Outsourced Tax Planning Support for CPA Firms

Accountably is a staffing and recruiting agency that helps US CPA, EA, and accounting firms hire talent from India across tax, accounting, payroll, and finance. Accountably offers offshore staffing services, placing full-time offshore employees from India who work inside your firm's workflow, on your software and SOPs.

Accountably places tax professionals in India across the preparation behind your firm's tax planning, from the current-year projection and the estimated tax calculation to multi-year scenarios and the draft plan your partner presents.

If a tax role can be performed remotely, Accountably can fill it with A-players from India.

Here are some examples of the roles we can fill:

• Projections and standard scenario comparisons: tax preparers, with senior preparers for entity, compensation, and multistate cases
• Senior and quality review of every projection: tax reviewers
• The basis and depreciation schedules a scenario draws on: business tax preparers
• State apportionment in a multistate projection: SALT specialists

Accountably's staffing model is fully managed: we handle the employment contract, payroll, tax compliance, benefits administration, and salary disbursement for every hire, so you get the talent without the administrative overhead.

This matters most for firms that don't have an established entity or employer of record (EOR) infrastructure in India.

You direct the day-to-day work; Accountably handles everything on the back-end.

Our staffing model also includes onboarding support, equipment coordination if needed, and ongoing HR support for as long as the engagement runs.

Dedicated hires and build-operate-transfer teams go through the same vetting and shortlisting process; a white-label team is staffed and run by its assigned manager.

The core difference between dedicated offshore talent and a white-label delivery team is who directs the work. With dedicated offshore talent, your preparer works inside your workflow and you direct the work like any member of your team; with a white-label delivery team, Accountably's manager runs the team, with its own reviewers, and you review the finished work.

Recruiting differs between the models. Dedicated hires go through the same recruiting process as build-operate-transfer teams, while a white-label team is staffed and run by its assigned manager.

Dedicated offshore talent is the right fit if you plan with clients year-round, with quarterly projection refreshes, and want full-time staff inside your workflow.

A white-label delivery team makes more sense if your planning work bunches into the fourth quarter and you'd rather review finished work. Firms serious about long-term offshore control can also choose build-operate-transfer.

If you're not sure which fits your situation, mention it on the discovery call, and the team will walk you through all three options.

Accountably quotes every seat before you commit. Tax seats start from about $14 an hour, which comes to roughly $2,400 to $2,500 a month for a full-time seat. Planning support usually needs a senior seat, such as a senior tax preparer for entity and multistate scenarios or a tax reviewer who recomputes each projection, and senior seats are quoted on request.

The rate can vary by role and seniority, so you will get the specific figures on your discovery call, where we will walk you through the total cost for the role you need to fill.

But even with Accountably's fee included, a tax hire in India through Accountably can still save your firm up to 46% compared to an equivalent US hire.

For firms that don't have an existing international payroll setup or in-country legal infrastructure, the staffing model removes that work entirely. Accountably handles the employment contract, payroll processing, tax compliance, and benefits administration for your hires.

You direct the work. Accountably owns the employment relationship.

Also, with Accountably you pay nothing until you hire. The search, sourcing, shortlisting, and your interview stages all happen before any fee is due. If Accountably does not place someone, you owe nothing. A dedicated hire has a 60-day minimum commitment.

The 45-day replacement guarantee is included. If a placement does not work out within 45 days, Accountably finds a replacement at no additional charge.

Outsourced tax planning support is the practice of handing the preparation behind your clients' tax planning to a team outside your firm instead of hiring in-house staff. That team builds the multi-year projections and side-by-side scenarios your partners advise from, and drafts the written plan for your partner to edit. The planning advice stays with your firm.

Tax planning is the year-round work of projecting a client's tax and arranging income, deductions, entities, and timing to lower it legally, while the decisions are still open.

For a CPA or accounting firm, the preparation usually covers:

• Current-year projections from year-to-date actuals, set against the prior year
• Multi-year projections across federal and state
• Estimated payment and safe harbor calculations, with underpayment penalty checks
• Timing scenarios: income deferral or acceleration, and deduction bunching
• Retirement contribution comparisons and Roth conversion timing
• Owner compensation and QBI scenarios for pass-through clients
• Depreciation elections, including Section 179 and bonus depreciation
• The written plan: quantified savings per action, an assumption log, and an action list with deadlines

Entity comparisons for a new or changing business sit on entity selection analysis, and the returns themselves on our tax preparation pages.

Outsourced means the work is done by a team outside your firm. Offshore means that team is in another country. With Accountably it is both: your preparer sits in India and works inside your workflow like any other member of your team.

The main difference is cost. A tax hire in India can save your firm up to 46% compared to a US-based equivalent, due to the lower cost of living in India compared to the US.

With dedicated offshore talent, your firm manages the day-to-day work. Your preparer reports to your managers, follows your workflows and processes, and works as part of your team, just like any other remote employee.

Accountably doesn't direct their daily work or assign client files. You have complete control over their responsibilities and schedules. Think of Accountably as the hiring and administrative partner, not a management layer.

If you'd rather review finished plans than direct the work, a white-label delivery team comes with Accountably's own manager and reviewers.

Yes, tax preparers in India working with US firms work in the same tools your team already relies on: UltraTax CS, CCH Axcess, Lacerte, Drake Tax, and ProConnect Tax for the return and any planning features your firm uses in them, QuickBooks and Xero for the year-to-date books a projection starts from, and Karbon and TaxDome for workflow and client documents.

During vetting, Accountably screens explicitly for your stack rather than assuming tool familiarity and runs the assessments you already use.

Onboarding then ramps your preparer on your firm's software and SOPs, from your projection conventions to the format your partners present a plan in.

If you plan in a standalone planning tool, we identify transferable skill paths and flag any ramp time upfront so you can make an informed decision.

Accountably puts every candidate through a rigorous screening process before presentation.

Every candidate goes through Accountably's vetting process, which includes:

• Skills assessment: technical evaluation specific to the role requirements
• Experience validation: Accountably verifies work history
• Software experience: we check every candidate's experience in the tax software your firm runs, such as UltraTax CS, CCH Axcess, Lacerte, Drake Tax, and ProConnect Tax
• Cultural fit: Accountably screens for alignment with US business practices, work style, and your specific firm culture
• Motivation check: Accountably rules out candidates who are just looking for short-term contracts or salary bumps
• Background checks: we run background checks, and every hire works under an NDA

You only see candidates who meet all these criteria. Experienced hires start with onboarding on your software and SOPs. Newer hires first complete our 6-week US tax and accounting program.

No. Tax planning is advice, it carries professional liability, and it stays with the firm whose name is on it. Your preparer builds the projections, models the scenarios with every assumption stated, and drafts the plan. Your partner decides what to recommend and presents it.

Your partners choose which scenarios are right for each client, make every recommendation, run the planning meeting, and sign off on the plan before it leaves your firm.

The plan is drafted in your format for your partner to edit and present. Your preparer works inside your firm and your systems, and whether they ever meet a client is your call.

Tax preparation happens once a year, after the year has closed: it compiles what already happened and files the return. Tax planning runs through the year, before decisions are locked in: it models the options while there is still time to act and documents the strategy in writing.

The two windows that matter most are the fourth quarter and the period immediately after a return is filed, and both sit next to a deadline. That collision is why planning gets promised and not delivered, and why a dedicated seat holding the projections changes the outcome.

Accountably staffs both. Return preparation is on our tax preparation pages, from individual returns to S-corp returns, where owner compensation planning lands.

Every file goes through preparer, senior, quality and final review before it reaches you:

• Preparer: your preparer builds the projection and the scenarios in your software, logging every assumption.
• Senior review: a senior reviewer checks the inputs against the return and the year-to-date position, and tests the scenario logic.
• Quality review: a separate pass recomputes the baseline projection independently and checks each quantified saving back to it.
• Final review: a final read confirms the plan is ready to present, with the assumption log attached and any position that needs your judgment flagged.

A client acts on a planning number, so a wrong one is worse than no plan at all. Your partner keeps the final judgment on every strategy and the sign-off on the plan.

Yes. A tax plan describes a client's income, structure, and intentions. Your firm sets the access. We ask for preparer-level access only, with no e-file or bank release rights.

Your hire is background-verified, works under SOC 2-aligned controls and an NDA, and connects over a secure VPN. Files move by encrypted exchange, audit logs record activity, and a zero local storage policy keeps every projection off personal machines.

See data security and compliance for the full set of controls.