Welcome to the Cost Seg America CPA Partner Program. The entire program comes down to a single action on your part — one introduction. From there, we handle the proposal, the engineering, the documentation, and lifetime audit defense. Your client is taken care of, and you look like the professional who made it happen.
24 years in business since 2001 · 100% U.S.-based team · Lifetime audit defense — no additional fee, ever
Every referral follows the same path. You make the introduction — that is the entire ask. We carry the engagement from first contact through study delivery and lifetime audit defense. Your client never feels handed off, and you are never left chasing an update.
Many CPA firms have a cost segregation provider they have referred to for years. The relationship is comfortable, the reports look professional, and the work appears to be done. We are not here to disparage anyone — we are here to show you something most CPAs are never shown.
A long track record and a CPA-only focus do not guarantee a fully engineered study. Some established firms still perform lower-tier studies under IRS Approach 4 or IRS Approach 5 — the Residual approach and the Modeling approach. Those approaches are faster and cheaper for the firm to produce. They are also less precise — and on a cost segregation study, less precise means fewer dollars reclassified into short-life property. That gap does not stay with the provider as a discount. It comes out of your client's deductions.
The difference is not small. On a typical property, a fully engineered Cost Seg America study using IRS Approaches 1 and 2 will commonly identify $60,000 to $150,000 more in reclassified basis per $1 million of property value than a lower-tier study — even one produced by a well-established firm. That is your client's money, found or missed depending entirely on how the study was done.
This is why a growing number of CPA firms have moved their cost segregation work to Cost Seg America. Not through a sales pitch — through education. Once a CPA sees the difference between a fully engineered IRS Approaches 1 and 2 study and a lower-tier one, the choice tends to make itself.
We kept this deliberately lean. One guide tells you everything about the program. Four short guides are written for your clients — ready to hand over as-is. That is the whole library.
When a study is a lookback — capturing depreciation missed in prior years — it is applied to the return through a Form 3115. In most cases, you file it yourself. It is standard work you already do. If you would rather not handle a particular filing, we partner with a trusted CPA specialist who can step in and handle the Form 3115 filing for a separate fee. Either way, it gets done, and your client always knows what to expect up front. No surprises, no pressure — just a backup if you want one.
Some CPAs simply refer their clients to a firm they trust. Others prefer a formal referring partnership with Cost Seg America. If that is something you would like to explore, we would welcome the conversation — reach out and Jim Dougherty and his team will walk you through how it works and answer any questions.
125+ IRS audits defended. Zero losses. Not one dollar ever returned to the IRS on any client's behalf. When you hand us a client, you are handing them to a 100% U.S.-based team that treats your reputation as carefully as you do.