What Should You Do When Your Tax Preparer Retires?
When a longtime tax professional retires, the biggest risk is not simply finding someone to prepare the next return. It is losing the tax history that connects one year to the next.
The 30-Second Answer
Obtain complete prior returns, depreciation and basis schedules, carryovers, elections, correspondence, and open-issue notes before access to the old practice disappears. Start looking for the replacement early.
The PDF Return May Not Contain Everything
Important information may live in depreciation modules, basis workpapers, internal schedules, passive-loss carryovers, and state carryover worksheets that are not fully visible in the client PDF.
Ask What Happens to the Practice
Is another professional taking over? Is the firm being sold? Are files being archived? How long will records remain available? You are not required to stay with a successor, but you should understand the transition.
Start Before Filing Season
Good tax professionals may stop accepting new clients or impose early document deadlines. Starting months before the next filing deadline gives a new professional time to review the history rather than reconstruct it under pressure.
Ask the New Professional to Review Prior Years
For complex taxpayers, the new professional may need more than one year of returns. Businesses, rentals, investments, estates, trusts, and multistate activity can all create carryovers that matter later.
Free Download
Use this worksheet or checklist alongside the guide.
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Reviewed by Owen Arnoff, EA, NTPI Fellow
Reviewed: October 2026
Technical tax content is intended for general education. Tax law and procedures can change, and individual facts matter. See our Editorial Standards.