How to Charge Confidently and Protect Your Profit
Preparing a return is only part of running a tax practice. You also need a pricing system that pays for your time, covers your costs, supports careful work, and gives clients a clear understanding of what they are buying.
This practical workshop shows you how to build that system.
Tax attorney and MuseSpring founder Jason D. Carr, Esq., LL.M., walks you through the economics, pricing models, service packages, complexity charges, and client conversations behind a sustainable fee schedule.
Your registration includes the Tax Practice Pricing Workbook, which you will use to build your own prices as you follow the training.
Enroll in the Workshop
This workshop is designed for new and early-stage tax preparers who are ready to stop guessing about fees.
You will learn how to:
- Calculate the average fee your revenue goal requires
- Determine how many clients you can serve responsibly
- Build a minimum preparation fee
- Charge separately for complexity and additional work
- Create Essential, Guided, and Year-Round packages
- Price Schedule C engagements
- Quote fees without apologizing or negotiating against yourself
- Respond to price objections
- Raise prices for returning clients
- Define scope before work begins
What You Will Learn
1. Why Pricing Shapes the Entire Practice
Your price determines how many clients you need, how much time you can spend on each return, and whether the business can support software, education, security, staff, and profit.
The workshop begins with the economics behind the fee.
2. How to Calculate Your Pricing Floor
You will use your revenue goal, available capacity, operating costs, and desired profit to determine the average revenue each engagement must produce.
3. Which Pricing Model to Use
Tax professionals use per-form, hourly, fixed-fee, value-based, and bundled pricing models.
The workshop explains where each model works and shows you how to combine them into a practical hybrid system.
4. How to Build a Fee Schedule
You will create:
- A minimum engagement fee
- Complexity charges
- Schedule C pricing
- Additional-state charges
- Record-organization fees
- Late and expedited-service policies
- Three client service levels
5. How to Quote and Defend the Fee
You will receive language for diagnosing the engagement, explaining scope, stating the price, handling objections, and changing the fee when new work appears.
6. How to Raise Prices
NATP’s 2025 Fee Study found that 83% of surveyed preparers raise fees every one to two years, commonly by 6% to 10%.
You will learn how to review profitability, segment clients, and communicate increases before tax season.
7. Pricing Rules Every Preparer Should Understand
The workshop also addresses written fee terms, refund-based pricing, scope changes, and client transparency.
31 C.F.R. § 10.27 prohibits unconscionable fees and generally restricts contingent fees for practitioners in matters before the IRS, subject to defined exceptions.
Who This Workshop Is For
- New tax preparers
- Preparers launching an independent practice
- Preparers who set fees inconsistently
- Practice owners who need to raise prices
- Tax professionals adding Schedule C clients
- MuseSpring students preparing for their first filing season
Your Next Step
Enroll in the workshop, complete the workbook, and build a fee schedule designed around the practice you want.