Dean Dorton’s Equine Team
Located in Kentucky, known for its world-class horse farms, racing, and sales, our firm has provided accounting, tax, and business consulting services to the horse industry for over 35 years. Our clients cover a broad spectrum of organizations involved in the horse industry, from small boarding farms to large multidepartmental farms involved in boarding, breeding, selling, and stallion management; from racing stables to a racetrack; from bloodstock agents to equine veterinary firms; and from industry associations to equine insurance agencies.
Not all of our clients are based in Kentucky; horse industry clients from other parts of the country and from outside the United States also gain comfort from having our industry specialists work with them. As a firm, we endeavor to know the business of horses, not just accounting and tax rules relating to the industry. We accomplish this in a number of ways, including, most usefully, by working with our many clients in the industry on their business matters.
As a firm, we endeavor to know the business of horses, not just accounting and tax rules relating to the industry. We accomplish this in a number of ways, including, most usefully, by working with our many clients in the industry on their business matters.
We perform a variety of services for our clients involved in the equine industry. We welcome inquiries, whether from new participants in the industry who want assistance in properly structuring and administering their stables or farms or from longtime industry participants seeking to improve the performance and administration of their operations.
Dean Dorton has extensive experience which would serve you well in documenting and testing your internal control environment. As part of our audit procedures, Dean Dorton has assessed the entity’s control environments, tested controls, and identified risks. These types of procedures will be critical in helping your institution document the control environment and major processes and design tests and document testing of the processes and underlying controls.
Dean Dorton’s Equine Industry Services
The unique attributes of the equine industry demand accounting services with the particular depth of experience and expertise that Dean Dorton delivers. When equine industry participants enlist Dean Dorton to provide tax services, they can be confident they are engaging a firm with in-depth industry experience and know-how. We are interested in our clients’ business, know the industry, and can provide a wide range of valuable services designed to both optimize savings opportunities and avoid unanticipated problems. Among our array of equine accounting and business consulting services are:
- Developing strategies to use the optimum forms or organization.
- Reducing exposure to the hobby loss rules.
- Structuring transactions to avoid or minimize sales and use taxes.
- Avoiding or managing the potential impact of the passive activity loss rules
- Using current and deferred trades of horses and farms to avoid or postpone income taxes.
- Developing policies to expense or capitalize costs relating to depreciable assets which are in compliance with new tax regulations.
- Using the involuntary conversion tax rules to deter incomes taxes on insurance recoveries related to horse and horse farm casualties.
- Estate planning designed to use special-use valuation and family farm conservation incentives, family limited partnership strategies, and deferred tax payments.
- Handling multistate tax issues.
- Helping foreign owners and breeders to minimize exposure to U.S. taxes and comply with filing requirements.
- Developing tax accounting systems to comply, where required, with rules requiring capitalization of preproductive period costs.
- Representing clients with federal and state tax audits.
- Taking advantage of unique tax depreciation rules.
- Maximizing the tax benefit of the qualified production activities deduction.
- Directly performing many accounting, payroll, and clerical functions for smaller enterprises.
- Designing and implementing farm accounting and management information systems.
- Performing audit, review, and compilation services on client financial statements.
- Performing risk assessments and tailored internal audit functions.
- Developing financial and business plans for farms, breeding operations, and racing stables.
- Financial analysis of stallion prospects.
- Assessing farm accounting and financial management procedures and practices.
- Providing litigation support and forensic accounting services.
- Providing a wide range of technology solutions, e.g., complete managed services, network design and support, technology assessments, software consulting, accounting software solutions, and business application training.
Equine Tax and Accounting Update
This full day of training, held in the fall of each year, includes experts from the equine industry covering the latest issues and updates regarding sales and use tax considerations, tax breaks affecting the horse industry, budget best practices, accounting considerations for racing partnerships, succession planning for farm and horse owners, and charitable giving income tax basics.