Tax preparers: is the whole busy season actually paying you? Free, no signup.
Tax preparers underprice the season because flat per-return fees look fine until the hidden hours land. This calculator measures the whole busy season, not one return. Start with your bar (125 dollars per hour default) and your season income goal. Pick a preset: Side gig (30 simple, 10 complex returns), Full season (80 and 40), or Booked solid (150 and 80), each filling return counts, average fees, and prep hours per return as editable starting points. Add the hidden hours nobody bills: chasing documents and client questions, scheduling and admin, continuing ed and software learning. Enter season costs: the software subscription plus PTIN, CE, EFIN, and insurance. Results show returns filed, revenue, costs, profit, prep hours, hidden hours, total committed hours, and average fee per return. The big number is your true hourly rate for the whole season against your bar, with SEASON PAYS, BUSY BUT THIN, or THE SEASON TRAP verdicts, plus the exact average fee needed to hit your bar. The goal math turns your season goal into seasons like this one. Planning information only, not tax or business advice. No signup; runs on your phone.
Example only, not typical pricing. Side gig preset: 30 simple returns x $175 = $5,250 plus 10 complex x $350 = $3,500, for $8,750 revenue. Prep hours: 30 x 1.5 + 10 x 5 = 95. Hidden hours: 25 + 20 + 16 = 61. Total committed: 156 hours. Season costs: $600 software + $400 credentials and insurance = $1,000. Profit = 8,750 - 1,000 = $7,750. True rate = 7,750 / 156 = $49.68 per hour against the $125 bar, so the verdict is THE SEASON TRAP. Average fee is $218.75; the fee needed to hit the bar is (1,000 + 125 x 156) / 40 = $512.50, which is $293.75 more per return. A $25,000 season goal needs 25,000 / 7,750 = 3.2, rounded up to 4 seasons like this one.
It depends on your market and return mix. Rather than copying a number, enter your bar and let the tool back into the average fee that makes the season pay. Simple returns and complex returns get separate fee and hour lines so the mix does the work.
Cut the unbilled hours first. Document chasing and admin are 61 hours here, almost 40 percent of the season. Every hour you stop giving away raises your effective rate without touching prices.
Yes. $1,000 in software, PTIN, CE, EFIN, and insurance comes straight off the season profit before your hours are measured. Count them or the hourly rate flatters you.
Count them in the return mix or run a second pass with their own fees and hours. The season is whatever block of work you define; the math only cares that every return and every hour is in.
Because one season nets $7,750 of profit. 25,000 / 7,750 = 3.2, and you cannot work a fifth of a season, so it rounds up to 4. Fix the pricing and that number falls.