Contract work · Nationwide
We work with solo and small firms — a specialist on your team, without one on your payroll.
Return review, risk analysis, IRS audit representation, tax research and training — from a CPA with seventeen years at the IRS as a Revenue Agent. Sometimes that means a full engagement. Sometimes it just means knowing there is a specialist you can get on the phone to bounce something off.
Sound familiar?
- It’s the middle of tax season and your client gets an audit notice. You don’t want to lose them, and you don’t have the capacity to represent them right now.
- Someone calls who is years behind in their books and filings. They’d be a great monthly client — if they were caught up.
- You have a top-tier client and want a second set of eyes on their returns. Not because anything is wrong, but so you can find the risk early and get the documents in place to support the positions taken.
Perfect for small, solo or niche tax and bookkeeping shops
If you recognise your own practice in one of these, I am probably a fit.
Enrolled Agents and CPAs running a solo or small firm.
You prepare returns competently and you would rather not turn a client away because one of them opened an envelope from the IRS. What you need is someone who worked for the IRS auditing small businesses for seventeen years and understands the IRS audit process and procedures inside and out. I did that job, and I trained the agents who do it now. We become a member of your team without you having to carry a salary all year.
Specialty practices with the whole book in one industry.
If you only do trucking, or restaurants, or short-term rentals, an exam is rarely about one client — the position under review is one you have taken on dozens of returns, so getting it right once protects the rest of them. It also rarely stays inside your niche. Once a return is under examination the whole return is in scope, and related entities and returns can be opened alongside it. Knowing your industry issue cold is not the same as seeing how the entity, its owners and its related returns fit together — and that is the work I did: multi-entity examinations and high-income, high-wealth returns, worked as an enterprise rather than one form at a time.
A prospect walks in who is years behind.
They would be a good monthly client once they are current, but catch-up work is hard to price and it is not the work you want. Send them to me. I rebuild the books, file the returns and hand them back to you current. Run it whichever way suits you: I quote you a flat fee and you bill the client, or I bill the client directly and refer them back to you when the catch-up is done.
An existing client comes under IRS examination.
You want to keep the relationship, and you know an exam is not your specialty. I quote a flat fee so you can bill the client yourself and the work stays in house — or I bill them directly, whichever you prefer. Either way the client stays yours and comes back to you when it is closed.
Firms that want to say “we have a controversy specialist” and mean it.
Prospects ask. Being able to answer yes, with a named former Revenue Agent behind it, gives prospects a reason to choose you.
Anyone who has said “let me look into that” on a client call and not enjoyed it.
Sometimes the value is simply knowing the answer the same day, from someone who has worked the issue from the government’s side.
What you can hand off
Any of it, one case at a time. Scoped and quoted before it starts.
The one you called about
Audit representation
- Correspondence, office and field examinations
- IDR responses and interview preparation
- Protest letters and Appeals
- BBA partnership and high-income exams
Before it becomes one
Review & risk assessment
- Return review — 1040, 1120‑S, 1065, multi-entity
- Audit risk read on a return or a position
- Hazards analysis before you commit to an answer
Catch-up / clean-up and return
Client cleanup
- Books reconstructed, commingled accounts included
- Delinquent federal returns brought current
- Forensic reconstruction where records are gone
On call
Research & consulting
- Timely research with the authority behind it
- A second opinion before you put it in writing
- IRS audit risk training and Q&A for your team
Why your client comes back to you
You’re the hero for the client. I’m here to bring my experience and support.
A client in trouble is a client at risk of leaving. The point of this arrangement is that they don’t — they get specialist help, they get it fast, and they credit you for having it.
- The engagement is bounded: the work gets done and the client is returned to you
- We don’t pitch your client on anything, ever. They are your client, not ours — we are working as part of your team, and any question that falls outside the engagement goes back to you to answer
- You choose how involved you are — every call, or none. Same price either way
Seventeen years developing these cases at the IRS, including Special Enforcement Program work, and trained by the Service as a Summary Expert Witness. That is not experience a small firm can justify hiring full time.
How an engagement works
One matter at a time. Nothing to sign, and nothing owed either way.
- One case at a time. You send the matter, I tell you whether I am the right fit for it, and we scope that piece of work. Nothing carries over to the next one unless you want it to.
- A flat fee wherever the work can be scoped. An examination, a catch-up, a return review, a risk read — those have a shape, so they get a fixed number in writing before anything starts. Where the work genuinely cannot be scoped up front, it is hourly, quoted the same way.
- Billed whichever way suits you. I quote you and you bill your client, or I bill the client directly and refer them back to you when it closes. Your call, matter by matter.
- No obligation in either direction. If and when you need a specialist on your team, you have a number to call.
Send me the matter.
You do not need an arrangement in place first. When a client calls you in a panic, you just need to know who to call — tell me what landed on your desk and I will tell you whether it is mine.