2026 Winter Olympics: If tax pros planned the games

As the world turns its eyes to the Winter Olympics, a different kind of elite athlete is gearing up for their own grueling season of endurance, precision, and high-stakes performance.

I am talking, of course, about the tax professional.

While the skiers and skaters are tapering their training and focusing on getting the gold, you are furiously updating your software, reviewing last-minute tax law changes, and stocking the office break room with enough espresso pods to fuel a small country.

Is it a coincidence that the Olympics and tax season happen at the same time? Think about it. Tax pros and athletes train for a condensed period of intense activity where the margin for error is zero and the judges are incredibly harsh, although a tax pro’s judges work for the IRS rather than the International Skating Union.

If tax pros were in charge of planning the 2026 games, the events would look a little different. You would want a competition that tests real-world skills such as resilience, interpretation of vague instructions, and the ability not to scream when a client hands you a shoebox of receipts on April 10. Yes, that’s still a thing.

If tax pros planned the Olympic games, take a look at what the official event roster might look like.

The opening ceremony: The parade of procrastinators

Instead of athletes marching into a stadium waving flags, your opening ceremony would feature a solemn procession of clients marching into your offices waving manila envelopes marked “IMPORTANT TAX STUFF: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2026.” The torch would not be lit with fire; instead, a ceremonial “Send” button would be pressed on the very first e-filed return of the season, illuminating a giant screen showing the IRS acceptance status. The national anthem would be the sound of a dot-matrix printer jamming.

Once the games begin, the competition would be fierce across three primary games: compliance athletics, advisory acrobatics, and the ever-dangerous freestyle client wrangling.

First set of games: Compliance athletics

These events are the bread and butter of the games, testing raw speed, stamina, and the ability to process immense amounts of data without putting your fist through the monitor.

The Schedule C slalom

This high-speed event requires competitors to ski down a mountain of questionable business expenses without hitting a gate and triggering an audit flag. Athletes must navigate around treacherous obstacles, such as the “hobby loss” icy patch and the steep drop-off of “commingled business and personal funds.” Points are deducted for every receipt that is just a blurry photo.

The K-1 biathlon

A true test of endurance and precision, this event combines cross-country skiing through a blizzard of complex partnership agreements. Competitors must ski 10 kilometers while waiting for external K-1s to arrive, stopping only to precisely fire off emails asking why line 20Z for the QBI deduction is blank. Missing the target date results in a penalty lap of filing extensions for 20 angry investors.

Receipt reconciliation curling

This is a team sport requiring intense focus and a lot of yelling. One teammate (the client) slides a heavy, disorganized stone made of crumpled paper down the ice. The other teammates (the tax staff) furiously sweep ahead of it using brooms made of OCR software and Excel macros, desperately trying to guide the stone into the “Deductible Business Meal” circle before it drifts into the “Personal Entertainment” gutter.

The crypto sprint

Dozens of tax pros race around a tiny, chaotic rink trying to calculate the cost basis for 10,000 micro-transactions of a coin that didn’t exist 6 months ago. Collisions are inevitable as competitors try to figure out if trading an NFT of a bored ape for Ethereum constitutes a like-kind exchange. The race ends only when someone yells, “Wait, these were all wash sales!” and everyone collapses.

Second set of games: Advisory acrobatics

These events move beyond mere compliance, testing  the athlete’s ability to plan, strategize, and make complex tax concepts a real thing.

The pro forma high jump

In this daring event, the advisory pro must launch themselves off a ramp built entirely on assumptions about future legislation and client revenue growth. The goal is to clear a bar set by the client’s unrealistic expectations for tax savings. A smooth landing requires a perfect 5-year projection model, while missing the landing means crashing into a safety mat made of uncomfortable follow-up meetings.

Rhythmic entity structuring

Competitors perform a graceful floor routine using ribbons, hoops, and balls to demonstrate the flow of income through various business structures. The athlete must execute a flawless “S Corporation election leap” followed by a “partnership agreement pirouette,” all while maintaining a smile and not tangling themselves up in passive activity loss rules. Judges score based on tax efficiency and artistic interpretation of “reasonable compensation.”

The Roth conversion vault

This is an explosive event requiring perfect timing. The tax pro must sprint down the runway, plant a pole into a current low-tax bracket year, and vault the client’s assets over a high bar into a tax-free retirement future. The difficulty lies in calculating the exact amount to convert without pushing the client into a higher marginal bracket or triggering income-related monthly adjustment amount surcharges, something equal to the pole snapping mid-air.

Third set of games: Freestyle client wrangling

Perhaps the most dangerous category, these events test psychology, patience, and the ability to keep a straight face under extreme duress.

Synchronized client nodding

Image a duet event where the tax pro must mirror the client’s facial expressions during a Zoom meeting. While the client explains in agonizing detail why they believe their golden retriever is a legitimate business expense for their marketing firm, the tax pro must perform a series of perfectly timed nods, thoughtful finger-to-chin poses, and non-committal “mmm-hmm” sounds without actually agreeing to deduct the dog’s food.

The extension deadline luge

This is the fastest and most terrifying event of the games. Competitors hurl themselves feet-first down an icy chute at 90 mph on the afternoon of April 15 for individual clients or March 15 for the corporate games. The sled is steered only by adrenaline and the desperate hope that the tax software server doesn’t crash before midnight, if the firm hasn’t yet gone into the cloud. There are no brakes, and the helmet is only there to muffle your own screams.

Audit defense ice hockey

This is a full-contact sport where the tax pro must body check an aggressive revenue agent into the boards using only a well-cited Tax Court mem. It requires aggression, teamwork, and a deep knowledge of procedure. The penalty box is just a small, windowless conference room at the local IRS office with no Wi-Fi and a stack of paper 1040s from 1998.

Going for the gold? The closing ceremony

The 2026 tax games won’t end with fireworks. They will end on the evening of April 15 with the ceremonial “powering down.” You won’t receive gold, silver, or bronze medals. Instead, your reward will be far more valuable: a full 8 hours of sleep, the reintroduction of sunlight to your skin, and the knowledge that you survived another season.

Until next year, athletes, train hard, stay deductible, and may your e-file acknowledgments always be swift.

Editor’s note: Many thanks to Mike Manalac, CPA, for his illustrations. Mike is the author of the Intuit Tax Pro Center article”Accounting’s AI future and the human component,” and did the illustrations for that article as well.