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.
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Staff turnover at CPA firms has fallen to its lowest level in years, signaling that the profession’s investments in culture, compensation and flexibility are paying dividends.
The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey reports average professional staff turnover at 11.1 percent, down sharply from 18.8 percent in 2022 and the lowest since before the pandemic, marking a major shift after years of talent turbulence.
Firms that struggled to recruit and retain staff during the labor shortages of 2021 and 2022 now report greater stability and stronger pipelines.
“This trend may reflect firms’ stronger retention strategies,” the survey notes. “Lower turnover not only reduces recruitment and training costs, but also helps preserve institutional knowledge and maintain stronger client relationships.” READ MORE →
After several years of steady gains in productivity, CPA firms are seeing a slight decline in revenue per person, suggesting firms are adding staff faster than they are growing revenue, even as hiring rebounds and turnover drops.
According to the new 2025 Rosenberg Survey, the erosion in average revenue per full-time equivalent employee comes after consistent increases from 2020 through 2024. Larger firms are still posting the highest efficiency levels. But the overall trend points to a mild dilution of productivity as practices rebuild teams and expand support infrastructure following years of lean staffing. READ MORE →
After years of strong top-line expansion, CPA firm partners are finding their personal earnings growth lagging behind overall revenue gains, according to the 2025 Rosenberg Survey.
Average income per equity partner is rising just 3.2 percent this year to $615,000, compared with double-digit revenue increases in the last two years. The survey concludes that leverage, the ratio of professional staff to partners, and billing rate management remain the most decisive drivers of profitability.
