Author: Donny Shimamoto, CPA, CITP, CGMA
Inspiration Architect, Center for Accounting Transformation
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2026 issue of the South Carolina CPA Report
I’ve been making a deliberate shift lately: I don’t say “busy season” anymore. Not because the work has disappeared—but because the profession is finally gaining the tools, processes, and mindset that can make this stretch of the year feel manageable again.
In December, we brought the Accounting ARC podcast conversation into a live Tax Season Readiness program—not just as a webinar, but as a focused, real-time discussion with special guests on what firms are actually facing heading into tax season.
This wasn’t treated as a checklist exercise. We explored the trends that can help firms reclaim tax season instead of merely surviving it. From AI to advisory to behavioral science, a clear throughline emerged—peace of mind, clarity, and hope are not abstract ideals; they’re strategic outcomes.
Tax Platforms: A Landscape on the Edge of Change
We opened with early findings from tax platforms research – to be continued after April 15 – built from 155 firm responses. A few patterns were hard to miss:
- CCH Axcess Tax continues to dominate, especially among mid-sized firms.
- Legacy systems—and even Excel—are still surprisingly common for tax planning. (If you’re doing tax planning in Excel, check out the new planning platforms that have matured in the last year.)
- Document scanning usage is wildly uneven. Some firms rely on it heavily; others haven’t adopted it. Reduce busy-work by adopting these platforms which have become a lot more accurate by integrating AI.
More importantly: this data was collected before the explosion of AI-powered research tools. Blue J, CoCounsel, TaxGPT, and similar platforms are already shifting expectations around speed and accuracy. This is likely the last year the charts look so traditional.
The tax tech stack isn’t disappearing—it’s evolving.
AI as the New Advisor Support System
In a Startup Spotlight conversation with Camden Bean of Ping, it became clear where AI is quietly heading—not toward more transcription, but toward real client intelligence. Ping listens to meetings, captures context, pulls out action items, drafts follow-ups, and builds a searchable memory of the client relationship. It’s the kind of connective tissue most firms don’t realize they’re missing—until they see it in action.
“I can skip a meeting and still know exactly what happened,” noted my ARC cohost, Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting.
These tools won’t replace practitioners. They’ll elevate them—by reducing administrative drag and surfacing insights humans might miss. I see tools like Ping becoming the next-generation CRM: lightweight, contextual, always learning.
Tax Advisory: The Work That Makes Tax Season Easier
The conversation naturally turned to tax advisory—and to Dr. Jackie Meyer, who has been making the case for advisory work for years. And she’s right.
Tax advisory can be higher margin, more fulfilling, more stabilizing for client relationships, and perhaps the single biggest lever for reducing tax season chaos.
Her software, TaxPlanIQ, now scans a 1040 and surfaces strategies in seconds, helping even newer practitioners deliver sophisticated planning without drowning in research. But Meyer’s bigger message resonated with the entire audience: “If you want smoother tax seasons, advisory is not optional.”
Mason reinforced this with real practice experience: clients who receive projections and planning throughout the year make tax season almost frictionless. Those who don’t? They’re the surprise phone calls in March—the clients who make “busy season” feel busy.
Firms don’t need to overhaul everything at once; piloting advisory with a small client segment can make an immediate impact.
Meyer also encouraged reaching out and networking during tax season to build a community of professionals where we can all share our experiences and work through any frustrating issues or client questions.
Beyond Compliance: The Future Is Holistic Advice
The conversation also touched the intersection of tax, wealth, and behavioral finance, where Rory Henry offered a refreshing perspective. “It’s not about wealth,” he said. “It’s about well-being.”
Tax professionals often become the de facto financial quarterback without realizing it. We see entity structures, cash flow, family dynamics, investment patterns, and stress points. With the right tools—financial planning, estate planning, and tech-enabled collaboration with wealth managers—tax practitioners can deliver what clients value most: clarity about their future.
Rory reminded us that planning isn’t about product—it’s about meaning. And clients respond to advisors who help them make decisions that align with their deeper goals.
This is where our profession’s purpose becomes tangible.
Hope: Yes, It’s Measurable—And It Matters
One of the most surprising insights came from Dr. Katelynn Hopson, whose dissertation studied hope levels in public accountants entering tax season.
Not “hope” in the vague, inspirational sense—hope as a scientifically measurable construct tied to goal-setting, motivation, and perceived capability.
Her findings were encouraging:
- Accountants had high levels of hope heading into tax season.
- Higher hope made practitioners more likely to view stress as a challenge instead of a threat.
- Higher hope correlated with lower turnover intentions.
What struck me most is how closely this aligns with leadership best practices: clarity, goal alignment, achievable milestones, and honest communication all strengthen hope. And hope, according to Dr. Hopson, is a renewable resource that firms can cultivate intentionally.
If we want people to stay—and thrive—we need to design environments where hope can grow, an observation that reinforces Meyer’s networking suggestion of finding community and Dr. Hopson’s research that quantifies creating state hope within firms. Explore Dr. Hopson’s dissertation at irl.umsl.edu/dissertation/1529.
Where We Go from Here
If I had to sum up the entire program it would be this:
Technology reduces friction. Advisory reduces surprises. Community reduces burnout.
Firms preparing for the upcoming season should focus on:
- Curiosity, not upheaval: Explore AI tools, but don’t rip out systems mid-season. Use extensions season as a testing sandbox.
- A small, steady move into advisory: Even a handful of planning clients changes the rhythm of tax season.
- Holistic support: Integrate wealth conversations or build a client-partnership model that extends beyond compliance.
- Building a culture of hope: Through transparency, shared goals, and genuine connection.
If we do these things well, “busy season” becomes simply “tax season” again—and the work we do fulfills the profession’s core promise (and, incidentally, the Center’s tenets) of peace of mind, vision & clarity, and hope for a better future.
