Your CPA Firm Just Sold to Private Equity

A founder I work with runs a 52-person logistics company at $14M revenue. Her CPA firm has handled the audit and tax for nine years. Same partner, same senior, same April timeline. Last week she got the 2026 engagement letter. Tax fees up 14%, audit up 11%, scope language tighter, partner approval needed on out-of-scope work that used to get a courtesy hour.

She asked her partner what changed. He said the firm was acquired in March. The new platform owns the pricing schedule now.

What's actually happening

Eighty percent of US accounting firms plan to raise prices in 2026. The median increase is 5 to 10%. Tax prep specifically is moving at double-digit rates. The driver isn't only inflation. In January 2026 alone, private equity closed more than 25 accounting firm transactions, almost a third of the entire 2025 deal count. Baker Tilly and Moss Adams announced a $7 billion combination. PE has put more than $2 billion into the industry in three years.

For a growing company that uses a mid-sized regional firm for audit and tax, this is no longer industry news. It's the engagement letter sitting in your inbox.

PE-backed platforms replace the partner's pricing discretion with a pricing committee. Scope creep that the partner used to absorb at year-end now generates change orders. Fixed-fee engagements convert to fee-plus-out-of-scope. And the relationship partner, who used to be the negotiator on your side of the table, is now an employee with a quota.

Where it costs you

Your CPA fee line went from a relationship cost to a vendor cost. Vendors get sourced. Relationships didn't.

Three things shift in year one of a roll-up.

Hours your partner used to give away on a phone call get tracked. A question that used to be a fifteen-minute response becomes a billable consult. You'll see it as a line item, not a fee hike.

Scope language tightens. The engagement letter from 2024 had four pages. The 2026 version has nine. The new clauses don't make work cost more on day one. They make change orders easier to issue in October.

Continuity gets shorter. Roll-ups consolidate back-office work and move staff between client portfolios. Your senior associate, who knew which JE was the tax true-up and which was the goodwill write-down, can be moved to another team without warning.

What to do this quarter

Read your engagement letter against the prior year side by side. Mark every clause that changed. Most owners sign engagement letters as a formality. This year it isn't one.

Lock fixed scope. If your firm offers a fixed annual fee for tax compliance and audit, take it even at a premium over hourly. The premium is cheaper than the change orders.

Get a second quote before renewal. Not to switch firms in May. To have the comparison in hand if the relationship partner says the platform doesn't have flexibility on a specific item. A real number from another firm changes the conversation in the room.

Ask one question in writing. Will the same partner and senior be on this engagement in 2027. If the answer is hedged, your continuity premium just expired.

Your CPA firm is the same brand on the letterhead. The economics behind it changed.