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Roger Harris: Hello, everyone. Welcome to 2026. This is Roger and Annie with our first podcast of a new year and Happy New Year. How are you doing?

Annie Schwab: Same to you, Roger. I can't believe it's January 2026, but here we are.

Roger Harris: Yeah, what happened to 25? But we're into 26 and trying to recover from [00:00:30] wrapping up 25. And we're going to do a little something different. Um, our last podcast of 25, Annie and I dealt pretty and dug pretty deep into the big, beautiful Bill, you know, and the things that are going to impact your, your upcoming season. And we're going to run through those quickly, but we're really going to spend some time talking about something that I think is equally as important that we don't focus on and as much as we should, and even particularly [00:01:00] at this time of year. And that's just we'll call it practice management. But it's a lot of different things that we need to make sure that we are handling, because doing that, running a tax return business is more than just knowing the laws. There's a lot of other elements to it. And in fact, we could probably spend an hour on each of these topics. Annie and I.

Annie Schwab: Certainly.

Roger Harris: You know, in our working time at Paget, have have dealt with a lot of practitioners over the last decades. And most of the things that we're going to [00:01:30] talk about are things that we see both. And it's not unique to Paget offices or only in Paget offices. It's the industry and kind of some things that we've experienced and hopefully talk you to through some things that maybe you can do to make your business a little bit better and focus on them before the season starts. So that's what we're going to do. Annie, how's that sound?

Annie Schwab: Sounds good to me.

Roger Harris: All right. Well, let's let's go through and spend a little time kind of in case you I would encourage you to go back and listen to the podcast [00:02:00] that we ended 2025 with, because we dug pretty deep in some of these topics. But Andy, let's kind of walk through some of the tax law, some of the big beautiful bill stuff that's going to impact us in some IRS stuff that is going to be relevant to the tax season that's coming around. So take us away.

Annie Schwab: And I'll start with, you know, as of today, we don't actually have the official announcement from Treasury on when the start date of the 2026 season will be. Typically in previous years, it's been [00:02:30] late January. I'm going to hope for late January. I will say, given the magnitude of one big beautiful bill could be February. I mean, I'm not I'm not saying it's February, but definitely going to be something to to watch for. We did get just today or yesterday maybe that the IRS will begin accepting business returns on January 13th. So that could be an indicator, a sign that we might get an announcement in the next couple of days as far as when the opening of the individual [00:03:00] filings will go. As always, April 15th seems to be the deadline. It's been years and years and years since that date has been moved. Obviously, we always have our extension. Um, so I don't anticipate a change in the deadline. Filing date? Original due date, I should say, but we'll see. Um, I do like I said, we're going to highlight a couple of of the new deductions, the new provisions that are in effect for 2025, um, as it relates to obey. [00:03:30] And it is going to make this tax season different, um, different communication, different preparation. Um, software is going to be changing. Uh, you know, what you collect and the questions you ask from your clients or, you know, are going to be a little different this year. So, um, you know, keep that in mind as you, you know, figure out your bandwidth and figure out how you're going to proceed with your tax season, but.

Roger Harris: How are you going to communicate with clients? Because as you mentioned, this is new to them too.

Annie Schwab: Oh, absolutely. [00:04:00] You're going to get questions you normally wouldn't get from clients who usually just drop their stuff off or send their stuff in. Um, so give yourself some grace. I will, you know, say I do anticipate a regular start to tax season, maybe a little delayed. If I had to guess, I would expect the states to actually be the ones that are more delayed. Kind of. They piggyback off the feds. So I, you know, it could be that state returns or or the ones [00:04:30] that see a greater delay in being finalized forms and that kind of thing.

Roger Harris: But yeah, the season could open, but it wouldn't be ready for all returns. There could be forms that aren't ready yet. There could be states that aren't ready yet, but, uh, hopefully they'll get started. I mean, there's no indication it's going to be delayed, but we just don't have a date yet.

Annie Schwab: Right. So as we've talked about, like I said in previous webinars, um, some of the new deductions, new provisions that will affect 2025 [00:05:00] tax returns, um, one that's obvious, we've heard a lot about is no tax on tips. This is retroactive for 2025 through 2028. Um, and it includes cash tips where what they're saying is customary and voluntary. The IRS or Treasury came out with a list of 68 occupations. They put out codes. Um, we've received some information about how to report that. What form? The form schedule one a um, [00:05:30] just a reminder, there are some limitations. The deduction is capped at 25,000 per taxpayer. There's also some AGI limitations there. And so as you move forward, you know, collecting data asking for information from clients, you know, just keep in mind that this is on the federal level. Um, it does not affect the state. You'll have to kind of figure out what what states are following what procedures. Um, we've gotten some commitment, I guess, that, you know, the [00:06:00] tips box on the W-2 that box seven has always been there. Um, so that amount can be used. Um, we've also got sort of a get out of jail free card. Um, as far as this year for both the employees who, you know, hopefully can work with their employer to figure out a reasonable amount of cash tips or just tips in general. Um, but, you know, as of right now, it's pretty lenient. Um, as far as it goes on, kind of [00:06:30] estimating, you know, A tips for, for employees. I do think the tax practitioners and, you know, interrupt me if you think I'm speaking out of out of hand. But I believe the tax practitioners will also see some leniency when it comes to, you know, did you do your due diligence when reporting this? Did you ask the right questions. I expect to see that. Do you agree, Roger?

Roger Harris: Yeah, I think so. I mean, they've basically given the employers some leeway. This year they've given the tipped employees. And the same holds true in overtime, which we'll talk about in a [00:07:00] minute. So I would expect that to translate over to the practitioners as well. I mean that doesn't mean we can just be careless and not write, you know, and just blatantly not follow the rules. But I think we all understand that anytime you get retroactive tax legislation and at the same time you're getting cutbacks at the IRS and fewer people and things like that, that yeah, hopefully there'll be some leniency. But you know, we'll see.

Annie Schwab: Right. And this year, you know, you'll get questions. There was this whole idea of, you know, [00:07:30] when it was no tax on tips. Like all of a sudden everybody who was in a, you know, tipped industry would all of a sudden see this like, you know, massive increase in their paycheck and they get the money right away. Well, for 2025, you're not going to see the taxpayers not going to see that money until they file their tax return. Going forward, you can make adjustments to your W-4 so that you can, um, kind of reap the benefits as the years go. So that could be something you get a question from your clients like, how is this going to work and how [00:08:00] come my paycheck hasn't changed? Or what is this going to mean for my refund this year versus next year? So just be prepared for those, you know, those types of questions.

Roger Harris: And if your clients are paying attention to the news, um, particularly the Republicans are telling everybody to expect these huge refunds this year. Right? So you're going to have people maybe coming in earlier, which is a good thing. Yeah, because they want their money, but who knows what. In their mind they're anticipating their refund being. But [00:08:30] the Republicans keep reminding people your refunds are going to be significantly larger this year because of all the changes that was made. And that in theory, should hold true. But obviously.

Annie Schwab: All those types of things.

Roger Harris: Are, you know, but things can change. Other things can change that. You know, maybe. So I think we're going to have people coming in expecting big refunds. So hopefully they'll get them because guess who they get mad at if they don't.

Annie Schwab: I know, I know, it's us. Yeah. Um, so the other big one that we've also kind of beaten to death over [00:09:00] here is, uh, no tax on overtime again, 2025 to 2028. There is a deduction cap deduction there of 12,000 for individuals and 25 for joint filers. Uh, just a reminder, overtime pay is subject to FICA. This is only exempt from federal income taxes. Employers are kind of free from penalty again. And employees should try their best to request information. You know, there's nothing already on the W-2 with a box for overtime. So this will be a little bit more difficult, I [00:09:30] think, for employees and employers who are not used to having to track this type of thing, especially if it's in one of those 68, you know, codes or whatever. But, um, I would keep, you know, keep your eye on that. Um, I would expect I don't expect any additional guidance. We have received some. It was earlier before right before the end of the year, kind of some examples about, you know, if this then you can do, you know, one and a half or two times this or that, that kind of thing, divide by a certain amount depending on [00:10:00] how the overtime was paid. Again, I expect leniency on this. Um, the form schedule one A has been updated to accommodate for this deduction. So I mean anything more really on overtime.

Roger Harris: Roger, I think the only thing I do expect there'll be leniency, like you said, I think the things that we have to make sure we're aware of is this is only overtime based on the Fair Labor Standards Act. So if you have a client working somewhere else under some other set of overtime rules.

Annie Schwab: Unions or something.

Roger Harris: Right? Yeah. So we need [00:10:30] to be careful of that and remember that it's only the incremental additional cost of the I use the same example every time we talk about it, if that makes sense.

Annie Schwab: It makes it easy to remember.

Roger Harris: And you get 15. It's only on the additional five. So I think if we kind of follow the big rules, you know, I think they'll give us leniency because, you know, again, send them back to try to get something from their employer if they can.

Annie Schwab: Any documentation, any kind of.

Roger Harris: Better. But I think as long as we try to follow the rules as [00:11:00] stated and don't do something stupid, like giving them the whole 15 instead of the five, or not recognizing that they're not getting under Fair Labor Standards Act. You know, if we're off a little bit from the actual calculation, I don't know how the federal government, if we don't know it, I don't know how the IRS would know it.

Annie Schwab: But yeah.

Roger Harris: I think if we just try to avoid the big holes and the big mistakes, we'll be okay for this year. Who knows what it'll be next year?

Annie Schwab: Well, yeah, next year reporting is going to be, um, should be different.

Roger Harris: Small business [00:11:30] owners are going to probably get some reporting burdens on those two items, uh, for 2026. And, um, that'll be good for the Employees and bad for the employers.

Annie Schwab: Yep. Additional work there. Um. Let's see. Next up is the senior citizen deduction again. This was new uh, goes back to the beginning of 2025. This is a $6,000 deduction from taxable income. This is on top of the regular standard or itemized deductions for taxpayers [00:12:00] 65 and older. You must if you're married, you have to file a joint return. The credit has some phaseouts and some income levels. But this one's pretty basic. Um, should be very easy to determine and to report. So I don't see a lot of, um, controversy or pending questions as it relates to that one. The next one is the car loan interest. This we actually have received several bits and pieces of guidance. Um, if you remember, this applies to new cars whose [00:12:30] final assembly is in the US. Um, the deduction is reduced by a modified adjusted gross income. So there are some limitations there. But the deductions the deduction is up to $10,000 of interest paid or accrued on a post 2024 loan to purchase a qualified vehicle for personal use. We've gotten some kind of tips on how to determine what that means. Final assembly in the US, most common way to determine is the the Vin, the [00:13:00] vehicle identification number. There's a website that has a decoder. I'm learning all the things I did not know.

Roger Harris: Ever thought you'd need a decoder? Sounds like some kind of decoder ring that you can't.

Annie Schwab: Exactly.

Roger Harris: Star Wars thing.

Annie Schwab: Exactly. Um, so there are some, you know, hopefully the dealerships will be helping out. Hopefully, you know, the vehicle information label and the Vin number, um, will help determine whether or not this car does qualify for final assembly. Uh, so I again, I think this [00:13:30] might be a little tedious, but I don't think it's going to be difficult to determine. Um, Yeah, obviously you may get a client that comes in and it's like, well, I get to, you know, I don't I get to deduct up to 10,000. And they kind of miss the whole part of, you know, it's got to be a post 2024 loan. It's got to be a passenger vehicle. It can't be. Um, it's only for personal use, not for business use. And then again, a final assembly in the US.

Roger Harris: Yeah. And I think the other on the things we just covered, I think you may have some people coming [00:14:00] in that are confused about the senior deduction, because during the campaign we heard no tax on Social Security.

Annie Schwab: Oh good point.

Roger Harris: That's that's what they talked about in the campaign. But that's not what the law. So people who are expecting their Social Security to be tax free, they may get the senior deduction. But they still have to report to Social Security. The other thing, and this is just an observation, I am surprised. And maybe it's just where I live. I haven't seen any of the car dealers advertising come buy a car. Interest is deductible. I expected, you know, there to be people pushing people to buy automobiles [00:14:30] now that they can write off the interest, but I haven't seen that yet.

Annie Schwab: Usually we get a lot of those advertisements like come spend your refund on a new car kind of thing.

Roger Harris: And now the interest is you can write off. Yeah, it's almost free. Come get a car.

Annie Schwab: Right. Exactly. Of course. Um, yeah, I you know, I haven't heard too much about that either, so we'll see.

Roger Harris: Okay. Last thing. Any talk about?

Annie Schwab: Yeah. One. One other thing. Those Trump accounts. Um, these are designed for children [00:15:00] under age 18. It's kind of a new structure of a traditional IRA type thing. Basically, it's a tax advantaged savings account. Um, to promote savings. The maximum contribution is $5,000 per. I guess, like your grandma, your mom, a individual, um, employers can also contribute. The kicker here is that when it is set up, it must be designated as a Trump account. Um, so a little step there. Obviously, there's some other minor details. You got to be [00:15:30] under age 18. You have to have a Social security number. You can only have one account per child. It can be established by the parent, the guardian or the Treasury. So just little things to remember there. The fun part is that a $1,000 contribution by Treasury will be deposited into the Trump accounts for children born between 2025 and 2028. So you might get some free money there from from Treasury. Um, this is was set up as a pilot. I've heard it referred [00:16:00] to as sort of a pilot program. I don't know how they're going to evaluate pros and cons. I did see that there was a request for public comment, um, about these. I don't know if that has ended or not, but something different, obviously new beneficial. And I guess if you have kids born between 25 and 28. Hey, free money. Yeah.

Roger Harris: Free money. Uh, I've seen and I don't know if this is funding the thousand or going to be in addition to it, but a bunch of billionaires [00:16:30] have come to Trump and said, we'll kick in all this money to help fund these accounts. So I don't know if that's to take some of the burden off the federal government and some states are talking about also contributing.

Annie Schwab: So, yes, I did hear that to.

Roger Harris: See what's going on in your state, to see if maybe there's more than 2000 or more than a thousand that could be put into one of these accounts. So yeah, it's and it is a pilot, whatever that means. I don't.

Annie Schwab: Know.

Roger Harris: I don't know how you decide to end it. And if you end it, what happens to [00:17:00] the money that's in it? And, you know, but we'll worry about that when we have to.

Annie Schwab: Yeah. So and this should be an easy one to run, you know, in your software, obviously you're looking for dependents that were born between this time and then having that conversation. I bet tax organizers at least hours that we are using this year have, you know, questions. Do you have children born between here? Have you, you know, are you interested in Trump account kind of thing. So it might be a talking point, but um, you know, it should be easy to navigate which [00:17:30] clients you need to talk to about this.

Roger Harris: It's more in an advisory role that you can play. Tell people that are you aware if you have kids that fall into the right definition, that this is available? Because I think I'm right. There's nothing we do on the tax return this year.

Annie Schwab: No, you have to set up the account and then designate it as a Trump account. So I think it's it's outside of the filing of a tax return. Right. But it is something that is going to need to be handled by some retirement plan coordinator. [00:18:00] Or perhaps I mean, there might be do it yourself kind of thing on a website. I honestly am not sure.

Roger Harris: Yeah, but make sure your clients who would have someone who might be eligible for this, that you would at least make them aware of.

Annie Schwab: Right.

Roger Harris: Yeah, that's about all I think you can do.

Annie Schwab: Yeah. All right. That's all. Kind of recap I have from, like, the big stuff. Yeah.

Roger Harris: Obv there's obviously a lot more in the b-b-b, but, you know, we just wanted to touch some of the things that we've touched on probably ever since the bill passed, because those [00:18:30] are the things that we think are going to impact you again. I would encourage you to go back and listen to our webinar that was, uh, available at the end of last year. We go into more detail on these and a few other things. And then again, depending on your client base, there may be things that we didn't touch there or today that you want to, uh, talk about or. Yeah, get familiar with what we want to switch over to now is something. And every time we head into a tax season, you [00:19:00] know, and any you and I have heard these stories and again both with inside pageant and outside where you hear these stories of people working seven days a week, 18 hours a day, and that's no way to live a life. That's no way to to work. I mean, it's unsustainable. Uh, it penalizes your family. Uh, it hurts your value of your business if you ever tried to sell it, because a buyer is going to look at that and go, I don't want to do that. And that's [00:19:30] kind of what you're stepping into. If you buy the business, you're taking the place of the owner who is doing that. So it not only hurts your work life balance in real time, it also hurts the marketability, uh, which really deals with succession planning because, I mean, I'm hoping and thinking that most of you that have a firm are doing it, number one, for the income it produces on a year to year basis, but also to have an asset that when the time comes to, uh, [00:20:00] get out of business, that you have an asset that people will want to buy and will pay you again.

Roger Harris: That's the beauty of owning your own business, is you. You get two bites at the apple, you get the income while you're working there, and then you get that second bite when someone wants to buy it. But we need to make sure that we have something that people will want to buy. And and so we're just going to go through again some things that we've seen, some things that we've touched on, maybe get you to think about them before you get [00:20:30] covered up in the you know, this is a critical not a critical. This is a great example of when you hear us and you may have heard us say this on a podcast, we spend too much time working in our business, not on our business. In our business means we worry every day about preparing a tax return on our business is make sure we're making money. We can hire people. We have a good pricing structure. We have a marketable business that's working on your business, and we just don't spend enough time doing [00:21:00] that. So we're going to spend the next 30 or 40 minutes going through some of these things. As I said, we could probably spend an entire podcast on most of these topics independently.

Annie Schwab: We've done presentations that have been two hours, you know, for for our franchisees, um, you know, understanding kind of how to make tips for making your tax season manageable but still profitable. Um, you know, keeping your work life balance intact. So.

Roger Harris: Yeah. So we're going to go through a lot of them. We're going to touch on them. We're not going to be able to get in as much detail as we [00:21:30] would like to. If you like these kind of topics, let us know. We'll we'll spend time digging into one of them or reach out to us and we'll talk to you. But anyway, you want to start.

Annie Schwab: Um, let's kind of start with the practice management part of it. Um, I, I guess the term bandwidth or capacity is something that is, you know, I don't have enough employees. I don't have enough hours in the day. I don't have enough bandwidth to to get all these things done. Um, and so I would encourage, before the heat of tax [00:22:00] season, try to determine, you know, which clients are coming back, maybe are you having new clients? How many new clients, how complicated are those new clients? Are some leaving going elsewhere? Um, are they, you know, going on their own to kind of try your best to figure out, okay, these are my clients. Which staff is assigned to it. If it's a historical client, you know what kind of time was allotted for the engagement? Does this client always come in late? Do they? Are they always knocking on your door? You know, as soon as they [00:22:30] get that W2. Um, do you need to set dates for clients? Like, do you need to say if I don't have your information by X date, you know you're going to get an extension. Or if you don't get back to us, um, you know, you're going to go to the end of the line kind of thing. I do think, you know, it's not going to be perfect. No one's going to know exactly. You know, client clients could be very simple for a couple of years. And then this could be a complex year, additional time. You never know. Staff could get sick, a new staff could come in. So it's not going to be perfect. But getting [00:23:00] an idea of what your goal is, is it 40 hours a week cranking out X returns or, you know, it could be a turnaround time goal? Um, bandwidth goal. So think about, you know, your past and what you would hope this new tax season would allow as far as bandwidth goes.

Roger Harris: Yeah. And the big thing I mean, every time you talk to somebody and say, well, I have those rules, but do you really have those rules? I mean, number one, having a rule is only a rule if you mean [00:23:30] it. And sometimes we tell people, well, if you're not in by April 1st, x, Y and Z is going to happen. And then they come in April the 10th and nothing happens. Yeah. Um, so set rules, but stick to them so that there are consequences for for bad behavior. What we're going to talk about, there's a certain group of people and, and associations and organizations that impact our tax season. Obviously our staff does. Yeah we do. We're part of our business. The IRS does. We've talked a little [00:24:00] bit about what could happen if they don't start on time. That will impact us. Our clients are hugely impactful on how well our tax season goes. In some years, Congress is in the sense that they could change things on us. I don't know that that's going to happen this year, but we've got to understand where each of these groups of people impact us and anticipate the impact they're going to have on us.

Roger Harris: One of the things that drives me crazy is, and this is a broad discussion to kind of follow up on, Andy said, A lot [00:24:30] of you, I hear, well, I quit taking clients. I'm too busy. But then you tell me how many bad clients you have. Well, I don't know why this doesn't make sense to anybody but Annie and I. If that's your situation, if that's what you're saying, then get rid of the bad clients and replace them with better clients that you are now turning away because you're too busy working with the bad clients. We are in great demand right now. Good tax preparers and good tax [00:25:00] professionals, uh, are in demand, and you should never be turning away good clients to protect bad clients. Um, yeah. And good clients are defined in a lot of ways. They got to pay you the right amount of money. They've got to follow your rules. They've got to do their part to make this a positive experience. And don't tell me they won't follow rules because they follow everybody else's rules. They'll follow yours if you have them, you know.

Annie Schwab: Well, and similarly, you know, I hear all the time, you know, [00:25:30] I can't raise my prices because I, you know, my clients are going to leave. Well, if you have fewer clients that are paying higher prices, you're actually working less and making the same or more. So that's, you know, nobody wants a client to be like, well.

Roger Harris: That's a good result.

Annie Schwab: Right, right. And so I think the whole right sizing or, or, you know, right. Pricing is really important. Uh, nothing's getting cheaper. At least I haven't seen a single thing get cheaper in quite some time. So [00:26:00] I hope that everyone is raising their prices, um, just like the rest of the world. Um, but even this year with, with new legislation is going to be more complexity. I mean, this is it should be a no brainer to a client. Why? You would be, you know, raising your prices. Uh, so try not to worry so much about losing a client, especially if you're turning away clients who would pay that higher price.

Annie Schwab: Um, there's, it's a mindset. It's also, you know, it's I [00:26:30] get it. Nobody likes change. It's a little scary. But, you know, if you have bad clients that are ugly to your employees or never show up on time or return anything or always, you know, bugging you, consider disengaging before you send out your engagement letters. You know, consider, you know, I'm not dealing with that headache this year. You know, it wears on me. It wears on my staff. You know, it's not a good relationship.

Roger Harris: Yeah. And you mentioned staff. Listen to your staff too, because sometimes [00:27:00] the problem that the client's creating is, is with the staff, not with you necessarily. So they may recognize a bad client that you don't see as a bad client. But remember, employees are important too, and you don't want to put them in a situation where they're not happy in their work environment. And because you won't, you don't want to lose an employee to keep a bad client. That's again, none of this. Some of this stuff just and but these are rules that we keep saying you got to have them, but you've got to enforce them. [00:27:30] And and the other thing I'll give you is all of you, I think, believe you're really good at what you do. If we were comparing you to a hotel, you you want to tell everybody you're the Ritz Carlton.

Annie Schwab: You're the five star.

Roger Harris: You're the five star. But if you price and act like a motel six, your clients are confused. Your prospects are confused. Because if you're going to be a five star hotel, then operate your business the same way a five star [00:28:00] hotel would operate and charge. What? A five star hotel charges. Don't say all those things, but then charge less. But by the flip side, Don't. If you want to have an everyday walk in, do the return while you wait. Cheap return. Then you have to build your business based on that model for everything else that you do. And so be consistent in what you want to be and what you are.

Annie Schwab: I agree, I agree completely and you mentioned [00:28:30] something about your staff. I will say, you know, before busy season gets going, maybe you have new staff, maybe this is, you know, staff that's been with you for a long time. I think it is really important that you communicate your expectations of your staff. Um, you know, when do you expect them to be in? How fast do you want them to turn around? So how many hours are they expected to work? Um, you know, and it could even be like, um, setting the expectation, like I have a closed door policy these hours of the day. Don't come knocking on my door. Don't interrupt me. You know, I will [00:29:00] take meetings and phone calls at at this time, you know, schedule the time that you need so that everyone can get can get work done. And I think if you do that, you will be able to track your progress, your billable time versus your downtime. Or, you know, if there are certain stressors like you're having multiple software issues or I don't know, you're not getting the documents in or your your printer or scanner. I mean, it could be anything that's causing slow or inefficient [00:29:30] work. So I think it's important to communicate what you expect from your staff, just like you would communicate what you expect from your clients. And I think that's also very important.

Roger Harris: And don't be the bottleneck to everything, you know, staff develop habits and expectations based on the way they're treated. And if if you don't trust them to do something and make it always come to you, they'll figure that out and they'll say, well, I'm just going to do just enough to get it to Annie [00:30:00] because Annie's going to change it, or Annie's going to do it a different way. Why should I get better at doing it? So keep yourself from being the bottleneck. Um.

Annie Schwab: Good point. Delegation is really crucial when you're trying to get stuff out. You know, if you can delegate to someone who maybe has more bandwidth, it's a win win.

Roger Harris: Well. And trust. I mean, if you're going to delegate, you have to trust the people. You're, you know, if they're not qualified to do it, can they learn? And if so, teach them, you know, [00:30:30] if every time they come to you with a question, it should be a learning opportunity so that they don't continue to come to you with that question, and you want to see them grow and get better. And yes, a new employee with less experience is going to take more of your time, but you want to see them growing into people who don't have to come to you. And most importantly, don't don't feel like they have to come to you. Um, I'd rather solve one problem than look at a thousand returns to prevent it.

Annie Schwab: Yeah, absolutely. Um, good point there.

Roger Harris: So just trust your employees, empower [00:31:00] your employees, treat them like you would want to be treated. And for both you and your employees, you've got to take care of yourself. You've got to have time to to exercise, to spend time with family. You know.

Annie Schwab: Sleep.

Roger Harris: You need to sleep, whatever it is. I mean, you you're going to burn yourself out and all your employees out. That's what you're going to make more mistakes. That's when things are going to. Yeah. It's just, you know, come up with a workable. And I think you mentioned it, Annie, a workable schedule [00:31:30] of what your office hours are to the public, number one, and what your office hours are to you. Number two, stick to it. You'll be amazed at what you will do differently if you have those rules and stick to it. Because if the rule means more than I don't want to say the client because clients are important, but you'll hold the client more accountable if you have rules that you're willing to enforce.

Annie Schwab: Yeah, just like there's another one that people spend so much time after tax [00:32:00] season tracing. Tracking down collections. Make it a policy. Do not deliver. Do not file a tax return without getting paid. Um, it might be one extra step that you have to do per client during busy season, but that's better than chasing down, you know, getting on clients to try to get paid after tax season.

Roger Harris: Oh, yeah. I mean, why would you do any I mean, again, relate it to where how they deal with other people in their day to day activities. You know, you don't you can [00:32:30] go so far. Yeah. Maybe you don't have to pay today, but you've got to give me a credit card or you've got 30 days or something.

Annie Schwab: Yeah.

Roger Harris: I mean, there's, I mean, but you can't drag me out six months because I didn't price that into the work.

Annie Schwab: Right?

Roger Harris: That I was going to have to spend time going after you and wait six months to a year to get paid. You never. I guarantee you, you didn't build that into your pricing schedule.

Annie Schwab: Right.

Roger Harris: So yeah, you got to have rules when it comes to getting paid. I mean, in pageant, we just basically have a rule that you [00:33:00] get the return until you pay for it, right? I mean, it's what's hard about that. Yeah. I mean, maybe somebody comes in and says, oh, I forgot my wallet. I don't have a credit card, I don't have a check or whatever. And you know, this person or your best friend for 20 years. Yeah. You may give them their return and say, I trust you, but a stranger. Oh. I'm sorry.

Annie Schwab: Or somebody who's been late paying you for the last five years, you know, put an end to it.

Roger Harris: Say, stop it, stop it. Yeah, yeah. You work too hard to not get paid or to have to [00:33:30] spend ten hours chasing somebody down. Oh, well, yeah. Again, all these things we're talking about are things that we have seen and dealt with both inside and outside of Paget.

Annie Schwab: And we're not alone. If you're doing.

Roger Harris: You're not alone. You are not alone. But you can you can have a better work life balance in tax season if you work on it.

Annie Schwab: And then just just one more other point, and I think we've done a podcast on what we kind of refer to as a contingency plan in case of unforeseen circumstances. [00:34:00] It happens every year here at Paget. There's sometimes multiple times a year we'll we'll get a call from a franchisee who has, you know, gotten sick or an employee has, you know, left or, you know, something that they did not foresee during this time frame. The busy time frame and having a contingency plan. Who knows your password? Who you know, where are you tracking the status of all your clients? If somebody had to come in and [00:34:30] help, or a new employee had to come in, are you prepared? If something like that happens? And I know we never you know, nobody wants to think about that. But, I mean, it can be anything. There could be a fire down the street. There could be a natural disaster in your area. It could be a loss of an employee, sick spouse. Um, you just, you know, never know. You get in a car accident, you're laid up for a bit. So without going down a deep, dark hole. There are some simple tasks [00:35:00] that you can do in case of an unforeseen circumstance. And the first one is who has access and knowledge of where the things they need to continue the business. Where are they? Who's that person that can kind of keep things going? If you're not there?

Roger Harris: Yeah. And again, if you have a large staff, it can be a staff person. Um, hopefully if you've got a staff, you should have this in place because you've got people there that you can can keep going on. If you're a small firm with [00:35:30] no real employees or one employee, it can be a family member, it can be a friend, but somebody who can come in and at a minimum, you know, the one thing that people always say is they really love their clients and they want to treat them right. But if something were to happen to you as the owner and you were taken away for an extended period of time, your client's life goes on and they need certain things. So think about if you were a client that you say you think are [00:36:00] invaluable and the most important thing you have. Who needs a document to get a loan or to file a tax return and run a payroll. And nobody in your firm can help them because it's all in your head. That's not a great client experience. That's not really consistent with what you say. You treat how you want to treat your client.

Roger Harris: So think about what it takes to keep that business going. Because the other thing that we have seen both in and out of Paget, is if something were to [00:36:30] happen to where the firm is kind of out of business for a period of time, sometimes it can be a short period of time, sometimes it can be an extended period of time. As I said, the client's life goes on. They will be loyal to you as long as they can, but at some point they have to move on and comply with the law and keep their business going or do whatever they have to do. And if they all move somewhere else, that that equity, that value of that second bite at the apple we talked about is gone. [00:37:00] And it can go quickly. So think about that. Think about because it's not just yes, something happens to you. You mentioned it could be a fire. It could be a hurricane. It could be a key staff member leaving that, you know, you entrusted all that information to them and now you don't know what it is.

Annie Schwab: So security breach. We've had to deal with those, right. You know, where all of a sudden you're you can't your your Ethan's on hold. You can't e-file something. You know, somebody come in cybersecurity something like that so it can happen.

Roger Harris: Yeah. Have a plan [00:37:30] for if these things happen. Don't just hope they don't happen. That's not a plan. Hoping they don't happen is not a plan. Because sometimes they will happen. And you need to be able to have your business succeed and your clients be taken care of, even if that means nothing but getting them extensions and letting them, keeping informed of what's going on and And keeping the business going until, God forbid, if you're aren't able to come back, that a successor can step in. You know who's the IRS has even put [00:38:00] some things or something in the, uh.

Annie Schwab: Circular 230.

Roger Harris: Proposed 230 stuff about identifying another practitioner that is kind of your buddy. And it should come into how how you select softwares, you know. You know, I think sometimes we brag about how cheap our software is instead of getting the software that does the job that we need. Sometimes we have cheap software and it hurts us in time because it won't do things that other softwares do. So we have to go off [00:38:30] software and do it manually, or it's an oddball piece of software that nobody else uses. And if something happens to me, there's not enough people that know how to use it. So every decision we make, this has to be considered in what we're doing. You know, whether it's buying software, whether it's hiring staff or. But, you know, I asked this question, what would your business look like if you couldn't show up the next day, couldn't come to work tomorrow? How long could that go on? And you still have [00:39:00] a business?

Annie Schwab: It's a good question. And like I said, we've done an entire podcast kind of on this topic. Um, you know, about having what is a contingency plan look like step easy steps that you can take, um, that are not costly. Um, so if, you know, maybe we need to maybe that's a good one to revisit at some point. Roger.

Roger Harris: Um, yeah.

Annie Schwab: Yeah, because it is definitely.

Roger Harris: Something we beat. The idea of having a written information security plan, and we've had 3 or 4 people on our podcast that [00:39:30] got breaches. Think about the time and money that cost you if that happens. So take that seriously. You've heard us say this a hundred times. Don't just go far enough to check the box that you have a wisp. Have one. And make sure that if because the crooks are getting really good.

Annie Schwab: They're way smarter than me.

Roger Harris: They are really getting good. So it's not unlikely that something will happen. But what is your plan? [00:40:00] What action do you immediately start taking to minimize it so that you because it could just completely engulf you in the worst time of year. So make sure you've taken that seriously. Not just yeah, I've got one. So here, when I get my PTEN, I can check the box. That's.

Annie Schwab: Yeah. If you don't know what we're talking about wisp written information security plan or cyber breach or something like that, you can search our podcasts. Like Roger said, we've covered it. We've had guest speakers. Come on. Um, [00:40:30] so it is worthy of, you know, if you're kind of like, I don't know what even a wisp is, take a minute and go back through it. It's definitely worth worth going through and getting familiar with.

Roger Harris: Yeah. One other thing. Should we know, and we're talking about this now so you can think about it before the busy season engulfs you.

Annie Schwab: Yeah, and I do. So we've sort of talked about like the internal and the practice management and setting clear expectations of your staff, of yourself. You know, what's going to work. What's your ideal work life [00:41:00] balance. And I think a big part of that is developing a client relationship or a client engagement. So you're perfecting this this client engagement. And we mentioned it earlier. But I think it is really important when you send out those engagement letters or your clients sign engagement letters, which hopefully everybody's using to communicate very, very clearly. What the scope is is not uncommon in our line of work for scope [00:41:30] creep is what we call it to to approach, you know, you're doing a little extra here and a little extra there, and you're you're talking, you know, multiple times a week or you're you're doing little favors. You're you're not, but you're not charging for it. And all of that takes time. And and not only should you charge for it, but it should be something that is very clear to the client. Hey, if I want X, I need to set up an appointment. I need to, you know, follow the rules of engagement [00:42:00] in order for something like that to happen. And, you know, notify the clients of what is expected of them is is really important.

Annie Schwab: You know what? Um, you know, I need the information by this date. I need you to respond to my questions, to my emails, get me the information that you know, anything. I forgot I need it to be done within 24 hours. You know, sign those engagement letters, complete the organizers, make deposits or pay fees. You know, if you're organizing. I mean, if your engagement letters says put down 50%, [00:42:30] make them put down 50%. Whatever the rule is, you got to stick to it. Um, and dictating it in a very clear engagement letter that describes the exact scope of what you are going to do for this fee can really, really make the client relationship better. And those who don't want to comply with with your rules, that's a very good indicator that this is probably not a client for you. Um, and that's okay. That's, you know, [00:43:00] maybe that's just not a good fit and that's fine. You go to doctors that aren't a great fit. Um, so, you know, don't don't be afraid to push those policies. Stick with them. And then those who don't want to comply, you know, reconsider that, that relationship.

Roger Harris: Yeah. Because remember, you've probably got people who you're turning away who would follow the rules. So you're better off just. And we're not saying be hard, you know, be respectful. You know, communicate it well. Because again, I [00:43:30] think you want to tell people you're a professional. So if you look how other professionals act, you mentioned doctors, lawyers, you know, show up unannounced at a doctor's office or a lawyer's office. Don't show up to an appointment on time. Don't bring what you're told to do or, you know, go to a doctor's office and they give you the clipboard and eight forms and you say, I'm not filling these out. Well, guess what? You're not seeing the doctor, you know? Um, so professionals have to act a certain way, and, [00:44:00] and clients will respond if it's reasonable, if it's fair, and if it's done in a professional way. Again, you're not going to say, hey, you jerk. Go do this or find somebody else. I mean, I want to give you the chance to do it the right way and keep our relationship going. But I got a lot of other people who would love to have my time. And I can't give it to you and not and not give it to them when they'll do [00:44:30] a better job of following the rules than you are.

Annie Schwab: It's true. There's a I helped I helped an office owner write the nicest, clear cut disengagement letter to give to one of their client. They were so nervous about the disengagement part, about hurting someone's feelings or. Or making it, you know, them getting angry with you and to. And it is true to have a well written, very simple, clear cut disengagement letter that basically says I valued [00:45:00] our relationship. Maybe we've gone in a different direction. Um, please let me know if there's anything I can do to help with the transition to another tax professional, another tax preparer, maybe even make a recommendation if you're like, hey, I know so and so. They they specialize in trusts or something. Um, I think like you said, there's there's no if you do it professionally, I think that you're not burning bridges. And so something that I would consider is having a well written disengagement letter, [00:45:30] um, that, you know, kind of takes the emotion out of it.

Roger Harris: Right? And it's, it's okay to be too expensive for some people. Yeah, it really is. I mean, uh, again, there's car dealers of all prices out there. We would all want to probably drive a Porsche, but we can't all afford a Porsche, and that's okay. Yeah. Um. You know, so you will develop the client base that fits your model. If you have a model that they can understand and [00:46:00] that they can know what it means to comply with your model. So it's your job to make sure they understand who you are, how you provide your services, what you charge for your services, who to contact. Not every client needs to call you. You need. This is where staff development is important. You know, can a client with a question talk to somebody on your staff? Or again does it have to go through you that bottleneck problem again? So um, again every firm is a little bit different. So there's not one perfect [00:46:30] model or system or things that that would apply across the board. That's the challenge we have in Paget. I mean, we've got 170 different people and they have different staff. They have different.

Annie Schwab: Size.

Roger Harris: Size, but they all have a system of that fits whatever their client target client looks like and their model looks like their income goals, their work goals, whatever it is, is, you know, if you want to be a millionaire, you're [00:47:00] going to operate different than if you want to make $50,000. Yeah. Um, and all those things fall into it. But you don't want to just get there by accident. You want to and and, you know, we're running somewhat out of time. So one thing we got to do is and he talked a little bit about how you evaluate post tax season, how you did. Because you got to start by saying here's what I'm hoping to accomplish. And then when tax season is over, how do you evaluate if you hit your target?

Annie Schwab: Yeah, [00:47:30] I it is something we really encourage our offices to do as sort of like a post tax season. Well, check checklist. You know, how how did you do where where is the bottleneck? So I think in order to be able to do that, you need to be mindful throughout the process making notes, talking to your staff, encouraging your staff to make notes so, you know, if you're identifying some bottlenecks or maybe issues with your workflow, you know, are you talking about other technology or are you cursing at this [00:48:00] technology all through tax season. And so now tax season is over and you're like, well, I need something different. I need to replace this piece of my workflow. You know, keep all of those as you are experiencing it through the next couple of months. Keep a journal, keep something going so that when tax season is over and you take a breath, you're not like, oh, just I'm just so glad that it's over. You know, we're moving forward because I think then you just repeat the same pain over and over again. So performance reviews of staff, you [00:48:30] know, ask them, what can you do to help them do their job better? Um, talk to the staff about the client experiences.

Annie Schwab: We talked about this. You know, if there's a particular client that's really just bogging down your staff, then either the client needs more training or perhaps that's not the right fit. Same thing with fees. Um, your marketing plan, you know, if you're if you're trying to bring in more clients, if you're marketing, you know, think about is this working or how did the new clients that we got, what was the avenue that [00:49:00] brought them in? Was it word of mouth? Was it a certain advertising avenue? Um, you know, so like, I, you know, oh, especially your work life balance. If you're like, goal is to work 45 hours a week or 50 hours a week, keep track of that. You know, maybe, maybe some weeks you hit that goal, maybe some weeks you don't, you know, nobody's perfect. It's going to be, you know, it's a work in progress kind of thing. But if you don't pay attention to it and make note of it When April 15th [00:49:30] comes around, I think you'll you'll lose out on the opportunity to make the next tax season even better. Um, so I think it is an important part of the process. Um, the post tax season evaluation.

Roger Harris: Yeah. And yeah, if you're working 90 hours a week, you're not going to go to 45 in 1 year. But you've got to see the trend is getting better that you're moving towards that. I'm going to give you a kind of a tip that I think [00:50:00] that highlights working in your business and on your business. During tax season, we all get to work, and the first thing we do is run to our office and start doing tax returns or whatever we got to do. Yeah. I want to suggest to you that everybody, when they get to work, the first ten minutes you spend together and you say, how did yesterday go? Is there anything I need to know about? Is there anything that we need to talk about? Was there anything positive? Negative. But take at least ten. You can take 15. [00:50:30] Take as much as you can. I'm going to say at least ten. Everybody can spend ten minutes, for God's sakes.

Annie Schwab: Yeah.

Roger Harris: And bring your staff together and say, how did yesterday go? Is there something we need to change so that we can meet our goals of working less hours and doing all these things, and then maybe once a month, expand that to bringing in breakfast and taking an hour, or taking them to lunch or something. But take time to analyze your business in real time. Ten minutes a day is not. If ten minutes a day is going to put you over the edge, you [00:51:00] got a bigger problem? Yeah for sure. But it also gives your employees a bit of say, oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you this. It makes them feel important because this is about tell me how your day went and what I need to do to make your day better. And what a client. If a client didn't follow our rules, tell me about it right now and let me deal with it. But take ten minutes. 15 minutes. It's not a lot of time till everybody get a cup of coffee. Come in your office. Let's look back at yesterday. And if there's something important going on today, it's an opportunity for each of us to [00:51:30] share that with the rest of the staff. So we know about it.

Annie Schwab: And learn from each other is really important, especially for for new staff.

Roger Harris: Yeah. So this is very doable. I mean, if you're one of those people working these long hours and exhausted and your staff is mad and angry, and by April, you're all yelling at each other and nobody's happy. You don't have to live that way in this business. You really don't. But you have to spend time making that a priority. It's [00:52:00] not going to happen organically.

Annie Schwab: I agree, I agree, and just I know we're running out of time, but there were just a few points that I wanted to kind of throw out there. Um, because they're they're related to new things. So for example, I do think with all of the new legislation out, you're going to get wild questions. Social media is not helping. Let's be honest. Right? Um. You know, so you might get these weird, awkward questions or or maybe a client is confused about something or [00:52:30] heard something. Um, so be be prepared for that. We mentioned refunds. Everybody's saying refunds, you know, could be higher. Um, so think about tax planning. Like how could that affect, um, next year, but something that you should talk about your clients if you haven't seen the IRS were not doing paper checks. The IRS is not taking. Uh, not sorry, not issuing paper checks. Um, and that goes for, you know, all different types, you know, notices, estimates, all those different types of things. So, [00:53:00] you know, if you have a old school client, let's say, um, who's used to getting those paper checks, getting their refund by paper checks this year, they're going to need to provide a bank account information. And then this one's kind of I mean, it's good, but it's a little awkward.

Annie Schwab: This just came out, um, postmarks. You know how you do a postmark when you mail something? Well, that is no longer going to be proof of filing. So my suggestion going forward, encourage all correspondence that goes through the mail [00:53:30] to you to be certified, certified or registered mail. It provides an evidence of the exact mailing date. Um, hopefully we'll get a little bit more guidance. There's got to be some leniency because, you know, how do you know which UPS store has the hand stamped postmark or where do they send it for certified? I mean, there's I think there'll be some confusion. And I'm not going to lie, if I was working at the post office and everybody came in asking for hand stamped, postmarked, the line would be out the door. But, you know, that is something [00:54:00] to keep in mind when you're talking to your clients. Um, just about, you know, the best way, especially if you're close to a deadline. You know, if you're months ahead, maybe not such a big deal, but, you know, if you're sending in those extensions, you know, on the on the due date of the tax return, it's definitely worth getting taking that extra step and getting the certified or registered receipt mail.

Roger Harris: And before you yell at the IRS. This is not an IRS issue. This is a mail. This is the Postal Service. The Postal Service. I don't understand the Postal [00:54:30] Service that well. But evidently before now, any place you walked in postmarked the mail. Now some places will, some won't. They get shipped somewhere else. So by the time they get somewhere else and get postmarked, it might be two days after you brought it in. So if you brought it in on April 15th, and by the time it got to the office where they actually do the postmark, it's the 17th. So now it's late. Yeah. Now the best thing to do is e-file everything.

Annie Schwab: Absolutely, [00:55:00] absolutely.

Roger Harris: Just this is again, you know, trying to accommodate, you know, the old school way of doing things where we used to all drive downtown and stick our payment in the envelope or in the mailbox at midnight on April 15th. If you file electronically, this ain't a problem. But whether it's a W-2 package or a 941 or a tax return, if you're going to take it to the post office on the due date, you better be careful to know whether they [00:55:30] will postmark it there on that date, or they'll postmark it somewhere else on a later date. Now, we don't know if the IRS is going to offer any leniency this year. Again, they didn't ask for this. This is came from the post office. So we don't know what the service is going to do. But they do. At least they say they keep all the postmarks when they're late so they have them. So I'm assuming if it comes in on April 17th, not the 15th, they're going to keep it and send you a penalty. And you're going to have to explain why I [00:56:00] went to the wrong post office. That's not my problem.

Annie Schwab: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I certainly hope there's some leniency. But again, this just came out yesterday or the day before. Like I hadn't heard this. So I mean, there are people probably who are sending in, you know, their fourth quarter estimates or whatever. You never know.

Roger Harris: So just talk to your people who are the old school and they want to go take it and put it in the mail. This is something you can advise them. Again, it's best way to solve it is let's do everything electronically. But if they want.

Annie Schwab: Deposit, [00:56:30] no more paper check. Like if they're waiting for that check in the mail. You're going to have to talk to those clients. I need a bank account information. This is how you're going to get your money. This is the safest way. This is the fastest way. This is now the way. It's not because we're telling you. It's because this is what the IRS is saying. Um, so.

Roger Harris: And get your clients to all set up individual accounts with the IRS because you can be so much.

Annie Schwab: And easy. It's super easy.

Roger Harris: Once you get it set up, getting it set it up is still probably more difficult than it should be, but once you have it, you [00:57:00] can make payments through it. You can do so much there. You can get transcripts, which helps us.

Annie Schwab: So client for lost a piece of paper. You know they don't know where x, Y and Z is. A lot of times you'll be able to find it just by logging into the account. Um, same with the IP pins. I mean, mean, that's just a safety factor. It really isn't hard to get. It's free, like I said, and it's just another layer of security for your clients. Uh, we encourage all of our offices to encourage their clients to do it. I believe everyone [00:57:30] can get it except for children under 18. It might be 21, I can't remember. But for the most part, you know, IP pins are simple and easy to get.

Roger Harris: And everybody said, well, I don't want to get it because they'll lose the letter. If you give an online account, you can go in the online account and get it. So, you know, take advantage of the tools that are out there to make your life easier. Quit fighting it. Just move up to the year 20. We just started 2026, so make sure you're working in that year. You're still not back in.

Annie Schwab: Yeah.

Roger Harris: 1998 [00:58:00] or whatever it is because there are tools that yes, going through the transition of setting them up or doing something takes time, but it'll pay tenfold going.

Annie Schwab: For the long run.

Roger Harris: Yeah. Yeah.

Annie Schwab: Well, Roger, we definitely, uh, got a lot of information out there. I was worried that we weren't going to get through everything, but I'm grateful for everyone who's listening, because I think that this is, you know, not as technical, like we said before, but definitely worth giving [00:58:30] it some thought on the things that we presented today. Uh, I do think if you even implement some of them, your tax season will be far better than than the past. And like we said, it's a work in progress. It's not you know, everything's not going to be perfect in one year. But you know, the trend to working less, making same amount of money, happy employees, happy clients. It's out there.

Roger Harris: Yeah. And, you know, again, work on your business, not just in your business. And your business will be better. And if and if this is the kind of stuff, excuse me, that, uh, [00:59:00] you want us to dig deeper in, because trust me, we were at the top of the water. We weren't going deep down to the ocean floor here in these topics. We can spend a lot more time. If you like some of this and want more of this, let us know and we'll dig deeper into it. Because to me, that's what makes being in business fun, that we can make money, have a great work environment, have an equity, uh, that people want to buy and still have a family life. So I think it's it's critically important. Well, [00:59:30] thank you, Andy, as always.

Annie Schwab: Roger.

Roger Harris: It was it was great. And, uh, to everybody listening, uh, wherever you are and whatever time of day it is, happy 2026. Good luck during tax season. We'll be back with another federal tax update podcast in a couple of weeks. And who knows what we'll talk about then. Maybe we'll figure that out later, right?

Annie Schwab: Yeah. Thanks, Roger. And thank you to all our listeners.

Roger Harris: Thanks, Andy. Happy New Year, everybody.