Tax preparation and planning

A tax return is a record of decisions that have already been made. By the time it is on the desk in March, the entity choice, the retirement contributions, the timing of a large purchase and the estimated payments are all fixed. Most of what a preparer can do at that point is report accurately.

That is why the planning sits in front of the preparation here, not after it. We look at the prior two or three years first, because that is where the pattern is, and then at what is still open in the current year.

Entity selection and whether your current one still fits. Reasonable compensation for S corporation owners. Retirement plan choices, which are often the largest single lever available to a profitable owner. Timing on equipment and vehicle purchases. Estimated payments sized so you are not financing the IRS or being penalized by it.

For New York filers there is a local layer that catches people out. If you run an unincorporated business in the city, the Unincorporated Business Tax applies at 4% on income allocated to New York City. The filing threshold is gross business income above $95,000, there is a $5,000 exemption against net income, and a credit eliminates the tax entirely where it comes to $3,400 or less. Holding, leasing or managing real property for rent is specifically outside it, so rental property on its own does not create UBT, and S corporations fall under the Business Corporation Tax instead.

The Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax is the other one. For the self-employed the threshold was $50,000 for tax years 2025 and earlier, and rises to $150,000 for 2026 onward, computed per individual per zone even on a joint return. A lot of people drop out of it this year without realizing.