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.
A sign of things to come?
Contenders and Defenders: Hazel and a new generation of AI tax and legal tools are challenging the old.
By CPA Trendlines
A major sell-off in brokerage and wealth management stocks followed the launch of a new AI-powered tax-planning tool by the financial technology platform Altruist.
Investors reacted sharply to the launch of Hazel AI, a feature within Altruist’s platform that automates complex tax strategies — a service traditionally handled by human advisors and high-fee wealth management firms.
Clear instructions make your tax season easier.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide
Providing instructions of what a client needs to do must be clear enough so that the client doesn’t call you to find out what to do.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.Sometimes taking an extra minute to lay out what the client should do can eliminate that call or indecisive moment a client might feel.
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Less capacity, more obligation.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Identity theft is becoming one of the biggest time drains for tax professionals this filing season, and the IRS may be less equipped than ever to handle it.
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MORE BUSY SEASON BAROMETER | MORE OUTLOOK 2026
According to the IRS Advisory Council—the body representing tax professionals—identity-theft refund cases now take nearly two years to resolve, as staffing cuts and system limits slow IRS response.
But identity theft is only one of a long list of problems that can only get worse this year. Tax professionals are bracing for prolonged client disputes and frustrating follow-ups with an understaffed, ill-equipped IRS.
Revenues and client rosters outpace profit gains as firms battle cost pressures.
By CPA Trendlines
CPA firms heading into the 2026 tax season expect revenue gains driven primarily by higher prices, not by adding clients, even as a majority anticipate another heavy extension season.
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MORE TAX, PRICING, and THE 2026 OUTLOOK
According to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, about 6 in 10 firms expect total revenue to increase this year, while roughly one-third expect revenue to hold steady. Profit expectations trail revenue slightly, a pattern that points to continued cost pressure even as clients and would-be clients clamor for more, and more high-end, services