once would take an hour I will need at least four hours to master it unless most of what is there is stuff I either already knew or decide as I go that I won't learn because I don't think I will need it. I don't often attend face to face cpe for the same reason I don't often do webinars - it's worthless to me unless I receive a book or DVD containing everything that was said.

[JohnH]

I signed up fr a webinar on trusts a couple of weeks ago with CCH and I found it to be very good. I was very impressed with the content, including the workbook they emailed me as soon as I signed up.

As Edwin mentioned, they are a little pricey at $250. But that is a site license which allows you to have as many people in attendance as you can get in the room. No travel expense or time wasted getting to a seminar location, so there are economies to be gained. You can get the CPE certificate online as soon as the seminar ends by answering 3 key questions.

I called them and they discounted the seminar down to $150 for me since I assured them I'd be the only one in the room (and I only requested one CPE certificate). Don't know how often they do that and it wouldn't apply in your case, but I thought I'd mention that just in case other lone rangers on this forum might be interested.

[ATVNCPA]

Thanks for the replies; I will definitely check those out.