Melissa Rascon, CPA is the Managing Partner and founder of The Rascon CPA Firm, PLLC. For over twenty years she has assisted clients in various industries with their tax planning, tax compliance, tax accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll needs.
Before starting her own firm, Melissa served as a Tax Accountant and grew into management at two of the Big Four firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, for eight and a half years. She then turned to corporate work and became the Tax Manager for a medium size international manufacturing company for a few years before she went back to public accounting serving as the Senior Tax Manager for a small size CPA firm to build and develop the company’s tax practice. Melissa spent valuable time building a network with her community and great relationships with her clients. Over her tenure, Melissa recruited clients in the retail, manufacturing, telecommunications, engineer consulting, and real estate industries with both U.S. and global operations. She decided to finally break away five years ago to start her own firm where Melissa continues to network, build relationships, and maintain involvement with her community, connecting her to a client base with innovative and motivated Entrepreneurs who are hungry to take their business to the next level.
Melissa has a vast level of experience in tax compliance and provision work, as well as international tax. She’s formulated tax planning strategies to lower cash tax payments and the effective tax rate, and renewed any income tax related internal control weaknesses in order to minimize the probability of either company receiving a significant deficiency from their auditors.
Melissa also prepared Management Fee agreements between foreign related parties located in Spain, Canada, and Mexico, and gathered and maintained proper documentation in support of transfer pricing agreements that included the maintenance of documentation supporting each company’s utilization of the benefits allowed within the tax treaties applicable. Melissa managed the sell-side transaction work of a significant division being sold within one of the companies. On top of analyzing various types of transactions and determining the tax gain/loss on the sale, her work included an analysis under the Foreign Investment in Real Property Act (FIRPTA) for its foreign owned parent. Melissa also managed various IRS and state audits.
As mentioned above Melissa spent over 8 years in Public Accounting with both Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Dallas and Houston areas. In that experience she held various positions in both the Business Tax Services and Transaction Advisory Services (for Tax) groups providing federal and state tax return preparation and consultation, tax provision preparation and review, tax consulting and planning, and due diligence services. Melissa worked in the following industries – manufacturing, computer consulting/software development, technology, trade show setup and decorating, and electrical contractors. Significant clients included former Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr., West lake Chemical Corporation, Freeman Decorating Co., Quanta Services, Inc., Howco Metals Management LLC, and Atos Origin, Inc.
Melissa holds a B.B.A. in Accounting and a Masters in Tax from the University of Texas at El Paso. She is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of Texas and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Texas Society of CPAs.