How to Hire a CPA to Save on Taxes

Mike Pine: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the Hidden Money Podcast with Kevin Schneider and Mike Pine, our partners at Revo Taxpayer Advocacy, where we truly want to revolutionize the way you think about tax, and you should. Today, the podcast is being released on April 15th, 2025. April 15th is a big day in the tax world.

It's the day that you should have either filed or extended your personal tax return by and any taxes owed for the last year. You better have paid them now, or you're going to pay some estimated tax penalties and interest. Welcome! Kevin!

Kevin Schneider: Happy Tax Day.

Mike Pine: It is March 26th, two and a half weeks before tax day that we're recording this.

So, I think you and I'll both be a lot lighter and happier when this recording comes out. We will have finished tax season, but let's try to get in the mindset we know what it's going to be like that year. Today for most people, you know how much tax you probably needed to pay, or close estimate. For our listeners out there, how did you feel about the taxes you paid?

Was it something to celebrate? Was it an exciting thing? Or for 90% of the public, did it suck for you? We want to talk about that a little bit today. Kevin, anything to add?

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, I think that's a mindset that we try to get our clients in is tax deadline is not some, woe is me, doom and gloom day. It could be an actual celebratory day. Not only are you filing your taxes, and yeah, you're doing your due diligence and doing your civil duty here, keeping yourself out of jail.

But if you did all your planning in the prior year, hopefully all that planning, and all that work put into the plan reveals itself. It's like training. The planning is like training- you're hitting the weights, you're hitting the track, you're running, getting your body ready. Then the season actually starts in February.

Now, okay. We've trained. We got everything. We're exercised, we're ready to go. We know the game plan. We've studied the playbook. Now, it's time to do, and so that's what the preparation of the tax return is. It's enacting all the training, and work, and exercise, and everything that we've been doing the past year on your account, or on your plan. Did we actually get to go out there and play?

And April 15th is like the Super Bowl. It's like, "Okay, everybody, we're all in." All of our clients are either getting extended, and we already know what you're going to owe because we did the planning. So, you're either going to pay less tax, or you're going to be getting a refund- which is, that is the best scenario assuming that you're paying in the appropriate amount of tax.

So, that's the other hangup people get on is, "I want a big refund. I want a big refund." I would say a lot of our clients is victories. After we play the game and we file their tax return, a client that owed $500,000, they may only owe $100,000.

That- even though they don't get a refund, so we've got to get our mind [00:03:00] out of this refund, like, "Why am I not getting a refund?" That just means you're paying in tax and you're getting it refunded. because you overpaid.

Mike Pine: Well, what it really means is you were giving the IRS a free, interest-free loan when you could have kept that money working for you. So, don't be excited about a big refund unless you don't mind lending money for no interest, with no interest, to the federal government.

I'd rather you pay $500, at least less than $1,000, in a perfect world, because then, you won't face any potential penalties or interest. But yeah, don't get a big refund. That shouldn't be part of your plan. I want to try to communicate this. We really want to revolutionize the way you think about taxes.

If April 15th sucks for you, you don't have to keep that happening year after year. Don't let it suck for you next year. You can either be a victim of the tax code, and it be really crappy on tax day, or you can proactively leverage the tax code for your benefit, for your financial freedom's future. That is a choice you make.

If year after year, April 15th is hurting you and it's a gut punch, well, look at Einstein's definition of insanity. He says if you continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, that is the definition of insanity.

Don't be insane if tax day hurt for you this year. Good thing is you've got almost nine months, eight and a half months left in 2025 to change your facts so you can change your tax.

Kevin Schneider: That's right. And in the refunds that we do see our clients get, it's not abnormal to see refunds in the hundreds of thousands. That's very possible. And generally, when that happens, it's probably people who have W2 earnings that are pretty high up there.

They've paid taxes for three quarters of the year, so from January to, like, October, they've been earning a significant income, $800,000, a million dollars of W2. They've paid in significant taxes on that.

Then they come to us in October, November, December, and then, that is when refunds kick in is because you're paying a ton of tax if you're making that W2 income, and you're not dead in the water if you're a W2 earner.

I am sick and tired of CPAs- I hear it all the time- "Oh, you're a W2 earner. Not much you could do. W2- it just is what it is. Did you max out your 401(k). Good. Okay, well, that's like $24,000." And if you're making $800,000, $24,000 is still a lot of money, but it's not moving your tax needle much. And I just am sick of CPAs being lazy- just incompetent in areas where they just don't know what to do with these high W2 earners.

There are ways we can lop off half of your taxable income as a W2 earner, even if you're married and your spouse is stay at home, which is generally the case if you're married, and someone's making a million bucks, and [00:06:00] y'all got three kids at home, 90% of the time that other spouse is staying at home.

We can utilize that stay-at-home spouse for your tax plan. So long as they're on board, there's ways to start some real estate ventures and utilize their flexible work schedule. There's ways to utilize their skill sets, whatever it is, and we could take active tax deductions against that big W2.

If the stay-at-home spouse, maybe has five kids, and they're like, "I don't want anything to do with tax." Perfectly fine. There are still ways that without much material involvement, which in some investments and some strategies involve zero time. Meaning you can come to us in October, November, say, "I made a million dollars, I have zero time between now and year end to do any tax planning."

And I'm like, "If you have disposable income, you're an accredited investor, I could present to you three things right now, that lop off at least half of your tax, combined- if we combine these strategies. It depends on your risk assessment- how risk-adverse you are. It depends on how much cash you have, and how much disposable income you actually have.

Because there are millionaires out there that don't have much cash because either they're investing it, they're heavy in real estate. Their lifestyle increases as they make more money. So, we want to make sure that we're coaching them to saying, "Hey, okay, we need some sort of coffer here with some cash that we can do something with to eliminate your tax.”

Mike Pine: Hallelujah. Preach it, brother. Preach it

Kevin Schneider: Yeah.

Mike Pine: This is truth. This is the gospel of tax, the truth and the good news of tax. It can, and should be revolutionary to you, if you haven't gotten into strategic tax planning before. Again, though, those people, like Kevin was saying, you need cash, in most cases, to do some good tax strategy.

So, yes, while you can come into a tax-strategist office in October, November and still whittle down your tax and make big impacts on it, it's much better if you start at the beginning of the year. It gives you more time to build up your capital, more time to deploy it, more time to do due diligence in all the tax strategies.

Procrastination can really cost you a lot of money and a lot of pain, if you aren't doing this already. So, get started now. It's April 15th. Are you going to change your experience for next year's April 15th? Please do. But some people, some of us, I don't know how many, Kevin, maybe 4% or 5% of the high income earners and high taxpayers in the country, are actually doing proactive strategic tax planning.

Let's talk about some of these success stories because even though it's not April 15th yet, while we're recording it, we've already experienced some amazing wins that would revolutionize the lives and the livelihoods of some of our clients that did get into tax planning last year. Yesterday, I was talking to a client- we're getting ready for their extension and they have to pay estimated taxes.

One of the investments that they made to reduce their taxes- we're waiting on a K-1, we're not going to get that before April 15th- so we [00:09:00] had to figure out and calculate a pretty good estimate of what taxes they owed. Well, we put everything in into our system that we had, except for that K-1 for the tax-advantaged investment they made, and they would've owed $490,000 in taxes. $490,000!.

Granted, this couple that made this money, they're having the year of their life, or they had the year of their life, and they're having another good year now. They made good money, but $490,000- if that went to the IRS, like it would have if they hadn't come met with us last year- what kind of difference is that going to make in their family, in their future, in their lifetimes?

What kind of difference is that going to make in their colleges' cost for their children that are growing up? What kind of difference is that going to make in their retirement, 20 years from now? Half a million dollars- gone, out the door today- could easily be $3 or $4 Million from good wise investments over the next 20 years, before this couple retires.

Well, Kevin, they did one tax strategy of ours last year- one tax strategy- and when we implemented and estimated that on their estimate yesterday, their tax went from $490,000 to probably just under $200,000. That's a lot of tax savings, man. $300,000 they get to keep in their pocket. Now, in reality, the tax strategy they did cost them $150,000.

So, they're saving $300,000. They paid $150,000. Net-net, they saved $150,000. That's a permanent difference.

Kevin Schneider: And how much time did they spend doing that?

Mike Pine: They met with us for two or three hours, helped us compile the data when we did our tax strategy with them. They spent about an hour doing the due diligence on the investment that we introduced them to, and they made the investment. That was it. So, max 5, 6 hours, maximum, they put into this to save permanently $150,000.

These guys are going to be celebrating on April 15.

Kevin Schneider: I mean, what other area of life, if I said, "Hey, if you do this task for five hours from breakfast to mid-afternoon, that's your time window. Get this task done in this time window, I'm going to pay you $150,000."

Mike Pine: $30,0000 an hour. Man!

Kevin Schneider: That's a good rate. So yeah, I know the client you're talking about. I think I walked through the tax plan with them, and they didn't even do everything I advised, and that's okay. Mike and I's job, and our team here, is if you meet with us, my job is to educate you on literally everything that's in my pea-sized brain, and push that down to you and educate you on the strategy, the risks, and how to enact it and do it safely. That's my job.

Not everything that I mention, or Mike mentions, or our team mentions, is going to be a wise investment for you specifically, because I don't know your estate plan. I don't know your disposable income. I don't know your risk, your tolerance for risk. These things are all a conversation.

I'm going to say, "Okay, I'm going to throw out a risky [00:12:00] idea. I've done them before. In your situation, it would work. I can defend this position. Here's the risks though, but here's also the benefit. Here's how much cash it's going to take, how much of our time, and we'll walk you through everything."

If they enacted everything we laid out, we probably would've gotten their tax down in the...

Mike Pine: They would've had a refund. Actually, no, instead of not owing tax, they would've gotten a refund.

Kevin Schneider: So, it would've been a drastic change, but it would've taken more risk. It might've gone against what they could have stomached, and that's okay. You need to be able to sleep at night and not everyone's going to have the same risk tolerance.

Some people are just like, "I am tired of tipping the government. I am tired of just being run over. I see where my tax dollars are going. I don't want them to have a dollar of it. Legally, I don't want them to have a dollar of it. And then, we have a huge sandbox to play.

Mike Pine: Yes, we do. So, I just want to reiterate this again, knowing this podcast is dropping on April 15th. This is just one example. Kevin and I have brought up one example out of hundreds of clients that got to experience this with us this year, and probably tens of thousands experiencing it all across the country.

There are hundreds and hundreds of tax strategy options available to you. You just need to go out and get educated on them and implement them. Learn about them and do it. That's what you need to do. Take some time. You can do it on your own, and it'll take a lot more time, but you can do it and save money from paying fees to someone like Kevin and I, or you can go pay a strategist.

Just make sure it's a good strategist. Which I think brings an important point. I want to make sure we clarify. Kevin, what is the difference between a tax preparer and a tax strategist?

Kevin Schneider: It's like that analogy I mentioned earlier, you're training, and then the training is your strategist. We're getting the game plan together. We're helping you work out some muscles maybe you've never used before. We're helping you expand what is, in your mind, even possible in the realm of taxation; where then, we put a game plan together and we put that, we put the playbook together, we teach you everything.

Here's what is best for your situation. Here's what's best for your cash. We get the playbook. We then hand that playbook to our team. That team is going to prepare your tax return and they're actually going to take the playbook design and the planning phase, and then they're going to enact it on the tax return. That is the preparation.

So, some CPAs, and I'm not saying some, I'm saying probably the majority of CPAs, don't have a playbook for you. They just- you come in the door, and you're like, "Hi, I'm an athlete." And they're like, "Okay, cool. We got a game tomorrow. Let's go. We got... here, just go- do, get, what are you good at?

Are you good at this? Are you good at that? Okay. Okay. Don't really care. Get on the field. Here's the ball. Go." That is generally how your CPA transactions take place. People don't think about their tax in the off season and the training season, and then they get to the game, and they just get clobbered. They get smacked, and they get hit upside the head because they didn't [00:15:00] train and they're not prepared, and so that's why you need both.

You need a good tax strategist on the front end to exercise you and get you trained up and get a playbook together. Then, you need an actual good preparation engagement that can prepare that strategy and enact it safely to get you good winning results.

Mike Pine: What a great analogy. I haven't never thought of it that way, but basically the difference is a strategist changes your facts so you can change your tax. A tax preparer just reports what you did- put it down on paper. I would say most CPAs offer a few tax savings ideas.

Like even in your example of what you and I both are so sick of, where people keep hearing from their CPAs and tax preparers- "If you're W2 taxpayer, you can't save taxes." They will still say, "But you can increase, max out your 401(k)." Or maybe do the home office if someone is self-employed in your house, but they're limited to that. When you look at the tax code, actually, let's talk about the tax law.

You have the internal revenue code. That is the actual tax law. 20,000 pages, maybe- it keeps growing. Didn't used to be that high. Probably less than 20,000, closer to 12,000 maybe. That is the law that Congress passes, the President signs into law. That is the tax law. No one can make sense of it. They'll say some of the tax law, literally, you have no idea how to follow that law.

So, Congress understands that they know there are a bunch of lawyers coming up with these things. So, what they then do is they enable and empower the Department of Treasury to interpret that law, and those are your treasury regulations, and there's over 80,000 pages of those. It's a lot. Those are the two main sources of tax law.

On top of that, then, you have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of tax court cases because all those laws- they're not black and white. The treasury regulations- the Treasury department's interpretation of that law, is not always black and white, and sometimes, it's wrong. It's flat out wrong.

So, the way people figure out how do we navigate in this grey area, is through the tax court system. And there are, like I said, hundreds of thousands of tax court precedents that make up the body of tax law. The point is that is a lot of stuff, a lot of pages. I have no idea how many pages of tax court precedents there are, but probably over millions, right? So, there are millions of pages of law that include mostly grey area.

A tax preparer does not play in the grey area. A tax preparer stays away from the grey area. They just put numbers on the right line, or at least, with the IRS and Treasury departments say they're the right line, and sometimes they're wrong, but that's what they do. A tax strategist loves to swim in all those thousands and millions of pages of documents because they're a grey area.

There are opportunities, there are [00:18:00] incentives. That's what you need to be playing in. That's over 99%, in my opinion, over 99.5% of all the written tax law out there is grey area, is incentives. Utilize that, embrace it, revolutionize the way you think about this stuff. It can make a huge difference in your life.

It can change your world. Yes, Kevin and I know that sounds like a big statement, but that is our mission. We want to change the world by revolutionizing the way you see tax and you utilize tax.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, we're here. We're advocates for the taxpayer and that's the big difference between a preparer, a straight 'just preparer' who sits in their cave, and cranks out tax returns, and gets their $400 fee, and moves on. We are advocates for you, and that is what differentiates us from those CPA shops is you shouldn't be tipping the government a single dollar more than you're legally required to.

There's strategies to get that money back in your pocket, and even if it gets to the preparation, let's say it's April 15th, 2025, you have to file your '24 tax return. You could still come to us in the summer of 2025 for your '24 return, and there still might be strategies on there.

It's just that our playbook is going to be going from like, a thousand pages, our playbook's going to be maybe a hundred pages. And then, those plays may or may not work in your situation because we're trying to recreate a strategy in the future to go on this tax return. But for instance, we had a situation come up just this morning where one of our seniors was working on a return, a preparation engagement only- they came to us this year. The prior years, the prior CPA was depreciating furniture in their rental property over seven years.

So, we got to it, and it was a significant amount of furniture. That's 5 year property. Now, typically this isn't a big deal, and when we had 100% bonus depreciation, I couldn't give a care if it was 5, 7, or 15 year- it's all going to be written off anyway with bonus. But right now, we have 40% bonus.

So, all the new equipment, or all the new furniture put into service in the rental property, we're going to change it from seven years, what's been historically done, to five years because we're going to write off 40% off with bonus, and then the remaining 60% that wasn't written off, we could have deducted over five years instead of seven. That increased their refund, like, $2,500.

Just that almost covers our fee alone, and just small things like that. So, even if you're prepared, we're just preparing your tax return. We're the best preparers out there to look at these things and be advocates.

And I went to that senior, I was like, "Yes, that is exactly what we're trying to do here. Now go and tell others. Show them what you did and why you did it. And then, breed a culture in our firm to look at stuff like that and not just push returns across the finish line."

To be honest, Mike and I, we're interviewing people to come on board. We are growing. We need strong-minded strategists and preparers, both in our firm. And we interviewed somebody about a [00:21:00] week ago, and they said this in the interview, which was a huge red flag for Mike and I. He's like, "W2 earners, there's not much you could do for them. So, it depends on what their business is." And this was in the interview.

And so, people could be taught, but prior to that comment of this person interviewing, we shared our vision, and we even said, "I don't care if they're W2 business owners. I don't care where their income is coming from. There are things you can always do."

Mike Pine: We shared three particular strategies for W2 earners, and it was big. Yeah.

Kevin Schneider: And they were big. And then, he listened, and he heard it, and then, he made that comment. We're like, "Man, this guy's- he's just stuck. He's stuck." And so, we, even in our interview process, we're picky.

I do not want people who are stuck. I want people who are like thought leaders, thought provokers, who can look at the code and kind of look at that grey that Mike was talking about and just Scrooge McDuck jump in a bag or jump in a pool of IRS paper and just start swimming.

That is the people we're looking for.

Yeah. We’re trying to breed that culture here. Mike, you could probably go on and on about how this industry is just bred with CPAs who are prepared-mindset, and the skillset we're looking for is very unique.

Mike Pine: Yes, and it's hard for us to staff our firm with the kind of team members that we want, but we're finding them, they exist out there. I would also say the way we try to find new hires to join our team is exactly what you should be doing, listener, when you are looking for a tax strategist. Ask them these kinds of questions.

If you go in and ask them, "Hey, if I only, if I have W2 income, no businesses, is there much I can do to reduce my taxes?" If they say, "No," turn around, and go interview someone else. Interview your tax strategist. I think pretty much every CPA firm out there, if you look on their website, they don't mention that they're strategists, or they provide strategies out there.

Most of them don't. Not because they're being nefarious, they just don't get it. Kevin's right. I could get on a soapbox for an hour about this. I'll try to keep it down to 30 seconds or 60 at the most. It all starts with who is attracted to become a CPA. Most kids don't grow up and think when they're five years old and their other friends are out playing cowboys or astronauts.

They don't think, "Man, I want to grow up and be a CPA." Most adventurous people never want to be a CPA. Like, why would you do it? It doesn't sound like it's that exciting. Well, it is, but most people don't realize that. So then, if you go into college, it's usually the people that gravitate towards the CPA programs, or the accounting programs, are ones that already want to keep it safe.

They like thinking inside the box. They want a safe place. There's nothing wrong. That is needed in tax preparation, just not strategy. But then, in school, they don't teach you to think outside the box. As a matter of fact, it's the opposite. They're trying to force you into this box to learn the rules, the [00:24:00] way they see them, the way the professors see them, the way they teach tax classes.

They teach out of the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury regulations- 99% of the time. They want you to learn tax the way the IRS and Treasury Department wants you to see them, which, hey, if you are an advocate for the government, great. Go work at the IRS then. There's so much more.

But by the time these people get out of school, then they have to take the CPA exam. Is it testing you on can you think outside the box? Heck no. You'll get 'Wrong'. You'll fail the CPA exam if you think outside the box while you're taking it. So, you- they force you into the box. So, when you get all these CPAs that finally graduate, finally get their license, don't be surprised that 99.9% of them are inside the box thinkers.

That's how they've been conditioned. There's a lot of reasons that they're that way. So, you do have to look. Don't just go and work with the first CPA you find down the street, or the first tax preparer. Find a tax strategist, interview them. Be selective, like Kevin and I are selective with our team members.

Kevin Schneider: We're even selective with clients. Which is an odd thing to say is because not every client is going to be a good fit for us either. It has to be a good relationship both ways. Mike and I and our team, we don't want to drag someone kicking and screaming to save taxes.

We don't. We want you to be alongside with us for this journey. And some people just, they get excited and they're on board, and then it's time to actually put pen to paper and move forward with a plan, and then, they either go off the radar, they're like, "I don't know. I'm good." For whatever reason, the excitement, or whatever, wears off, or the initial plan wears off.

We want actual clients who are serious about this, making significant money, who are willing to save significant tax. That's our ideal client. And then, I mean, comparative too- you've got to think about the fees you're paying, too. We're not the cheapest, but we're also not the most expensive. I think we're like Goldilocks.

We're like right in the middle. We're going to offer Big 4, Big Accounting 4 firm-level strategy to your situation at mid, low-tier prices comparative to them. But if you go to a sole-practitioner CPA, or one of those preparers- not the strategist- the preparers, if you go to the preparer, and you're like, "How much does it cost to do my tax return?"

They might say $1,500 in North Texas. That's probably on the low end. But also, yeah, I don't know, depending on who you go to, I've seen them as low as $1,000. I don't know who's making money at paying preparing a tax return at $1,000 in this economy.

I have no clue how they're staying in business, unless they're literally, just 'efficiency', trying to be as machine-like as possible. Get your data, input it, move it as quick as possible. That's the only way that model is profitable.

So, be careful of the people charging you that much for your preparation is because you're not going to get anyone taking a step back and looking at your situation saying, "Okay, I'm going to invest maybe a couple hours looking how I can better this tax return or better this client situation, even for next year."

You're not paying for that service. You're paying for straight tax [00:27:00] preparation. That's what that fee tells me. So, be careful. And don't get hung up on those pennies you could be losing or paying. You're tripping over these small amounts of preparation fees, but you're leaving out, there, huge amounts of savings.

Mike Pine: Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. I mean, I've seen it over and over again, and we have, we've tried to improve a lot with our communication and fee expectations with our clients. But earlier on, when we were still billing by the hour, we'd get clients that come in and say, "Ooh, I love it. I want tax strategy. My CPA then never gave me strategy. I want to save taxes."

And we'd save them $30, $20, $40,000, a lot of money, and we charge them $3,000 for their tax return and they would flip out. But I used to get it done for $400 and some of those clients would actually fire us after that season. They paid us $2,000 more, $3,000 more. We saved them $20,000 more, $30,000, more.

Like, I'll not understand it, but those people aren't good client-fits for us and we weren't a good fit for them. But if anyone asked you, "Hey, if I give you an investment, you pay $5,000 and I'll give you $15,000 in return," wouldn't you do that all day long?

Why would you go to the cheapest tax preparer you can find that isn't saving you taxes when you can go find someone that you can pay well or will have to pay well, but will save you much more than they cost you?

I don't understand why no, why anyone would not like that, but there are a lot of people that don't, and those aren't good clients for us or for any tax strategist.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, and that example you gave earlier of the person who's going to owe like around $490,000 and they're owing less than $200,000, or around $200,000, they paid $11,500 for that plan is what they paid us, in that it had about probably four or five hours of my time. Our managers had probably four or five hours.

My team probably had 10 hours. So, cumulatively, it was about 20 hours worth of work that we were able to do and save them that much. It could have been more if they did everything, which we already talked about. So, it was an $11,500 tax plan that we developed for them, and that, it's all recorded, it's all documented.

There's a hard, actual tax plan that they can print. It's in PDF these days, but they could print it and actually have a physical copy of their tax plan. They can have a copy of their analysis, their scenarios, their tax calculations, everything we did- theirs to keep. And so, they could call back on it.

They can, they could do whatever they want with that information. They can go back to the videos, and be like, "What was that one strategy Kevin laid out?" And they go back to the video and watch that particular section. So, it's a huge value. And honestly, from our seat as business owners and CPAs, Mike and I would love to tie in our fee into actual tax savings.

It's just, we've got to be careful, because even though we're CPAs, the AICPA has these kinds of guidelines, and the [00:30:00] Texas State Board has these guidelines on how we can actually charge our clients. They don't want our fee tied to tax savings on a tax return because that incentivizes fraud.

 Hey, the more I save you, quote unquote 'save' you, the more fee I get. So, it would be great if Mike and I saved a client a million bucks. We get 10% of that. That would be great. There's ways we're trying to work that out, but as of now, we're flat fee. Whether I save you a million dollars or whether we save you $30,000, the fee stays the same.

 Mike and I also offer a discovery call, and that's for all of our clients, and we offer free consultations on the front end. For anybody listening to this, you can go to www.revotaxpayer.com, click-schedule a consult. You just fill out some really quick information. You'll get 15 to 30 minutes with Mike or I, we'll just have a chat, just see where you're at.

See, we could say, "Okay, I think this strategy would work," and then we would, we could talk through those details and see what value there is for you, and then move forward with a plan.

Mike Pine: Yeah. Speaking of moving forward, I'm going to move forward past our unashamed advertising. because we do believe we're the best at this. But if you don't go with Revo, find a tax strategist, please. There are, out there, interview them, ask them- let's think of some other questions you can ask them.

So again, we talked about is there anything you can do for W2? And they say, "No, not besides, and maxing out your 401(k)." What are some other questions you would ask them, Kevin?

Kevin Schneider: I would say what's the communication? Communication is a big one. I would always ask a CPA, "Hey, if I ask you some questions, or need to how long do you book out? If I have a question, or if I have a transaction or a deal coming through, and I need to talk to you pretty quickly, is it a monthly lead time? Am I going to get a response?"

That's also a lot of feedback we hear from new people, is like, "My accountant just don't even talk to me. I've emailed them five times and I can't get a-hold of them." So, that's a big one. I would just make sure they're responsive.

Ask for examples going, "Hey, in someone in my similar situation, maybe you know, you're turning self-employed for the first time, share an example of how you worked with that client to educate them on how being self-employed looks. What are strategies? I have three kids, can I put them on payroll?" Bring your questions and test them a little bit, and say, and then, have them give you examples of real life things that they have done.

Put it, treat it like an interview.

Mike Pine: Yeah. I'll tell you another question that I think is now commonly enough known throughout our industry. It should be clear... I don't know. Just because they don't know, this doesn't mean they can't be a good strategist, but they ought to know this by now.

If they're a strategist, ask them if, "Say, if I and my spouse are not real estate professionals, and can't ever be real estate professionals, can we use a vacation rental, an Airbnb property that we buy, to reduce our W2 income through accelerated depreciation?"

If they say, "Nope, that's only available to real estate professionals." Check out our podcast on the short-term rental loophole, and go find a different tax strategist.

Kevin Schneider: That's a pretty easy answer. Yeah, we don't hide our [00:33:00] strategies all that much in this podcast.

Mike Pine: No, we don't.

Kevin Schneider: There are some out there that we haven't relayed to the public, just because any CPA can pick them up and run with them. There is some sort of intellectual property with some of our strategies.

Two huge ones, oil and gas and short-term rentals- those two huge ones, just alone, that we've covered on our podcast. Maybe not in the detail, as we need to enact the tax plan. So, we still need to enact it, but at least you're educated that it's out there and how it generally works.

Then we just need to tailor it to your situation. Those two things alone, could save you significant tax. And that's all for free on Hidden Money.

Mike Pine: Yeah. So, keep on listening. Get some free tax strategies. Hey, share it with your CPA. If they say, "No, you can't do this," find a different CPA, please.

The strategies that you enact, the risks that you take, it's for your benefit, it's for your good. It is to increase your wealth, whether that is to invest, whether that's to buy a new car that you've had your eyes on, whether that's to save up for your kids' college- to jumpstart that, whether it's to take a vacation, or buy yourself that shiny TV in that one example of saving a client $2,500 if you're an electronic guru. Like, I love the newest tech.

Kevin Schneider: That's a pretty nice toy you could probably go out and buy that you've had your eye on. So, enjoy your money too. Don't just be, "Okay, I'm going to maximize every dollar when it comes to tax." Yes, we're going to maximize every single deduction, and every single dollar we get, but then, when those dollars and that work comes back to you, now, it's yours to steward.

And from there, you need to give some, you need to invest some, you need to use some. So, for the sake of your family, for your enjoyment, for your future, this might be an area that you haven't exercised much.

Your muscles may be weak in tax, and that's okay. We have good trainers here. We could put you to work, and we could do some good work for you. So, yeah, even though it's April 15th, it's not too late. Start planning today for 2025.