“Tax Season Readiness” webinar offers quick, practical strategies to help firms prepare for the hectic demands of the coming months. By CPA Trendlines
If you like Accounting ARC, you’re going to love what’s happening Dec. 10!
Heading into 2026, problems from the past several filing seasons are still unresolved.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The coming 2026 filing season is shaping up to be another high-stakes test of the Internal Revenue Service’s capacity to serve taxpayers and practitioners, with new reports from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration offering an unusually candid look at the agency’s most vulnerable operational seams.
Taken together, the findings forecast a filing season characterized by incremental improvements in training but overshadowed by enduring structural constraints in telephone service, submission processing, identity verification, and staffing.
Busy season 2026 clouded by regulatory shifts and client pressures.
Ready or Not: Less than half are ahead of last year’s preparation for Tax Season 2026. On the Front Lines: Clockwise from top left, Cicero, Saul, Krueger
By CPA Trendlines Research
Fewer than half of accounting firm leaders report entering the 2026 busy season in better shape than a year ago, according to the new CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.
The readiness gap, evident across firm sizes and specialties, sets the tone for a season overshadowed by heightened concerns about tax law changes and mounting pressure on margins.
The IRS’s Unified API Layer may be the cornerstone of a digital-first tax administration, even as key voices inside and outside the agency raise red flags about transparency, security, and oversight.
The partnership with the tech industry is triggering a new kind of scrutiny, not over software performance, but civil liberties. At the center of that concern is Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company that confirms it will work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the IRS on the API infrastructure.READ MORE →
The Internal Revenue Service is developing a Unified API Layer intended to consolidate access across its fractured legacy systems, a move that could transform the agency—if executed with transparency, speed, and user needs in mind.
The project gained momentum–and sparked controversy–this year with the Department of Government Efficiency and Palantir Technologies aiming to build a comprehensive API system.
And what about data security and privacy?