The return itself
Individual, joint, Schedule C, S corp, partnership, and nonprofit returns. Filed accurately, on time, from records that reconcile.
Tax
Your return is a record of last year. Planning is about the next twenty.
Filing is the minimum. What we are looking for is what the return tells us about the decisions still in front of you.
The difference
Preparation is history. It reports what already happened, and by the time anyone reads it the decisions that produced it are a year old and cannot be changed.
Planning happens before. Which account you draw from, whether you convert this year or next, when you sell, when you claim. Those are all decided in advance, and a return only ever shows you what they cost after the fact.
Most people we work with came for the return and stayed for the planning.
What we handle
Conversion windows
The years between retiring and your first required distribution are usually the cheapest tax years you will ever have. They are also the easiest to waste.
Withdrawal order
Which account you draw from first changes your lifetime bill. The right order shifts as your income does, so it is a decision you make more than once.
The thresholds nobody warns you about
IRMAA raises your Medicare premium based on income from two years earlier. Cross it by a dollar and you pay the whole step.
Multi-year projection
A view of what the next ten returns look like, not just this one. Cliffs show up years before you reach them.
Amendments and cleanup
Prior years filed wrong, notices that arrived and got ignored, a 1099 nobody sent you. We reconstruct and fix what can be fixed.
Tax season
We take a limited number of returns each season, and we take them early. Books that do not reconcile get cleaned up before anything is filed, which takes time we would rather find in January than in April.
If you are looking for the cheapest possible filing, we are not it, and we will say so on the first call rather than the third.
If you are a business owner getting organized, start with the deduction checklist. If you would rather we took a look first, the short intake takes a couple of minutes.
Common questions
What is the difference between tax preparation and tax planning?
Preparation reports what already happened. By the time the return is filed the decisions behind it are a year old and cannot be changed. Planning happens before: which account you draw from, whether you convert this year or next, when you sell, when you claim.
What returns do you prepare?
Individual and joint returns, Schedule C and sole proprietor returns, S corp, partnership and other entity returns, and nonprofit information returns. We also handle amendments and multi-year reconstruction where prior years were filed wrong.
Do you take new tax clients during the season?
We operate with finite capacity during tax season and take a limited number of returns, early. Books that do not reconcile are cleaned up before anything is filed, which is work we would rather find in January than in April.
Start with your last return
It is the single most useful document you can bring, and reading it properly usually turns up something worth a conversation.