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    Tax filing and year-round planning for every entity you own.

    Federal, state, and local returns for corporations, partnerships, and the owners behind them, with the planning work that happens during the year rather than at the deadline.

    We file for clients whose books we keep and for owners who keep their own. Where you run several companies, we prepare them as a group.

    What the planning work actually is.

    Year-round tax advice is a phrase every firm uses, so here is the specific list of what we look at for an owner-led group. These are the items that move a number, and every one of them has to be settled before a deadline rather than at one.

    How the entities fit together

    Most owners we work with run more than one company, and they were formed one at a time as they were needed rather than designed as a group. We look at what each one is now doing, what form it is in, and whether that still fits.

    Pricing between entities you control

    When one of your companies sells to another, the price between them needs to hold up and needs an agreement behind it. There is also a matching rule that delays the deduction on amounts accrued between related parties until they are actually paid, which can move taxable income between two of your entities by a full year.

    Reasonable compensation on an S corporation

    The salary an owner runs through payroll is the most commonly examined number on an S corporation return. We look at what is being paid, put a documented basis behind it, and tell you whether it needs to move before year end rather than after.

    Basis and at-risk, per entity

    What you can deduct when an entity loses money is capped by your basis in it. Most owner-led groups have never had basis tracked, which means a loss gets claimed that should have been carried forward, or carried forward when it could have been claimed.

    Inventory and landed cost

    If you sell a physical product, what sits in inventory against what has already hit cost of goods sold is the number that decides taxable income. Freight, duty, tariffs, and packaging belong in unit cost. Where they are expensed on payment instead, the margin and the tax are both wrong.

    Where you owe tax that nobody has registered for

    Selling into a state can create an obligation there before anyone notices. Marketplaces collect and remit on their own sales, but in most states those sales still count toward your threshold, and a registration or a zero-return obligation can survive anyway.

    Estimates, so April is not a surprise

    Income from a pass-through lands on your personal return whether or not the cash was ever distributed to you. We calculate the estimates across every entity together rather than one at a time.

    If you run one company and the question is whether an S corporation election is worth it, our free S corp tax calculator works out your federal tax as a sole proprietor and as an S corp at three salary levels.

    What we file.

    Business returns

    • C corporation returns, Form 1120
    • S corporation returns, Form 1120-S, with Schedules K-1
    • Partnership returns, Form 1065, with Schedules K-1
    • Single-member LLC and sole proprietor filings on Schedule C
    • 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC, and 1099-K preparation and filing

    Owner returns

    • Form 1040 for the owners behind the entities we file
    • K-1 income from every entity included in the personal return
    • Quarterly estimated payments calculated across the group
    • State personal returns where the entities create a filing obligation

    State and local

    • State corporate, franchise, and gross receipts returns
    • Multi-state apportionment where you operate in more than one
    • City and local business tax returns
    • Annual reports, business licenses, and permit renewals

    Sales and use tax

    • Nexus review across your store, your marketplaces, and your wholesale channel
    • Registration in the states where you have crossed
    • Monthly and quarterly filing and remittance
    • Product taxability, which decides whether a given item is taxable at all

    International

    • FBAR, FinCEN Form 114, for foreign financial accounts
    • Form 5471 for foreign subsidiaries
    • Form 5472 for foreign-owned US entities
    • FATCA reporting

    Catch-up and corrections

    • Late and unfiled returns, brought current
    • Amended returns where a prior year was filed wrong
    • Penalty abatement requests
    • Notices and examinations, where we represent you before the IRS

    How an engagement runs.

    01

    We read what already exists

    Prior returns and their depreciation schedules, the entity documents, the state registrations, and the extensions on file. Before anything is prepared we tell you what we found, including anything in a prior year worth going back for.

    02

    Our tax team prepares the returns and you approve them

    We prepare every return, calculate the payments, and file on your behalf. Each one is walked through with you before it goes, and where a number rests on a judgement rather than a document, we say so and show you what it rests on.

    03

    The planning runs through the year

    The decisions that change a tax bill get made during the year, not at the deadline. We work the items above as they come up, and you are not billed by the hour to ask.

    What it costs.

    A single entity

    From $1,499 a year, covering the federal return and one state. Additional states and international forms are quoted on what they require.

    A group of entities

    Quoted as one scoped engagement across every return and the owners behind them, with the planning work included in the fee rather than billed by the hour.

    Sales tax

    Priced on its own, from $99 a month per jurisdiction, and billed for a state only once you are registered in it. The nexus review that establishes where you owe anything is quoted first.

    Who you are working with.

    Median Labs is an accounting firm running on software we wrote ourselves. We keep books, produce the reporting, and file the returns for owner-led companies, most of them somewhere between their first hire and around $10 million in revenue. The people you talk to are the people doing the work.

    Returns are prepared from the same records we report from, so a figure on a return can be traced back to the transaction behind it rather than to a spreadsheet nobody kept. That is also what makes the planning work possible during the year instead of after it. More about the firm is on our about page.

    Questions we get.

    Yes. Plenty of the returns we file are for owners who keep their own books or have someone else keeping them. We work from whatever general ledger you already use, and where the records will not support a return as they stand, we tell you what is missing and quote that separately before any work starts.

    It is the reason to hire us rather than a preparer working one return at a time. Entities under common control that trade with each other need pricing between them that holds up, agreements behind that pricing, and consistent treatment on both sides. We prepare the group together, so the two sides of an intercompany transaction are looked at against each other rather than by two people who never speak.

    C corporations, S corporations, partnerships and multi-member LLCs, single-member LLCs, and the individual returns of the owners behind them. A group of four entities feeding two personal returns is a normal engagement for us.

    A single entity return starts at $1,499 a year. Where you have several entities, or a group where the entities trade with each other, we quote the whole thing as one scoped engagement rather than pricing each return on its own, and the planning work through the year is included in that fee rather than billed hourly. Sales tax is priced separately, from $99 a month per jurisdiction once you are registered in it. Additional local jurisdictions are scoped with you.

    Often, yes, and the first thing we check is whether the extensions are actually on file, federal and state, because that is the one thing that cannot be fixed afterwards. Once we have access we come back with a written read on each entity: which ones can be filed accurately by the deadline on the records as they stand, and what is missing on the rest. Where an entity will not support a complete return in time, we say so rather than file something we would have to amend, and we tell you what the exposure is in dollars.

    Yes. Where you have employees, property, inventory, or enough revenue in a state to create an obligation, we file the returns and handle the apportionment. We also tell you when a new state obligation has arisen, which is more often the useful part, because the obligation usually starts before anyone notices it.

    We bring late returns current and amend prior years where a return was filed wrong. Where penalties have accrued, abatement is worth requesting more often than people expect, and one request can cover several years.

    We respond on your behalf. We are authorized to represent you before the IRS, so you are not the one corresponding with them: we go back to the workpapers behind the return, reconstruct the figure the notice is asking about, provide the documentation, and work through it to resolution. Most notices turn out to be a mismatch against a form a third party filed rather than a dispute about anything you did.

    The first question is usually not where you file but whether your product is taxable, and the answer differs by state and sometimes by item within one catalogue. Food is the clearest case: many states treat a sweetened or coated item as candy, which is taxable, and the plain version of the same item as grocery food, which is often exempt. One store with one tax setting across both is either over-collecting on half the catalogue or under-collecting on the other half. We work out which before registering you anywhere.

    The planning work above is where that happens. By the filing deadline most of the decisions that would have changed the number have already been made, which is why the work sits during the year instead. Where something falls outside what we can support, we will tell you and point you at who should look at it rather than take a position we cannot stand behind.

    Free year-end close and tax-prep checklist

    Everything to reconcile, recognize, and document before you file, plus a reusable close timeline.

    Tell us how your entities are set up.

    We will tell you what has to be filed, what is already late, and what we would do differently before the next deadline.