Business Tax Resolution

A business tax problem rarely arrives on its own. A payroll deposit is missed in a slow quarter, the 941s fall behind, and eighteen months later the IRS is proposing the trust fund recovery penalty against the owner personally. A sales tax audit opens because reported sales do not match bank deposits. A state sends an estimated assessment because a return was never filed. By the time an owner contacts me, the notice is usually the third or fourth in a sequence.

I represent businesses before the IRS and state departments of revenue on these matters — directly, as the CPA who reads the file, prepares the response and signs the workpapers.

The matters I handle

• Payroll tax: unpaid employment taxes, missed deposits, Form 941/940 problems, worker-classification questions, and the trust fund recovery penalty (Form 4180 interviews and responses).
• Sales and use tax audits: Florida DOR and Massachusetts DOR examinations, estimated assessments, markup and sampling methods, exemption and resale-certificate documentation, protests and appeals.
• Unfiled business returns: reconstruction of books from bank records; preparation of delinquent 1120, 1120-S, 1065 and state returns; the compliance clean-up that has to precede any payment arrangement.
• Collections: installment agreements, currently-not-collectible status, offers in compromise where the numbers support one, levy and lien responses.
• Penalty relief: first-time abatement and reasonable-cause requests, documented from the facts.

How the work runs

Every engagement starts with transcripts and records. Before I recommend anything I want to know what has been filed, what has been assessed, what the collection statute looks like, and what the books actually say. If the books cannot answer that, reconstruction comes first — it is unglamorous, and it is where most business cases are decided.

From there I set out the options: what can be requested, what each option costs in fees and time, and what the agency will need to see. Fixed fees for defined scopes are quoted after that review; published packages are on my store, and anything not on the store is quoted in writing before work begins. Where a fee is based on the reduction obtained — state audit representation, for example — it is offered only where Circular 230 §10.27, AICPA ET 1.510.001 and the applicable state board rules permit it, and it is set out in the engagement letter.

What I do not promise

I do not promise to stop a levy by a date, settle a debt for a fraction, or make a penalty disappear. Those outcomes depend on the facts, the statute and the agency. What I do commit to is that the response will be prepared by me, from your records, and that you will know where the case stands and what happens next.

What I am not

I am not an attorney. I do not give legal advice, draft operating agreements or bylaws, or represent clients in litigation. I do not perform attest services. I am licensed in Massachusetts (License 26369, since 2009) and practise in other states under CPA mobility rules for tax representation. The practice is remote; I meet clients anywhere in the U.S. by appointment.

If your matter is on that list, the thing I need next is its shape: which entity, which years, what the notices actually say, and whether payroll is part of it. That is what decides whether you are looking at a filing problem, a collection problem, or both wearing each other’s clothes, and it is not something a page can work out for you. Send me the outline of it and I will come back with the route I would take and a fixed fee for that route, before you commit to anything.

Next step

If a business notice has arrived, use the contact page and attach the notice; I will tell you what it means and whether the matter fits my practice. The How It Works page describes what an engagement looks like from intake to close.