|
Untitled Document
The August Group clients get the best of both worlds: national level capabilities
delivered by local professionals. Our tax, assurance, and business advisory
services include:
We also provide specialized services to:
AUDIT AND OTHER ASSURANCE SERVICES
For your organization to grow and create value, it must garner the trust of
its customers, its lenders, its vendors, and its employees. Choosing the right
accounting firm to audit, review, and compile your financial statements is a
critical decision in establishing that trust. The August Group can meet the
requirements of your lenders and investors while providing you with the personalized
attention you deserve. Our audit and other assurance services will help you
establish financial reporting credibility, manage risk, and measure performance.
Our seasoned professionals employ a risk-based audit approach and have extensive
experience working with many different types of businesses in a variety of industries.
We take our role as independent public accountants very seriously and are accustomed
to interacting with financial oversight groups such as audit or financial committees.
As auditors of public companies, we strive to develop a strong working relationship
with management, however, we know that the Audit Committee is ultimately to
whom we report.
We bring the same independent thinking to our audit relationships with private
companies and establish at the onset where our reporting responsibility lies.
Our role as auditors is always clearly defined. However, many clients find our
value goes well beyond that of "just auditors" and can even surpass
their other business advisors because of our in-depth knowledge of their operations.
Back to Top
DOMESTIC TAX PLANNING, CONSULTING, & RETURN PREPARATION
The tax professionals at The August Group provide clients with innovative tax
planning ideas and solutions to common and complex tax issues. Our goal is to
develop tax strategies that minimize your tax burden, position you to take maximum
advantage of new tax laws and legislation, and plan for the future.
We will work with you toward understanding your business and personal tax situation,
and are available to help you every step of the way. Frequent conversations
with you throughout the year will enable us to advise you of the tax effects
of a transaction during the planning stage. That’s why tax planning and
tax return preparation form a winning combination for our individual, business
and not-for-profit clients.
If you are considering starting a new line of business or expanding out of
state, The August Group can assist with your business plan, state and local
tax planning, transfer pricing, international tax planning, and foreign tax
return preparation. Our tax consultants have a wide range of experience with
the different legal entity types and domestic and selected foreign tax law.
Our other tax services include:
- Multi-state Income & Sales Tax Planning
- International Tax Planning
- IRS or Oregon Department of Revenue examination representation
- Estate, Gift, & Trust Consulting
- Retirement & Benefit Planning
Back to Top
SEC AND FINANCIAL REPORTING
If your company is registered with the SEC, you know the complexity and sheer
volume of SEC rules and numerous unpublished administrative positions. To assist
you, The August Group has committed substantial resources to keep abreast of
all the latest SEC reporting requirements.
We can help you understand the rules, implement new disclosures, get your SEC
reporting questions answered, reduce your filing costs through good project
management, and communicate with the SEC on important issues. Furthermore, we
pride ourselves on being able to find practical solutions to financial and SEC
reporting problems.
For companies that are considering an initial public offering, we recommend
you begin your planning early. The August Group can provide advice regarding
the many SEC regulations that will affect future filing of your company’s
financial information as well as perform audits of acquisition targets.
Back to Top
MERGER & ACQUISITION CONSULTING
We offer a variety of services with regard to mergers and acquisitions. If
you are considering buying a business, The August Group can help you evaluate
the opportunity by performing due diligence. We’ll customize our approach
to your particular needs, while enabling you to assess risks, understand current
management’s capabilities, and gather the information that will enable
you to make smart financial decisions. Our tax consultants can assist in structuring
a tax-efficient transaction and developing an acquisition strategy that takes
into account the other party’s tax perspective.
If you’re a lender financing the transaction, we can assist you with
a "businessman’s review" that looks at the validity of one-time
income statement adjustments. We also perform agreed-upon procedures such as
asset verification, search for unrecorded liabilities, financial analysis, and
evaluations of internal controls.
If you are selling a business, we can help you compile the financial information
you’ll need to provide to potential buyers. We will also evaluate offers,
perform due diligence on merger candidates, and provide alternative tax strategies.
Back to Top
INTERNATIONAL TAX PLANNING
The August Group has extensive experience in working with companies that do
business on an international scale so we are able to offer a full range of services
for the international portion of your business. Our comprehensive capabilities
include the following:
Worldwide Tax Strategies—Minimizing foreign taxes is
just as important, sometimes more so, as reducing domestic taxes. Without careful
planning, hard-won profits can be depleted by both additional tax costs and
the costs of defending tax cases. Our international services can provide entity
structure and ensure you meet all tax compliance requirements for your inbound
investments.
Transfer pricing refers to taxing authorities’ examination of prices
charged within a multinational group. Our transfer pricing professionals will
help you prepare studies to satisfy the requirements of the revenue agencies.
Alternatively, if a tax audit is already under way, we can help to favorably
present your case.
Cross Border Transactions—We can guide you through the
complexities of international transactions.
Expatriate Services—Executives transferring in and out
of the United States, or from any country to another, pose a variety of questions
concerning effective compensation with maximum after-tax benefits at a reasonable
cost to the company. The August Group can help with the planning, consulting,
and tax return preparation necessary to maintain a multinational workforce.
Back to Top
LITIGATION CONSULTING
At The August Group, we offer an extensive range of litigation consulting
services to the legal community and our clients. We are an accounting firm with
a wide breath of industry experience and business knowledge. We are committed
to respond quickly to our clients’ needs whether it’s helping them
make a preliminary assessment of causation and financial damages or helping
them on a prelitigation basis assess suspected fraud or contract failures.
We can also be proactive for our clients in the area of fraud protection and
recovery of assets, including, identifying fraudulent activity, quantifying
the amount of the fraud and develop preventative measures to guard against future
frauds to enable management to move forward with their business.
Our consulting and expert capabilities:
- Develop or defend causation arguments
|
- Assist with financial document requests
|
- Identifying and analyzing relevant documentary evidence
|
- Prepare or defend damage calculations
|
- Forensic accounting / reconstructing financial records
|
- Prepare reports and affidavits
|
- Develop deposition questions
|
- Oral or written testimony
|
Experience:
|
Intellectual Property
- Trademarks
- Patents
- Copyrights
|
Contract Disputes
- Franchise agreements
- Purchase price adjustments
- Breach of seller representations
- Stockholder agreements
- Contract
- Marital assets
|
Corporate
- Embezzlement
- Asset misappropriation
- Contract performance
- Securities fraud
- Accounting fraud
- Audit failure
- Federal, state or local tax disputes
|
Back to Top
ESTATE, GIFT, & TRUST CONSULTING
At The August Group, we are well versed in designing programs for the effective
management, disposition of property, and planning and operation of foundations
and charities. We seek to understand your needs and help you plan for the future
to ensure that you and your heirs enjoy the maximum amount of asset transfer
with the minimum tax liability. We will make the process as easy as possible,
working closely with you and your other financial and legal advisors to create
a plan in which the end result meets your objectives.
Planned Giving—We help clients who want to gift cash,
investments or other property to family members, other individuals, and charitable
organizations. We explain the income tax benefits of planned giving and can
provide consulting on tax-efficient strategies with regard to the timing and
nature of these gifts. We will also advise you on IRS-reporting requirements
of gifts. If gifts to individuals exceed the annual exclusion amount, we can
prepare the IRS Form 709 gift tax return and help you determine the basis in
the property transferred.
Charitable remainder trusts are a great help to individuals in executing planned
giving strategies. We help clients set up these trusts and work closely with
a trust attorney or bank trust department in the design of the trust. We also
provide advice on annual distributions required by law to maintain the deduction
of the gift by the donor to the trust.
Private Foundations or Public Charities—We assist individuals
and organizations interested in establishing a private foundation or public
charity. The process begins with planning the formation and charitable intent
of the entity, reviewing organizational documents usually drafted by an attorney,
and completing the application to be filed with the IRS for tax exempt status.
Once the organization is operational, we provide on-going support to the foundation
or charity manager regarding how to maintain the organization’s tax-exempt
status as it may be affected by transactions within the organization. The daily
operating challenges these organizations face include managing unrelated business
income (UBI) and prohibited transactions as defined by tax laws. At year end,
we advise clients on the various financial reporting schedules required for
their annual tax return and can prepare the tax return (Forms 990, 990PF or
990T) for the client.
Back to Top
OPERATION ANALYSIS
Sometimes it takes a third party to objectively analyze how a company can
improve performance. Perhaps your company has grown very quickly and hasn’t
had time to establish a solid infrastructure. Or, possibly your business is
not growing as fast as you think it can. Let The August Group show you how to
maximize your potential.
We can perform a comprehensive operation analysis. We’ll review your
company’s procedures, processes, internal controls, and banking and other
vendor relationships. Because we’ve worked with many different kinds of
businesses, we understand systems and paperwork flow and can quickly spot inefficiencies.
We can even use our data extraction tools to search for duplicate vendor payments
or perform other quantitative analysis you believe would be helpful to your
company.
We’ll identify ways to improve your productivity and profitability while
minimizing your exposure to risk. An investment in a The August Group operation analysis
can be the turning point for your business that sets you on a long-range course
for success.
Back to Top
RETIREMENT & BENEFIT PLANNING
Planning for retirement in today’s world is a necessity. The benefit
of developing a strategy early on for you or your company is a stable financial
future. That’s why at The August Group, we help our clients to explore
all their options for saving for the future of their families and employees.
Our clients in this area are usually plan sponsors, company owners/plan participants,
or the plan itself.
We will partner with an employee benefit plan attorney for the design of plans
and work with a plan administrator for plan operation. This team approach enables
us to advise you or your company on the income tax planning strategies of various
plans and help find the right fit for your financial objectives.
Back to Top
NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
The August Group's team of not-for-profit professionals possess an in-depth
understanding of specific industry and tax issues and can devise creative solutions
for not-for-profit groups.
We also have experience in performing audits in accordance with federal requirements
with OMB Circular A-133 and relevent Oregon Law.
Among The August Group’s capabilities for not-for-profit organizations
are:
- Audit of financial statements
- Compliance audits in accordance with government auditing standards
- Strategic planning and organizational development
- Timely updates on issues affecting not-for-profit organizations
- Tailored workshops and presentations
- Tax planning, consulting, and tax return preparation
The not-for-profit experience we possess spans many different types of organizations
with a variety of community service and charitable missions.
Back to Top
Real Estate
The August Group provides specialty services to real estate companies, including
land developers, commercial office or warehouse developers, home builders, resort
developers, leasing companies. In addition to traditional tax and audit services,
we can perform rent roll audits for developers and leasing operators as well
as internal control reviews.
We have the ability to perform cost segregation studies for property owners
which could allocate land improvement and building component costs to assets
with shorter lives, thereby reducing your current tax burden. We can also provide
litigation consulting for disputes with contractors and can assist with damage
analysis.
For residential developers, we can evaluate your development cost allocation
system, specific application of the residual sales method, interest allocation,
and analysis of management fees between related entities and tax strategies.
Back to Top
|
