The Emotional Elasticity of an Accountant in a Cubicle

Work is killing us.

And I do mean this literally.

From the commute to office—where people die in car accident, pedestrians are hit crossing the street, carbon emissions filling the air—to the heart issues from sitting all day to the low wages and constant juggling of work and life, work is killing us.

Work separates people by ability.

Work separates people by health.

Work separates people by time.

I’ve been thinking about work acutely in the past few weeks, as the tax season crashed into an end, like a wave smashing into a cliff. There are still so many returns and detritus to work through, but what kept grabbing my foremost thoughts were: I became a pinball this year, and tax work is emotionally heavy work.

It is more akin to a teaching profession than a product delivery profession, and yet it is constantly resigned to be a product delivery profession.

The product: The highest refund possible (and sometimes, even if that means breaking the law)

I don’t want to go into the philosophical underpinnings of American tax attitudes, nor do I want to go into why tax is treated like a product delivery, rather than the service, and education, it is. I want to explain why it is an emotionally heavy profession.

On the front of it, it makes sense. Clients die. They give birth. They go through divorces, which can be painful. They can spend their life savings in pursuit of a dream, sometimes to success, sometimes to watch it collapse.

And the person beside them, the one providing both the tissues and the explanations, is a tax professional.

Here, tax professional means someone with a designation and education who can understand the tax code well enough to explain to a client why cashing out your 401k is a bad idea. Or why putting real property into an S corporation is a bad idea, and what other options are and why (The why is the real kicker). This can be someone with a CPA, an EA, or an CTEC.1 And, sometimes, none at all.

Tax pros want to be able to provide an accurate tax return to a client with the lowest tax legally possible within a reasonable time frame. And explain other options to their clients. Some barriers to that may include:

1. Receiving documentation timely

   1. Brokers take a long time to get accurate paperwork and I have no idea why

2. Constant changes in tax law on the federal, state, and local level

3. Researching those tax laws

4. Tax pros get sick too and covid is real

   

I spent a lot of time this tax season talking about withholdings adjustments with clients. I spend a lot of time every year explaining to clients whose children are turning 17 what it means for their personal return in terms of credit and their withholdings.

This is very different from an input-output model. It is a crafting of the tax return to accurately reflect someone’s life and proactive work in an attempt to influence the next reporting in a favorable way.

I will sit down with a client and explain why they owe so much. Or why they are showing massive capital gains, even if it didn’t hit their wallet.

Some of this work can end up feeling reactive when a client becomes upset about a tax return. They owe too much. The house they sold was over the Section 121 housing exclusion and now they owe money on it—or they lost money and it’s not a deduction. It is very easy to take an expectation—highest refund possible—and turn it into a weapon when that is not being delivered.

In order to ease client anxiety, tax pros often build websites stacked with resources. They often create infographics or videos. Many of them use social media to post these items or to provide links to resources. And, like me, many of them devote time to working with clients to explain, to teach, and to provide paths for going forward (you know, like a classroom teacher).

And many of them, like me, are available year around for tax planning in attempt to avoid a surprise bill.

( I am not saying a tax pro can make all bills go away; I’m saying in many cases they can mitigate it and prepare for it. I’ve seen people give estimates based on a the sale of a rental property and the tax bill exactly within that estimate. This eliminates an April tax shock and allows the client to financially prepare for it and perhaps perform some tax mitigation strategies)

Working to stay on top—which also requires time and financial juggling—and being emotionally elastic to work with one client overjoyed with their return to another who is screaming at admin is draining. There is also the feelings we wrestle with when dealing with clients’ deadlines—say for a banker—and with particularly difficult returns.

I’m looking at you, Section 754.

This is a lot of emotional output.

Giving and taking is a cycle, but I think, for many of us, in this commodification environment, the giving is becoming overwhelming, leaving us bouncing around in a pinball, battered and lacking any emotional elasticity.

I want to make clear that it is understandable to become upset over taxes. The code is obscure and fickle, and the cost for a pro can be prohibitive, and finances are people’s lives and it is easy to feel as if one’s life is threatened when dealing with taxes and expectations around them.

Tax pros are aware of this and often try to make the process as easy as possible. To ease one side of it. And many of them are people persons who want to work with you to make this relationship flourish.

But, because of the time, the emotional weight and investment in individuals, many tax pros become frazzled and empty by the time April 15th rolls around (And that’s just one deadline. There were more before it and there are more after it). It’s not just an empty exchange of information and delivery of a product; tax professionals want their clients to succeed. And they want them to understand why.

And that eats at emotional elasticity.

Take Aways

So, if you are not a tax professional, what can you do to ease your experience and communicate expectations?

1. Review the tax pro’s website.

2. Check out their social media.

3. If there is an engagement letter, read it carefully. Are there timelines for delivery? Expectations of when items are due?

4. Communicate with the professional what you are looking for. This allows them to direct you to someone who can better service your needs

   1. For example, say you like Jessica’s Tax Services but you are a dog groomer and she specializes in rentals. She can refer you to Steve, who specializes in personal services, like grooming

   2. Because the tax code is vast, many tax pros find niches. Finding someone in your niche means someone who knows all the updates, strategies, and relevant case law in that field. It’s akin to finding the right tool for a job rather than being a hammer that treats everything like a nail.

5. Reach out earlier! Changing jobs? Having a baby? Want to empty out your 401k for a house? Reach out to a t ax pro before January of the next year to plan, to mitigate, and to prepare.

I promise we are also listening to your comments too, in order to better able facilitate the process and to be clear about our expectations up front.

As for my fellow tax professionals, now is the time to rest, to review, and to regather. I need to find ways to feel less like a pinball.