The Refund Reinvestment Plan: CPA-Approved Moves to Maximize ROI

Kevin Schneider: [00:00:00] Well, we all made it. We got through another tax season and here we are. Hopefully, your CPA did your job. You did your job, and you're sitting on some tax savings. Maybe you have a hefty refund. Maybe you didn't get a refund, but your tax planning saved you so much in tax that you saved for some taxes that you didn't have to pay.

So, in this episode, what we're going to cover is what do we do with those savings? What do we do with that refund check? We did all the hard work with our planning. We were intentional. We had a plan, and we executed the plan, and we see the fruits of that coming through on the tax return.

So, let's talk about where are we going to put our cash? What's the best way to use our tax refund or savings?

Mike Pine: What do you think, Kevin? Go to Vegas with it?

Kevin Schneider: It's not a bad start. I mean, I'm going to say no idea is a bad idea. Vegas is an option.

Mike Pine: Yeah, I say that in jest. Don't do that. Don't go to Vegas.

Kevin Schneider: To an extent. I mean, I don't think it's bad if you, let's say, you performed a tax plan that took a lot of work, and it was a lot to execute. I don't think it's a bad idea to save some of those savings for fun. Now, we don't want to just take all of our savings and put them on the roulette table, but I think, enjoy the fruits.

I mean, that's why we're here doing this is, one- to get money away from the government back into your pocket. Now, you could be an investment robot, or very investment conscious, and be like, "Every dollar I have, I have to maximize." That could be a stressful way to live, too. So, you want to, kind of, balance your life too, to where, "Yes, I'm investing, but I'm also enjoying," because otherwise, what's the point?

Mike Pine: Yeah. Well, don't make fun of me, Kevin, but if you liked having that lower tax or that bigger refund, if you enjoyed that, here's a brilliant idea and this is better than Vegas from my perspective. 

Use your savings to invest in another tax-advantaged investment to lower your taxes next year. Continue to snowball those savings from year to year. Grow your financial freedom- buy more tax planning with your tax refund.

Kevin Schneider: I mean, obviously, I would agree with that, because you and I do that personally, right? Like Mike and I, we save for every dollar the firm makes, we save into a tax account, our taxes. Now, there's a couple things we could do with those savings.

One- we could just pay our taxes. That's just not very fun, not very good steward of our money.

Mike Pine: It's malpractice in our profession.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, it's borderline. I couldn't sleep at night. So, we saved the taxes. We got it. But now, what we could do is also invest into tax-advantageous things, like we've talked about on this podcast before.

We can invest it back into our business, which also, depending on what we invest into business with, provides tax deductions, as well.

So, we can grow our business with it. We can invest [00:03:00] it. I mean, right now, Mike, The market's been down and it is a great time to buy some stocks, and you know you recently went through this, and you're kind of riding the rollercoaster of the New York Stock Exchange, but that's not a bad plan either.

The market's low, get some stocks while they're low, so long as you know what you're doing, it's not a bad plan either. It's just not tax-advantageous.

Mike Pine: Tax-advantageous. But... when I see Tesla at $220, I've got to buy some because $220 in 10 years when people say, "I bought Tesla for $220," which I'm going to be able to say, um we're going to sound like geniuses because it's going to be worth millions. Millions is my humble opinion.

But again, we're not investment advisors. Don't take our investment advice. Pay attention though, to our tax-saving advice because that's where we really do know what the heck we're talking about.

Kevin Schneider: No, absolutely! And you know, Mike and I are kind of opposite, so we're a very good blend, and we work well together because he buys it. He bought this individual stock. this is our, just investment theology. There's no right or wrong- one's more risky than the other.

Mike just bought straight-up Tesla stock, which is going to have a lot higher upside than what I'm doing, but it's going to have a lot more risk on the low side, too. So, what I did is, since the market is low, what I did is I bought a bunch of index funds, like S&P 500. I bought also some mutual funds like semiconductor mutual funds, retail, international.

I diversify my diversification with more diversification, and then, when I think I'm diversified, I diversify more. I'm super conservative when it comes to that. I'm not riding the wave as much, but my plan is to slowly just grow over time, some of those investments. Mike is, too. Mike's not going to be selling this Tesla stock, but he's going to have a...

Mike Pine: When you make $20,000 in one day, it's really hard to manage.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah.

Mike Pine: This is a long term thing. That's what my wife is there for. She's like, "No, no, no, no. You told me this was for 10 years." I'm like, "Yes, honey."

Kevin Schneider: Yeah. You'll be a millionaire in 10 years, and I'll just slowly.. I'll be under you, but I won't be as stressed.

Mike Pine: Let me talk about this in this specific time because you brought up a great point. The stocks are down. Everyone says, "We all know this methodology- buy low, sell high." But think about this.

Historically, greatest wealth generation in the 20th century, the companies that made the biggest, the individuals that became the next barons, those are the ones who invested during the depression. Those are the ones that went and grew their companies during the depression.

To a lot of people, they look crazy. They look stupid, but they bought when the country and the markets were down, because they believed in America like we do, they knew that this is just a downtime. We're going through a correction.

A correction means it's a temporary thing. It's going to go up over time, and I can't agree with Kevin more. Now is a great time to buy if you believe in our country. I just like to be a little more selective than Kevin. [00:06:00]

I know in the S&P 500 there's some terrible, terrible stocks in those 500 stocks. Same thing in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But you also look over time- as much as I hope my single Tesla stock outperforms the market- I do believe it will; I could be wrong.

Because you look at it over time, people who have tried to speculate on individual securities versus having bought in indexes or mutual funds, those people who speculate on this individual securities tend to not make near as much money over time.

As a matter of fact, they tend to lose more money over time. So, you've got to be careful if you happen to pick the right one, it's great, but then you're kinda like doing Vegas. Yeah. So, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Kevin Schneider: No, no, that's good insight. Yeah, I just love the S&P because I, like you, I believe in our country. I am very, very hopeful that our country will recover- has been historically, for the past 200 years. You could just look back and see all the trials and tribulations our country's gone through. We've always come out better and stronger.

I personally am hopeful with this administration, with the tariff strategy. Now, I don't think the tariff strategy's perfect, but I do believe that it is going to generate wealth jobs inside our country. There's no way that I don't think that with more investments coming into our country, that the S&P...

Mike Pine: Dubai had $6 Trillion in committed new capital over the next five years to invest in the US, and pharmaceutical companies, and computer chip companies, I mean, $6 Trillion is pouring into our economy, and it's not over yet.

Once this new tax bill comes out, once people can bank on, and they have predictability about what taxes are going to look like, especially if they bring back 100% bonus depreciation, we're talking tens of trillions of dollars are going to be invested in this economy over the next few years.

That is not a better time to buy, man. Our country is about to go through the roof.

Kevin Schneider: And so, you know, that's just one example of what you do. You know, if you're sitting on this refund, or you're waiting on your refund, from our client's perspective, the refunds haven't been delayed as much as I thought they would.

From just your original filing tax return, our clients are receiving their refunds, and they're going to get a big bulk of cash back if they've had W2 jobs with withholding, and we chipped away at their taxable income, they're getting a refund.

So, yeah, this is a good topic of conversation, and just straight-up investing is a great way to utilize that refund, I think.

The worst thing you could do, and it's not even a bad option, but the worst thing you could do is just stick it into your checking account and just look at it every day, depending on the size of the refund and your personal financial situation. Now, if you have personal debt, you may have different goals set in mind for your personal finances.

So, let's say you're sitting on some high credit card debt. I would probably start chipping away at that because nowhere you're going to get a 17% to 22% return. What these interest rates the credit cards company charge, there's [00:09:00] nothing you're going to do that can beat that consistently. That is a guaranteed 17% to maybe 25%, 30% return, depending on the interest rate.

So, you want to look at your debt first. If you are getting a big chunk of money back and saying, "Okay, do I want to tackle some high-yield debt that I have and save some money?"

I mean, that is a great, if you think about it, it's a great ROI because you're eliminating debt.

Mike Pine: And you also think when you are paying down debt versus wanting to invest by paying down debt, you are truly investing in your future. The more debt you can pay down now, the more capital you are freeing up in the future to be able to invest in tax-advantage investments, in high growth stocks, in long-term growth strategies.

So, paying down debt, especially high-interest debt. Don't pay down your 3% mortgage, man. This is coming from a guy who had to twist his arms three years ago to stop paying extra on his mortgage every month.

Because I do love Dave Ramsey. I am a fan. I want to be debt free. Everyone wants to, but go back to our podcast. Go to the episode we did on debt with Stephanie Riley. Not all debt is bad debt.

Mortgage debt is good, especially when you are making money in arbitrage because 3% mortgage on my mortgage, right now, if I pay that down, what I'm choosing to do instead, if I pay that down, I'm choosing to not make 5% or 6% in a money market account.

So, you can truly have arbitrage. There are 5% money market accounts with CDs all over the place, right now. Instead of paying down 3% debt, put it in the money market, use it to pay your interest on that 3% debt, and you're making 2%. That's what's called arbitrage. It's guaranteed moneymaking.

So, like Kevin said, high interest debt- consider that, or consider a little of each.

So, I was just talking to a friend of mine from high school I hadn't talked to in 30 years. He heard one of our podcasts and reached out to me, and he's in Vegas. He's, I mean, he is doing all right. He's struggling, but he is making $83,000 - $84,000 a year in a W2, and he's paying almost $10,000 a year in taxes.

I asked him, "If you could make $10,000 extra this year by saving all those taxes and getting them back, how much would that change your life?" He's like, "I can't even imagine that, Mike. I'm never going to get that kind of bonus or that kind of raise in a couple years. It's not going to happen."

So, I told him about our tax strategy with getting into Turo, going and buying a vehicle that can be bonus depreciated, right? And then renting it on Turo. And the guy's working 45, 50 hours a week, but he's single, doesn't have a family. He's got a little extra time. And ultimately, he is going to do it. He's buying a Turo vehicle, one that's over 6,000 pounds, meets all the rules to be eligible for bonus depreciation.

We're anticipating 100% bonus depreciation is going to come back. He's going to pay about $90,000 for this vehicle. He's only going to pay $4,000 down. The rest of it is [00:12:00] finance, and it's a good finance- it's 0.9%, I think, for 5 years. He's going to take that vehicle and he is going to rent it. He's probably going to work 3, 4, 5 hours a week renting it in the Vegas area.

He's going to get cashflow from it, Lord willing, and I believe he will, because he is going to be serious about this, but he's also going to get a $90,000 tax deduction. And because he is materially participating in this business, he can use that to eliminate his taxable income from his W2 in one year. Just eliminate it, and pay zero federal income tax that year. That's not a bad idea.

So, in this guy's case, he did have a pretty decent refund. He also had saved- he had some decent savings. It was his vacation fund that he hasn't taken a vacation in three years, and he paid $5,000 down on a credit card, which was his only high interest debt, and he put the other, and he is buying this vehicle and going to Turo it- make cash.

And not only is he saving almost $10,000 in federal taxes this year, Kevin, he's probably going to get $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 in cashflow that's going to grow his nest egg. Now, he's going to have more investment money available next year. Maybe he can take that vacation next year and do another tax-advantaged investment.

Tax-advantaged Investments is a great option with your refunds, but there's other things to do.

Kevin Schneider: It just jumpstarts your ROI. You know, like, if you get that tax deduction, and in this example- I love this example- there's a couple things that even it opens up more, is he's a W2 employee, but now he's self-employed. So, now we even have the option to start deducting some other ordinary and necessary expenses.

I'm sure he bought an iPhone in the past year or two. I'm sure he's bought a new computer.

Mike Pine: No. He is buying it after he starts his business. He's got an old iPhone.

Kevin Schneider: Okay, so he's going to start purchasing things that he needs, anyway, for his life. So now, he can actually start looking his life at the angle of, "I'm a business. If I go to the Apple Store and buy a $1,000 iPhone, I can write that off. That's going to save me taxes too."

So, not only do you get the depreciation, you're going to get the other expenses- home office, depending on, you know, you can only take home office as you have profit. So, in the year that we have the bonus, you can't really take a home office. It can't push you further.

But there's going to be so many other expenses that we can capture just from him living his life. Some meals, his cell phone bill, his internet. I mean, whatever it is, we can start funneling some expenses there.

The biggest thing from my angle, I'm not, I'm not the, the risk-taking entrepreneur, such as Mike. So, even in that specific strategy, yeah, there's guaranteed tax benefits to the extent of how much, we don't know yet. We won't know until probably July or August of this year, maybe, with the tax bill.

I'm very hopeful it's going to be 100% bonus, but there's also risks. The risks that you see in here is one- maybe the tax law doesn't come back with 100% and we're not getting as much bonus.

He just took out debt for, seems like, $85,000. Then what if he doesn't cashflow the debt? You know, that is the risk. That's entrepreneurship. [00:15:00] In general, if you start a business and you don't have the cash capital to do it, and you're going to take out money for it..

Now, I love this example just because it was 0.9%. Your interest rate is very low, but the risk is still there, because when you buy this vehicle, you're not going to get your money back for what you paid for it, unless it's a, is it a cyber truck? What is he getting?

Mike Pine: It's a 2-year-old Escalade, I believe.

Kevin Schneider: Okay. Yeah, so that's probably not going to hold value. So, let's say this business goes under in six months. That's his risk, is I can sell this $90,000 vehicle for probably $70,000 now. So, now he's got to come to the table. Maybe he can get some gap insurance or something. There's a ways you can protect yourself, but that's a great example.

If he's saying, "Hey, I'm willing to take some risks. I want to start a business. I want to make some other cashflow." This is a great plan for him, and that's what, I think, that's a beautiful start.

Mike Pine: Now, let's talk about refunds, and what is really happening if you get a tax refund. In reality, what it means is you overpaid the government during the year. You paid too much in taxes.

Another way to look at it, which is very true, very honest, very real- you gave our federal government an interest-free loan for up to a year. Maybe even longer, if you've extended your tax return to get your refund. If the government's not paying you interest, but you could take that same money that you paid the government and put an interest-bearing account, you just lost free money- arbitrage.

If you've got money that you can invest and make money in- in safe investments, I'm talking FDIC-insured or, or full-faith and treasury-backed securities, like T-bills, something that guarantees that you are going to get more money, you're going to get interest, why the heck would you pay the government more than you're going to owe them in taxes?

I don't love that strategy. There are our clients, many of our clients that just want the peace of mind, knowing that will come April 15th. They're not going to have to cut a check. We have other clients that also bank on getting that refund because that's how they pay for their annual vacation, or they pay for something, and they, they're okay.

It's worth the cost of losing the interest they could potentially make. I get that. I don't love that, but I get that, and, and it's okay, if that's the deal. But if you're a W2 taxpayer, and you're getting a refund each and every year, and you don't want to give the government an interest-free loan- you want that money working for you instead of not working for anybody- how do you fix that, Kevin?

Kevin Schneider: Change your withholding. We do this work with some clients who, let's say, we meet with a client, let's say, in Q2 of the year of 2025, and we set a tax plan, and we think, you know, they're a $500,000 W2 earner, and we know that they are going to receive some tax benefits, there's no reason to pay that tax in, and then, just get it refunded next April. We sometimes change their withholding.

So, in an instance where you're just a W2 earner, and [00:18:00] you're just going to work day in, day out. Maybe you're getting yourself out of debt and you're not investing in a tax-advantageous way because you have a different financial plan right now, and let's say you got three kids, and you have a mortgage.

You're donating to your church. You have high deductions. Every year you're getting, like maybe, an $8,000 refund, or a $5,000 refund, or maybe a $10,000 refund. Some commission-based people that we work with, their commissions are withheld at a different rate. They withhold their commissions at a different rate from their normal base pay, and it creates these differences, and taxable income versus withholding, and they're getting these big $20,000 refunds every year.

Go ahead and change your W4 if you can. Now, Mike and I, we just had a conversation about how messed up these W4s are, and going online to the IRS "withholding calculator", it's so hard to pinpoint- I need X amount of taxes out of every check because it doesn't really come out right on the W4.

It's almost like you have to manually calculate it, and tell your HR department, "I want X amount of dollars out of every paycheck." That's probably the best way to do it. But then, that way, if you're getting a $20,000 refund every year, why don't you just tone back your withholdings $2,000 a month, or, and then, you pay the government a little bit at the end of the year.

Mike Pine: An interest-free loan the government would've given you.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah. And so, now, you're receiving $2,000 a month extra cashflow, but instead of getting a $20,000 refund in April, you're going to owe the IRS $4,000. So, there's so many ways to look at this.

Mike Pine: I just want to throw in, you've got to be careful. You can't completely stop withholding, and then, owe a bunch of tax at the end of the year. Well, you can do that, but then, you're going to have to pay the government underpayment on underestimated tax payment penalties and interest. So, you've got to be careful of that.

In a perfect world, you owe the government $1,000 or less, each and every year, when you file your taxes. That means you got a $1,000 interest-free loan from the government that year. So, if it's any more than that, suddenly, the penalties and interest for underpayment are going to start chipping away at it.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah.

Mike Pine: But don't give them an interest-free loan to the government. Please don't do that.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah.

Mike Pine: Unless you're getting something wonderful out of it that is a non-tangible, that's more valuable to you than that interest you could be earning.

Kevin Schneider: And, you know, too, what you said earlier, there is a certain clientele that we do work with, who like the refund. They're not putting every single dollar to work on a treadmill. So, they're just like, "You know what? I kind of like the big bump in April."

And maybe for budgetary reasons, maybe they're not good with money. I'm not saying if you do this, you're not good with money- but generally, they're going to be less disciplined, I think, is just because, "Oh, I'm receiving $2,000 more a month. I'm going to go buy a car. I'm going to go buy a nice car."

It's utilizing your cash wisely, and that's all it is. And as long as you pay 90% of your current tax liability through withholding, you're not going to have any [00:21:00] penalties.

You either pay 90%, or you could pay 100%, or even 110% of prior year tax, and then, you're shielded from penalties, and you could pay the government in April and not incur any underpayment, any interest, any of that. So, um work with your CPA on it.

This may be a great strategy for every W2 earner out there, but it really gets to material dollars if you're, let's say, making $500,000 to a million plus on a W2, fine tuning your withholdings could be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Whereas, if someone's making maybe $50,000 or $30,000 a year, the extra work and getting the extra squeeze of a couple hundred bucks a month might actually be life-changing because you could pay your rent, maybe you can have a little bit more cushion for groceries as the economy's recovering, and groceries are still high.

A couple hundred bucks a month is life-changing to a lot of people. And even if you're making a million dollars, this couple hundred thousand dollars of withholding changes is huge too.

So, we talked about paying down debt. You want to kill the high interest stuff, and this is, like Mike said, very anti-Dave Ramsey, and that's okay. I think Dave Ramsey, from a general standpoint for the general public, it's very good advice. If you're not good with money, Dave Ramsey is the king to go to just to get your financial train on the tracks.

But once you become a little bit more advanced and disciplined with money, arbitrage is great. Certain debt is A-OK. I mean, like Mike said, if you go and buy a rental property and you have some debt, you can even deduct the interest, and it's secured debt by the property, so hopefully, you bought in a good area where the property value's going up. It's secured debt.

So, if ever you get underwater cashflow-wise, just sell the property and it's going to cover the debt plus more. You're going to make money.

So, we talked about arbitrage- the difference between your interest expense and how much you're earning relatively risk-free in the market. We talked about paying down high-yield debt, high-yield interest debt. In relation to that, what else you got, Mike?

Mike Pine: Let's go back to the concept of taking your tax savings, or your tax refund that you just received, and using it to make a tax-advantaged investment. I want to talk about the power of that, the wealth building power of doing something like that.

Not only would you lower your taxes again for the year 2025, not only are you buying an investment that's hopefully going to perform over time and grow, but by paying down or reducing your taxes for 2025, you're going to have that same issue- an opportunity next April in 2026.

You are going to have lower taxes. You might have a bigger refund. You're going to have more money to play with. What do you do then? If you continue to play this out, and snowball this each and every year by buying another tax-advantaged investment, now you have two tax-advantaged investments, two years in [00:24:00] a row.

They're both going up in value, and when you consider the power of compounding, or the time-value of money, in 4 or 5 years- if you do this 4 or 5 years in a row- you are truly snowballing your wealth.

This is where we've seen our clients that are making $250,000 - $300,000 a year, and they started going and buying one small STR (Short-Term Rental) a year, back when interest rates were low, and property taxes were low, and insurance was low.

Back then, they were able to buy this one-a-year, and they were in a job where maybe they, they might be able to work another 20 years and get up to $400,000 a year salary, but they weren't going to really build life-changing generational wealth. But 5 years later, these clients, 8 years later, these clients now have 5 properties, 8 properties.

Some of them have doubled in value over the time. Some of them have only gone up by 30%, but they're up by 30% and all of a sudden, this guy making $250,000 a year has got in 5 years, a million and a half in equity, and he continues. At that point in time, you're maybe making enough cashflow where you could quit your job, or. better yet, don't quit your job, keep your job, but continue to take all that extra cashflow you're making and invest more.

I've seen clients where in the fourth year after buying a, a short term rental four years in a row, in the fourth year, they bought two because they had enough cashflow from their current job, and enough cashflow now from their properties to buy two properties. And suddenly, their growth is just growing exponentially, and suddenly, you can look at retiring at 45, 50 instead of 65, 70, or changing your career.

It's no fun, and life is too short to have a job that you hate, but if it's paying well, and it helps you build a foundation to buy this freedom- financial freedom of yours in the near future- if you're able to do that for a period of time, just make that investment and suck it up with this job for 5, 8 years, get these investments flowing, and then, you have the opportunity to go find a job you love, or start a business you've always wanted to start, and continue growing through these tax-advantaged investments.

It's powerful, man. If you have a big refund this year, and you're wondering what to do with it, and you don't have high-interest debt, make a tax-advantaged investment.

Start snowballing your financial freedom and personal wealth. Make generational wealth. That's how one great way to start doing it- with your tax savings.

Kevin Schneider: That's beautiful. Beautiful.

And I just want to define 'tax-advantaged investments' because maybe you just picked up our podcast. Maybe this is a new concept for you.

Where we're going with this is there's certain investments in certain things that the IRS want to incentivize. They incentivize certain industries and certain types of investments utilizing the Internal Revenue Code, [00:27:00] Treasury regulations.

These things that Congress, and the House, and the President, all try to come up with for tax law, it's to incentivize certain behaviors from the taxpayer. For instance, a tax-advantageous investment is something that you are going to take your cash, invest into something, and lower your taxes.

There's certain industries in the Code, such as materially-participating, short-term real estate, REP status, which is Real Estate Professional status, on long-term real estates. The both of these strategies are drastically different, and have a lot of traps and blind spots. If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to get yourself in trouble.

 It's very simple when you just say it in a sentence, but when you look, lift up the rug and look underneath, what's under there- it's a lot of detail, and a lot of work, but that's what a CPA is for. So, if you want to buy real estate, and you're a W2 employee, and you want to lower your W2 taxes, your taxable income, it makes a difference whether you buy long-term or short-term real estate.

And so, you need to know the differences of those. One's going to be tax-advantageous for you, and one is not. You know, oil and gas is one that Mike and I love. Mike and I do oil and gas every year. We believe so much in the oil and gas industry, and the oil and gas tax benefits, that we started our own oil and gas fund for us and our clients.

It's just an easy way to invest money into our country's natural resource production, and get strong deductions against your W2 income. And then, you get more tax-advantaged income off oil and gas investing via depletion. So, it's almost double-advantaged. You're not even paying tax on every dollar you receive as income from an oil and gas well. It's beautiful.

And so, those are kind of examples of what a tax-advantaged investment is. What is not a tax-advantaged investment is paying down debt that's not going to save you on your taxes. Um.

Mike Pine: It might be a good investment, though.

Kevin Schneider: It might be a good investment, but it's not a tax-advantaged investment. Sure.

Also, buying um stocks, like we were talking about earlier in the podcast, going and buying stock is not a tax-advantaged investment, but the IRS actually has advantages built into it.

If you hold a stock investment for 12 months or longer, you're going to get what's called capital gain treatment, which is a lower tax rate than if you buy stock and sell it, and then buy it again, sell it again, and you do day trading, or you're doing these really short buy and holds in the stock market, that's going to be ordinary income- all the gain.

Whereas, if you hold it for a year or longer, you're going to get a capital gain rate, which could be 0%, it could be 15%, it could be 23.8%, too. So, you get tax-advantaged holding periods on stock, but you don't get a tax-advantaged investment right off the get go.

Mike Pine: Right. And also on dividends- if they're qualified dividends, you're going to get the long-term capital gains tax rate for those qualified dividends. So, [00:30:00] there are some tax advantages in stock, but like Kevin said, it doesn't give you an immediate bang for your buck. You won't get a refund because you made that investment this year, or significant reduction in your taxes this year.

That will give you more money to invest in the next investment.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, what we love, as you know, it's tax CPAs, and we always preach on the strength of a team, having a financial advisor, an attorney, a CPA, all working with you to make sure everything's covered, because if you come to Mike or I, or anyone on our team, what we're going to do is going to say, "I want your taxes as low as possible. That's my job."

The financial advisor is going to come along and say, "Hey, I love that, but there's some weaknesses in there from a long-term planning perspective, their cashflow. There's maybe some risks the client doesn't want to take," and they help bridge the gap because I would love for your taxes to be zero, but a financial advisor saying, "Yeah, but we can grow their net worth a little quicker by investing in here." Or whatever, which may not be tax-advantaged.

So, if you come to us, what we're going to do is present to you options to get your taxes as low as possible. I want cash to come out of your bank account into an investment. I want ROI on that cash that went out, and I want your tax bill to be dropping because the tax bill dropping is going to immediately provide you an ROI.

And so, that's what we love, but the financial advisor may have a different viewpoint, which is why we always have the team. And so, just be thinking about that. If you're curious, please reach out to us. We would love to just have a free conversation with you.

Have a conversation with Mike or I personally. We would love to just get to know you, see, kind of, what your situation is. Maybe you have some tolerance for some risk, like we did in the Turo example. Maybe that's too risky for you, and you're like, "I want some more stable, tax-advantaged investments."

We can walk you through some options there too.

Mike Pine: You have a lot of options. We mentioned a bunch of them, but there's still a lot more options that we didn't have a chance to discuss here.

Like Kevin said, form a team. Form a financial growth strategy team- a financial advisor, a tax strategist, and if you're going to be getting into different businesses, or alternative investments, a good attorney.

Get that team together, and figure out what to do with your tax savings and your refund.

Kevin Schneider: And it's okay to take some of that refund on the roulette. Don't go crazy. Have fun out there. This is why we're doing our work. Go on, take your family on vacation. Go eat a nice meal. Enjoy what you've done. And if you want to tip your CPA or your tax strategist, that's fine and well too, so..

Mike Pine: Just don't tip the federal government.

Kevin Schneider: Don't tip the government!

Mike Pine: Yeah, there you have it. Hidden money in your tax refunds. Thanks for being here. We'll see you on the next episode of Hidden Money.