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Client Letter Guidlines
Client letters are generally a matter of preference to a degree. Although tax professionals may
differ in their approach a few issues are essential in assuring that the client letter is effective in
communicating research findings and conclusions. Failure to appropriately communicate with
clients creates a loss of effectiveness and an increase in practice risk.
Technical Sophistication
The most important issue relates to the tax sophistication of the client. This will determine the
writing style that the tax professional should adopt. The writing style needs to be tailored to each
specific client to adequately address their needs. More sophisticated clients will appreciate a
high level of technical information and citations while a taxpayer without a lot of tax expertise
would prefer a letter written in layman’s terms with less detail.
Communication with the client should be written in laymen terms. In general, detailed citations
are omitted. However, the failure to present some general cites may cause some clients to
question the tax professional’s research thoroughness and credibility. Even if the client’s
personnel are not tax sophisticated, a more detailed presentation of the findings might be
appropriate. For example, the client may request a detail tax research summary in addition to a
short opinion letter. When the tax research issues are part of a larger transaction the tax
professional should assume that the client will need the detailed research findings.
