Tax Preparation
Business and individual returns prepared by the team that built your plan, so the elections your strategy calls for actually get made.
Learn moreOur core service
Tax planning that works while the year is still open.
A written, year-round tax strategy for business owners with complex returns - multiple entities, real estate, capital gains, and the California layer on top. Built by a Torrance CPA firm, reviewed every quarter, and executed before the deadlines pass.
Book Your Free ConsultationWhy most business owners overpay
The tax code rewards decisions made in advance. Retirement plans must be established by set dates. Entity elections have windows. Equipment purchases count in the year they happen. Income can often be timed, but only before it arrives.
Most CPA relationships are built backwards for this. The accountant sees your numbers in February or March, when every one of those decisions is already locked. The return gets filed correctly, and the overpayment gets filed with it.
Tax planning inverts that. We project your year in advance, identify which strategies the law makes available to you, and put them in motion while they still count. The return, when it comes, is just the paperwork for a plan that already worked.
What an Astute tax plan covers
Every plan is custom and no two look the same. These are the areas that come up most, and the list is not exhaustive.
- 01S-corp and entity optimization
Whether your current structure - sole proprietorship, LLC, S corporation, C corporation, or a combination - still fits the income you actually book, what changing it would be worth, and the owner compensation that has to be set alongside it.
- 02Multiple LLCs and related entities
Holding companies, operating entities, and property LLCs looked at as one structure rather than separate returns. Intercompany charges, allocations, and which entity should hold what.
- 03Real estate gains and depreciation
Depreciation schedules that reflect what you actually own, cost segregation where the numbers justify it, passive-activity treatment, and the recapture waiting at the end that decides whether a sale is worth making this year.
- 041031 exchanges
Whether a like-kind exchange genuinely beats paying the tax, how the replacement property and financing have to line up, and the sequencing with your qualified intermediary. Planned before the sale closes, because afterwards the option is gone.
- 05California versus out-of-state real estate
Property held outside California still reaches your California return. Sourcing, apportionment, credits for tax paid to other states, and the filing obligations each state creates on its own.
- 06Capital-gain timing
Which year a gain lands in, how it stacks with the rest of your income, and whether splitting, deferring, or accelerating it produces a better result across two years than one.
- 07Business deductions
A systematic pass through what you are entitled to claim and are not claiming today, documented as it is implemented so every position holds up if it is ever questioned.
- 08Estimated-tax planning
Payments recalculated from live numbers each quarter rather than last year's safe harbor by default, so you neither lend the IRS money for a year nor walk into a penalty because the year ran ahead of projection.
- 09Retirement-plan strategies
Choosing and funding the right plan for your business, from straightforward options to designs built for high savers, sized against the profit you will actually book rather than last year's.
- 10The California layer
Franchise tax, the pass-through entity election, and residency questions that generic advice routinely gets wrong. California is where we have the deepest bench, and it is the state most often mishandled for owners who moved, sold, or hired across its border.
From discovery call to a working plan
Four steps, then a cadence that keeps running all year.
- 01Discovery call
Thirty minutes on your situation: income, structure, and what you are paying now. We tell you honestly whether planning will pay for itself. If it will not, we say so.
- 02Deep analysis
We review returns, books, and goals, then screen your facts against the strategies the law makes available. Everything is quantified: what each move saves, what it requires, and its deadline.
- 03The written plan
You get a plan in plain English: the strategies chosen, the projected savings, and the implementation calendar. Defensible, documented, and specific to you.
- 04Quarterly execution
Planning is a cadence, not a binder on a shelf. We meet through the year, track actuals against projections, and execute each strategy on schedule.
Built for owners with real complexity
Tax planning produces meaningful results when there is meaningful income to plan around, generally $500k and up. Our clients are typically owners of small and mid-sized businesses, from professional practices to contractors to agencies; high-income households with equity compensation, investments, or rental real estate; executives and professionals with spike-income years ahead; and owners approaching a sale, expansion, or succession decision.
If that is you, the odds are good there are strategies you have never been shown. Most of our clients arrive from firms that filed accurate returns for years without once suggesting a plan.
Every engagement runs over video and a secure portal, so we work with owners anywhere in California on the same footing. The questions that come up most often are the ones that cross state lines: which states a business owes returns in once it hires or sells outside California, how an entity structure holds up in more than one jurisdiction, when to exercise or sell equity, and how to sequence a business sale across tax years.
Where the plan connects
Planning works best when the same firm files the returns behind it.
For Attorneys
Partner K-1s, professional corporations, and contingency-fee years, where structure and timing decide the bill more than deductions do.
Learn moreIndustries We Serve
How the planning work changes across agencies, medical practices, construction, e-commerce, and the other fields we work in most.
Learn moreSee what a plan would find in your numbers.
Book a discovery call with a Torrance CPA firm serving all of California. If planning will not pay for itself in your situation, we will tell you on the call.
Book Your Free Consultation No pressure, no obligation. Just clarity.Questions we hear most.
01How is tax planning different from tax preparation?+
Preparation reports the past: it takes the year that already happened and files it accurately. Planning shapes the future: it looks at the current year while decisions are still open and structures them to reduce the bill legally. Preparation is required; planning is where the savings come from.
02How much can tax planning save?+
It depends entirely on your income, entity structure, and how much planning has already been done. For owners above roughly $500k who have never had a real plan, the first year often uncovers the largest savings because foundational strategies have never been implemented. We quantify the opportunity in a discovery call before you commit to anything.
03Is aggressive tax planning risky?+
Aggressive planning is risky. Defensible planning is not. Every strategy Astute Advisors recommends is grounded in the tax code and documented in a written plan, with support prepared as we go. If a strategy cannot be defended in an audit, it does not go in the plan.
04When should I start?+
Earlier in the year is better, because more strategies are still available. But the right time is now, whatever the date: even a fourth-quarter plan can capture year-end moves, and it positions the following year properly from January 1.
05Does Astute Advisors handle California-specific issues?+
Yes. Franchise tax, state elections, and residency questions are part of every plan, not an add-on. We are based in Torrance and most of our clients are California taxpayers, so the state layer is built in from the start.