A Woodland Hills Tax and Accounting Practice Built for Complex Business Situations
The best tax work is not the most credentialed work. It's the work someone had time to actually look at.
- years in tax and accounting
- U.S. firm - high-net-worth and closely-held business group
- prepared and reviewed
TrueArc is a business tax accountant for complex situations: LLCs, S corps, and closely held businesses across California - the returns that stopped being simple somewhere around the second entity, the first K-1, or the year the income jumped. The experience behind the practice was built in the high-net-worth and closely-held business group of a top-10 U.S. accounting firm.
Prefer to talk today? Call (818) 297-4579.
CTEC-Registered Tax Preparer · Authorized IRS e-File Provider · QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor · ★ 5.0 client rating on Yelp
Why this practice exists
What a national-firm invoice is actually made of
The work that comes out of a top-tier firm is good. You are not paying a premium for bad work - you are paying for the structure that produced it.
Engagements at that level are staffed as a pyramid, and the pyramid is the billing model. A staff preparer does the bulk of the hours. A senior reviews roughly half that many. A manager reviews roughly half of those again. The partner whose signature goes on the return spends, typically, about thirty minutes on it in final review - and one to two hours on the client across the entire year.
Staff preparer
- Share of the hours
- the bulk of the engagement.
- Billed at
- the lowest rate on the job.
Senior reviewer
- Share of the hours
- roughly half the preparer's hours.
- Billed at
- higher.
Manager
- Share of the hours
- roughly half the senior's hours.
- Billed at
- $350-$600 an hour.
Partner
- Share of the hours
- about thirty minutes in final review; one to two hours across the year.
- Billed at
- the highest rate on the job.
None of that is a failure of the firms. It is what the structure is built to do. The people at those levels are genuinely excellent, the review layers exist for good reasons, and the return that comes out the other end is correct. But the one thing a pyramid cannot manufacture is time. Nobody in that structure is paid to open your file next January and ask what should be different this year.
The incentive runs the other way - prepare compliantly, prepare efficiently, and bill the same or more, year over year. Training and innovation get their line in the brochure and their box on the form. What the model reliably produces is a correct return. What it rarely produces is a second look at whether the whole arrangement still fits, which is where the money usually is.
Which is worth saying plainly, because of what it implies: the deepest knowledge in the room frequently belongs to the person with the least time to apply it to you specifically.
The honest answer
Who handles complex tax structures and accounting?
Someone with the reps, and the time. Those are different qualifications, and most practices can only sell you one of them.
- The reps. TrueArc's founder trained at Crowe LLP, a top-10 U.S. accounting firm, in the high-net-worth and closely-held business group - tax compliance and consulting. That group's work is the complicated end by default: owners with several entities, layered ownership, and returns that look nothing like the examples in the software. It was done from both chairs, as a preparer and as a reviewer, on small teams and large ones - and reviewing is the half that proves judgment rather than throughput. The years before and after Crowe were spent in public accounting firms and in-house accounting departments, for businesses in real estate brokerage, healthcare, professional services and the trades.
- The time. There is no pyramid here. The advisor who prepares your return is the advisor who reviewed last year's, with twelve months in between to think about it, and the fee does not grow when the thinking takes longer. That is the trade, stated plainly: what you give up is a national firm's letterhead and the partner signature on the cover page. What you get is the same training and the same review standard, from the person who has the hours to spend on your file.
- Structure first. There is no shortage of practices that will prepare whatever you hand them. There are very few that will tell you the thing you handed them shouldn't exist in that form. Most preparation treats the entity as a given and works forward from it; here it starts one step earlier - whether the structure you're filing under is still the right one - because a return prepared perfectly inside the wrong structure is a perfectly prepared mistake, repeated annually. For clients on a tax preparation or bookkeeping engagement that question gets re-asked every year, as part of the relationship rather than as a new engagement. Business setup and entity selection
In practice, "complex" usually means one of these:
- Mid-year conversions. Sole proprietor to S corp with a split filing year - Schedule C for part of it, an 1120-S for the rest, and payroll that has to begin at the right moment rather than the convenient one.
- Elections that were missed. Late S corp elections under Rev. Proc. 2013-30, and FTB suspensions that need a revivor before anything else can move.
- K-1s you don't control. Income arriving from entities somebody else manages, on a timetable nobody consults you about.
- Real estate positions. Professional status, grouping elections, and the depreciation decisions that follow from them.
- More than one entity. Two or three moving at once, with intercompany activity nobody has reconciled.
- Salaries nobody revisited. A reasonable-salary figure set once, years ago, and inherited every year since.
If your situation isn't on that list, it may genuinely be simpler than you've been told - which is a perfectly good outcome for a fifteen-minute call.
The practice
Who leads the work: a business tax accountant for complex situations
TrueArc was founded by Amid Kobakival. He earned a B.A. in economics from UCLA with a minor in accounting, and had already spent two years working in tax and accounting before he finished it - public accounting firms and in-house accounting departments, then the high-net-worth and closely-held business group at Crowe LLP, a top-10 U.S. accounting firm, in tax compliance and consulting.
What he took from that: real respect for the work product, and no illusions about what it costs to produce. More than once, the only reason a real saving made it into a client's return was that the preparer happened to catch it. Nobody further up the chain had the hours to go looking for it. That isn't a knock on the people further up. It is an accurate description of how the model allocates attention - and the reason this practice allocates it differently.
An accounting firm in Woodland Hills built around attention, not headcount
TrueArc is deliberately small. Clients are taken on at a pace that leaves room to think about each one, engagements are quoted flat so that a longer look costs you nothing extra, and questions are free year-round - a practice that bills for questions is a practice that trains you not to ask them. Woodland Hills and the West San Fernando Valley in person, by appointment; the rest of California by video and secure portal.
Credentials, verifiable
- CTEC-Registered Tax Preparer - California Tax Education Council
- Active IRS PTIN · Authorized IRS e-file Provider
- QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor, Levels 1 & 2
- B.A. Economics, UCLA - minor in Accounting
How the work is handled
- Reviewed and approved before it goes out. Every return, every set of books, every recommendation.
- Hands-on where it counts. On the engagements that call for it, Amid prepares the work himself.
- Support work stays support work. Administrative and document intake are handled separately, so the analysis and the review stay with the advisor you hired.
★ 5.0 client rating on Yelp - every review we have is five stars. Read them on Yelp →
Scope, plainly
Where the line is
A practice that tells you what it doesn't do is a practice you can believe on what it does.
TrueArc is a CTEC-registered tax preparation and bookkeeping practice, not a licensed CPA firm. That distinction is worth understanding rather than glossing over, because it matters enormously in a few situations and not at all in most.
A CPA license buys two things a preparer registration doesn't. The first is attest and audit work - the signed financial statements a bank, an investor or a buyer sometimes requires. The second, shared with enrolled agents and attorneys, is representation before the IRS in appeals and collections matters. If you need either, you need a licensed professional, and nobody should talk you out of that.
What a license does not tell you is how many 1120-S returns the person across the table personally prepared last year, or the last time they set a client's salary for the current year instead of inheriting it. Those are the questions that decide whether your business return is any good. Ask them of anyone you're considering, including us.
Work TrueArc doesn't take:
- Attest work. Audits, reviews and compilations - anything requiring a signed opinion on financial statements.
- Representation. IRS Appeals and collections matters. We'll read any notice or IRS letter with you and tell you plainly what it says and what it wants - whether or not we prepared the return. Standing in for you before the IRS is different work, and it belongs with an EA, a CPA or an attorney.
- Anything with a deadline we can't actually meet. You'll hear that on the first call, not in April.
When something falls outside, you get a straight referral to a trusted EA or CPA rather than a sales pitch. That referral costs us an engagement and saves you a bad one, which is the correct trade in both directions.
Two things a license buys. Neither of them is a better return.
Questions about the practice, answered straight
What does "trained at a top-10 firm" actually mean for my return?
It means the returns you’re bringing are shapes we’ve seen before. National-firm tax groups work the complicated end by default – several entities, layered ownership, K-1s from things the client doesn’t control – so the judgment calls that make a small-business return go wrong are ordinary here rather than novel. What it doesn’t mean is that you’re getting a national firm. You’re getting the preparation and review standard, without the four people who would each have billed you for a piece of it.
What's the difference between a CPA and a tax preparer for a small business?
Both can legally prepare and sign your business return – California requires a paid preparer to be either CTEC-registered or licensed as a CPA, EA, or attorney. The license adds two capabilities: attest and audit work, and representation before the IRS in appeals and collections matters. For entity tax return prep, neither is what determines quality – entity-specific repetition is. The useful question isn’t “are you a CPA,” it’s “how many 1120-S returns did you personally prepare last year.” Ask it of everyone, including us. Where the line is covers what we don’t take on.
Who will actually be working on my account?
The advisor you meet on the first call stays your advisor. Nothing is filed, sent or recommended without Amid reviewing and approving it, and on the engagements that call for it he prepares the work himself. What you won’t get is your file handed to someone junior to learn on, or work sent offshore – your documents stay in a U.S.-based secure portal, and replies come quickly, year-round.
What kinds of complicated situations do you actually handle?
Mid-year sole proprietor to S corp conversions with a split filing year; late S corp elections and FTB revivors; owners running more than one entity with unreconciled intercompany activity; K-1s arriving from entities the client doesn’t control; real estate professional status and grouping elections; and reasonable-salary figures that were set once and never revisited. If yours isn’t on that list, it may be simpler than you’ve been told – also a useful thing to learn in fifteen minutes.
Why does TrueArc cost less than a larger firm?
Because there’s no pyramid to pay for. At a national firm your engagement carries a preparer, a senior reviewing the preparer, a manager reviewing the senior, and a partner’s rate on top of all of it. Here the preparation layer and the review layer are the same advisor, the overhead is a working office rather than a lobby, and the fee is flat and quoted in writing before anything starts. The difference is structural, not a discount – which is why it doesn’t come with a catch. See flat-fee pricing
Where is TrueArc based, and do you work with clients outside the Valley?
The office is in Canoga Park, and we meet clients in person across Woodland Hills, Tarzana, West Hills, Calabasas, Encino and the surrounding West San Fernando Valley, by appointment. Most clients work with us entirely by video and secure portal, from anywhere in California – including plenty who live fifteen minutes away and simply prefer it. Full contact details and hours are on the contact page.
If your situation stopped being simple, that's what the fifteen minutes is for.
Bring last year's return, or just a rough income figure. You'll leave knowing whether your structure still fits, the one or two things most likely being left on the table, and what working together would cost as a single flat number. And if the honest answer is that your current setup is fine, you'll hear that instead - it costs us nothing to say so, and it's the fastest way to find out whether any of the above applies to you.
Or call (818) 297-4579 · email contact@truearctax.com
Video or phone. Evening slots available during busy season.