We seek a talented Tax Manager with a minimum of 3 years of experience in a public CPA firm to join our team at Hawkinson Muchnick & Associates, PC. As a Tax Manager, you will play a crucial role in providing exceptional tax services to our business and individual clients. This position offers growth opportunities, including the possibility of ownership, and promotes work-life balance.
Responsibilities:
Provide comprehensive tax planning and compliance services for a diverse client base.
Manage and review tax returns, ensuring accuracy and adherence to relevant regulations.
Conduct tax research and stay up-to-date with changing tax laws and regulations.
Develop and maintain strong client relationships, delivering exceptional customer service.
Identify tax planning opportunities and provide strategic advice to clients.
Supervise and mentor junior team members, fostering their professional growth.
Requirements:
Minimum of 3 years of experience in a public CPA firm, specializing in tax services.
Strong knowledge of tax laws, regulations, and compliance.
CPA certification is required
Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced environment.
Hawkinson Muchnick & Associates, PC is a leading CPA firm based in Douglasville, GA. With over 30 years of professional experience and deep roots in the Douglas County area, we are known for our stability, expertise, and commitment to our clients. Our team of seasoned Certified Public Accountants and Enrolled Agent ensures that our clients receive top-notch financial planning services.
More than just a traditional tax and accounting firm, our comprehensive and customized strategic Financial Planning packages set us apart, allowing us to provide personalized solutions tailored to each client’s unique needs. As active members of the community, we actively participate in local organizations and take on leadership roles to make a positive impact.
How to Apply:
If you are a dedicated Tax Manager seeking a rewarding opportunity with growth potential, we would love to hear from you. Please submit your resume and a cover letter detailing your relevant experience and why you would be a great fit for our team preferably via LInkedIn Job Post or via this website via the contact form. Let’s start a conversation about your future with Hawkinson Muchnick & Associates!
Note: All applications will be treated confidentially. Only qualified candidates will be contacted for further steps in the hiring process.
About Us: https://hma-cpa.com
Location: Douglasville, GA
Employment Type: Full-time
Salary: Competitive, based on experience
We look forward to reviewing your application and exploring the possibility of welcoming you to our team at Hawkinson Muchnick & Associates, PC.
Here are several ideas to help your business grow and thrive this year.
Understand your cash flow. One of the biggest causes of business failure is lack of understanding cash flow. At the end of the day, you need enough cash to pay your vendors and your employees. If you run a seasonal business you understand this challenge. The high season sales harvest needs to be ample enough to support you during the slow, non-seasonal periods.
Recommendation: Create a 12-month rolling forecast of revenue and expenses to help understand your cash needs.
Know your pressure points. When looking at your business, there are a few big items that drive your business success. Do you know the top four drivers of your financial success or failure? By staying focused on the key drivers of your business, success will be easier to manage.
Recommendation: Look at your most recent tax return and identify the key financial drivers of your business. Do the same thing with your day-to-day operations and staffing.
Inventory matters. If your business sells physical products, you need a good inventory management system. This system doesn’t have to be complex, it just needs to help you keep control of your inventory. Cash turned into inventory that becomes stuck as inventory can create a major cash flow problem.
Recommendation: Develop an inventory system with periodic counts to ensure you do not have shrink or theft issues. These periodic counts can help identify when you need to take action to liquidate old inventory.
Know your customers. Who are your current customers? Are there enough of them? Where can you get more of them? How loyal are they? Are they happy? Several large customers can drive your company’s growth or create tremendous risk should they take their business to a competitor.
Recommendation: Know who your target audience is and then cater your business toward them and what they are looking for in your offerings.
Know your point of difference. Once you know who your target customer is, understand why they buy your product or service. What makes you different from other businesses selling a similar item?
Recommendation: If you don’t know what makes your business better than others, ask your key customers. They will tell you. Then take advantage of this information to find new customers.
Develop a great support team. Successful small business owners know they cannot do it all themselves. Do you have a good group of support professionals helping you? You need accounting, tax, legal, insurance, and employment help, along with your traditional suppliers.
Recommendation: Conduct an annual review of your resources. Be prepared to review your suppliers and make improvements where necessary.
Sometimes focusing on a few basic ideas can help improve your business’s outlook. Please call if you wish to discuss your situation.
Financial goals make it possible for you and your partner to work toward achieving your dreams. Here are several action items to create – and achieve – financial goals as a couple:
Start talking sooner rather than later. Finances can be hard to talk about. People sometimes feel guilty about debt or ashamed that they don’t make more money. More than that, many people consider money to be a private thing that shouldn’t be discussed with others.
However, the first step to setting financial goals as a couple is to start talking. And the sooner you start talking with your partner, the better prepared you’ll be to make positive financial decisions. Saving for a big purchase, for example, takes time and planning. Having a discussion early on gives you more time to start saving.
Agree on your goals. Once you’re talking about your finances, you’ll want to agree on your goals. Would you like to pay off your credit card debt? Save for a big family vacation? Have more of a financial safety net?
After you’ve agreed on what you’d like to achieve, start talking about how you’ll work together to achieve it. The best financial plans require both partners to contribute to the financial goal – whether that means each agreeing to contribute monthly to a savings account or cutting back on personal spending.
Keep the conversation going. Plans need maintenance to succeed. That means continuing to talk about them, and checking progress on a regular basis. It’s important for both partners to know all the numbers, even if one partner is the primary manager of the finances.
Scheduling a regular financial conversation is one way to keep you and your partner on track to achieving your goals. This financial date night is a good way to ensure that things are proceeding as planned. It’s an opportunity to check in and adjust the numbers accordingly.
With open communication and commitment from both partners, you’ll be well on your way to reaching your financial goals.
With the cost of college rising rapidly, it can be overwhelming to think about how to pay your way through school for either yourself or your kids. Fortunately, saving hundreds, or even thousands, is possible. Teenagers can help keep down the cost of their future college tuition by taking the following classes and exams while in high school:
Advanced Placement (AP) classes and exams provide the opportunity for high school students to take college-level classes at their high school and an exam at the end of the
school year. Many colleges will accept AP credits as placement and/or college credit. Most will accept a passing grade of 3, but some universities may require a score of 4 or 5 to earn college credit. (AP exam scores range from 1 to 5.)
College Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests also offer the opportunity to earn college credit by passing an exam. However, instead of taking a class, you must study on your own and schedule an exam at a testing center when you’re ready. CLEP exams receive a score between 20 and 80. A score of 50 is typically the passing score to obtain college credit, but each university sets its own requirement. It is important to note that while many colleges accept CLEP credits, some top schools do not.
Dual enrollment classes allow high school students to take college courses at a local college or university and earn both high school and college credit. You must be a high school junior or senior to qualify for the program. Dual enrollment credits are widely transferable.
Cost of Exams and Potential Savings
AP exams cost around $100, while CLEP tests cost $93 plus an additional administrative fee while dual enrollment programs pay for tuition, fees and books. According to the College Board, the average cost of a 3-credit class at a four-year college ranges from $1,200 to $4,500, meaning for each 3-credit class you test out of, you save hundreds—potentially thousands–of dollars!
Additionally, earning college credit in high school can enable you to finish college in less than four years. Just make sure that when you’re choosing a college, you pay attention to whether or not the schools accept AP and/or CLEP exam scores as credit.
The recent wildfires in California forced thousands of families from their homes with little to no warning. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation where you need to evacuate your home with only a moment’s notice, having an escape plan mapped out ahead of time could potentially save your life, as well as some of your belongings.
Learn from the experts
Conduct a review of your situation now. Here are links to three great resources:
This includes smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and proper fire extinguishers all in the proper places and all in working order. Remember to test them according to the recommendations by the manufacturer and fire prevention experts. This may be monthly or even weekly. Take special note as to the date of installation, as older detectors are preset by the manufacturer to expire. When this happens you will hear an annoying beep. Your only recourse it to change out the expired equipment.
Be prepared with fire knowledge
The top causes of home fires are cooking, heating, electrical, smoking, and candles. Knowing this, you can reduce the risk of fire by creating an awareness trigger when engaging in these areas. For example:
Know how to handle different types of cooking fires both inside and outside.
Know where shut off valves are for gas.
Unplug when not using electrical devices.
Never smoke inside.
Only buy candles enclosed in glass.
Have an escape plan and practice it!
When a fire from within your house occurs, you have two minutes to get out. Create a plan, provide two methods of escape, and practice the plan every six months. Know where you are going to meet so everyone is accounted for after you exit. This is especially important for kids as they may need to escape without your help. Also think about overnight guests and grandkids at sleepovers. This is where reviewing plans from experts can help.
Get out. Stay out. Call for help.
Make this your mantra when in the midst of a fire emergency.
Review this I wish list.
Hindsight is 20/20, especially when it comes to fires. Here are some tips from those who have gone through it. I wish…
I had a go bag. This is a small bag of essentials stored in your bedroom to grab if you need to leave in a hurry. It contains a change of clothes, coats, or other emergency items for the kids.
I had a good inventory. After the fire, you are going to spend a significant amount of time with insurance adjusters. Periodically review your policy and develop an inventory of your household items. Take videos, document models and ages of major appliances, autos, other equipment, and valuables.
I had a ‘where to go’ plan. If you cannot return to your home, where will you stay? How will you pay for it? Figure this out ahead of time.
I had a remote backup of my computer and phone. Remote backups can be invaluable in getting you back up and running.
I had an emergency fund. It will take a while to get your life back in order. What if you need to take time off from work? Having 6 months of emergency funds can make all the difference as you recover from a fire.
The purpose of this article is not to act as an expert in fire safety, but rather to help generate awareness in this often overlooked subject. If, however, you need expert advice with your financial and tax affairs as you navigate this or other disasters, please call for help.
One of the most common reasons businesses fail is due to lack of proper cash flow. The same is often true in many households. Here’s how this concept of cash flow applies to you along with some ideas to improve it.
Cash flow defined
Cash flow equals cash coming in (wages, interest, Social Security benefits, etc.) and cash going out in the bills you pay and money you spend. If more is coming in than going out, you have positive cash flow. If the opposite is true, you have negative cash flow. Unfortunately, calculating and forecasting cash flow can get complicated. Some bills are due weekly, others monthly. A few larger bills may need to be paid quarterly or annually.
Create your cash flow snapshot
Before improving your cash flow, you need to be able to visualize it. While there are software tools to generate a statement of cash flow, you can also take a snapshot of your cash flow by creating a simple monthly spreadsheet:
Type each month across the top of the spreadsheet with an annual total.
Note all your revenue (cash inflows), then create a list of expenses (cash outflows) in the left-hand column.
Enter your income and bills by month. Create a monthly subtotal of all your inflows. Do the same for your cash outflows. Then subtract the expenses from income. Positive numbers? You have positive cash flow. Negative numbers? You have negative cash flow.
Create a cumulative total for the year under each month to see which months will need additional funds and which months will have excess funds.
Ideas to improve your cash flow
Identify your challenges. See if you have months where more cash is going out than is coming in to your bank account. This often happens when large bills are due. If possible, try to balance these known high-expense months throughout the course of the year. Common causes are:
Holidays
Property tax payments
Car and homeowners insurance
Income tax payments
Vacations
Build a reserve. If you know there are challenging months, project how much additional cash you will need and begin to save for this during positive cash months.
Cut back on annuities. See what monthly expense drivers are in your life. Can any of them be reduced? Can you live with fewer cell phone add-ons? How about cutting costs in your cable or streaming bill? Is it time for an insurance review?
Shop your current services. Some of your larger bills may create an opportunity for savings. This is especially true with home, rental and car insurance.
Create savings habits to add to cash flow. Consider paying a bill to yourself in your cash outflows. This saved money is a simple technique to create positive cash flow each month to build an emergency reserve.
As a business owner, you’re required to pay three different types of payroll taxes.
FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) is the tax used to fund Social Security and Medicare programs.
FUTA (Federal Unemployment Tax Act). Employers pay this federal tax to provide unemployment benefits to laid-off workers.
SUTA (State Unemployment Tax Act). State governments also collect taxes known as SUTA that finance each state’s unemployment insurance fund.
While FICA may be easy to understand, unemployment tax calculations are easily misunderstood.
How FUTA and SUTA taxes are calculated
The FUTA calculation. The federal unemployment tax rate is 6% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s income, regardless of where the company does business. In addition,
employers who pay their state’s SUTA taxes on time can receive a maximum credit of 5.4%, reducing the FUTA rate to 0.6%. Certain employee benefits—employer contributions to health plans, pensions, and group life insurance premiums, for example—are also excluded from the calculation.
SUTA taxes are more complicated. Tax rates and taxable thresholds (known as wage bases) vary from state to state, industry to industry, and business to business. In Oregon, for example, the first $54,300 of an employee’s salary is taxed under SUTA. In Arkansas, that threshold is $7,000. In Oregon, a new employer is taxed at a rate of 2.4%, but more established businesses in that state have rates ranging from 0.9% to 5.4%. In Arkansas, the tax rate can range from 0.1% to 5.0%. Other factors affecting your SUTA tax liability include the business’s history of on-time payments to the state insurance fund and the number of former employees receiving unemployment benefits.
How to reduce your SUTA and FUTA tax bills
Hire cautiously. If you employ someone who doesn’t work out, you could end up with additional unemployment claims and a higher SUTA tax rate.
Train vigorously. To increase productivity and reduce turnover, target your investment in continuing education. Keep employees happy and loyal. Again, high turnover leads to unemployment claims, which leads to bigger SUTA tax bills.
Terminate judiciously. If you must reduce personnel, consider offering severance or outplacement benefits to terminated employees. The sooner they return to the job market, the fewer the unemployment claims that will be factored into your company’s SUTA tax calculation.
Dispute carefully. Take the time to verify the accuracy of unemployment claims, as bogus representations by former workers can drive up your SUTA taxes. If an employee was fired for gross misconduct and thus disqualifying himself or herself from collecting unemployment, have strong documentation to support the termination.
Pay regularly. Under federal guidelines, employers who make their SUTA contributions on time can reduce the amount of FUTA taxes by up to 90%.
Remember, you do not need to navigate the complications inherent in filing your business taxes. They can be complicated and easily overlooked when you add things like sales taxes and income taxes. If you have questions or need help please call.
Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with more emails, phone calls and text messages crafted to look and sound like the real thing. This is often because thieves are adding artificial intelligence to its arsenal of tools to transform their tricks into messaging that genuinely looks like its coming from a person you know and trust.
Here are the top ways that scammers are using AI and what you can do to protect yourself.
How Scammers are Using AI
AI-Powered Phishing Attacks. Phishing attacks have been around for decades, but AI makes them far more convincing. AI can analyze large amounts of data to craft messages that look and sound authentic, increasing the chances of tricking victims into clicking malicious links or providing personal information.
Deepfake Scams. Deepfake technology allows scammers to create realistic videos and audio clips that impersonate real people. Some examples include fake videos of CEOs instructing employees to transfer money or of celebrities endorsing fraudulent products.
Generate Realistic Conversations. Scammers are using AI chatbots that can hold realistic conversations with potential victims. These bots can appear very convincing while pretending to be customer service agents, a friend or family member, or even government officials. The goal is to trick you into sharing sensitive information or sending money.
Fake Profiles. AI can scan all of a person’s online footprint to create a realistic profile and social media accounts. Scammers then use these fake personas to try and steal information and money from you.
Protect Yourself from AI-Driven Scams
Be skeptical of unsolicited messages. If you receive an email, text, or call from a company or person you don’t recognize, verify its authenticity before responding. Do this by contacting the company or person directly using official channels.
Use multi-factor authentication (MFA). Constantly using MFA on every website you visit may cause some frustration, but it’s nothing compared to the frustration you may experience if your identity or money are stolen. Even if scammers steal your password, they’ll need an additional verification step to access your accounts.
Verify identities. If someone claims to be a friend, boss, or family member requesting money, first verify their identity through another channel, such as a phone call or video chat.
Look for red flags. AI-generated scams often contain small inconsistencies—such as unnatural speech patterns in voice messages, slight facial distortions in deepfake videos, or unusual grammar in AI-generated texts. Trust your instincts and independently verify whenever you can.
Immediate Required Action: Review your savings account interest rate and take necessary action to avoid potential deceptive, unreasonable, and obscure rules that are keeping your money from making a reasonable interest rate!
Background
When interest rates rose due to inflation, banks and credit unions quickly raised their interest rates on credit cards, mortgages and loans, but were reluctant to reward loyal customers with higher interest on their deposit balances. They simply decided to put the extra profit in their pockets or were afraid they could not afford to pay market interest on their deposits.
These deceptive and unreasonable practices are words used by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in describing one bank’s practice to avoid paying market rates to many of their loyal depositors. So which tricks are being used?
Some common practices
The mirror trick. Create a new savings account with a similar name to one that earns less than ½ of one percent of interest. But the new account gets a much higher interest rate (allegedly 14 times higher!). Then, don’t be great at telling the current account holders, so they do not realize they are being grossly underpaid for their deposits. Example: Capital One (See CFPB lawsuit) Why do this? It dramatically lowers the bank’s interest expense since they do not roll the old, low interest accounts into the new, higher interest account. But they still offer a competitive savings product to attract new money.
The CD trap. Grossly underpay those with savings deposits, especially small, local businesses. Instead, offer CDs with better interest rates. Then introduce EXTREMELY high early withdrawal penalties (compared to traditional early withdrawal penalties historically used on CDs.) Classic examples: Chase Bank and US Bank, but there are many more!
Why do this? It makes it a lot easier for the bank treasury group to forecast the bank’s net interest income spread, as their deposit interest expense is more predictable.
The trained seal mirror trick. A major national credit union took the mirror trick above, then created additional rules to ensure ONLY new money gets the better interest rate. So they only make the new, similarly named, high interest bearing account available to NEW deposits into the credit union. So, no transferring funds from another internal account to get the higher interest.PLUS, you are required to set up automatic deposits in the account each month to obtain the best interest. To get the high rate, you need to transfer your money out of the bank, then keep it somewhere else for a time, then transfer it back. In other words, you need to be trained in the tricks to get the reasonable interest rate. Just like a seal. Why do this? Banks don’t want to pay these higher interest rates on existing deposits.
What to do now
Understand the impact. If you aren’t watchful, your savings account is earning much less than 1 percent interest when you could be earning over 4 percent in a similar account EVERY DAY.
Fight inertia. What all these tricks have in common is the benefit of inertia. These practices are commonly used by cell phone companies. They give the best deal to the new guy while gently deceiving their long-term subscribers. When is the last time you looked? Well, look now!
Find the right account. Often the answer is within your bank by getting into the right account. But you may find it is at another institution. Be willing to set up the right account at the right place. Current high yield savings rates with FDIC coverage range from 3.5% to 4.8%.
Develop fluid management. With secure online transfers, it is now easier than ever to keep your money working hard for you (using high interest rates). This also includes moving excess funds in your checking account. So securely link these accounts, actively monitor them, and transfer your funds to their best use at the highest interest rate. You’ll be amazed at how much interest income you can earn!
You may receive a tax document with incorrect information. You may also discover that a tax form you’re expecting was never delivered. Here are several situations you may encounter with incorrect information and what you can do about it.
Situation: You receive a tax document with wrong personal information, such as an incorrect Social Security number. What you can do: Immediately contact the company that sent you the tax document and ask that the information be corrected. If it’s your Form W-2 with wrong information, ask your employer for a corrected W-2 (Form W-2C, Corrected Wage and Tax Statement).
Situation: You disagree with the amount of wages or income reported on a tax form. What you can do: Contact your employer and ask for a corrected W-2 (Form W-2C, Corrected Wage and Tax Statement). If you do not receive the corrected W-2, you should report the incorrect amount as noted on the W-2 to avoid an IRS correspondence audit AND then correct the amount on your tax return.
This is especially important because if the W-2 information is not corrected, you will not get Social Security credit for any missing wages you earned. If this happens to you, make sure your employee record is corrected as soon as possible.
Situation: The business that issued your tax document went out of business and you can’t locate the owner. What you can do: You are required to report all your income, whether or not you receive information forms (W-2s or 1099s) from the parties who paid you. You’ll have to reconstruct your income and income tax withholding based on your paycheck stubs or other documents.
Make sure your income is also properly reported on your account with the Social Security Administration, as your future benefits could be negatively impacted if they aren’t properly reported by your employer. According to the IRS, you should contact the IRS and a representative will record a W-2 complaint on your behalf.
Situation: You never receive a tax document that you were expecting. What you can do: If you don’t receive a Form W-2 or Form 1099-R (for retirement distributions) by the end of February, you can call the IRS at 800-829-1040 for assistance. Be sure to have your employer’s name and address, along with your name, address and Social Security number, before calling.
Situation: You receive a missing or corrected tax document after filing your return. What you can do: You may need to file an amended tax return to include the missing tax document or if the dollar amount on the corrected tax document is significantly different from what you reported on your tax return.
Remember that when you receive these informational tax forms to immediately review them for accuracy. The best way to get them corrected is early detection.
You will soon have to confront a higher tax bill if Congress doesn’t extend many credits, deductions, and lower tax rates that are set to expire at the end of this year. Here’s who should be considering ongoing tax planning sessions as this uncertainty plays out in Congress and the Executive office:
Your income will increase in 2025. Maybe you are looking to move jobs or obtain a promotion. This should trigger a planning session as marginal rates currently max out at 37% at a fairly high income, but that could all change beginning in 2026.
You were an itemized deductions taxpayer. A number of taxpayers may begin itemizing deductions again in 2026 if the rules expire as they are currently scheduled to. This means planning your expenses in light of this impending roll back of rules will take some thought. This is especially true if you have high state income and real estate taxes.
You have a large estate. The current estate exemption ($13.99 million in 2025 for single taxpayers, $27.98 million for married) drops back to $5 million in 2026. While this reset amount will be adjusted for inflation going forward, gifting money or other assets can help reduce the size of your taxable estate while taking advantage of this historically high exemption amount.
You have investments. Review your investments to be as tax efficient as possible. Municipal bonds and tax-deferred plans like 401(k)s and IRAs may also become more attractive after 2025. Also consider tax-loss harvesting strategies to offset future gains. Another idea: if your tax rate will be lower in 2025 compared to 2026, consider selling appreciated assets in 2025 at a lower tax rate, then immediately purchase the asset again. Remember that wash sales rules only apply to losses, not gains!
You have pass-through business income. If you are a small business owner, assess how the loss of the Qualified Business Income deduction will affect your tax liability. Review whether you should change your entity type to minimize the loss of this deduction.
By starting to plan now, you can be ready for whatever tax environment you’ll be navigating in 2025.
