Hiring A Tax Advisor For Your Business — A Short Guide

paul adams
2 min readDec 5, 2016

Before starting the discussion about to how to choose a good tax advisor for your business, it is important to pen down a few words about every business needs to hire a certified and experienced tax advisor Washington DC. The process of tax filing is daunting for everyone barring the tax professionals. The process is long and very time-consuming which raises the chances of committing mistakes. A single mistake means you have to start afresh. If you don’t keep yourself updated with the tax rule changes, you can do incorrect tax filing or even lose money.

As a business owner, your platter is full with a lot of tasks and commitments towards the core business concerns. Involving yourself in the ins and outs of tax filing will increase your stress and steer your attention from critical matters of your business. A professional tax advisor stays updated with the tax code changes and can help you with more about your business other than tax filing. They can help with business setup, tax planning, bookkeeping, payroll taxes and handling various tax issues.

How to hire an efficient tax advisor?

The first thing to do when hiring a tax advisor is to decide the professional’s focus areas. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are various ways such professionals can help a business owner. There are different types of tax professionals offering different services. Learn about them and decide accordingly. In this respect, you have to understand all the terminologies and their importance.

What is CPA? CPA is certified public accountant and their services encompass not just tax preparation, but also tax planning, helping in owning or selling a business, auditing, evaluating compensation plans and more.

Talking about the terminologies, you must check on the certification of the tax advisor Washington DC you wish to hire. The authenticity of the certification needs to be verified. Enquire about all the qualifications of the professional. Ask for referrals.

Apart from the qualifications and certificates, you should ask about whether the professional has worked with businesses in your industry. Check on the years of experience.

A good way of finding and hiring a tax advisor is to ask among your circles whether they have hired any CPA. You can take cue from their experiences of working with tax advisor.

An internal tax advisor or an external one? An internal tax professional comes handy when your business is a large-scale one as keeping an internal accountant is expensive. A small-sized business benefits more from external service provider as it is cost-effective.

Last, but not the least, rather the most important, talk about the fees. Is it flat fee or on hourly basis?

Tell us whether how this article has helped you hiring a proficient tax advisor Washington DC.

--

--