Kirk, Fortner, Smalley, Livesay & Associates, PLLC

A local accounting firm known as Kirk and Fortner began servicing the Kingsport, Tennessee area over 30+ years ago. This local firm clientel base persisted of services to construction firms, small retail and wholesale businesses, service firms, and non-profits. Employment began with Kirk and Fortner in 2003 in roles of tax accountant and financial auditor. During this time of rapid expansion, the firm's parternship was reorganized with one partner resigning to enter into private practice and a new partnership was formed with an existing firm, Livesay & Associates, in Pennington Gap, Virgina having a staff size of 26 associates. 

As tax accountant, responsiblites included coordinating the completion and review of tax returns, tax correspondence issues for approximately 500 clients. After tax season, financial auditor responsibilites in addition to network administrator were assumed. Financial audit consist of managing $10M audit projects that required detail financial data where as network administrator duties involved organizational structure analysis that led to hardware reconfiguratoins and renegotiated service contracts.

The list below outlines all noteworthy accomplishments during this time:

• One season of tax return preparation has provided opportunities to process the following IRS Tax Forms: 1040, 1065, 1120, 990, 2106, 4562, 4797, 8283, 8825, Schedules A, B, C, D, E, F. In addition to the federal forms, individual state tax returns have been filed for the following states: WA, IL, LA, WV, NY, PA, IN, and TN through the LaCerte Tax software program.
• Increased clientele tax return rate completions by 30% through implementing streamline preparation services to update the firm’s tax return procedures to allow the returns to be processed in a timely manner.
• Implemented and administered electronic filing procedures that increased tax service revenues by 20%.

• Established Centralized Authorization Filer (CAF) to address federal and state tax issues for clients by RIA online research and state tax codes to provide overall savings of $5K.
• Developed in-house seminar to address Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 that increase productivity by 20%. This seminar also addressed other productivity packages that the firm utilized to support the firm's tax division. (Click here for Appendix 2: 2002 Tax Reform Bill Seminar).  
• In-Charge auditor and support staff manager of construction contractors, small corporations, and local governments with revenue budgets of $4 to $15 million.  Other duties as auditor were to training appropriate audit personnel and presented audit report to board members.
• As the Kingsport firm merged with a local firm in Pennington Gap, VA, changes to the Microsoft Exchange network configuration.  Project required connections through multiple internet service providers to incorporate the new remote office into the existing email system that comprised of contract negotiations to reduce current cost by 20%.  

• Computer network coordinator for technical support and software application support to resolved Internet and email issues for 12 PC’s and one server increasing productivity 30% and reduce cost by 80% with upgrades for Windows 2000 SBE with MS Exchange and Sonic Firewall protection, Windows 98 SE, LaCerte, Creative Solutions Accounting, MS Office 2000 and XP, Peachtree, QuickBooks Pro to provide a steady operating network system. 

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