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CHARTS & GRAPHS

Revenue Growth Is Top Priority for Small Firms

bar charts

Cost reduction? That’s on the list, too.

By CPA Trendlines Research

As in years past, CPA firms of all sizes are putting revenue growth at the top of their priority lists.

The rest of their priority lists tells how they plan to get there.

MORE: Survey Shows Challenges, Priorities Shifting | Survey Shows That Tech Remains the Great Divide | Will Unclogging the Accounting Pro Pipeline Kill Mobility? | Accountants Bullish on Income | SURVEY: Which Niche’s the Best Niche? | Ethics on Sustainability Puzzle Some Accountants | Accountants Hopeful, Concerned and Confused about AI
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According to the Wolters Kluwer 2024 Accounting Industry Report, 61 percent of responding firms – 90 percent of which are small firms – are primarily aiming at higher revenues and profits. That’s 11 percentage points above secondary goals.
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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Survey Shows Challenges, Priorities Shifting

two worried businesspeople having coffee and looking at computer

Top concerns vary widely by firm size.

By CPA Trendlines Research

CPA firms small, midsized and large are facing new challenges and reorganizing their priorities as they shake off the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Wolters Kluwer 2024 Accounting Industry Report, based on a survey of 1,509 accounting firms, pricing and competitive fee pressures are the overall biggest challenges firms are dealing with. The pressure is most prominent at small firms, which comprised 90 percent of the survey respondents. Forty percent of those smaller firms said it was their top concern.

MORE: Survey Shows That Tech Remains the Great Divide | Is the CPA Business Model the Clog in the Pipeline? | Accountants Cozy Up to Clients with CAS |  CPAs Culling Clients for Better Work-Life Balance | Women-Owned Businesses Upbeat but Need Help | Accountants to the Rescue as Startups Struggle | Looking for Recent Grads? Good Luck
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This is the first time pricing has ranked among the top five challenges since 2015.

Pricing ranked third among large firms, 39 percent of which said it was a problem.
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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Survey Shows That Tech Remains the Great Divide

casually dressed man working at laptop, money stacks covering surrounding desk space

Why are the non-adopters not adopting?

By CPA Trendlines Research

Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting has issued its annual tax and accounting survey. The results show an industry re-evaluating its criteria for success as firmwide changes occur.

Technology is the driver of those changes, and its rapid evolution is enabling, and even necessitating, innovation.

MORE: Is the CPA Business Model the Clog in the Pipeline? | Can Big Data Spot Financial Fraud? | Accountants Torn Over 2024 Economy, Offer Advice | SURVEY: Are You Offering the Right Services? | 42% of Accountants Turn Away Work Over Staff Shortages | Talent Gap Widening: Be Very Scared | CPA Biz Is Booming, But for How Long? | SURVEY: Accountants Economic Outlook Brightens
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In her introductory letter, Cathy Rowe, Wolters Kluwer senior vice president, professional market, says, “Those who embrace innovation will be able to redefine their firms, leave no spreadsheet untouched by the winds of change, and truly be future-ready accountants.”

The numbers back up the increasing use of and dependence on technology, but they also reveal a significant part of the industry declining to board the tech train.
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POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

FTC Nails TurboTax for ‘Free Filing’ Scam

shocked couple looking at laptop while sitting on couch

What does ‘free’ mean? It shouldn’t be up for debate.

By CPA Trendlines Research

American taxpayers are all victims of a tax scam.

Yes, all of them.

MORE: If Only the IRS’s Tax Pro Were Useful | Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns | The Nightmare of Non-credentialed Tax Preparers | Must the IRS Be a Dark Hole? | IRS Plays Whac-A-Mole with the Phones | VCs Plunk $60 Million into AI-Powered ‘Autonomous’ Tax Prep
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And the New York Times points an accusatory finger straight at TurboTax.

A Tax Season Villain

In a 15-minute video article by John Harris and Binyamin Appelbaum, the Times says there’s a tax villain, and it’s neither the tax rate nor the Internal Revenue Service.
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POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

If Only the IRS’s Tax Pro Were Useful

Businessman sitting on cloud

The National Taxpayer Advocate has a long wish list.

By CPA Trendlines Research

If you are a CPA, tax preparer or Registered Agent – a tax pro, in other words – there is a slim possibility that you are registered with the Internal Revenue Service’s Tax Pro  program.

MORE: Can’t IRS Online Accounts Be More Useful? | ID Theft a Problem for IRS Even When It Doesn’t Exist | The Nightmare of Non-credentialed Tax Preparers | Taxpayer Assistance Centers: A Good Idea That Should Be Better | IRS Still Falling Short on Service | Must the IRS Be a Dark Hole? | 10 Tips to the IRS for Beefing Up Staff | Eight Ways the IRS Can Speed Up Processing Tax Returns | IRS Plays Whac-A-Mole with the Phones | Ten IRS Problems That Need Solutions | Treasury IG Sees Progress at IRS
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But even if you are registered, the odds are vanishingly small that you actually use it.

Why? Because it’s really of limited use.
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CHARTS & GRAPHS

Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns

table of IRS filing data for week ending Feb. 2, 2024

A shorter season to date makes comparisons difficult.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The Internal Revenue Service has fired up the machinery and begun cranking out tax returns. And so begins our annual ritual of tracking how well they do that.

All of the initial figures are double-digit down, largely because of seven days’ fewer collections. The 2023 filing season began on Jan. 23 vs. 2024’s Jan. 29, so 2023 totals cover 12 days as opposed to this season’s five days.

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POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

Can’t IRS Online Accounts Be More Useful?

angry man wearing tie and glasses, punching fist through laptop screen

Taxpayers and pros alike are frustrated, exasperated, disappointed and angry.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Ever-improving internet commerce is one of the great developments of this first quarter of a century. The process and potential of dealing with products and services, including government services, has come a long way from the toddling brouhaha of the World Wide Web of the 1990s.

MORE: ID Theft a Problem for IRS Even When It Doesn’t Exist | The Nightmare of Non-credentialed Tax Preparers | Taxpayer Assistance Centers: A Good Idea That Should Be Better | IRS Still Falling Short on Service | Must the IRS Be a Dark Hole? | 10 Tips to the IRS for Beefing Up Staff | Eight Ways the IRS Can Speed Up Processing Tax Returns | IRS Plays Whac-A-Mole with the Phones | Ten IRS Problems That Need Solutions | Treasury IG Sees Progress at IRS
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The Internal Revenue Service still dreams of joining these early years of the 21st century. To get started, the Service has gone so far as to launch an Individual Online Account program. IOLAs allow taxpayers to

  • view basic information,
  • make payments,
  • enter into payment plans and
  • view and download certain notices.

All of which is very nice but soooo 1998.
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POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

ID Theft a Problem for IRS Even When It Doesn’t Exist

faceless hooded male person, low lighting and words "IDENTITY THEFT" repeated throughout

Either way it consumes scarce resources.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Tax return identity theft’s a bummer.

How big a bummer?

So big that even when there’s no theft, it’s a bummer.

MORE: The Nightmare of Non-credentialed Tax Preparers | Taxpayer Assistance Centers: A Good Idea That Should Be Better | IRS Still Falling Short on Service | Must the IRS Be a Dark Hole? | 10 Tips to the IRS for Beefing Up Staff | Eight Ways the IRS Can Speed Up Processing Tax Returns | IRS Plays Whac-A-Mole with the Phones | Ten IRS Problems That Need Solutions | Treasury IG Sees Progress at IRS | VCs Plunk $60 Million into AI-Powered ‘Autonomous’ Tax Prep
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It’s a bummer when it happens, not only because it happened but because the Internal Revenue Service can take up to 19 months to recognize the problem, do something about it and send the hapless taxpayer a refund not for this year’s return, not for last year’s return, but for the year before last.

And it’s a bummer when there’s no theft involved because when the IRS’s rickety technology flags a return as a possible ID theft, the return gets delayed for months and months of manual processing.
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