How much does your accountant cost you?

L

lalugela

Active member
I feel like I'm getting a bad deal with my accountant, but I figured what better place to seek out people who have a similar operation that I do? I own and run a boutique creative advertising agency and production company. I'm a single member LLC and I operate on a per-project basis, where I hire everyone as a contractor. I've hired around 100 different contractors in 2012 just to give you an idea.

How much do your accountants charge you for end-of-the-year taxes? Mine is doing my LLC and my personal income taxes (which are not mutually exclusive)... Would love to hear what rates people with different operations are getting. I know that it's different depending on what you're doing and how you're doing, but I'd like to either a) renegotiate with my current accountant or b) change to a new one for 2013.

Thanks!
 
I'm curious... was there a particular reason you set up an LLC vs. just doing a Sole Proprietorship? There's some protection of personal assets with an LLC, but not much else really. A Sole Proprietorship is easier to work with for tax purposes.

It may be that getting rid of the LLC would simplify things a bit.

Another question... Are you or is your accountant, the one who is sending out 1099's for each of those 100 contractors who you paid more than $600? If it's your accountant, you can probably cut your costs by a fair amount by doing that yourself.
 
Mainly liability— dealing with large amounts of money, paying lots of people, and handling the ongoing expenses— not to mention the liabilities of shooting in general... I have production insurance, but that's not always going to play out nicely if someone gets seriously injured on set. That said there are other advantages, including the ability to raise money down the line— which I may want to do.

And to answer your question, yes— I did not want to deal with the hassle of sending out the 1099's, but I did all of the groundwork of getting everyone's w9's. How much do you think that could save me? A few hundred?
 
lalugela said:
Mainly liability— dealing with large amounts of money, paying lots of people, and handling the ongoing expenses— not to mention the liabilities of shooting in general... I have production insurance, but that's not always going to play out nicely if someone gets seriously injured on set. That said there are other advantages, including the ability to raise money down the line— which I may want to do.

And to answer your question, yes— I did not want to deal with the hassle of sending out the 1099's, but I did all of the groundwork of getting everyone's w9's. How much do you think that could save me? A few hundred?
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Almost certainly you would save that kind of money. I'm betting your accountant either outsources 1099 generation or charges at least a few bucks for each one. Preparing each one is easy. And he probably has software to efile them with the IRS and states. But then there's printing the recipient copies, stuffing envelopes, stamps.... That all takes time.

There are companies on the web who specialize in doing this sort of thing. For example FlexChecks has a service that costs $45 plus $5.50/1099. Assume all of your contractors were paid over $600 and this low cost service would cost you $595. This includes efiling the forms to the IRS and state agencies. Or FileTaxes (http://www.filetaxes.com/Content/services_pricing) charges $5/1099 for the same service (but more for last minute filing).

Or you can get software (about $60-70) to print stuff yourself. You would need to use the official red IRS forms for Copy A (you order them from the IRS) and then regular paper for the State and Recipient copies I believe.

So yeah, you would definitely save some money there. Worth asking your accountant about.
 
You can do the 1099's yourself using supplied forms from the IRS. That's what we do and would definitely rather spend 4 hours handwriting them out opposed to paying a service $500 for them.
 
My accountant does my corporate taxes for my company and our personal (my wife and I) for roughly $500-$600
 
Business entity choice has additional considerations besides risk mitigation. The tax and other financial considerations are the domain of your CPA. The risk issues would be addressed by your attorney. If you think your accountant is charging too much ask what you can do to lessen his load and your expense.
 
For end of year taxes only, my accountant (CPA) charges $600. My return is at least 50 pages long due to rental property forms. As far as 1099 forms go, I used a service called Track1099, which is like Turbotax for 1099 forms. Just fill in the blanks online, click and your done. Something like $5 each.
 
Thanks a lot for your responses. Definitely breaking the bank with my current accountant, will probably change next year. :-(
 
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