<prompt> Human: We co-own a medical specialty business. For years, the business has done pretty well on its own, with little to no intervention from outside sources - it funded expenses, paid employees, etc.Two years ago we got a new partner, and this past year we did really well. So well, in fact, that when our accountant who had been the accountant for years and years did our taxes, we ended up owing 19k. He informed us that if we had taken more draws from the business throughout the year or increased our percentage per paycheck, we wouldnt have had to pay that.Obviously we hire an accountant because we dont know the details of those sorts of things, but there seems to be some sort of delinquency there to me. Shouldnt he have been monitoring our books at least enough to tell us to withdraw more before it was way too late?Any advice would be appreciated.  <response>: There is a lot of information missing to make a determination. You should have signed an engagement letter that details the agreement between the company and accountant. Are you paying for quarterly or year end tax planning? If so the accountant should be able to explain the difference between the planning and actual operations. If you only pay for a tax return and only turn over your books at year end, how can the accountant be expected to estimate a tax liability?On the other hand if they are doing monthly bookkeeping you should be getting financials monthly or quarterly and should at least have a rough idea of your tax liability.Tax liabilities can vary for a number of reasons that can be very difficult to project especially for cash basis tax payers.At the very least you should have received estimated tax vouchers and a letter explaining them with your prior year tax return. All modern tax software defaults to include these unless they are turned off manually.Unfortunately, it has been my experience that most accounting firms will only pay penalties if they actually messed up. Ive never seen a firm actually pay the tax liability. It would have to be a very weird situation for that to occur.Are you the primary contact with the accountantCPA? My guess is your only getting one side of the story. : 