PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

Tax Season Leaves Accountants Drained, Disappointed

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The 30-point swing: Accountants close the season feeling slightly negative, at minus 1.8, a collapse of more than 30 points.

The Busy Season Barometer Shows Exactly When—and Why.

By CPA Trendlines

After starting near historic highs, sentiment among tax professionals fell more than 30 points by April, as workload, client behavior and system failures overwhelmed expectations.

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The 2026 tax season began with confidence.

By December, sentiment among tax professionals had climbed to a positive 29.8—the strongest reading in the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer cycle. A majority expected better conditions. Few anticipated what came next.

By April, that optimism had vanished.

Accountant attitudes closed the season slightly negative, around -1 to -1.8, marking a swing of more than 30 points in four months.

It was one of the sharpest same-season reversals in the Barometer’s 24-year history, and it followed a pattern practitioners have seen before: expectations rising in the fall, then breaking under the weight of the season itself.

The difference in 2026 was the speed—and the causes.

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Tax Prep Billing Rates Lift Busy Season 2026

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Busy Season 2026 sets up a year of tough decisions about monumental transformations.

Busy Season 2026: Billing rates for tax prep and planning are increasing at a 10.8% year-over-year rate, rushing past the average tax and accounting fee increase of 4.5%.

By CPA Trendlines

Busy Season 2026: Tax professionals struggle to improve systems and metrics, with “much worse” beating “much better” by three to one.

As tax season 2026 comes to a close, new data show that price hikes for tax prep and planning are running at double-digit rates, even as billing rates for most other accounting services are flattening out, according to new CPA Trendlines research in conjunction with the annual Busy Season Barometer.

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MORE Tax Season Trends & Insights

Tax practitioners are finishing the season as a divided profession, with fewer than 6% reporting a “much better” year, against almost three times that many reporting a “much worse” year.

Coming out of tax season, many firms are facing major decisions in the coming months driven by new artificial intelligence investments, a fundamental shift in staffing models, and private equity disruptions.

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Value Pricing Impacts Your Employees: Here’s How

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Put the focus where it belongs.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

Do you think any of your staff studied accounting in college so that they could punch a time clock for the rest of their life? They value being professionals as much as you do. More than likely, they enjoy being valued for their knowledge and experience.

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Given the choice between being valued for their time or valued for their professional accomplishments, which do you think they’d prefer? Valued employees are happy employees!

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 Busy Season 2026: Clients, Pricing, Staffing… CRUNCH

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CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer: Modest Gains, Mixed Outlook, Cautious Tech Upgrades Ahead

Top concerns: “The returns aren’t harder—they’re just later.” (CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer)
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By CPA Trendlines Research

The 2026 tax season shows some gradual improvement for certain firms, but most practitioners report conditions that remain largely unchanged from a year ago, according to the latest data from the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.

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MORE Tax Season 2026

The good news is: 2026 hasn’t turned into the disaster some were expecting with a new tax law and diminished IRS. The bad news is: 2026 is turning into a relatively routine year — without the advances in workflow or the better margins from higher-value services that some were hoping for.

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Shift Focus Away from Price

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Three ways to set yourself apart.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

I hear more accountants grumbling every day about how price-sensitive their prospects and clients have gotten. And they are right, to a degree. The economy has caused even the rich to count their pennies, and the percentage of people who look at a price tag before they buy has increased over the last five years.

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Yet studies show that roughly 54 percent of buyers are NOT price-sensitive, and I would be willing to bet even more are selectively price-impervious depending on what they buy: women’s shoes, men’s cars, personal services, jewelry, vacations, cosmetics and hair, to name a few exceptions.
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