Strategy first. The return is the record.

Year-round tax planning

The compliance-only firm touches your file twice: once to gather documents in February, once to file in April. Everything that could have changed the number happened in the ten months in between, when nobody was looking. We structure the relationship so the conversations happen when they can actually change something: October projections, November elections, December timing decisions.

The return still gets filed. The difference is that by the time it does, the meaningful decisions have already been made.

New York PTET election timing

The New York Pass-Through Entity Tax is, dollar for dollar, one of the largest legal federal tax arbitrages available to New York partners and S-corp owners. The election is due March 15 and is irrevocable for the year. We run the PTET math annually for every eligible entity client in December, produce a one-page memo with a clear elect-or-skip recommendation, and calibrate quarterly payments against actual activity rather than last-year estimates.

NYC General Corporation Tax

New York City does not recognize the federal S-election. An S-corp operating in the five boroughs is, from the city's perspective, a C-corp, and pays entity-level GCT regardless of the federal treatment. Firms outside the five boroughs quietly miss this. Firms inside sometimes double-count it. We handle it correctly, and we factor it into the reasonable compensation and entity-structure conversations where it matters.

NY residency and domicile for high-income filers

New York runs the most aggressive state residency audit program in the country. High-income clients claiming non-residency face a multi-factor test that looks at days in the state, permanent place of abode, and the pattern of life. We document the residency position proactively, not reactively. For clients transitioning domicile to Florida or another low-tax state, we build the audit-defense file contemporaneously rather than scrambling to reconstruct it three years later.

Multi-state nexus analysis

For clients with income or activity across state lines, we build and maintain a state-by-state nexus matrix. Sales tax, income tax, and payroll tax each have their own nexus rules, and the thresholds have shifted materially since the 2018 Wayfair decision. Most firms rely on last year's filings as a proxy for the current year's nexus footprint. That is a real compliance gap, and it is growing.

Partner-specific allocation review

For 1065 partnerships, we read the operating agreement. Then we read the K-1s. Then we make sure they agree. Special allocations, guaranteed payments, preferred returns, and capital-account maintenance are the places where the gap between the agreement and the return turns into partner disputes. We close that gap before the return goes out.

Reasonable compensation for S-corps

Reasonable compensation is not a round number pulled from a rule of thumb. It is a documented analysis of what the owner's job would cost to hire in the open market, tempered by the retirement and QBI implications of the wage-vs-distribution split. We build the memo, and the memo sits in the file. If the number is ever challenged, the work is already done.

Extensions and why we generally prefer them

An extended return is not a late return. It is a return filed with complete information. For any client with K-1 inflows that arrive late, for any partnership with 704(b) capital questions still being reconciled, for any filer whose September picture is more accurate than their February one, the extension is the right answer. We extend by default for most entity clients and treat the spring deadlines as a formality.

Who this is not for

Simple W-2 filers with a single state, no business interest, and no unusual items are better served by a volume firm or self-prep software. We will say so. Our time is allocated to complexity, and a simple return is not where we add value net of our cost.