Advisory & Planning
Decisions made while the year is still open, with the federal and the state positions worked together.
A 30-minute consultation is $150, credited against your first engagement if you go ahead with us.
Book a consultationor call (201) 822-1653
Most Tax Savings Are Decided Before December
Almost everything that reduces a tax bill has to happen before the year closes. After 31 December the return is arithmetic — you are reporting decisions that were already made, and the useful ones are no longer on the table.
Planning is the work of making those decisions on purpose, while they are still decisions. It is the difference between finding out what you owe and having had a say in it.
What Planning Covers
Year-end tax planning
The decisions that have to be made before 31 December rather than reported after it — timing, fixed assets, retirement contributions, and the elections that expire quietly.
Estimated tax payments
What to pay and when, so a good year does not end in a penalty for tax you always intended to pay. Federal estimates fall in April, June, September and January, and state schedules do not always match.
Entity and compensation structure
Whether the entity you have is the entity you want, and what reasonable compensation looks like if it is an S corporation. A Form 2553 election effective for the current year is due by 15 March, which makes it a January conversation.
Budgets and forecasts
A budget you can actually run the year against, and a forecast built on what you expect to happen — from your own numbers, not a template.
Cash projections and scenarios
What happens to cash if you hire, move, take on debt, or open a second location. Projections answer "what if"; forecasts answer "what we expect". They are different tools and we will tell you which one you are looking at.
Multi-state and nexus planning
Where a filing obligation is about to exist, before it does. Crossing one state's threshold tells you nothing about the next state's.
Transaction planning
A sale, a purchase, an exchange, a new state, a new entity — priced and sequenced before you commit, including the state consequence.
Risk management
Where the business is exposed — controls, concentration, and what happens if a key person or a key customer goes away.
Fundraising support and lender packages
The financial package a lender or an investor asks for, prepared and explained. Equity raises are occasional work here rather than a routine engagement.
The state answer diverges constantly
Many states decouple from bonus depreciation and cap section 179 far below the federal limit; New Jersey still works from a definition frozen at 31 December 2002, capped at $25,000.
We work the federal position and the state positions together, because a plan that saves federal tax and creates a state problem is not a plan.
What a Planning Engagement Looks Like
Send four things:
We will come back with the positions available to you, what each is worth, what each requires, and what we are not certain about.