Corporate Architects and Facility Management

we are a mid-size company which practices in over 30 states a year.  Because some of our retail clients have locations all over the country. a number of these projects might be design-build and we never ever set foot in these states.  we have been getting letters from these states to file taxes in each of these states. anything we pay them in taxes is deducted from our illinois state taxes, but the cost of actually filing taxes in each state is very high. added to this is the fact that being an s-corp. in some states we have to file personal tax returns too...wish the AIA would take up this in some kind of legislation- so that if someone did a substantial project maybe taxes would be filed...looking for someone who can shed some light on this--would love to know what other firms do

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Sanjiv Chadha AIA
principal
NWS Architects, Inc.
Chicago IL
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All I can say is that the accountant, and lawyer, for your firm should have notified you that if you do business in a state, you have to pay taxes there. The accountant should be handling this for each partner in the S-Corp. My husband is a partner in a law firm and not only do we pay taxes in other states where the firm has offices or does business, we pay them in other countries! However, it is all handled by an accounting firm - the accounting firm we were told we *had* to hire when my husband made partner. They do everything and whenever we have to pay someone, they send us a preaddressed envelope, put an "x" where we need to sign, and tell us how much to write the check for and when it needs to be mailed. We also pay personal taxes quarterly, again, all handled by the accountant. Not really something AIA has any control over - tax laws apply the same to everyone whether you are a vendor at a farmer's market or JP Morgan. Well, maybe JP Morgan is a bad example. :)

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Ronda Bernstein
Historical Consultant
www.historicalmatters.net
APT WASHINGTON CHAPTER INCORPORATED
Washington DC
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