You spent forty minutes on the phone last Tuesday walking a client through what a CP2000 notice actually means, what the IRS is claiming, and what happens if they ignore it. You gave them a real answer, backed by real training, that took years to build. You did not bill a dime for it.
Do that once a week and you have given away roughly thirty-five hours of skilled work a year. Do it twice a week, which is closer to reality for most practitioners, and the number doubles. That is a pricing problem hiding inside a habit that looks like generosity, and it is quietly costing you tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Here is what I want you to do by the end of this post: write down every piece of work you currently give away, and decide, line by line, which of it becomes a billed service starting this month.
The Free Call That Is Not Free
Every tax pro I coach has a version of this story. A client calls in a panic over a letter. You calm them down, explain the notice, and tell them what to do next. It feels like customer service. It is actually a diagnostic consultation, the exact kind of work you would happily charge a new prospect for on day one.
The distinction that matters is not whether the work is valuable. You already know it is valuable, because the client called you in a panic and hung up relieved. The distinction is whether you have a mechanism to bill for it. Most solo and small-firm owners do not, so the work simply disappears into the overhead of “being available.”
The Billable List You Are Quietly Giving Away
Here is the list. Read it slowly and put a checkmark next to every one you currently do for free:
- Explaining an IRS notice over the phone instead of billing a notice-review consult
- Answering a “quick question” text or email thread that runs to six or seven messages over three days
- Reviewing a prior-year return a client brings in from another preparer, “just to take a look”
- Filing an extension “while I’m at it” with no separate line item
- Walking a client through payment plan options on the phone before any engagement is signed
- Portal setup, password resets, and document upload troubleshooting
- A second opinion on a position another preparer already took
- Checking a client’s transcript “real quick” because they got a letter and are scared
None of that is small. Every item on that list is work a licensed professional is qualified to do and a client is willing to pay for. You are simply not asking.
What to Actually Say
Knowing the work is billable is the easy part. The hard part is the sentence that comes out of your mouth when the client is already on the phone. Here is what to say for each item on that list. Say it plainly, say it early, and do not apologize on your way through it.
- The notice explanation. “Happy to walk you through what that letter actually says and what your options are as this is outside the scope of our engagement letter. That is a notice review, the investment in my services for this is [your fee], and I can get you on the calendar this week. You will leave that call knowing whether this is something you handle yourself or something you want me to take over.”
- The six-message “quick question” thread. “Good question, and it is bigger than an email. Let’s put twenty minutes on the calendar and the investment in my services for this time is [your fee]. You will get a real answer instead of me guessing at it in writing across three days.”
- The prior-year return from another preparer. “I would be glad to look at it. The investment in my services for a prior-year review is [your fee] and you get a written summary: what I found, what it is worth to fix, and what I would have done differently. I do not do drive-by opinions on another preparer’s work. That is not fair to you and it is not fair to them.”
- The extension “while I’m at it.” “The extension is its own service and its own line item and the investment in my services is [your fee]. It buys you time to file, not time to pay, and I want you clear on that difference before I send it.”
- The payment plan walkthrough. “That is exactly the conversation we should be having, and it is the consult rather than the intro call. The investment in my services is [your fee] and I will lay out every option you actually qualify for, including the ones nobody told you about. Hire me afterward and I can credit a portion of it toward the engagement.”
- Portal setup and password resets. “My office handles logins and uploads, so send that to [email] and they will get you in today. Anything past a simple reset gets the investment in our admin’s time at [your rate], and you will hear from me before that clock starts.”
- The second opinion. “I will give you a real second opinion, in writing, the investment in our services is [your fee]. What I will not do is give you an off-the-cuff take on another professional’s position over the phone. You would be making a decision on half an answer, and I am not going to set you up that way.”
- The “real quick” transcript check. “Pulling and reading your transcripts is the first real step in a case, not a favor. The investment in my services is [your fee] and it tells us exactly what the IRS has, what they are missing, and how much time is on the clock. Right now that is the most useful access to my time you can buy.”
Notice what none of those scripts do. Not one of them says no. Every single one says yes, here is the investment in our services are, here is when I can start. That is the whole shift. You are not turning work away. You are putting a price on work you were already doing.
Practice saying two of them out loud before your next client call. The words feel strange exactly once.
Why You Give It Away
Here is what is actually happening. Most tax pros price based on what they personally would be comfortable paying, not on what the work is worth to the person receiving it. A twenty-minute transcript review feels trivial to you because you have done ten thousand of them. It does not feel trivial to a client staring down a levy or additional tax due. You are pricing off your own comfort level with the task, not off the value the client is getting, and that gap is where the free work lives.
I get it. I respect it. And I am telling you it is the single biggest reason solo practitioners work brutal hours for modest pay. The work is not the problem. The pricing of the work is the problem.
The Math That Should Bother You
Let us put a real number on it. Say you give away five hours a week of this kind of work, phone consults, quick-question threads, prior-year reviews, spread across a fifty-week year. That is 250 hours annually. At a modest $125 effective hourly rate, that is over $31,000 a year of skilled work handed out for nothing. (Example only. Your own hours and rate will differ, and this is not a promise of what any practice earns.)
Read that again. Thirty-one thousand dollars is not a rounding error. It is close to a full-time hire, or the down payment on the life you keep saying you will get to once things calm down. Things will not calm down on their own. You have to change what you charge for. That is a realistic low estimate. That means this number could be 50% to 200% higher if you bill higher hourly billing rates or larger flat fees.
How to Turn the List Into Revenue
You do not need to nickel-and-dime every phone call. You need three or four clean mechanisms that catch the work you are currently giving away:
- A notice-response consult. Any time a client calls about a letter, that is a billed consult, priced in the range of $150 to $750+, unless the case is already under an active engagement that covers it. (Example fees. Individual results vary. No income or IRS outcome is guaranteed.)
- A written scope in every engagement letter. State plainly what is included and what triggers an additional fee, so “quick questions” outside the original scope have a defined next step instead of a default of free.
- A standing rate for second opinions and prior-year reviews. Price it as its own line item, $250 to $500+, so it stops being a favor and starts being a real service.
- A monitoring or retainer relationship for your active resolution clients, so the ongoing “quick calls” during a long case are already paid for instead of accumulating as unbilled goodwill. We cover exactly how to structure this in turning one-time clients into year-round recurring revenue.
A tight, specific scope in the engagement letter does more of this work for you than any conversation ever will.
“My Clients Will Leave If I Start Charging for This”
Come on. You know better. Clients do not leave because you started charging for real work. They leave because the relationship felt inconsistent, because the invoice showed up as a surprise instead of an expectation set on day one. Tell a new client up front, in writing, what is included and what is not, and almost nobody blinks. This way you’re setting the standard up front on what is acceptable and what is not. The ones who do were never going to be profitable clients anyway.
Now, please note I am not telling you that you need to nickel-and-dime bill for every little thing. If you charge the right rates, I’ve always recommended doing flat-fee pricing, then there’s a question or two from clients that you can already build into your fees. That’s how I handled all of my tax returns or my investigation of liability fees on collections cases. You already have built-in one or two questions that most people will ask and not necessarily have to bill them extra because it’s already built in. For those that do need extra projects done, you need to bill them extra for it’s outside the scope of the engagement they originally hired you for.
What to Do This Week
Pull up your calendar and your sent messages from the last two weeks. Circle every piece of free work on the list above that you actually did. Add up the hours. Multiply by your rate. Then pick one item, just one, and build the mechanism to bill for it starting with your next new client. You do not have to fix everything at once. You have to stop the bleeding in one place first.
I am on a mission to improve the lives of licensed tax professionals by showing them there are more options in IRS representation and tax prep, so you can improve client quality, increase revenue, cut the hours, and get your life back. Charging for the work you already do well is one of the fastest ways to get there.
Reply to me via email and tell me which item on that list you are done giving away for free.
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Here’s to working smarter, not harder!
And a brighter future for your tax practice!
If you want to know more consider joining the Tax Resolution Academy® and earn your Certified Taxpayer Representative™ (CTR™) certification.
I hope this helps.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us.
Have a GREAT day,
With Love,
Dan
Dan Henn, CPA, CTR™
Co-Founder, Tax Resolution Academy®
Managing Member
Tax Pro Academy, LLC
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