What atmosphere are you creating?
By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide
If you have staff, have happy cheerful helpful people.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.Don’t surround yourself with downers and naysayers. Also have team players.
Some of these you may want to keep year round.
By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms
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Sometimes “quick and easy” isn’t, but it’s still worthwhile.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide
I keep a few of the one-volume tax guides in my office so I could look up a quick answer when I need to. Recently a golf buddy emailed me a question that I thought I could answer quickly. He wanted to know that if he was in the “zero” percent capital gains tax bracket, did that apply to an unlimited amount of capital gains? Sounds like a simple question.
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Well I looked it up online and then in three one-volume tax guides. Only one source had thorough coverage of the issue. I ended up spending an hour on this “simple” question including my emailed response. Nothing is simple anymore.
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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.
Why Tax Pros Are Imposing Standards on Themselves.
By CPA Trendlines Research
As the 2026 filing season begins, the National Association of Tax Professionals is launching a formal credentialing program for taxpayer representation.
MORE Tax, Busy Season, The Next Circular 230
The NATP is stepping into a regulatory void left by years of congressional inaction, leaving more than 500,000 paid preparers operating without national standards, even as IRS and GAO data show higher error rates on paid-prepared returns than on do-it-yourself filings, and Congress is delaying action.