A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (In This Case $20,000)

A large long term care client received a city notice indicating over $20,000 in past due taxes. The standard notice response had been sent a couple times to no avail. The notices continued to come and interest charges were starting to add up.

The Challenge

All of the income the city was trying to tax had been earned in various pass-through entities that was eventually passed or “flowed through” to the client. Therefore, the taxes had already been paid on this income by other entities. This response had been explained in previous correspondence to the city with no success. The main challenge was coming up with a way to make the message as clear as possible.

The Solution

GBQ enlisted the help of a staff accountant who is proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word and all of their capabilities. The staff prepared a colorful flow chart that showed the origin of the income and how it eventually “flowed” to the client. It worked. The city finally understood the message we were trying to send and all the taxes, interest and penalties was abated (much to the relief of our client).