Free tax consultation advice: how to stop giving the plan away

The best free tax consultation advice for a firm owner is simple: keep the free meeting to facts and fit, and save every specific recommendation for the paid engagement. Say that at the start of the meeting, put it in the booking confirmation, and never send a free recommendation by email.

The email part matters more than most owners think. Treasury Circular 230 section 10.37 sets requirements for written advice on federal tax matters, and it says written advice includes "electronic communication." A two-line "you should elect S corp status" reply to a prospect is written advice. Section 10.37 applies to it whether or not you were paid, and you got nothing for it.

Why the free hour turns into free work

A business owner books a free tax consultation because they have a question. They want the answer. You want to show you know your stuff. Both of you drift toward the answer, and by minute 40 you have told them which entity to use, what salary to pay themselves and which retirement plan to open.

Then one of three things happens. They go and do it themselves. They take your ideas to their current preparer. Or they hire you, and the paid engagement now feels like paying for something they already have.

None of that is the owner being dishonest. You gave them nothing to buy.

Where the line sits in a free tax consultation

Split everything you might say in a free consultation into three buckets.

Bucket	Free?	Examples
General rules anyone could look up	Yes	"The IRS expects an S corporation to pay a shareholder who works in the business a reasonable salary before distributions."
Questions about their facts	Yes, this is the point of the meeting	Entity type, profit last year, what they paid in April, payroll, who owns what, what changed
A recommendation for their situation	No	"Pay yourself $X," "open this plan," "make this election this year"

General rules come from public sources. The IRS states the reasonable compensation rule on its own site (IRS, S corporation compensation). Telling an owner the rule exists shows you know the ground. Telling them the number for their business is the work.

The second bucket is where a free consultation earns its keep. The more you learn about their facts, the better you can scope and price the engagement. The owner also hears good questions and starts to trust you.

The third bucket is what they pay for. Hold it.

Why the rules back you up

You are on solid ground when you decline to give a recommendation on the spot. Three parts of Circular 230 explain why.

Section 10.37, written advice. Written advice must rest on reasonable factual and legal assumptions, consider all relevant facts you know or reasonably should know, and use reasonable efforts to find the facts that matter (31 CFR 10.37). A recommendation written after a 30-minute meeting with no documents is hard to square with that.
Section 10.22, diligence. A practitioner must exercise due diligence in determining the correctness of oral or written representations made to clients on IRS matters (31 CFR 10.22). A quick verbal answer is still a representation.
Section 10.27, fees. For its fee rules, Circular 230 counts tax planning and advice as a "matter before the Internal Revenue Service" (31 CFR 10.27). Planning is professional work, and the rules treat it that way.

So "I'd want to see your returns and payroll before I give you a number" is the honest answer. It also happens to protect your fee.

What to say, word for word

Set the frame in the first two minutes:

"Here's how today works. I'll ask about your business and what you paid last year, and I'll tell you where I think the planning opportunities are. I won't give you specific numbers today, because I'd be guessing without your returns. If it makes sense, I'll tell you what a planning engagement would cover and what it costs."

When they push for an answer mid-meeting:

"That's the right question. The answer depends on your payroll and what the business clears, so I'd be making it up if I gave you a number now. It's one of the first things the plan would settle."

When they ask you to "just email me your thoughts":

"I'll send you a short summary of what we covered and the next step. The recommendations come with the plan, once I've seen the numbers."

Then send that summary. Facts you heard, the areas you would look at, the fee and the date. No recommendations.

See if your firm is a fit

Put the boundary in writing before the meeting

The cheapest fix happens before anyone sits down. Add one line to your booking page and confirmation email:

"This first meeting is to understand your business and see if planning makes sense. Specific recommendations come in the paid plan."

Some owners who only want free answers will cancel. That is a good result. The ones who keep the booking have agreed to the frame, which makes holding the line much easier.

Offer a paid first step

Some owners won't commit to a full year of planning after one conversation. Give them a smaller paid step with a fixed fee and a date. A one-off planning review with a written summary works well. The owner gets real answers, you get paid for the work, and the review shows what a full engagement would find.

Keep the scope tight and write it down. Our guide to proposals and engagement letters covers what goes in the letter.

Worked example (example numbers only, use your own): A firm runs 8 free consultations a month. Each one runs 45 minutes, plus 15 minutes of notes. That is 8 hours a month. If the owner bills planning work at $250 an hour, those 8 hours are worth $2,000 of time. If half the meetings end with free recommendations and no engagement, $1,000 of that time a month buys nothing. Tighten the frame and the same hours produce paid reviews.

What our marketing has taught us about free advice

We run marketing that fills tax firms' calendars with qualified planning meetings. Two parts of our process cut the free-advice problem before the owner arrives.

Fit is checked before the booking. Each owner is checked against the firm's written criteria before anything is booked. One of those criteria is that the owner wants proactive tax planning during the year, so an owner who only wants a free second opinion on last year's return doesn't meet it.
The firm runs the meeting and sets the fee. We don't give tax advice and we don't speak for the firm on tax matters. That keeps the line clean. The firm owner is the only person who gives a recommendation, and only once they're engaged.

Owners who come through a fit check already know the meeting is about whether planning makes sense. That makes the opening frame easy to say.

Mistakes that keep the free advice flowing

Answering the headline question in the first five minutes. It sets the pattern for the rest of the meeting.
Sending a free email recommendation. It is written advice, and it gives them something to forward.
Calling it a "free strategy session." The name promises strategy. Call it what it is, an introductory meeting.
No fee mentioned. If you never say what the engagement costs, the owner assumes the meeting was the product.
No next date. End with a date for the paid review or a clear no.

Where to start this week

Rewrite your booking confirmation with the one-line frame above.
Write your three buckets on one page and keep it next to you in meetings.
Practise the opening frame out loud until it takes under a minute.
Build one fixed-fee paid first step, with a written scope.
Check your last five consultation follow-up emails. Delete any recommendation language from your template.

Questions firm owners ask

Should a CPA offer a free tax consultation? Yes, if it is framed as an introductory meeting to learn the owner's facts and check fit. Keep specific recommendations for the paid engagement and say so in the booking confirmation.

How long should a free tax consultation be? Long enough to learn the facts that decide scope and price, and no longer. Set a fixed length you can hold, tell the owner at the start, and end with a fee and a date.

Is an email to a prospect covered by Circular 230? Circular 230 section 10.37 says written advice on federal tax matters includes electronic communication. A recommendation sent by email to a prospect has to meet the section 10.37 requirements, paid or not.

What free tax consultation advice can I give a prospect? General rules anyone can look up, such as the IRS reasonable compensation rule for S corporation owners, and questions about their facts. Recommendations for their specific numbers belong in the paid plan.

Sources

General information from the official sources listed below, checked 25 Oct 2026. Not tax or legal advice.

If you'd rather have qualified owners booked for you

Financial Sales Insider is a marketing company for US CPA and EA-led tax firms. We fill your calendar with qualified tax planning meetings. Our marketing finds business owners who fit your criteria, qualifies them, and books them with you.

20 qualified tax planning meetings in 90 days, guaranteed.

If you have fewer than 20 qualified meetings after 90 days, we keep booking with no further monthly fee until you reach 20.

A qualified meeting is one where a business owner we've qualified books onto your calendar and shows up.

See if your firm is a fit Form not loading? Book here.

Johnny Logan, Founder, Financial Sales Insider.

Financial Sales Insider · Florida · (305) 513-1710