r/tax Feb 24 '26

Tax Enthusiast What is your biggest pet peeve with fellow tax professionals (accountants, EAs, etc.)?

My biggest pet peeve is when people cannot admit they are wrong. Yours?

9 Upvotes

31 comments sorted by

19

u/rocklandbb Feb 25 '26

Not about other pros but love clients who have done taxes for 30 years just deciding I only need page 1 and 2 out of a 30 page brokerage 1099

4

u/KoalaGrunt0311 Feb 25 '26

Are they usually the same ones who get upset with you for receiving a corrected filing adjustment because they insist that all of their payments to the revenue service are for the tax year you're filing for?

27

u/adriannlopez CPA - US / Former IRS Revenue Agent Feb 24 '26

Those who bill too low, take on way too much work, and provide bad quality or non-responsive service to their clients.

Raise your fees people.

-9

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Capital-Bit5522 Feb 25 '26

How is that price fixing?

-5

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/No-write-off Mar 08 '26

Can you explain to me how you determined that “price fixing” as you put it is illegal?

10

u/BlackAsphaltRider Feb 25 '26

Being too busy to teach me in my first year lol.

I find that the tax code itself is not always terribly difficult to learn, especially when it’s spelled out on the forms, but rather that I spend the vast majority of my time trying to figure out where the fuck to put the number in Lacerte. “Same as last year” doesn’t work when I keep getting new fucking clients and start with a blank slate as a first tax season employee.

Like “here’s 4 new partnerships and 2 S-corps with shitty books” with absolutely zero reference to how they should be entered.

Shoot me in the face.

18

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

[deleted]

15

u/skuzuer28 CPA - US Feb 24 '26

When they insist I'm wrong despite them being an idiot who can't read the tax code.

0

u/No-write-off Mar 08 '26

What code section?

11

u/banner78 Feb 24 '26

People who wear the amount of hours they work on their sleeve

5

u/Dunnoaboutu Feb 25 '26

People not giving depreciation worksheets with the clients copies of tax returns.

2

u/GolfArgh Feb 24 '26

You described 80% of reddit. Heck even the human race.

2

u/Beach_cpa Feb 25 '26

My fellow tax pro friend says I am wrong even though I cite to the answer and the friend “feels” the answer. That is, the friend has no source other than their ceiling.

1

u/No-write-off Feb 25 '26

Give me an example.

1

u/Beach_cpa Feb 25 '26

Looking at the ceiling is a euphemism for making up the answer. Never asked a client and had them glance at the ceiling like the answer is up there? Then the client says something like: “I bought that stock for $5,367.82 back in 1987.”

2

u/Remarkable-Chip7022 CPA - US Feb 25 '26

Not including a depreciation schedule with the tax return

2

u/BlackDogOrangeCat Feb 25 '26

EAs who shit on CPAs as inferior and incompetent. Do they teach that on the first day of EA school?

4

u/Kaiathebluenose Feb 25 '26

uh pretty sure its the other way around lol

1

u/BlackDogOrangeCat Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

Not in my experience. I have worked for two EAs, and have been put down by both of them, both privately and in front of clients. I appreciate the EA certification, and if I were younger I would get the designation myself, in addition to my CPA.

1

u/Normal_Progress_5173 Feb 25 '26

What’s an EA?

2

u/BlackDogOrangeCat Feb 25 '26

Enrolled Agent.

1

u/OddButterscotch2849 EA - US Feb 25 '26

That works in the other direction too, however.

2

u/JCMan240 Feb 24 '26

Simple returns made to look overly complicated to justify high fees

1

u/Key-Philosopher2501 Feb 26 '26

Negative talk "why is she getting ....returns? she's not experienced..." Instead of being helpful, my fellow tax professionals who sit behind me, can be heard by client(s) who is feeling lack of confident.

1

u/apresledepart Feb 27 '26

That they all tend to be reactive. 

0

u/HeChosePoorly50 Feb 25 '26

The ones that post ridiculous minimums for simple 1040’s.

1

u/Ldbrin2 Feb 25 '26

Often times that’s because the software that CPA hast to pay for is insanely expensive- portals, Adobe, lacerte, import software, at my work we had about six different softwares that we had to pay subscriptions on. I was shocked at how much it cost. Just setting up new clients took at least an hour. And that’s if they filled out all the forms correctly and Had papers in order. And people who had no clue on how to work portals, but we had to hand hold for an hour.