Brad Garland is a Certified Public Accountant who understands the concept of giving back. He serves as a partner and founder at Honeycomb CPAs & Advisors—and he’s a dad—all while staying busy in his community in Huntsville, Alabama.
Brad is also a founding member of the Accelerate chapter of BNI. He serves the Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville, the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library, Kinertia (the entity that curates TEDxHuntsville), and the Liberty Learning Foundation. He sits on the Auburn University’s School of Accountancy Advisory Council and is also a co-founder of Rocket City Scholarship Granting Organization.
Here’s what else Brad had to say:
Where are you now? I’m in a historic school turned multi-use space – above a brewery, below a tattoo studio, next to a ping pong facility.
What’s your job title, and what does it mean? Partner of a CPA firm, meaning curating and managing the team, the clients, and the culture of a practice in the community.
Tax, law, and accounting are such broad topics. What’s your area of special interest? The tax world has always been a fascinating one – a mix of understanding personal needs of the taxpayers while navigating the ever-changing tax code that’s the result of political forces in the local and national economy.
What’s the first thing you typically do while at work? Make myself a cup of coffee!
If you had an extra couple of hours open up in your day—outside of work—what would you do? Honing my Mario Kart skills so my kids don’t taunt me.
What’s one tool or resource that you couldn’t live without at work? I use a trackball instead of a mouse, and it makes navigating PDFs, websites, and emails much easier.
If you weren’t working in the tax profession, what would your dream job be? Paleontologist—but maybe indoors?
What’s the best tax or financial advice that anyone ever gave you? Invest in Roth IRA early – especially before kids and the messy middle.
What books or magazines are on your nightstand? Some X-Men graphic novels and “Rise of the Creative Class.”
What would I be surprised to know about you? I was an extra in the movie “Big Fish.”
If you had the opportunity to make one change in the tax code tomorrow—an extra credit, a disallowed deduction, whatever—what would it be and why? Raise the Form 1099-NEC threshold. Adjusted for inflation, it should be at least $10,000. (Note to readers: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act raises the Form 1099-NEC and Form 1099-MISC thresholds to $2,000 beginning in 2026.)
What was the best tax conference, continuing education (CE), or continuing legal education (CLE) event that you ever attended? This year’s RightNOW event with Rightworks was insightful and fun.
What has been the biggest change that you’ve seen in the tax profession in the last five years? Staffing—with record numbers of CPAs leaving the profession, and not enough coming in to replace them, it’s created a staffing challenge but also, an opportunity for new CPAs.
What are you most concerned about or excited about with respect to the profession moving forward? Tax law complexity—for proper consulting, projections, and planning, the tax law needs to be established in a timely and reasonable manner. Last minute (or even, mid-year) changes make it difficult for taxpayers—and their CPAs.
If Uncle Sam handed you a huge refund check right now, what would you do with it? Go on a long summer vacation!
You can find Brad on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).
This article is part of our Getting To Know You Tuesday series—a chance to get to know all kinds of tax professionals and understand that the field of tax is bigger than April 15. If you’d like to nominate tax professional to be featured, send your suggestion to kerb@forbes.com with the subject: Getting To Know You Tuesday.