One of the things my Las Vegas clients ask me often is, "How can you help me more with my tax planning?", and I think the best answer to that is "I need to talk to you". Whoever your Las Vegas CPA is, if you let them know what you're doing before March of the next year, they can often do a lot of things with entity structure, or just planning the deal to make it more tax efficient. Communication is the key with Las Vegas tax planning, but if you only talk to your CPA once a year, in March, you're missing the boat, and he or she isn't able to help you as much as they could.

For example: I had a client come to me once that was doing a land deal; they owned some land and they were going to build a building on it. And by talking with us, and letting us understand their particular tax situation, we were able to structure another entity, take the advantages between a partnership and a corporation, and capture most of that gain as long-term capital gain, instead of all as ordinary income. But it's one of those things that we couldn't have done if they had started construction and talked to us after the fact.

Make sure that your CPA understands your business and tax situation as early as possible. Give them any information that they might be able to use during the tax planning process, and make sure your Las Vegas accountant really gets to know your and your business.

As a CPA in Las Vegas I want to take just a minute to talk about the service you should expect from someone who is really interested in you, and that is your CPA. Most CPAs in Las Vegas have a perspective of history - they ask you for last year's tax returns, they ask you for last year's information for financial statements - but someone who is really worried about you needs to be looking towards the future; needs to be looking to see what the past has in its base of information that will help you reach your goals and objectives in the future.

I have often said that CPAs stand on this line, which is today, and look back, but they should be taking that perspective of seeing what's in the past and looking forward towards the future; to help you meet your goals and objectives, your wishes and your dreams. That perspective will help you plan for the future and allow you to make the goals that you have for yourself. Most residents of Las Vegas feel like they're making an educated decision when choosing a CPA, however, they might be looking for the wrong things. While experience and reputation are still very important, you should be focusing on that personal relationship. You want to avoid any CPA who treats you like everyone else, and find the CPA in Las Vegas that will really take a personal interest in you specifically.

I want to take a minute to talk about Las Vegas accounting services that you receive from your CPA. Las Vegas CPAs often provide what we call "compliance services" such as: financial statements that are required for banks or other lending institutions, or tax returns which, of course, our government requires. But the accounting services that really mean the most to clients are those that aren't required, but that really add value to you and your life. Those services we call "value-added services".

And so when you're looking for a CPA and trying to decide how you're going to employ someone to do those things that have to be done (those compliance services) also find out from them if they have an interest in, or a history of, providing these "value-added services". These accounting services include: helping you plan for retirement, helping you look for ways out of your business, exit strategies, succession planning, those kinds of things, as well as how to take the money that you make in your business, in your life and retain it so that you can live the life that you like through your retirement years.

The important thing is to make sure that your accountant is offering you the services that are most important to you life. Keep this in mind the next time you meet with your CPA to discuss possible Las Vegas accounting services.