As this piece makes its way into the public, I am once again at an event away from home. As might well be expected, it’s one that I’ve commented on once or twice (or thrice) before: the IRS Nationwide Tax Forums. This year finds me in New Orleans, Louisiana, a place familiar enough from several past visits, even if early August isn’t the most ideal time to come again to the Crescent City. But then, it’s not exactly like I cam from a cool climate to get where I am at the moment, and if it is more humid here than it is at home, local life is well adapted to it–and I’m not unfamiliar with the local climate, either, having spent several years in study in the not-too-distant Lafayette, Louisiana. If nothing else, it’s good to be reminded that I can, in fact, do this kind of thing, and not only in terms of keeping going in the kind of weather that happens ’round these parts.

So far, the Forums have treated me well. (The drive to get here was stressful, admittedly; I’m badly out of practice both with driving such distances and with driving through larger cities, despite fairly frequent visits to Austin and San Antonio. But that’s not the fault of the drive so much as of the driver.) The location is commodious and the food (outside the exhibit room) is good–enough so that I am letting some of my usual dietary caution slip in favor of enjoying it. (I can be good easily enough when I get back.) More to the point, however, I’ve been able already to pick up quite a bit of information; even with the tax returns I’ve done (and have yet to do; there are still more than a few in queue for me to address), even with the scads of training I’ve done (there’s a lot under “Continuing Education” on my CV), there’s a lot I don’t know about taxes and how to do them–but there’s less now than there was last week, for which I am grateful for the chance to attend the Forum.

I’ll not go into details of the Forums’ training sessions here. What I will note is that my comments from last year still hold true; I am very much in mind of an academic conference as I attend. The opportunity to hear from experts on their topics of expertise, and to take from such hearing things I can use in my own work, is decidedly welcome, decidedly intellectually stimulating. (I know that tax matters sound boring to most people, and I admit that they can be tedious, but the same is also true for the literatures I studied back when I thought I would be a college professor when I grew up, and if it is the case that there are fewer jokes to be found in tax code, there are quite a few to be found in tax practice, and doing the work I do does actually help people. That alone makes it worth doing and worth getting better at doing, an attitude I think more people would do well to adopt.) There are always new little quirks to find, always things to uncover, always things to learn, and I think I’ve long demonstrated my appreciation for that kind of thing.

I’ll note, too, that tax work scratches the itch to do research in documents. (Indeed, it’s one of the things that makes humanities scholars well suited to doing tax work, despite common conceits regarding numbers and their use.) Sessions at the Forums have repeatedly reminded their audiences of the need for detailed documentation, joining the “But did you document it?” mantra that pervades the office where I work; every claim made on every form and schedule of every tax return has to have documented support to be safely made. The documents will vary, of course, from W2s to 1099s to K1s to bank statements to accounting ledgers to notes from client interviews. My own work sends me to property records again and again and again, as well as into decades-old formation paperwork and across all manner of receipts and invoices. For someone who spent years training to review pieces of paper for small bits of information and to assemble all of them together into a cohesive argument, it’s a familiar and somewhat comforting thing; for someone doing the work I do, it’s vital. The reminder of the need for it is good; the reminder that I’m not alone in having the need is better.

In all, then, I’m glad to be back, both in New Orleans and at the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum. I’m glad to be eating tasty food, I’m glad to be learning a lot about what I do so that I can do it better, and I am glad to be surrounded by people who give every impression of being of the same mind about both of them. (There are costs involved in attendance, of course, and not only in registration and lodging [for those not local, and I’ve not seen the region overrepresented among attendees, although I acknowledge the anecdotal nature of that report]. Time away from the office means time not spent working, and while training’s a need, training itself doesn’t pay those bills that refuse to stop even when tax season does. As such, coming to one of these events isn’t something likely to be done by those not invested in doing this job well.) There’s a lot of value in knowing I’m not alone in this, and I look forward to being reminded of it, to doing this thing, or this kind of thing, again (and again, and again) in the years to come.

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