Who We Serve

Silicon Valley Tax is a San Jose CPA and IRS Enrolled Agent firm built around the specific tax situations that Bay Area earners actually face. Below are the personas, situations, and locations we have dedicated practice pages for. If your situation fits one of them, the page goes deep on the math, the deadlines, and the planning levers that matter most for that audience. If you do not see your exact situation, our full-service practice covers the rest.

Equity compensation — the core of what we do

Most of our clients hold meaningful equity in a Bay Area tech employer, a startup they founded, or a portfolio of crypto positions. Equity tax is where the dollar amounts get large and the deadlines get unforgiving. Our practice pages cover the full lifecycle from pre-IPO planning through post-IPO diversification.

• Tax accountant for Bay Area tech employees — W-2 tech workers juggling RSU vests with 22% under-withholding, ISO exercises with AMT exposure, ESPP qualifying-disposition timing, mega-backdoor Roth contributions, and multi-state remote-work sourcing.
• Tax accountant for startup founders — Founders with restricted founder stock, the 30-day Section 83(b) window, Section 1202 QSBS planning (including the California non-conformity gotcha), entity structuring (LLC vs C-corp, Delaware vs California), and R&D credit eligibility.
• Pre-IPO tax planning — ISO exercise timing modeled against AMT, QSBS holding-period strategy, tender-offer tax treatment, and the multi-year exercise plans that avoid the IPO-day AMT trap.
• Post-IPO tax strategy — Lockup-expiry diversification, 10b5-1 plan timing, concentrated-stock unwind, tax-loss harvesting, charitable strategies via donor-advised funds and appreciated stock, and state-residency planning.
• California RSU tax planning — The 22% federal withholding gap on RSU vests, sell-to-cover vs hold decisions, California supplemental rate vs marginal rate, multi-state sourcing rules, and stacking RSU income with ISO exercises in the same year.
• Crypto tax accountant Bay Area — Multi-wallet basis reconciliation, staking and DeFi taxation, NFT mint vs purchase vs sale, FBAR for offshore exchanges, and IRS Form 1040 digital-asset reporting.

Local practices — by Bay Area city

We work with clients across the entire Bay Area, but our local pages reflect the specific employer concentrations and tax issues that come up most in each city. Each page calls out the local employer angle and the related blog posts most useful for that area.

• Palo Alto tax accountant — Stanford alumni at venture-backed startups, Sand Hill venture associates and partners with carry interest, and established Palo Alto tech executives with concentrated equity positions.
• Mountain View tax accountant — Google and Shoreline-area employees, dual citizens and H1B holders with foreign accounts and entities, and the Form 5471 / FBAR / PFIC / Form 8938 international reporting that comes with them.
• Sunnyvale tax accountant — LinkedIn, Apple-Sunnyvale, Yahoo, AMD, and Nutanix employees with multi-year RSU stacks, ESPP timing decisions, and mega-backdoor Roth eligibility.
• Cupertino tax accountant — Large-tech-employer engineers and managers with quarterly RSU vests, semi-annual ESPP qualifying-disposition windows, and the long-running concentrated-stock question.
• San Jose tax accountant — Our home base. Full-service tax practice serving individuals, founders, investors, and closely held businesses across San Jose and the broader South Bay.
• Los Altos tax accountant — Ultra high-net-worth Apple executives, retired founders, concentrated stock positions, and large property portfolios in Los Altos Hills.
• Saratoga tax accountant — Affluent residential, vineyard owners, senior tech executives, and international families with overseas accounts and FBAR obligations.
• Los Gatos tax accountant — Netflix employees, tech professionals, and Main Street small business owners navigating entity selection and QBI planning.
• Menlo Park tax accountant — Meta/Facebook RSU holders, Sand Hill Road VC associates with carried interest, and Stanford Research Park professionals.
• Santa Clara tax accountant — Intel, NVIDIA, and Applied Materials employees, including H-1B visa holders with dual-status returns and Indian NPS/FBAR reporting.

By service or situation

• Real estate investor CPA — 1031 exchanges, cost segregation, depreciation, passive activity rules, RE professional status.
• FBAR & international tax — FBAR, FATCA, Form 5471, PFIC reporting, treaty positions, streamlined filing for delinquent filers.
• Small business CPA — Entity selection, reasonable compensation, quarterly estimates, payroll tax, bookkeeping.
• Trust & estate tax — Form 1041, Form 706, gift tax, trust administration, Prop 19, step-up in basis.
• M&A tax due diligence — Asset vs stock purchase, Section 338(h)(10), purchase price allocation. Led by Adam Morris.
• AMT tax planning — ISO exercises as the #1 AMT trigger for Bay Area tech workers. Timing strategies and credit carryforward.
• Multi-state tax returns — California sourcing for remote workers, RSU apportionment, convenience of the employer doctrine.
• Bookkeeping services — Monthly close, QuickBooks setup and cleanup, payroll, 1099 preparation, sales tax filing.
• Individual tax preparation — W-2, 1099, Schedules A through E, California 540, estimated taxes, extensions, audit representation.
• Entity tax preparation — S-corp (1120S), C-corp (1120), partnership (1065), LLC returns, K-1s, reasonable compensation, multi-state.
• Tax planning & strategy — Year-round planning, Roth conversions, charitable giving (DAF/QCD/CRT), retirement optimization, entity restructuring.
• Entity formation — LLC/S-corp/C-corp formation, Form 2553 election, operating agreements, annual compliance filings.
• Sales tax compliance — CDTFA registration, economic nexus (Wayfair), marketplace facilitator rules, SaaS taxability, audit defense.
• Advisory retainer packages — Year-round tax advisory on retainer, quarterly check-ins, real-time transaction guidance, proactive modeling.

What you get on every engagement

Every Silicon Valley Tax engagement starts with a free 30-minute consultation, includes a flat-fee quote before any work begins, and produces a written plan you can act on. We do not bill hourly. We do not surprise you on the invoice. We schedule the conversation that matters most (RSU vest timing, ISO exercise window, QSBS clock check) before the deadline runs out, not after.

Whichever practice page above matches your situation, the path is the same: book a free consultation, bring your most recent return, your equity grant documents, and your 401(k) plan summary, and we will model your specific situation in the first session.