Small Business Tax Preparation Cost - Flat-Fee Ranges, and What Moves Your Number
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Tax preparation
How much does business tax preparation cost?
For a small business in California the honest answer is a range: a "business tax return" covers anything from one Schedule C with a home office to an S corp with two shareholders, three states and multiple K-1's. Here is what each shape of return runs, and what most land at.
| Return | Flat-fee range | Most land at |
|---|---|---|
| Sole proprietor - Schedule C and the personal 1040 it flows into | $495 - $1,200 | $650 - $900 |
| S corp - Form 1120-S and the owner's personal 1040, together | $1,395 - $2,800 | $1,600 - $1,950 |
| Partnership - Form 1065, the K-1s, and one partner's personal 1040 | $1,495 - $2,900 | $1,750 - $2,200 |
| C corp - Form 1120 and the owner's personal 1040 | $1,495 - $2,900 | $1,750 - $2,200 |
| Personal return on its own - a 1040 with no business attached | $295 - $750 | $375 - $525 |
| A prior year filed late | priced as that year's return type, per year | - |
| An amended return - 1040-X, or an amended 1120-S | $395 - $850 | - |
| An extension with a calculated payment voucher | included in every engagement - $150 on its own | - |
One fee covers the business return and the personal return it feeds. Government filing fees are separate, and named in Business setup below. Where a return lands inside its range comes down to four things, all published below. Full detail: business tax preparation in Woodland Hills.
The range shows the outer edges. "Most land at" is the column to budget from - the edges are there for the genuine outliers.
Bookkeeping
Monthly bookkeeping cost for a small business
Monthly bookkeeping is priced on how many transactions run through the business and how many accounts they run through. Not revenue. A $600,000 practice on one bank account and one card is cheaper to keep than a $200,000 business running four accounts, a merchant processor and a personal card nobody separated.
| Service | Flat monthly fee | Most land at |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly categorization, reconciliation, and a year-end close in QuickBooks Online - every account, every month | $295 - $750/mo | $350 - $495/mo |
| 1099 preparation and filing every January | included - $175 plus $25 per contractor on its own | - |
Catch-up and cleanup, if you're behind
Catch-up is quoted as one fixed number, in writing, after we've looked at the books - never an hourly rate multiplied by an unknown. The estimate is built at roughly $125 to $300 for each month you're behind; twelve months, one bank account, moderate volume lands between $1,500 and $2,600.
That figure is how the estimate gets built, not how you get billed. You approve one number for the whole project before a single transaction is touched.
There's no cutoff on how far behind you can be - catch-up bookkeeping is frequently requested by clients. Once you're current, monthly service takes over at the range above.
Business setup and entity work
Business setup, elections, and the filings around them
Setup work is priced as a sequence, not a menu, because that's how it runs: the entity analysis decides what gets formed, the formation decides when the election can be filed, and the election decides what year one looks like.
| Work | Flat fee |
|---|---|
| Full setup - entity analysis on your real numbers, California formation, the S corp election, and the year-one calendar | $895 - $1,395plus state fees |
| California LLC formation - Articles filed, EIN obtained, initial Statement of Information calendared | $595 - $795plus state fees |
| S corp election - Form 2553, prepared and filed on time | $395 - $600 |
| Late S corp election - with a Rev. Proc. 2013-30 relief request and the reasonable-cause statement | $650 - $1,200 |
| FTB suspended-entity revivor | quoted after review - the fee depends almost entirely on how many back returns have to be filed first |
| Entity analysis on its own | not sold separately - it's inside every setup engagement, and the basic version is what the free consultation is for |
What these ranges don't include
Every number on this page is TrueArc's fee. Below costs are yours regardless of who does the work:
- California Secretary of State filing fees - formation and the Statement of Information.
- The $800 annual California franchise tax, and for S corps the 1.5% tax on net income with the same $800 minimum.
- Your payroll provider's fee, if you run an S corp salary - budget around $900 a year, paid to them.
Full detail on the sequence and the deadlines: business setup and entity selection, and what an S corp election costs in California →
The combination
Books and taxes together, quoted as one monthly number
Many clients here end up on the combined engagement, and the number covers the whole year: monthly bookkeeping, quarterly estimates from those actual books, the business return, and the personal return it flows into.
From $345 a month. Most land at $450 - $700 a month, quoted as one number after the free consultation.
In a combined engagement the return is quoted about 15% under its standalone range, which for a typical S corp client is about $255 a year less than buying the two separately. That saving is not the reason to do it. The reason is that your estimates come off books that are genuinely current, and the return needs no reconstruction in March.
The combined engagement is described in full on the accounting and tax services for California small businesses page.
The inputs, published
What moves your number
A range is only useful if you can work out where inside it you land. These are the things that decide it.
1. The condition of your books
A return can only be prepared from reconciled numbers. Where that reconciliation hasn't happened yet, it happens inside the tax engagement - which is what moves a return up its published range rather than down it. Three states, plainly:
- Current and clean. Reconciled through the last closed month, owner pay separated from business expense. The bottom of every range above.
- Behind or approximate. A few months unreconciled, a large "Miscellaneous" balance, personal and business sharing an account. Lands in the upper half of the range, roughly $200 - $600 above where clean books would have put it.
- Not really books. A spreadsheet, a bank feed nobody categorized, a folder of statements. The top of the range, and still one quoted fee for the return. Only a genuine multi-year backlog is worth quoting as its own catch-up project, at the rates above.
2. How many returns the year actually contains
"A tax return" is often several, which is why a split conversion year sits above the S corp typical rather than inside it:
- A mid-year S corp conversion. A Schedule C for part of the year and an 1120-S for the rest, both feeding one 1040.
- A second entity, a rental, a spouse with their own business, a partnership plus the personal. Each with its own forms.
3. What arrives from elsewhere, and how far back it goes
Some inputs come from outside your own records - issued on someone else's schedule, in someone else's format - and each one has to be read and reconciled before a return can use it. Years that were never closed are their own returns, priced per year:
- K-1s, brokerage statements with wash sales, rental depreciation, crypto, or a second state. Each a separate reconciliation.
- Prior-year and amended returns. Priced per year, at that year's rate for that return type.
- A late S corp election needing a relief request. A different engagement from a timely one.
None of these is a discovery. Every one of them shows up in last year's return, which is why that is the one document worth bringing.
4. Payroll, contractors, and the S corp salary
Checked every year: how many 1099s go out in January, whether payroll still reconciles to the books, and whether the reasonable-salary figure needs a documented review. Small individually, they compound - and they are why two S corps with identical revenue can be a $600 difference apart.
Revenue is not one of them. A $900,000 practice with clean books is a cheaper return than a $180,000 one carrying three years of mixed transactions and a late election to unwind. The fee follows the work in front of us, not the size of the business behind it.
What comes standard with flat-fee tax preparation and bookkeeping
These are in every engagement, at the bottom of every range as much as the top. None of them is an add-on, an upgrade, or something that appears on a later invoice.
- Questions, all year, free. No per-question billing, and not "within reason" - at all. A practice that bills for questions trains you not to ask them, and the unasked questions are where the expensive mistakes live.
- One senior advisor, start to finish. The advisor who quotes the work prepares and reviews it. No file is handed to a junior, and none of it is prepared offshore.
- A written quote before anything starts - an invoice that matches it, a fast reply year-round including March and April, and an estimating error that is our cost, not yours.
- Your file stays yours. The QuickBooks Online subscription is in your name from day one, with its full history.
- E-filed, U.S.-based, on a secure portal. Documents never move by plain email.
- A straight referral when something falls outside what this practice does - set out at where the line is.
The rest depends on what you hired us for. Below is exactly which engagement carries which item - nothing here is an upgrade you get asked to buy later.
| Item | Personal 1040 | Business tax | + Bookkeeping | Formation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All four estimated payments, delivered with the return | if applicable | Included | Included | Not included |
| Free re-run of any remaining voucher, on request | if applicable | Included | Included | Not included |
| Quarterly recalculation from your actual books, unprompted | Not included | Not included | Included | Not included |
| November year-end review, booked in advance | Not included | Included | Included | Not included |
| Annual structure and reasonable-salary check | Not included | Included | Included | Not included |
| Mid-year salary correction, while payroll can still run it | Not included | Not included | Included | Not included |
| First-year compliance calendar, dated and in writing | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Structure check-in at twelve months, booked at setup | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Extension with a calculated payment, not an estimate | Included | Included | Included | Not included |
| IRS and FTB notice review, for returns we prepared | Included | Included | Included | Not included |
Whole situations, whole numbers
Three situations, priced end to end
Three complete engagements, itemized, with the totals - including the one where the client shouldn't buy what they came in asking for.
A real estate agent, first year as an S corp
Sole proprietor through June. Formed an LLC and elected S corp status effective July 1, started payroll in August at a $55,000 salary. About $185,000 in commissions, roughly $140,000 net.
| Setup - entity analysis, California formation, Form 2553, year-one calendar | $1,150plus state fees |
|---|---|
| Catch-up - six months of pre-conversion books, cleaned to close out the Schedule C period | $900 |
| Monthly bookkeeping, July-December (6 × $395) | $2,370 |
| Returns - Schedule C for January-June, 1120-S for July-December, one 1040 | $2,100 |
| Year one, total | $6,520plus state fees |
| Year two, steady state - combined engagement | $515 / month$6,185 / year |
A chiropractor, eighteen months behind
Solo practice, S corp elected three years ago, payroll running the whole time. Bookkeeping stopped early last year and last year's 1120-S is unfiled. About $310,000 in collections, two bank accounts and a card processor.
| Catch-up - eighteen months rebuilt, quoted as one fixed number after review | $3,150 |
|---|---|
| Last year's 1120-S and 1040, filed late | $1,850 |
| This year's 1120-S and 1040, on the rebuilt books | $1,700 |
| Reasonable-salary review and a corrected estimate schedule | included |
| Total to get fully current | $6,700 |
| Going forward - combined engagement | $595 / month |
IRS and FTB late-filing penalties are theirs, not ours, and are not in that number. For S corp returns due in 2026 the federal penalty runs $255 per shareholder per month, capped at twelve months, and it stops growing the day the return is filed.
A therapist who was told to form an S corp, and shouldn't
Second year in private practice, about $62,000 net. A colleague told her she was "throwing away money" without an S corp. Books were a spreadsheet, kept genuinely current.
| Free consultation - ran the S corp math on her actual numbers | $0 |
|---|---|
| What she bought: a Schedule C return with the 1040 | $750 |
| What she didn't buy: the setup engagement she came in asking about | $0 |
| Total for the year | $750 |
At $62,000 net our calculator put the election about $650 a year ahead once payroll, the second return and the $800 franchise tax were taken off it. What she got instead was the number to watch for: revisit around $70,000 of net income.
The third line of that table is an engagement we talked ourselves out of. The recommendation is reached before the fee is, and it is never adjusted by what it would have been worth to us. A published range depends on that order holding, not on the numbers themselves.
About these three: composites built from the ranges above, not case studies of specific clients.
Eighteen months behind lands $180 above a clean first year. The backlog is work to be done, not a penalty to be paid.
Pricing questions, answered straight
Why do you publish price ranges instead of one flat price?
Because a single number would be wrong in one of two directions. This work varies by a factor of three or four depending on how many returns a year contains and what condition the records are in. The four things that decide where inside a range you land are published above.
My books are a mess - does that make my tax return cost more?
It can. A return can only be prepared from reconciled numbers, so where that reconciliation hasn’t happened it happens inside the tax engagement – which is what puts a return in the upper part of its price range instead of the lower. There is no separate cleanup line added to your quote. The one exception is a genuine multi-year backlog, where catch-up bookkeeping is quoted as its own fixed project because at that size it costs you less than rebuilding the records inside a return. Messy is normal here, and it is never a surcharge.
What if the job turns out bigger than you quoted - do I pay the difference?
No. If we underestimated, that is our cost, not yours. The only thing that changes an approved quote is the work becoming work that wasn’t described when we priced it – a second entity appears, a prior year has to be filed first. You get a separate written number and approve it before anything continues.
Do you charge for phone calls, emails, or questions during the year?
No – and not “within reason,” which is the phrase that usually means yes eventually. Asking is not a billable event here, in any month. A practice that bills for questions trains its clients not to ask them, and the unasked questions are where the expensive mistakes live.
Is there a contract, a minimum term, or a way to pay monthly?
There is a written engagement letter setting out what is included and what it costs, but no minimum term and no cancellation fee. Monthly bookkeeping and combined engagements are billed monthly and run month to month. Annual work is normally split, part due at the start and the balance at delivery.
How does flat fee tax preparation compare to what a CPA firm or a national chain charges?
We don’t publish other firms’ fees, because we can’t verify them. What can be said is structural. A national or regional firm staffs an engagement in layers – a preparer, a senior, a manager, a partner’s rate on top – and those layers are the billing model rather than a markup. Here the preparation and the review are the same advisor, so there are no layers to fund.
The advisor who quotes your fee
The work is led by Amid Kobakival, TrueArc's founder - more than a decade in tax and accounting, including training at Crowe LLP, a top-10 U.S. accounting firm. The advisor who writes your quote is the advisor who does the work.
TrueArc is a CTEC-registered tax preparation and bookkeeping practice, not a licensed CPA firm. What that means is set out at where the line is.
CTEC-Registered Tax Preparer · Authorized IRS e-file Provider · QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor, Levels 1 & 2 · B.A. Economics, UCLA
★ 5.0 client rating on Yelp - read our reviews →
When these numbers change
Ranges current as of August 2026. They change when the cost of doing the work changes, not on a schedule. An engagement already quoted finishes at the number that was quoted, and any change to a monthly engagement is told to you at renewal, before it takes effect.
Everything above is a range. Fifteen minutes turns it into a number.
Bring last year's return, a rough income figure, or nothing at all. You'll leave with your exact flat fee in writing - for the work you actually need - and a straight answer about which of the drivers above apply to you. If the honest answer is that you don't need us yet, you'll get that instead.
Or call (818) 297-4579 · email contact@truearctax.com
Video or phone. No card, no obligation, and the quote costs nothing whether you take it or not.