My old boss, an accountant (CPA) who represented taxpayers in their appeals processes, lived on a small farm in the highlands between Orange and Riverside Counties. Most accountants, however, are unlikely to trade the pen for the plowshare. According to this Vishal CPA Prep, some counties have no licensed CPAs at all.
According to the US Census Bureau, rural communities tend to "have lower median household incomes" when compared to metro communities. However, according to the same data, rural communities have lower poverty rates than urban communities. It is not too much of a stretch to infer that rural Americans would be in the tax bracket with low tax liability, but not falling below the statutory filing threshold.
The tax code is structured, in part, to remedy inequalities between poorer and affluent Americans through expenditures like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. However, many of the intended benefits and tax expenditures can only be accessed if the filer knows about the benefits. As noted in this 2018 article by the Internal Revenue Service,] rural Americans stand to benefit disproportionately from the Earned Income Tax Credit. However, rural residents often do not apply because they are unaware that they are eligible. The IRS article explains that qualifying taxpayers can claim the EITC by filing electronically "through a qualified tax professional," "using free community tax help sites," or filing "themselves, with IRS Free File." The mention of Free File shows that the article is outdated, as the IRS Free File program has been eliminated for the 2026 filing season. The other two solutions require the use of either internet services or the services of a tax professional, neither of which are consistently available in rural locations.
For low-income or elderly taxpayers, the IRS also offers services from the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) programs. The IRS provides a geographic site locator tool so that filers can identify volunteers near them. These efforts, too, have geographic limits. Searching from the zip code of 96101, which is the county seat of Modoc County (Alturas, CA) in California, there are only three sites within 100 miles. UWNC, the Lassen Salvation Army, is the closest at 76.15 miles away. When they must rely on volunteer accountants, rural communities may be underserved.
Even where volunteers exist, the supply of professional tax help is dwindling nationwide. The United States is experiencing a shortage of new accountants. With hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomer generation professionals, many positions will remain unfilled.
Some smaller accounting firms have rejected potential clients because they have too few professionals to do the work. Beyond shortages, some tax experts caution that potential clients need to be cautious when choosing a tax preparer due to the current low bar to qualify. When firms turn away clients, bad actors may fill the gaps.
In addition to a shortage of tax preparation services, President Trump's 2025 hiring freeze exacerbated labor shortages within the IRS. As a consequence, tax filing and processing have become more difficult on both ends of the process. For low-income taxpayers, the shortages mean refund claims, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, will take longer to reach taxpayers. IRS response times when called for information have also become slower than ever. For taxpayers with no days off of work and only an hour for lunch, they might be out of luck when it comes to getting a live response.
Nonetheless, the IRS continues to publish helpful materials for rural-coded sectors of the economy, like the Farmer's Tax Guide. The Farmer's Tax Guide and other published materials are regularly updated to remain accurate to the current iteration of the tax code. With a shortage of professional tax help, taxpayers may need to rely upon the publications themselves to stay informed and know which credits and deductions to apply for.
The 2025 tax year's Farmer's Tax Guide (Publication 225) provides an encyclopedic level of information for farmers, from general concepts of the cash or accrual method of accounting to more trade-specific concepts like Elective Farm Income. The publication also specifies farm-related deductible expenses like "Breeding Fees," "Fertilizer and Lime," and other "Prepaid Farm Supplies."
More importantly, the Farmer's Tax Guide keeps tax filers up-to-date on expiring tax policies, like the temporary 100% deductibility of food or beverages provided by a restaurant. From personal experience working with small business owners, taxpayers often miss changes to tax policy, which can result in staggeringly large tax assessments for deficient payments, audits, and lengthy appeals proceedings. When those procedures are ongoing, interest is nevertheless ticking up.
While helpful, IRS publications like Publication 225 may be difficult for many small business owners to comprehend. The length and depth of the publication makes it helpful, yet, but also difficult to parse. Nestled within the publication is perhaps the most important detail, the rule surrounding whether farm-expenses can be listed at all on a tax return. As a long-standing principle, "Hobby Farming," or "Not-for-Profit Farming" doesn't qualify. Unfortunately for less-established farmers, one major factor in the consideration of a farm as a hobby farm is whether "taxpayer was successful in making a profit in similar activities in the past." More than most businesses, many crops need years to mature to profitability, leading to a horizontal equity issue between more established farmers and newer farmers.
Business owners still have options with the IRS publication information, even with a lack of close CPAs. A CPA is a term used for a certified public accountant who is authorized and licensed by the state jurisdiction to prepare taxes for a taxpayer. Kaizen CPA's accounting site recommends that business owners use QuickBooks if they net less than $500,000 each year. If their net income is more than that, Kaizen recommends a live CPA.
For context, QuickBooks is a tax preparation software program offered by Intuit on a subscription basis. Intuit is the same company which offers taxpayers access to TurboTax each tax season. With QuickBooks, subscribers have the functionality to automate bookkeeping, generate business reports (i.e. Profit & Loss reports), produce invoices for the subscriber's customers, and with the most expensive subscription option, synchronize data from Microsoft Excel sheets. Most importantly for tax purposes, QuickBooks can calculate sales tax liabilities and generate Form 1099s (to report income generated outside of standard employment) for the subscribing business.
Rural businesses might not have the option to choose a live CPA over QuickBooks. While QuickBooks does not have the functionality to facilitate the filing of income tax returns, it can organize financial information in a way to make the workload digestible for a live CPA during tax season. From there, the hypothetical rural business owner would need to take fewer trips to a CPA's office or may even merely contact them by email with their information ready. Now, with the shortage of CPAs nationwide, it might make a business owner a more palatable client to have their books in order.
There's a reason the CPA licensing process is difficult: calculating and filing taxes are often too complex for taxpayers to handle on their own. Furthermore, CPAs are responsible for more than tax filing, planning, and appeals. CPAs must be ready to produce financial reports, audit revenue expenditures, ensure compliance with regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, and investigate potential fraud within a business through forensic accounting. With a shortage of live CPAs and IRS employees, taxpayers will need to increasingly rely upon accounting software, which may miss niche credits that the taxpayer qualifies for. Rural taxpayers may thus need to embrace a new type of self-reliance when it comes to financial literacy.
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