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tax support

Tax Support Role Description

Posted Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Thank you for your interest in WCG CPAs & Advisors. The following is high-level information for our Tax Support role on the Tax team.

Team Overviews

WCG CPAs & Advisors is a mid-size yet boutique tax and accounting firm with 7 partners, about 65 full-time employees and $9.2M in 2024 revenue ($11M in 2025) located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We primarily engage with small business owners (S Corps, Partnerships, PCs) and complex individual tax preparation. We take a consultative approach to our client engagements by offering routine consultation and a strong focus on planning and business advisory services. However, we are still a compliance-forward, good ol’ fashioned CPA firm.

Charge hours? Not us. Tracking billable time to the 6-minute increment? No way. While WCG has hourly rates for open-ended projects and other craziness, our approach to tax and accounting engagements is very unique. We were one of the first CPA firms to offer Business Advisory Service (BAS) plans with a fixed value-based fee structure including our newly added Tax Patrol Services (TPS).

Tax Prep and Tax Support

The Tax team uses Thompson Reuters UltraTax and is self-hosted by our own servers. We also use SurePrep for electronic tax binders and annotation including their 1040SCAN solution. The Tax team will prepare about 4,100 tax returns for the 2023 tax return year (due in 2024), with a nice split of 60% individual and 40% business entity tax returns. The Tax team has a particular fondness for summers and as such we attempt to prepare 65% of our tax returns by April 15, with only 35% being extended. May, June and July are primarily tax planning months.

Tax Support does front-end and back-end support. They collect initial data from the client and assemble it into an electronic binder using SurePrep. They also collect payments and obtain efile authorizations through Canopy. The Tax Support team files about 75% of our tax return extensions with the remainder filed by the Tax team.

WCG has 27 Tax team members plus our 10 team members in India. Our Tax Support team has 7 full-time people plus 6 seasonal team members.

Accounting Services

WCG defines Accounting Services as Bookkeeping + Analysis and is an incredible value to the client from accurate financial and tax reporting to real-time tax planning and decision-making.

The Accounting Services Team currently has 8 people, including a small group in India. An Accounting Services team member works with 25-30 clients and primarily prepares monthly, bi-monthly, quad-monthly, or ad hoc financial statements using QuickBooks Online (exclusively). In addition, Accounting Services prepares and files sales and use tax including personal property tax.

Payroll Processing

Currently WCG has 6 dedicated payroll specialists who process payroll for over 800 small businesses using ADP exclusively. The Payroll team does not process payroll using a client’s platform or any type of hybrid system; either WCG does it all or we do not touch it all. Payroll is way too critical to have various systems and interactions.

Operations

WCG uses Canopy for our workflow solution, and our Operations team directly includes a Manager and two Supervisors, plus many other “stakeholders” from other teams.

Business Development

Our Business Development team has two dedicated people who draft and update proposals, repaper existing client engagements, handle corporate governance matters such as formation and S Corp elections and monitors the onboarding process for Business Advisory, Tax Patrol and Investor Patrol engagements.

Tax Support Basics

  • Must have a pleasant demeanor with clients, and your fellow co-workers, and excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
  • Must be proficient with a paperless environment and workflow management concepts.
  • $25 to $30 per hour for seasonal tax support team members. Salary of $64,000 to $76,000 for full-time permanent tax support team members. Bonuses, if offered, are considered in addition to total compensation (for this position, bonuses are based on qualitative intangibles).

WCG has both seasonal and full-time permanent team members for the Tax Support team. We remain super flexible to align team needs with your career objectives and domestic demands. Tax Support can be a wonderful way to augment household incomes or to start a career in the accounting industry, or both.

Tax Support Role Responsibilities

You will be working with and supporting all other WCG team members, plus our wonderful client base. Your duties include-

  • Guiding WCG along the path of success,
  • Promoting WCG culture, and encouraging excellence and high team morale
  • Developing and implementing WCG goals, procedures, and policies in coordination with other Partners, Directors, Managers, and employees,
  • Identifying overall improvement gaps and assisting with deploying corrective measures,
  • Providing feedback, concerns and recommendations to WCG leadership to continuously evolve Tax Support,
  • Assisting with development of internal policies relating to tax support and implementation of policies into existing practices,
  • Answering client phone calls and emails (primary),
  • Monitoring, screening, responding to and distributing incoming calls or emails (primary),
  • Filing and organizing electronic documents,
  • Connecting with clients to gather essential information,
  • Performing office chores such as emptying dishwasher, emptying trash cans and keeping kitchen and social lounge clean (we have weekly janitorial service too),
  • Helping to keep the workflow moving, and
  • Other tasks as requested by other team members.

Tax Support role responsibilities and duties will change from time to time depending on circumstances, your skillsets and requests, and other factors. They are reviewed, modified if necessary and agreed to during Employee Reviews.

Information Data Processing (IDP) Specialty

The IDP team is a specialty subteam of Tax Support with two primary functions-

  • Process client uploads by analyzing the information, renaming and organizing as necessary, notifying the client and alerting other teams that new data has arrived from the client.
  • Send e-signature requests and processes paid invoices for tax return filing.

It is common to process 1,000 to 1,500 client uploads for online form submissions daily. Yes, daily. Given the repetitive nature of IDP, some team members find it better to work remotely in addition to working atypical hours (are you a early bird or do you burn the midnight oil?). In addition many IDP team members have a fragmented work day to balance domestic demands such as kids, school and house chores with team member duties.

cost segregation studyBinder Builder (BB) Specialty

The Binder Builder team is a specialty subteam of Tax Support with three primary functions-

  • Connect with clients to obtain critical information for tax return preparation in addition to downloading accounting and payroll data directly from online sources (QuickBooks, Xero, ADP, Paychex, etc.).
  • Assemble client data, tax documents and related information into electronic tax binders using SurePrep Binder. Create tax return records in our tax software, verify 1040SCAN data from SurePrep, and upload into the tax return.
  • Assist Client Support and other Tax Support team members in sending e-signature requests, processing paid invoices and communicating with the client regarding the final stages of tax return filing.

Binder Builders learn a lot about various tax forms and basics of tax return preparation. It is often seen as a stepping stone to join the Tax Prep team where team members spend about a year building binders, learning the tax return process and absorbing WCG life. Building binders is a wonderful way to start a tax return preparation career.

Other Requirements

All salaried positions must work 2,000 hours annually / 12-month trailing period. Holidays and other office closures count towards the 2,000 hours (e.g., Thanksgiving would contribute 8 hours towards the 2,000-hour requirement). PTO and other employee-requested leaves do not count towards the 2,000-hour requirement. Please refer to the WCG Associate Handbook for additional information.

Tax Support Team Career Path

The career path for Tax Support includes Supervisor and Manager for the Tax Support team, and also Tax Accountant, Supervisor and Manager for the Tax Prep team.

WCG CPAs & Advisors is a full service consultation and tax preparation firm located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and we look forward to working with you!