SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

In this episode of Screw the Commute, Tom Antion explains how business owners should choose an accountant, CPA, tax preparer, or tax strategist — and why making the wrong choice can become expensive.
Main Themes
1. Small businesses may not need a CPA immediately
Tom says that if you are just starting out or operating a very small business, you may only need:
• tax software,
• a tax preparer,
• or a bookkeeper.
However, once your business becomes more substantial — whether that means a few thousand dollars or a much larger investment — bringing in a qualified CPA or tax professional early can save money and prevent problems.
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Why a Good Accountant Matters
A qualified accountant can:
• legally reduce your tax burden,
• help you structure deductions properly,
• reduce audit risk,
• and provide strategic tax planning.
Tom warns that many people calling themselves “tax strategists” are not regulated professionals. Anyone can use that title.
He emphasizes the concept of “reasonable reliance”:
• If you hire a properly licensed and credentialed professional, you may receive some protection from IRS penalties if mistakes occur.
• If you hire an unqualified “cheap” preparer with no credentials, the responsibility falls more heavily on you.
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Levels of Tax Credentials
Tom ranks tax professionals roughly by difficulty and credibility of licensing:
1. Tax Attorney
• Highest level of credentialing.
• Must pass the bar exam.
• Best if they specifically specialize in tax law.
2. CPA (Certified Public Accountant)
• State licensed.
• Must pass difficult exams.
• Strong choice for most established businesses.
3. Enrolled Agent (EA)
• Federally authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS.
• Easier credential to obtain than CPA or attorney.
• Competence can vary greatly.
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Important Questions to Ask Before Hiring
Tom recommends doing serious due diligence before hiring any accountant or tax advisor.
Questions to ask:
• How long have you been in business?
• What experience do you have with companies my size?
• How many clients do you have in my industry?
• Do you use secure client portals?
• Do you support e-signatures and e-filing?
• What professional tax software do you use?
• Do you use tax research systems like LexisNexis?
• How do you bill?
o hourly,
o flat fee,
o monthly retainer?
• How available are you for meetings and strategy discussions?
• Who handles day-to-day communication?
________________________________________
Verify Credentials and Complaints
Tom advises checking:
• state Boards of Accountancy,
• licensing databases,
• ethical violations,
• and IRS credential resources.
He says that if a CPA or attorney has ethical violations on record, that is a major warning sign.
________________________________________
Matching the Accountant to Your Business
A major point:
A highly experienced accountant for Fortune 500 companies may not be the right fit for a small online business.
The accountant should understand:
• your industry,
• your revenue size,
• and your business model.
________________________________________
Tax Strategy vs. Tax Preparation
Tom stresses that higher-level accountants should do more than simply prepare taxes.
They should help:
• plan deductions,
• structure transactions properly,
• and reduce future liabilities legally.
________________________________________
Final Thoughts
Tom closes by emphasizing:
• choosing an accountant is one of the most important decisions in business,
• long-term trust matters,
• and good professionals are worth keeping.
He also promotes:
• his mentor program at Great Internet Marketing Training
• his online school at IMTCVA.org
• and his automation book at Screw the Commute Automate Free Book
Key Takeaway
A good accountant is not just someone who files taxes — they are a long-term strategic partner who can protect your business, reduce taxes legally, and help you avoid costly mistakes.

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Episode 1122 – Choosing An Accountant
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1122 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to cover a very, very important topic of choosing an accountant. Now, you might not need an accountant, but a tax preparer or whoever you might need. We're going to talk about that today on how to choose them. Okay. I hope you didn't miss episode 1121. Kind of goes along with this because this was all about the cool things and deductions you get now in 2026 on equipment purchases, anything from computers, cameras, anything, just about anything you can think of for your business. So that's a really important one too. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, then the episode number. Equipment purchases was 1121. All right, pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is the latest. However, in 3.0 talks about short keys, which I've been promoting for many years. It's no longer a program, it's now a browser extension. So just keep that in mind. But it's still very, very powerful. And check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org.
[00:01:42] Okay. If you're going to be in business, the first thing you got to decide to do, do you need an accountant or a tax preparer or somebody? Now, if you're just beginning and it's very small, you might just need a tax preparer or even one of the software programs to help you out.
[00:02:00] You can do it yourself. Really. But if you're starting any kind of significant, larger business with significant investment and significant is a relative term. It could be $5,000 or it could be $150,000. All right. It depends. You're really probably should get a CPA certified public accountant involved in the beginning, but maybe you just need a bookkeeper. I mean, this is depends on the size and complexity of what you're trying to do. But anyway, whoever you're going to get, I'm going to show you how to pick them. And first of all, there is a value in having a good accountant and a tax strategist and so forth. But because they'll reduce your tax liability legally. And that's important because you want to pay the least taxes as you can. But here's the thing. In many places, when you see like a tax strategist or I mean, you could be a tax strategist today just by calling yourself that because it's not regulated. Anybody can be a tax strategist. So you got to be very careful when who you deal with. Because if something goes wrong, there's also a concept called reasonable reliance. And that means if you something goes wrong with your tax return and you picked some fly by night person off of Fiverr to do your taxes, well, you're you're stuck. You're stuck. You didn't do your due diligence and, and relying on someone that was credentialed and experienced.
[00:03:47] And so you're screwed. Okay. But you do have a potential way out if you hire a credentialed person that's licensed, and I'm going to go over the licensing and all that stuff so that you reasonably relied on this professional. And so it's possible you could get out of penalties if something was wrong, because they were supposed to know about it and you weren't. Say, but if you just hire any, any schmucko off the street, then I cracks me up. You go to Walmart and you see tax preparation, right? There's somebody you know that can't even afford their car payment is, you know, doing your taxes for you. So, hopefully a good credentialed person will keep you out of audits because things don't look weird on your tax returns and so forth. So there is a big value in having a credentialed person, uh, working with you. Okay, so first thing, let's talk about the levels of expertise, and I'm kind of basing this on how hard it is to get your license. So. The first one would be an attorney who specializes in taxes. That would be like the hardest credential to get. And so they're probably pretty, pretty up on things. And then a CPA is a certified public accountant. They have to take a hard test and get licensed by the state and all that stuff. And then the last is an enrolled agent, which is a lower one.
[00:05:24] The one lady I was seeing that has a tax firm said she was 18, got her, was an enrolled agent advising people on taxes. And she's telling you, hey, those people should have done their due diligence because I didn't know what I was doing. At least she admitted it. So a CPA attorney obviously has to pass the bar. Uh, and, you know, if they specialize in taxes, you know, they really need to specialize in taxes because, you know, just getting your general attorney pass the bar doesn't make you a super expert in taxes. So I'm going to give you some questions to ask whoever you're dealing with later on how to evaluate them. A CPA has to be licensed by the state and pass a really hard exam. And an enrolled agent is a federally licensed tax preparation and IRS representation person. But it's apparently much easier to get because that lady was only 18 when she got hers and hadn't done any real serious tax work. And then there's another kind of thing that you might want to thing person that you might want to keep in mind is, uh, an accounting software expert because you got QuickBooks, you got Peachtree. I think there's one called tax Tiger, uh, Patriot, you know, so there's a whole bunch of different tax, uh, softwares that you might want to use in house to make keep organized so that when you do get ready to do taxes, you have all the information you need.
[00:07:00] So, so one of the things you want to do to verify them is, you know, see how long they've been in business. I'm going to put a link to an IRS web page in the show notes that has links to a whole bunch of other places to check people's credentials that are in this field. And you also can easily type in your state and then board of accountancy. This would be your Google term. Like mine is Virginia Board of Accountancy, and it comes up BOA board of accountancy.virginia.gov. And this is where you can check for ethical violations, which, you know, they like attorneys, they kind of protect their own. If you see an ethical violation On one of these people. It must have been pretty darn bad. You should avoid them. So another thing you want to see is, you know, just because they're a great accountant at a giant, giant firm for fortune 500 companies, and then they decided to go out on their own. And you have a revenue of 50,000. You know that that doesn't line up. That's that they don't have your expertise and your revenue level. And one of the questions is, what is your experience with companies of my revenue size? And if they're, like I said, if they're used to fortune 100 companies and then you're just starting out, that's not that's a mismatch.
[00:08:38] And how many clients. There's another question. How many clients in my industry would you ask them? And that can be fairly broad. If if you're manufacturing, if they had hundreds of manufacturing clients, even if they don't manufacture your widget, though, that's that's all right. But but they're in manufacturing. If they're with me, if they're online stuff, you know, how many clients do they have that are, you know, online businesses, you know, so it's a different, different type of person and experience level. Say also, do they have a secure client portal where you can log in and check things and send messages? Do they have the e-signature and E file in place already in their firm? What kind of tax software do they use. Professional tax software. Not your your stuff that you use. And also this is a really important one that hardly anybody asks is do they have a tax research tool like LexisNexis? And because the tax law I talked to this one guy as a student of mine, he's a tax attorney. And he said the IRS people in court don't even know what their laws are. All right. It's so voluminous. So do they have a tax research tool so they don't use some old information? The lady that was telling me about this said that a beginner will just look at the last thing that they did and think it's the same.
[00:10:09] A veteran will check for the latest statute statute to make sure that they don't make a mistake on your return, say. So do they have tax research tools? And you can Google all the ones that are available, the big name ones that are out there. I just remember LexisNexis. Next thing is how do they bill? Do they bill by the hour? Are they flat rate for tax preparation? Do they have monthly retainers plus an hourly over the retainer. I mean whatever it is you should know ahead of time. So there's no arguments. And the other thing is availability. How often are they to meet with? You see, a lot of times these higher level people are more than just tax preparers. They should be working with tax strategy for your business so that you reduce your your tax liability and it still keeps you clean your nose clean so you don't get audited and you can't guarantee no audits. But if everything is hunky dory and looks reasonable, the chances of getting audited are much slimmer or more slim. And so how often do they meet with you about this, and who handles their day to day communications with you? If you have little stuff you have to deal with, you know? So these are all questions. You got to just do your due diligence on this because this is a really important position in your business.
[00:11:33] Even though they unless you're a super big company, they are not in your business. They are an outside contractor that you have to depend on. You just got to do your due diligence. So there's a bunch of things to keep in mind, and the link in the description will take you to the IRS. That takes you to more ways to check them out. And also, like I said, just put in your state plus board of accountancy and see if whoever you're considering is listed there and any complaints or violations under their name. And that's a big red flag, like I said. So there you go. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Very important position. I've had my accountant for, oh geez, 35 years, you know, so, I wouldn't, you need to be doing stuff for a new person that you don't know their track record. See? So mine, I already got figured him out a long time ago. So, so, uh, so there you go. Check out my mentor program if you want help one on one with myself and my entire staff, we don't throw you into big groups, uh, to Specifically hone in on your, uh, business problems. And especially with internet and digital marketing, that's where I've been. I'm the OG by other people call me the OG because I was there since the beginning, 1994 when the commercial internet started. So, I might know a few things that could help you out.
[00:13:06] And then I started my school. IMTCVA.org. It's licensed by the state of Virginia because so many, just like the tax strategist, there's no regulation say, and there's no regulation for an internet guru. So I decided I'm going to prove that I got the goods. I got the receipts. Now they call it, by getting certified for this school. I think it's 13 years or 14 years ago now. And every year I have to recertify. Every year they have to check me out thoroughly to make sure the students are not getting ripped off and they check the curriculum. I mean, the whole bit and the financial status, everything. So none of these people that just call themselves internet people or ever do anything like that. In fact, I think I'm the only one. So check that out at IMTCVA.org. It probably will save you a couple hundred thousand bucks going to, you know, either going or sending your kids or loved ones to a four year indoctrination camp where they get no usable skills and end up, as I always say, competing for jobs at Starbucks. Okay, check that out. IMTCVA.org and my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. And if you're in that, you get a scholarship to the school. How do you like that? All right. If you need to ask me any questions, tom@screwthecommute.com. All right. Catch you later.