Our firm understands and respects the hard work you put into earning your money. You shouldn’t settle for a firm that hits you with surprise fees.

At Strategic Tax & Accounting, our team will keep you informed about what we are doing, why, and how much it will cost, before doing the work. Whether by using fixed and flat rate fees from printed fee schedules, or advanced description of hour fee services required with estimated costs, you won’t get surprise after the fact fees.

You deserve honesty, transparency and predictability in your accounting fees.

Income Tax Return Preparation Fees

We don’t just “make up” our tax preparation fees based on how much we think people will pay. And the tax return preparation fee is not based on how much money you make, or how much you get in a tax refund.

Our fees are determined by the National Society of Accountants Bi-Annual Fee Survey, which surveys thousands of tax preparers nationwide ranging from unlicensed tax preparers, up to CPAs and Tax Attorneys. Whatever the Alabama Average Fee for the prior year in that survey, we round to the nearest multiple of $5, and that is the fee we charge.

Please see relevant excerpts of that survey here: (NSA Fee Study)

For the years for which a Bi-annual survey is not published, the fees will be increased at a percentage equal to the US Bureau of Labor & Statistics Consumer Price Index each January 1st, for the preceding year ended December 31.

By using this tax return pricing model, you will always know that your tax return preparation fees are objective, fair, and based on the Alabama average fees. And that we are providing above-average service, for State of Alabama average fees.

To get a firm quote on how much your tax return preparation will cost, call one of our offices. If you will provide our staff with your prior year tax return, and then answer some simple questions about any changes you had for the current year tax return, they will give you the amount that we will charge for your tax return preparation based on our published fee schedule (subject to the annual Survey, and Consumer Price Index, adjustments described above).

Accounting & Bookkeeping Fees

Recurring Monthly Services Fees 

We base our bookkeeping fee for recurring monthly services, including monthly financial statement production, sales tax filings and payroll filings, on a fixed transaction based fee. So you won’t have to worry about being surprised by your accounting bill every month. We can quote you a firm monthly fee in advance of your retaining us after a short interview to determine how many accounts, transactions and services your business uses in the average month.

We will review the time on each account periodically, or at your request, to ensure the average time spent on each recurring monthly service fixed fee account is consistent with the $100 per hour staff fee, and $150 per hour manager review fee, when done efficiently, on which our standard monthly transaction fees are based.

Hourly Fees

For special projects, catching your books up to the current month, or other nonrecurring transactions, we must charge hourly fees. But we will always let you know what we are doing, why, and have deliverable results for our hourly rate invoices.

Fees for Questions or Concerns

Once you are a client, we will not send you a bill for short customer service, tax or accounting questions, or explanations. If your question or concern reaches a level of knowledge or time that requires us to charge you a fee to answer it completely and competently, we will tell you in advance and let you decide if you want us to do the research or analysis required to answer the questions yourself, or pay us to do it for you. No surprise invoices!

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