Business Consulting Las Vegas - Tax Accountant

One of the biggest concerns that we have with our Las Vegas business consulting clients is, "How do I succession plan for my business?". In other words, 'How does the business owner build his business, grow it to a substantial size, and either have his children take over the business, have key employees take over the business, or just sell it to a third party?'. Business consulting in Las Vegas in an important first step, because typically it takes from 5 - 10 years to be able to transition the management, the style, and the culture that you developed in your business, as well as to make sure that the next generation wants to participate in the business in that way, or that there are key employees that have been trained and nurtured to operate the business and that they have been given sufficient control prior to you wanting to retire or transition out of the business completely.

Often times in Las Vegas it does take the management and the owner a few years where they may work closely with that replacement party (whether it by a child, or an employee, or even a third party). So they may have an employment contract for 2 or 3 years subsequent to the actual sale of the business. A successful business consulting plan is important because it provides for the continuing of the business, it allows the employees to feel secure and safe - that they have a job that will last for many many years, and it also allows the owner to feel good about the methods that he has used in preparing his business to meet the demands of the future.

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".

Therefore, if you want to save on taxes, one of the key tax preparation methods in Las Vegas is to keep track of the expenses that you pay.

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.