“So how much do you charge for a tax return?”
We don’t charge for tax returns, but we do ask you to invest in your relationship with us. That’s not just money, that also means time and commitment. Here’s what we discuss with our clients when we’re setting our fee structure with them.
First, let’s talk about what working together with SargentPC looks like:
Fall planning: Our relationships begin in August and September for a reason, the most important part of our year is our fall planning with our clients where we help them project their upcoming current year tax liability, look for opportunities to optimize their tax situation, and generally check in to be sure they’re on solid financial footing.
Spring filing: Tax returns are due April 15th right? Not for our clients! Because we’ve done planning and they’ve paid their estimates all year, our clients get an extension of time to file their taxes all the way to October! We don’t wait that long, but we do pre-schedule our clients for appointments from March through June so that every tax return we do gets the time and attention it deserves to be accurate and optimized!
Education all year long: We send a monthly newsletter in the first week of the month with reminders of important deadlines and tax advice you can actually use! We also host a monthly open house on topics relevant for our clients. These are held on the 3rd thursday of the month at 4EST.
Customized reminders: Are you never really sure if you need to do something for taxes? We set up every client with email reminders just for them with their specific action items and links to make any related payments directly on the state websites. No more mailing paper!
That all sounds great, but seriously, what do you charge?
Every client’s needs are different, but below are a few typical cases and the investments we ask our clients to make for them:
Self-employed “Freelancer” - We ask that you invest in keeping track of your income and expenses over the course of the year, tell us about important changes in your life, ask questions, and the typical financial investment is between $2,000-3,000 per year, divided into a fall and spring invoice.
Owner operated S-corps - We ask that you invest in a real small biz accounting system like Quickbooks, a payroll processor like Gusto, and the typical financial investment is between $4,000-$5,000 per year for the combined business and personal returns, divided into a fall and spring invoice.
Funded startups - We ask that you invest in proactive communication with us about R&D investments, multistate staff, and the typical financial investment is between $4,000-$8,000 per year for the business returns, divided into a fall and spring invoice. Personal returns are invoiced separately and depend on the level of additional complication and/or pass through activity.
Established businesses with employees - We ask that you invest in understanding your financial operations, staying on top of multistate presence, and the typical financial investment is between $4,000-$8,000 per year for the business returns, divided into a fall and spring invoice. Personal returns are invoiced separately and depend on the level of additional complication and/or pass through activity.
Change activists and career builders - We reserve 5% of our total capacity to offer services to clients doing important work in areas like climate change and social activism as well as young first time freelancers at no financial investment. We do, however ask them to invest their time and energy in the same things our standard rate clients do, along with a little extra work in their area of skill. We rotate these spots yearly.
We certainly have tax relationships that fall outside those ranges, but those are where many of our typical clients land. We also often get asked about bookkeeping services which we’ve got a whole separate page on!
Ben & Team