The folder for the year is full, and you are not sure the months are finished. The return is only the year those closed months add up to, and Steven Palmieri, a Tax CFO and the Entrepreneur's CFO, drafts it with us once the close is real and not a day before.
A return that starts from an open quarter is a draft in the worst sense. We wait until the bank agrees, then we roll the closed months into the workpapers. Income, draws, and the big asset purchases each keep the label they had in the books.
If one month inside the year never closed, we say so at the top of the file. You can still see the rest. We do not average the gap into the other months.
We prepare the federal return the entity files, and the Texas pieces that follow from those same books, including the franchise report when that entity owes one. We read the form for that year rather than a memory of last year's form.
Estimates are part of the same conversation. If the year is still open, we can still change what the remaining estimates say. Once you have paid one, we record it. We do not pretend it was a different number.
Some lenders want a signed report. We do not issue one. The disclosures page is the place that line is drawn, and we will say it on the first call if your file needs that signature.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science, Miller Outdoor Theatre, and the zoo share Hermann Park at the south end of the Museum District, and every Texan can picture that green. You go for the day. We ask whether the year that paid for the day is closed enough to prepare the return.
After a draft exists, you can ask where a line came from. We point at the month and the category. If the category is wrong, we fix the month and the draft moves with it. We do not defend a line that the books no longer support.
Extensions, estimates already paid, and a state form that follows the federal return are part of the same file. We list what is filed, what is waiting, and what still needs a number from you. A missing basis figure or a loan statement stays on that list until you send it.
Keep the questions in the order the draft is written. Income first, then the items that reduce it, then the payments already sent. We answer from the month, not from a memory of a similar company. If a line needs a paper you have not sent, that line stays open on the draft and the rest of the return can still be read. You will see the hole. We will not paper over it with a round figure.
Say which year and whether the last month is closed.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.