MAS LLC

10/02/2026

A week in Charlottesville: where business growth and sustainability meet

Our team spent last week in Charlottesville, meeting with tax clients and seeing firsthand why this region keeps drawing attention. It's a booming business economy, and it's also a community that takes sustainability seriously.

That combination shows up in our work. Alongside tax planning for growing businesses, we're seeing both residential and commercial deconstruction and decommissioning projects. Property owners are choosing to take buildings apart carefully rather than send them to the landfill. They're keeping valuable materials in circulation, supporting local nonprofits, and often capturing tax deductions (when applicable).

Both the City and the University of Virginia are setting the pace:

🏛️ City of Charlottesville

Community emissions are 40% below 2011 levels, against a goal of 45% by 2030
Municipal operations are down 41%
New High Performance Building Standards were adopted in 2026 for all city and school buildings
Fire Station 1 earned LEED Gold, the city's eighth LEED project
A new small business energy efficiency incentive program and expanded downtown EV charging
🎓 University of Virginia

Scope 1 and 2 emissions are down 44.5% since 2010, even after adding 3M+ square feet
Coal is being eliminated at the Main Heat Plant
A new $65M geothermal energy plant runs with zero combustion
$3.7M in utility savings in FY26 alone from building efficiency
90 LEED-certified projects, one of the largest portfolios in the country
The ReUSE Store has redistributed over one million pounds of furniture and goods, and campus trees are being milled into usable lumber
When a community grows and builds responsibly at the same time, it creates opportunity on both the financial and environmental side. That's exactly where we love to work.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed us last week. We'll be back soon! 👋

09/29/2026

MAS LLC has been a proud member of VSCPA for years and we had a great time attending the annual VSCPA Accounting & Auditing Conference in beautiful Roanoke, Virginia! FASB updates, AI integration updates, advisory updates, coupled with a healthy dose of commiseration with colleagues that we have lasted this long in the CPA profession.
..and the occasional joke from CPAs my age (50) and older bemoaning our mandated completion of the CPA exam in 2 days with one shot...reconciliation of accounts in QBDT line-by-line against a paper statement and highlighter pen, and some older than me remember the calculator tape and paper-filed returns.

And let you think they only provide riveting content on issues such as how a promised payment on a potential litigation settlement win to a third party most likely will need to be classified as a derivative...or acknowledging that probably

09/29/2026

One of our company’s Emotional Support Animals wearing a gift from a client. Our owner’s Emotional Support Animal is Diet Coke! Jessica Irving Marschall

09/28/2026

The old reflex that a pass-through entity is always the right answer for a closely held business no longer works.

The post-OBBBA landscape has made C corporations attractive again for certain businesses, particularly with the expanded Section 1202 QSBS rules. But there is a major group of business owners for whom the two biggest incentives in the Code may largely pass them by: those of us in specified service trade or businesses (SSTB).

Accounting. Law. Medicine. Consulting. Financial services. Investment management.

At higher income levels, an SSTB can lose the Section 199A deduction entirely. And many of those same professional practices are categorically excluded from QSBS.

That does not mean there is nothing left to plan. It means the planning gets more technical: reasonable compensation, retirement plan design, PTET elections, income management, C corporations as reinvestment vehicles, and properly separating legitimately different lines of business.

And entity changes are not something to make based on one good year. The 60-month classification rule, S corporation re-election restrictions, built-in gain considerations, and potentially taxable deemed liquidations can make changing your mind expensive.

My latest article looks at what entity planning actually looks like when your business is successful, your household income blows through the SSTB limits, and both §199A and §1202 may be off the table.

Article link in comments

09/21/2026

Back to Philly for some exciting reuse and tax projects for The Green Mission Inc., GM-ESG and MAS LLC this week!

Tackling this work with two of our incredible team members, our Director of Communications, Amy Bria, and our COO, Caroline Marschall.

And speaking of reuse, Amy just published the latest installment of her Past Meets Purpose series, this time taking us to Louisville, Kentucky, where historic buildings, adaptive reuse, sustainability, and even bourbon intersect.

From former factories and warehouses to churches and historic commercial buildings finding new life, Louisville offers some great examples of what we talk about every day at The Green Mission Inc.: the most sustainable material is often the one we already have.

Check out Amy’s latest article, Past Meets Purpose: Beyond Bourbon in Louisville!
..and yes, Amy does indeed have a black eye. She is a marathon runner who took a fall a few weeks back but we are grateful she is on the mend!

Read the full article in comments! Jessica Irving Marschall

09/20/2026

Fell In love with this treasure of a store.

On our way out of Madison, WI to Milwaukee we stopped off in Wales, WI.

I met with the owner who is a US vet who now operates this store with his family. They carefully curate the collection and have hundreds of square feet of extra storage space with additional inventory. All clothing is laundered and they have an excellent inventory system.

He kindly showed me the additional inventory in one of the storage areas.

And who else gets the literary King reference display?

As an IRS Qualified Appraiser and CPA I slightly freaked out at a few of my finds that are photographed.

So grateful for entrepreneurs like this who create secondary resale treasures like this!

Stay tuned next week for our latest research in the operating and profit margins for secondary retailers. Let’s keep pushing for the secondary market to become the primary for consumers!

Finders Keepers

09/17/2026

As we continue to expand our QSBS consultation practice at MAS LLC, we have published another updated technical resource for business owners, founders, and advisors considering this valuable tax provision.

IRC Section 1202 can provide an extraordinary federal tax benefit for qualifying C corporation shareholders, potentially excluding up to 100% of eligible gain. The rules were significantly expanded in 2025, including a new tiered holding-period structure for qualifying stock issued after July 4, 2025, an increase in the per-issuer exclusion cap from $10 million to $15 million, and an increase in the gross-assets threshold from $50 million to $75 million.

Our updated September 2026 QSBS Technical Implementation Guide goes beyond the basic qualification rules and addresses the practical issues we are increasingly working through with business owners, including Section 351 conversions, original issuance requirements, the active-business test, 409A valuations, Section 83(b) elections, documentation, ongoing compliance, and potential disqualification risks.

For business owners considering QSBS planning, the key is to address Section 1202 early. Qualification is not simply determined when a company is sold. Corporate structure, stock issuance, valuation, business activities, asset levels, and documentation throughout the holding period can all affect the ultimate exclusion.

We will continue expanding our QSBS advisory work and providing resources as this area of tax planning evolves.

Read our updated QSBS Technical Implementation Guide

MAS LLC Tax Advisory & Consulting Services IRC Section 1202: Qualification, 2025 Changes, Planning and Compliance September 2026 Jessica Irving Marschall, CPA, ISA AM President & CEO, MAS LLC Fredericksburg, Virginia Executive Summary Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 offers one of the most signifi...

09/17/2026

Fair warning: this one is a thick read. But I promise, it is becoming increasingly important.

Many of our clients have foreign companies, foreign holdings, or ownership interests in businesses outside the United States. As a result, I have spent considerably more time this past month deep in the international sections of the Internal Revenue Code than I normally do.

And the rules are changing and the OBBBA made some significant updates effective NOW in 2026.

Beginning in 2026, GILTI becomes Net CFC Tested Income (NCTI), with significant changes to how income is calculated, who must report it, foreign tax credits, ownership-period rules, and the reporting required for U.S. shareholders of Controlled Foreign Corporations.

For anyone with foreign corporate holdings, these are not obscure technical changes. The consequences can include additional U.S. taxable income, extensive Form 5471 and Form 8992 reporting, foreign tax credit complications, and substantial penalties when the reporting is incomplete or incorrect.

So, yes, this article gets into the weeds. But as our clients and their businesses become increasingly global, understanding this part of the Code is becoming a much bigger part of the work we do.

If you own an interest in a foreign company, this is one worth saving.

By Jessica Irving Marschall, CPA, ISA AM President and CEO, Marschall Accounting Services LLC | September 2026 For eight years, U.S. shareholders of controlled foreign corporations have lived with the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income regime created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Beginning w...

09/16/2026

Our firm’s ESA Frank attended our local Petpalooza and met a new friend Leo. Leo is up for adoption as our many other wonderful dogs. We included the information and QR code if you are interested in adding your own emotional support animal! Jessica Irving Marschall