A Tax Season Like No Other

Tax season. Those two words are the life blood of many an accountant and tax preparer – and simultaneously conjure nightmares for those same professionals. Especially in a year where the “new normal” is that nothing is normal.

For employees of CPA and tax preparation firms, it means months of overtime. It means your regular workweek gets bumped up from 40 hours a week to 50 or more. You get home late. You have to eat meals in the office. You have to give up personal time with families and friends. If someone schedules a special occasion between January and April 15 or between August and October 15, you’re not going to be there unless the firm owners are benignly disposed. All that time within walls with no breaks can approach “prison-like confinement,” as I once read. And you’re with the other staff members who, like you, are “confined” to the office. Everyone’s cooped up; everyone’s missing out; everyone’s longing for a break.

Add to that dealing with the anxiety clients feel about getting their returns filed and taxes paid on time. For example, explaining the alternative minimum tax to bewildered clients. Or when you need your clients to get you additional paperwork from their bank, broker or finance company on your schedule. Or when your clients just don’t understand that something they thought is deductible actually isn’t. The complexities of the tax system create ever-spiraling circles of anxiety that get transferred onto you.

Keeping your cool, staying professional with your clients, coworkers, and managers, and doing your work well is a tremendous effort requiring equally tremendous exertion of self-discipline.

And that’s a normal tax season. I personally experienced it for over 20 years as an accountant and tax preparer.

In 2021, the start date of tax season was pushed from January to February 12. Many accountants want the due date for filing returns and extensions to be pushed forward from April 15 to July 15, as it was in 2020. (Update: as of this writing the IRS has moved the due date forward to May 17, 2021.)

Then there are the tax law changes, such as the American Rescue Plan signed last week by President Biden. This law mandates a number of changes to the American tax system. It exempts from federal taxation the first $10,200 of unemployment insurance for those earning up to $150,000. It increases the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,000 per child and expands eligibility for the credit to parents of children over 17 who were ineligible under previous tax law. There’s also the question of the stimulus checks issued to Americans. Those who received the $1,200 payments last spring and $600 earlier this year don’t have to return the payments if they became ineligible to receive them because they earned higher income. And some taxpayers will have to file amended returns to claim all the tax benefits to which they are due.

Makers of tax software, such as Intuit, are scrambling to update their tax preparation offerings to accommodate all the changes. Even at full throttle, it takes time.

What can accounting professionals do? Some common-sense suggestions are:

• Stay apprised of tax changes. Keep an eye on the IRS website, state and local websites and industry publications announcing changes in tax laws and policies.
• Also stay apprised of software updates. Software makers will update their applications and add forms as the season goes on. Make sure you know what your software can do.
• Train your staff well. They should be familiar with both the tax law and the software, and be able to communicate with clients. Make your expectations clear and reasonable.
• Be patient with each other. Everyone is “confined” to the office or the desk. Be tactful. If a colleague appears overwhelmed, ask yourself if you can wait until your colleague is less harried to discuss a matter with that person – no matter how “anxious” your clients are.
• Be patient with your clients too. Yes, trying to “explain” to non-professionals who are paying you to do important work for them why you can’t save them money or need things from them is difficult. But it’s important to appreciate that the pandemic is making life harder for them too.
• Have realistic expectations of what your staff members can accomplish within given ranges of time. If your client is exerting too much pressure to complete its return within an unreasonable time frame, stand up for your staff. Your clients may be paying your invoices, but your staff is generating the work your clients are paying for. Lower-ranking staff members can handle only so much delegation.
• Monitor workloads carefully and coordinate with fellow managers to avoid overloading your employees. Not everything can be a “priority” or an “emergency.” If you keep telling a staff member to “put that aside and do this,” you are paralyzing that staff member. If your staffer ends up in that situation, reassign some of that work and remove the underlying accountability.
• Have your staffers’ backs. Don’t let your clients abuse them.
• Let your staffers take a break now and then! Don’t require them to put in 50 hours of desk time per week if their workload can be accomplished in less time than that. Let them do what they need to in order to recharge their own batteries.
• And give them the days after tax deadlines – April or July 16 and October 16 – off as company holidays. Whatever work remains can wait one more day.

Happy tax season. Let that not be a professional oxymoron.