OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

IRS Processing Up; Payouts Down

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Figures for 2024 topped those of 2023 until it came to refunds.

By Beth Bellor

As the 2025 busy season kicks off and we wait for the first individual income tax return reports to trickle in, let’s take a peek at how the last drips of 2024 compared to the dregs of 2023.

MORE: Tax Pros are Making Changes for a Better Busy Season | IRS Funding Pays Eye-Popping 415x ROI | Tax Season 2025 Begins. Ready or Not. | Every Tax Reviewer Should Be Able to Answer These Ten Questions | Art Werner: Corporate Transparency Act and FinCEN Reporting | Taxpayer Advocate Sees Big Improvements at IRS | Ask Tax Clients the Right Questions | Major Changes to Circular 230: Implications for Tax Professionals | Cornerstone Report | Art Werner: Due Diligence and IRS Enforcement | Make ‘Done But’ Tax Returns a Thing of the Past | Six Methods for Getting Paid Faster This Tax Season | Use Humor to Get Tax Documents in Early
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By the end of 2024, the Internal Revenue Service had received 163.5 million returns, up 0.9 percent from the end of 2023. It had processed 163.5 million returns, up 0.3 percent, which included returns received in the prior or current year and processed in the calendar year.
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Tax Season 2025 Begins. Ready or Not.

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Ready or not? More than four in ten accountants are expecting a better tax season this year than last year, with only one in six dreading worse. Join the survey. Get the results.

Most pros will hit the ground running.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Join the survey. Get the results.

Ready or not, here it comes: the marathon of the tax season. The W-2s are in the mail, the K-1s shouldn’t be far behind, and the 1099s are being filed.

MORE: Every Tax Reviewer Should Be Able to Answer These Ten Questions | Art Werner: Corporate Transparency Act and FinCEN Reporting | Quick Tax Tip | Taxpayer Advocate Sees Big Improvements at IRS | Ask Tax Clients the Right Questions | Major Changes to Circular 230: Implications for Tax Professionals
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So far, most of America’s CPAs and tax preparers are ready for the tax season and reasonably optimistic about this year’s revenues.

According to early results to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, 44 percent of respondents are better prepared than they were last year, and almost as many are in about the same position as last year. Only 14 percent say they’re less ready than last year, with a mere 3 percent much less ready. Fifteen percent are “much better” prepared.

But that was before a Trump-ordered government-wide hiring freeze and new threats of over $20 billion in budget cuts.

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Show Us the Money! Accountants Are Making More

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Want to retain employees? Here’s one way.

By Beth Bellor

More money. That’s what the latest data show for the accounting profession.

The final jobs report of 2024 saw the accounting profession’s numbers slip a bit, but the bodies in those seats were pulling down record earnings. Employees in the profession overall, at CPA firms and non-staff in payroll services saw their highest hourly wages ever.

MORE: Survey Says 57% of Firms Are Raising Prices Next Year | How Accounting Firms Are Handling the Staff Shortage | More Big Firms Shut Their Doors to New College Grads | Seven Enticements to Keep Talent On Board | Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises
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And about time! We heard the call for better compensation in the most recent Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics.
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Better Starting Pay Calls for a New Revenue Model

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Considering PE? Beware focus on the next five years.

By Michelle Golden River
The Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics

Pricing and talent are related. We’ll see another wave of fee increases as well as more firms feeling compelled to establish higher “minimum” fee thresholds. But these increases still won’t be enough. Until firms earn a lot more revenue per person, they simply cannot pay enough to overcome starting salary gaps.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every year, The 2024 Rosenberg National Survey of CPA Firm Statistics asks the profession’s top consultants two sets of questions:

    • How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts?
    • How would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

MORE: Business Models Continue to Evolve | Accounting Firms Must Consider Capital Resources | Artificial Intelligence Plays Role in Analytics, Optimization | People Development Still a Concern | Tech Anxiety Paralyzing Some Accounting Firms | Solving Staffing Requires Intention | As Private Equity Closes In, Firms Seek New Answers to Staffing Problems | Next Five Years Are Critical for Accounting Firms | The New Pipeline: Outsourcing and Offshoring
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Our would-be hires choose higher-paying professions like finance and tech, and who can blame them? To offer commensurate starting pay (and raise legacy salaries, accordingly), we must change our revenue model. Our current 5-10 percent annual increases cannot get us there. We fell behind more than a decade ago and, at this pace, we’ll never catch up.
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