Since July we have described the October that firms of two to ten preparers have. This week we stop describing it and make the offer. It is one sentence long.
Send us five returns from your extension pile. Per-return pricing, two-EA reviewed, back in 5 business days, on a platform where you watch every step. If the work isn’t excellent, you’ve risked five returns.
Every clause in that sentence was chosen to answer a question a careful owner would ask. So this article takes the sentence apart, one clause at a time, and then sets it against the calendar between now and 15 October. If you want the mechanics of a case inside the platform, the consent gate, the six stages and who signs, we wrote that down separately. This is the offer itself.
“Five returns”
Five is enough to judge us and few enough to be safe. One return proves nothing, because any desk can be careful once. Fifty is a season, and nobody should commit a season to a desk they have not tried.
The real range is three to ten. Three is the fewest that gives you a fair sample. Ten is the most we will take from one firm at once, because the five-day promise below has to hold for every firm we are working with, not only the first one in.
“From your extension pile”
You choose the returns, and we would rather you chose the hard ones. The extension pile is where the hard ones already are, which is the whole reason the pilot is timed to October.
If you have a foreign-income return in the pile, include it. A Form 2555 (the foreign earned income exclusion) with a housing allowance, or a Form 1116 (the foreign tax credit) with carryovers nobody has reconciled, is where the difference between desks shows fastest. A K-1 that arrived in September or a client who worked in three states is just as welcome. A straightforward 1040 is fine, but it will tell you less about us.
“Per-return pricing”
Each return has one price, fixed before we open the file. It does not change if the return takes longer than we expected. The hours are our problem.
The price is our standard partner rate card, which sits below the prices on our own website. That gap is your margin. We do not discount the pilot below it, and it is worth being plain about why. A pilot price that comes down goes back up afterwards, and then the pilot tested your attention to the second invoice rather than our work. The concession in this offer is commitment, not price. There is no minimum after the five, no season contract to sign first, and the platform is included for the pilot.
“Two-EA reviewed”
One enrolled agent prepares the return and stays on it. A second enrolled agent reviews it before your firm sees it. When the reviewer disagrees, the return goes back to the preparer, and the send-back is recorded against the case. How the review layer works is its own article.
For the pilot the point is simpler. What reaches you is a draft that two licensed people have already argued over. Your own review starts from there, not from a blank page.
“Back in 5 business days”
The clock starts when the file is complete and the case moves into preparation, not when you open the case. That date is recorded on the platform, and it is the one we measure against. If something is missing, we read the whole file before raising anything, so our questions arrive together.
The five days are the reason we cap the number of pilot firms we hold at one time. A turnaround promise that stretches when the desk is busy is not a promise.
“On a platform where you watch every step”
Every return in the pilot sits as a case on the platform. You can see which stage it is in, who is preparing it, who is reviewing it, and how long it has been where it is. Every change is written to an audit log that entries are added to and never removed from.
Nothing is hidden, so there is nothing you have to ask for. What you should demand from any desk on this, and what comes back at the end, are both written up already.
“If the work isn’t excellent, you’ve risked five returns”
That is the entire downside. You remain preparer of record throughout. We never sign a return or e-file under our PTIN. If a draft is wrong, you send it back, and the review record shows you who took which position and why. If the pilot is simply not for you, you have five reviewed drafts and a clear answer, and we part on good terms.
What we ask in return is a debrief call the week after the last return comes back. You tell us what you would change. We tell you what we found in your files that you may want to know before next season.
The calendar from here
This is the part most pilot offers leave out, so here it is in full. Today is Monday 5 October. The deadline is Thursday 15 October.
- A file complete on Monday 5 October comes back on Monday 12 October. That leaves you three business days to review, sign and file.
- A file complete on Wednesday 7 October comes back on Wednesday 14 October. That leaves you one day.
- A file complete on Thursday 8 October or later comes back on or after the deadline.
So the honest window for a return that must be filed by the 15th closes on Wednesday. After that, two kinds of return are still worth sending.
The first is a client abroad. Taxpayers outside the United States can ask the IRS for a further extension to 15 December. The request must go in by 15 October, and it does not extend the FBAR. The deadline after the deadline explains how. A foreign-income return with that request sent is not a late return. It is ordinary work for us.
The second is a return that will miss regardless. Where tax is still owed, the failure-to-file penalty is charged by the month or part of a month. A return filed a week late costs the same as one filed four weeks late, and the month after that costs more. The week after the deadline sets out what that window is for. Getting a late return out in October rather than November is still a saving, and it is one we can help with.
How to start
Write to steve@mobilitysqr.com with one line: how many returns you have on extension, and whether any of them have foreign income. We send the section 7216 consent and the security one-pager the same day, and a case opens for each return the moment the consent is signed. The platform will not let return information move before then, and we would not want it to.
Our desk prepares expat and domestic returns — Forms 2555, 1116, 8621, FinCEN Form 114 and Form 8938, alongside 1040, 1120-S and 1065 work, plus the bookkeeping behind them. Every return is prepared by one enrolled agent and reviewed by a second. Preparing US returns since 2003 — 5,300+ tax returns filed in the last 4 seasons. Your letterhead, your client, your review — our hours.
Send us five returns from your extension pile. steve@mobilitysqr.com