Tax Preparation
The service in full: business, personal, and rental returns, the digital process, and what CPA review covers.
Learn moreTax Preparation · Redondo Beach, CA
Tax preparation for Redondo Beach owners and landlords.
Returns for restaurants and hospitality, trades and contractors, and the rental property behind a lot of Redondo Beach households. Prepared property by property and job by job, reviewed by a CPA, and e-filed.
Book Your Free ConsultationTwo kinds of records, one return
The Redondo Beach mix is hands-on: hospitality, trades and contractors, professional practices, and owners who also hold a rental or two. That combination puts two very different record-keeping problems on the same return. The business side is high-volume - daily deposits, tips, card settlements, material purchases, subcontractors. The rental side is low-volume but long-memoried, where a decision made on a roof five years ago still affects this year’s numbers.
Both fail in the same way, which is late. A merchant account that was never reconciled to the bank, or a rental where nobody wrote down what the remodel cost, turns preparation into reconstruction. The return still gets filed, but it gets filed slowly and it gets filed on estimates.
So preparation here starts with the records, not the forms. Each property gets its own schedule. Each business gets a closed, reconciled year. Then the return is arithmetic. What to buy, when to sell, and how to structure it is planning work, and that lives on a separate page.
What we ask for, business and property
Sent once, to one place, in the first weeks of the year.
- 01Reconciled books for the business
Profit and loss, balance sheet, and bank, card, and merchant account reconciliations. For restaurants that includes settling card deposits against sales rather than against the bank feed alone.
- 02Payroll, tips, and subcontractor forms
Payroll reports and W-2 totals, tip reporting, and the 1099s issued to subcontractors. Trades in particular need the subcontractor side documented before filing, not after.
- 03A schedule per rental property
Rent received, expenses, and days rented for each property separately. One combined total for several properties has to be taken apart before it can be used.
- 04Closing statements
The settlement statement for anything bought, sold, or refinanced during the year. Basis, prorated taxes, and loan costs all come off that one document.
- 05Improvement and repair records
Invoices for work done on a property, with enough detail to tell a repair from an improvement. The two are treated completely differently and the invoice is the evidence.
- 06Vehicle, tool, and equipment detail
Mileage or actual costs, plus purchase records for tools and equipment with dates and amounts, so depreciation is calculated rather than estimated.
What slows a Redondo Beach return down
Almost always one of these, and almost always solvable before the season starts.
- 01Repairs and improvements lumped together
A single line reading maintenance covering both a plumbing call and a new kitchen has to be split by hand, from invoices that may take weeks to find.
- 02A missing settlement statement
Without the closing document, nothing about a purchase, sale, or refinance can be recorded correctly. It is the first thing we chase and the last thing owners think of.
- 03Rentals with no depreciation history
A property carried for years with no schedule, or with land never separated from building, has to be rebuilt from records before the current year makes sense.
- 04Personal and business in one account
Common in trades and hospitality, and slow to unwind. Every transaction has to be classified by someone who was not there when it happened.
- 05Cash activity that never hit the books
Deposits, owner draws, or cash paid out that appear nowhere. These have to be resolved before a return can be signed, and they are the most time-consuming item on this list.
Review, signature, and what you get back
When the file is complete, a CPA reviews the return against last year and against the plan: are the property schedules consistent, is the depreciation continuing correctly, do the wage and subcontractor totals tie to what was filed, and did anything change that should have been discussed before December. Questions come to you as questions, not as assumptions buried in a number.
Then we go through it on a video call, you e-sign, and we transmit the federal and California returns electronically. If a return has to be extended because a settlement statement or a K-1 is still outstanding, we decide that early and in writing, and we calculate what needs to be paid on the original schedule so the extension only moves paperwork.
You get the filed copies, the depreciation schedules for each property, the payment or refund detail, and the next round of estimate figures in one package. The depreciation schedules matter: they are the record the next several years of returns depend on, and they should never live only inside a preparer’s software.
Where this connects
Preparation works best sitting on top of the rest.
Tax Planning in Redondo Beach
Ahead of the return: entity, retirement, property timing, and the decisions that set what the filing will say.
Learn moreRedondo Beach CPA Services
The wider view of what we handle for owner-operated businesses and property investors here.
Learn moreMonthly Accounting
Reconciled every month, including merchant deposits and property activity, so the year closes clean instead of being rebuilt in March.
Learn moreCFO Services
Cash-flow and forecasting help for a second location, a build-out, or another property.
Learn moreGet your Redondo Beach filing season off the kitchen table.
Book a discovery call. We will look at how your business and property records are kept today and what preparation would look like with them in order.
Book Your Free Consultation No pressure, no obligation. Just clarity.Questions we hear most.
01I have three rentals. Do they each need their own bookkeeping?+
They need their own records, at minimum income, expenses, and improvements tracked per property. The return reports each one separately, so combined totals have to be split apart eventually. Doing it during the year is far cheaper than doing it during filing season.
02How do you tell a repair from an improvement?+
From the invoice and what the work actually did. Fixing something that broke is generally deductible now; replacing or upgrading a system generally gets added to basis and depreciated. The difference is real money, and it is decided by documentation we ask for up front.
03My previous preparer never gave me a depreciation schedule. Is that a problem?+
It is worth fixing. That schedule is the backbone of every future rental return and of the gain calculation when you sell. We rebuild it from prior returns and purchase records, and you get a copy that stays yours.
04Can you handle a restaurant’s books and the return together?+
Yes, and it is usually the better arrangement. Hospitality books need merchant settlements, tips, and payroll reconciled monthly. When that is already done, the return is straightforward instead of being the moment problems surface.
05I sold a property last year. What do you need?+
The closing statement from the sale, the closing statement from when you bought it, the record of improvements since, and the depreciation history. With those four, the gain is a calculation. Without them, it is an estimate nobody wants to defend.