Firms for reviewing Tax Returns before filing

[Arijit De]

I live in San Jose CA and have been working with my CPA for the last 8 years and he's been great in handling the W2, capital gains, etc. However, since last 3 years I've grown my real estate portfolio and have realized that perhaps he has limited knowledge in the real estate investing tax deductions, strategies, reduce ordinary income, depreciations, etc. It was like I was educating myself and then taking to my CPA proposing a strategy and then he would think and let me know "Yeah something like that exist but we only talk about these with our real-close clients". I don't know what it means but I have come to believe he may not be the right person as expert for real estate investor.

For the current 2020 year, I have shared details of claiming REPS status for my wife, reports of my cost segregation studies, 481a adjustment details for 2019 years adjustment to accounting method, etc. So we're in mid-late phase of the tax preparation where numbers are getting churned. However, I feel I could really benefit from reviewing the draft by a firm or expert CPA who specializes in real estate. My plan is that after engaging for review this year, maybe I will move to that firm for subsequent years for my tax filing and tax strategies.

I am not sure if any firm engages in this capacity - just review the final draft for 2020 to provide their inputs for changing anything. Do any of you have any experience similar to this? Really want to work with some folks or companies who has good experience in the real estate world.

[Michael Plaks]

@Arijit De

Whenever you have doubts about your tax return, it's a great idea to get it reviewed by someone whose competence you can trust. In real estate, that would be the 20+ of accountants answering questions on this forum. All of us are real estate specialists.

None of us (I assume) will be able to review anything during this time of the year, so you would need to get your CPA to file an extension and then find somebody to review the draft later in the year. A thorough review most likely will not be free, a cursory one might be.

As to that silly "real close" phrase, whatever it means, here is one possible meaning. Possibly your CPA offers different levels of service. One is the basic tax preparation, and the other is full-service with consulting which should be significantly more valuable and therefore significantly more expensive. Just a maybe.