Tax & AccountingENCINO, CA

Straight Answers on Taxes in ENCINO

Individual and small-business returns, bookkeeping, and year-round answers — from a credentialed professional who knows your file, not a seasonal kiosk.

Call (310) 452-3755 Request a Consultation

Tax & AccountingENCINO, CA

Fee before workask for it in writing

Preparation is priced by the forms a situation actually requires — not by a menu, and not as a share of anything you get back.

Look this practice up in the public register before you call — the links are below.

ENCINOand surrounding areas

Local address16633 Ventura Blvd. Suite 505, ENCINO, CA

Direct line(310) 452-3755

On record

Who prepares the return.

The practiceSteven B Altabef, Inc

Where it files from16633 Ventura Blvd. Suite 505, ENCINO, CA

The number that rings(310) 452-3755

Only three kinds of preparer hold unlimited rights to represent you before the IRS — an attorney, a CPA, or an enrolled agent. Which one you are dealing with is a question with a factual answer, and it should be answered before you hand anyone a Social Security number.

The preparer's photograph, name and own account of the practice are published here when the owner of this practice claims the page. Until then this page states only what is on public record, and every record it relies on is linked below so you can check it against us rather than take our word for it.

Find yourself here

Two kinds of year.

For individuals and families

The years when a return stops being one W-2 and a standard deduction.

A first year with a house sold, or stock sold
Equity compensation — RSUs, options, an ESPP
Rental property, and the depreciation nobody tracked
A move mid-year, or income earned in two states
Marriage, divorce, a new child, a death in the family
A letter from the IRS or the state, answered inside its window
Years that were never filed, brought current oldest first
An amended return, when last year's was wrong

For self-employed and small business

The filings an entity owes before the owner's own return can be finished.

A first year on 1099s, and what quarterly estimates actually are
Schedule C, and which expenses survive an examination
S-corporation returns, and whether the election pays for itself
Partnership returns, and the K-1s the partners are waiting on
Payroll and contractor filings that fall due before January 31
Sales tax in the states where the business has a presence
Monthly bookkeeping, so that filing is a formality not an excavation
The books cleaned up once, before the first return is attempted

What this practice takes on

The work of a year, not a season.

Individual and small-business returns, bookkeeping, and year-round answers — from a credentialed professional who knows your file, not a seasonal kiosk.

Individual Tax Returns

Federal and state filing, deductions checked line by line.

Small-Business & Self-Employed

Schedule C, S-corp and partnership returns with quarterly planning.

Bookkeeping

Clean monthly books so tax season starts finished.

IRS Letters & Notices

A professional answer to the envelope nobody wants to open.

Tax Planning

Decisions made before December, when they still change the bill.

Prior-Year & Amended Returns

Missed years and corrections, brought current properly.

When people call

Nobody goes looking on a quiet Tuesday.

Eight moments send someone looking for a tax practice. Each one turns into a specific piece of work once it reaches a desk.

Your first year self-employed

1099s, quarterly estimates, and what actually counts as a deduction rather than what a video said counts.

A letter came from the IRS or the state

Read it, answer it inside the window it gives you, and find out what it does and does not actually mean.

You sold a house, or sold stock

Basis, exclusions, and the gain that otherwise turns up a year later attached to a bill.

You moved, or you earn in two states

Part-year and non-resident filings, and which state gets to tax which dollar.

There are years you never filed

Unfiled returns brought current in order, oldest first, before the interest compounds any further.

Someone told you to elect S-corp

Whether the election saves anything at your actual numbers, and what it costs you in filings if it does not.

A marriage, a divorce, or a death in the family

Filing status, a year split between two people, and the return nobody in the family wants to sit down with.

The bookkeeping stopped being a spreadsheet

Monthly books that actually close, so that filing season is a formality instead of an excavation.

The fee, plainly

What preparation costs depends on.

Preparation is priced by the forms your situation actually requires. The number that matters more than the fee is what a checked, planned return saves against a rushed one.

Forms
A W-2 return and a return with a Schedule C, rentals and a brokerage account are different engagements.
Bookkeeping state
Clean books make short work. A shoebox of receipts is honest work too — it simply takes hours.
Entities
S-corps and partnerships file their own returns before yours. Each entity is its own engagement.
States
Each additional state filing adds forms and reconciliation.
Timing
January work is planned work. April 10th work is triage, and priced like it.

The fee, in numbers that exist

What it costs, and what somebody measured.

These are published national averages from the surveys named beside them. They are not this practice's fees, and this page does not know what this practice charges. They are here so that the estimate you are quoted — here or anywhere else — arrives next to a number somebody actually measured.

What preparers charge, on average

A base Form 1040, prepared by a CPA

The same return prepared by an enrolled agent averages $228, and by a non-credentialed preparer about $185.

$280

Hourly work — planning, notices, clean-up

The national average hourly rate across credentialed and non-credentialed preparers.

$182

A practice's minimum fee

Most practices set a floor below which an engagement is not worth opening. Ask what this one's is.

$150–$350

The minimum on a business return

An entity return — an S-corp, a partnership — starts well above an individual one and is its own engagement.

$634

Source: National Association of Tax Professionals, 2025 fee study, reported by Accounting Today, December 2025

What the individual schedules add

Form 1040 itemised, with a state return

The common starting shape for a household that has left software behind.

$323

Schedule C — self-employment

Added to the return, not instead of it. The first year freelancing is usually this line.

$192

Form 1065 — a partnership

Filed before the partners' own returns can be finished.

$733

Form 1120-S — an S-corporation

Also filed first, and the reason an S-corp election has to pay for itself.

$903

Disorganised records surcharge

78.1% of practices charge one, averaging $165.82. It is the single most avoidable line on any quote.

$166

Source: National Society of Accountants, Income & Fees survey 2020-21 (n=1,009, fee data 2019-20) — the last edition published

The sequence

How an engagement starts.

The most common complaint from people hiring a tax preparer is not the fee and not the competence — it is that the call was never returned. Hold this practice to that, and hold the next two you call to it as well. A number that does not ring back has answered the question.

The call

Ten minutes establishes what the year actually involves — which forms, how many states, which entities, and whether anything is late. That is the conversation that decides the fee, so have it before you commit to anything.

The scope, then the fee

Preparation is priced from the forms a situation requires, not from a menu. Ask for the estimate in writing before any work begins — on this engagement or on anyone else's.

Prepared, reviewed, filed

Ask for a complete copy of everything filed in your name, and check that the preparer signed it and entered a PTIN. The IRS requires both, and a preparer who does neither is the warning sign it publishes first.

Verification

Check this against the public record.

A referral is not verification — it is how most of the people who were let down found the preparer who let them down. Not one of these registers is ours.

IRS Directory of Federal Tax Return PreparersThe IRS's own register of preparers holding a PTIN and a recognised credential. Search by ZIP.CPAverify — NASBAThe accountancy boards' shared lookup. A CPA licence that is real appears here, in the licensing state's own record.

They sign the return, and enter a PTIN on itA paid preparer who will not put their name and preparer number on a return you paid for is the first warning sign the IRS publishes. Ask to see both before you pay.

You get a complete copy of what was filedEverything submitted in your name, in full, in a form you can keep. If a copy has to be requested twice, that answers the question.

Your refund is deposited to your account — never theirsA refund routed through the preparer's account, or a fee calculated as a share of the refund, are both named in IRS Topic 254.

Nobody asks you to email a Social Security numberIRS Publication 4557 puts it plainly: a legitimate business will never email and request personal or sensitive information. Documents go through a portal or in person.

Before the first conversation

Four things worth having at hand.

A first call goes further when the year's shape is already on the table. None of it needs to be tidy — it needs to be present.

Roughly what your last return included — W-2s, businesses, rentals, investments
Whether your books are current, and in what system
Any IRS or state letters you have received
What you paid last year, if you remember

Service area

Where this practice files from.

Steven B Altabef, Inc16633 Ventura Blvd. Suite 505, ENCINO, CA(310) 452-3755

Locality is decaying for tax work — a return is prepared wherever the preparer is licensed, and a credentialed preparer can represent you before the IRS from any state. The street address matters for a different reason: it is a place that exists, that you can look up, and that will still be there after the return is filed.

Skyline of Central Los Angeles, California · Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress · public domain

Questions

Asked before the first call.

Do I actually need someone, or is software fine?

If the year was a W-2 and a standard deduction, software is usually fine and any honest preparer will tell you so. The returns that pay for themselves are the ones carrying a business, a rental, equity compensation, a sale, more than one state, or a year that went wrong.

What is this going to cost?

Preparation is priced from the forms the situation requires — a W-2 return and a return with a Schedule C, rentals and a brokerage account are different engagements. Ask for the estimate before work begins, and expect the number to move if the scope does.

When is the right time to call?

Earlier than most people do. A return filed in April can only report what already happened; the decisions that change a bill have to be made while the year is still running. February to April is also when everyone competent is already booked.

There are years I never filed. Is that a problem I can still fix?

Yes, and it gets smaller the sooner it starts. Unfiled years are brought current in order, oldest first. Interest and penalties keep accruing while nothing is filed, so the delay is the expensive part, not the filing.

How do my documents get to you?

Ask before you send anything — and whatever the answer is, it should not be plain email. IRS Publication 4557 states that a legitimate business will never email and request personal or sensitive information.

Can I check that this practice is real before I call?

You should. Steven B Altabef, Inc appears in this page's own footer with a street address and the number that rings, and the public registers where a tax preparer can be looked up are linked above — none of them is ours.

Direct contact

Start the conversation.

With the items above at hand, a first call gets specific quickly — what your year includes, what it requires, and where to start.

Call (310) 452-3755