10 ways to have a better tax season

Published January 25, 2026 6:53 PM

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Updated February 11, 2026 10:52 AM

1 Min Read

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Tax day concept. The USA tax due date marked on the calendar.

With major tax legislation to digest and the Internal Revenue Service laboring under serious staffing and budget restraints, it might be reasonable to approach tax season with serious concerns — but experts see some reason for cautious optimism.

Take the fact that it's kicking off more or less on time, for instance.

"I didn't expect the tax season to actually kick off on the 26th; if I had had to place a bet, I'd have said maybe later in January or early February," Annie Schwab, franchise operations manager at Padgett Business Services, told attendees of a recent Accounting Today webinar on tax season. "That is a good sign, I believe."

"I'm quite shocked that [the IRS has] gotten as much guidance out as they have. … I'm surprised that they've done so well," added Jennifer MacMillan, president of the National Association of Enrolled Agents. "So far nothing has fallen apart … I'm cautiously optimistic about how the IRS will perform throughout tax season."

Tom O'Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals, was careful to manage expectations: "I'm not expecting a lot out of the IRS this year, and being very pleased with them exceeding expectations."

All three pointed to potential pitfalls for this tax season — from the remaining guidance on provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that hasn't been released yet, to the retirement of large numbers of veteran IRS staff members — and they shared a host of ways to overcome those pitfalls, and generally make your tax season smoother (see a selection of the best below).

Nonetheless, their consensus was that this year's season is no reason to panic.

"Know that everything is going to be OK!" MacMillan urged. "We have had really crazy tax seasons in the past — anybody remember 2020 and 2021? — we'll make it through; it'll be fine, and you'll be fine."

1. Better your intake

Heap of paper sales receipts in a mound isolated on white background.

With the IRS promising to rely on tax preparers' "best efforts" at interpreting and complying with many of the unclear provisions of the OBBBA, this is a year to over-document.

"Good intake will equal good output," O'Saben said. "With your organizers that you send out to your clients, for instance, telling clients to bring in their final paystub for the year —documentation that'll support being able to reach a reasonable conclusion, and then document it or disclose it on the return."

This can also help with reducing interaction with the IRS, which could be problematic given the agency's staffing issues.

"If we can work on good input from the outset and not expect that we're going to have to make contact with the IRS, or to try to do things in a digital manner, I think that will help," O'Saben added.

2. Communicate relentlessly

You cannot be in contact with your clients too much this tax season.

"Communication with taxpayers — I think that's the most important thing," O'Saben said. "It doesn't matter whether or not you've got the kind of firm that does face-to-face interviews, or people drop off or upload to a portal; however it may be handled, we've got to get back to a world of communicating with the clients, because I think that's what they're really hungry for — the information and the education. They want to be educated on the tax laws so that they better understand what's going on."

3. Prepare to explain

ranczandras/ra2 studio - stock.adobe.com

On that note, build time into your engagements to answer client questions and to disabuse them of their misconceptions — they'll have a lot of both.

MacMillan used "No tax on Social Security" as an example: "All of these seniors are going to come in and say, 'My Social Security shouldn't have any tax on it, so why are you putting it on my forms?' There's a lot of confusion from OBBBA that I think we're going to spend a lot of time explaining to people what the real answer is."

4. Get it in writing

Thumbnail for Video: Turbo-Charge Your Engagement Letters

With so much work out there, tax preparers need to be very clear on what they'll do — and what they won't.

"I can't say how important it is to get engagement letters signed with very clear expectations of what you need from them, when you need it from them, in what format you need it from them — make sure that you're getting signatures on your engagement letters," Schwab warned. "They should state, for instance, that if I have a question, I need you to respond to me in 48 hours, or you're going to the back of the line. … [Also,] let them know that you're not e-filing their return until they pay you. Be very clear about your expectations and what an engagement looks like with you."

Equally important is watching out for scope creep. "There's going to be a lot of it this year," she warned. "There's going to be a lot of questions and misunderstandings, so you're going to have a lot of extra phone calls and emails, and nobody works for free — make sure that you're getting paid for what you're doing, and that the scope of your engagement is very clear with your clients."

5. Use IRS online accounts

While the IRS will have plenty of limitations this season, all of the experts on the webinar lauded the agency's online accounts for taxpayers and tax professionals, and strongly recommended getting clients signed up.

"The online accounts — you can make payments, you can set up installment agreements, you can look up your notices, you can get copies of transcripts from the past," said Schwab. "It is free, though you do have to go through the effort of going through ID.me. … I would encourage clients — especially those that are tech-savvy — to jump up on there and get their account, because it'll prevent the back-and-forth with you looking for something, and it's so much easier to be able to respond to IRS correspondence, rather than sending it snail-mail and waiting for someone to open the envelope."

And MacMillan recommended the same for tax pros: "Besides having your clients set up a taxpayer account with the IRS, the tax pro accounts have been vastly expanded in the past couple of years, so there are many more things you can do through there. For instance, powers of attorney that have traditionally taken anywhere from three to 30 days to get on the system when they used to be faxed in, those can be done online now, which is an amazing boon."

6. Sally is not waiting to take your call

Many clients have wildly unrealistic ideas of the speed at which issues with their tax return can be fixed.

"As tax pros, we need to manage taxpayers' expectations of how long it takes to resolve a problem," said O'Saben. "There is not a world now with the IRS where you pick up the phone, talk to someone, and they say, 'OK, it's all cleaned up.' … Sometimes that comes back on us, where the clients lose faith in us, as if we're dragging our feet or not replying."

"Most issues may take multiple weeks, if not months, to resolve," he added. "Sally is not sitting at the IRS waiting for the phone to ring. They have millions and millions of phone calls."

7. Reliable no more

Operations at a USPS Postal Service operations center

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Two old standbys of tax season are gone: The IRS is no longer issuing paper checks for refunds, and the U.S. Postal Service is changing its processes so that simply dropping a return in the mail at 11:59 p.m. will no longer guarantee that it's postmarked on time.

For the first, that means clients need to give you banking information, or choose an alternative method of delivery, like a preloaded debit card. "Make that part of your intake process — that's something you're going to need to get from clients who may not have had to provide banking information in the past," said Schwab, who noted that not providing the information could delay refunds up to six weeks.

"Be really cognizant of sending in anything by mail to the IRS at the last minute, either payments or returns, because the postmark date is no longer the date they're going to acknowledge," warned MacMillan.

The panel recommended getting correspondence hand-stamped in the post office, using certified mail — or just moving to e-filing.

8. Stay safe

Cybersecurity and tax-related ID theft remain major issues, and Schwab had a very specific suggestion for staying vigilant.

"I recommend monitoring your EFIN account to see how many returns were e-filed under your EFIN," she said. "It's not going to be perfect — if you filed a hundred and it's 98 or 101, that's fine, but if you filed a hundred returns and it shows 800, that's something that is of concern. Monitoring that will help with any issues about cybersecurity breaches that might shut you down during tax season."

She also recommended having someone check your e-file rejections: "Sometimes it's just a simple fix and you can resubmit, but if you wait too long, then you're stuck in limbo of, 'Is it going to be considered filed on time?' or do you have to file on paper?"

9. Weed out the troublemakers

Iakov Filimonov/JackF - stock.adobe.com

MacMillan recommended keeping a "naughty list" of clients who aren't worth working with anymore.

"When I was just done with a client who had just wasted hours of my time for a very small return, I would put their name down and then send them a very, very nice letter at the end of the year, saying, 'I'm changing my practice; I have way too many clients, so I'm going to need to raise my fees by X amount,'" she explained. "Double them, triple them — whatever amount of money makes that person worth it. Raise your fees and let them know far in advance, and amazingly the really bad ones will slough off, and the rest will totally be worth talking to next year."

All the panelists agreed that tax practitioners should raise their fees, and noted that the complexities of the OBBBA a more-than-reasonable rationale for a price hike.

10. Stay healthy

With burnout a common problem in the profession, Schwab warned tax pros to prioritize work-life balance.

"You need to take care of yourself and your staff," she said. "Set a goal for yourself — 'I'm not working on Sundays' or 'I'm going to make every one of my son's games' or 'I'm making it home for dinner' — whatever it is, make it a priority, and take care of yourself."

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