survey results: busy season outlook

pre-season jitters are spiking early this year.

worried by a sinking economy and swirling changes in code and regs, tax professionals are showing acute concerns about the oncoming busy season, with 28% registering at least a 7 on the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 stress-o-meter.

nevertheless, 46% of practitioners are predicting a better overall season than last year’s, twice as many as those expecting a worse season.

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selected comments

key causes of stress at this time:

1. much new work and understaffed.
2. i don’t know were we are heading with the current financial crisis. which makes it very hard to advise clients.
3. pressure to meet deadlines, complaints about fees.
4. the sense of not being able to get everything done.
5. clients that wait until the last minute, even though they have had plenty of time to get their information together and clients that think that they are your only client.
6. never enough hours in the day.
7. there is always more to get done than time to do it.
8. everything is late, we are rushing and delivering returns closed to deadline
9. clients are much more slow in responding to questions in relationship to dead lines and required filings.
10. the tax law changes are too overwhelming to keep up with every year, the stress of dealing with deadlines that never end.
11. we are finding that our clients needs continue to expand–beyond the stimulus payments.
12. staffing issues during tax season, current economic indicators
13. senior management encourages economic units to pilfer clients from one another, pitting partner against partner in all transactions.
14. it is after october 15th and there is still a lot of work to be done.
15. too much work, not enough staff.
16. we’re very busy but work hard every day and don’t let clients interfere with the process of getting our work done — telephone calls are screened and limited.
17. i get more than 60% of my clients from the same source. when they need something, i must instantly respond.
18. too much work to provide the level of service i would like to provide.
19. processes help workload, but workload still more than staff can handle; last 3 weeks crazy!
20. not enough experienced staff with good people skills, leaving a great deal of the workload for management (me).
21. plenty of work, significantly fewer co-workers with experience.
22. work and personal situations always seem to bottleneck during tax season.
23. i have learned to manage my stress more effectively.
24. intense demands and limited number of hours in each day.
25. i am a sole practitioner, enuff sed.
26. i changed jobs this summer and the partners at my new firm say the most i will be working is about 48 hrs/week, v 70+hrs/wk at my old firm
27. this will just be my sixth year, so i am still building the business.

why this year will be better than last year:

1. addt’l manager, new office administrator, addt’l bookeeping staff
2. i may purchase another practice
3. i taught a college course at our local college last year. i won’t be doing that again.
4. i am going to be tougher on my rude clients and move up my deadline for information.
5. we were learning a paperless system in 2007.
6. expansion of staff and moving into a larger office, that is being renovated for us.
7. more staff
8. increased clients. i’ve been in business since last tax season, my first after a long time.
9. more marketing of profitable services
10. better trained employees, we had three new employees last year (our total employees), and now they all have one year under their belts.
11. better staff and better practices in place.
12. i have more clients this year.
13. i won’t be doing everything myself. i also have a new office that is much more conducive to client meetings.
14. we have substantially increased fees, staffed up early and purged bad clients.
15. i’ll have my full staff back this season.
16. new office location and hopefully new clients without a great loss of existing clients
17. i had pnuemonia and was out most of jan 08…started behind and never caught up
18. start earlier.
19. i will be trying to promote my business to reach more clients
20. more volume, but hopefully same result
21. we should be better staffed
22. more clients
23. already have trained additional help; last tax season, my mother was very ill
24. i bought a practice last year. a lot of new clients. this year i’m better prepared.
25. i have merged my firm–looking forward to the new working conditions.
26. higher revenues
27. better staff
28. more experienced staff
29. less clients.
30. have higher level staff
31. another year’s experience on some very good staff plus a couple of new staff.
32. 2nd year on software
33. more delegation
34. i have gotten rid of 2 very high maintenance clients and have replaced them with new clients that are better.
35. weeded out bad clients and am more focus
36. higher revenues
37. we have retained our staff and will add two additional people.
38. better/more staff in place.
39. i have hired some help, plus i’ve gotten a couple of years under my belt with the same clients.

acknowledgements
we gratefully acknowledge the responses and comments from the participants who agreed to be quoted by name: tom ribb, robert kowalewski, maggie mayer, steve tilley, david dollar, steve mazur cpa, beth pitt, phillip kirby, roxann, del chmielewski cpa, david hogan, donna bordeaux, mark albertz, barbara heyliger, richard a. reynolds cpa, sherry robertson cpa mtx.
thank you!

get all the answers: join the survey.

posted on october 21, 2008