Do your own Corporate taxes?

[Waxman]

I use quickbooks and we do all our bookkeeping in-house.

How hard would it be for me to import the information into Intuit's tax program???

I can't imagine my return will differ too much from last year's, which I paid $1500 to have prepared.

Thanks!

 

[soapy]

I have found that bankers like having the returns come from an accountant. It lends more credibility to the numbers.

 

[Waxman]

True. I hadn't thought of that. Bankers do look at my numbers every year.

However, I did find a firm to do it for $750.

Anyone get a better price than that?

 

[jprb]

If you have all of your accounting in quickbooks, it should be simple for the accountant to do your tax returns. We have an LLC, with four washes, and pay $200.00. I take him the reports from quickbooks, and he fills in the blanks on the tax forms. There may be more to it if you have a corporation, though.

JRPB

 

[Waxman]

Hmmm. 4 washes vs. 1 and a detail shop? Can't be too much more complex, even corp. vs. LLC. $200??? Great price.

 

[pitzerwm]

IMO, Yes you can import them to the tax return. I wouldn't worry about the banker until he bitches. All your accountant does is copy your numbers and charge you way too much. What you might do is take last years info and put it in the tax return and see if there is any differences. I've been doing mine for years, although I don't need to deal with bankers.

 

[Waxman]

Interesting point, Bill. It's true that we do all the grunt work of data entry for income and expense all year long, then the tax preparer inputs what we give them ino the return format.

I will look into this some more.

 

[bigleo48]

We keep our own books, but have our accountant do the tax returns and tax planning. Every year we sit down for a couple of hours and discuss the business along with our personal lives and where we want to be next year and moving forward. Then he will mull it over and come up with the best plan from a tax standpoint that fits us personally.

This year, he came up with a share rearrangement that would allow us to stream money as a dividend to my wife (as I still work full time in Telecom and she doesn't). It was a simple but ingenious way to get money out of the company with the lowest tax rate possible.

So I'll be sticking with my accountant...plus he's a car nut, so a regular customer.

BigLeo

 

[pitzerwm]

Most of the accountants that I've met or used weren't worth crap, I think Ted as a jewel.

 

[Waxman]

bill

care to elaborate?

 

[JK Xpress]

Dividends as well as LT Gains have been taxed at 15% for several years now.

So if your accountant just came up with this, I am sorry to break the news to you - he has not been doing a good job for you.

 

[Rudy]

I gave up on accountants 15 years ago when he told me I HAD to depreciate my car wash building over 31 years (instead of the 15 we are allowed to do). It was a waste of my money educating him instead of the other way around.

I use TaxCut Business which allows you to do LLC's, Sub S's etc. I do my own (2 Ltd. Partnerships, 1 LLC, 1 Sub-s, and Personal), and I pay him to "review" them. We are usually in and out in less than an hour and it costs less than a hundred bucks.

Oftimes, he finds a couple of things here and there....so it's worth it...but I'm not paying him to "fill in the blanks".

With modern software...it's not that hard.

 

[Waxman]

Well, I've been calling around and prices range from $750-2000. One CPA said his firm spends $10,000 per year in software alone. Bigger firms have more overhead, etc.

I have yet to find someone competent and cost-effective.

 

[pitzerwm]

That CPA firm buys the same software that you do, they just need 100's of copies. You are paying for all of those perks and overhead.

With the software and a little research, you can do it yourself. The odds are that you won't screw it up that bad, and the IRS will correct it. The CPA might show you something that you can write off that you didn't think about, but most software products run you through a list of stuff. You can also research on the Internet and over time, you will know what you need to know.

 

[Waxman]

Well, I've done some homework. I plan to try a tax program and import my qb.

 

[Waxman]

Corp.Taxes Update

Well, our corporate taxes were completed in-house. We did hire a professional for some help reconciling quickbooks items and calculating depreciation.

Completing the taxes was more complicated than we originally thought it would be. However, now that it has been accomplished, we have a better idea of how to calculate some of the tougher items as well as new methods in place to make quickbooks more accurately reflect the correct tax data/info.