An Experiential Investigation of Tax Professionals' Contentious Interactions with Clients

This paper is a descriptive exploration of the under-researched area of contentious interactions between tax professionals in public accounting and their clients. We collect data in two waves. First, we employ an experiential questionnaire (EQ) to obtain rich, detailed data about actual contentious client interactions experienced by tax professionals. Second, we conduct a follow-up survey based on the results of the EQ to provide additional insight. We find that tax professionals often employ arguments relating to possible taxing authority (e.g., Internal Revenue Service) actions and the technical merits of the tax position to persuade their clients. We also provide additional details about the types of contentious issues tax professionals experience and how these issues are resolved. Importantly, our results point to a need for more training on how to deal with contentious issues, as most professionals strongly believe training is needed, even though few have actually received training. Data Availability: Contact authors.