What it is. Tax preparation, tax planning, accounting, and representation before the IRS and New York State, all handled by a New York-licensed CPA who is professionally accountable for the work.
Who it is for. Buffalo businesses and owners whose taxes carry real decisions, or who are facing an IRS or New York State notice, audit, or residency question and need someone licensed to stand in for them.
What we do not do. Audits, reviews, and compilations. Those reports require a NYSED-registered public accounting firm. Corviniti is a business corporation without that registration, so we state the boundary up front and help you engage a registered firm when a report is genuinely required.
CPA is a license, granted to individuals by the New York State Education Department's Office of the Professions, and it carries legal weight: education, examination, experience, and continuing-education requirements, professional accountability for the positions taken on your return, and unlimited rights to represent taxpayers before the IRS. A search for a CPA in Buffalo is really a search for that license and the judgment standing behind it.
The structure, stated up front: Corviniti is an accounting and tax company led by Ro Sokhi, a New York-licensed CPA with Big Four experience. The company is a business corporation, not a public accounting firm registered with NYSED, which means audits, reviews, and compilations of financial statements sit outside what we offer. The rest of what a small business wants from a CPA, tax preparation and planning, representation before the tax agencies, and accounting kept to a professional standard, is exactly the work we do every day.
We serve Buffalo and Erie County businesses and their owners. Below: where a licensed CPA earns the fee over a seasonal storefront or software, and a straight answer on what to do when you genuinely need an assurance report.
This page sits under Corviniti Accounting in New York City, our New York headquarters. That page covers the full New York City and New York State picture, and links to the rest of our local coverage.
Credentials
Tax credentials compared: who can do what
CPA, enrolled agent, attorney, and unlicensed preparer, and what each can actually do for you, including the boundary around audits and reviews.
Tax credentials compared. Illustrative, not legal advice.
If a notice arrives
A tax notice arrived: what happens next
An IRS or New York notice has a process. Read it, calendar it, pull the records, and respond on the record through your representative.
Handling a tax notice, step by step. Illustrative.
Sales tax audit
The New York sales tax audit, and what the state asks for
New York runs sales tax audits aggressively. What an auditor requests, and the three-way tie-out the whole audit depends on.
The New York sales tax audit tie-out. Illustrative, not tax advice.
This is for you if
You received an IRS or New York State notice or audit letter and do not want to face it alone.
Your return has outgrown a seasonal storefront: K-1s, multi-state income, or owner compensation questions.
You want the person who signs your return to be licensed and accountable for it.
You want a straight answer on whether you actually need audited or reviewed statements before paying for them.
What you get
Business and personal tax Returns prepared and signed by a licensed CPA, with the New York elections that lower them.
IRS and New York representation Notices and examinations answered by a licensed CPA with full representation rights.
Year-round planning Liability projected and decisions timed while the year is still open.
Straight answers on assurance What level your bank actually requires, and books that make any required report cheap to obtain from a registered firm.
How We Help
What you get
The work a licensed CPA does for a Buffalo business, with the boundaries stated plainly.
Business and personal taxReturns prepared and signed by a licensed CPA, with the New York elections that lower them.
IRS and New York representationNotices and examinations answered by a licensed CPA with full representation rights.
Year-round planningLiability projected and decisions timed while the year is still open.
Straight answers on assuranceWhat level your bank actually requires, and books that make any required report cheap to obtain from a registered firm.
When companies bring us in
You received an IRS or New York State notice or audit letter and do not want to face it alone.
Your return has outgrown a seasonal storefront: K-1s, multi-state income, or owner compensation questions.
You want the person who signs your return to be licensed and accountable for it.
You want a straight answer on whether you actually need audited or reviewed statements before paying for them.
The Detail
The gaps, and how we close each one
Service 01
What the CPA license means, and the boundary around assurance work
Anyone can advertise as an accountant, a tax professional, or a bookkeeper. New York protects the CPA credential itself, and knowing exactly what the license covers tells you when it matters and when a cheaper option truly is enough.
How we handle it
The license comes from the New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions, and it is earned: education, examination, experience, and continuing-education requirements all stand behind the title, with a regulator above it. Two consequences matter in practice. First, a CPA holds unlimited representation rights before the IRS: full authority in audits, collections, and appeals, on any return, whoever prepared it. Second, a CPA is professionally accountable to a regulator for the positions taken on your return, which changes the quality of the advice. One boundary belongs in the open: audit, review, and compilation reports can only be issued through a public accounting firm registered with NYSED. Corviniti carries no such registration and offers none of those reports, and a provider who is vague on this distinction is telling you something. Any New York CPA license, and any registered firm, can be checked in the NYSED Office of the Professions online verification search, and we encourage exactly that check, on us and on anyone else you are considering.
What you get: Licensed, accountable tax and accounting, with the boundaries stated plainly.
Service 02
IRS and New York State representation
The wrong response to an IRS or New York State notice, or a missed deadline, turns a routine inquiry into an assessment. Facing an examiner alone, with your own money on the table, is exactly the situation representation rights exist for.
How we handle it
As a licensed CPA, Ro represents Buffalo businesses and owners before the IRS and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance: reading the notice for what is actually being asked, calendaring the deadline, assembling the records, and responding on the record so you never improvise against an examiner. The two New York issues that generate the most correspondence are sales tax audits, which the state runs aggressively and which turn on the tie-out between the books, the returns, and the bank deposits, and residency questions, among the state's most-audited topics. IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers see walk-ins by appointment only, so most matters resolve on paper through a representative anyway, and that is the path we run. Because we also keep the books and file the returns, the support behind any position is already organized instead of being reconstructed under a deadline.
What you get: A licensed CPA representing you before the IRS and New York State, on the record.
Facing a notice, an audit, or a tax decision with real money in it? Talk to a licensed CPA before you respond or commit.
Tax preparation and planning are stronger when the person doing them is licensed, current on the rules, and accountable for the outcome. For Buffalo owners, the business return and the personal return are one connected problem, and treating them separately is where money leaks.
How we handle it
Both sides are prepared and planned together: the business returns with the New York elections that lower them, the CT-6 S election and the PTET election, and the owners' personal returns, every filing built from reconciled books. Planning runs across the year, so the elections and estimated payments that only work when decided in advance actually get decided in advance. Our business tax page covers the entity returns in depth and our personal tax page covers the individual side; on an engagement they are handled together, by the same licensed CPA, so the K-1, the credits, and the estimates line up.
What you get: Business and personal returns prepared by a licensed CPA, with the New York elections.
Service 04
Where a CPA matters most for Buffalo businesses
Certain situations in this market specifically call for a licensed CPA, because of what is at stake and who sits on the other side of the table.
How we handle it
The clearest cases we see in Erie County: New York sales tax audits, where restaurants, contractors, and retailers collecting 8.75 percent face a records-driven examination and personal liability for trust-fund money; residency and part-year questions for owners and professionals moving into or out of New York, or working remotely across state lines, one of the state's most-audited issues; medical, dental, and professional practices around the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, whose partnership buy-ins and provider compensation need defensible treatment; and manufacturers and contractors, from the RiverBend supplier base to the South Buffalo machine shops, whose inventory, job costing, and qualified-manufacturer status create exactly the complexity that software and storefronts miss. In each case the value is a licensed professional who is accountable for the answer and can stand between you and the agency.
What you get: A licensed CPA on your side of the table for the situations where credentials count.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a CPA and a tax preparer?
A CPA's state license carries education, examination, experience, and continuing-education requirements, professional accountability for the work, and unlimited rights to represent you before the IRS. An unenrolled preparer can type a return, and their ability to stand between you and the agency ends roughly there. For a simple return the difference may never matter. Once real decisions or real notices arrive, it does.
The IRS (or New York State) sent us a notice. Can you handle it?
Yes. Ro is licensed to represent taxpayers before the IRS and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, and handles the notice end to end: establishing what is actually being asked, answering on the record, and working with the examiner directly. Sales tax audits and residency questions are the most common triggers in New York, and the preparation for both starts with the clean records we keep.
Do you work with contractors and the trades?
Yes, as a licensed CPA. Past the return, that means representation if New York examines your sales tax, which for the trades usually depends on capital-improvement certificates (Form ST-124) and worker classification, employee versus 1099. We plan the entity and elections during the year and deal with the agency directly if a notice comes.
Do you work with medical and dental practices?
Yes, as a licensed CPA. We plan the entity, compensation, and retirement structure that lowers the tax on a high-income practice, sign the returns, and represent the practice if the IRS or New York questions owner compensation or the filing.
Do you work with restaurants and bars?
Yes, as a licensed CPA. Restaurants draw New York sales tax examinations more than most businesses, and the exam depends on tying point of sale records to the returns and the deposits. We keep the records that answer it, represent you if the state opens one, and claim the FICA tip credit on the return.
Do you work with e-commerce and retail sellers?
Yes, as a licensed CPA. The exposure for online sellers is multistate sales tax nexus and the marketplace facilitator rules, which generate most of the notices. We plan the nexus footprint, file the returns correctly, and represent you on state notices.
Do you work with law firms and professional services?
Yes, as a licensed CPA. That covers the trust-accounting discipline bar regulators expect, the PTET planning that is often a partner group's biggest lever, and representation before the IRS or New York if a return is questioned.
Do you work with real estate investors?
Yes, as a licensed CPA. We plan depreciation, cost segregation, passive-loss and real estate professional positions, and 1031 exchanges, and we defend those positions if the IRS examines them, since the aggressive ones draw scrutiny.
Is Corviniti a CPA firm?
No. Corviniti is an accounting and tax company led by a New York-licensed CPA, not a public accounting firm registered with the New York State Education Department. Accordingly, we do not perform audits, reviews, or compilations of financial statements, the engagements a registered firm performs under professional standards (audits under the auditing standards, and reviews and compilations under the SSARS, the Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services). Tax preparation, planning, representation, and accounting do not require firm registration, and that is the work we do.
This page summarizes New York State tax rules for general information, and is not tax advice for your situation. Rates and thresholds change; confirm the current figures with the authority before you rely on them.
