opacpa wrote:I'm thinking of hiring a CPA with over 20 years of experience (and a longtime trusted friend) to prepare tax returns remotely next tax season. I would like to pay based on a percentage of billings. [...] It does significantly complicate things to include other variables.
How would the potential employee like to be paid? Why not just pay the going hourly market pay rate and keep it as simple as possible? If the worker has no control over client selection, level of due diligence and review of detailed records, or billing rate, and is not the signing preparer, why should the worker be subject to a variable commission?
At H&R Block offices, the employee handles 100% of the client interaction including signing the return as preparer, and for an EA or CPA they probably pay about 30-35% commission (against hourly draw).
By contrast, when I worked for a five-person firm, I only rarely met with clients and did not sign the return, and was paid a flat hourly rate, which was my preference. The owner created her own headaches due to charging the clients mostly by the form, and yet measuring staff based on billable time (even though it was rarely actually billed that way). But that was a self-created problem that didn't really affect me or the client very much.