Services & Advisory
What this firm does.
Four practices that share one file. The return informs the plan, the plan anticipates the dispute, and the estate documents hold it together.
Practice I
Tax preparation
Individuals · Families · Business owners · Estates · Trusts
Accuracy, compliance, and continuity, prepared by the office that will still be here in October when a notice arrives.
Returns are prepared for individuals, families, business owners, estates, and trusts, including partnership, S corporation, and corporate filings, gift tax returns, multi-state returns, and prior-year filings for clients who have fallen behind.
Preparation is also diagnostic. A return that shows depreciation on a former rental, a large one-time gain, or owner compensation set at the wrong number is the beginning of a planning conversation, not the end of the engagement.
Bring last year, not just this year.
Carryforwards, basis, depreciation schedules, and prior elections live in old returns. Two years of documents at the first appointment usually saves a round of follow-up.
Practice II
Strategic tax planning
Entity selection · Formation · Owner compensation · Real property
The work that changes the number happens before the year closes.
Planning engagements cover entity selection and new business formation, owner compensation and distribution strategy, the timing and structure of real property sales, installment and seller-financed arrangements, retirement and deferral choices, and the ordinary sequencing decisions that quietly determine a bracket.
Engagements run year-round rather than as a single memo. A plan you cannot execute is a document; a plan revisited in the fourth quarter is a result.
The cheapest tax planning is a phone call before you sign.
Almost every expensive tax outcome traces back to a document that was already executed by the time anyone asked about it: a sale, a distribution, a deed, an entity election.
Practice III
Tax resolution & controversy
IRS · Franchise Tax Board · Appeals · U.S. Tax Court
Back taxes, notices, examinations, and balances that have been waiting for someone to take them seriously.
Representation covers IRS and California notices and examinations, offers in compromise, installment agreements and partial pay installment agreements, currently not collectible status, penalty abatement, and administrative appeals. Where a matter cannot be resolved administratively, it also covers representation before the United States Tax Court.
Clients arrive anywhere from one to ten years behind. The order of operations rarely changes: establish what is actually owed, bring the filings current, then negotiate the collection path that fits the facts.
Deadlines on a notice are real.
Many rights, including the right to petition the Tax Court, expire on a date printed on the letter. Bring the envelope and the notice together, unopened mail included.
Practice IV
Estate & legacy planning
Trusts · Wills · Directives · Deeds · Probate support
Estate work drafted by someone who already knows what the tax consequences will be.
Revocable living trust plans, will-based plans, powers of attorney and health care directives, funding and transfer deeds, specialty trusts, and support for executors and successor trustees already in a proceeding.
This is the practice most clients underestimate, so it has a page of its own, including exactly what each package contains and what the plan does to your tax position.
Correspondence
Which practice fits your question?
If you are not sure, start with an appointment. Scoping the matter correctly is part of the first meeting.
1010 Hurley Way, Suite 195 · Sacramento, California 95825
(916) 668-5525 · info@guillemaudlaw.com