As the CEO of a fast growing site focused on promoting tax professionals and tax brands, I have been witness to extraordinary milestones. There is one very important milestone in mind that is emerging on our site. All communities set the standards that keep them connected, and make people feel accepted and safe. What is emerging on this site is a high level of integrity, professionalism and business etiquette. Business etiquette is characterized by polite behavior between people and within communities. These characteristics and behaviors are bountiful in our community. TaxConnections values high standards of professional etiquette and good will towards our members. We are going to provide you with one of many examples that are setting the standard for the site. We hope you can learn from this example and set similar high standards for other communities. As a result, everyone in the tax profession benefits from higher standards of business etiquette online.

Allow me to share an example of the professionalism that was demonstrated recently in our community. The specific example I am referring to is an email that I received from Virginia La Torre Jeker, J.D. who is a U.S. Tax Attorney living and working in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I am going to leave out the other members names for this article because they have yet to be contacted for permission to mention them. Herein is the message I received:

“Briefly, a member posting on TaxConnections Worldwide Tax Blogs discussed a proposed bill that had been rejected during the congressional process last year. Their posting had referred to the blog posting of another attorney. Neither member was aware of the fact that the proposed bill had, in fact, been rejected one year back and reported on it as if the bill could possibly become law. I had researched and blogged about this same proposal one year ago, when it first surfaced. I knew it had been rejected in the final version of the law that was eventually passed. I notified both TaxConnections and the original author privately of the problem so they could update their information.”

What Virginia La Torre Jeker did was contact another tax professional in our community in order to point out and clarify that a proposed bill had in fact been rejected. As a result, the information provided on the blog post was incorrect. Instead of publicly commenting on an error made by another blogger on TaxConnections Worldwide Tax Blogs, she demonstrated a very high level of integrity, professionalism and business etiquette by contacting the tax blogger directly so they could correct their blog post. All too often, you witness some coarse soul that feels a need to publicly chastise an individual who has worked hard to express their thoughts in writing. We use this particular example of professional courtesy to demonstrate the high standards of the tax professionals in the TaxConnections community. We highly value those tax professionals who contribute their ideas on TaxConnections as well as demonstrate a high level of professional business etiquette. This example sets standards for our community and ensures the continued education of treating people with dignity and respect. Our rules are the “Golden Rules”, we welcome the opportunity to educate others in setting a higher value on the standards of business etiquette.

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