Business Audit Las Vegas - Tax Accountant

One of the things that I love about talking with my business audit clients in Las Vegas is helping them to find their story. Everybody has a reason to do what they do. You didn't start off one day and decide to start a Las Vegas grocery store. It was in your blood; your dad did it, your uncle did it, your mom did it, or you were a stock clerk and loved the business. Whatever it was, you're passionate about whatever it is you chose to do, and I love find the root of that passion for my clients, and helping them re-discover what is was that made them love their job when they started before we help them with their business audit.

Often times, as businesses grow, they become harder to run. You have employees and levels of management and it's a long way from you in the CEO suite down to the person, the little old lady that used to come by and buy produce from you (in my grocery example). So by helping clients identify what they're passionate about, we can try to structure their business back to the activities that give them the most happiness. That's an exciting thing that any business owner should keep in mind: "What are you passionate about?". Try to find a way to do that in what you do every day. Your Las Vegas business should be more than finances, taxes, an audits - find your passion.

Quite often, while doing tax preparation in Las Vegas, I get asked the question by small business owners, "How can I reduce my taxes?". Almost always, the most important thing that they forget is that they don't keep their receipts so that they can deduct all the expenses that they pay. It's important, for tax preparation, that the Las Vegas business owner keeps track, even if you just take an envelope and put the receipts that you paid for (whether cash, or by credit card) in that envelope every single day, and at the end of the year, or at the end of the month you just add those up and put those on the expense sheet - that's a huge way you can save, and quite often, small business owners will just throw away the receipts (or they can't find them when it comes time to do their tax return)

Some of the most common areas where people forget their expenses are in the materials or the supplies that they might pay for. If they're a contractor for instance - they may run to a local hardware store and pick up some small supplies they need for a job, but they forget to keep the receipt, or forget to put it in that box or envelope at the end of the day. As well, there are office expenses, or meal and entertainment expenses. If they take employees out to lunch, or pay for a dinner with current clients or customers, and then they forget that, "Oh, that was something that I need to go ahead and deduct on my tax return".

As a Las Vegas accountant, one of the things that I get asked a lot is, "What should you ask an accountant in Las Vegas if you are considering hiring one?". One of the most important things is there licensing (their credentials, exactly what they have other licenses in). You should contact their state board of CPAs and the American Institute of accountants to see whether or not there has been any disciplinary actions put against them, and also check out their licenses - they usually do have them posted in their offices.

One of the other things that you should ask a Las Vegas accountant about is their fees: how do they charge you, is it an hourly billing, is it a value billing, what exactly will they charge you for phone calls, what type of meetings can you have with them on a regular basis? You want to make sure that you understand that before you hire an accountant. Additionally, you want to ask them how you could reduce your fees. Do you charge me less or more if I bring in a box of receipts? Could I possibly do some of the work and keep my fees at a minimum? One of the last things that I would consider asking them is 'what their strategies are with their financial statements and their tax returns?'. Are they aggressive, or are they conservative? You want to hire someone who is exactly like yourself. If you're aggressive and you like to take an aggressive strategy on your tax return, you want to make sure that an accountant is willing to look at that without disobeying the laws.