The majority of our firm's tax return preparation clients have historically been closely-held business entities, with operations focused in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. We have also performed the tax compliance work for numerous larger clients, including some publicly-held entities heavily involved in expansion through mergers and acquisitions, and several with operations that extended nation-wide or internationally.
Joe Dawson prepared the federal and state income tax returns for the Washington and Arizona affiliates of a publicly-held interstate banking group for several years, until that group’s holding company parent was acquired by a competitor. Both banks held billions of dollars in assets and owned numerous consolidated banking and non-banking subsidiaries. The Washington affiliate was active in acquiring competitors during that period, so our tax return preparation regularly involved all of the complexities of corporate reorganization reporting under the Treasury's consolidated return regulations.
To ensure that our familiarity with the intricacies of the consolidated return regulations remains current, we subscribe to reference materials from Warren, Gorham & Lamont and the Bureau of National Affairs, and Joe intermittently attends multi-day training sessions presented by national accounting firm tax specialists.
For several years in the mid-1990's Joe and Eva Leung prepared all of the U.S. income tax returns for an affiliated U.S. heavy truck manufacturing group and for a related U.S. bus manufacturing company, both of recently acquired by a publicly-held Canadian parent corporation. Those engagements frequently involved complex cross-border taxation issues, and the companies filed corporate income and franchise tax returns in virtually every state with such taxes.
A large European automotive manufacturing group subsequently acquired our clients' Canadian parent, but for several years the buyer had us continue preparing the U.S. income tax returns. During that period, the large truck manufacturing industry, and our client, had a series of unprofitable years. The Internal Revenue Service proposed adjustments to some of the bus company's returns that preceded our involvement, and we determined that it was necessary to obtain Internal Revenue Service approval for a bus company change in its inventory accounting method. Joe and Eva prepared all of the federal and state returns and filings necessitated by those losses and changes.
Our experience with multi-state reporting requirements extends beyond C corporation taxpayers; we have also dealt with those reporting requirements for large pass-through entities and their owners. Joe and Eva recently completed a multi-year state filing project for a nation-wide moving and storage company that passes through its earnings as an S corporation for federal income tax purposes, and for its owners. That engagement was particularly complex because one of the owners is a decedent's estate that files fiduciary returns.
To support our multi-state tax return filing activity, we maintain current reference materials from Warren, Gorham & Lamont, Panel Publishers, and Commerce Clearing House in our firm library. In addition, we have access to every state's Code, administrative rules and return filing requirements through their various web pages.
Our tax return preparation engagements involving foreign entities and transactions extend beyond reporting for foreign-owned U.S. businesses. Many of our domestic clients have extensive overseas operations, and with increasing frequency they utilize foreign subsidiaries or affiliates in those activities.
Our tax return preparation team brings significant resources, targeted training and practical international experience to our U.S. income tax return preparation engagements that have international aspects. Our current library reference materials include international tax treatises and texts from Warren, Gorham & Lamont, Lexis-Nexis, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Commerce Clearing House, RIA, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Our tax return preparers include native speakers in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese, and fluent speakers in French and Japanese. Two of them hold master's degrees from foreign universities, all with an emphasis on international economics and finance; in fact, Hang Le taught international finance at Duy Tan University of Vietnam for two years. Moreover, each has held significant managerial positions in various foreign commercial entities.
