Professional Fees

Good Day All:

Having some free time today, I wanted to take the opportunity to provide some background regarding my info request above. My wife & I have been reading the message board for some time now, and find it a great source of valuable info and insights. Now that we've decided to sell off our current life in Connecticut and move to St John (Coral Bay side), I figured it was time to stop lurking and start asking questions.

We've done a lot of traveling over the years, and haven't found another place that has as much to offer as the USVIs. Having spent a considerable amount of time on the islands, we've fallen in love with St John and plan to spend our next 50 years (hopefully more!) there. We are now starting the design/permit/build process of a modest home well off the beaten path (read "solar power"). Island time being what it is, we figure that we should be able to become full-time residents in about two years or so. In the mean time, we travel back and forth between CT and St John five or six times a year.

My wife is a CPA with her own firm. She works primarily with business clients, providing accounting, tax, computerized bookkeeping, payroll processing, insurance, and fnancial plannng services. Perhaps 20% of her work is with individual clients (taxes and financial planning). Many of our new friends in the VIs keep telling us that CPA's and accountants are in demand. We're trying to do a reality check as to whether there would be enough business for her to set up a practice on the island and what she might expect to charge for her services. If it looks unrealistic, we'll sell all of the office equipment and she can explore a number of other opportunities (perhaps teaching, computer consulting, or interior design).

As for myself, I'm an engineer and have a consulting firm that works primarily with manufacturing companies. As I haven't seen a lot of factories on the islands, I suspect that part of my life is pretty much over. However, I've got a number of skills that should help me to generate some income and keep out of trouble. I'm pretty good at woodworking (building furniture, cabinetry, etc.), construction and remodeling (we've rebuilt some old victorians), wiring, plumbing, tile & stone work, machining, and all things mechanical (built a lot of machinery and race cars over the years). I also have some experience with rebuilding boats and the various systems therein. I plan to move most of my workshop and tools with us.

Well, there you have it. Two more mainlanders coming down to take up some of the room on the beach.

Hello Windborn,

Glad you decided to join us, rather than lurking :). Welcome.

Perhaps you might consider calling a few accounting firms and asking for rates on different services, doing some research that way. You can look in the yellow pages www.viphonebook.com for a list.

Building a home is a question asked about from time to time here so be sure to keep us posted on how that is going.

I think with your construction experience and boat experience you should have an in (in terms of employment) as well. And you will certainly meet those in the business when doing the building of your home so will be able to learn more that way.

Pamela, a board regular, might be able to help with information on boat work/industry.

--Islander

Windborn,
Welcome! There is always a demand for good, honest boat workers/rebuilders. What sort of systems are you familar with?

Regarding your wife - while she could probably support herself on "book keeping" I doubt there is too much call for stateside CPA's without island experience. Perhaps a prejudice but there are some trickly little laws here for businesses particularly EDC companies that have to be learned. She could probably work for another firm for a while if she is interested.

If you want to explore the boat aspects, email me. pamela@vicl.org

Good afternoon all:

Islander - Thank you for the helpful feed back. I had considered contacting some of the local accounting firms. However, I suspected that my questions regarding fees, services, client opportunities, etc., might not be well received as the people I contact would be sharing with their potential competition. I guess I'll just take a shot at it and see how things go.

I would be happy to chronical our experiences with building our new home on St John and completing our migration to paradise. I suspect that the various challenges that we are sure to face will provide some level of insight (if not entertainment) to others. We are committed to a self-sufficient, environmentally friendly design that will have a minimum impact on the site. Aside from the excavation and concrete work, we will be doing most of the construction ourselves. Hopefully our experiences will help others to adopt a "green" perspective in their own projects.

Pamela - Thank you for your response. My wife has been investigating some of the legal/financial business aspects particular to the USVI. There's always something new to learn.

I'd be happy to talk to you about obtaining some potential boat work, although it is a bit premature since we probably won't be living on-island for another year or two. I'm currently working on a 30 year old Morgan-designed racer/cruiser. This project entails designing and installing completely new electrical and plumbing systems, refurbishing the engine, building a new nav station and galley, adding propane and storage lockers, new paint top to bottom, running all of the lines back to the cockpit, and replacing the old rod rigging. While I am comfortable with it, I would not call myself a rigger.

Perhaps we can get together for a chat one of the next times that we come down. I'll be on-island the end of July and sometime during the months of September, November, and December.