Accounting Commons^™

Is Public Accounting Eating Its Seed Corn? An Assessment Of The Outsourcing Of Tax Work, Timothy J. Fogarty, R. Drew Sellers, Dave Jones

The North American Accounting Studies

For many years, public accounting firms have sent much of their tax compliance work to overseas centers for assembly and initial processing. This has achieved labor cost savings for the firms and is made possible by digital data conversion and the belief that the work itself has been commodified. Relocating the work that used to be done by US tax staff may have had some dysfunctional long-term consequences including inhibiting US staff skill and expertise development. This paper offers the data created by 27 interviews with US tax professionals to inform this domain. We also consider possible solutions suggested by …