Tax professionals charged an average of $218 for new clients in 2023, a 25% jump from $174 in 2021, the National Association of Tax Professionals found in its 2023 Tax Fee report. Tax pros also bumped repeat clients’ fees to $205, a 22.7% increase from $167 two years ago. This is based on the most common fee structure, where clients are charged a minimum fee plus costs based on the complexity of their return.
Experts are attributing the double-digit price increases to an industry-wide PR crisis. Firms need to raise prices because they can’t find enough staff to work, and they can’t find staff because many college students still believe accountants sit in dark basements punching numbers into calculators.
“I think, unfortunately, we accountants have never been able to shed the reputation of being number crunchers,” Mike Gillis, CPA and CEO at DMJPS, an accounting firm based in North Carolina, told Yahoo Finance. “It makes me feel a little bit sad because I know what a great career it is."
“I wish more young professionals would understand [accounting] has lots of opportunity and is financially lucrative as we compete for students against other really cool careers like the data analytics and the software engineers (which have) a little more cool factor.”
Tax experts attributed industry staff shortage to poor marketing. (The Office: "Dwight's Speech" Episode 17, aired 3/2/2006) (NBC via Getty Images)
A shortage hurt by perception
The total number of candidates finishing bachelor's degrees in accounting dropped 7.8% in 2022 from 2021 after a steady decline of 1% to 3% annually since 2015, according to the AICPA’s 2023 Trend Report. It also shows that the number of new CPA candidates dipped to 30,251 in 2022, the lowest in 16 years.
“(Fewer) students are going into accounting, and [the students] are coming up with 10 job offers. So it's becoming so much more competitive to get them,” Gillis said about his firm’s recruiting challenges.
The shrinking talent pipeline is impacting accounting firms across the board. More than 99% of the country’s top CPA firm leaders said they can’t find adequate staffing domestically.
Meanwhile, the demand for accountants has “gone through the roof,” Jim Brady, CEO of alliantTALENT, told Yahoo Finance.
“Since the 80s, you've had four decades of incredible economic expansion in the United States,” Brady said, “and what goes with that is capital formation and the need for CPAs, the need for audit professionals, and the need for tax professionals."
