What a tax practice should fix before filing season opens

The IRS announced yesterday that it will start accepting 2025 individual returns on Monday, January 26, and that the deadline is Wednesday, April 15. It expects about 164 million individual returns this year, and its Free File program opens today. For a tax practice, that release sets the clock on everything below: there are 17 days between now and the first accepted return, and most of what decides whether a new filer picks you has to be finished inside them.

Nobody can build a reputation in 17 days. What you can do is stop losing the people who are already looking, and make sure you can see where every new client came from by the time the April rush makes it impossible to remember.

Why the next two weeks matter more than February

Filers do not wait for the opening day to choose a preparer. W-2s and 1099s start arriving in late January, and the household that switched preparers last spring, or the new business owner facing a first Schedule C, starts searching as soon as the paperwork lands. By the time the season is open, the choice is mostly made and the calendar starts to fill with people who already booked.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics series for tax preparation services shows the same rhythm from the other side. Employment rose from about 70,000 in August 2025 to about 93,000 in November, not seasonally adjusted, and the hiring keeps climbing into the season. Firms staff up in the fall because the work arrives fast once January turns.

There is also a second calendar inside this one. Partnership and S corporation returns are due on March 16 this year, because March 15 falls on a Sunday. Business owners who need a new preparer are deciding now, a full month ahead of the individual filers.

Fix the profile a filer checks before calling

Almost every new client looks you up before calling, including the ones a friend referred. The Google Business Profile is usually where they land, and in January it is often stale: last year’s hours, no mention of business returns, a review from 2023 at the top.

Before January 26:

• Hours for the season. If you open Saturdays from February, add the hours now so the profile does not say closed when someone checks on a weekend.
• Services that match the searches. Individual returns, business returns, IRS notice help, bookkeeping and payroll should each be listed as a service, with a sentence on who it is for. “Tax preparer near me” and “accountant for small business” are different people.
• The credential, stated plainly. The IRS tells taxpayers to check that a preparer has a Preparer Tax Identification Number and to look for credentials, and points them to its own directory of preparers with credentials. Say who in the firm is a CPA, who is an enrolled agent and who signs the return.
• A review request to last season’s clients. A short, personal message to people whose returns you finished last year is a normal ask in January. Never mention anything from their return in the request or in your reply to the review.

Check the wording before any ad runs

Tax marketing is written under rules most local businesses never meet, and January is when firms dust off last year’s ads without rereading them.

Circular 230, the IRS’s rule for anyone who practices before it, bars false or misleading claims about IRS matters. An enrolled agent can say “enrolled to practice before the Internal Revenue Service” but may not use the word “certified” or imply working for the IRS. If you publish a fee schedule, the same rule says you may charge no more than those rates for at least 30 calendar days after it was last published, and copies of direct mail and e-commerce communications, with who received them, must be kept for at least 36 months.

The federal rules on tax return information add another line. A firm can advertise that it prepared a number of a certain kind of return, but not statistics on refund, credit or deduction amounts. So “average refund” banners are out, and so is any ad built on what clients got back. CPA firms should also reread their state board’s advertising rule. Texas bars testimonials and self-laudatory claims that are not based on verifiable facts, and fee claims implying a service will be completely performed for a stated fee when it will not, which catches a careless “returns from” headline. Florida bars ads that play on a reader’s fears about money.

Decide what Local Services Ads can do for you this season

Google’s Local Services Ads have a Tax services category, and the ad carries the Google Verified badge once the firm passes license checks for each tax specialist and shows professional liability insurance. It is worth knowing what the tax version leaves out before you rely on it. Google’s help pages state that tax specialists get phone leads only, with no message leads, no call recordings, no direct booking and no lead credits.

That makes it a phone supplement for the busiest weeks, as long as someone answers. If the front desk is on another call at 11 am in February, a paid lead rings out with nothing to review and nothing to dispute. Google search campaigns, written in your own words and pointed at your own pages, cover business returns and IRS notices that the Tax services ads handle badly. Our Google Ads work runs both together for that reason.

Get tracking working before the first call

The season is short. If calls, form fills and portal sign-ups are not counted by source before January 26, nobody will be able to say in May which channel filled February. Set up call tracking numbers for the profile, the site and any paid campaign, and agree on one definition of a new client for the reports, such as a signed engagement letter rather than a phone call.

Keep the marketing side away from the documents. The FTC’s Safeguards Rule names tax preparation firms as covered and requires multi-factor authentication and encryption of customer information. A contact form should ask for a name, a phone number and the kind of return, and send documents to your portal, not to an inbox.

What to do this month

• Update profile hours for the season and list each service separately, including business returns and IRS notice help.
• Add who holds which credential to the profile and the site, worded the way Circular 230 and your board allow.
• Send last season’s clients a short, personal review request, with nothing about their return in it.
• Reread every ad and landing page for refund claims, “certified” and fee lines that leave out what changes the fee.
• Turn on call tracking for every source and agree what counts as a new client before January 26.
• Decide whether someone can answer Tax services calls live in February before you switch the ads on.

The firms that do well in February are usually the ones that did this list in early January. Our page for accountants and tax preparers sets out the plan we would run for the rest of the year, including the months after April 15 when most practices go quiet.