One reason that everyone is so down right now is that we just got through the tax season that never ended. We couldn't do much in April because we were too busy taking calls about the stimulus payment and business loans. July was just like the usual April. Immediately after it was time for extensions, and October was just like April. Then it was time for CE. In between there were many more calls from clients who needed help with loans, retirement distributions, new W4s that are incomprehensible, and on and on. We never got a break, and for those who took a few days off there was no travel so we never really got away from it all.
Another reason is that there were so many changes to the tax code, and changes to the changes, that our brains are overloaded. We now have to take update courses to the updates we already took. One poster said that she just didn't feel competent going into the coming season, and I think that feeling haunts many of us.
Hang in there. We've mastered huge changes before and will again. The new heads of the IRS and Office of Professional Responsibility seem to hear us and to be genuinely supportive (as opposed to treating us like enemies of the gov't and their personal hit men). As the virus winds down and the IRS and congress get their acts together, things have to get better.