Our Proposal: A Strategic Alliance to Better Serve Your Clients
Bring Better Value to Your Clients
We are a Cost Segregation Engineering Services company that would like to partner with you to better serve your commercial property clients. Together we can increase cash flow and Net Present Value for your clients. We propose to serve as your “back-office” Engineering support for your Cost Segregation service. Our engineers have performed over 2,500 studies, helped provide our clients with a Net Present Value increase of over $100,000,000, and have a 100% success record with the IRS.
World Class Engineering and Management Team
The members of our engineering staff have served as senior executives at Fortune 500 companies. Our Principal Engineer, Jim Shreve, helped create the current IRS Field Audit guidelines. Your on-site analyst, Tom Kotowski, has 35 years of experience as a world-class analyst (Senior Scientist) for Delphi – General Motors, and his Associate has a Doctorate in Leadership and Management, was a professor of assessment and statistics, and was Director of Training for the Professional Standards Board of the State of Indiana.
Targeting a New Market through a Competitive Cost Structure
Historically, Cost Segregation was done by large accounting firms for their largest clients. We target a market segment that previously was not served by Cost Segregation, the $300,000 - $4,000,000 range, although we have worked with properties up to $60,000,000. We can serve this lower cost market by: having lower fees through the economies of targeting a larger number of lower priced businesses (which because of the larger associated volume, 2,500 case studies to date, takes us further along the learning curve), specializing only in Cost Segregation Engineering, not having the overhead of the Big 4 accounting firms, eliminating travel costs by maintaining local support, and having an in-house engineering staff.
Some Opportunities for CPAs with Cost Segregation
Cost Segregation studies are a valuable tax strategy and should be considered by any CPA whose client owns or is constructing, rehabilitating, or acquiring a commercial real estate facility valued at $300,000 or more. As a CPA, you may be in a position to help your clients realize substantial tax savings, as well as increase their cash flow, simply by conducting a cost segregation study; and, we can provide your client with a “free, no obligation” benchmark analysis identifying the client’s potential tax savings. The August 2004 issue of the "Journal of Accountancy" states, "CPAs should routinely recommend the use of cost segregation studies whenever the expenditures for an acquisition, including leasehold improvements, equal or exceed $750,000." (See side panel.)
Our Function
The Internal Revenue Service recommends using a third party for all cost segregation studies. We are the bridge between the accounting and construction/engineering disciplines, thus creating efficient results for you. We do this by creating engineering reports with the raw data needed for cost segregation studies in support of CPAs like you. The bottom line is that, based on engineering methods, a technically trained and experienced staff, and IRS approved practices, we reclassify all the building components, site work/improvements and building structure, item by item, into 5, 7, 15, 27.5 and 39 year depreciation categories. As an independent third party, we also provide a means for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for cost segregation studies of public audit clients.
Client Goodwill
Most CPAs would agree that client goodwill is one of the most important assets of the firm. Imagine telling your client that you can reduce their current tax payment by $100,000 or even $1,000,000. It does happen. In fact, we've helped it happen many hundreds of times during the last year. As a result, our “client CPAs” have been impressing their clients with unexpected savings and are receiving the thanks and admiration for a job well done. That's building goodwill!
Further Assistance
We can help your CPA firm provide cost segregation studies by:
- Providing you, initially, and as needed, with an on-site consultant to go over the process step-by-step, to make certain your program is a success;
- Providing you with our Multimedia Marketing and Training CDs and Brochures;
- Helping your staff understand client properties criteria that benefit from a cost segregation study;
- Answering the asset costing and engineering questions associated with cost segregation studies;
- Providing you and your clients with case law and IRS procedure references to justify this service;
- Should it be necessary, we will provide you with free audit support;
- With our on-site analyst there are no travel fees and no central office overhead;
- Providing you with our segregation allocation models, based on our historical data that provides an estimate of the financial benefits available; and
- As a leader in the development of innovative applications for cost segregation, we will keep you informed of new trends and developments.
As a CPA, you benefit by utilizing our engineering reports as a crucial and IRS required element in your client's cost segregation study, keeping you ahead of the competition. Your clients will benefit financially, since it allows their property to be depreciated over a faster recovery period, thereby offering a higher tax deduction today. Please call or email us today to request our Flash Multimedia Marketing CD and Brochure, or set up an appointment to discuss how we can enable you to more fully serve your clients. We would be more than pleased to serve you.
Partner with Smart Seg Services and maximize your clients’ after tax cash flow.
