It has always been prudent to search for firms who can integrate legal, tax, accounting and business advisory services. While there are few such genuine providers across the United States, firms like Allen Barron / Janathan L. Allen, APC do exist, and the KPMG Arizona gambit has legitimized the reasons we started this business 26 years ago.
KPMG, one of the remaining big four accounting firms, recently applied for an “Alternative Business Structure” license in the State of Arizona. The goal: to unite tax, accounting and business advisory services with integrated legal services under a single banner. While many evaluating this development from the outside are focused upon the issues associated with estate planning, trust administration, wealth management, and even business succession planning, the genuine benefit of a vendor who can integrate legal, tax, accounting, business and financial advisory services seems to escape the conversation.
Perhaps the best place to begin this conversation is the old phrase: “Where there is smoke, there is fire.” From a business perspective, it is common for inner tiers of management to identify issues based upon specific metrics or challenges facing an organization. However, when the team begins to dig into the problem (the smoke), they often discover the initial challenge is merely a symptom of a much larger problem underneath (the fire).
It is much easier for a regimented department, such as accounting, to solve problems limited to accounting. What happens when the real issues spill over into every aspect of an organization, from the structure of their entity and its transactions, to the physical locations where gains and losses are experienced as well as how international, U.S., state and local taxes are incurred as a result?
One doesn’t have to be an international conglomerate to participate in international business these days. Many small U.S. family-owned companies conduct business in Canada and Mexico. Challenges such as the pandemic and political winds in China have forced many industries and companies to restructure their business model. In recent years supply chain transactions have spread throughout Central and South America, the EU, and to Indo-Pacific partners such as Vietnam (exports to the U.S. approaching $150 billion annually).
Consider the owners of these small, often family businesses as they approach challenges as diverse as international taxation, joint ventures or licensing and distribution while balancing business succession planning with their own estate planning and investments.
Many of these clients are asking questions that cross the boundaries of legal, tax, accounting, business, and financial advisory professionals. The client approaches each individual professional for their “piece of the puzzle” after discovering rising international tax exposures are directly related to how they have structured their business and its transactions.
There are two inherent challenges: A lawyer sees things from a legal perspective. A CPA views a challenge from a numbers point of view, while a tax attorney is attempting to balance where income and losses are being realized, when these taxable events are occurring and where. Financial planners have little to no impact on when, where or how wealth is initially generated.
Each professional provides sound advice based on their limited perspective. Yet, when the customer attempts to combine these recommendations to implement a solution and resolve the problem, the pieces don’t fit together. In fact, the recommendations of one professional often contradict the strong recommendations of another. To compound the situation, the client has received significant invoices from multiple firms, yet still hasn’t found the right answer, nor a plan to implement it.
The value of an integrated legal, tax, accounting, business and financial advisory service provider like Allen Barron lies in our ability to put together the right team of professionals to approach these challenges and opportunities from a more encompassing point of view. We are able to draw upon the insight and skillsets of each of our professionals, answer questions and develop solutions, while tailoring the various pieces to fit together in a way that resolves each challenge or opportunity. This includes a successful implementation strategy.
Once the business piece is completed, the owner in our example often turns to trust and estate planning attorneys, personal tax professionals, financial planners, and investment managers to manage the complex issues of protecting and preserving assets, while reducing the impact of taxation and facilitating transitions, such as the death or incapacitation of the business owner.
The KPMG gambit in Arizona has placed these questions into a new light. Is the integrated business model proposed by KPMG a threat to the individual professions?
It is the client who deserves the best each of these professionals has to offer. The integrated legal, tax, accounting, business and financial advisory services at Allen Barron / Janathan L. Allen, APC combine to offer more than 26 years of proven experience and successful strategies to help resolve your personal, business and financial issues and challenges.
Perhaps, more business professionals, corporate officers and family business owners may become aware of the integrated business service model offered by Allen Barron and Janathan L. Allen, APC, as well as the value and efficiencies our solutions provide when compared to large law firms or a big four accounting firm.
The need exists. If it didn’t, KPMG wouldn’t be taking the risk or expending the resources to establish an “Alternative Business Structure” license in Arizona. Why wait? We invite you to learn more about the integrated tax, legal, accounting and business consulting services of Allen Barron and contact us or call today to schedule a free consultation at 866-631-3470. Especially if one is based in any of the other 49 states, as well as Arizona.