Accountants show renewed pricing power as rates gain 5.7%.
Mind the gap: CPA firms are raising billing rates at about a 6% rate, not quite enough to match the rising costs of staff.
By CPA Trendlines
CPA firms are raising prices again as they enter 2026, even as hiring remains weak and wage pressures show little sign of easing. The combination is tightening margins across the profession.
A CPA Trendlines analysis of new pricing data shows that billing rates for core CPA firm services are rebounding sharply, reversing an earlier soft patch and vaulting fees to near record highs. At the same time, employment growth across accounting firms has stalled, while wage growth remains elevated, underscoring the growing imbalance between pricing power and labor costs.
CPA firms heading into the 2026 tax season expect revenue gains driven primarily by higher prices, not by adding clients, even as a majority anticipate another heavy extension season.
According to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, about 6 in 10 firms expect total revenue to increase this year, while roughly one-third expect revenue to hold steady. Profit expectations trail revenue slightly, a pattern that points to continued cost pressure even as clients and would-be clients clamor for more, and more high-end, services
The nation’s accounting regulators are signaling that private equity’s rapid expansion into CPA firms has reached a point that demands closer scrutiny.
In a new white paper, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy lays out a framework of questions that could shape the next phase of regulation for firms backed by private equity or operating under alternative practice structures. At the same time, senior officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission are warning CPA firms to remain focused on “the basics.” The AICPA is also considering revising its independence regime.
New Paper Links Post-2020 Surge to Consolidation and Pricing Power.
Barrios and Abramova: As PE moves into accounting, researchers see more roll-ups, more non-audit work and higher fees
By CPA Trendlines
A new study says private equity’s post-2020 rush into accounting is pushing up fees.
In “Financializing the Professions: The Rise of Private Equity in Accounting,” Inna Abramova of London Business School and John M. Barrios of Yale School of Management examine what happens when outside capital enters a profession historically organized around partner ownership and licensing rules. Using data from 1999 to 2024 that link “more than 3,600 PE transactions” to mergers and acquisitions, labor markets, and audit pricing, the authors report that private equity investment “increases sharply after 2020.”
The paper lands amid a widening regulatory and standards-setting response. State boards of accountancy, NASBA, the AICPA and international ethics setters have been studying whether alternative practice structures and private equity investment create new independence risks or oversight gaps. The study adds market-level evidence — not a case study of a single deal, but measurable signals of consolidation and pricing power.
“The word has gotten out there that accounting firms are great investments,” consultant Allan Koltin says. Finance professor Sabrina Howell, who has studied private equity, describes it as “the tip of the spear driving consolidation” in a traditionally fragmented industry.
With only a week to go before the opening of filing season 2026, tax practitioners are focusing on IRS dysfunction as their biggest potential problem this year
And no wonder. The agency was already chronically underfunded, buried under a mountain of overdue paperwork, and crippled by ancient computer systems when it lost 25% of its workforce in early 2025.
Today 63% of tax professionals say a beleaguered IRS poses the single biggest risk to this year’s tax season, up from 54% just a couple of months ago, according to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.
