Busy Season Barometer Archives - Page 8 of 43

Tax Pros Gear Up for a Better Busy Season

January 29, 2025

Survey respondents say the new year means new plans.

By CPA Trendlines Research

It’s shaping up to be a pretty good year, according to early results from the 2025 Busy Season Barometer. Half expect a year better than last year’s good year, and less than 10 percent think it will be worse.

MORE: IRS Funding Pays Eye-Popping 415x ROI | Tax Season 2025 Begins. Ready or Not. | Every Tax Reviewer Should Be Able to Answer These Ten Questions | Art Werner: Corporate Transparency Act and FinCEN Reporting | Quick Tax Tip | Taxpayer Advocate Sees Big Improvements at IRS | Ask Tax Clients the Right Questions | Major Changes to Circular 230: Implications for Tax Professionals | Cornerstone Report
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Why?

The market’s in a good place. Plenty of clients out there.
So far (fingers crossed) no big changes to the tax code.
No pandemic quarantines (more fingers crossed).
The economy’s chugging right along (keep them crossed).

Tax Season 2025 Begins. Ready or Not.

January 23, 2025

By CPA Trendlines Research

bar chart — **Ready or not?** More than four in ten accountants are expecting a better tax season this year than last year, with only one in six dreading worse. Join the survey. Get the results.

Most pros will hit the ground running.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Ready or not, here it comes: the marathon of the tax season. The W-2s are in the mail, the K-1s shouldn’t be far behind, and the 1099s are being filed.

MORE: Every Tax Reviewer Should Be Able to Answer These Ten Questions | Art Werner: Corporate Transparency Act and FinCEN Reporting | Quick Tax Tip | Taxpayer Advocate Sees Big Improvements at IRS | Ask Tax Clients the Right Questions | Major Changes to Circular 230: Implications for Tax Professionals
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

So far, most of America’s CPAs and tax preparers are ready for the tax season and reasonably optimistic about this year’s revenues.

According to early results to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, 44 percent of respondents are better prepared than they were last year, and almost as many are in about the same position as last year. Only 14 percent say they’re less ready than last year, with a mere 3 percent much less ready. Fifteen percent are “much better” prepared.

But that was before a Trump-ordered government-wide hiring freeze and new threats of over $20 billion in budget cuts.

IRS Still Unsure How to Measure Audit Rate

September 25, 2024

By CPA Trendlines Research

Differing definitions are only part of the problem.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The Inflation Reduction Act endowed the IRS with almost $80 billion to improve customer service and beef up enforcement. Congress later reduced the amount to $57.8 billion, with $24 billion earmarked for enforcement.

In no time at all, there was misinformation bouncing around social media and conservative podcasts, claiming that the IRA would result in more audits of middle-class taxpayers.

MORE: Art Werner: Estate Planning Strategies | Quick Tax Tip | Art Werner: Post-Mortem Estate Planning | Quick Tax Tip | Pause to Praise the Tax Pro Volunteers | IRS vs. Fraudsters | Imagine! The National Tax Advocate Does | Art Werner: Maximizing Fringe Benefits | Is the IRS Mismeasuring Phone Service? | IRS Makes Big Progress But … | Business Booming, but Not as Much as Last Year | Busy Season Barometer Offers Clues for Better Business | Tax Practitioners Say Happy Days Are Here … Again | The IRS Is Coming! Get Your Clients into Compliance
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The enforcement resources had no such designation. To allay fears, in 2022 the secretary of the Treasury directed the IRS commissioner not to use any of the additional resources to increase the audit rate of small businesses or households earning below $400,000.
READ MORE →

IRS vs. Fraudsters

July 26, 2024

By CPA Trendlines Research

The endless war is not going well.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The fraudsters of the world continue to see the U.S. Treasury as a bountiful chest of riches just waiting to be plundered.

It doesn’t take much. A taxpayer’s name, a Social Security number, a bank account number, maybe an email address, a phone number and a little luck.

MORE: Imagine! The National Tax Advocate Does | Art Werner: Maximizing Fringe Benefits | Is the IRS Mismeasuring Phone Service? | IRS Makes Big Progress But … | Business Booming, but Not as Much as Last Year | Busy Season Barometer Offers Clues for Better Business | Tax Practitioners Say Happy Days Are Here … Again | The IRS Is Coming! Get Your Clients into Compliance | End Tax Season Meetings with Clients … Seriously | Brandon Hall: Firms Try to Make Too Much on Tax Prep | Eight Steps to Getting Started with AI: A Guide for Tax Professionals | FTC Nails TurboTax for ‘Free Filing’ Scam | If Only the IRS’s Tax Pro Were Useful | Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns | Can’t IRS Online Accounts Be More Useful?
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The IRS is used to this. It knows what to do about it.

It just doesn’t do it very well.
READ MORE →

Imagine! The National Tax Advocate Does

July 18, 2024

By CPA Trendlines Research

(You may say she’s a dreamer, but she’s not the only one.)

By CPA Trendlines Research

One word keeps popping up in National Tax Advocate Erin M. Collins’s introduction to her annual Objectives Report to Congress.

The word is “imagine,” and Collins’s dream depicts an IRS that is a only bit more feasible than John Lennon’s dream of a world with no countries or religion.