newsthought.com

Tax season is almost over in the United States. The deadline for filing 2009 tax returns is April 15 and as the deadline quickly approaches many turn to their trusted accountants and book keepers for their tax preparation service. USA today quotes the average individual tax return is $3036 which is up $266 from the previous year. Besides these statistics, what’s interesting and rarely mentioned in the news is the growing number of tax preparation services outsourced overseas to countries such as India. Smart Money estimates about 240,000 returns have been outsourced overseas in 2008. Other sources suggest about 100,000 in 2004 which grew to an estimated 400,000 outsourced individual tax preparation in 2005. Regardless what figures are presented, off shore tax preparation is a trend that will only increase in the next decade. This outsourcing service which started from individual tax returns has branched out to other services that support book keeping, small businesses to corporations. As IT professionals helplessly watched their jobs disappear to off shoring, one would just wonder how accountants in the U.S. will make themselves competitive in this global economy where companies are out to seek talent and services abroad to cut costs.