TravelTax was a name given to us by one of our clients when he expressed relief that someone understood these “travel taxes.” Before that, there really wasn’t a name. It was just: That Traveling Respiratory Therapist Guy Who Happened to Also Have an Accounting Degree And Could Do My Multi-State Tax Return. A little too long to be a good website name, but it does serve as a description of how we got started. What was once a guy helping a few friends has morphed into a well-respected tax consulting firm that not only provides tax preparation service to its mobile clients but also consults the companies that hire them, with multiple services in between.

Our company represents several dozen audited returns annually. (We like to brag that they are rarely our prepared returns.) That is why we feel safe in defending any return we have prepared at no charge. Most of the audits we handle are not “our” returns, but new clients coming to us after they have received either state or IRS notices. To our frustration, many of these were prepared by paid tax preparers who focused more on giving their clients big refunds, rather than filing accurate returns. Oftentimes, we see errors like incorrectly reported deductions, even though the traveler had already received tax-free reimbursements (double dipping). We also tend to see travelers who were misled by well-meaning friends or recruiters to believe that their permanent residence was the same as their tax home, only to find that they have no tax home. Ergo: our emphasis on education. Read all that our website has to teach you. We realize that the more you know ahead of time, the easier our job is.

You may now be thinking: I’ll learn everything I can, so then I can do my own returns. We don’t deny that you can, but is it really worth it? Even with the right knowledge base, preparing the federal return would probably take longer than you expect, make you consume a whole bottle of ibuprofen, and then there would be each state return, and figuring out how to make them get along and play nice…. And did you really do it all correctly?…. (Insert evil, maniacal laugh here)

If you haven’t caught on by now, open honesty is our policy, and we do have a slightly odd sense of humor. So all we can say is: Try us, you’ll like us!