Good Tax Attorney

If its federal income tax that you're worried about, state means next to nothing. You can even take it to a fed tax court if needed.
If you're dealing with state or local taxes, you need a state or local guy.
Give be about 5 years and I'll refer myself... Just finished my masters in taxation and I'm hoping to head to law school next august.
 
Ty, if you are being audited I can tell you from experience all you need is all your receipts. When we were audited last time the IRS claimed $160k was owed. I couldn't find an attorney to take the case for less than $40k. I made a commitment to do it myself. The auditor spent 2 weeks at a conference sized dining table filled from one end to the other with receipts for three years. At the end of two weeks he determined that we owed them $600 which I paid on the spot and that was the end of that.

On the other hand if you are just looking for information you might find that a thorough search of the internet will provide more reliable information.

The only time I ever had to pay penalties was when I used a professional accountant and had a tax attorney check the filing. (That was back in the 90's.) Since then we just have a good receipt filing system, built a good knowledge of the law and now all we have to do is keep up with the latest changes each year.

You have to do what you are comfortable with. I don't think lawyers have a clue as to what they are talking about in most cases. Most doctors these days don't either.

That reminds me. I file an extension every year. I've got to file within 10 days. Thanks for reminding me!
 
If its federal income tax that you're worried about, state means next to nothing. You can even take it to a fed tax court if needed.
If you're dealing with state or local taxes, you need a state or local guy.
Give be about 5 years and I'll refer myself... Just finished my masters in taxation and I'm hoping to head to law school next august.


Kyle, didn't mean to diss you in the last post. Maybe you can be a tax attorney that is worth something! :)
 
Tony, if you know how to search the code, and keep up with records, that's 95% of the battle. The problem is if you didn't, and after the fact.
Perhaps that could be my contribution to a round table down the road. How to keep records, what to keep, and why.
One of the only resources tax attorneys have that most people don't is a program to search the code, regulations, and rulings. But again, those are only really needed after the fact.
No offense taken!
 
That was old info anyway, we were audited for 2004,5, and 6 if memory serves me right.

Ty, if you keep all your receipts and keep them organized you cannot be beat in an audit if you have followed the law. Our auditor said he had never seen such perfect records. We had them stacked by year, then by categories and by date.

The hard thing is to keep track of what the law is. We have used turbo tax or other such software for years to file our taxes ourselves. They are pretty up to date on what is allowed and what isn't.

That may sound like a simplistic answer and a piece of software isn't going to be able to advise you how you need to spend your money at the end of the year but it will keep you out of hot water with the IRS.

If you spend 3 days setting up a filing system for your receipts and stick to it (and yes, that should include scanning, inputting into a program like quickbooks or peachtree AND physically filing reciepts AND if you dedicate another day every quarter you can make federal income taxes as painless as possible.

State income taxes are another story and I have zero experience with them. The last three states I did business in had no state income taxes.
 
I was audited (I think the new pc way the say it now is "reviewed") several years ago. My accountant took care of everything, I did absolutely nothing, nor did I have anything to hide.

Ty, if you are being audited I can tell you from experience all you need is all your receipts. When we were audited last time the IRS claimed $160k was owed. I couldn't find an attorney to take the case for less than $40k. I made a commitment to do it myself. The auditor spent 2 weeks at a conference sized dining table filled from one end to the other with receipts for three years. At the end of two weeks he determined that we owed them $600 which I paid on the spot and that was the end of that.

On the other hand if you are just looking for information you might find that a thorough search of the internet will provide more reliable information.

The only time I ever had to pay penalties was when I used a professional accountant and had a tax attorney check the filing. (That was back in the 90's.) Since then we just have a good receipt filing system, built a good knowledge of the law and now all we have to do is keep up with the latest changes each year.

You have to do what you are comfortable with. I don't think lawyers have a clue as to what they are talking about in most cases. Most doctors these days don't either.

That reminds me. I file an extension every year. I've got to file within 10 days. Thanks for reminding me!
 
When I was a private investigator in the late 80's and early 90's I used an accountant. EVERY single year I personally found errors in categorization that would have cost me hundreds or even thousands. The one year I didn't check I got hit with an $1800 penalty for something.

If you can't keep track of your own expenses and accountant is a good thing to have.

We have a filing system already set up and everyone just knows what section they go in. There is a ????? file for any receipts that we are uncertain about and I usually review that once a quarter or so and find between 3 and 4 receipts in it.

If you think that is too "simple" for a large business, I copied the filing system I use from a 40 million dollar security agency a friend of mine owns.

A good accountant costs a couple of hundred a month. A bad one costs thousands.
 
Tony, if you know how to search the code, and keep up with records, that's 95% of the battle. The problem is if you didn't, and after the fact.
Perhaps that could be my contribution to a round table down the road. How to keep records, what to keep, and why.
One of the only resources tax attorneys have that most people don't is a program to search the code, regulations, and rulings. But again, those are only really needed after the fact.
No offense taken!


That is a GREAT idea! Taxes seem to be a mystery to a lot of these guys. After I got hit with my first penalty years ago I took it upon myself to learn. It's not that hard. You don't have to know everything, you just have to know what pertains to YOUR particular business.

I think adding a tax forum would be a good idea on PWI as well as a "crash course" in small business filing of FIT.
 
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