11 Oct What Is Daszkal Bolton’s Tried-And-True Strategy for Success?

“We focus on clients that have some level of complication,” says Timothy R. Devlin, the Boca Raton-based co-managing partner of Daszkal Bolton, an accounting and advisory firm that is marking its 30th year in business. “If your situation is relatively simple, we’re not the firm for you,” he says, candidly. “We love businesses and their owners. That’s our focus, in addition to high-net-worth individuals and executives. We have experts in all areas, and we do best when clients have multiple needs and require multiple services.” It is clearly the moment for that mission. With offices in Boca Raton, Sunrise and Jupiter, the firm that was founded by Michael Daszkal and Jeff Bolton is doing robust business, in part because of the migration of businesses and individuals to Florida from other states—just the type of clientele who walk through the door with complicated issues and the need to be serviced by a range of experts in different practice areas. “We have a group of people who’ve moved from the north and from California to Florida, and we’ve been helping them with their state income tax minimization,” Devlin says. Their first question is obvious—what are the steps necessary to enjoy a Florida tax residence?—but the solutions are highly variable and specialized. “Every situation is different,” he says, “but the idea would be to establish an office in Florida. That would be an example of what we might assist a client in. Having a Florida accountant is certainly another beneficial fact, but it’s more complicated than that. We have a team of eight people who do state and local income tax work to try to help clients come up with their plan to take advantage of the benefits of Florida.” LOCAL MEANS GLOBAL No client is typical—the firm serves clients across every key sector, from health care, hospitality and real estate to entertainment, construction and retail—but in South Florida, “local” often means “global”: “Depending on the client, their situation is complicated by the fact that they also have a business—and that business can be a national business, or an international business,” Devlin says. “It may have headquarters in different parts of the country, so how do they align themselves to take advantage of the benefits that Florida has? That requires more extensive planning to avail yourself of the benefits of Florida—meaning, if you’re working for a New York company, and your company is based in Manhattan, there may be the ability to avail yourself of some Florida-reduced taxation, but you would have to do certain things to do so.” Such as establishing a professional web of connections—and Daszkal Bolton offers concierge service to aid in that effort. “The way for us to really help our clients is to connect the legal to the financial advisory, the accounting and the banking,” Devlin explains. “A business or individual coming to town is initially going to need to update their estate taxes and their various other operational documents to align with Florida law. In addition, there are various items—tests that you need to meet for Florida resident purposes, and some of those include connections to advisers.” As he indicates, residency means more than spending more than 180 days in the state: “It’s more of a state of mind,” Devlin says, “and that state of mind is supported through the use of relevant local professionals, clubs and relationships to bolster the fact that someone is a Florida resident.” He cites an example: “A client of ours recently came to Florida from New York, and they joined a local city advisory committee to support their connection to Florida, which I thought was a unique set of circumstances. We encourage these types of clients to create connections to Florida, including purchasing a residence, establishment of connections to religious institutions, banking relationships, obviously accounting, legal, and the like. This was just an extension of that.”