Flat Rate Value Billing

All Returns are prepared by a CPA, not simply a registered tax preparer, which could be quite valuable to you, the client.   All tax preparers are not the same.  When we prepare your taxes you're receiving extraordinary value.  You're getting Big 4 CPA trained knowledge at your disposal coupled with training in Manhattan's financial services industry, providing the best of both worlds of public and private industry accounting experience. Our Tax Processing software is Drake, our research tools and clients are from CCH Wolters Kluwer & Bloomberg - updated daily.   Visit our site for 1 week and you'll see our tax and accounting knowledge is vast and deep.  

$125

Federal & (1) State Return

Up to 10 of the following: W-2(wage earning statement), 1099 - INT, 1099-DIV, Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Credit, Student Loan Interest, 1098 - E, complete with e-filing and direct deposit of your tax refund for both federal and state returns.

Itemized deductions (Schedule A), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship) (Schedule C), and Supplemental Income and Loss from Rental Real Estate, Royalties, Partnerships, S Corporations, estates, trusts, REMICs, etc.(Schedule E) will all fall under the $225 pricing category.

$225

Any taxpayer who can itemize their deductions OR who has one activity (i.e., rental property, self-employment income, K-1 income, Schedule D (significant stock sales - greater than 20 transactions).  Taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions, yet have 11 or more tax documents are included in this service level.   If your "one activity" requires significant preparation such as lengthy depreciation schedules or require updated bookkeeping, you will fall into the $425 Pricing Category.

$425

Any taxpayer who has multiple activities (rental property, partnership income, self-employment income, etc.)   Taxpayers with complex single activities also fall into this category.

$525

Reserved for clients that have the most complicated tax situations (i.e., significant activities, etc.)

Additional Services

$50 Per additional state

$75 Significant additions or changes

$25 Paper filing of the return

$125/hr Extensive tax research or phone consultation outside of the scope of the engagement

All our services are billed flat rate hence you will know the full fee prior to us going to work for you.  Our pricing menu should provide guidance for Tax Preparation/Filing services for example.   We listen to you, your needs, and have a conversation with you so we are both clear in our understanding of your expectations.   This conversation is essentially an exercise wherein you are adding or removing value to what you want and getting to the heart of what's important to you.   Our contract is called an FPA (Fixed Price Agreement).  In order to document the understanding between us as to the scope of the work that you define, and we will perform, we are entering into this Fixed Price Agreement . To avoid any misunderstandings, this Agreement defines the services we will perform for you as well as your responsibilities under this Agreement.   

Our price structure allows you the client to focus on our "total value proposition" including the unlimited access to us - rather than be concerned about incurring billable time.  You will have unlimited access, phone support, transaction analysis.  Because our Fixed Price Agreement provides ongoing access to the tax compliance and business advice you need on a fixed-price basis, you are not inhibited from seeking timely advice by the fear of a meter running endlessly. (See our pricing schedules for accounting and business consulting services)

While the fixed price entitles your company to unlimited consultation with us, if your question or issue requires additional research and analysis beyond the consultation, that work will be subject to an additional price, payment terms, and scope to be agreed upon before the service is performed, and a Change Order will be issued to document this understanding.

Furthermore, the parties agree that if an unanticipated need arises (such as, but not limited to, an audit by a taxing agency, a financial statement audit or compilation required as part of a lender financing agreement, or any other exogenous service not anticipated in this agreement by the parties) that ExactCPA hereby agrees to perform this additional work at a mutually agreed-upon price. This service will be invoiced separately to you, using a Change Order.

You have some options when it comes to getting your taxes prepared. You can do it by hand, purchased or downloaded a personal tax preparation software suite, or take your taxes to a large CPA firm or one of the big tax preparation franchise offices. Unless you have some experience with tax preparation or your tax return is of the 1040-EZ variety, I think ExactCPA is a better option for you than any of the above.

Compared to personal tax software:

• ExactCPA saves you time and worry. We may be more expensive than most of the individual tax preparation software suites, but if you put a dollar value on your time, and on having to worry whether you got everything right, and on the likelihood that we'll know of a deduction or a planning tip that will save you money in the long run… Well, the price difference between ExactCPA and the do-it-yourself software can shrink or reverse pretty quickly.
• No pressure to make additional purchases, whether that’s an upgrade to the “super deduction finder” version of the tax software, or an additional $35 “special guarantee”, or a “quick-and-easy IRA” with fees so high they’ll eat up whatever earnings the IRA happens to make.

Compared to a large CPA firm:

• The person you meet with is the same person that prepares your taxes, and that person is a fully-licensed CPA. If you bring your taxes to a large CPA firm, after your appointment it’s likely that the CPA you’ve met with will hand your tax documents off to someone else to prepare. That someone may or may not be licensed, and they will then give the completed tax return back to the CPA for review and signature only. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but most people would want to know who’s actually doing the work!

Compared to the large tax preparation franchises:

• Compensation packages for preparers at the big franchises are typically structured so that the preparer has a financial incentive to prepare your taxes as quickly as possible, and move right on to the next client. You may not end up getting the attention you deserve, to say the least. You may, but you may not… and that’s the point: who knows?
  And then there’s the pricing structure. We are not going to charge you extra amounts based on the tax credits the government is giving you, as if we deserved a piece of them! Which seems to be standard practice among a lot of the tax preparation franchises. They’ll say they’re charging you for filling out “additional forms”, but seriously, here’s an experiment for you: Call up one of the franchises, and tell them you’re single, 25 years old, make $20,000 from one job, and have no kids. See what price they quote. Then try again, but this time tell them you’ve got two kids, so that you qualify for the additional child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, both of which are large tax credits intended primarily for families with low incomes. See how much your tax preparation fees go up, due to the additional forms associated with those credits? Seriously, you won’t believe it. Do you know how much time it takes them to do the paperwork for those additional forms? Maybe 5 minutes. So why are they so expensive? There are many good people who work for the large tax franchises, but that doesn't mean you should overpay for service.