Many CFOs’ businesses have been affected by the Trump administration’s tariffs, but since the trade situation is ever-changing, discussing it with stakeholders can prove challenging. In a recent webinar, April Scee, managing director and head of strategic communications at consulting firm Riveron, gave advice for communicating with investors, boards, customers, and employees around tariffs.

What stakeholders want to know has changed: Earlier in the year, Scee said, stakeholders were interested in the “headline number,” or the total amount tariffs might cost a company. Now, she said, “the narrative has shifted away from ‘here’s the hit’ to ‘here’s how we’ve absorbed it, or some of it, and kept moving.’” Stakeholders now want to hear about companies’ tariff mitigation strategies, such as changing suppliers, contract terms, or pricing.

Executives need to be “somewhat prescriptive on what [their] tariff playbook is,” Scee said. They “need to talk about what’s going to show up in the P&L and when,” she said. For instance, if a company’s changing prices, leaders should discuss when the changes will affect consumers and how they’ll impact margins.

Transparency is key: Scee praised both Ford and Procter & Gamble for their approach to discussing tariffs. Ford’s “communication in 2025 wasn’t elegant, but it was really honest” and covered “the issues, the timing, and the fixes.” The approach worked because “while investors didn’t love the numbers, they respected the straight talk, and when things normalize, that transparency should pay off,” Scee said.

Procter & Gamble provided “a model of precision,” Scee said, because they quantified the effect of the tariffs early on.

“They stripped out the uncertainty and they showed how tariffs flowed through to the P&L,” she said, which gave investors confidence. “Investors appreciated the relative predictability in an unpredictable environment,” she said.

How should CFOs be talking about tariffs?—CV

EY’s governing board has nominated Dante D’Egidio, current vice chair of assurance for EY Americas, to be the next head of its US unit, the Wall Street Journal reported.

EY partners still need to vote D’Egidio in. If he gets the spot, he’ll take the reins from Julie Boland, who’s retiring next year upon reaching EY’s mandatory retirement age of 60.

D’Egidio, who has worked at EY since 1994, leads around 30,000 people in the firm’s US audit branch. He’s helped EY lower its audit deficiency rate from 46% in 2022 to 28% in 2024 by taking such steps as reducing the number of audit clients it served, introducing more technology, and centralizing support. (From 2022 through 2024, EY had the highest deficiency rate in the Big Four.) The firm predicts its deficiency rate will be below 9% this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

D’Egidio has also written about EY’s $1 billion plan to shore up the accounting pipeline. The initiative includes higher starting salaries. “Accounting skills are so fundamental to the global economy that accounting graduates deserve early career compensation on par with that of other business degree holders,” he and coauthor Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas vice chair for talent, said in an article a year ago.

For more on EY’s new leadership, click here.—CV

The IRS is shrinking yet again.

Last week, the agency notified nearly 1,400 more workers they were being laid off, according to the Journal of Accountancy, which cited recent court documents. The reduction affected employees in exam and collections, information services, and shared services and support, the news outlet reported.

The IRS has already let go of about one-quarter of its workforce, CFO Brew previously reported. The IRS had approximately 103,000 employees as of February, and nearly 25,400 had left or taken a buyout offer by May, according to a July report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The reduction impacted about 27% of the agency’s tax examiners, who review tax returns for accuracy, and 26% of its revenue agents, who conduct audits on both individuals and businesses, the report noted.

Funding is also a challenge at the beleaguered agency. The IRS was set to receive $80 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act, but Congress reduced that funding to $37.6 billion, according to an October TIGTA report. The IRS had spent about 37% of its IRA funding by March. Various 2026 federal budget proposals would further reduce IRS annual funding by around 20%, according to the report.

Keep reading here.—AZ

Private equity is reshaping accounting like never before. From mega roll-ups and skyrocketing valuations to bold PE-backed CPA deals and ESOP experiments, the industry is in flux. Explore how PE is transforming firm culture, governance, and the future of Main Street CPA—an accounting revolution you won’t want to miss.