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All document exchange at NEPA CPA goes through the client portal. Tax documents, financial records, and supporting materials sent as email attachments or as links to third-party storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox will not be accepted. Email is not a secure or auditable document channel, and no workaround changes that. All communication containing sensitive financial data or account-specific detail belongs in the portal as well, even when the subject matter does not feel sensitive -- staff assigned to your engagement access what they need there, and anything sent outside the portal risks not reaching the right person or getting lost entirely. The requirement applies to every engagement without exception. Clients who are unable or unwilling to use the portal are not a fit for this firm.

When you contact the firm by phone or email asking about your account, a tax return, or any record, you will be directed to the client portal. This is not a refusal to help. It is a consistent policy applied to every request because identity cannot be reliably verified over those channels. Your tax returns and documents are delivered to and stored in the portal at app.nepacpa.com. If you can log in, you can download what you need immediately. If you cannot log in, the portal has an account recovery option. Portal access is not reset by phone or email. Questions about your account should be submitted through the portal so the firm is responding to a verified account holder.

When a new inquiry reaches our firm, it goes through a security screening process before anyone invests time in a conversation. That screening is intentionally conservative, and when an inquiry accumulates enough risk signals, the firm stops communicating with that contact permanently and without explanation. This is a deliberate data-protection posture, not a personal judgment. CPA firms hold sensitive financial data for many clients, and protecting that data is the firm's first obligation. A conservative screening system will occasionally flag people who have entirely legitimate needs, and the firm accepts that tradeoff knowingly. The decision, once made, is final.

When someone asks us to review a prior year return, the first thing to understand is that a review and an amendment are two different engagements - the review is the diagnostic step, and an amendment, if warranted, comes after. To review a return prepared by someone else, we have to reconstruct it in our tax software and trace it against your source documents, which is substantially the same work as preparing the return from scratch. For that reason, a prior year review starts at the same rate as a full preparation for that return type, confirmed in writing before any work begins. The fee applies regardless of what we find - a return that checks out required the same reconstruction work as one that didn't. If an error is found and an amendment makes sense, the reconstruction work carries forward into that engagement; you are not billed twice for the same ground. The statute of limitations also matters: whether a federal refund is still available depends on when the original return was filed, and that timing affects what options are actually on the table.

The cost to amend a tax return depends on who prepared the original return and what caused the need for the amendment. Returns we did not originally prepare are priced the same as a new preparation, regardless of how minor the change appears. For returns we did prepare, the answer depends on whether the error was ours - mistakes we made are generally corrected at no charge, while changes driven by new information or client requests are billed at our hourly rate with a one-hour minimum.

NEPA CPA publishes flat starting fees for most return types so clients know what to expect before work begins. As of April 15, 2026, new clients are placed on updated pricing: individual returns start at $900, S Corporation returns start at $1,500, C Corporation returns start at $1,700, and Partnership returns start at $2,100. A $1,500 minimum relationship floor applies to all new engagements. Returns with additional schedules or business activity typically fall higher than the base starting fee, and the exact amount is confirmed before any work begins. Fees for specialized returns - trusts, nonprofits, amended returns - are quoted after an initial consultation.