Accountants fees skyrocketing

Do you mean tax preparers?

Depends on how complex your taxes are and the time to complete. We have one because of my wife's business and he is worth every penny. I'm sure I could figure it out, but we are so busy, I would rather pay a professional.

Most accounting firms (mine included) are increasing their fees. Part is due to inflation, part is due to the mass exodus that has taken place in the profession and the increasing difficulty to find and keep good employees.

Doubling your fees, however, is a lot and is often times an indirect way of saying “I don’t want to deal with you anymore.”

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. Yall experiencing this?

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Yes, mine messaged saying they were bumping mine to $415 a month. I have a more complex file than some though. Rentals, flips, etc. Fairly involved.

I'm now looking for other options.

If all you have is a W2, just do turbo tax

I think we should just all not pay taxes this year


They can’t arrest all of us right?

Congress and the states make tax law more complex.

Software companies have to make their systems more complex, which means they have to charge more for their software.

Firms are feeling tremendous labor pressure because of a shortage of warm bodies, and honestly, as tax law gets more complex, we need more than warm bodies.

I do 95% consulting these days and very little tax prep, but our firm's minimum 1040 price this year is $1,500 for no states, $300 per each "easy" state (like LA) and $500 for each "hard" state (like NY).

Our 1065/1120/1120S monimums start at $4,000 and that is with a fully clean set of books including fixed asset depreciation.

For our older clients that are not at those prices, we are raising fees 10% per year / $100 per year (whichever is more) until they get to our min fee... which of course is increasing each year as well.

We are focusing heavy on volume billing. We do very little hourly billing anymore.

Having said that, if your tax return is just a commodity (i.e. no planning or discussion goes into it... just entering in numbers) it's not a good deal for you or for us to have us prepare your tax return.

And yes... we absolutely "high quote" clients who are a pain to us / we don't want to work with. If you leave... bye. If you stay and pay that fee... well at least that makes your aggravation worthwhile.

And for anyone who thinks our fees are too high... every day we are turning away work.

CPAs have seen insane wage growth over the last couple years. My CPA friends have seen their income more than double since COVID.

yes, mine mailed us a letter stating that tax preparation would move from $450 last year to $1000 this year. Back to TurboTax...

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From what I am hearing from my few friends still in public, a lot of firms that are not the Big4 are having problems filing these roles with fresh grads willing to put in the hours. Having a hard time finding people willing to put in more than 50 hours during busy season, which is forcing them to increase their workforce, or turn down work and increase fees.

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The entire CPA firm model is built on leverage. Hire young people with low hourly effective wages (due to OT) and charge them out at miuch higher rates.

That works as long as there is a steady supply of such young kids.

That is drying up.

Hard to major in accounting these days when you can major in things like comp sci where you make more money coming out, work far fewer hours, and don't need extra schooling in order to pass a shitty comprehensive exam that takes at least six months to pass (if you're lucky).

PA is basically white collar slave labor.