Tax & Accounting in 2026: Five Critical Issues You Need to Prepare For
WebCE Staff
By
December 1, 2025
For tax and accounting professionals, 2026 isn't just another year—it's a convergence point where long-building pressures meet immediate deadlines. Workforce constraints, operational uncertainty at the IRS, legislative change, accelerating technology adoption, and evolving client expectations are reshaping how practitioners plan, operate, and deliver value.
This guide identifies the five most critical challenges facing the profession in 2026 and provides practical strategies for preparation.
1. Accounting Talent Shortage: Capacity Becomes Strategic Constraint
The staffing pressure facing accounting firms is structural, not cyclical. According to recent workforce analyses, 83% of senior leaders report an accounting talent shortage, up from 70% in 2022. The National Pipeline Advisory Group documents persistent challenges tied to declining student interest and accelerating retirements.
This isn't a temporary hiring challenge. It's a fundamental constraint on how much work firms can accept and how services get delivered. Senior-level judgment becomes your scarcest resource.
What leading firms are doing
Successful practitioners are adapting service models rather than just trying to hire their way out. They're narrowing focus to engagements that justify senior involvement, building repeatable frameworks for recurring situations, and tiering service levels based on complexity.
How to prepare
Conduct a time audit to identify where you're spending senior judgment versus doing work others could handle. Build decision frameworks for recurring client scenarios. Set engagement acceptance criteria—not all work is good work when capacity is constrained. Invest in staff training to improve leverage and preserve senior capacity for work that truly requires it.
Skills to strengthen
Practice management and capacity planning, effective delegation and supervision, staff development strategies.
Recommended WebCE courses
2. IRS Operational Uncertainty: System Strain and Processing Delays
The IRS is facing significant operational challenges. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, workforce reductions between January and May 2025 reduced staffing from roughly 103,000 to under 77,000 employees. The National Taxpayer Advocate's mid-year report warns that without improved technology, these staffing cuts could jeopardize the 2026 filing season.
The correspondence backlog, which the Government Accountability Office reported had 66% of mail responses arriving late, will likely worsen. Processing delays, correspondence bottlenecks, difficulty getting rulings, and limited phone support will create practical challenges for day-to-day practice.
What this means for practitioners
If you're counting on IRS systems functioning with historical consistency in 2026, adjust your expectations. Volatility and unpredictability are more likely than smooth operations.
How to prepare
File early and accurately—the window for smooth processing will be narrower. Document positions contemporaneously since correspondence resolution may take months. Set client expectations now about IRS response times. Build contingency time into planning—what used to take 30 days might take 90 or longer.
Skills to strengthen
Tax controversy procedures, penalty abatement strategies, taxpayer advocate escalation processes, client expectation management.
Recommended WebCE courses
3. TCJA Provisions Expire: The Year-End Planning Crunch
Key provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire December 31, 2025. Individual tax rates, estate tax exemptions, business deductions, and pass-through provisions all sunset simultaneously. While the timeline is certain, the legislative outcome is not—and client indecision is already creating capacity problems.
The Congressional Research Service's analysis illustrates how legislative uncertainty shortens the window available to execute strategies. Every week a client waits for Congressional clarity is a week of complex modeling pushed into Q4. By the time legislation passes—if it passes—you'll face a bottleneck of high-stakes planning work with minimal execution time.
What leading firms are doing
Instead of waiting for certainty, successful practitioners are building scenario-based planning frameworks now. Major firm guidance emphasizes modeling multiple scenarios rather than waiting for legislative clarity, forcing critical decisions around trade-offs clients can control today rather than outcomes they can't.
How to prepare
Schedule Q2-Q3 planning sessions with top clients before capacity disappears. Build 2-3 scenario models with decision triggers for each path. Frame choices around controllable trade-offs based on client risk tolerance, not Congressional predictions. Set implementation deadlines—don't let clients defer decisions waiting for "one more update."
Skills to strengthen
Scenario modeling and sensitivity analysis, client communication under uncertainty, strategic tax planning beyond annual compliance.
Recommended WebCE courses
4. AI Adoption: Opportunity Meets Responsibility
AI and automation are no longer emerging trends—they're becoming standard practice. According to CPA.com's 2025 AI in Accounting Report, the question has shifted from "if" AI will impact the profession to "how firms will lead with it." Industry surveys indicate that nearly half of accountants use AI daily, and automation adoption for routine processes has become widespread.
But adoption creates competitive dynamics. Research shows that clients increasingly expect firms to use advanced technology, and practitioners believe that firms not adopting AI risk appearing outdated. At the same time, professional responsibility hasn't diminished. Under the AICPA's Statement on Quality Management Standards No. 1, firms are explicitly responsible for the "intellectual resources" including software and automation tools they deploy.
What successful firms are prioritizing
The focus is shifting from "how to use the tool" to "how to evaluate and verify outputs." Leading firms are establishing verification protocols that require staff to manually test samples of automated results, creating clear override standards for when professional judgment should supersede system recommendations, and training for professional skepticism rather than blind trust.
How to prepare
Inventory your current AI and automation tools—which ones are you using and how are outputs verified? Establish verification protocols defining which automated outputs require manual spot-checking. Create override documentation standards for when you change what a system recommends. Train staff on critical evaluation, not just tool mechanics.
Skills to strengthen
Quality management system design, critical evaluation of AI outputs, professional skepticism in technology-enabled work.
Recommended WebCE courses
5. Client Advisory Services: Growth Meets Complexity
Client advisory services has become the fastest-growing segment of public accounting practice. According to the 2024 CPA.com & AICPA PCPS CAS Benchmark Survey, CAS practices reported 17% median growth in 2023, with firms projecting 99% median growth over the next three years. Clients increasingly expect—and demand—advisory services, with some switching firms to find them.
This growth reflects a fundamental shift in client needs. They want help interpreting what numbers mean for the future, not just what they meant in the past. But delivering advisory services in an environment of legislative ambiguity, regulatory volatility, and economic complexity means managing incomplete information rather than eliminating it.
What effective advisory looks like now
The value proposition is changing from "here's what you should do" to "here are the options, trade-offs, and risks." Advisory work requires explicitly discussing ambiguity, documenting assumptions and alternatives as carefully as technical analysis, and providing decision frameworks that help clients understand their risk tolerance.
How to prepare
Reframe advisory conversations to focus on decision frameworks and trade-offs, not just recommendations. Document risk tolerances explicitly through conversations about what level of volatility clients can accept. Create scenario summaries showing outcomes under different assumptions. Follow up proactively when circumstances change. Price for ongoing guidance, not one-time deliverables—advisory is a relationship, not a transaction.
Skills to strengthen
Client advisory service frameworks, risk assessment and scenario analysis, business advisory beyond tax compliance, communication strategies for complex and non-deterministic environments.
Recommended WebCE courses
Preparing With Intention
None of these pressures hinge on a single regulatory announcement or legislative outcome. They reflect forces already shaping the profession, with 2026 acting as a convergence point rather than a trigger.
Each of these challenges ultimately tests the same thing: professional judgment. Whether you're navigating TCJA uncertainty, managing IRS processing delays, evaluating AI outputs, allocating scarce senior capacity, or advising clients through complexity, sound judgment separates competent execution from exceptional value.
The Strategic Role of Continuing Education
That's where continuing education moves from compliance requirement to strategic capability building. In an environment defined by constraint and complexity, preparation means strengthening the professional judgment required to navigate ambiguity.
Focus your CE investment on:
Technical depth for complex planning - Scenario modeling, TCJA sunset strategies, alternative structure analysis for when standard approaches don't fit.
Tax controversy and resolution skills - Navigating IRS correspondence delays, penalty abatement procedures, taxpayer advocate escalation when normal channels fail.
Practice management and leverage - Maximizing limited senior capacity through better delegation, review efficiency, and engagement selection.
Technology oversight and quality control - Evaluating AI outputs, implementing quality management standards, maintaining professional skepticism when systems look confident.
Advisory skills and frameworks - Risk assessment, scenario planning, client communication in complex environments, building advisory relationships beyond compliance.
The firms that thrive in 2026 won't be those who wait for certainty. They'll be those who build frameworks for managing ambiguity, document reasoning as rigorously as conclusions, leverage technology without abandoning judgment, focus scarce capacity on work that truly requires it, and help clients make informed decisions even when definitive answers aren't available.
In an environment defined by constraint and complexity, preparation remains one of the few advantages professionals can still control.
Ready to strengthen your 2026 readiness?
Explore WebCE's tax and accounting continuing education courses designed for the challenges you'll actually face. Browse our catalog or contact us to discuss training solutions for your specific practice needs.