Attorneys and Tax Professionals who perform legal, accounting and financial services, including tax case resolution before the Federal and State taxing authorities, tax return preparation and tax consulting services,  require clients to sign an Engagement Letter.  This is a form of contract that defines our mutual responsibilities, the nature of the services that are to be provided. and the terms of payment for those services. 

For preparing your tax returns or providing you with consulting services, the Engagement Letter  is the only document that you (and if your are married, your spouse) need to sign. 

In order to represent you before the tax agencies, you (and your spouse, if you are married and we are dealing with a joint liability) will need to sign a Power of Attorney (in addition to the Engagement Letter) giving me authorization to represent you.  The Engagement Letter is a Word Document that I can E-mail (as an attachment), fax or mail to you.  Once signed and dated, you can mail it back to me.

Your Power of Attorney is an official document that I must submit to the IRS, Franchise Tax Board, EDD or Board of Equalization.  I will either mail or fax that document to you, or hand it and the Engagement Letter to you if we are meeting to discuss your case, for your signature and return.   There is a partially-completed PDF copy of a Power of Attorney on this website that you can download, fill out and mail or fax to me to save time. 

To download the Form 2848 Power of Attorney, please right-click here, and then click on Save Target As to save the document to your hard disk.  Please contact me when you are ready to fill out the Power of Attorney form to ensure that you do it accurately.  The IRS and State of California will reject a Power of Attorney if it is not letter-perfect.

Please E-mail me your (and your spouse's, if applicable):

•  full name and home address,

• daytime, evening, mobile and fax phone numbers,  

• your (and spouse's if married) Social Security Number,

• the tax years (or tax periods) for which you need my services,

• and your private E-mail address

if you would like me to prepare and E-mail the Engagement Letter (and Power of Attorney, if required) to you.   The Engagement Letter requires Word 2000 or later to access, and the Power of Attorney is an Adobe Acrobat document for which you need the (free) Adobe Acrobat Reader (of the full Acrobat product version) to access.

Once you have received the Engagement Letter (and Power of Attorney, if required), please review them carefully and contact me if you have any questions.  As soon as I receive the signed documents back along with the applicable retainer, I can begin working on your returns, perform consulting work or represent you before the taxing authorities.

Dick Norton