Tax Function Outsourcing
Tax function outsourcing includes all services Clifton Douglas provides related to tax provision preparation and tax return preparation, along with a myriad of “other services” we provide to companies under the guild of our tax compliance outsourcing arrangement. It is typical for many tax service providers to tout themselves as “full service compliance firms,” but then charge hourly for any services remotely out of scope from the core tax compliance obligations (provision and returns). A lower fixed price established at the beginning of the engagement oftentimes means additional invoices later attempting to compensate for the unrealistically low initial fixed fee. Our tax compliance services often include other activities, which may consist of the following:
- Tax Notices: Many companies operate in a host of state jurisdictions plus federal (including foreign entity forms such as Forms 5471 and 5472). Such extensive operations result in many tax notices that must be addressed, at times beyond income/franchise tax into property tax, sales/use tax, GST/VAT, etc. Clifton Douglas responds immediately to these notices at no additional charge, writing response letters where necessary, remaining on hold with taxing authorities for lengthy periods of time when necessary to resolve an issue, and defending desk audits for companies.
- Corporate Benchmarking: Clifton Douglas prepares high level tax provisions for companies based on projections in order to assist management in corporate tax rate benchmarking and effective tax rate (cash/GAAP) planning for management decision making purposes.
- Consulting Requests: Clifton Douglas responds to all company management requests for data at no additional charge. One of our clients was considering reverting from public status to private status and wanted to understand any Section 382/383 limitations on deferred tax assets for valuation purposes. Clifton Douglas prepared three case scenarios to assist the client in understanding potential limitations. Clifton Douglas also was on various calls with Company management and third parties assisting them in the valuation of the client, as well as general due diligence discussions with third party audit firm personnel.
- Research Requests: Clifton Douglas is diligent in responding to company research requests regardless of whether such requests are out of scope. Clifton Douglas has spent considerable time assisting companies in understanding various tax concerns typically outside the scope of our engagements. At year-end, Clifton Douglas does not charge additional fees for this work; rather our firm uses the time incurred as a benchmark for subsequent year tax services.
- Online File Storage: Clifton Douglas stores all tax provisions, tax returns, and other key tax documentation on a secured on-line file room. Our “CyberCabinet” allows a company to access this key tax documentation at any time. This approach is a vast improvement over industry standards that typically require companies to store key tax documentation themselves.
- Responsiveness: Clifton Douglas has always responded to company requests immediately. This is not the typical response time in the public accounting industry, and we value our timeframe of deliverables and are confident you will as well.
