Individual Tax Return Engagement Letter: Fill & Download for Free

Individual returns take less time than business tax returns unless it contains many schedules (e.g., Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule C, Schedule E).The turnaround time varies, but your accountant should give you an ETA when you sign your Engagement Letter. Typically, the clock doesn’t start until you submit all the documents they need to get started.4 Ways to Get Fired by Your Accountant

Tax returns for 100 clients should gross about $25,000. Assuming the 80 family members are individuals and the remaining 20 are business owners, you will get bookkeeping work from 10% of those or 2 at an average of $50 per month is another $1,200 for a total gross of $26,200. If you are using offshore bookkeepers to just do the bookkeeping work, expect to spend $240 annually, if they are also doing tax prep, then another $5,000. Tax software, office supplies, marketing and advertising if you go really cheap is another $5,000 annually leaving you a net of $15,960.Things to watch out for (other have mentioned some of these)Most jurisdictions require 2 years of practical experience working for a licensed CPA before you can go into public practiceMost jurisdictions require a separate firm license to offer your CPA services to the publicThe IRS and many states are really down on sending confidential information for US taxpayers to offshore contractors. Be sure you get every client to sign an engagement letter authorizing you to share their tax information with non-US service providers. You cannot even keep tax files on a cloud server that is not located in the US these days.You don't have a lot of experience, so you will probably have to compete on price or become an expert in a narrow niche.Since the bulk of your starting clients are family members, know that family members usually expect to pay a discounted fee, so be prepared for that.

Mainly pretending to look busy while sitting at your desk. Arriving at 11 AM and leaving at 2 PM. Long Boozy lunches.A tax accountant will be able to take on twice as many clients by “Extending” all his/her clients and there is no penalty in doing so. Also the Extension is for 6 months so Feb-March 15th is spent doing Partnership and Corporate Extensions. The Estimated Tax Payments for all taxpayers are due March 15th so we must calculate their estimated Entire Year Income, Estimate the Tax Law changes that will be implemented by congress, and then 1/4 of the estimated total tax due for the year is due on March 15th.From March 15th-April 15th is spent filing the extensions due April 15th.April 16th no one goes to work.April 17th to May 15th is spent doing Foundation/Public Charity Tax Returns and also cleaning up any things that you should have done before April 15th but didn’t do because you didn’t have time. Like scanning in documents, creating open items lists, etc. Filing an extension does not require any calculation other than the Q1 estimate which is sent with the Extension so that you have ensured the client overpaid their taxes. When the exact Over-Payment is calculated when you file the completed return you will have the Over-Payment applied to the next year and it is treated as being the Equivalent of a Q1 payment.May 15th to June 15th we prepare the Q2 estimated Tax Payments.July is slow and people usually take vacations for two weeks. because the rest of the year you basically can’t take any vacation so all your PTO accumulated until you can literally take 21 days off in a row and your boss doesn’t mind because he is doing the same thing.August-September 15th all the extended Business Tax returns are completed and Q3 Estimaed Tax Payments are calculated. Q3 payments are not required but for businesses we now have their complete tax return which allows us to be more precise in estimating Total tax. Usually congress has passed it’s Tax update legislation by this time (hopefully).September 16th no one goes to workSeptember 17th to October 15th we complete all Individual Tax Returns.October 16th no goes to work.The last returns and potential work for the year are the extended Public Charities & Private Foundations due November 15th.Between November 15th and the Holidays the is usually not a single thing to do. My old firm gave use the last two weeks of the year off as paid Vacation in addition to our PTO. It was required vacation and the whol 10,000 person firm shut down for two whole weeks. The Big 4 Public Accounting Firms all do this. (PWC, KPMG, Deloitte, EY).Sometime before the year end you used to need to calculate whether to prepay the state Tax estimated tax payment as it’s due January 15th but due to changes in the Tax code for inflation or changes in tax rates the 16 day prepayment can have a tax benefit that is worth doing the calculation for. But no longer will this happen as you can’t deduct state taxes on your Federal return as of this year’s Tax Reform.January there is work to do but it is the kind of work like communicating with clients and getting our Engagement Letters (work contracts for each client must be drafted specific to that client but from a chosen set of legally iron-clad paragraphs.January 15th we have the Q1 estimates that we didn’t calculate for the Prepayment in December due.That’s The Tax Accountant cycle. I like that it is very very rigid and therefore predictable. Predictably busy, predictably lucrative.