Most businesses do not have a tax filing problem. They have a tax planning problem.
Proactive tax advisory from Orbit Accountants, connected to clean, current books. We help U.S. business owners plan four things before year-end closes the door: owner compensation, sales tax and economic nexus, entity structure, and IRS and state questions.
Proactive Tax Planning
Owner Compensation Planning
Sales Tax and Nexus Advisory
IRS and State Notice Support
CPA-Level Oversight
Fixed-Scope Engagements
A proactive process that surfaces tax decisions early, without disrupting your day to day operations.
See your exposure and the real decisions before year-end: timing of income and expenses, capitalize versus deduct, depreciation elections, and quarterly estimated payments, so April holds no surprises.
See your exposure and the real decisions before year-end: timing of income and expenses, capitalize versus deduct, depreciation elections, and quarterly estimated payments, so April holds no surprises.
The decision that costs the most to get wrong
There is no universal answer, and that is exactly the point. If you provide services to your own S corporation, the IRS expects reasonable W-2 compensation before you take distributions. Miss in either direction and it costs you.
It cascades further than most owners realize:
Subject to Social Security and Medicare. Builds retirement plan capacity and Section 199A wage support.
Reasonable compensation on payroll, the balance distributed. Documented, defensible, and modeled on your numbers.
Not subject to self-employment tax, but limited by stock basis and your accumulated adjustments account.
Orbit's Owner Compensation Blueprint models your actual numbers and tells you how to pay yourself this year, what it saves, and what documentation stands behind it.
Representative situations that walk through our door. Each one is a pattern we see repeatedly, not a specific client.
Pre-revenue software company, came in for a return.
Multi-entity owner, years of distributions, no W-2, no basis tracking.
Services business, dozens of workers classified as contractors.
Ecommerce brand, nexus triggered in states it had never entered.
Founder relocating out of a high-tax state.
U.S. person weighing a foreign holding structure, peer advice in hand.
See our global entity management service.
A streamlined process designed to get your tax position back under control, fast.
Eight steps from first call to an ongoing planning rhythm.
We learn your business, entity structure, books, and the decisions sitting in front of you.
We confirm the advisory scope and agree a fixed fee upfront. No hourly meter.
We set up Orbit Portal access and confirm priorities for right now and for the year.
Federal and state returns, payroll filings such as Forms 941, 940, W-2, and 1099-NEC, sales tax returns, and any IRS or state notices.
Issues, opportunities, risks, and next steps summarized in plain English with owners and dates.
We turn advice into action through the books, payroll, filing coordination, or specialist partners.
Schedules and records stay organized for a clean year-end and for any IRS or state question that arrives.
Quarterly or annual reviews keep planning ahead of estimated payment and filing deadlines.
Bookkeeping is the base. Advisory works when the numbers underneath it are current. Where books need attention first, we target a month-end close within 10 business days.
A striking share of our advisory files open with the sentence “my friend told me.”
We will tell you when the idea is real, when it is dead, and what the defensible version looks like.
Sometimes the best advisory outcome is the aggressive idea we talk you out of, in writing, with the code section attached.
Scaling past this range? Fractional CFO services pick up where advisory leaves off.
How proactive advisory compares to the four options most owners weigh.
| What you care about | Seasonal tax preparer | Solo bookkeeper | DIY software | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| When you talk | Once, at filing time | Monthly, about data entry | Never | Before decisions are final, on a set cadence |
| Owner compensation | Reported after the fact | Outside their scope | Not addressed | Modeled, documented, and implemented |
| Sales tax nexus | Rarely reviewed | Filed if already registered | Your responsibility | Reviewed as you grow, registrations sequenced |
| Books behind the advice | Whatever you hand over | Maintained, not analyzed | Only what you categorize | Maintained by the same team giving the advice |
| IRS or state notice | Billed hourly, if reachable | Outside their scope | You are on your own | Documented response, coordinated end to end |
| Pricing | Per return, plus extras | Hourly or monthly | Low cost, high risk | Fixed scope agreed before work begins |
| Continuity | New preparer most years | Single point of failure | None | Dedicated lead with a team behind them |
Join businesses across the U.S. who trust Orbit
Plan Ahead. Stay Ready.
"I've been working with Orbit since the beginning of 2026 and couldn't be happier. They are professional, detail-oriented, responsive, and always timely. As the owner of a one-person corporation, I greatly appreciate having such a reliable accounting team in my corner. Highly recommended!"
Consultant
From clean books to strategic CFO guidance, Orbit Accountants delivers the full back-office stack for U.S. small and medium-sized businesses. Fixed monthly pricing, on-time month-end, and a dedicated team that actually knows your business.
Stay aligned with IRS and state requirements: no missed deadlines, no avoidable penalties, and complete audit-ready documentation kept all year.
Not a single late filing in 3 years with Orbit.
Tax advisory is proactive guidance that helps you understand the tax impact of a decision before you make it, rather than after the return is filed.
Filing reports what already happened; advisory shapes what happens next, while you still have options.
You may, because filing keeps you compliant while advisory addresses owner pay, entity structure, sales tax nexus, and IRS questions.
We analyze your role, hours, industry pay data, and company profitability to set reasonable compensation, and we document the support behind the figure.
Yes, we track and file sales tax where you have obligations and flag economic nexus in new states as your revenue grows.
Yes, we help you understand the notice, assemble the supporting records, and prepare an organized response coordinated with a credentialed representative.
Yes, scope, deliverables, and fee are agreed before work begins, so there are no surprise advisory invoices.
Proactive guidance that helps you understand the tax impact of decisions before filings are due. It covers the choices you still control, rather than reporting the ones you already made.
Filing reports what already happened. Advisory helps you plan before decisions are made, while the outcome can still change.
You may. Filing keeps you compliant. Advisory helps with planning, owner pay, entity structure, sales tax obligations, and IRS questions. Many owners find the planning conversation is where the money actually moves.
Both. Some clients need a single issue solved, such as an entity decision or a nexus review. Others prefer quarterly or annual check-ins so planning stays ahead of deadlines.
We look at your actual role and hours, comparable market pay for that role, the profitability of the business, and the split between services you perform and returns on capital. We document the basis for the figure so it can stand up to review, rather than picking a round number.
Sometimes, and it depends on profit level, owner involvement, state treatment, payroll costs, and how the Section 199A deduction applies to you. The election has timing rules under Form 2553. We model it before recommending it, because the election is not free and it is not always the right answer.
Distributions in excess of stock basis generally become taxable gain. This surprises owners who have been taking money out informally for years without anyone tracking basis or the accumulated adjustments account. We rebuild both as part of the engagement.
Yes. We calculate estimates from current-year numbers rather than last year's guesswork, and we revisit them when the business changes shape mid-year.
Economic nexus means a business can owe sales tax in a state where it has no physical presence, based on sales or transaction volume in that state. Thresholds vary by state and change over time. If you sell across state lines, it very likely applies to you, and we review it as your revenue grows.
We help you understand the notice, assemble the supporting documentation, and prepare an organized response. Formal representation before the IRS requires a credentialed representative such as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Enrolled Agent, or attorney, and we coordinate that where it is needed.
Worker classification turns on behavioral control, financial control, and the relationship between the parties, and several states apply their own stricter tests. We help you assess the exposure and build the documentation file before an examiner builds it for you.
Yes, through payroll management: federal and state withholding and deposits, Forms 941 and 940, year-end W-2 processing, and 1099-NEC for contractors.
Delaware makes sense for companies raising institutional capital and is the default for venture-backed startups. It also brings franchise tax and registered agent obligations, and it does not remove your obligation to register and pay tax where you actually operate. We walk through the trade-offs rather than defaulting either way.
State residency is determined by facts, not by a mailing address, and high-tax states scrutinize departing residents. Plan the domicile evidence, the part-year allocation, and the timing of any equity or sale event well before you move.
Yes, in coordination with our global entity management team. We map controlled foreign corporation and Subpart F exposure, global intangible low-taxed income, passive foreign investment company risk, and the Form 5471, FinCEN Form 114, and Form 8938 reporting obligations that follow.
Yes. Scope, deliverables, and expectations are agreed before work begins, so there are no surprise advisory bills. Anything outside the agreed scope is quoted before it is billed.
Tax pricing is organized by entity type, such as LLC, S Corporation and C Corporation, and then by plan tier. What moves the price is single-state versus multi-state filing, the number of fixed assets, any foreign reporting requirements, and the volume of Schedule K-1 forms if they apply. Business and personal tax filing sit as add-ons to a bookkeeping plan.
We typically work on a 12-month agreement so your pricing, scope and team stay consistent through a full annual cycle, including year-end. If that timeline does not fit your business, we are open to discussing and updating the contract length together.
Effectively, yes. Planning built on stale numbers is guesswork. Where the books need work first, catch-up bookkeeping is usually the fastest way to get to a position where advice is worth having.
Everything runs through the Orbit Portal: requests, uploads, approvals, and status in one place, so nothing lives in an email thread.
Book a free consultation and we will scope the engagement on that call. Most advisory work can begin once access and documents are in place, which is typically a matter of days rather than weeks.
Licensed operation centers across USA
