Three quotes, three numbers, none of them wrong. The 2025 fee-study averages ($228 with an EA, $280 with a CPA), what each schedule adds, and the one fee structure that should end the conversation.
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The refund is arithmetic, not negotiation, and nobody can enlarge it from the same facts. But corrected RSU basis, Utah's 20% EITC match, and the new OBBBA deductions are different facts. Where the real money hides.
Read postOne flat rate, a disappearing credit standing in for the standard deduction, and an extension that is automatic for the paperwork but not the payment. Utah's income tax in one pass, with the 2025 and 2026 numbers.
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A project manager in Orem maxes her 401(k), then spends an April evening hunting her 1040 for the deduction. Where each account actually shows up, the 2026 limits and phase-outs, and what $32,000 of pre-tax savings is worth in Utah.
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A landlord selling a duplex after ten years finds $120,000 of her gain taxed at a higher rate than the rest. What the 25% slice is, the four exits that actually cut it, and the two popular moves that fail.
Read postA landlord with $32,000 of Schedule E profit wants the 20% deduction her S corp friends get. The IRS answer is a safe harbor with a 250-hour price tag and a logging habit most owners have not started yet.
Read postAn investor sells a rental, the proceeds land with a qualified intermediary, and a 45-day clock starts that no weekend will pause. Here is how many properties you can name, in what form, and what happens when you name too many.
Read postA landlord who never depreciated a rental does not amend eight old returns. One Form 3115, filed with the current year's return, deducts every skipped dollar at once as a §481(a) adjustment. Here is how the catch-up works and when you can actually use it.
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The AMT you pay to exercise and hold incentive stock options comes back. It is a §53 minimum tax credit you recover on Form 8801, faster if you sell the shares, and there is one case where it barely moves.
Read postStarting January 1, 2026, 401(k) catch-up contributions go in as Roth, not pretax, for anyone whose 2025 Social Security wages from that employer passed $150,000. The test has sharp edges, and a few groups walk through it untouched.
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The S election deadline passes quietly, and most owners only find out when the first S corporation return is being prepared and there is no acceptance letter in the file. Rev. Proc. 2013-30 fixes it retroactively, for free, if you follow its script exactly.
Read postThe IRS taxed your RSUs as wages at the vest-day price. The round trip back down is a capital loss you deduct at $3,000 a year, and a layoff usually means selling at the bottom. The asymmetry is fixable, but only in advance.
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