Thank you for taking the time to open this email. I understand that much of what you receive may not always be relevant or valuable. That's one of the reasons we've hesitated to create a newsletter; it's challenging to maintain the discipline needed for regular newsletter. However, we find ourselves with numerous topics to discuss with you, our clients, advisors, and colleagues, and we require an effective medium for this communication.

With that in mind, this email could mark the beginning of a long and successful newsletter series, or it might be it. We are not making any promises but for now, let's dive in.

Table of Contents

• Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting

  • Who Has to File ?

  • When do you have to file ?

  • Penalties for Non-Compliance

  • Will P&C Help

• Accounting Service Changes

• No Tax Due Franchise <$2.47m- No more

• P&C Goings On

• Client Corner

Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting

If you haven’t heard of the BOI (Beneficial Ownership Information) reporting requirement from FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), don’t worry—I suspect many of you haven’t. However, if you own a legal entity, be it an LLC or a Corporation, in the U.S., you will be required to file a report with FinCEN disclosing information about the beneficial owners.

Who Has to File ?

The rule defines “reporting companies” as those formed in the U.S. or foreign entities registered to do business in the U.S. by filing with a secretary of state or equivalent office. There are, however, 23 categories of exemptions, including large operating companies, public companies, and some regulated businesses such as banks and insurance companies. Entities not meeting any exemption criteria are subject to the rule. The specific nature of exemptions and their applicability require careful analysis based on each company’s unique circumstances.

When do you have to file ?

The rule goes into effect on January 1, 2024. Companies formed after this date must submit required reports within 90 days, an extension from the initially proposed 30-day period. The extension, which is only applicable to entities created in 2024, offers additional preparation time for compliance. Companies in existence as of December 31, 2023, have until January 1, 2025, to file their reports. For companies formed on or after January 1, 2025, the 30-day reporting window will apply

Penalties for Non-Compliance

The rule carries stiff penalties for non-compliance or fraudulent reporting. Civil or criminal penalties may include fines up to $10,000 and/or imprisonment for up to two years.

Will P&C Help

In the meantime, you can find more information with at the FinCEN website here- https://www.fincen.gov/boi

Accounting Service Changes

We recently sent an email to our accounting service clients detailing our services, pricing, and other important information, facilitated through an application called Ignition. As part of our commitment to maintaining the high-quality service you expect from us, we will be adjusting our rates. This change is vital to ensure we continue providing premier advisory and accounting services.

If you've received our proposal and engagement letter and have any questions, we encourage you to contact us. We value your input and are here to assist. If you're an existing accounting or bookkeeping client and haven't received this email, please inform us. Note that this communication does not pertain to tax-related services, so many of our clients may not have received it.

No Tax Due Franchise <$2.47m- No more

This is a significant change for many of our clients who have a Texas entity required to file a Texas Franchise Tax Return. If your revenue is less than $2.47 million, you are no longer required to file a 'no tax due' tax return. In the past, you were required to file a return and report revenues, but you did not have any tax due. For reports originally due on or after January 1, 2024, a taxable entity whose annualized total revenue is less than or equal to $2.47 million is no longer required to file a No Tax Due Report. However, the entity is still required to file Public Information Reports, either Form 05-102 or Form 05-167 Ownership Information Reports. This change will continue to be part of our standard process in preparing your annual federal tax returns for your business

P&C Goings On

If you didn’t receive our annual holiday card, here we are in all our festive glory. Many of you might not recognize some of the new faces on our team, but we have grown and will continue to add staff to enhance client service. Umer and Rachel are our newest additions going the team over the summer.

We have been busy in 2023, building out our teams. Moving into 2024, we will have a fully functional client accounting services team led by Melissa Barnes. The team's function is to provide clients with financial statement preparation and analysis. We've been interviewing since November to expand this team.

The tax team has been strong. In 2023, we prepared over 6,400 K1s for our clients, largely driven by our real estate group, focusing on Multi-Family and Funds. We have also served industries like Hospitality, Information Consulting & Staffing Companies, Professional Service Firms, and other real estate-related companies. Currently, our in-house tax team stands at six members, and we're looking to hire one more to find the perfect fit. Our tax team redesign has led to the promotion of Monica Hargrove and Sangeetha Iyyapillai, who will primarily review returns in 2024.

For those unfamiliar with our focus, we provide tax compliance, tax planning, and client accounting services. We specialize in serving high net worth entrepreneurs and real estate investors in the U.S. Our goal is to build wealth for our clients through strategic financial decisions while ensuring tax and accounting compliance. In short, our clients' success is our success.

Security Measures and Delivery

As you can imagine, a CPA firm that handles a significant amount of personal client information is a prime target for hackers. In response to this, we adhere to IRS security mandates, state board professional protocols, and insurance requirements to ensure the protection of our clients' data. Consequently, we have fully transitioned to cloud-based operations, where our managed IT department can secure our files more effectively than in the past. This shift also necessitates tightening our procedures for delivering your tax returns and other sensitive information.

SHAREFILE - We have been using Sharefile for years to send encrypted emails. We are now required to ensure that each of our clients has an account, enabling exclusive access to their files through their own email. Earlier this week, you should have received a welcome email from Monica, which provides guidance on how to set up your access. We kindly request that you complete this setup to avoid any inconvenience when you need your documents. We must be stringent about this process due to mandates from various regulatory agencies. This measure is in place to protect both you and your data..

CLIENT PORTAL & DOC REQUESTS- We have implemented a new project management system in our firm, Financial Cents. This is primarily an internal application used for tracking projects and work. However, it also includes a user-friendly client portal, which we plan to utilize for making documents readily available to you whenever you need them.

Furthermore, we will be using Financial Cents as our document retrieval system. Previously, you might have emailed documents to us or uploaded them to Sharefile. Now, we request that you use your client portal within Financial Cents. There will be a designated 'client upload folder' where you can submit your documents. If you have multiple companies, you'll have access to their respective portals. You can access these as long as your email address is registered with your account - https://app.financial-cents.com/client-portal

Client Corner

Are you still reading this? You’re awesome and undoubtedly my favorite client. With that said, what do you want or need from us? As we move into more advisory work we want to know the things that you value. Drop us a line and let us know.

Finally, as you may be aware, we have many investor clients who are looking to invest capital. If you are a General Partner (GP) seeking to raise capital for a deal, we would like to offer our assistance as a resource. If you're interested in promoting your deal, please let us know and we will feature it in our future newsletters. If you are trying to sell your business, real estate assets, or something else, feel free to reach out to us! Additionally, if you have a charitable project for which you are raising funds, we can help with that as well. Please contact Bree to discuss what you would like to promote, and we will begin including it in our upcoming newsletters

Thanks for your attention and most of all. Thank you for trusting us !

Our client’s success drives our success.