Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash
Brian Amann, principal of Firm Growth and CEO of TaxOps, recently sat down in the studio with Dean Rotbart, host of Denver’s business radio program B. Unconventional, to talk about “free money” and other tax saving tips for dynamic businesses.
Amann leads an award-winning tax specialty firm based in Colorado. He is recognized on the 2013 Managing Partner Elite as a top-ten national firm leader by Accounting Today and is a finalist for the Denver Business Journal’s PowerBook award. TaxOps has been recognized as the #1 small firm to work for by Accounting Today for two consecutive years, 2012 and 2013, and is a 2013 winner of the Colorado Companies to Watch award.
Listen to the interview, Why Your Accountant May be Missing Crucial Opportunities to Reduce Your Tax Exposure, or read on for an edited transcript of the radio program.
Dean Rotbart: Welcome to another edition of Business Unconventional, B. Unconventional. We have not had an accounting tax firm and this is an unconventional firm. We have the CEO of it with us. He is Brian Amann, who is CEO of TaxOps. He has been running this business out of Lakewood for about a decade.
Brian Amann: For a decade, we just had our ten year anniversary in January of this year.
DR: You are getting all sort of statewide recognition for being basically an outstanding company. Congratulations to you.
BA: Thank you.
DR: You do accounting and taxes differently. Tell us how.
BA: Well, we don’t do accounting. That is one thing. We do taxes. We are purely a tax firm. We don’t do audits. We don’t do debits and credits. We do tax work. And we do take a different approach to it. We are not focused on a specific product, such as a tax return or provision. We are focused on aligning ourselves with the company, getting involved and being proactive with them throughout the year. We are involved with the activities of the company as they are unfolding and work with companies to get the best tax results at the time. When we do returns in the subsequent year, the returns become a byproduct of that relationship. So we really get involved as more of an outsourced tax function, if you will, and we do that at a fixed-fee so the company has more certainty around what they are paying. That fixed-fee opens up the lines of communication so that clients are not worried about whether they are going to get a bill every time they pick up the phone and ask us a question. This arrangement allows us to really collaborate with our clients.
DR: You started TaxOps after a successful career with Ernst and Young here in Colorado. When you started TaxOps, were you the sole person for TaxOps?
BA: I was the sole person for TaxOps.
DR: I am reading a story in the Denver Business Journal from June written by Heather Draper. The article says that at the end of June, you were up to 26 employees. Is that pretty close to where you are now?
BA: I think so. We had a new person start this week. Two more people starting next week.
DR: I guess I misspoke at the beginning of the program when I said “taxes and accounting” and you corrected me in saying, “No, no, we do not do accounting.” So tell me then, how do you work with the internal accountants or bookkeepers at a company and their external accounting firms? Do most of your clients have both internal people and an external accounting agency that is not TaxOps and then TaxOps is brought in for its tax specialty?
BA: Most of our clients do, yes. We work with both internal and external accountants.
DR: And you work year-round with them?
BA: Yes, we do our best to.
DR: You are not just a January to April firm?
BA: No, we are pretty much year-round. We do get pinched a little bit from January to April. We work with several publicly traded companies on their financial reporting so that comes up early in the year. Partnerships come up early in the year. We pretty much have a year-round practice because of the way we work with our clients.
DR: I like your niche. I think it is unconventional. Talk to business owners who are listeners to this program and explain to them maybe a little bit more clearly what you can do for them. In the end, it seems to me when I’m dealing with someone in taxes, I want them to do one of two things for me – save me money or save me hassle. I assume you are able to do pretty well on both counts?
BA: We try to. Sometimes we are the bearer of bad news because there are a lot of things that we bring to the table from a risk management standpoint that business owners don’t always like to hear. It is possible they have moved into a new jurisdiction that they weren’t aware of and now they are doing business in Maryland and they didn’t know it.
DR: But they have to be paying some kind of a Maryland’s state tax?
BA: That is possible. A lot of what we do on a risk management side is making business owners and CEO’s aware of the exposure they have out there and then helping them make good business decisions as to how to tackle that.
DR: These could be bad consequences that they did not know about. So you are helping them avoid the risk of bad consequences?
BA: Potentially. In Colorado, we have one of the lowest state tax rates in the country. As businesses expand into other parts of the country, they need to be aware of potential increases in tax rates.
DR: You are expanding into other parts of the country. Tell us about that.
BA: We are. We look for a specific client profile so we are not really geographically based. We have a presence here in Colorado, obviously, and we have clients that are scattered across the country.
DR: Describe the client profile broadly.
BA: OK. It is a company that is doing something -- developing a product or a manufacturing process. They are expanding their footprint into other states or internationally. They are hiring employees. They are doing things that create complex tax issues that we can help them with. They tend to be in industries such as software, technology, biotech, green tech, manufacturing, oil and gas, and mining.
DR: Do you want to comment on the R&D tax credits?
BA: The R&D tax credit is an amazing thing. It is free money for companies that are developing a product or manufacturing processes. Two-thirds of the companies out there that are eligible for the credit don’t know it exists. It is free money. If you have engineers developing a product or a manufacturing process, inquire about the credit. We have got some rock stars that are doing R&D credit work for us all over the country.
DR: How do people get in contact with you?
BA: The best way is the website, TaxOps.com. All our contact information is out there. They can download vcards off the website.
DR: That’s TaxOps.com. Does TaxOps stand for Tax Operations?
BA: Yes.
DR: So if you have a tough tax mission, you know who to call. TaxOps.
Let's talk
Brian Amann can be reached at 303.921.5310 or send an email.
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