HELPING PEOPLE NATIONWIDE TO SAVE ON TAXES

Keystone CPA, Inc. is a CPA firm specializing in tax planning for real estate investors, business owners, and high-income earners. Founded by Amanda Han and Matt MacFarland, the firm works with clients nationwide and focuses on proactive strategy rather than year-end tax preparation alone.

Amanda Han and Matt MacFarland are CPAs and the founders of Keystone CPA, Inc. They are co-authors of the top-selling book Tax Strategies for the Savvy Real Estate Investor, published by BiggerPockets, and have been featured in Forbes Finance Council, Money Magazine, CNBC, and Talks at Google.

Yes. Keystone CPA is based in California and works with clients across all 50 states. Federal tax law applies nationwide, and the firm handles multi-state filings for investors who own property in more than one state.

Most accounting firms focus on tax preparation, recording what already happened. Keystone CPA leads with tax planning, which means identifying strategies during the year while there is still time to act on them. The firm specializes in real estate, so strategies like cost segregation, entity structuring, and passive loss planning are part of our core expertise.

Tax preparation is the process of filing a return for a year that has already ended. Tax planning happens before the year closes and involves structuring income, entities, deductions, and investments to reduce the amount owed. By the time a return is prepared, most opportunities to lower the bill have already passed.

To determine if we are the right fit for you, the first step is a one-on-one private discovery call. The call is designed to learn more about your current finances and your needs, and to help determine whether we would be the right fit for you. Schedule your discovery call here.

Once onboarded as a client, every engagement starts with a consultation to review the client's income, business, entities, investments, and real estate holdings. From there, Keystone CPA builds a written tax plan with specific strategies and implementation steps.

Keystone CPA bills on a flat fee basis rather than hourly. Clients know the cost before work begins, and there is no guesswork. Our tax planning fees can range from as little as $19,000 up to $55,000.

No. Keystone CPA works on a flat fee basis. Our fee is agreed on before the work begins and does not change based on the size of your tax savings.

Yes. Keystone CPA prepares individual, business, and multi-state returns for its planning clients, so the strategy and the filing stay connected. This service is available only to our tax planning clients and carries a separate fee.

Real estate is not the only means to reduce tax. If your investment goals do not include real estate, our tax strategist will focus on strategies outside of real estate to meet your tax saving needs.

Sometimes. Rental losses are generally passive and can only offset passive income. Two main exceptions exist: qualifying for Real Estate Professional Status, or owning a short-term rental where the average guest stay is seven days or less and the owner materially participates. There is also a limited allowance for active participants that phases out at higher income levels.

Real Estate Professional Status is an IRS designation that allows rental losses to offset non-passive income such as wages. It requires spending more than 750 hours per year in real property trades or businesses, and more than half of all personal service time in those activities. The taxpayer must also materially participate in the rental activity itself. Contemporaneous time logs are essential if the position is examined.

When the average guest stay at a rental property is seven days or less, the activity is not automatically treated as a rental under the passive activity rules. If the owner materially participates, losses from that property may offset other income including W-2 wages. This is why short-term rentals are frequently paired with cost segregation studies.

A cost segregation study identifies components of a building — fixtures, flooring, land improvements — that can be depreciated over 5, 7, or 15 years instead of 27.5 or 39. This front-loads depreciation deductions into the early years of ownership. Studies generally make sense on properties above a few hundred thousand dollars in basis, but the benefit depends on whether the owner can actually use the resulting losses.

An LLC provides liability protection but does not by itself reduce federal income tax. A single-member LLC is disregarded for tax purposes, meaning the income is reported the same way it would be without the LLC. Entity structure affects taxes mainly for operating businesses, where an S-corporation election can reduce self-employment tax.

Earlier is better. Most strategies require action before December 31, and some, such as retirement plan setup or entity elections, have deadlines earlier in the year.