GETTING STARTED WITH BCT
Let’s turn the moving pieces into a plan.
You do not need to know every tax question to ask.
We start with how you earn, how the business currently operates and what is changing. Then we identify what matters, build the roadmap and make sure every next step has an owner.
One coordinated plan
Every piece has a decision, a deadline and an owner.
The pieces above are the ones physicians most often carry separately.
THE RETURN COMES LAST
The tax return is the last step—not the plan.
By the time a tax return is prepared, most of the important decisions have already been made—or missed.
Payroll, estimated payments, retirement contributions, major purchases and business deductions need attention while there is still time to act.
Income earned
W-2 wages, 1099 contracts and any other work.
Decisions made
Entity, salary, reserves, purchases, contributions.
Books, payroll and payments updated
The records and the money movement follow the decisions.
Retirement and deductions implemented
Contributions funded and documentation put in place.
Tax return prepared
The filing reports what already happened.
Filing-only relationship
The CPA becomes involved primarily after the year is over.
Business Casual Tax
The decisions are addressed during the year, and the return closes the loop on the work already completed.
START WITH HOW YOU EARN
How you earn changes what needs to be managed.
W-2 plus 1099 income
Your employer handles withholding, payroll and benefits for part of the picture—not all of it.
The side income still needs to be coordinated with your W-2 withholding, estimated payments, entity decision, business deductions and retirement-plan limits.
Full-time 1099 income
When no employer is coordinating the taxes, payroll or benefits, those decisions become part of the business plan.
The entity, business accounts, bookkeeping, payroll, tax reserves, benefits, retirement funding and applicable state filings all need to work together.
Same planning process. Different pressure points.
THE MOVING PIECES
The pieces need to work together.
The complexity usually does not come from one difficult form. It comes from several reasonable decisions affecting one another.
THE DECISIONS THAT MATTER
Here is where planning creates value.
Entity and S corporation
An S corporation is not the strategy. It is one tool inside the plan.
The potential benefit needs to be weighed against the amount of business profit, reasonable compensation, payroll costs, retirement goals, administrative work and state-specific considerations.
The goal is not to create an entity because someone heard that physicians should have one. The goal is to determine whether the structure improves the overall result.
How business profit reaches you
The tax structure changes what the numbers mean. Pick the one that matches your situation.
Net business profit determines
Owner withdrawals
A separate movement of cash from the business to you, sometimes called owner draws.
Owner withdrawals move cash from the business to you. They do not reduce business profit or determine how much of the profit is taxable.
What this structure introduces
Reasonable compensation is paid through payroll. Shareholder distributions are separate from wages and do not reduce the business’s taxable profit. Pass-through profit may be taxable to the shareholder whether or not all of the cash is distributed.
Additional strategies we may evaluate
Whether any of these apply depends on the facts, and each one has to be supportable before it is worth doing. We look at them case by case rather than assuming they fit.
- Accountable-plan reimbursements
- Home-office expenses
- Business use of a personal vehicle
- Legitimate family employment, including paying children for bona fide work at a reasonable rate
- Short-term rental of a residence to the business, sometimes called the “Augusta rule”, which requires a valid business purpose, fair-market rent, documentation and satisfaction of the applicable requirements
- Other supportable business deductions
Tax projections and payments
Waiting for the return
Payments are based on estimates, prior-year information or incomplete numbers.
Maintaining the roadmap
The projection is updated using current income, withholding, payroll and payments so the next action is understandable.
The goal is not to predict every dollar perfectly. It is to avoid making major decisions blind.
Business deductions
Paid directly by the business
Ordinary expenses already flowing through the business accounts, captured by the bookkeeping as they happen.
Paid personally and recorded or reimbursed
Business costs that went out of a personal account. We identify them and decide whether they are recorded or reimbursed.
Planned and documented in advance
Strategies that only hold up with the right facts and records in place before the expense occurs.
Our job in each layer is the same: find the expense, get it into the records correctly and keep the support that makes it stand up later. The third layer is where the order matters most, because the documentation has to exist before the expense, not after it.
Retirement coordination
Retirement contributions do not exist separately from the tax plan.
What can be contributed depends on the tax structure, so the two are worked out together rather than in sequence.
Sole proprietor
Contribution capacity is generally based on adjusted net earnings from self-employment.
S corporation
Contribution capacity is generally connected to W-2 compensation rather than shareholder distributions.
If you also participate in an employer retirement plan, the limits have to be coordinated across both plans — and the plan type and funding deadline decide when the decision has to be made.
Situations we check for
These come up often enough to check, and rarely enough that they should not crowd the main plan. Open one if it sounds like your situation.
Where you live, where the work is performed and where the payor is located can each create a filing. We identify which states apply and how the credits interact so the same income is not taxed twice by accident.
Whether premiums are paid personally or through the business changes how they are deducted and reported, and an HSA has its own contribution limits and deadlines to coordinate.
Rental property, a building used by the practice or a short-term rental each bring their own rules. Cost segregation can accelerate depreciation, but it requires the right facts and a study to support it.
New employees or contractors introduce payroll, filings and benefits questions, and the growth itself may change the entity and retirement decisions that were right at a smaller size.
FROM IDEAS TO IMPLEMENTATION
A recommendation is only useful if it gets implemented.
The roadmap turns the facts into decisions, deadlines and assigned work.
Current facts
What the income, entity, books, payroll and payments actually look like today.
Why it matters
Every recommendation depends on starting from the real numbers.
What happens next
The facts become the projection.
Full-year projection
Where the year lands if nothing changes.
Why it matters
It converts a vague worry about taxes into a number you can plan against.
What happens next
The projection exposes the priorities.
Priorities
Which decisions carry the most weight this year.
Why it matters
It keeps attention on the few items that change the outcome.
What happens next
Priorities become specific decisions.
Decisions
Entity, salary, reserves, contributions and purchases.
Why it matters
These are the choices that are yours to make, with our recommendation attached.
What happens next
Each decision gets a date and an owner.
Deadlines and ownership
What is due, when, and who is doing it.
Why it matters
A decision without a date and an owner does not get implemented.
What happens next
The work starts.
Implementation
Payroll run, elections filed, contributions funded, records updated.
Why it matters
This is the step most often missed after good advice.
What happens next
The year closes on a known position.
Tax return
The filing that reports the work already done.
Why it matters
No surprises, because the decisions were made while they could still be changed.
What happens next
The next year's roadmap begins.
The roadmap keeps recommendations from disappearing into an email.
A CPA YOU DO NOT HAVE TO MANAGE
You should not have to manage your CPA.
Before
Scattered across your calendar, inbox and memory.
Business Casual Tax handles
- Keeping the relevant information current
- Updating the projection
- Identifying decisions before deadlines
- Coordinating bookkeeping, payroll and tax payments
- Tracking agreed-upon implementation
- Preparing the applicable tax returns
We bring you
- The decision
- The relevant numbers
- Our recommendation
- The deadline
- Exactly what we need from you
You will still make the decisions that belong to you. Our job is to make those decisions clear, timely and easier to act on.
A SCOPE BUILT AROUND THE SITUATION
The engagement should match the work.
After we understand the situation, we recommend the scope that fits it.
Your written engagement confirms:
What Business Casual Tax is handling
What remains with you or another professional
The fee
What happens during the first 30 days
Nothing begins until you have reviewed and signed the engagement.
The first-30-days promise
By the time your first payment is due, you will have seen how I approach the work and what the plan looks like. If you do not see the value, you can cancel immediately. No notice period. No cancellation fee.
01
Sign & schedule
Sign the engagement letter, place a payment method on file and schedule the diagnostic review.
02
Diagnose & build
Over the next 2–4 weeks, I review the current setup and prior filings, identify the gaps and build the initial tax roadmap.
03
Review & decide
Before the first payment is charged on day 30, we review the roadmap together. Continue—or cancel immediately with no notice period or cancellation fee.
ONCE YOU SIGN
We get moving.
Onboarding is the beginning of the work—not an administrative waiting period.
Welcome and access
- Welcome information
- Secure portal access
- Initial requests
- Clear instructions for the next step
Initial documents
We request the information needed to understand the current setup. We do not begin by asking for every document that might theoretically become relevant.
- Most recent personal and business tax returns
- Entity-formation documents
- S corporation election documents
- Current bookkeeping information
- Payroll reports
- Estimated-tax payments
- Relevant retirement-plan information
Personally paid expenses
You complete a focused questionnaire identifying business expenses paid personally and any reimbursements that may need to be addressed.
Discretionary-expense review
We collect the additional facts needed to evaluate strategies involving vehicle use, home office, equipment, accountable-plan reimbursements, legitimate family employment and business use of the home.
Diagnosis and roadmap
We review the current setup, identify the priorities and begin building the initial roadmap.
You will know what we are reviewing, what we need from you and what happens next.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
The proposal makes it official. Then we begin.
After the call, we will send a written proposal confirming the recommended scope, responsibilities and fee.
Once it is signed, onboarding begins and we start building the initial roadmap.
Already spoke with Kevin? Watch for your written proposal and next-step instructions.