Disclaimers and Scope of Practice

Everything on this website is general information

Every page on this site — service descriptions, pricing, the frequently asked questions and the articles in our resources library — is general information about tax rules and about how this firm works. None of it is advice about your situation.

Tax outcomes turn on facts: filing status, residency, the states you earned income in, the entity you operate through, and elections made in earlier years. A statement that is right for most people can be wrong — expensively wrong — for you. Please do not act on anything you read here without asking us, or another qualified preparer, about your own facts.

We are not a CPA firm, a law firm, or enrolled agents

What we are is an IRS-registered paid tax return preparer firm; everyone who prepares a return here holds an active preparer tax identification number, as 31 CFR 10.8(a) requires — a section that also binds us to the duties in subpart B of Circular 230 and the sanctions in subpart C. Preparing returns, keeping books and running payroll need no CPA licence in any state: Utah Code section 58-26a-305(1)(d) exempts a person who prepares tax returns and prepares financial statements without issuing reports on them.

Services we do not provide

This list is blunt on purpose. If you need something on it, we are the wrong firm.

• Audits, reviews, compilations, examinations, agreed-upon procedures, or any other attest or assurance engagement. State law reserves these to licensed CPA firms.
• Opinions on financial statements. We express no opinion, conclusion or assurance of any kind.
• Legal advice and legal documents. No legal opinions, no drafting or interpreting contracts, operating agreements, leases, wills or trusts, no advice on liability or disputes.
• Entity formation as a legal service. Whether to incorporate, where to organise and which entity type to choose are decisions for an attorney. We can explain the tax consequences and prepare Forms SS-4 and 2553.
• Investment, securities and insurance advice. We recommend nothing to buy, hold or sell, sell no financial product, and take no commission.
• Fiduciary and wealth-management services. We do not manage money, act as trustee or executor, or hold client funds.
• Forensic investigations and expert testimony. No fraud investigations, business valuations or litigation support.
• Representation before the IRS or any state tax authority. Explained below.
• Oregon personal income tax returns. Oregon requires a state licence we do not hold before anyone may prepare personal income tax returns for its residents.

What “advisors” means in our name

“Advisors” is an ordinary English word for what the business does: it answers tax questions and helps people plan. It is not a credential, not a licence, and not regulated by any board or agency. It does not mean that anyone here is a certified public accountant, an attorney, an enrolled agent, or any kind of licensed investment or financial professional. Where this site says “advice” or “advisory,” read it as ordinary commercial language for tax help — never legal advice, never investment advice. The IRS sets out what each kind of preparer may do at Understanding tax return preparer credentials and qualifications.

Financial reports we prepare are for internal management use only

Our bookkeeping produces financial reports — balance sheet, profit and loss, reconciliations and supporting schedules — built entirely from the records you give us, so that you can run your business on real numbers and we can prepare your returns from something reliable. They are for your internal management use.

They are not audited, reviewed or compiled financial statements as those terms are used under professional standards, and they carry no opinion and no assurance. Utah permits an unlicensed person to prepare financial statements only where no report is issued on them and the cover page states plainly that the statements were not audited or reviewed and express no opinion or any other form of assurance (Utah Code section 58-26a-102). Ours says exactly that, in those words.

Limits on representing you before the IRS

Practice before the IRS is governed by Circular 230. Attorneys, certified public accountants and enrolled agents are “practitioners” with unlimited representation rights; an unenrolled preparer is not. 31 CFR 10.7(c)(1) lists the narrow cases in which a non-practitioner may represent a taxpayer — family members, and employees, partners or officers acting for their own organisation. The list runs from (i) through (vii); there is no eighth category, and none of the seven covers a paid preparer representing a client.

The only route open to an unenrolled preparer is section 6.01 of Revenue Procedure 2014-42, which created the Annual Filing Season Program. A preparer holding a Record of Completion may represent a taxpayer during an examination of a return that preparer personally prepared and signed, and only where the Record was valid both for the year the return was prepared and for the year of the representation. It does not permit representation before “appeals officers, revenue officers, Counsel, or similar officers or employees of the IRS.”

What we can do: read a notice and tell you plainly what it says and whether it is right; retrieve and analyse your IRS transcripts; reconstruct records; draft a written response or penalty abatement request that you sign and send; and, if you authorise it on Form 8821, receive copies of your IRS mail. Form 8821 lets us see, not speak.

When a matter needs someone we are not, we say so on the first call. Appeals, a revenue officer, liens, levies, an offer in compromise, a Tax Court petition or anything with criminal exposure needs a CPA, an enrolled agent or a tax attorney. We will tell you which and why, hand over a packaged file, and take no referral fee.

No guarantee of any tax outcome

We do not promise or imply any tax result: not the size of your refund or that you will get one, not the tax you will owe, not that a deduction, credit, election or position will be allowed, not that your return will escape examination, and not the outcome of any examination, notice or appeal. Those decisions belong to the IRS, to state agencies and to the courts. Any projection is our best judgement on your facts and the law that day, and law changes.

We do offer an accuracy guarantee, and it is narrow on purpose. Covered: IRS and state penalties and interest caused by our own calculation or data-entry error on the information you supplied, plus amending the return at no charge. Never covered: the tax you legitimately owe; any tax outcome; information given to us late, incorrectly or incompletely; a position you asked us to take against our written advice; a change in law after filing; a defect in third-party software or an agency system. Cap: the greater of the fees you paid for that engagement or $2,500 per return. To claim: email every page of the notice to billing@xelvontax.com within 30 days of the date printed on it; we reply within 10 business days and pay any covered amount within 30 days of confirming the claim. It is an accuracy guarantee only — not a satisfaction guarantee, not a money-back guarantee, not a free trial. Full terms are in our refund and guarantee policy.

We rely on the information you give us

Every return, report and projection we produce is built from what you tell us and the documents you upload. We do not audit, verify or independently confirm any of it. We do not inspect premises, count inventory, confirm balances with your bank, or search public records for what might be missing. That is the nature of return preparation, and it is one reason the return is legally yours once you sign it.

What we do instead is ask. Circular 230 requires due diligence in preparing returns (31 CFR 10.22), so where a figure looks inconsistent, incomplete or unlikely we will question it and ask for documentation before anything is filed. If we learn of noncompliance, or of an error in or omission from a return, 31 CFR 10.21 requires us to tell you promptly and explain the consequences, and we will, in writing. You remain responsible for what you give us, for keeping your source documents, and for reviewing the return before you authorise us to file it.

Tax law changes, and this content has a review date

Everything here was accurate to the best of our knowledge on the review date at the top of this page, and each article carries its own date. This site is not a live feed. Congress legislates mid-year and sometimes retroactively, the IRS issues guidance and adjusts inflation-indexed thresholds, courts decide cases, and states conform to or decouple from federal changes on their own timetables. An article that was right last filing season can be stale by the next. We review this page at least annually and whenever the law or our practices change.

No privilege protects what you tell us

We treat everything you give us as confidential, and federal law adds teeth: under 26 CFR 301.7216-3 we may not use or disclose your tax return information beyond preparing and filing your return unless you sign a separate written consent first. Those forms are on our consent forms page.

Confidentiality is not privilege. There is no attorney-client privilege here, because we are not a law firm, and no accountant-client privilege — federal law recognises no general privilege of that kind. Congress created one narrow exception in 1998, Internal Revenue Code section 7525, limited in three ways:

• Who has it. Section 7525(a)(3)(A) confines it to a “federally authorized tax practitioner” — a person authorised to practise before the IRS under 31 U.S.C. section 330, meaning attorneys, certified public accountants and enrolled agents. It does not apply to us.
• Where it works. Only in a noncriminal tax matter before the IRS and a noncriminal tax proceeding in federal court brought by or against the United States. It offers nothing in a criminal matter.
• What it covers. Tax advice, not return preparation. Federal courts have held that preparing a return is not privileged even when a lawyer does it (United States v. Frederick, 182 F.3d 496 (7th Cir. 1999)).

So if you need a conversation kept privileged — unreported income, anything with criminal exposure — speak to a tax attorney first and have the attorney engage us if the numbers need working. We will also disclose information where the law requires it, such as under a valid subpoena or court order.

Links to other websites

We link to IRS.gov, state revenue departments, the eCFR and state codes so you can read the underlying rule yourself. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content, accuracy, availability, security or privacy practices. A link is not an endorsement, and neither is another website linking to us. If a link here is broken, tell us at hello@xelvontax.com.

Using this site does not make you a client

No client relationship is created by reading this website, submitting a form, requesting a call, subscribing, telephoning us or sending us an email. We may answer a general question in a first conversation; that does not engage us and does not make your deadline our responsibility. An engagement begins only when we have sent you a written engagement letter setting out the work, the tax years, the entities, the states and the fee — and you have signed it.

And accepting our Terms of Service or Privacy Policy, or ticking any box on this site, is never a consent to use or disclose your tax return information under section 7216. Those consents are separate documents, signed on their own, and signing one is never a condition of any service.

Testimonials, reviews and results

This website publishes no client testimonials, reviews, star ratings, case studies or before-and-after numbers. This firm is new, and writing that kind of claim would mean using a client’s tax return information for marketing. If it ever changes, we bind ourselves now to the following.

• Every testimonial will come from a real person who was genuinely a client and used the service described.
• Each will show the reviewer’s real first name and state, and say whether they received anything of value for writing it.
• We will never give a discount, gift card or anything else of value in exchange for a positive review. If we ask for reviews, we will ask every client neutrally.
• We will not publish a review by anyone at this firm, or a relative of anyone here, without saying so clearly beside it.
• We will not filter, hide, reorder or suppress reviews by sentiment or rating, and we will never threaten a client over a negative one.
• Any testimonial mentioning a dollar amount, a refund, a penalty removed or hours saved will carry beside it a substantiated statement of what a client can generally expect — not a “results may vary” line, which the Federal Trade Commission has said is not enough.

One person’s experience is not a prediction of yours, and it is not a guarantee.

How to reach us

If anything here is unclear, or you want to know whether a piece of work sits inside or outside our scope, ask before you engage us.

Xelvon Tax Advisors LLC is a Utah limited liability company, managed by Joseph Edwin Fox. We work Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Mountain Time, year-round, with extended hours from late January through April 15, by telephone, email, video call and the secure client portal. We keep no public office and hold no in-person meetings, so please direct all correspondence, including any legal notice, to the email addresses or telephone number above.