Hi, I'm trying to open a L.L.C. (with my wife as a partner) for my full time trading job to take advantage of the tax benefits like Mark to Market, Wash Sale, or the deduction for the money I spend in educating myself. Anyone has experience with Traders Accounting (Arizona, Jim Crimmins as CEO) before? If not, could anyone please suggest a good accounting firm or online service for setting up an LLC and doing tax accounting? Thanks a bunch, AACHINC
You'll need to qualify for trader tax status to file as an LLC, which as you may know will require you to be extremely active, and to remain so. And you may want to seriously consider all the ramifications of involving your wife. I speak from experience. And Green Trader Tax is by far the superior of the two companies.
I can tell you from first-hand experience to avoid Paul Mann (CO) and Courtney Kurisko (NY). Both are shockingly incompetent.
I've used Green Trader and Paul Mann, both are fine. But now I use another one. The main issue for me is whether these guys can finish the returns in time without having to file an extension. Extensions suck big time and can lead to a domino effect with other filings. Prior to using any of these CPAs, get a guarantee (each year) that they can finish in time.
Could you please name of another CPA that you used besides Green Trader and Paul Mann. I am preferably looking someone in Northern California.
Hi Patil, I am in the process of doing the same thing and wanted to see how your experience have been?
Stay away from Traders Accounting at 15270 W Brookside Ln., Suite 121 Surprise AZ 85374 Summary Their motto is “You Trade, we’ll do the rest.” But the fact is that they will do the “rest” incorrectly to your disadvantage. If you hire a housekeeper, do you want them to forget to clean the baseboards and under the table? Their initial draft had me receiving $9,807. The final submission by a different Firm has me receiving $13,732. Although the extra $3,925 is nice; I know my Taxes have been submitted accurately and the Firm that filed them stands behind it 100%. Background I had a CPA that I love that prepared my Taxes for 4 years. The only reason I decided to search for someone else was because my Taxes were becoming more complicated with Trading. I still highly recommend my old CPA to friends/family. Review I am a Professional (Physician, Trader and Entrepreneur). I had been trialing a new CPA in Redwood CA and had concerns about what he had prepared so I reached out to Traders Accounting to review his work ($200). They agreed that his preparation was riddled with significant errors so I asked them to prepare it instead and they agreed they would ($745). The owner/manager is named Raven. I am unsure of her qualifications, but I do not think she is a CPA. I asked if I could do an Introduction with the CPA (Jerry Allison) that would be preparing my Taxes and she said that that would cost extra and recklessly stated that it ‘would not influence the documents prepared.’ They began to send me various upselling offers to sign up for products or attend various conferences. I attended one of the Virtual Conferences; it was full of sales pitches to buy their products to help your Trading. In fact, the CPA from TradersAccounting was supposed to speak at the Conference about “Trading and Taxes: How does it affect you?” but days before they apparently cancelled on the Firm due to ‘unknown’ issues. After I received the first draft of the Firm’s preparation of my Taxes, I emailed a detailed summary of questions. I was told that it would cost $215/hr to have the questions addressed. My goal is the have my Taxes prepared accurately and so I was not concerned about the additional upsell fees. I scheduled to speak with the CPA but they stated that it could not be done virtually, which is very odd in this day and age – it might take 10 mins to discuss something virtually or facetime but would take longer via phone. Nevertheless, I had no choice as the deadline was fast approaching. The CPA called me and ironically, he had not seen my detailed written questions that I sent to the Firm via email (Raven and her assistant never sent it to him) so I had to spend at least triple the time to spell the questions out to him again over the telephone. He seemed nice and knowledgeable, he acknowledged some of the errors quickly. And as far as I know, he only told me one significant incorrect interpretation of Tax Law. Also, knowing more of my personal circumstances did in fact change deductions he included in draft2, contrary to what Raven had previously stated. Raven’s assistant then sent me the second draft. I reviewed it and emailed back 2 questions. One of those questions did pertain to a mistake my old CPA had done in not accurately carrying over losses from previous years. But even after having the mistake pointed out, this Firm refused to help fix it to ensure that the current preparation was submitted accurately. It appears that some of my questions were being answered by non-CPAs (i.e. Raven and her assistant) but it was difficult for me to know because I was only able to correspond with the middle personal (i.e. Raven and her assistant). Lol, Raven acts like the pimp of the CPA. Per the advice of my old CPA, I asked the Firm to reference the IRS code to support incorrect information they were telling me, but they would/could not. About 4 days before the deadline, Raven forwarded me a response from the CPA which continued to stand behind an incorrect interpretation of Tax Law. Raven attempted to pressure me to either sign off on the incorrect preparation or miss the deadline. At this point I knew that I would not be working with this Firm again in the future - so I responded to her with an ultimatum: either a) provide a full refund within 24 hours or b) agree that your Firm would be responsible for all expenses necessary to fix the errors in the future. Like a teenager, Raven immaturely attacked me as being the problem by incorrectly characterizing that I had been through 3 CPAs in 2 years when in fact, Traders Accounting did exactly what they bashed the Redwood CPA for doing. But luckily, she quickly provided me a full refund so I could be done with her and her Firm. Since Raven provided me the refund, instead of filing a complaint with the Arizona State Board of Accountancy, I am only writing this review to educate and warn potential clients to save them similar experiences. It is my hope that the Firm will either drastically change it’s practices or just shut it down. Positives of Traders Accounting: -Response time to communications with Raven and her assistant is fairly quick. -Initial Tax Preparation Fee is competitive Negatives of Traders Accounting: -Firm stands by incorrect interpretations of Tax Law -Owner attacks you if you question errors and submit evidence in a professional manner to try to educate them to do their job accurately. -Appears to be targeting unknowledgeable Traders -Upsell you all along the way, almost weekly or more -Spam you with Random stuff