One of the items that set Aukema & Company, PC apart from other accounting firms’ organizations is our willingness to tackle new and changing tax strategies. In doing this we save our clients tax dollars and prepare them for the tax changes. This can be demonstrated by four different examples:
First, in 1998 Aukema & Company was one of the first small firms to amend several corporate state income tax returns to allocate income to states other than Michigan. This process allowed one of our clients to receive over thirty thousand dollars in SBT tax refunds over a four year period and continue to save the company eight thousand per year in future years. This process was call NEXUS tax filings, which allowed us to allocate our clients state income tax into the states in which they do business.
Second, Aukema and Company, PC was on the front end of the accounting firms that took advantage of the redefined R & D tax credit by the federal government and amended several of our client’s tax returns. One of our clients received over fifteen thousand in tax refund for the last three years. We will have saved over five thousand annually from because of our desire to look at and undertake new tax strategies.
The third example is the forward approach to engage in the new use (Sales) tax on services here in Michigan in 2007. Three days after the passage of the new law we identified the clients that had a potential to be impacted by the tax and notified them of their new problem (issue). After developing and fully understanding the tax, we met with each of our impacted clients to set up systems to limit the tax impact on them. We also set up systems which allowed the clients to comply with the law before the tax was enacted.
The final example, in the process, we are tackling the Michigan’s new Business tax. Shortly after the new tax was enacted we attended seminars to learn about the tax and learn the new tax system. This new information allowed us to understand what is being taxed and in turn, can educate our clients on the accounting changes that need to be made to minimize the new tax. We also will help out clients to set up new systems to collect the new information to minimize our clients’ tax liability.
The goal of Aukema & Company, P.C. is to educate each client so they can use their accounting system to track the information needed to keep their tax liability as low as legally possible. This goal is what sets them apart from other accounting firms.