Fit
Whether I'm the right fit for your return
Half of this page is spent talking you out of hiring me, because a bad match is expensive for both of us.
A bad match costs both of us something real. You pay for judgment you did not need. I spend filing season capacity on a return that good software would have gotten right. So here is the sorting, in writing, before anyone has to talk to anyone.
Who this works well for
The work worth paying for is judgment, not data entry. If there is a decision buried in your return somewhere, an entity that might be structured differently, income arriving from four directions, or a form nobody ever explained to you, that is the work.
Physicians and dentists are the largest part of my practice, and they show up at three different stages. The employed hospitalist who found out that board fees, DEA registration and CME stopped being deductible when TCJA suspended unreimbursed employee business expenses, and wants to know whether the group can reimburse them through an accountable plan instead. The attending moonlighting on a 1099-NEC, where the hospital W-2 has usually already capped the Social Security piece of self-employment tax, nothing is being withheld against the rest, and Form 1040-ES becomes the entire conversation. The new group partner holding a first K-1, trying to work out whether the cash will be there in April. More on the medical side of the practice.
Engineers usually arrive with a narrower question: contractor or employee, and what that choice does when project income is lumpy and the projects sit in three states. Nonresident returns, equipment, and a year that is half W-2 and half 1099 are the recurring pieces. More on engineering clients.
Small business owners whose books and tax return need to agree with each other. Entity selection, reasonable compensation on an 1120-S, payroll structure, and the unglamorous work of making gross receipts tie to every 1099-K and 1099-NEC that was also filed with the IRS. That last one heads off the automated matching notice that arrives when the IRS totals the forms filed under your number and gets something other than what your return reported.
Anyone with a real IRS problem. A CP2000, an examination letter, four unfiled years, a balance already sitting in collections. Form 2848 puts me on the file, which means I am the one on hold and the one the revenue officer calls. That work is described here.
Anyone leaving a factory-line preparer. If your return was assembled in twenty minutes by whoever was next in the rotation, and no one asked you a question that was not already printed on the intake form, you know why you are reading this. There is one person here, so getting the same preparer every year is structural rather than a promise.
Signals this is probably a fit
- Income from more than one source, or more than one state
- You own an entity, or you should and nobody has raised it
- A K-1, a Schedule C, or a rental sitting in the same return as a W-2
- An IRS notice you have not opened yet
- Your bookkeeping and your tax return currently disagree
- You want the price before the work rather than after
Who this is not for
This half matters more.
One W-2 and the standard deduction. Quality DIY software handles that correctly, and I will tell you so on the call. The 2025 standard deduction is $15,750 single and $31,500 married filing jointly per the IRS, and those figures move every year. If you are nowhere near itemizing and you have one employer, there is no judgment left for me to add. Paying a CPA for that is paying for typing. I worked through where that line actually sits at length here, including the changes that move a return across it.
If price is the deciding factor. I am not the cheapest and I am not trying to be. The fee comes out of a complexity score, so the same facts produce the same number no matter who is asking, and it does not drop to win the engagement. Storefront preparers will beat it, and some of them do perfectly good work on straightforward returns. Here is how the number gets built.
If you want an aggressive position. I will take every deduction the facts support and defend a position I believe in. I will not sign a return claiming a home office that is not used exclusively and regularly for business, or a Schedule C opened by a W-2 employee to run licensing and CME through it. Those do not survive an examination, and my name goes on the return next to yours.
Same-day turnaround in April. Capacity is finite, and April is the month with the least of it. Show up on April 8 with a box of documents and the honest answer is Form 4868, which moves your filing deadline to October 15, 2027. It moves nothing else. Anything owed is still due on the original April deadline, and a return filed in June with the documents actually in hand beats one filed in April with three of them estimated.
If you would rather not be asked questions. Prior-year cleanup, foreign accounts, the rental you stopped reporting two years ago, basis nobody ever tracked. I am going to ask about all of it, because the answers change the return.
The consultation is free, carries no obligation, and has no follow-up sequence attached to it. Describe what is going on. If the answer is that you do not need a CPA this year, you will hear that from me on the call. The form is here.
How we sort it out
Talk
A free conversation about your actual situation. Not a pitch with a different name on it.
Score
I score the return against countable things: income sources, states filed, schedules and forms required, entities involved, transaction volume, prior-year cleanup. You get a written flat fee before any work begins.
Decide
You take the number away and think about it. If I do not think this is a fit, I will say so before you have to.
I came over to Nottingham after being with another CPA for many years. The transition was very smooth, and I love the personal attention I get from Hunter.
Further reading
Questions, answered plainly.
What if I'm not sure which half of this page I'm on?
That is what the consultation is for. Describe the return: how many W-2s, whether there is a K-1 or a Schedule C, how many states, whether the IRS has written to you. That is usually enough for me to tell you on the call, including when the answer is that software handles it and you should keep your money.
Do you work with clients outside North Carolina?
Yes. I am based in Charlotte and work with clients nationwide. Practice before the IRS is federal, so a CPA can prepare federal returns and represent you before the IRS regardless of which state issued the license, and CPA mobility rules cover work across state lines. Documents move through a secure portal rather than email attachments; the public client login is being finalized, so for now everything starts with the contact form.
I already have a CPA. Is it worth switching?
Often it is not. If your current preparer answers your questions, walks you through the return, and quotes a fee you can predict, staying put is usually right. It is worth a conversation when you cannot reach anyone between February and April, when the invoice is a surprise every year, or when nobody has ever raised entity structure or estimated payments with you. If you do move, ask for the depreciation schedule, any basis and carryforward statements, and the last two returns. Those are the pieces that get lost in a handoff.
The first conversation is free.
Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you plainly whether you need me.
Schedule a Free Consultation