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“I’ve been using Accounting Solutions for several years now for my business and personal taxes and the team has been excellent! Professionalism, speed, efficiency, and accuracy — he’s top notch!”
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You Didn’t Overpay Because Business Was Good. You Overpaid Because Nobody Planned.
Your tax preparer reports what already happened. We change what happens next — entity structure, depreciation timing, retirement design, and accounting method, mapped to your job schedule before the year closes.
savings
contractors
not one April call
The 2026 Contractor Tax Planning Checklist
Every move worth making before December 31 — entity, equipment, retirement, PTET and method elections, in the order we run them with clients.
Six things contractors tell us on the first call
By the time a return is being prepared, most of the levers are already frozen. We work the year, not the deadline.
You get a running projection tied to your WIP and job schedule, so the number is never a surprise in April.
Scheduled checkpoints: estimate true-ups, cash set-asides, and any election that has to be made before it expires.
Every strategy is documented, defensible, and sized to your numbers — not a generic list pulled off the internet.
Decisions get made when they still matter: before you buy the truck, sign the lease, or take the distribution.
A written annual plan with dollar amounts, owners, and deadlines. You always know the next move.
Filing a return is history. Planning is the part that changes the number.
The strategies that move six figures for contractors
Not all of these will fit your shop. That’s the point of planning — we model each one against your revenue, job mix, and payroll before we recommend it.
S-Corp election & reasonable compensation
Getting the entity right, then setting an owner wage that survives scrutiny — the single most common six-figure miss we see in construction.
Pass-through entity tax (PTET)
Moving state tax to the entity so it stays deductible federally. Election timing and payment dates are unforgiving — we track them.
Cost segregation
For the shop, the yard, the rental you built — reclassifying components to pull deductions forward instead of over 39 years.
Section 179 & bonus depreciation timing
Trucks, excavators, trailers, tooling. Buying in the right year — and electing the right treatment — is worth more than the discount you negotiated.
Retirement plan design
Solo 401(k), safe harbor, cash balance — sized to what the business can actually fund, so the deduction is real and the crew stays covered.
Section 199A optimization
The 20% deduction is a balancing act between wages, property, and income. We tune the inputs instead of taking whatever falls out.
Accounting method changes — completed contract vs. percentage of completion
The most construction-specific lever there is. Choosing the right method for your contract size and duration can shift an entire year of income into a year you’re ready for it.
George Ghazarian, CPA
I built this firm around one industry on purpose. Construction has its own accounting — retainage, WIP, job costing, method elections — and a generalist CPA who sees two contractors a year will never catch what a specialist catches every week.
Our clients average $90,000 in tax savings. Not from anything exotic — from doing the ordinary things in the right order, early enough to count.
Book a consult with GeorgeHear how we think before you ever book a call
Weekly episodes on contractor tax, job costing, and the profit leaks nobody warns you about. No fluff, no theory — the same conversations we have with clients.
Questions contractors ask
When is the right time to start?
The earlier in the year, the more levers are still open — but there is real money available even in Q4. What we can’t do is change a year that’s already closed.
Do I have to leave my current CPA?
No. Some clients keep their preparer and use us purely for planning. Most eventually consolidate because planning and filing work better in the same hands.
How small is too small?
If you’re profitable and paying meaningful tax, planning pays for itself. On the call we’ll tell you honestly if it doesn’t yet.
Is any of this aggressive?
No. Every position is documented and defensible. We’re not interested in strategies that trade an April problem for an audit problem.
Do you work with contractors outside California?
Yes — we work with construction businesses nationwide, including multi-state contractors with nexus and PTET questions in several states.
Find out what this year’s tax bill could have been.
One call, no charge. We’ll look at your last return and tell you what we’d have done differently.