Surya Padhi, CPA, EA · Sure Financial and Tax Services LLC · Hillsborough, NJ
The person who prepares your return is the person who defends it
A small practice, on purpose. No handoffs, no case managers, no being introduced to someone new when something goes wrong.
I qualified as an accountant twice — once in India, and once here.
The first was the Indian Chartered Accountant qualification. The second took two exams: the CPA examination in New Jersey, and then the Enrolled Agent licence issued by the IRS. Doing it in both countries was not a career plan so much as a necessity — I needed to understand two tax systems properly, not approximately.
What I found on this side was that the people who most needed someone fluent in both systems were the least likely to find them. A family with a house still in India and a job in New Jersey would be handed between two firms, each competent in half the picture. Somebody with a straightforward return would pay for a service and never speak to whoever actually signed it.
I opened this practice in 2021 because the work I wanted to do could not be done at volume.
That decision sets the shape of everything else. There is no intake team here, no file passed to a preparer you have not met, and no answering service in July. When something on your return is questioned, the person who takes the call is the person who prepared it.
What that means in practice
Four things that follow from working this way
No handoffs
You deal with the person who prepared the return, from the first conversation to whatever happens afterwards.
No intake team. No transfers.
Licensed to represent
If the IRS questions a return, we deal with them directly on your behalf. That is what the Enrolled Agent licence is for.
No referral to a third party.
Two tax systems
US and India questions answered in one conversation, because both qualifications sit in the same office.
No second firm to brief.
Year-round
Planning happens in the months when it can still change the outcome, not in the week the return is due.
Not a seasonal practice.
Qualifications
Four credentials, and what each one actually permits
Professional letters are only useful if you know what they let someone do. Here is the plain version.
A state-licensed accounting credential. It covers financial reporting, business advisory and the books behind a return — the numbers themselves, not only the filing. Earned by examination and maintained by annual continuing education.
The highest credential the Internal Revenue Service issues, and a federal one rather than a state one. It carries unlimited rights to represent taxpayers before the IRS — audits, collections, appeals — in every state. Earned by a three-part examination covering individual tax, business tax, and representation and ethics.
An IRS authorisation to verify original identity documents in the office and certify them for an ITIN application. It is the reason our clients do not post their passports to Austin and wait.
The Indian professional accountancy qualification, awarded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. It is what makes a question about Indian income, an Indian property or an NRI account something we can answer rather than refer out.
Tax work for people whose finances cross a border, a state line, or the line between a person and a business.
Those three are where returns stop being simple, where most preparers hand the file to somebody else, and where the four credentials above stop being letters and start being useful.
- Practising since 2021
- NATP Member
- NAEA Member
- IRS Authorized e-file Provider
- Hillsborough, New Jersey
Away from the office
A little context
[Where you live, who with, and one or two things you do outside work. Keep it to a few sentences — this section works when it is short and specific, and stops working when it becomes a list of hobbies.]
Next step
Fifteen minutes, at no charge
Tell me what you are dealing with. I will tell you what it involves, roughly what it costs, and whether it is something I should be doing at all. If it isn’t, I will say so.
908-955-0696 · contact@suryapadhiea.com · Hillsborough, New Jersey
Information on this site is general tax education and does not constitute individualized tax, legal or financial advice.