BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Tax Season 2013: Hard-Hit Soloists Voice Their Biggest Problems

By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer

Tax and accounting professionals of all shapes and sizes, ranging in size from the soloist to the regional leader, are reporting a filing season markedly more problematic than the year before, according to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer. The data for April, still coming in, shows majorities of firms in all class sizes reporting “somewhat worse” or “much worse” performance and results this year.

Busy Season Barometer. Join the survey; get the results.
Busy Season Barometer

The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, now in it’s tenth year, is a real-time tracking poll of tax and accounting professionals’ sentiment, performance and results. As a reward for joining the survey panel, participants get early previews of top-line results and notifications.

Click here to join the survey; get the results

In this report, we present the first wave of in-depth details, starting with a chart that shows the number of respondents reporting on busy season conditions.

Those reporting a “worse” season include:

  • 66% of solo practitioners
  • 60% of firms with 2 to 10 professionals
  • 70% of firms with 11 to 50 professionals
  • 72% of firms with 50 to 100 professionals
  • 53% of firms with more than 100 professionals

And:

  • We gather verbatim comments from the solo practitioners who reported a season “much worse” explaining their rating, and
  • We present their comments assembled into a word-cloud infographic that reveals at a glance the most oft-repeated issues and concerns.

For complete busy season coverage, click here. And stay tuned to CPA Trendlines as we report on new developments in the data and analysis.