| Our firm offers a wide range of services to our individual and business clients. Because our firm is relatively small, our clients benefit by getting personalized, quality service that is beyond comparison. Below we have listed the services that we offer to our clients along with a brief description. As the list below is by no means all-inclusive, please feel free to inquire about a service if you do not see it listed. If it is not a service we provide, we would be more than happy to refer you to a qualified professional. |
|||
| (Click Service Title For Details) |
| Tax Planning and Preparation |
| Pontiff, Thompson + Associates, P.C. offers experience and personal attention in its tax practice. The firm offers a wide range of tax services for clients including individuals, corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, trusts, estates, and non-profit entities. We maintain the highest level of quality in our tax work by subjecting each return prepared in our office to review by a senior professional. This provides assurance to our clients that each return has been examined to find every deduction and tax saving strategy possible. We believe that tax planning is more important than tax preparation. Because of this, we visit with our clients in person, or over the telephone, several times during the year. We assist our clients in forming a proactive approach to tax planning and preparation. We encourage our clients to contact us before making a decision that may have tax consequences, rather than after. Often, we are able to help our clients minimize taxes through effective planning before a transaction, such as buying or selling a house. A reactive approach lacks the level of personal attention our clients deserve and demand. |
 |
| Business Valuation |
| Valuing a business is necessary in many circumstances. Our firm staff includes a licensed CVA (Certified Valuation Analyst) and ABV (Accredited in Business Valuation) recognized for special training and experience in business valuations. Business valuations have an enormous impact on strategic planning. Although most business owners choose a formal valuation only when financing or a similar transaction requires one, many events can trigger the need for a valuation including but not limited to, application for credit or a loan, creation of a stock-option or other benefits plan that involves company stock, seeking outside investors, dispute over the conclusions of an IRS audit, conducting a major strategic planning initiative, dissolving a partnership, an initial public offering of stock, divorce, bankruptcy, estate or gift planning that involves company stock, or sale of a company or a division. The professionals at Pontiff, Fairweather + Thompson, P.C. have prepared hundreds of valuations for all of the above listed purposes. Our experience, training and unique resource materials allow us to prepare superior business valuations. |
|
| Independent Chief Financial Officer |
| The firm professionals often assist small businesses by acting as an independent “Chief Financial Officer” for the small business owner. This arrangement can be customized to meet the needs of the small business and can include many services, including an independent certified “Quick Books Pro” advisor who can assist with functions such as writing checks and recording deposits in the accounting software, analyzing trends in income and expense categories, and management of “In House” accounting processes. This service also includes strategic analysis for the business to improve results in areas such as budgeting and owners cash flow. Since this value added service allows us to be intimately involved in our clients operations, we are able to identify trends and provide timely, critical advice that today’s businesses need in order to succeed. |
|
| Litigation Support |
| A litigation service is any professional assistance CPAs provide to lawyers in the litigation process. Litigation support typically focuses on business valuation, divorce, damage calculations, forensic accounting, or tax issues. Although communication and involvement with the attorney are crucial, an additional goal is to communicate with the client throughout the entire litigation process; thereby including him or her in the process and not leaving the client “on the outside.” The professionals of our firm have been involved in hundreds of litigation support engagements ranging from one-time calls requesting quick damage calculations to valuations of multiple business entities for divorce purposes. Our support often involves presentation of formal reports in court, and related expert testimony. Because of our firm’s experience, ethical standards, and timely service, Pontiff, Thompson + Associates P.C.’s professionals are highly regarded in the legal community as superior litigation support specialists. |
|
| Estate Planning |
| Effective estate planning may be the most important and rewarding process for both a client and a CPA. Our professionals focus on helping our clients achieve four major goals through estate planning: 1) To derive the most benefit from assets during the client’s lifetime; 2) To transfer assets during the client’s life and/or at the client’s death in the manner and to the people or entities intended (this includes facilitating the smooth transition of the client’s business); 3) To minimize income, estate, and other transfer taxes associated with the ownership and transfer of assets; and 4) To avoid or reduce probate procedures, delays, and costs. These goals are important to all clients. Planning the business owner’s estate involves special issues and opportunities. Our professionals, before beginning an estate plan, get to know the client. This process involves gaining an understanding of: (a) the client’s family; (b) the client’s business and other assets, including their value and special characteristics; (c) the role of other people who are in the client’s “inner circle”; and (d) other facts that may impact the client’s planning, e.g., the client’s potential inheritances, the client’s and spouse’s insurability, the client and his family’s citizenship, previous planning, and existing and potential creditor issues. Pontiff, Thompson + Associates, P.C. professionals often focus on estate planning for clients who own small businesses. When developing an estate plan for a small business owner, we focus on several goals. The estate plan should: * Establish a comprehensive program to maximize capital formation for the entire family; * Reduce income taxes; * Pass ownership (when and as appropriate) to the proper recipients with the lowest possible gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer taxes; * Protect the assets from creditor’s claims; and * Take into account any other special needs of the family. We are heavily involved in probate, post-mortem estate planning, estate accounting and estate tax return preparation. We provide personal attention and care to our clients during the management of an estate. |
|
| Forensic Accounting |
| Our firm also provides accounting services designed to uncover various types of fraud and defalcation such as employee theft. Our firm staff includes a licensed CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner) and a CFF (Certified in Financial Fornsics). We are often called on to trace cash receipts and disbursements related to divorcing spouses and other matters. Divorces may also involve issues of asset commingling and the determination of separate property erroneously converted to marital property. Small businesses sometimes engage us to review the propriety of transactions involving shareholders and partners. Trust beneficiaries are sometimes concerned about amounts and types of distributions, the classification of trust income and/or expenses and the benefits available to the trustee. Insurance companies have used our services to “prove” arson and other sorts of fraud. We have prepared accountings for drug and money laundering prosecutions. Courts and lawyers often refer to us taxpayers who have failed to file income tax returns for many years and need to reconstruct their records. Although it goes without saying that our CPA/Client relationship is confidential and private, each forensic engagement is treated with the utmost sensitivity and concern. When an engagement is not part of an on-going prosecution, we are always alert to the possibility of, and are prepared to participate and testify in, criminal proceedings arising from such an engagement. |
|
| Business Planning |
| One of the areas we particularly enjoy is that of financial and tax planning for closely-held businesses and their owners. These engagements offer us the opportunity to employ a wide range of our accounting and consulting skills including planning for specific transactions, possible sales (or purchases) of businesses and succession planning. We are often called upon to attend board meetings, to discuss various issues with officers of the business, and to offer planning choices in areas as diverse as retirement plans and officer compensation. Planning for the orderly transition of a business in the event of death, disability, admission (or expulsion) of new partners/shareholders/members is a significant part of our practice and one in which each of the principals contributes unique skills and outlooks. |
|
| Insurance Analysis |
| Clients often request our opinions on the size, cost and coverage of various forms of insurance products including life, medical, disability, property, auto and annuity products. We enjoy the process of helping our clients compare (and contrast) various policy proposals and often offer alternatives and suggestions with respect to insurance coordination and coverage. We also monitor insurance coverage for members of families in which the parents are concerned about these and similar issues on behalf of their children. |
|
| Retirement Planning |
| We spend a considerable amount of time helping clients with their retirement planning. This involvement ranges from helping to select an appropriate retirement vehicle (a SEP a SIMPLE, a Roth IRA, etc.) through funding alternatives, performance evaluations and computations of “minimum required distributions.” We prepare annual spreadsheets in order to anticipate future cash flows based on current assets and financial assumptions for a number of retired clients (and soon-to-be-retired clients). We help people monitor their existing plans and we critique the performance of their investments. Our firm helps companies select, fund, monitor, and account for, retirement plans. We are involved in all aspects of ERISA reporting and analysis. In short, we help individuals and businesses provide adequate financial support for their future and for the futures of their employees. |
|
| Consulting |
| Some aspects of our practice do not readily lend themselves to stereotypes and classifications. For example, we are often called on to answer “what if” questions. The question might be “what if we adopted a deferred compensation plan instead of an annual bonus and the deferral is vested over three or four years?” A derivative is the “how do we do this” question; for example, “how do we pull together the expected backup and documentation for the due diligence exam our potential purchaser wants to conduct next week?” We particularly enjoy this sort of problem-solving engagement because it allows our principals and associates to participate in the ongoing nature of our client’s operations. These assignments involve us in the operational aspects of business. We consider ourselves particularly helpful in special projects; at the same time we avoid portraying ourselves as “expert in everything” and will quickly tell clients whether or not their special projects are within our areas of expertise. Ask us. We may have experience with the sort of problem you are experiencing. |
|