1 in 4 firms now offshore their tax prep
ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES — One in four professional services firms already outsource tax preparation offshore — and another 12% plan to start — as a deepening domestic talent shortage forces United States accounting practices to look outside the U.S. labor market.
MYCPE ONE, a continuing professional education (CPE) platform for accounting professionals, published via the National Law Review, drawing on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and industry surveys.
Domestic CPA talent shortage drives offshore adoption as over 40% of firms turn away client work
According to an analysis in the National Law Review, the BLS projects more than 120,000 accounting and auditing job openings annually in the United States — a demand that domestic supply is failing to meet.
The number of CPA exam candidates has dropped 27% over the past decade, the AICPA estimates that 75% of licensed CPAs are within 15 years of retirement, and an estimated 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors have left the profession in recent years.
The operational pressure at the firm level is direct: more than 40% of accounting firms have turned away client work due to insufficient staffing, and accounting teams commonly work 50 to 80 hours per week during tax filing season.
The staffing shortage is the demand driver behind offshore adoption — firms are not turning to offshore tax preparation for cost reduction alone; they are outsourcing because domestic hiring cannot keep pace with client demand, particularly at small and mid-size CPA practices where the talent pool is thinnest.
Offshore adoption among CPA firms has roughly doubled; savings reach 25% to 45% over in-house equivalents
Offshore tax preparation adoption among small and mid-size CPA firms has roughly doubled in recent years, per MYCPE ONE‘s analysis, with the broader finance and accounting outsourcing market projected to grow from $45 billion in 2024 to more than $70 billion within the next decade.
Shifting tax preparation offshore produces cost savings of 25% to 45% compared with building equivalent in-house capacity, once recruiting, benefits, infrastructure, and training costs are accounted for.
With 1 in 4 firms already using offshore tax preparation and 12% planning to adopt, the majority of the U.S. accounting market has not yet made the transition — leaving the offshore adoption curve still in early-to-mid expansion.
A market that has already roughly doubled adoption among small and mid-size CPA firms, with 1 in 4 firms already offshore and 12% planning to follow, is one where the question for firm principals has shifted from whether to offshore tax preparation to when and how.
For CPA firm principals and accounting practice managers evaluating capacity solutions, MYCPE ONE’s data frames offshore tax preparation around workforce shortage rather than cost arbitrage alone — an argument that holds whether or not near-term domestic hiring conditions improve.
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