Tax season may end on April 15, but the real work starts long before it.
That’s a wrap.
My 48th tax season is officially in the books.
For most people April 15 is just another date on the calendar. For CPAs it still feels a little like the final out of a very long game.
At this point in my life I really only recognize two seasons.
Tax season and golf season.
April 16 is the official start of golf season.
Being a CPA has allowed me to eliminate a few seasons I never liked anyway. Winter. Spring. Fall. Those are for other people.
For those of us in this profession, the calendar really runs from December 1 to April 15.
That is when tax season truly begins.
December 1 starts year end tax planning. Conversations with clients. Projections. Strategy. Decisions that have to be made before the calendar flips to January.
By the time April 15 arrives we are really just harvesting work that began months earlier.
The Harvest
One of my all time favorite clients was an immigrant from Ireland and a boxer. Over the years he gave me a few lines I will never forget.
One day I asked him if he had been any good in the ring.
He looked at me and said,
“Laddy, I was a great boxer. But you fight here in the States.”
That always made me laugh.
But the line that stayed with me came another time when we were talking about business and the pressure of tax season.
He said,
“Laddy, you plowed the fields. You planted the seeds. You fertilized and watered the crops. Tax season is just the harvest.”
I have repeated that line to our staff many times over the years because it perfectly explains what tax season really is.
The crop does not grow in March.
It grows all year.
Tax season is simply when you harvest the results.
Making It to April 15
For newer staff this is the moment they prove something to themselves.
Every year people talk about how demanding tax season can be. But the real test is whether you actually make it all the way to April 15.
This year we had several newer team members who did not just talk the talk.
They walked the walk.
They worked hard, stayed focused, and made it all the way through their first tax season.
That is something every CPA remembers.
This year tax season also came with very little drama, which is usually the sign of a good tax season.
Preparation during the rest of the year worked the way it was supposed to.
Great staff makes that happen.
Good vs Great
The difference between a good tax season and a great tax season is actually pretty simple.
A good tax season means you have a tee time on the morning of April 16.
A great tax season means you have a tee time on the afternoon of April 15.
That difference might seem meaningless to some people.
But it is a very big difference to CPAs.
Life During Tax Season
From December 1 through April 15 we also have the greatest excuse known to mankind.
The social calendar disappears.
Holiday parties. Networking events. Charity dinners. Industry gatherings. Client events.
Someone asks if you can attend and the answer usually sounds like this.
“I can’t go. It is tax season.”
Or
“I’m not sure we can go. It is tax season.”
Nothing like working 70 plus hours a week and then showing up at a social function exhausted.
So the answer becomes simple.
Tax season.
Snow Days
This winter tried to make things interesting.
We had more snow than we have seen in a while, which always leads to the same conversation in the office.
Usually with someone newer on the team.
“So what is our snow closing number?”
I always explain that accounting firms do not really have snow days.
We just have four wheel drive.
Clients do not really care how many snow days there were. They just want their work done accurately and well in advance of the due dates.
Snow usually just means you might be working somewhere other than your desk.
Maybe your home office.
Maybe the family room.
Maybe the kitchen table, depending on how your house is set up.
In some homes that also means negotiating workspace with kids, pets, spouses, and whatever else might be happening that day.
The Food Economy of Tax Season
Truth is I am really just a baseball player who now plays golf.
My power was always to right center field, which worked great in baseball.
Unfortunately that swing does not translate particularly well on a golf course.
Unless it happens to be a dogleg right and I can carry the corner.
Tax season today is not what it once was.
If you really want to know what a real tax season looked like you have to go back a few decades. Back when April 30th could land on a Saturday and you were still in the office finishing payroll tax returns.
We wore suits five days a week. Dress down days meant something.
And the only time you were allowed to dress down was Saturday.
Now we use just about any excuse to feed everyone.
Snow storm. Order food.
Single digit temperatures. Pizza.
Saturday. Definitely ordering food.
And by Friday night someone inevitably says,
“Anyone hungry? I’m ordering something.”
I am not sure how we ever survived tax season before Grubhub or Uber Eats.
Imagine the prehistoric days when someone actually had to leave the office and go pick up the food.
By the time April 15 rolls around most accounting firms experience what I call the Tax Season 10.
Ten pounds gained somewhere between January and April.
Put sixty people under one roof, each with different pressure tolerances and melting points, and it becomes a bit of a social experiment.
It is also a little like living with people you did not exactly choose to live with.
Every tax season you see the full range of reactions.
Calm professionals. Quiet grinders.
And a few people who look like they are one email away from spontaneous combustion.
Coming Up for Air
Once the harvest is finished the work is not really over.
Now we start preparing for tax season number 49.
First comes the evaluation. What did we do well. What can we improve. What should we change before next year.
There is also some celebrating along the way.
We have the tax season luncheon where we continue the proud accounting tradition of eating too much food.
There is the staff after party where they gather and bash the partners among themselves.
Yes we know.
And yes we did the same thing when we were staff.
Then, like the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, everyone scatters for a few days.
A long weekend.
Maybe even a full week somewhere.
Just enough time to relax and enjoy what feels like the first real weekend of the year.
April 15 may mark the end of tax season.
April 16 begins golf season.
But if you really worked hard during tax season, you know something else.
You do not really wake up from being “tired and wired” until around the Fourth of July.
Which means this year will be a good one.
By the time we finally come up for air it will be right in the middle of the country’s 250th celebration.
Not a bad way to wake up after tax season.
Seeing the Whole Field
The harvest may be over.
But the next crop has already started growing.
Tax season 49 begins tomorrow.
And that is part of seeing the whole field.
