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by Stephen Parezo

Michael Vovakes

July 6, 2005 —Sometimes life’s adverse events have a way of ultimately turning situations around. Just like it did for Michael Vovakes who lost his father at a time when he needed him the most. He was 16 and in high school, full of questions and wondering what to do about his future.

His father’s death was a “shock to the system” that left him confused but by his senior year he went from being an average student to an “A” student.

“I woke up one morning and said I better get with the program,” said Vovakes who has gone on to build a very successful Fiducial franchise in Montclair, NJ.

Solving clients’ problems

With 41 years of accounting industry experience, Vovakes has helped many entrepreneurs grow their business and some even escape the throes of going under. Maybe it’s because there was no one there to provide a guiding hand for him when he was deciding on a career that’s made him more determined to solve his clients’ problems.

One new client desperate for help just walked into his office saying he wanted him to be his accountant. It seems the client, an executive recruiter, had been a victim of some very shoddy work at the hands of his former accountants and owed $70,000 in taxes.

“In order to have to do that he would have had to pay tax on income that really wasn’t there,” Vovakes said.

Fortunately he was able to offset income with prior year losses to help reduce the client’s tax liability which will help him save money on taxes for the next year and a half.

Another client was someone Vovakes knew from church that owned a company that had been closed down with $60,000 in losses. Under Section 1244 of the Tax Code, the client was able to take that loss on his personal return which led to a refund check of $16,000. But Vovakes had to work three months with a special unit of the Internal Revenue Service to get the matter straightened out. It was far from a slam dunk by any means.

“I would get responses back from the IRS saying they needed one more piece of information then another piece of information and ultimately it was rejected,” he said. “So then I decided to go to the Taxpayer Advocate Unit where I wrote a letter saying to the best of my knowledge, the information was true, correct and complete.” His client received the check with an added bonus of $1,000 in interest.

This is just one of the many victories Vovakes has won for his clients over the years.

“I just love what we do here,” he said. “It’s satisfying, it’s important and we keep up with the latest technology. All of our tax returns are electronically filed.”

Nearing a milestone

Perhaps it’s his attention to detail that separates Vovakes from the competition.

“I look at every financial statement,” he said. “I write them a note and give them a financial analysis. Everybody gets a comparison with prior years and comments on how they are doing so far this year. Occasionally I’ll give them an in-depth analysis every couple of months on how they’re doing compared against the rest of their industry.”

Vovakes received a BS in business administration from Penn State University then added an MBA from Rutgers University and later became a CPA. Eventually he reached a point where he decided to buy a franchise and open his own business.

“I was 39 at the time and not really going anywhere,” he recalled. “I wanted to open my own office but I just didn’t know how to go about doing it.”

After some stalls here and there, he finally got the business on firm footing and it’s been doing well ever since. Next May he will celebrate his 25 th anniversary in business. That’s quite a milestone considering that about 20% of all small businesses fail each year.

The biggest plus for being your own boss, Vovakes says, is “the day never comes when you hear about your job being eliminated.”

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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