Practice Management
For the practitioners who sign the returns: engagement letters and fee structures, preparer penalty exposure, workpaper standards, vetting and pricing specialty providers, quality control for credit claims, and professional liability.
Start here
5 piecesNo background assumed — the pieces that build the foundation.
Brief · Intro · 3 min
Staying current in specialty tax: a system that survives busy season
A maintainable currency routine for CPAs touching credits and incentives: the weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin habit, tracking OBBBA-era transition rules, watching Section 41 and cost segregation case law, and choosing CPE that compounds.
Brief · Intro · 3 min
Client screening for incentive work: who should not claim
Not every client who could claim a credit should. The screening patterns — documentation-averse clients, aggressive-pressure clients, statute-expired opportunities — and how to decline gracefully.
Brief · Intro · 3 min
Managing boutique relationships after the referral
Ongoing hygiene for a CPA firm's specialty-tax referral partners: annual re-vetting, feedback loops from exams, avoiding dependence on one shop, and the ethics of referral fees.
Brief · Intro · 3 min
Pricing specialty tax work without biasing the answer
Value, hourly, and fixed pricing for credit and method-change work in a CPA practice: how to scope before quoting, what each model does to incentives, and the fee structures to avoid.
Brief · Intro · 3 min
A right-sized quality control system for the small tax firm
Quality control that fits a small CPA practice handling specialty tax work: client acceptance and continuance, review protocols for out-of-competency positions, and a once-a-year inspection that actually happens.
The working layer
6 piecesThe practitioner's day-to-day rules, mechanics, and traps.
Guide · Working · 7 min
Preparer penalties under Section 6694: what signing a specialty study really costs
How Section 6694 penalties work — unreasonable positions, substantial authority versus reasonable basis with disclosure, the willful-or-reckless tier, the Section 6695 mechanical penalties — and the diligence that protects a CPA signing a return built on a boutique's credit study.
Guide · Working · 8 min
The CPA firm's playbook for vetting specialty tax providers
A firm-side diligence process for R&D credit, cost segregation, and energy incentive boutiques: what deliverables to demand, how to read fee structures, reference questions, red flags, and a scoring rubric before you refer a client.
Brief · Working · 3 min
Professional liability in specialty tax: where the claims actually come from
E&O realities for CPA firms doing or referring specialty tax work: the fact patterns that generate suits — missed elections, blown statutes, oversold studies — the policy features that matter, and the habits that prevent claims.
Brief · Working · 3 min
Contingent fees under Circular 230 §10.27: the rules and the workarounds
Where Circular 230 permits and prohibits contingent fees, why refund claims are the pressure point, how specialty boutiques structure around the rule, and what that structuring means for the CPA who signs the return.
Brief · Working · 3 min
Workpaper standards for credit claims you didn't build
What belongs in the CPA's file when a boutique performed the R&D or cost segregation study: the deliverable review, tie-outs to the return and the books, documented inquiries, and retention.
Brief · Working · 3 min
Engagement letters when specialty tax work is in the return
How a CPA firm's engagement letter should handle a boutique's credit or cost segregation study: scope limits, reliance-on-specialist clauses, exam-support carve-outs, and what indemnity language can and cannot do.