Inside Tax Season’s Hidden Shift: Same Work, Fewer People, Higher Cost
And that’s the good news.
By CPA Trendlines
SURVEYS & RESEARCH
How to Choose a Specialty
Considerations that might not have occurred to you.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting
Once you decide upon a specialization, you need to go about making yourself an expert. Read, join professional associations, take focused CPE, and try to write articles or give speeches. Accountants who are industry experts become industry thought leaders.
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Some specialties require obtaining designations or certificates of completion that require study and time – an investment you and the firm would have to make. There is no easy path to growing and establishing expertise, but it is a joyful ride.
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Brainstorm for Your Clients
What helps one might help others.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting
We all use the cliché that we give the clients the best we got, but what does it really mean?
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I’ve written about value-added services and efforts we can do on behalf of our clients, but here is a different approach I have used.
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Lessons Learned from a Small Firm
Some growing pains never change.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting
“CPA Firm Grows Prosperous by Heeding Its Own Advice.” The Wall Street Journal published an article with that title in their May 18, 1981 issue about my firm, and this column describes some of what we did.
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The article began by stating there were about 28,000 CPA firms in the U.S., with about 19,000 being sole practitioners and many others with just two or three CPAs. These numbers are lower than now, so the profession and small firms have grown significantly in the last 40-plus years.
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Tax Prep Wages and Salaries Hit 4-Year High
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.
MORE Busy Season
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..