tax season

make your next busy season easier now

by

sad businessman sitting at desk outdoors and looking straight ahead

five ways to shift some of the heavy lifting to your lighter months.

by sandi leyva
the complete guide to marketing for tax & accounting firms

for some of you, summer can be a slow time in your business. if you do taxes, all the action is during busy season and in september if you have a lot of extensions. if you’re a bookkeeper, your busiest month is january. and if you do software consulting or training, it slows down in july and august.

more: how to put your strengths to work for you | implement these two daily rituals | want to close a deal? set a deadline | five business development mistakes to avoid | how to leverage chatgpt during this crazy tax season | eight steps to getting started with ai: a guide for tax professionals | you don’t have a time problem | three money leaks and how to plug them | eleven ways to serve clients even better
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

if you have a good relationship with your clients, you might be able to move some of your busy season work to off season. and if you have clients who are ready to take advantage of new technologies, there are lots of opportunities in the cloud. here are five quick ideas to stir up some revenue in the slower summer months.

read more →

three ways to thrive with limited capacity

by

smiling man working at laptop in office with glass walls

turn the staffing shortage into a new opportunity.

by frank stiteley
the relentless cpa

charles dickens had to be writing about the accounting profession when he wrote, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

clients are plentiful. i met a new client coming out of the restroom at our office complex. we get four to five inquiries a day – out of tax season. during tax season, we turned down four out of five prospective clients.

more on staffing: tax and accounting jobs and salaries show strength | olympics of outsourcing and offshoring for accountants | new study: strong and steady growth for accountant jobs and salaries | can’t recruit? retain! | is tech causing both cpa shortage and low salaries? | staffing tops list of woes at cpa firms | to replenish the talent pipeline, go back to the classroom | whole person retention: when it’s not just the money | more big firms shut their doors to new college grads | seven enticements to keep talent on board | employee retention is easier than attraction | let interns fix the staffing shortage? | disruptors: talent crisis? what talent crisis? | firms culling clients as staffing woes persist
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

staff are not plentiful – at least not good ones. i’m getting two or three resumes a day, but they’re the warm body sort most of us learned the hard way not to hire during the pandemic. you’ve seen these resumes too. they are people with six employers in eight years. you are certain to be number seven in nine years. they claim eight years of experience, but you can see from their job history that it’s really two years of experience repeated four times. and – they want $100k for those two years of real experience.

read more →

irs makes big progress but …

by

four people talking on phones in call center

problems remain. (shocked, we are.)

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

national taxpayer advocate erin m. collins has plenty of good things to say about the irs in her annual objectives report to congress.

more: 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 | can’t irs online accounts be more useful? | id theft a problem for irs even when it doesn’t exist | the nightmare of non-credentialed tax preparers | taxpayer assistance centers: a good idea that should be better | irs still falling short on service
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

“the irs largely succeeded in 2024,” collins writes regarding this year’s tax season. “after several years of abysmal taxpayer service during the covid-19 pandemic, the irs has now delivered two filing seasons that demonstrate the agency has restored service to pre-pandemic levels and has improved in most, but not all, areas of service. this is excellent news for most taxpayers.”
read more →

geni whitehouse: conquer client communication chaos

by

subscribe to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 podcasts anywhere: apple, google, spotify, iheart, deezer, amazon music and audible, player fm, audacy, gaana (india), and boomplay (africa).


with seth fineberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

geni whitehouse, cpa.citp, the “countess of communication” for brotemarkle, davis & co., llp (bdco), says you must meet your clients where they are and understand their personalities to better communicate with them.

doing so, she says, will provide the ultimate value for your clients.

more whitehouse: geni whitehouse: unlock your accountant super powers

in this episode of tax chat, whitehouse discusses strategies for improving client communication and efficiency in tax preparation, emphasizing the importance of productivity tools, workflows, and shared files. whitehouse highlights the need to tailor communication methods to meet client preferences and leverage new tools and technologies to provide interactive and insightful financial information. she also explores the crucial role of communication in tax consulting and accounting, emphasizing the need for empathy, understanding, and adaptability in addressing clients’ needs.

6 more takeaways:

read more →

tax pros close season handling 53% of e-filings

by

data table

the mark has been steady for three years now.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

april 15 has come and gone. finally, tax season is over!

hahaha! sure, it’s true for the 140 million+ represented on the returns filed so far, but it doesn’t speak to their neighbors who aren’t quite there yet. you know, the ones you filed extensions for.

more: tax refunds up about 4% | tax pros own 53% of e-filings | tax stats still playing catchup | tax pros take the edge in e-filings | tax pros gain ground, and diyers maintain lead | tax pros handle 46.4% of e-filing | tax refunds, tax pro market share trending up | refunds up as tax pros tackle 41.5% of e-filings | tax pros handle 37.7% of e-filings | tax pros file 33% of early returns
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

 

still, it’s a national touchpoint, so let’s take a peek at the data the irs just released for april 19, just after the deadline.
read more →

tax refunds up about 4%

by

data table

visits to irs.gov top half a billion.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

the tax season has overcome its later start, with all the irs’ weekly markers surpassing 2023 figures except for the total numbers of refunds and direct deposit refunds.

more: tax pros own 53% of e-filings | tax stats still playing catchup | tax pros take the edge in e-filings | tax pros gain ground, and diyers maintain lead | tax pros handle 46.4% of e-filing | tax refunds, tax pro market share trending up | refunds up as tax pros tackle 41.5% of e-filings | tax pros handle 37.7% of e-filings | tax pros file 33% of early returns
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

as of april 12, the latest data available, the agency had received 119.6 million individual income tax returns, up 1.9 percent from the same period one year ago. it had processed 118.1 million returns, up 1.7 percent.
read more →

tax refund numbers down, amounts up

by

data table

tax pros handled 54% of e-filings.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

more than 100,000 individual income tax returns have flowed in and out of the internal revenue service, and for the most part, we’re slightly ahead of the 2023 season.

more: tax pros own 53% of e-filings | tax stats still playing catchup | tax pros take the edge in e-filings | tax pros gain ground, and diyers maintain lead | tax pros handle 46.4% of e-filing | tax refunds, tax pro market share trending up | refunds up as tax pros tackle 41.5% of e-filings | tax pros handle 37.7% of e-filings | tax pros file 33% of early returns
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

with 10 days before deadline – as of april 5, the latest data available – the irs received 101.9 million returns, up 0.5 percent from the same period the previous tax season. it processed 100.1 million returns, down 0.3 percent.
read more →

tax pros own 53% of e-filings

by

data table

most stats are on the plus side now.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

with just over two weeks before the nation’s major tax deadline, most statistics are landing on the positive side … finally.

more: tax stats still playing catchup | tax pros take the edge in e-filings | tax pros gain ground, and diyers maintain lead | tax pros handle 46.4% of e-filing | tax refunds, tax pro market share trending up | refunds up as tax pros tackle 41.5% of e-filings | tax pros handle 37.7% of e-filings | tax pros file 33% of early returns
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

the irs has received 90.3 million individual income tax returns as of march 29, the latest data available, up 0.2 percent from the same period in 2023. it has processed 88.8 million returns, down 1 percent.
read more →

tax stats still playing catchup

by

data tablerefund numbers are down but amounts are up.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

the end is in sight. documents are signed, buttons are pushed and tax returns are filed. the pile is growing smaller.

if you want optimism, don’t look at the latest internal revenue statistics. with the 2023 filing season opening jan. 23 and the 2024 season kicking off jan. 29, every week of 2024 reporting has seven fewer days of data than the corresponding period the previous year.

more: tax pros take the edge in e-filings | tax pros handle 46.4% of e-filing | tax refunds, tax pro market share trending up | refunds up as tax pros tackle 41.5% of e-filings | tax pros handle 37.7% of e-filings | tax pros file 33% of early returns
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

as of the latest report, for march 22, the irs had received 80.5 million individual income tax returns and processed 79.2 million returns, down 0.3 percent and 1.4 percent respectively from last year. the impact on your firm? dare we say, none?

perhaps you’ve been the beneficiary of another stat, though … the one showing tax professionals gaining ever more ground on the self-preparers.
read more →

letting staff go after tax season? bad idea

by

eight reasons they might be more valuable than you think.

by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide

question: i am planning on letting go of some staff after april 15 and will hire replacements at a higher level. any suggestions?

more on tax season: ten tax prep questions that people forget to ask | try this clean slate exercise | offer your tax clients other services | can your tax reviewers answer these 10 questions? | the top 12 mistakes in tax return preparation | six types of person: which are you? | answer these two questions first | help your tax clients, help yourself | what’s your value to your tax clients? | are you excited about tax season?
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

response: 1) your implication is that you will hire replacements at a higher level.

i do not like that. i like hiring out of school and training internally. i’ve written about this many times and shared my ideas ad infinitum and will not repeat that here because you can search back to previous q&as (or read my 30:30 training method book).
read more →

tax pros take the edge in e-filings

by

data table

refunds up 5+ percent.

by beth bellor
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

the machine that is the internal revenue service keeps clicking along. as of march 15, the irs had received 71.6 million individual income tax returns, down 0.4 percent from the same period in 2023, and had processed 70.6 million, down 1.2 percent.

more: tax pros handle 46.4% of e-filing | tax refunds, tax pro market share trending up | refunds up as tax pros tackle 41.5% of e-filings | tax pros handle 37.7% of e-filings | tax pros file 33% of early returns
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

e-filings

electronic filings totaled 69.5 million, down 0.3 percent.
read more →

how to leverage chatgpt during this crazy tax season

by

make tax season less taxing and more productive.

by sandi leyva and chatgpt

in the fast-paced world of tax preparation and accounting, time is of the essence. embracing chatgpt can dramatically transform your workflow, offering practical and actionable solutions to common challenges.

check out our courses on chatgpt,
offered as a deep discount bundle or separately.
webinar schedule:
more chaptgpt here

here’s how you can put chatgpt to work, making this tax season less taxing and more productive, even if congress decides to pass a retroactive tax bill right in the middle of busy season.

read more →