Individual tax
Form 1040 for people whose returns stopped being simple
Usually the year something changed: a K-1 arrived, equity vested, a rental was bought, or work crossed a state line.
Multiple states
Residency, part-year allocation, and the credit for taxes paid to other states are where multi-state returns go wrong, usually in the taxpayer’s disfavor. Remote work has quietly created filing obligations for a lot of people who never moved. We work out where you actually owe, and where you do not.
Equity compensation
Restricted stock units, incentive stock options, and non-qualified options each have their own timing, their own withholding behavior, and their own way of producing a surprise. Incentive stock options in particular can trigger alternative minimum tax in the year of exercise, well before there is cash from a sale to pay it with. Broker cost basis on equity comp is frequently reported low, which means paying tax twice on the same income unless it is corrected.
Rental property and pass-through income
Passive activity limits, at-risk rules, depreciation, and the qualified business income deduction all interact. Whether a rental qualifies for the deduction, and whether losses are usable this year or suspended, comes down to facts worth establishing before the return, not after.
Self-employment and estimates
Quarterly estimates are the most common source of avoidable penalties in this practice. We set them against a projection rather than last year’s number when the year is clearly going to look different.
Foreign accounts
A foreign account can trigger an FBAR at a low aggregate threshold, and possibly Form 8938 as well. The penalties for missing these are disproportionate to the effort of filing them, so we ask directly rather than waiting to be told.
Bring last year’s 1040
The prior return is the fastest way to see what is being missed.