BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Outlook 2026: Accountants Brace for a Rough Economy

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Expect strong demand for tax planning, business advisory and bookkeeping cleanup work. 

By CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer indicates that tax and accounting leaders anticipate growth in their own firms, even as they prepare for anxious business clients, persistent inflation, and a policy environment that keeps planning on edge.

MORE Busy Season and 2026 Outlook

BUSY SEASON BAROMETER: Join the survey. Get the results

About half of all accountants in the survey are bracing for a deteriorating economy, with a third expecting rosier scenarios, for a net negative 17.2 percentage points. For small and mid-sized businesses, accountants are at a negative 9.3 points.

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Outlook 2026: NATP Shows Tax Prep Prices Surging and Diverging

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Experience, complexity, and scarcity redefine the market

Volume and consulting drive growth: Of the 48% of firms reporting advances, 78% credit more business and 54% credit higher-grade services. Source: NATP

By CPA Trendlines

Tax preparation is getting markedly more expensive in 2026, and not in the slow, incremental way many firms have long assumed they can explain away.

In a widely used pricing model, the National Association of Tax Professionals reports the average base charge for a Form 1040 with Schedules is $236, up from a 2024 average of $162 reported in the same study series. That’s a 45.7% nominal increase in two years for the profession’s signature product, before a single schedule, state filing, or complexity premium is added.

JOIN the Busy Season Barometer survey. Get the results.

MORE TAX and PRICING

The U.S. tax preparation market is not merely more expensive.  It is increasingly stratified, with pricing that clearly distinguishes between complex professional work and the lower tiers of retail and do-it-yourself alternatives.

Across multiple independent pricing measures, certified public accountants and credentialed tax professionals command fees that are substantially higher than the base costs advertised by major retail chains, software platforms, and dwindling government-sponsored free filing options. The result is a world of tax preparation pricing that reflects not only the complexity of engagement but also client expectations, risk management, service delivery models, and clear segmentation of value. READ MORE →

Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | The Disruptors

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Exhaustion, chaos, and missed lives are the result of design choices—not destiny.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon and Associates, has been pioneering a creative approach for taming tax season madness: every return is scheduled like an appointment. “We know how long it takes us to prepare a tax return. Why could we not control each week and the number of tax returns we prepare each week?” she recalls thinking after hearing Jason Staats introduce the concept on a podcast in 2022.  

MORE STREAMING: Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

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Over the last three tax seasons, Cannon and her team, which includes her husband and co-founder, Randy Cannon, have been refining the process. Clients choose a date on a calendar on which they will deliver their documents to her office, with the understanding that their return will be ready three weeks after that date.  

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Five Procedures to Simplify Your Tax Season

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Three young businessmen in office training session

Yes, there are checklists.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

One way to guarantee extra work is to have everything always done differently each time it is done.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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Not establishing uniform procedures is bad business and unnecessarily consumes part of your life. Consistency in performance reduces work and review time and creates a greater reliance on the staff people.
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