CHARTS & GRAPHS

Tax Prep Wages and Salaries Hit 4-Year High

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Even as DIY returns cut into pros’ market share.

By CPA Trendlines

Wages for accountants and tax preparers are rising far faster than hiring as the 2026 filing season begins, even as early filing volumes trail last year’s pace.

Average hourly earnings in the accounting and tax preparation sector rose roughly 4 percent to 6 percent year over year, pushing pay for many accountants above $45 per hour, while employment across the tax and accounting sector is increasing only a few tenths of a percent.

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If current trends hold, the accounting industry will process about 150 million individual tax returns in 2026 — roughly 0.4 percent more than last year — with nearly the same number of workers..

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The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride

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Fewer than 200 investors triggered almost 900 acquisitions.

Global issues: 1,052 total firms impacted, 177 direct PE investments, 875 roll-up acquisitions, 7.6× 2025 roll-up multiplier, 4× multiplier growth since 2021.

 

By CPA Trendlines Research

A multiplier that has grown fourfold since 2021 reveals a transformation driven not by new private equity entrants, but by platform firms consuming the mid-market at speed.

It belies the notion that PE is taking over the accounting profession. In fact, new global research argues that local and mid-size firms worldwide are taking control of their own futures and using institutional capital to pick up the tab.

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The numbers that define private equity’s advance into accounting do not look the way most people expect. The headlines feature the big firms and the brand-name investors — TowerBrook Capital and EisnerAmper, New Mountain Capital and Grant Thornton, Ares Management and Baker Tilly. But the actual architecture of the transformation is being built one level below: in the relentless, largely unnoticed roll-up of smaller practices into PE-backed platforms.

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Goldman Bets $75 Million on Fieldguide: AuditTech Comes of Age

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Goldman’s rationale: Vertical AI with measurable ROI.

The new AuditTech ecosystem of startups and backers
Fieldguide, an engagement workflow platform powered by agentic AI, closes a $75 million Series C round, for a $700 million valuation.

By CPA Trendlines

Fieldguide, an engagement workflow platform powered by agentic AI, has raised $75 million in a Series C round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, valuing the company at $700 million.

MORE: Jin Chang: Why Repeat Last Year’s Questions? | The Disruptors, with Liz Farr | Jin Chang: Why the Future Is in Risk Advisory | with Donny Shimamoto
MORE Tech and Assurance

The financing is one of the clearest signals yet that audit technology—long one of accounting’s most conservative corners—is becoming a prime target for growth equity investment.

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Busy Season 2026: Chaos Looms as DOGE Cuts and OBBBA Changes Collide

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Downsizing and backlogs become national policy.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The Internal Revenue Service is heading into the 2026 filing season with fewer employees, more complex tax law changes, and less capacity to resolve problems when returns go wrong — a combination federal watchdogs say will leave tax professionals managing the fallout even as headline service metrics appear stable.

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MORE Tax, Busy Season, Outlook 2026

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins says most taxpayers with straightforward, electronically filed returns should see few disruptions. But she warned that the true test of the filing season will be how the IRS handles the millions of returns that require human intervention — at a time when the agency’s workforce has been cut by more than a quarter.

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