Real estate tax professional—questions to ask

[Cody Wageman]

We are just starting out and working towards getting our first STR. From the stuff we have researched and learned so far we believe getting a real estate tax professional in board earlier could help save us a lot of money and prevent us from making some issues with regards to taxes. Do you ask feel it is necessary to work with someone local or is it on to work with an agent who specializes in this but isn't local? I don't mind doing teleconference type communication so if that makes sense we can broaden our search. Is there specific questions we should make sure and ask? If anyone has any recommendations we would appreciate that. Thank you all.

[Julio Gonzalez]

@Cody Wageman As Michael mentioned, we are seeing an increase in clients that never even step foot in the office and everything is completely virtually. As long as your CPA is easy to get ahold of and get a call scheduled, it shouldn't be an issue to have a non-local CPA. Here are some questions you could ask while looking for your new CPA:

1. Are you experienced in working with my industry? Do you know the ins and outs of it? How long have you been working in the industry?

2. Do you work with any specialty tax firms to help us small business owners get access to R&D tax credits, cost segregation, energy credits and other specialty tax credits?

3. Do you meet with us routinely to be proactive and do planning?

4. What real estate tax saving strategies have you utilized with other clients?

I've found that CPAs that focus on a niche area such as real estate rather than offering general services to everyone are typically much more knowledgeable about real estate tax incentives.