Accounting & Tax AssistantAt — Montagna & Associates, Inc

Role Overview We are seeking a motivated Accounting student for a hands-on tax season internship. You will work directly with our CPA staff to prepare tax returns for individuals, trusts, and estates, while gaining practical experience in bookkeeping and client communication. This position includes structured training, job shadowing, and weekly mentorship meetings to support your professional growth

Tasks:

The intern will demonstrate their learning outcomes by
- Correctly determining needed information, professionally reaching out to client and retrieve info.
- Correctly clean tax data, examples like separating personal from business expenses for sole proprietors, identify tax deductible transactions, clarify ambiguous transactions with clients.
- Correctly preparing 1040 Tax Return drafts, with minimal errors. Bonus if intern is able to identify and resolve their own or other errors independently.
- Correctly prepare 1099 and W-2 forms.
- Correctly prepare specific Tax Return sections or types. For example, the intern may prepare Quarterly Household Employer returns or be assigned a specific supporting schedules for business entities such as depreciation and amortization, gains and losses from selling business property, capital gains/losses.
- Correctly maintain bookkeeping files, preparing accurate financial reports, accurately recording transaction categories and vendors.
- Correctly set-up new accounting (QuickBooks) file. For example the intern may do work like, prepare accounting for post-mortem estate, prepare financial report valuations for day of death, segregate pre vs post mortem transactions for tax purposes.
- Correctly prepare Tax communications, prepare transmittal letters for specific communications, ensure mailings meet tax agency mailing regulations, ensuring traceable/auditable document handling procedures.
- Correctly coordinating retrieving client signatures in line with Tax Regulations. For example, IRS Power of Attorneys which have detailed and specific security, identity verification, and audit record requirements.

Training:

To help the intern achieve the proposed learning outcomes, I will
- Train and onboard intern on internal procedures and standards, in addition to informing them of other legal requirements when preforming specific duties. Do this by having assigned CPA staff review procedures with intern 1 on 1.
- Assign the intern to shadow and learn from CPAs on staff how to complete specific tasks. After the intern shadows staff completing task, they will be given a similar task to complete independently. For example, to learn to prepare a Individual Income Tax Return draft the intern will shadow a CPA while they prepare a Tax Return, then assign intern to prepare a return draft independently.
- We will have morning/evening review meetings. These meetings will be when the intern and supervisor discuss task and skill progression, determine/evaluate goals, or other related topics.
- The intern will be introduced to other staff and trained on how to communicate and collaborate with other staff. The intern will be expected to reach out to staff/supervisor as they have questions.
- The intern will be trained on how to contact clients, multiple methods that vary by client. How to professionally contact clients.

Learning outcome:

By the end of the internship, the student will be able to:
- Determine what documents and data are required from client for Trust, Estate, business entity, or individual income tax returns. Cleaning data as required.
- Prepare Trust, Estate, or business entity tax return drafts, with a focus on 1040-Individual Income Tax Return drafts. Verifying accuracy of data.
- Prepare of informational returns, such as 1099s and W-2s.
- Preform bookkeeping duties such as data entry/recording, bank reconciliation, generating financial reports, etc (via QuickBooks), for Trusts, Estates, and business entities. Verify accuracy of data resolve discrepancies.
- Prepare household employer return drafts (or similar quarterly filings).
- Provide excellent professional level customer service when contacting clients via phone/email/in-person. Examples like professional emails, proper etiquette in conversations, dispute resolutions.
- Understand requirements when communicating or submitting documents to Internal Revenue Service or other state tax agencies.