The latest results from the 2023 CPATrendlines Busy Season Barometer showed a significant shift in practitioners’ main concern this year. It used to be “Late or Unprepared Clients.”
Ideally, taxpayers should be able to show up at a TAC with their papers and count on good advice and assistance. They should even be able to have their paper returns scanned and filed electronically.
But no. Inevitably, this, too, got screwed up. READ MORE →
Accountants forecast a dreary, difficult 12-18 months ahead. With the exception of the promise held in leveling up tech stacks and seizing on automation.
Your best advice for small businesses? Taylor: “Understand your financials, know your KPIs, and you’ll inevitably thrive in any recession. Do not hire employees unless you have a clear plan for how hiring will benefit you.” Stocker:“Monitor results. Hang in there! This too shall pass.”
By CPA Trendlines Research
CPAs and tax practitioners tend to know what’s happening in business. More than any other professionals, they have their fingers on the pulse of companies large and small. They understand numbers, they listen to their clients and they have the wherewithal to see where micro- and macroeconomies are headed.
When the 20223 CPATrendlines Busy Season Barometer survey asks CPAs and tax practitioners about the business and economic outlook from their view in the trenches of American business, the responses show a curious contradiction.
Generally speaking, the earliest respondents are confident at the micro level – their own firms and families – but less so for their clients. They are notably concerned about the macro level – the national economy and the outlook for small businesses in general.
It probably won’t surprise the average tax practitioner to learn that in the American Customer Satisfaction Index of federal agencies, the Internal Revenue Service ranks dead last.
When the 2023 CPATrendlines Busy Season Barometer asked practitioners what advice they’d give small businesses, most of the responses boiled down to two essential messages:
Pulling people off the phones: not helpful.Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
