Need to Know Tax Income Tax 2026 · The Member Program

For your tax practice

Referrals, without asking.

With this online publication, the people who refer you send their clients a tax guide in January, and your practice is the name on every page.

Every tax practice lives on referrals, and every January the realtors, lenders and advisors who refer you are looking for a reason to write to their own clients.

Need to Know Tax gives them one: a plain-English guide to this year's return, in an edition that carries their name on the door and your practice on every page. They send it. Their clients read it. You are the firm that answers the questions.

  • A ninety-article tax guide, online, in an edition for your state. No firm named inside, nothing sold.
  • Your practice's name on every article as the firm that answers readers' questions.
  • Your referral sources — realtors, lenders, advisors — each get an edition with their name on the door, your name inside. Their lists are bigger than yours, and they send it to people you have never met.
  • Their edition is a marketing piece for them — one you can charge them for, or give to the ones who matter most. Either way your seat pays for itself.
  • Three seats in Colorado. First come.
A client resourceEdited by Charles Trautman, EA

2026 tax year · the return you file in 2027

Income Tax2026

Need to Know·Federal & Colorado

  • Tax aversion therapiesLegal ways to pay less, by who you are
  • What changed for your 2026 returnTips, overtime, the senior deduction, SALT
  • Why Colorado is differentTABOR, the flat rate, and the November ballot
  • Social Security, RMDs & the Medicare cliffWhy one dollar over the line costs a year of premiums
  • The child tax credit, day camp and collegeWhat families leave on the table

The Colorado edition · questions answered by

Your Tax Practice

Your name, EA or CPA · your phone · your website

Ninety articles, four calculators, an organizer. Check it out at needtoknowtax.com/co

It names no firm and sells nothing

The articles are the same for every reader. Your name is on the frame, never in the content. That is why people read it, and why a realtor can send it without embarrassment.

It pays for itself

A champion's edition is a marketing piece for the champion, and you can charge for it. A few paid editions cover the seat; the rest you can give away.

It is a handshake in January

Your name, in the house, at the one time of year everyone is thinking about taxes — before they pick a preparer, not after.

Your champions reach further than you do

A practice has a client list. A realtor has a past-client list, a lender has a borrower list, an advisor has a book — each usually bigger than yours, and none of them yours to write to. Six champions sending one link in January put your name in front of a few thousand households you have never met.

Two covers, one publication

Think of the t-shirt a good restaurant sells. The customer pays for it, wears it, and the restaurant’s name goes everywhere the customer goes. The publication is the shirt; your champions wear it. Your edition goes to your clients, your champions’ editions go to theirs, and every page credits your practice.

1 · Your edition

A client resourceEdited by Charles Trautman, EA

2026 tax year · the return you file in 2027

Income Tax2026

Need to Know·Federal & Colorado

  • Tax aversion therapiesLegal ways to pay less, by who you are
  • What changed for your 2026 returnTips, overtime, the senior deduction, SALT
  • Why Colorado is differentTABOR, the flat rate, and the November ballot
  • Social Security, RMDs & the Medicare cliffWhy one dollar over the line costs a year of premiums

The Colorado edition · questions answered by

The Tax Shop, Lone Tree

Charles Trautman, EA · 303-734-1040 · taxshop.tax

Your practice on the cover, your letter inside, your name at the foot of all ninety articles. Send the link to your own client list in January.

2 · Your champion's edition

A client resourceEdited by Charles Trautman, EA

2026 tax year · the return you file in 2027

Income Tax2026

Need to Know·Federal & Colorado

  • Tax aversion therapiesLegal ways to pay less, by who you are
  • What changed for your 2026 returnTips, overtime, the senior deduction, SALT
  • Why Colorado is differentTABOR, the flat rate, and the November ballot
  • Social Security, RMDs & the Medicare cliffWhy one dollar over the line costs a year of premiums

Compliments of

Maryann Hinrichsen

Realtor · RE/MAX Mountain States · 303-555-0142

Your champion's face and name on the door, a note in her words, and on every article inside: "Questions about this article in Colorado are answered by The Tax Shop, Lone Tree." She sends it to four hundred past clients. You never wrote a word.

How it works

One publication, three doors. Every door opens on the same articles; the only thing that changes is whose name is on the frame.

The publisherNeed to Know Tax writes, edits and keeps the articles current. Charles Trautman, EA, editor.
→
The member — your practiceYour state's edition, with your name on every article as the firm that answers questions. Your own door to send to your clients.
→
Your championsRealtors, lenders, advisors who refer you. Each gets a champion edition: their name on the door, your practice credited inside.
→
Their clientsOpen it on a phone, read what applies to them, and know who answers tax questions in your state.
  1. You take a seat. Your state's edition carries your practice on every article; you get a door page and a console.
  2. You name your champions. Each gets a door page of their own in ten minutes: headshot, name, brokerage, a note in their words.
  3. They send it in January. One link to their whole client list. Their name at the top of every page, your practice at the foot of every article.
  4. The questions come to you. Every article ends with "Ask a question"; the form lands on your desk, with the reader's name and the champion who sent them.

A reader who finds the state edition on their own, through a search, sees the state's member practices and the nearest one.

What a member gets, and what a champion gets

The member practice

  • One of a small number of seats in your state. Three in Colorado; other states in proportion to population. No territory inside the state — first come.
  • Your name and phone on every article of the state edition, as the firm that answers readers' questions. The Ask-a-question form on each article comes to you.
  • Your own door page to send your clients: your card at the top, your letter, the cover, the table of contents.
  • A page in your words: why you do this work, how you see the tax code, and that you're here if and when they need you. It introduces the publication to your clients and sits behind every champion's door as the practice that answers their questions.
  • Six champion editions to offer the people who refer you, more if you want them. Charge for them or give them away — your call. The publisher charged realtors $1,000 for the first ones.
  • A bylined section on the state pages for your own notes about your state's tax — the credit nobody takes, the thing the state audits. Your name on it, lightly edited for accuracy.
  • Credit on the About page as the practice that reviewed the state edition before the season.
  • A console: your champions, their editions, the questions readers asked, and the figures that changed since publication.

The champion

  • A door page of their own in ten minutes: headshot, name, brokerage, phone, a note in their words, and tap-to-call and save-contact buttons on a phone.
  • A link they send to their whole sphere in January — and every January after, with the new year's edition behind the same link.
  • Their name at the top of every page the reader opens; your practice credited on every article.
  • A few sentences about you, in their words — how long they've sent clients your way, that the phone gets answered, that there's a tax professional on hand. A referral in writing, at the top of a page their clients will read.
  • A share image, so the text message or email preview shows their name before anyone taps.
  • A reason to be in touch with every past client once a year that is not a listing and not a request.
What it looks likeA Champaign realtor sends his January email to 400 past clients with his edition's link. Two hundred open it on their phones. His face is at the top; the Illinois article on the exemption allowance, the retirement-income subtraction and the property-tax credit are a tap away; at the bottom of each one is the line that says the member practice in Champaign answers questions. In February, eleven of those readers call that practice. The realtor paid the practice for the edition, or was given it. The practice paid for the seat. The publisher wrote the articles.

What's in it

Ninety articles on the 2026 return, every one with a lead that says the one thing that matters, a worked example in real dollars, a "Behind the scenes" box on why the rule is what it is, a "What to bring" list for the appointment, the questions people actually ask, and links to the real forms. Federal articles in every edition; a state section written for each state — how the state return starts, what it does with retirement income, the credits for families, moving in or out, what changed this year, and the calendar. Four calculators. An organizer. The 2027 tax calendar.

The figures are checked in December against the IRS tables and each state's own pages, and anything that moves during the season goes on an updates page. Member practices review their state's edition before it goes live, which is why every state page carries a reviewer's credit rather than a disclaimer.

Read the Colorado edition · Illinois · Florida

The preparer is not going away

Every January the headlines say artificial intelligence will do everyone's taxes. It won't, and the reason is on the signature line. A return needs someone who asks the questions the software doesn't, knows the client's history, signs under penalty of perjury, and answers the phone when the IRS writes. AI tools sign nothing and answer to no one.

This publication uses AI to explain the rules. The return still goes to a person, and the relationship with that person is the part no software replaces. That is why every article ends with a name and a phone number — yours — and why the edition carries an article of its own, Should you trust AI with your taxes?, that makes the case to your clients in ten points.

What it costs

$3,000 per seat, per season

Two payments: $1,500 on signing in December, $1,500 due February 26, 2027. The state edition with your name on it, your door page, six champion editions, the console, and the December review. Renewal for 2027 at the same price for charter members.

Your call champion editions

Charge your champions for their editions or give them away; whatever you charge is yours to keep. Editions beyond the six included are $125 each to the publisher.

There is nothing else to buy. No printing, no postage, no design fee; a champion's page is built from a form, and the figures are kept current by the publisher through the filing season.

If the second payment isn't made, the seat's privileges end: your name comes off the articles, the console closes, and the champion editions stop. Nothing else is owed.

Who is behind it

Need to Know Tax is published by Charles Trautman, EA, who has prepared income tax returns since he was sixteen in his mother's office and has run the Tax Shop in Lone Tree, Colorado since 2010. In the 1990s he published The ABCs of Education, an annual guide to the Front Range school districts that realtors and mortgage companies gave to families moving to Colorado — forty thousand copies a year. This is the same idea, for taxes, online, in every state. The Tax Shop holds one of the three Colorado seats like any other member.

See your state's edition

Read your state's edition, then let us build you a door page with your practice's name on it so you can show it to a realtor you know. Ten minutes, no commitment.

Ask about a seat Find your state's edition