Tax Review

They say the only sure things in life are death and taxes. As a result, most business owners do their best to file their taxes accurately and on time. But taxes are complicated, and people like us dedicate our professional lives to learning the nuances of the U.S. tax code and how to mitigate business and personal liability for our clients. It’s easy to miss business and personal deductions when tax software simply can’t analyze your specific tax situation.

Often, you need tax guidance for complex business and financial scenarios that the guy from the corner tax store chain simply hasn’t seen before. That’s where The Law Offices of Beverly Winstead can help. As part of our review of your tax liabilities, it’s a good idea to review prior-year tax returns as well.

Reviewing Prior Year Tax Returns

For many businesses and business owners, having a tax professional review past business tax returns can help plan ahead and mitigate risk from underpaid tax liability. A thorough review of your taxes can ensure:

• You haven’t overpaid taxes,
• You haven’t underpaid taxes, leading to possible fines and penalties from the IRS,
• Your business payroll taxes are accurate, ensuring that business owners and managers don’t face personal liability for unpaid trust fund taxes, and
• You correct errors proactively.

Ideally, we should do a past business tax return review within three years of filing the tax return. However, the IRS can audit your returns going back six years if you’ve underreported your income by 25% or more or indefinitely if the IRS believes you’ve committed tax fraud.

What We Review

As part of your past return review, we’ll focus on:

• Ensuring your gross income matches your 1099s, point of sale data, and financials,
• Account plan expenses such as cell phone and autos,
• 401K plans, SEP IRA, and profit-sharing plans,
• Health insurance, FSA, HAS, HRA, and LTC payments,
• Asset listings,
• Shareholder distributions,
• Balance sheet items,
• Operating expenses and the costs of goods sold,
• Journal entries,
• K-1 data and ownership percentages,
• Comparing your current year to previous years, and
• Tax planning for future years.

If a review of past returns reveals that your business has an unpaid or underpaid tax liability, we can modify your returns and negotiate tax liabilities, penalties, and interest with the IRS.

You Need Experienced Tax Advice

When you’re ready to review your tax liability, you need an experienced tax attorney to guide you through the process. Attorney Beverly Winstead is an award-winning tax attorney with extensive experience advising individuals, corporations, and nonprofits. At The Law Offices of Beverly Winstead, our attorneys offer skilled legal advice on a wide range of business and tax matters. Call us at 301-306-1234 or contact us online to schedule a consultation.