Business Tax Services
Most businesses don't outgrow their accountant. They outgrow the way their accountant works.
A once-a-year return handoff works fine until the year you add a partner, buy a building, expand across state lines, or get a notice from the Department of Revenue Administration. Then you find out whether your CPA was doing compliance or doing tax work.
Mason + Rich runs a dedicated business tax department out of Concord. We file the returns — federal, New Hampshire, and every state you've picked up nexus in — and we spend the other ten months of the year on the decisions that actually move the number.
Independent Since 1982. Not For Sale.
Private equity has spent the last several years buying up CPA firms, and clients of those firms have watched their partner leave, their fees reprice, and their file get handed to someone three states away. We've grown organically since 1982 and passed ownership to the next generation of CPAs inside the firm rather than selling it. We intend to keep doing that.
New Hampshire Tax Is Its Own Discipline
New Hampshire doesn't work like anywhere else, and software doesn't handle it well. The Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax run on their own base, their own apportionment rules, and their own conformity date to the Internal Revenue Code — which means your federal depreciation, your §179 election, and your interest limitation don't carry over the way you'd expect.
- Unitary combined reporting. Determining which affiliated entities belong in the NH combined group — and which don't — is a judgment call with real dollars attached. It's also where off-the-shelf tax software fails most often. We work the combination by hand and document the position.
- The reasonable compensation deduction. Closely held owners routinely leave this deduction short or take it without support. Both are expensive. We size it and build the file behind it.
- Apportionment and nexus. Sales factor sourcing, market-based sourcing questions, and where a remote employee or a single sales rep creates a filing obligation you didn't know you had.
- IRC conformity differences. Bonus depreciation, §163(j), §174 research expenditures, and NOL limitations all diverge from federal. We track the differences instead of assuming them away.
If you've received an NHDRA notice, been selected for a BPT audit, or been told your combined group is wrong, that's a conversation worth having before you respond.
What We Do
Compliance and Filing
Federal and state returns for C corporations, S corporations, partnerships, LLCs and sole proprietorships. Multistate filings, composite and pass-through entity returns, and the registrations that go with them. Estimated tax calculations reviewed and adjusted during the year, not reconciled in hindsight. Where you need them, compiled or reviewed financial statements prepared alongside the return by the same team.
Partnership and Pass-Through Taxation
Partnerships are where the technical work is, and where most returns quietly go wrong. Capital account maintenance under §704(b), built-in gain and loss allocations under §704(c), outside basis and at-risk tracking, §754 elections and the basis adjustments that follow, guaranteed payments versus distributive share, and the gap between what the operating agreement says and what the K-1 shows. We also handle state pass-through entity tax elections and the multistate credit mechanics that go with them.
Transactions and Entity Structure
Entity selection and re-selection as facts change. Asset versus stock treatment, §1060 purchase price allocation, F reorganizations and pre-sale restructuring, installment sale planning, QSBS qualification and tracking, and debt workouts including cancellation-of-debt income and its partnership-level consequences. Buy-side and sell-side tax diligence. Succession and ownership transition planning coordinated with your attorney and wealth advisor.
Controversy and Representation
IRS and NHDRA examinations, appeals, and correspondence. Penalty abatement, responsible person assessments, and late-election relief under Rev. Proc. 2013-30 and §9100. If you have an unfiled-return problem, we'll tell you when it needs to route through counsel before it comes to us.
Planning and Advisory
Quarterly projections and safe-harbor management. Owner compensation and distribution strategy. Fixed asset and depreciation planning. Multi-year modeling around a sale, a build-out, or a change in ownership. Planning is scoped and priced as its own engagement rather than squeezed into compliance time — see How We Price, below. When the constraint is your accounting function rather than your return, our Client Advisory team handles outsourced controller and CFO support.
Who We Work With
Closely held companies
Owner-operated businesses that have outgrown the return-once-a-year relationship. Usually the trigger is growth, a second location, a partner buy-in, or a bank that started asking harder questions. Most of our business tax clients engage us across the whole picture — the operating company, the related entities, the owners, and the trusts — because that's where the planning actually lives.
Partnerships and professional firms
Medical and dental groups, law firms, engineering and architecture practices, and real estate partnerships. Multi-owner structures where the allocation provisions, the buy-in and buy-out economics, and the K-1s all have to agree with each other.
Manufacturers and multistate companies
Companies with apportionment exposure, NH combined reporting groups, inventory and UNICAP questions, R&D activity, or export sales that may support an IC-DISC.
How We Work
Two CPAs on every file. Always.
Every business tax client is serviced by a minimum of two CPA license holders. You get a primary point of contact who coordinates everything — onboarding, preparation, planning, the related entities and the owners' returns — and who stays with your account so someone always understands the whole strategy. Behind them, a second licensed CPA performs an independent technical review. That reviewer rotates deliberately: a fresh set of eyes catches what a familiar one stops seeing, and brings in positions from other engagements. You'll also have a staff accountant assigned for day-to-day responsiveness.
We'll quote you an engagement that doesn't get extended.
Filing an extension has become the default at most firms. It doesn't have to be. We can price and staff your engagement to meet your deadlines. If you are more flexible, we can schedule in summer for discounted fees.
A small firm's bench, deliberately.
Two partners, three directors, and a team of accountants — sized so that the people who sign your return are the people who worked on it. Big enough to have a partnership specialist, a controversy specialist, and a New Hampshire specialist in the building. Small enough that you'll get one of them on the phone.
You get the reasoning, not just the return.
When we take a position, you'll know what it is, what supports it, and what the exposure looks like if it's challenged.
How We Price
Fixed fees, quoted up front, by engagement. Before we start, you get a written proposal that prices each return, each entity, and each planning engagement as a separate line — so you can see exactly what you're buying and drop anything you don't want.
Three things we do differently, and say out loud:
- Onboarding is priced separately and only once. Taking over a business tax relationship properly means reading the prior returns, rebuilding basis and depreciation records, and finding what the last firm missed. That's real work. We charge for it in year one rather than burying it in an inflated recurring fee.
- Planning is its own engagement. Not a favor squeezed in after April 15, and not an unbilled hour that quietly stops happening. If you want year-round planning, we scope it and price it.
- Nothing unanticipated gets billed without your agreement first. If an audit or an unexpected issue comes up, we agree on the price before the work starts.
Why Clients Stay
- Founded in 1982. Independently owned every year since.
- Two partners, three directors, and a staff of CPAs and accountants — every one of them listed by name on our site. Meet Our Staff →
- Peer reviewed. Learn More →
- Greater Concord Chamber Pinnacle Award for Small Business of the Year.
Business Tax Services Guide
Our Business Tax Services guide walks through our process, what to expect as a new client, and how we staff engagements.
Frequently Asked Questions
We already have a CPA. How hard is it to switch?
Not hard, and mid-year is easier than year-end. We will help you coordinate transferring information from the prior CPA, as well as a request list of items for you to provide us.
Will you file our return by April 15, or extend it?
Either, and we'll tell you which before you sign. If you want a no-extension engagement, we'll price and staff it that way.
Do you handle the owners' returns and the family entities too?
Yes, and it's usually the point. Business tax planning that stops at the entity return misses most of what matters — owner compensation, distributions, trusts, and the individual returns are all one system.
Do you work with our attorney and financial advisor?
Regularly. Transaction, succession, and estate work goes better when the tax position is set before documents are drafted rather than after.
How much does this cost?
We will provide you a quote in writing before any work begins, itemized by entity and engagement.
Start With a Conversation
Send us your last two business returns and tell us what's changed. We'll tell you what we'd do differently, what we think it would cost, and whether it's worth the switch.
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