Tax Consulting Services

Tax Consulting Services for Houston Businesses

Tax consulting services can help Houston businesses and individuals with the following tax concerns:

Forecasting tax liabilities throughout the tax year
Developing a tax strategy that minimizes taxes
Optimizing deductions and credits for a business or individual
Ensuring their clients maintain tax compliance and remain within the scope of the tax code
Assisting with tax preparation and tax return filing
Assisting with a larger tax strategy that includes tax planning

Given the complexity of tax laws – especially for business owners – many tax paying organizations work with a tax advisor to provide valuable advice and knowledge on current tax laws.

What Tax Consulting Services Can do for Houston Businesses and Individuals

A tax consultant can provide value in several ways to taxpaying entities, including:

Ensuring all tax obligations are met – A tax consultant can update their clients on their tax liabilities throughout the tax year to ensure they’re on track with withholding. In this way, tax advisors can oversee tax compliance for businesses and prevent their clients from running afoul of the IRS tax code – which comes with expensive penalties.
Reducing tax liabilities for the current tax year – A tax advisor can utilize various short-term strategies to reduce a client’s taxes for the current tax year. This includes identifying and taking certain deductions, accelerating or deferring income or expenses, changing the entity’s tax structure, setting up tax-advantaged accounts and other tax solutions.
Advising on complicated tax matters – Tax laws are complicated enough for individuals, but they are practically inscrutable for business owners. Tax experts have the experience and knowledge to advise on complicated business transactions, ensuring all taxes are accounted for, and minimizing those tax liabilities where possible.

Tax consulting services are ideal for businesses or individuals who may need general tax advice at any point. It is common for tax consulting to eventually branch out into other services, such as tax planning, IRS audit preparedness or attestation services.

How Tax Consulting Services Fit into a Larger Tax Strategy

You can think of tax advisor services as an entry point into a larger tax planning strategy. As your tax advisor becomes more familiar with your personal or business financial circumstances, they can expand on their tax services. For example, an experienced tax consultant can provide the following:

Tax preparation – Tax preparation is a basic service for experienced tax consultants and accountants. During tax preparation, your accountant will complete all necessary tax forms and file them with the IRS on time. Though this is often a simple process, in some cases, a tax accountant will need to do a deeper dive into their client’s accounts to access this information.
Tax projections and analysis – Tax projections and analysis are helpful for assessing a taxpayer’s current tax liabilities and how they may change depending on income projections and the taxpayer’s decisions. This provides a useful snapshot into the company’s or individual’s tax obligations, and tax projections can also be used to model different scenarios, depending on what transactions the taxpayer enters into.
Tax planning – Tax planning services are similar to tax consulting and tax projections, but they provide a long-range view of a taxpayer’s tax obligations. The goal of tax planning is to develop a multi-year tax strategy that minimizes liabilities and maximizes savings. In a way, tax planning is the ultimate goal for tax consultants – creating a long-term tax-saving approach for their clients.
Audit preparedness services – A tax accountant can also ready their clients for a potential IRS audit, whether an audit is considered likely or not. Audit preparedness services identify gaps in tax compliance and provide steps that taxpayers can take to close up those gaps.
IRS representation – If a business or individual is targeted by the IRS for an audit, some tax consultants can represent their client before the agency. This includes receiving and responding to all IRS communications, and arguing the client’s case to the IRS should their tax information come under scrutiny.

Partner with a Reputable CPA for Tax Consulting Services

Only a small number of tax professionals can offer a full range of tax consulting services. They include certified public accountants (CPAs), some financial planners, and tax specialists known as enrolled agents. Some accounting firms have all three on staff, and these companies are best equipped to advise on tax matters for the following reasons:

Experience and knowledge with tax laws – CPAs are tax experts. Their training, education and on-the-job experience all concern the application of various tax laws, and they are required to maintain their tax code knowledge with continuing education. No other expert is specialized in tax laws to the same degree.
Able to provide a full array of tax services – Some CPAs are so experienced with taxes that they can offer a comprehensive range of tax services. These are customized to the client and may involve tax preparation, tax analysis, tax planning, audit preparation and other services. In short, a reputable CPA can provide all of your tax needs.
Authorized to represent clients to the IRS – CPAs, along with tax attorneys and enrolled agents, are the only professionals qualified to represent taxpayers before the IRS. In fact, the IRS won’t work with anyone else, even if someone claims to be a tax expert otherwise.

The IRS doesn’t license enrolled agents or other representatives, but they do have regulatory power regarding how representatives present themselves to the agency. If your tax advisor has a long history of IRS representation, you can assume they have satisfied the agency’s knowledge and character requirements.