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Accountants are adopting more technology to streamline processes and provide new capabilities within their practices, but how are they using technology to achieve their goals?

Wolters Kluwer’s Annual Accounting Industry Survey Report reveals how accounting firms plan to utilize technology in 2025, based on quantitative interviews of 1,776 tax and accounting firms of all sizes from the United States. According to the report, a majority of respondents noted growing revenue and profits as a goal for 2025, with other top goals including improving client service and engagement, as well as reducing costs. 

In 2025, large accounting firms are more likely to add new technologies, but only 37% have definite plans to implement any new technology. 

Based on the report, generative AI is the top emerging technology that accountants are interested in, with 72% considering using it for research purposes, and client communications following at 64% and marketing at 40%. 

Using updated technology, a majority of firms are planning for remote tax return preparation, with 54% of respondents intending to perform more returns with no in-office contact in the next few years. 

Read more about accounting firms’ technology goals for 2025.

The Senate has a stated goal to complete work on the budget reconciliation bill by the beginning of July 2025. Anticipating that the Senate will make modifications to the House version, the bill could then go back to the House for a vote or go to a House/Senate conference to work out differences and then get another vote in both chambers. It appears likely that a July 1 deadline for finalization of the bill will be difficult to achieve.

The most critical deadline Congress is facing for the legislation is enactment of additional government borrowing authority before the current authorization limit is reached, which is expected to be sometime during August. As we approach August, the specific deadline should become clearer. Expect work on the bill to continue toward that deadline.

The bill passed the House by only a one-vote margin. Several Republican senators have said that they want changes to the House bill. However, no Republican senator is saying that they want to defeat the bill. They just want to make it more beautiful. The following are some of the key areas of focus for possible Senate modification.

The SALT deduction limit

The House bill raises the state and local tax deduction limit from $10,000 to $40,000, with a last-minute increase from $30,000 to win over enough Republican House members from high-tax states. The Senate seems inclined to oppose any increase in the limit. There are no Republican Senators from those same high-tax states, such as California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, to form a similar bloc seeking relief that exists in the House. However, the Senate also would realize that eliminating the House SALT limit increase could make it difficult to get passage of the bill next time around in the House without the SALT provision.

This is the type of difference where a compromise might be reached in a conference committee on the bill. One concern is the cost of increasing the deduction limit, and that the increase benefits mostly wealthier taxpayers. Coming up with some additional revenue offsets or cost reductions could help reach a compromise on this issue.

Temporary provisions

The House, to meet its budget targets, has proposed several temporary provisions. Most of the extensions of the individual provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act have been made permanent. However, the new deductions for tips and overtime pay, as well as several other provisions, are only around for as short a time as four years. Some Senate Republicans would prefer to try to make provisions permanent when possible.

The main issue with making them permanent would be coming up with additional revenue or cost cuts to pay for permanence within the agreed-budget parameters. Republicans have already agreed that they will take the position that extensions of provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act do not have to be paid for since they are merely extensions of provisions already in the tax law. Those extensions, of course, still add to the deficit.

Other potential sources of revenue offsets include cost cuts. However, some Republican senators are already uncomfortable with the Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or Food Stamps) cuts in the House version. Other sources of revenue include reductions in the federal workforce; however, the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency have so far not achieved the reductions that had been hoped. 

Tariffs could also provide a possible source of revenue; however, the level of tariffs keeps changing and it might be hard to settle on an expected level of tariff revenue over the next 10 years. Republicans are also fond of projecting economic growth resulting from the tax cuts in the legislation. Those projections often appear overly optimistic, and the Congressional Budget Office is usually less optimistic about projected economic growth.

Clean energy credits

The House bill eliminates or phases down many of the clean energy credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. It is primarily the individual tax breaks for clean energy vehicles and energy-efficient homes that are eliminated. The argument is that clean vehicles and energy-efficient homes no longer need tax incentives, although that might not be true for some of these credits, especially the credit for alternative fuel charging stations. 

In addition to accelerating the phase-outs for some of the business-focused clean energy credits, the bill also restricts their use by foreign entities and eliminates transferability of some of the credits.

Republican Senators are concerned about the possible adverse impact on clean energy projects that have been proposed or are underway in their states. They want the tax credits that incentivized those projects to be available through to completion. These include the Code Sec. 45Y Clean Electricity Production Credit and the Code Sec. 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit, which under the House bill would end for projects where construction is not commenced until more than 60 days after enactment. Other affected credits include the Code Sec. 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit, the Code Sec. 45U nuclear credit, and the Code Sec. 45Q carbon recapture credit.

Repeal and phase-down of these clean energy credits does provide a source of revenue to help pay for other tax cuts. Therefore, Republican Senators who want to facilitate state projects may be comfortable with just stretching out the phase-down period a little further.

Child Tax Credit

The House has proposed to increase the Child Tax Credit to $2,500 through 2028. After that, the credit would fall to $2,000 but be indexed for inflation. Only up to $1,400 would be refundable. Some Republican senators would prefer to make further enhancements to the Child Tax Credit to assist lower income families. This would probably not be opposed in the House provided that a favorable revenue offset can be identified.

Summary

It will be a few weeks before the stated deadline for the Senate to have completed work on and voted on the bill will have arrived. By that time, the date by which the government will have reached the limit of its borrowing authority will have been more narrowly identified. The deficit hawks in the House may find that they have found more effective support for their position on debt reduction in the Senate. The SALT limitation hawks in the House may find little support for their position among Senate Republicans.

Even as a Senate bill nears completion, it will likely differ in many respects from the House bill, including in the areas discussed herein, and the House and Senate will have until sometime in August to resolve their differences. Those differences will likely somehow get resolved, since Republicans generally view not passing a bill as the worst of all alternatives. It will be the pressure of the August deadline that will force those compromises.

Even after the biggest May jump in 35 years for the S&P 500, investors’ understandable confusion about the future of tax and tariff policies and inflation is driving a lot of anxiety.

The S&P’s value ended up 6% last month, alongside a 4% gain in the Dow and 10% surge in the Nasdaq index — a stark reversal from the steep losses surrounding President Donald Trump’s announcement of substantial tariffs, which he later paused for 90 days. Financial advisors’ expectations for the economy, as reported in Financial Planning’s Financial Advisor Confidence Outlook survey, turned slightly less negative after an all-time low score in April.

Beyond questions of how potential tariffs might affect inflation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is drawing scrutiny as the major tax and spending legislation heads from the House to the Senate. Concerns include who stands to benefit and who will lose out, and the bill’s ramifications to the federal budget deficits and the national debt. 

Many high net worth and ultrahigh net worth clients who work with David Lesperance, the founder of immigration tax and law advisory firm Lesperance & Associates, are already seeking to get “all the pieces in place and all the planning done” with an eye toward “maximizing optionality to be able to deal with the unpredictable,” he said. “They just don’t know, so the key is to be prepared for any contingency and to be able to execute quicker than the legislature, which is generally possible.”

READ MORE: Trump’s tax bill offers wins — and a major loss — for advisors

Responding to uncertainty

In the case of Lesperance’s ultrawealthy clients, that means taking steps as drastic as seeking residency outside of the country and offshore citizenship in anticipation of a recession next year and the political pendulum swinging back toward Democrats, who might adopt taxes on unrealized gains or that target billionaires or millionaires. Other investors may be acting toward much more immediate needs or even from a sense of panic.

Out of 373 retirees polled between March 25 and April 17 as part of the Schroders 2025 US Retirement Survey, 92% said they are worried that inflation will reduce the value of their assets, 62% admitted they have no idea how long their savings will last and almost half said their expenses in retirement are higher than they expected, said Deb Boyden, the firm’s head of U.S. defined contribution. For many retirees, the “stress of uncertainty is an everyday battle” rather than “just economic theory,” Boyden said in an email.  

“While advisors and clients can’t control Washington, they can control how they respond,” Boyden continued. “Sticking to a financial plan, staying invested through market cycles, and resisting the urge to make emotional decisions are all variables within their control. Periods of heightened uncertainty present an opportunity for advisors to deepen relationships by communicating with clients more frequently to help them reassess goals, understand allocations and feel more confident in their strategy. Our data shows that many retirees are without a plan or professional guidance — this void is an opportunity for advisors.”

READ MORE: SALT, tips and auto loans: A guide to the House GOP tax bill

Answering the unknowables

Those retirees and other investors are struggling to find answers that aren’t even clear to some of the top experts trying to figure out the form and implications of taxes and tariffs in the future. Ongoing court cases have placed the basic legality of some of the administration’s tariffs under multiple levels of judicial review, and that could affect the fiscal price of the tax and spending legislation. The bill is facing substantial criticism over, among other things, its price tag adding $3 trillion to the national debt over a decade, just after a downgrade to the U.S. government’s credit rating by Moody’s Investors Service.

But the bill garnered enough support to pass the House by one vote and the backing of influential groups like the pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is financing an advertising campaign that calls on lawmakers to vote for “securing permanent tax relief for America’s families, workers and entrepreneurs.” However, in an indication of the complexity of the current political environment, the Chamber also refers to the prospect of tariffs as a “new tax on summer fun.”

The outlook has grown so blurry that David Kelly, the chief global strategist of JPMorgan Asset Management, compared investors’ task of figuring out next steps to the challenge of five argumentative siblings putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle.

“Despite political tensions, ongoing policy changes and heightened inflation and recession concerns, 2025 so far has generated positive returns for investors, with the S&P 500 and the bond markets registering small gains and international stocks posting much larger increases,” Kelly said in a June 2 note. “This is no time for complacency, however. The outlook for the economy is for just slow GDP growth, smaller job gains and temporarily higher inflation. This should translate into sticky interest rates, decelerating earnings growth and a falling dollar. At the start of the year, given valuations and portfolio concentration, it made sense for investors to rebalance away from U.S. mega-cap growth stocks and towards more defensive U.S. stocks, international equities and alternatives. Five months into the year, while the macro jigsaw remains complicated, the same advice seems warranted.”

READ MORE: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiration: A guide for financial advisors

Legislative agenda

As for the tax and spending bill, President Trump’s Republican allies in the Senate have discussed a possible goal of passing the massive legislation by July 4. But voting the legislation through the Senate could prove difficult, according to Jonathan Traub, a managing principal and the leader of the Tax Policy Group at consulting and professional services firm Deloitte Tax.  

“For both policy and procedural reasons, we can expect changes to the current legislation,” Traub said in a statement after the House passage of the bill last month. “It will remain a tremendous challenge for Republican leaders to keep near unanimity among their members given the push and pull on so many major components of the bill.”

Provisions of the bill as wide-ranging as the level of tax brackets and states’ ability to regulate artificial intelligence and as narrow as a new levy on international remittances and shifts in the rules for expenses eligible to be paid through 529 savings plans will receive close scrutiny in a Senate debate that could extend far beyond Independence Day. Advisors and their clients may need to plan for multiple different outcomes in the interim.

“There’s a whole bunch of opportunity, but in order to do that you need to get a whole bunch of planning in place,” Lesperance said. “It’s very interesting on the planning side, but people are scrambling, and they’re making educated bets.”