Las Vegas Cpa - Tax Audit

I'm a Las Vegas CPA who just came out of a meeting with a bunch of students. They were down at a recruiting visit down in Southern Utah. And one of the things we told them when they're looking for an employer is to "find your fit". And that is an absolutely important tip I can give to any business owner as well: When you're looking for an advisor - your attorney, your insurance agent, your Las Vegas CPA - these are people you're going to have to trust an awful lot with the personal details of your life and with the success of your business in some case, and so you need to take the time to interview people and see whether you relate to them, and whether it's somebody that you can trust, someone you can get on the phone and talk to, and someone who shares your values.

Maybe they have a similar appetite for risk. You may not be as cutting edge as your CPA wants to be on taxes, and that may make you uncomfortable. Or, your CPA may be more conservative than you want to be. So it's very important that you spend the time on this relationship at the front, because it's much easier to spend it then, than to change CPAs every 2 or 3 years. So, "find your fit" when choosing a Las Vegas CPA.

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.

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.