Our services, in detail

Where you might be. You need this year’s return done right, by someone who can stand in front of the IRS for you if it ever asks about it.

What it is. Your federal and state return, prepared by an Enrolled Agent. Before we prepare it, we pull what the IRS already has on file for you and screen for refunds you may have missed.

What it costs. $400 to $850, depending on what your year holds. You see the price build on the Tax Prep page before you start, and it is confirmed in writing after your documents and records are in. Behind on more than this year? One or two late years with no IRS bill or levy notice: each year is its own return, $550 to $850 per year. Three or more unfiled years, or any year the IRS has already billed or sent a levy notice for, start with a Resolution Roadmap, $2,500, so we read your whole account before filing anything. The Roadmap is its own fee; the per-year return fees are separate from it.

What it is not. A return looks back at a year that is already over. It tells you what happened; it can’t change it. That is what the next level is for.

Where you might be. You have saved for years, maybe in several places, and you are starting to ask how much of it is really yours to spend once taxes are counted.

What it is. Every dollar you have saved sits in one of three buckets, and each one is taxed differently when it comes out. The Plan’s summer Retirement Tax Picture session lays your own buckets out, so you can see what is taxed when, before you draw on any of it.

• Taxable: brokerage and savings accounts. You paid tax on the money before it went in. Interest and dividends are taxed each year, and growth is mostly taxed when you sell, often at lower capital gains rates.
• Tax-deferred: a traditional 401(k), 403(b), or IRA, and most pensions. The money usually went in before tax, so what comes out is taxed as income. Withdrawals become required at 73, or 75 if you were born in 1960 or later.
• Tax-free: a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k). You paid tax going in, so qualified withdrawals come out with no tax at all, and a Roth has no required withdrawals during your lifetime.

Why it matters. Two families with the same savings can keep very different amounts, depending on which bucket the money sits in and the order they draw it out. Income from the tax-deferred bucket can make up to 85 percent of your Social Security taxable, and can raise your Medicare premiums two years later. Planning looks at which bucket to draw from in which year, whether moving some money to a Roth in a lower-income year makes sense, and how required withdrawals will land, before they arrive.

Where you might be. A letter came, or a balance has been growing, or there are years you haven’t filed, and not knowing where you stand is the heaviest part.

What it is. Every case starts with a Resolution Roadmap: we read your IRS records and lay out where you stand, every way forward, and what each one costs. It covers your federal account and your home state, and it is delivered within two weeks of your records arriving.

What it costs. The Roadmap is $2,500, due at signing, and it counts toward the fee of whichever route you choose. Every route’s fee is fixed and on the proposal before work on it begins; anything new is quoted before work on it begins, never billed after. We promise the work, never the outcome. More on the Resolution page.