November/December 2009

Greetings to you all!

Wow, what a year it’s been!  From what started out as a very busy, very normal tax season, to a tumultuous spring and summer of staff shake-ups and shake-outs, to an abnormally busy fall and then….we opened our second office in Greenwood, SC.  Whew, I got tired just typing that, and even more tired as I remembered going through it all in real-time!

As we get closer to the end of another year, our seventh year in business, I want to thank you all for being such wonderful clients, colleagues and friends.  The year has been exciting no matter what happened, and we all have to go through things to grow professionally and personally.  I’ve read that we go through life changes in all areas every seven years, so I guess it was our time.  We emerged stronger for all the good and challenging things that happened, and our new office has been a rousing success thus far.

For those of you that have been long-time clients, you know what I’m about to say.  It’s time to get the tax planning underway for 2009.  Our business clients have been great about staying in touch and allowing us to assist all year, but for those of you who haven’t yet allowed us to review your books, we strongly advise you to come in before year end.  As you may or may not know, several tax law changes have occurred, some very recently and it has served so many clients well to review their year before the calendar year closes on us.  Once January 1 rolls around, our opportunities are somewhat limited.  As we do every year, we’ve done a tremendous amount of planning with our individual clients to review withholding exemptions to be sure that adequate amounts of withholding have been utilized this year. If the clients are in strong refund positions, we can limit the withholdings for the remaining pay cycles and have them receive more take-home pay.  Conversely, if the opposite is true, we can have more withheld for those last pay checks, or at least prepare the client for what may happen in April.  At any rate, the planning meetings are successful and fruitful.

We will be gearing up for tax season shortly, which means that we will be mailing or e-mailing you our year end tax planning letter and the organizer package for personal tax return preparation.  With our new office opening, I strongly encourage you to make your appointments with me early this year to ensure that you get the time and date you desire.  I will be sharing the meeting schedule this coming season with my new staff accountant, Drew Patterson, so if you cannot meet with me you can certainly meet with him.

We feel very fortunate to be your CPA firm!  I wish you all a joyous holiday season with friends and family, and look forward to seeing each and every one of you in the coming months.  As always, if we can be of service to you please never hesitate to call or contact us!

Best regards,

Jonathan I. Godwin, CPA