Here is a typical scenario…

A manufacturing business owner goes to a national trade association conference and attends a seminar in which the speaker discusses tax credits for research and development.

The business owner is intrigued and gets in touch with the speaker. A few months later, the business owner’s CPA receives the tax credit … it’s the first the CPA has ever heard of it.

This is not how you establish yourself as a trusted advisor.

If you want to be seen as more than just a tax filer, so that you can do higher priced work and cement yourself as a critical resource to your clients, you need to proactively discuss tax credit opportunities with them now – while you are in the process of year-end tax planning.

Clients want to minimize their taxes; they depend on you to show them how to do this and the actions they need to take.

That means asking specific, pointed questions to uncover and understand any essential changes in the circumstances of your clients’ businesses.

Remember, if you don’t ask these questions, somebody else will! Once that happens, it doesn’t take much for that “lifetime client” to walk out the door for good.

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Try this: Take one of your client’s year-end tax plans, sit down together and complete a Tax Incentive Organizer to determine the potential tax incentives that may apply. The Organizer questions will tie directly back to next year’s tax planning. Use this link to our online form here.