Your first 30 days as a tax preparer

Build the foundation before the busy season.

Start with the administrative side: register your practice, open a separate account for the business, and decide how you will price your work before anyone asks.

“The people who struggle in their first season are rarely the ones who did not know the tax code. They are the ones who improvised everything around it.”

Practice the complete client workflow.

Then get comfortable inside the software. Work through complete returns, not isolated examples, until moving around the tool stops taking any of your attention.

Finally, tell people what you do. Your first clients almost always come from someone who already knows you, not from advertising.

A practical first-month checklist.