2020 Tax Season Reflections

Posted Wednesday, May 12, 2021

This tax season was exceptionally challenging. There are many reasons for this such as new workflow software, unexpected growth and a zillion retroactive tax code changes (the states were the worst). As a result, our turnaround times increased substantially.

But where WCG failed you… where our team struggled the most… was in our communication and managing expectations. We didn’t realize this until March 25 or so, and we didn’t have an elegant way of fixing the problem. The tax season battlefield doesn’t afford thoughtful reflection and correction.

WCG has a first-in first-out tax preparation approach. We do not maintain lists such as “A Clients” nor do we cherry-pick our favorite clients. Those approaches are dangerous in our opinion.

So… first-in first-out is a fancy way of saying “we have lines” or in England, “a queue.” While waiting in lines pains most Americans (we are not a passive society), humans generally tolerate lines provided that a) they know where they are in line, and b) they can sense line movement.

Easy enough, right? Perhaps…

Every year we perform a tax season postmortem where we review our mistakes and challenges, and find solutions to improve the client experience. With our “line sensation” challenge, we have excellent solutions that will improve communication and expectations so you are informed along the way. We also have several ideas to create more efficiencies in our workflow. We cannot wait to implement these improvements!

Additionally, we will highlight a more detailed calendar of turnaround times especially between March 1 and 15 when our focus is nearly consumed with business entity tax returns. 40% of our tax returns are business entities with the remaining 60% being individual tax returns, but most business entity tax returns are due March 15 and that simply disrupts the first-in first-out approach. Again, we didn’t do a good enough job communicating this bottleneck to you.

And Yes, we should have stress-tested our process better and developed simulations to expose these problems sooner.

As any thoughtful business does, WCG is continuously improving our client experience, and a part of that process is communicating to you our mistakes and challenges. We value your opinion. Always! Some of our best procedures come from client suggestions so please feel free to gently give us feedback. Use the links below to schedule some time-

Jason Watson (Founding Partner)- https://calendly.com/wcg-jason/feedback

Jason Schneider (Managing Partner)- https://calendly.com/wcg-jasons/feedback

Michelle Day (Tax Partner)- https://calendly.com/wcg-michelle/feedback

Thank you again for your business!

Warm Regards,

WCG Inc.
2393 Flying Horse Club Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80921
9777 Pyramid Court Suite 240, Englewood, CO 80112

719-387-9800 office
719-345-2100 text
855-345-9700 fax