205 ⎸ Protecting Your Clients from Audits with Ex-Irs Auditor Adrian Lopez

In this episode, I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with Adrian Lopez, a former IRS revenue agent turned CPA, who just left the IRS last month to start his own practice. Adrian pulls back the curtain on what really happens during IRS audits and shares insider secrets that every bookkeeper and business owner needs to know.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• The real audit triggers that most people don't know about (hint: it's not filing extensions!)
• Why construction contractors and real estate investors are being targeted more frequently
• How the IRS uses algorithms and financial status analysis to select audit candidates
• What documentation and systems keep businesses safe from IRS scrutiny
• The steps that practically guarantee a "no change" audit

Meet Adrian Lopez

Adrian Lopez is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a former IRS Revenue Agent.

During his tenure with the IRS, he audited a wide range of self-employed individuals and small business owners, including dentists, doctors, construction contractors, restauranteurs, manufacturers, wholesalers, tax preparers, real estate professionals, landlords, money managers, and farmers.

Now, Adrian is launching his own tax and accounting practice, dedicated to serving individuals, families, and small businesses.

He offers a comprehensive suite of services, including individual and business income tax preparation, audit representation, advisory and consulting services, tax planning, and bookkeeping.

Connect with Adrian Lopez

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianl1996/

Website: https://www.anlcpa.com/

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Transcript

1:04

You're listening to episode 2 0 5 of the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast. Today I have a guest joining me. you are going to be introduced to Adrian Lopez, an XIRS revenue agent. A while back, I actually did a podcast episode with another XI IRS revenue agent slash auditor, towards the beginning of my podcast. And I thought we were due to bring on. Someone again, to talk about more things IRS auditing, especially as things have been shaken up in our world and the IRS world and everything lately. So I wanted to get someone that had been in the trenches more. Recently, so that's why I'm bringing Adrian Lopez on. He is going to share his experiences and observations from his time at the IRS in recent years. He is elaborating in this interview on his journey into the accounting field. He talks about the role and responsibilities of an IRS agent and is sharing some insights on common audit triggers and taxpayer mistakes. And so I know you're really gonna wanna listen to this episode, share it with your clients, all the things. He, also emphasizes the importance of accurate bookkeeping, proper documentation, all the things we already know. additionally, Adrian talks about his transition to starting his own tax and accounting practice and In this discussion, we also cover the benefits of working with qualified professionals and maintaining client communication and the intricacies of different types of audits, such as those involving real estate and. Construction contractors. So if you are in the real estate niche or the contractor's niche, this is definitely going to be an episode you wanna listen to. And even if you're not, there's so much valuable information in this episode that we dive into. I cannot wait for you to listen in and take the notes and this episode with anyone you think it's going to be valuable. so I'll see you on the other side. In the interview with Adrian Lopez. Welcome, Adrian to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast. How are you today? Good. Good. Happy Thursday. Thank you for having Yeah, yeah, in the middle of summer with kids at home and all the things. So we'll see how this goes. That's right. I was really excited to, I put out a, like a call for an XIRS agent to come on the podcast. I had one a while back. I'll link that in the, the show notes. But Adrian here, you were an IRS revenue agent. what did they actually call you, I guess? That's, that's correct. So, so I was, I was at the IRS, um, I was there for about two and a half years, and their small business and self-employed division, basically the, the dreaded field, the field auditor, you know, they come out to your business or they come out to your home. so that was, that was my role. so I did that for, for two and a half years, auditing small business, self-employed taxpayers, you know, uh, people with rentals, landlords, brokers, restaurant people, you know, all, all sorts of, of different taxpayers from all walks of life. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you, this is the fun part of the story of like, how did you actually get to that career position, I guess. yeah, yeah. So, I, but believe it or not, I, I. Was, it was never my intention to be an accountant, honestly. I actually wanted to go to law school way back when, and the cost of law school deterred me greatly. So I kinda looked around and I, I, I saw this thing, you know, accounting and CPAs and, and all that. So I kind of went down that path. Instead, I got a master's in accounting. I worked as a financial auditor for the state of California. I eventually, pivoted from there to go to public accounting and, and started doing, uh, public accounting tax. And I did, I did public accounting attacks for about two years. when was this? This was back in 22. The IRS was hiring revenue agents and I didn't really know anything about it. I never heard about it, and so applied for the position. As, you know, in federal government, it takes like six or eight months to get a job. You know, you kind of send the application, you just let it go, and. You know, we'll see what happens. And so I kind of just, I just kept getting through the steps. I was doing, you know, public accounting tax season, you know, working 50, 60 hours a week at a small firm over here in the Sacramento area. And eventually I did get the job. I had done the interview and I got the job and they're like, Hey, you wanna come work for us? And I was like, as an auditor? Yeah, sure. You I. I, I figured, you know, not, not that I, I mean public accounting and tax especially, it's hard, especially when you're first learning and, and, and working at a boutique firm like that. And so I figured, okay, maybe now is my chance now or never to kind of find out what's the other side look like. know, what's, what's that other, what's that other IRS side? What's the government side? Everybody says, oh, it's great experience. And you'll learn, you'll learn the system, you'll see behind the veil. And so I was like, okay, alright. So went to go do that. And that was enough of a draw for you? it was, I mean, not, not that I couldn't learn a lot in public accounting. You know, there's, there's a lot of really knowledgeable people in public accounting. I will say though, every, even even professionals, you know, other CPAs, tax attorneys, s you know, taxpayers are saying like, dude, that, that could be a good experience. Like, especially if you wanna maybe have your own firm someday. That former Yeah. moniker is pretty powerful. Um, it seems to hold, just this, this credibility with the public, I guess. And Yeah. learn a lot. You know, they, they, they give a lot of specialized training., Maybe I could go a little more into that. Mm-hmm. about that, you know, that don't know that any public accounting firm gives that kind of specialized training. You know, I went to four phases of classroom training. You know, you have to have like three exams each to pass. Um, they teach on C corporations. That's corporations, partnerships. You know, they, they teach you on, you have two different classrooms, a 10 40 training. I mean, they literally send you to a classroom for like three weeks. Wow. it's like you have, you know, to keep your job, like you have to pass these exams and you have to have to get to the objectives, and you have instructors and you have other revenue agent trainees there. It, it literally feels like a tax university Yeah. And I don't know of really any body public accounting or otherwise that does that. Yeah, I just, I just don't, yeah, heard of Deloitte University and things, but I don't, I don't see, it was good training. I think it was good training anyway. Uh, some yeah. it, but I don't know. I passed the flying colors. I don't know if that makes me special. I don't think so. But It means you're dedicated. so you did, you joined the IRS in 2022. did. Mm-hmm. At the time of this recording, it's 2025. So what happened in between, let's see. I joined the IS in November, November, 2022. I went through all their, their phases of classroom training. I did dozens of audits, real estate people, landlords, restaurants. I actually audited tax preparer. That was kind of interesting. you audited the tax preparers work or the tax preparers? Tax returns. so I actually, yeah, so I, I actually, I was lucky to do both actually. They have a program where you do audit their work and their work papers. There's Oh. know, requirements that tax practitioners have to have when it comes to, like, for example, e-file signature forms. You know, you, you can't file a return on behalf of somebody without having that signed. And, you know, there's a program where we go in and kinda take a look at, oh yeah, show me your 88 79. You know, are they signed? Do you have them documented? Let me see your written information, security plan. You know, and, and you get to, you kind of tick off when, when, when preparers don't have that kinda stuff. And then I, I was fortunate, I guess fortunate to, to do an audit actually, of a tax preparer. What's funny is he, so he was filing tax returns for people, but he had been delinquent himself for like three or four years. Yeah, you know, my, a colleague of mine got the case, filed a return for him, and then he's like, oh no, I'll file it. Don't worry. It's like, well, did you like three years delinquent? You know, what is that like? What is the ramifications of that? Because I know as in order to get your Efin and your Pten and the CPA, like you have to agree that you are current on your tax returns. that's, that's, that's right. That's correct. so long story short, from what I recall, he was not a CPA, he was not an ea. He was actually one of those unenrolled preparers. So maybe just a P 10. Here in California, there is like a, a ctec, a certified registered tax preparer that you have to have, you know, to, to be able to file returns here. I believe he had that if I, if I recall correctly, if I memory serves me correct. but yeah, he was delinquent. He hadn't filed, I think he was delinquent from 21 onward. And so we came in, we were gonna do a substitute for return form for 21, and he's like, oh, no, no. Here, here I'll, I'll file it. You know, here it Yeah.'cause when you guys do a substitute return, you're basically only claiming income and no expenses, right? essentially. Essentially. Yeah. Yeah. And so. We, we, yeah. So we, we, we were gonna do a substitute for return. We kinda got started with that. He gave us, he eventually started cooperating, gave us records, that kind of thing. And my, my understanding, don't quote me on this. We, we do have a, um, like a return coordinator person at, at the IRS, occasionally, that person, assuming was rising to the level where they could actually shut off your efin, does happen. I, I don't wanna speak, you know, that, that happens often. But we did have a contact person at the IRS that like, okay, if you're investigating a tax return preparer, say they're not being compliant, they're not being cooperative. That kind of thing. there is an administrative process actually say, okay, look, shut off that guy's infant. He can't file returns anymore. Continue, you know, trying to talk to him again, him to cooperate. I thought that was really interesting. I didn't know that. Like the, IS had a process for that. That's good to know. the, the modernized default system, know, basically is at the IRS's leisure. Like they're not. Required to let you use it. There are regulations and requirements that they can impose on a tax return preparer and they will shit off your efin. If, if say for example, you're delinquent or you're not cooperating, you're obstructing an investigation or an audit, that kind of thing. I didn't know the IRSI could do that. Yeah. I mean that's good to honestly, cool. You but in order for it to get to that point, you have to have already been in an audit process or can people get to that point by just being reported? my understanding is it's, it's both. my understanding is the return preparer office, they do receive complaints from, taxpayers, other professionals, that kind of thing. Hey, this person is, you know, a ghost preparer. They're doing stuff they're not supposed to be doing. And the return preparer office, they kind of have mechanisms and goals for. Dealing or looking into those kind of preparers. It obviously with staffing manpower, it, it's hard to go after all of them. You know? Yeah. if you're somebody who's getting a lot of different complaints, a lot of different referrals, probably you're gonna be a person of interest. Sometimes it's a volume thing. I've worked on an Irish criminal investigation where we had a fraudulent preparer. He was filing like thousands of returns a year with false Schedule Cs, false schedule a's false withholdings. and that was of interest to the criminal investigation division. I think just 'cause the, the, the monetary ramifications, Yeah. Volume. should I say, if you're doing less than thousands of fraudulent returns, you're safe. No, I don't wanna say that, you know, but I think there's just, there's a, um, it's hard. It's hard. Yeah. I can't say what they focus on, what they don't. I don't, I don't work in the return of our office, but Right. I really do believe, I want to tell you and the public and other practitioners, if you're seeing something that's not good going on. I do encourage you, submit a referral, submit a form, fax it to where it's supposed to go, mail it to where it's supposed to go. If you and a few other people are doing that, especially over a period of time, are offices of the IRS that are watching for that kind of thing, and they, Yeah. Yeah, you know, setting things in motion., I don't want people to think like, oh, it goes into the nether and nothing ever happens. It's like, it does. Those are, those are good leads. Those are yeah, for, for investigations and for repairs and, and fraudulent repairers, ghost repairs. You know, those are good mechanisms. You know, they, yeah. They do. That is really good to know because you know, we stumble upon things. Subpar preparers. yeah. I'm sure. You know, you've got, you've got clients, you've got people, you know, with financials this. Then you're like, dude, what did this person do? You know? And you, you look at copies of tax returns and you see like, Ooh, this was, this was not good. You know, Yeah. You've, we've all seen it. We've all seen Yeah, We've, we. absolutely. So shifting into more towards, like, since our audience here are mostly bookkeepers and accountants that probably aren't preparing taxes, but even if you are, this is a great, great thing to listen to, or if you're wanting to prepare taxes, what are some of the things that you think were triggers for audits? For one, because I know that's always a big question. Like there's a lot of misconceptions of like, oh, if I file an extension, is that an audit trigger? If I am an S corp, is that an audit trigger? Like what are some of the things that can trigger an audit? Or is it purely random? I, I will say, this is a hard question for me because, let me, let me put it this way. I was very good at what I did as a IRS revenue agent. There was rarely a tax return that came across my desk that I didn't have adjustments for right now. Does that speak to the return or to me as a professional? Honestly, it's kind of hard for me to say. You know, I don't want to put out there that like, oh, if you, if you know you do this, these certain things, you'll be safe from an audit. Or like, oh, you do these certain things, you know, you're definitely gonna be audited. It, it is, there is a degree of randomness to it, you know? I can't speak to it is just, it's just hard. I don't, I never wanted taxpayers to believe, oh, you did something wrong. That's why I'm showing up at your business. That's why you got a letter in the mail. I, I never wanted that perception.'cause it's, it's scary. As a taxpayer, I wanted to be professional and, and I wanted to educate the taxpayer on, look, this is how you do things better. This is, this is how, uh, I could see here there's a mistake made here. You know? Um, it was always from like an education and a compliance perspective. I didn't wanna like shake people down. I will say there were some things. I started to see that were similar across all audits. Most of the time it was either you had unreported income, right? Some 10 99 that wasn't reported, or something like that. You know, a 10 99 K, a ten nine NEC. There was something out there that that's like, okay, that was kind of an easy pickup. It's not, it's not on the return when it should be. Okay. other times there were, I will say, large expenses, like when, for example, like a taxes line item on a return is like huge, but like, there's like minimal wages. It's like, okay, so what exactly, what, taxes were those was in sales. A lot of times it was like sales tax, you know, you, it's including gross receipts. You back it out on the, on the taxes down below. let's see, sometimes operating losses, you know, if you have a, a business with an ordinary business loss, a Schedule C net loss, things like that. If it was like egregious or something could, I would say, could be a red flag. I don't wanna say that it is, it could be a red flag. Those are, those were always hints to us as revenue agents. Okay. Take a look at those things. I will say also, particularly with sole proprietors and Schedule Cs, the IRS and their audit process and audit procedures has somebody look at what is called financial status. you pay your mortgage with funds outta your business? Can you pay, you know, your grocery bill? You know, do you have enough money for your own clothes, for your car maintenance expenses, like all your personal living expenses, right? I, I will say that's something that kind of, I keep in mind, like just your sources of funds, cash, debt, credit cards, whatever. I've stumbled across tax returns where there's like no profit in their Schedule C business, and yet the person lives in like a five or $600,000 house, you know, with like a mortgage. We can see the mortgage interest on there. We can see they're paying their property taxes, they're paying their homeowners mortgage insurance and all that. And, and you know, we, we just, it's like I'm gonna come and be like, where's the hidden income? It's Right. like, how exactly are you paying for all this? If your Schedule C is like no net profit, you know what I mean? Like little things like that Yeah. could be an indicator. Okay, maybe that person is at a higher risk of an audit. I understand as a bookkeeper, as a tax preparer, it's not your job to audit your clients. Right. It's just that is something the Iris looks at. I think a lot of people don't realize that. They're Yeah. Yeah. mean? I have debt and I have loans and I have credit cards, this and that. And it's like, well, yeah, I get it. That's the business side. Do you have enough money to fund your mortgage? Can you pay for your kids' daycare? Yeah. and then what? The revenue we just gonna ask is how, explain it to me. Show it to me. How do you have the funds to do this? Because you're saying your business has like a net loss or barely breaks even. Where's this other stuff coming from? You know? And some, sometimes it's nothing. Sometimes they do get gifts, they have loans, they have a hiring earning spouse, they got inheritance. You name it. There's always, there's always different explanations. Sometimes it's unreported income. I'll be yeah, That's true. You know, unreported tips. Say if you're a restaurateur, honestly, I hate to say it. Construction contractors, subcontractors, general contractors, they get paid in cash sometimes? Absolutely, they do. hundred percent. I've seen it. things like that, like, you know, we wanna believe our clients, but that's, it's sometimes those are key areas to kinda look into. I think it's gonna depend on what type of client you have. so that can actually trigger an audit because the IRS has. I'm assuming some software that takes people's personal returns with their Schedule C and does some math and figures out like, okay, things don't add up. Is that what happens? Or are people like manually reviewing things? So, yeah, so, basically I understanding, I, I will admit, I, I didn't work in the return, the return classification department. That wasn't, that wasn't something Okay. gave me the work on my desk. I did learn Right. bit about kind of how it works. Um, you might have heard of like the diffs score, Okay. system. Um, basically, I think it's called like the discriminant function system. So essentially the IRS has like a data and tables of this algorithm. The diff score, it'll assign a diff score to returns. It'll even do it, I think by zip code, by like city, by zip code of like, okay, we have Schedule Cs for, you know, contractors. They're all kind of reporting line items in this range. Fun fact, we have one that kind of seems above the rest as Yeah. it's, it's rated as higher. Just, it means, I guess it, my understanding is it means it's kind of a return of note. It's Yeah, than it, so it's like comparing like industry benchmarks for different line items. It's like, oh, their wages are way higher than normal, or their meals are way higher. right, that's right. That's my understanding of the system. And so it just, the system will note, Hey, this return is just different than the rest of 'em. Yeah. item on here, there's something that's a little off or a little different. Occasionally I think it'll leave a report, Hey, they have a missing 10 99. That seems kinda material. Maybe we should send that to audit. It just kind of handpicks a couple of these. it's not a perfect system from my understanding. Uh, sometimes it'll pick a return that there's nothing there. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong. Going back to the selection process, my understanding is that it picks up these kind of a couple returns, these, these returns, and that's sent to a classification team where you, you're right, a human will actually kind of take a look at it and say, okay, is this worth it to send to the audit team? is that something that we should actually be spending our time on? Sometimes they'll throw it away. They're like, nah, it's not materially enough. Don't worry about it. You know, maybe the gross receipts aren't enough, or, there might be some obvious explanation on there somehow. kind of depends, kind of depends on what it is. You know, for example, you might've heard, under the Biden administration, there was kind of a, an objective to audit more higher income, higher well taxpayers, basically anybody with over$400,000 of either total positive income or taxable income, that kind of thing. So sometimes that would affect the classification, revenue agent's decision, right? Like, oh, small beans, this is too small. We're not gonna audit that. Oh, we have another return over here. The guy's got a million dollars. Maybe we should audit that instead. You know, was background of the Biden administration. I think I saw firsthand the results of that. My understanding was the returns that I was given as both training returns and also helping colleagues with their returns. I've trained other train revenue agent trainees on their returns. I started to hear from the, some of the old timers, you know, the senior agents is they're like, dude, the stuff that you're getting is like way more complicated than the stuff I got when I was first on this job. Interesting. I believe that might have to do with sort of, like I said, under the Biden administration, there was just this aim to go after sort of higher income hire taxpayers. And I have to imagine that's kind of the explanation of it. I did see more complicated stuff, you know, decent sized desk corporations, you know, construction contractors, interior design people, people with like 30 rentals, you know, he's got like two LLCs with rentals and he is got this other thing going on. a schedule C with like five or$6 million in gross receipts. He's like a contractor guy, you know, just, just things like that, you know, A lot of the seniors tell me that's just, that's just more complicated than what I got one LC, you know, when I was your Yeah. you know, you know, so. Yeah. And it could be a matter of too, like people are just getting more savvy too, the tax loopholes or just like operating their businesses in more complex ways because there's people out there teaching some funky shit. I, I believe that too. I, I want to, I want to believe, let's be honest, this world is more complicated now. Be with ai, with, you know, overseas sales, the different types of sales tax regimes and, and nexus rules and all that. The world is a lot more integrated, a lot more complicated. E-commerce is so much more prevalent these days, and so I, I think, you know, I, I want to believe that yes, you'll still have your sole props and your, your, your small mom and pop shops, but running businesses these days is just more complicated. And so I think the caliber of audits just have to be higher. I, I don't know. You can go back to sort of the churn and burn small mom and pop audits and, and be successful. I don't, Yeah, yeah, interesting where the agency's gonna take that, you know, with the shakeup at the federal government level. I just, I don't know. yeah. So a couple of questions came to mind as we were talking when you were auditing Once. Once things were selected, you did mention that you saw some commonalities among the businesses you were auditing. and so were like, was it the size of the business that was the common thing? Was it that they, like what were some of the I don't know, statistics, I guess, of the businesses that you audited and the commonalities? I will say I did audit a lot of people that had either to do with like construction contractors or a lot of people that, that were involved in real estate. Mm-hmm. for example, the real estate participation rules and real estate professional rules are pretty complicated and there's a lot of. Taxpayers involved in real estate that kind of don't meet those rules. And so they would come across our desk and we're like, oh dude, you, you know, you did a cost segregation study and you have all this depreciation and you took it a hundred percent against your W2 income. Guess what? You actually don't meet the rules. So that, that was kind of a big tax bill for them, unfortunately. To that note, there are firms that are specifically going after and help helping people do these cost segregation studies. So do you think that like created an influx of that? Yeah, I think it does. I think because I understand cost segregation firms, they, they specialize in those studies and they want people to, to, to get the benefit of their depreciation on their buildings, whether it's commercial, mm-hmm. I just, I would caution taxpayers like, look, the, the rules to meet the real estate professional designation the election are, are steep for. I think for a very specific reason is, is a lot of room there for people to kind of be getting deductions and benefit to their, to their taxes that maybe they shouldn't be. So is that the result of a lot of the audits that you did that the, you had to back that out or? yes, yes, it was, honestly. Yeah, I've, I've, I've probably given people bankruptcy inducing money because of, because of some of that. For example, it might be, couple who's a doctor, you know, like the, the couple's a doctor. The wife's like a stay at home mom, or she like homeschools her children. And they have like four or five rentals in Florida managed by a property rental company, you know, or property management company, sorry. And they're taking, they claim that they're a real estate professional and she's like communicating with the property manager and, you know, they, they sometimes she has to, you know, pay bills and, and this and that and all that kinda stuff, or sign off on like a new tenant's coming in or new tenant's coming out. And they'll, they'll claim the real estate professional status and there's, there's depreciation, deductions, you know, this and that, whatever repairs of maintenance, you name it. and it's like, well, under the rules, person probably did not qualify. They didn't meet the hours test there's also, I don't wanna get too much, and it's, it's tax law or anything, but there's, there's another component where it's like, you have to spend 50% of your time or more in a real estate trader business that could include rentals. And it's like, well you, you told me that you were a stay at home mom, right? And you homeschooled your kids and that requires your time. That's like almost a personal service you're performing. How exactly did you spend more than half your time in your real estate business? You know, like, like there's, Yeah, like that, you that's tricky these days too, because like I know for myself, my profession is bookkeeping and accounting, but I do not spend more than half of my, I mean, it's like. It is debatable, like what is constitutes your time? Because like of the time I'm working, I spend half my time on my bookkeeping business, the other half on the other business, but I don't, among the two of 'em, I don't work full time. I don't work 40 hours a week. So it's like, that's the other debate of like, there's things in technology these days that make things so much more efficient, but like, I'm making a full-time income. Am I working full-time? No. So it's like, yeah. how do you argue that too? right. There's, there's a lot of nuances like Yeah. um, that's why I encourage anybody who's, who either thinks they qualify as a real estate professional or there, there may be hearing from some of these. firms that specialize in cost segregation studies, or we can save you taxes or this and that, whatever. It's like, look, just, just talk to a, please talk to a paid professional, okay? Don't, let the cost psych people tell you that you can take these deductions. Yeah. psych people sell you this thing. Go, go get another second opinion from a certified professional about this, okay? Please. Otherwise, I don't want people like me coming across your door. You know, Yeah, that's really good to hear because real estate is becoming, It's huge. It's it's huge right now for just the regular people like us that are like, it's like another stream of income, like, yeah. crazy, Yeah. crazy to think about. Never even consider. I highly encourage taxpayers just, you know, I, I get it. You guys want to pay your fair share of taxes, I understand. But please consult with a paid professional and be your own best advocate for yourself, you know? do the legwork and, and ask the questions from your paid professional. Okay, can we actually do this? Are we gonna get myself on halt water? What's going on? You know, um, you're gonna have a lot of different professionals that are gonna give you a lot of different answers, a lot of different, some are more conservative than others, some are more aggressive, you know, It's just like doctors, like you've got, don't just go around and find, ask for the opinion until you get the answer that you want. Go and ask different professionals their opinion and actually the source of the law. Like this isn't just a necessarily an opinion thing anymore. It's like the law. So it's like, don't just just go to the person that is gonna give you the answer you want. That's right. go to the person who actually has understanding of the law and what's acceptable and like right. yeah. Know the risks. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like I said, I would, I would, you know, I'm, I think I'm fortunate that me, as, as somebody with my CPA and professional qualifications and experience in my training at the IRS. I am one of those professionals. I, I can't guarantee that your neighborhood per, you know, CPA down the street can answer some of these questions for you. Yeah. why I really encourage taxpayers to be your own best advocate about what you do, what your business is like, what your investments look like, whether it's real estate, you know, brokerage, securities, you know, that kind of thing. I, I highly encourage them to be their own best advocate. Get out there, talk to pay professionals that know what they're talking about, specialize in that niche, and, and I think it'll be in good hands. I, I can't guarantee it'll be cheap though, Yeah, that's the thing. You get what you like, you get what you pay for you pay for. the whole triangle thing where it's like you can get, fast and cheap or cheap in whatever It's like, it's like fast, cheap, um, quality pick quality. That's the other one. Yeah. So you can't have all three. yeah, yeah. It's true. It's true. There are no answers in life. Only trade offs. You. so it sounds like a lot of the businesses, so construction was one of 'em. What was the trigger with construction? Was it a similar like type of thing that was triggering these audits? You, you know, I will say, like for example, it kinda depends if it was like a big, if it was a more bigger contractor, general contractor, you know, they had like a professional customer resource management system, a professional supplies ordering module in there. You know, it tracked all the jobs, you know, on on, and their accounts receivable and all that. Tracked it pretty good those were actually okay. those contractors, I think they did good business. They, they did good quality work they really spent the time and spent the money on a good bookkeeper, on a good pr, uh, uh, customer resource management software, project management software for quotes and billing. they spent the money and the time on making sure that it was cool. You know, I don't wanna speak to say that every contractor isn't like that. I understand. Construction and contracting, it could be a volatile industry. Income can go up and down. Expenses can go up and down. Things can change very quickly. And I just, I would encourage contractors and people working against construction, you know, put in the time, put in the money that it's gonna take to get all that documented and, all the financials, clean the books up to date, you know, you're tracking your payables and your receivables. Well, cause it, it's easy for things to get messy in construction. You know, you got subcontractors, you got contract labor for the day. Somebody wants to pay you in cash. They ask you, do you accept a cash discount? And you're like, you wanna say no, but you're like, well, you know, you're gonna save me on the processing fee. You know? I get it. I understand. I get it. You know, there's, there's a, a fluidity to things I understand. like I said, some of the bigger. Construction people. They, they, they did. Okay. other small timers, you know? Yeah. There was usually unreported cash income, you know, uh, there was one gentleman, he got mostly, mostly paid by check. did get some cash income. And you know, what he would do is he had a church that he had tithes to. so a lot of the, a lot of that cash income he would give to his church, you know, And then try to a donation. Yes, exactly. And, um, and, and, you know, and so we would, we, me, me and a senior agent, uh, uh, you know, that I was working with, we, we, we looked at everything and we're like, dude, this ain't lining up man. What you're telling me you gave to the church and what your gross receipt are, what your margin is on the jobs. Like, dude, this isn't, isn't lining up, man. You know, and we, we had no choice but to conclude like, look, there's some cash income that's, that's missing here. You know, you don't even have contemporaneous written acknowledgements from the church about everything you gave, you know, like it was just, it was, it was messy, you know? Like that was, I guess that was kind of a unique case, but maybe not so much. I I have to imagine a lot of construction contractors and subcontractors and stuff. Do they get paid in cash by the customers? Absolutely. They probably do. You know, like we, I get it. Customers and, and contractors. You wanna try and save your client where you can, you wanna get paid up front in cash when you can. I, I understand, you know, when, when I get work done at my house, like, don't get me wrong, sometimes they say no, but I'm like, look man, you got a cash discount. And occasionally the guy's like, yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know what I mean? It's, I get it. I understand. Yeah. I, I encourage any taxpayer, you know, please just, just do your due diligence, keep track of everything. Pay a bookkeeper, you know, pay a professional to do it. Or at least to help you, maybe, Mm-hmm. uh, keep the books clean, you know, it's important. You, you know as well. Yeah. with bookkeeping. That's your trade, that's your profession. It's important. Yeah. Unfortunately a lot of businesses don't understand that. That's another reason why I like recording these podcasts.'cause I'm like, this is one that will get sent to clients so that they can understand better, like how important this is. one of the other things that you mentioned earlier on those like line items that trigger the algorithm is sa is taxes being high? And, and you said sometimes it's sales tax. So is that, I mean, I personally know we have situations where, our clients don't. charge sales tax exclusively so it doesn't show up as a separate thing on the invoice. And we have to kind of calculate it after the fact and they eat the cost because of the limitations with their checkout feature or whatever. That's right. That's right. So we end up, that's where we reconcile the difference of when, you know, things are not adding up and it should have been sales tax and then they pay the sales tax, but we have to put it somewhere. Right. Yep. So, Exactly. That does so that does happen for some of our clients. Is that something that as long as you can prove it, it's fine yeah, I mean, for example, lemme put it this way, um, I've, I've audited restaurants that exactly, that's exactly how it was, right? Is they're like, look, we'll figure it out in the back end. They had a POS system and, and so they tried to tie everything out the best they could. Were they, were they the best at it? No, honestly they weren't. so a lot of the times that's what I would do, is go back to their POS system and their POS records, their dailies from, from the day of sales. And I'd literally just look at, okay, look, I'm gonna total up 365 days. This is what your tips were. This is what your revenue was, this is what sales tax says it should have been. Yeah. And, and a lot of the times I would tie it out to the books and, you know. Honestly, it, it wouldn't match most of the time. The occasionally the sales tax, they actually should have paid more and they should have remitted more than what they did. Oftentimes. They deducted too much, you know, they try to throw tips in there. You know, there's all sorts of, kind of, kind of little mishaps that happen. Yeah. so I would say, yeah, you, you gotta, you gotta be able to back it up with some sort of POS system, you know? How do you, one of the things as a revenue agent is my job was to understand how do you make money? Walk me through it. I'm a customer. I come into your restaurant. What system are you putting my order in? Where does the ticket print out? Does it even print out? You know, is it electronic? Is it computer screen in the back? The cooks are, cook up the food right there and just, you know, bumping the transaction when it's, when it's cooked. You know, that was one of my jobs. And, we would come in and ask somebody, oh yeah, can you show me this on the p and l or, uh, sorry, on the POS system, you know, show me, put, put it in an order, you know, let me see the ticket that comes out in the back. that was how I understood people's businesses. And, sometimes you, you would notice things like, oh, that's. That's interesting, you know? Oh, look at that. That's interesting. You know, Yeah. back stuff up or you, have the back of the source doc, whatever, whatever it is, the, the PS sales report, better than nothing. Yeah. because honestly, I mean, at the end of the day, I'll, I can't tell you how many times where, you know, somebody doesn't have support for something and our conclusion is just like, look man, you're not entitled to the deduction if you can't back it up. That's just how it is. Like, okay, yeah, you paid money to C-D-T-F-A, can you prove how much it was and what was for, without the proper documentation and all that? It's like, you know, sorry, like, how do I know this number's Right. Yeah, you gotta prove that for, for the burden of deduction is always on the taxpayer. You know? yeah. It's, it's a steep burden at times. It, it really is. know, Yep. like I said, I encourage taxpayers and anybody with businesses, self-employed, small businesses. You know, please do your due diligence. Have a good qualified bookkeeper, have a good CPA or EA helping you out. It's worth it, Yeah, absolutely. okay. So one of the other things too that I have a question about. Last time I interviewed an XIRS auditor, we talked about some of, the audits that came out, like clean or successful, I guess where there wasn't, there was minimal adjustments. It sounds like you had adjustments on every audit you had because you're very thorough. But if you could say that some of them came out as best they could because people were able to support the transactions and all that kind of stuff, what were some of the like systems that they used that were successful that made it easier or any kind of like commonality among those?, the audits that most of the time I saw that were no changes. Uh, you know, they, everything was documented. Well. They had, uh, an UpToDate QuickBooks. For sure. They had the bank reconciliations matching the balance sheet. They had AP AR schedules that were timely. They weren't, you know, they didn't have super stale stuff. You know, everything was, kind of categorized timely. I could sample a couple things. They could get me the invoices, the documents, you know, quickly add everything denoted on there. They could give me canceled checks if I wanted 'em. I mean, it makes a world of difference, especially when the, when the p and l and the balance sheet tied to the tax return in the first place. Okay. You got a couple booked. Booked to tax differences. ideally, I have maybe the accountants work papers anyway about what can a book to tax differences there were ties out. Hey, schedule CF Profit. We're good man. Ties out. We're cool. I can rely on the books. I can test the books. Lemme look at your bank rec Oh wow. It matches the balance sheet. Cool. You know, nothing too old. Sweet. You know, your a p AR is good. Invaluable. I, I really cannot tell you, you will make a revenue agent's day when you're like, dude, here's everything you asked for. Here's the gl. Let me know if you want samples of invoices, receipts. I can pull 'em up on my OneDrive right now, and we can go through 'em. I'll print 'em out for you if you want. Um, everything ties out. Everything's cool, you know, definitely separation of business and personal expenses is super, super awesome to see. you'll make a revenue agent's day. Honestly, the easier you make when the books are that clean, when the records are that clean, especially with like POS systems. You tie out your POS system, your year on sales summary to your p and l, maybe a day or two difference because the deposits in transit, that kind of thing, they just didn't hit yet.'cause the stripe didn't come through. Yeah. You're making someone's day, you know, Wow. matches the 10, 9, 9 Ks. You know, your sales tax returns, your quarterlies are good. We can kind of line up okay. We can see the debits and the credits. It's all cool. You know, you're making someone's day. That is a way, I'll tell you right now, that's a way to get a no change audit. serious. You give the revenue agent what he asked for, you explain it to him. You let him know what, he needs. You, you give it to him. Bank recs tied to the bank statement, which ties to the balance sheet. You're, you're getting, you're getting off. Good. It's cool. That is really good to hear. I'm always telling my bookkeepers like, always, always, always reconcile the balance sheet if that is correct. And you can support everything on the balance sheet. Maybe categorizations are gonna be wrong on the p and l, but whatever, at the end of the day, your net income should still be correct. That's right, that's right. I, I ab I mean, I can't, I can't speak enough to what you do. What you are helping other bookkeepers do is invaluable. It really is a life and blood of a business. I don't even know exactly how business owners make decisions without updated bookkeeping and accounting. Right. They, they can't, you know, if you can't project your cash flow the last three months, you know, you don't have any data, historical data that's up to date. You don't have any reconciliations to rely on. How is it that a professional, like me as a CPA and tax professional, how can I advise you without sort of the financial statements to, to help you out? You know, Yeah. hey, your expenses went up. You know, your cogs went up. You know, your, your profitability is kind of coming down. Look, revenue's down three quarters in a row without proper bookkeeping and proper categorization. I don't know if there's anybody that can help you. Yeah. the Exactly. blind. Mm-hmm. You know, a qualified, well-trained and experienced bookkeeper is worth their weight in gold. You know, Yeah. who, who understands both the tax and accounting side. Yeah. Hard to get. So let's circle back to what you said about separating personal and business. So what were, I'm assuming you had audits where there was a lot of commingling, like what are the actual ramifications of that? Was the commingling actually them trying to write off personal stuff? Was the commingling just creating a mess, making it really hard to figure out what was in the books versus not? Can you walk me through like what that actually resulted in? it was one of two things. Either there were personal expenses in, in the business and we'd, we'd sample stuff or we'd ask for stuff, receipts, invoices, whatever, you know? and they wouldn't get the deduction, basically. Oh yeah. You know, you pay for your kids's daycare through your corporation. It's non deductible expense. Sorry. You don't get that. other times it's like, okay, not only am I gonna deny the deduction, guess what? I'm gonna hit you with a dividend on your tax return 'cause you're a C Corp. You know? So like, now you're paying, you know, and especially if they taxable income was high, I'm like, look dude, you're paying, you know, your long-term capital gains rate plus knit on that addition to not getting it on the corporate side, you know, Yeah. You may as well have just paid yourself the salary and. it happens. It happens. that was one thing. Well, sometimes it's like, okay, the books are generally, generally reliable. Some commingling will deny the deductions. Sometimes you had to put a dividend on their personal return. Okay? they kind of get it. Yeah, my bad shouldn't have done that. Sorry. I can't, I don't have the backup for it. Okay. Maybe it's personal. My bad. You know, I get it. Sometimes it happens. Some taxpayers were more intentional than others. Honestly, I'll tell you right now, I'll be, I'll be perfectly transparent on this podcast. I have seen some commingling and looked the other way and just let it go because it was immaterial. Yeah, It's the truth. If I have a I, 2 million in gross receipts and they have three or 400,000 in one business income, okay, and I'm saying, you know, 25, 400 bucks or 200 bucks or whatever in a personal expense, it's like, look, am I gonna really make an odd adjustment over that? It's not worth my time. yeah. worth my time. You know, other revenue agents would be different for me. I'm like, look, it's not worth my time. Whatever. I got bigger fish to fry. Okay? Why am I gonna spend my time, spend my resources on auditing this person, you already got three or 400,000 order in business income. They already did estimated tax payments. They've already paid a lot into the system. know, am I gonna spend my time trying to get a $2,500, $5,000 adjustment over this person or over here? I got somebody who, yeah, I could get a hundred grand out of 'em. You know, it's just, that's, that's what the service was paying me for is materiality, Okay, Small fry, big fry. That's just what it is. that brings up another question I have then like about what is expected of the revenue agents as results. Like, are you guys expected to recover a certain number of, a certain amount of revenue or like how does that work? it's a great question. I think it's actually something that a lot of people don't, don't know about, don't understand. So, believe it or not, I was not allowed to have a quota. There was no number of dollars per hour that I was required to get. They're actually not even allowed to do that. It's in federal statute, you cannot judge a revenue agents performance. You can't impose those kind of requirements on them. Interesting. I, I couldn't be expected to, oh, you gotta, you know, generate 500 grand this quarter, you know what I mean? Right. they, they cannot put that requirement on you as a revenue agent. You know, you have to charge a Just make sure you're a actually working. You know, they wanna see like case versus non case time, you know, kinda like public accounting. You could be expected like, yeah, we want case time. You know what I mean? those kind of quotas, you know, could be expected of, of a revenue agent. as far as dollars per hour, whether you're getting payment on your agreed examination reports? Like, for example, most of my audits were agreed, a, a, you know, it's very few that went reed or went to appeals. but I, I will say a lot of the taxpayers didn't pay me right that second. we were always required to ask for payment. We couldn't compel them for payment. It's like, look, my job is for the examination. I, you know, I would tell taxpayers, look, you don't have to run me a check. I'm not a collection officer. I am here to assess the tax. You know, that's somebody else's The longer you wait to pay, there's gonna be more penalties. Right. I'd always tell 'em like, look, man, you got interest, you got penalties. It's gonna keep going. But if you don't have the money to pay me, you don't have the money to pay me. Like, I, I'm not, you know, that's, that's fine. You know, if here's the adjustments, this is what they are. And a, a lot of taxpayers didn't know that. They're like, dude, can I set up a payment plan? I'm like, absolutely you can. Yes, we have a whole department that does that. You know, here's, here's the form, here's the resources. You know, no, could not, couldn't, you know, we don't have quotas. Nothing, nothing like that Was there a culture of. Expectation though. And here's what's funny is, here's what sucks about that question. depend on who your manager is. Okay. gonna depend on where you work, okay? Because I can tell you right now, like one, you know it, the, the IRS office in Houston, Texas is gonna have a very different culture than the one say in San Francisco, California. Yeah. And the one in Oakland, California is gonna have a very different perspective than the one in Miami, Florida, It's gonna, it's gonna really depend on what office you're in, who's staffing that office, what the senior agents look like, what managers are there, what senior management looks like. I wish I could tell you there was a standardization. There just isn't. about for where you were at? so where, where I was at, I will say there was a more, I don't know, I don't know how to call it. What's, what's the way that I would put it? It, it wasn't so, I don't know. A cutthroat kind of isn't the word that I want to say. Don't get me wrong. I think a level of friendly competition among revenue agents is important, but at the same time, it's like, look, we're not shaking people down here. You know, just 'cause you stumble upon an audit adjustment does not mean it's our job to shake down the American taxpayer. That's not what this is. Yeah. people be compliant with their tax obligations and ideally educating them on how to continue to comply with those tax obligations. You know, educating them on, look, you need to get a better preparer, you need to get a better bookkeeper. You gotta do this this way, you gotta do that that way. That was always my perspective, was trying to educate taxpayers. I will say my CPA license helped a ton with that. They found me very credible. Other revenue agents who had no certifications of any kind, and maybe some person's straight outta school. I get it, it's gonna be different. They might not listen to that person the same. Mm-hmm. That's just, I get it. That's how it's, I understand. No, and nobody, nobody likes to really talk to the IRS anyway. I get it. I Yeah. to do my best to kill 'em with kindness. I, I get it though. People are skeptical of me, but, Did they put you through like soft skills training for that? oh yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. So they, Yeah. do, they did like interview workshops. they did, like we did like a fraud symposium, you know, uh, talking to somebody who was the subject was supposed to be somebody who was either accused of fraud or you're pursuing like the civil fraud penalty against 'em. You know, how people could delay or obstruct your, your examination or your questionnaire, that kind of thing. Um, yeah, a lot of, lot of obstacle training like that. Yeah. Interesting. That's cool. Yeah. I probably have, I have so many questions, so I'm like it. Go for for, happy. I'm happy to answer ' em. Seriously. It's cool. You um, when it comes to like, 'cause I know you mentioned you had like some C corporations that you audited. Did you audit a lot of single member LLCs that did their own bookkeeping or did most of your audits, they were big enough where they would've had their own bookkeeper? What was that like? a very good question. I would actually say, if I had to give an anecdotal ratio, I think one and two did not use a professional. I'd probably say one and two, I did audit a lot of single member LLCs. A lot of them honestly, were, were big adjustments. for example, I had this one gentleman, he was like a cybersecurity. He, he handled like video cameras and cybersecurity for casinos. And he did some, like, some day trading. And he kinda struck it big during COVID, you know, lot of kinda stuff like that happened. You, you know, the capital gains, short term capital gains, unfortunately, you know, ordinary rates. And he was doing well in his Schedule C business and that kind of thing. And there was some, there was some stuff that kind of fell through the cracks. and he didn't, he didn't have, he didn't have a professional, he didn't have a bookkeeper. It was just him, you know. So as, as, as soon as he kind of got the audit letter, he actually ended up retaining a tax attorney, you know, but, but he didn't, you know, he didn't work with a bookkeeper, nothing like that. And, and, you know, other times it was, believe it or not, actually, some of my biggest adjustments were people with the preparer, with somebody doing the bookkeeping themselves, tax returns and all that. It's just they were done wrong, you know? That's what I was afraid of. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the stuff that I've seen come through, come to my firm from previous bookkeepers and talking to other bookkeepers and the messes that they're dealing with, all the cleanups that we get. It's like there's a lot of professionals out there that just are lacking the training, and it's unfortunate. I, I will say, I wanna speak to that point. this is what I observed. I can only speak for my anecdotal observations in the field. wasn't always that they lacked the training or the qualifications, it's that they had too much volume. They were trying to do too much. They didn't have the staff, they themselves didn't have the time. For example, I audited a, a Mexican restaurant and they're preparer prepared, a C corporation return for them. Not one line item on the balance sheet of the penile matched. Not one. Not one. Balance sheet. Exactly, exactly. I asked the preparer, I was like, dude. None of this matches. All I'm seeing is a C corporation, net ordinary loss, the balance sheet, the p and l does not tie, what did you do? And he's just like, oh, my bad. I don't, I don't even have the original work papers. Like, I can't, I can't find them. You know? And so I was like, and I asked the taxpayers too. I, you know, it sucks. I asked the taxpayers, I was like, did you guys review this before you signed this, this 1120 tax return? And they told me, they're like, we didn't, thought it was right. I, we, we trusted our professional. We just signed. We Yeah. that's all we did. We signed, we gave the guy the check. We thought he was doing it right. didn't review it. And I'm like, dude, you know, so that Yeah. That was a big adjustment. Yeah. So that takeaway of like if you are working with your clients before they sign their tax, if you're a bookkeeper listening and your clients are working with a tax repairer that is preparing their taxes bef, ask them if you can just review the tax return before it gets signed so that you can help them tie it out and make sure it matches what's on the books, or you understand what the differences are. Yes, I would absolutely encourage that. Honestly. Um, this is, this is why I say, again, I have to encourage every taxpayer, every small business person, every self-employed person, you gotta be your own bis advocate for that kind of stuff. you know, ask about a review of the return with the preparer. Make sure you understand what's on there. Some of the book to tax differences, because you'd, you'd be surprised, I think, where either mistakes are being made, stuff doesn't tie out or stuff, it doesn't make sense. ultimately the truth is the IRS will hold you as a taxpayer responsible. That was gonna be my next question, like what happens in that scenario? I will say, , so for example, when we talk penalties about this Mexican restaurant that I, that I had to audit, they requested penalty abatement. Okay. They said, look, we, we relied on a professional. We thought he was doing it right. We were paying him substantial fees to do it right. We thought he did it right. Can you, can you abate this? I had asked my manager about it, this and that. And we ultimately concluded, no, we cannot abate this. And here's why is because you guys admitted to me you didn't review the return. You didn't sit down with a guy, you didn't look over the p and l, the balance sheet. You didn't understand financials or differences from last year. You didn't ask about book or tax differences. You didn't look at this. You told me you just signed and paid him. And we're like, to us, that does not establish reliance, how to prepare and is not a reasonable cause exception. You know, ultimately the taxpayer, you have to show ordinary due care and prudence with your business, with your tax return. This is a legal document. You, you have to be your own best advocate. don't get me wrong, there are a lot of preparers that do wrong. They give you bad advice, they do it wrong. They take aggressive tax positions. Absolutely. There have been times where I've abated penalties for that too. The taxpayer, it was through no fault of his own, he relied on somebody and they took an aggressive position. But for something like that where the, where the taxpayer admitted to me, he's like, look, I didn't, I never, They basically admitted negligence. and it's like, look, man, that's exactly what that penalty's for, you know? Unfortunately, you know, I know, I know. felt bad having to do it. Like I said, I asked my manager and he's just like, no, you know, and my manager, it's not like my manager was trying to like, shake people down. He's like, dude, look, they failed on these aspects. And I was like, they did. It's Yeah. know, and that's, that's the duty. That was one of those hard responsibilities and duties as an iris revenue agent, is I have to serve the American taxpayer. If I was to let somebody off the hook for something like that, your honest taxpayers are the ones who, who eat the burden, The burden of the taxes on is on their shoulders. You know? It's, it's a hard job. It's a hard job at times. It really is. I learned a lot. I've met a lot of interesting people, but it is a hard job. Very hard overall, how long were you, a revenue revenue agent. a little over two and a half years. Two and a half Okay. Mm-hmm. like, and that was enough. And now what are you doing? So, so, yeah, I. I, I will say, as you've heard at the federal government level, there's kind of been a shakeup. I probably would've liked to stay at the IRS, it's just that with the change in administration and sort of the, the downsizing of the federal government and, and of the Internal Revenue Service, kind of saw a little bit of the writing on the wall. I hadn't been there that long, and there's a lot of other agents that have a lot more tenure than me. And so if there was to be some sort of reduction in force or some sort of layoff, there was, in my office, I wasn't affected by them yet. So I kind of made the decision, okay, look, is it time for me to move on? And, and so I eventually decided, yeah, I, I should, I should move on, if I had more tenure, I would've, I would've probably liked to stay on. I think it's a good job. Mm-hmm. a lot, work environment's changed with the change administration, unfortunately, but, I would like to stay on, but at the same time, what I keep hearing from people is there's a lack of qualified CPAs there. Everybody, you know, their CPA died or retired. And so you ask, what am I doing now? So I, decided to, to try and hang up a shingle and, uh, established my own tax and accounting practice. Awesome. So there's lots of bookkeepers listening right now on this podcast, that always need a good referral source of tax. So you are based in California? Correct. Sacramento area. Mm-hmm. Northern Okay. So does that mean that you focus mainly on California clients? Or what is your mix of like what you're able and willing to do? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm pretty much open to anything. I, it is a virtual tax and accounting practice, so I, I like to work with people, you know, all over the United States. Honestly, any, experience with multi-state taxation, all that kind of stuff is helpful for me. can freely admit that I don't know everything in the world. What I do know is how to go figure out and get the answers to, to do the returns right, and to offer guidance on people's taxes, you know, their businesses, advisory, tax planning. I'd like to be of service to anybody who, who use the help. Awesome. So good to hear. We need, we need lots of good tax repairs as referral sources. I can attest to that. In my community, it's always a question like, who are you sending people to for taxes?'cause we're all, you know, bookkeepers, most of us don't also do taxes. So, I appreciate that. but yeah. That's really good to hear. where's the best place for people to connect with you? I mean, I connected with you on Reddit, but that's all kind of anonymous. I, I will say, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn, you know, I, I'm sure everybody has on LinkedIn. And then, uh, just, just my website just kinda has a small spiel about me and my pricing, my services, so, uh, Cool. if anybody's Awesome. We'll link that into show notes. easy to find me on LinkedIn. You know, I'm, I'm lucky there aren't too many Adrian Lopez CPAs run around, so, you know, I usually, I'm the first hit, Awesome, awesome. That's so good to hear. So make sure you connect with Adrian. All right, I was going to ask you one last thing as like, you're kind of new in your journey sometimes what I do and I have a guest on is if they're not an accountant and it's like some other kind of business owner, I ask them what is like, the best piece of advice they could give a bookkeeper that, you know, or something that they really love about their bookkeeper. but you're not really in that position. And you have, and you're newly out on your own. How, how long? Like a year-ish. I mean, literally like last month. Yeah. My last day What? was Yeah, like May 2nd. Yeah. So I, I've hung my shingle in the last month, Awesome. you So it wouldn't be, it wouldn't quite fit if I asked you to give others advice who are just starting out, unless you have something that you've found already to be a super huge help. maybe it is your experience in the IRS. I, I will say the one thing that I keep hearing from people, I, I've consulted with a lot of people about taking this plunge. You know, everybody's told me one of two things. Either we need more qualified CPAs, mine retired, mine died, you know, whatever. Or the number two reason I hear is I can't get my person back to me. can't, the guy doesn't have the time to schedule a call. The guy doesn't have the time to return an email. You know, I gave him my stuff two months ago. I haven't had a filed return. He hasn't followed up back with me. I can tell you, based on my communication with other professionals and the public, I've been kind of trying to do networking and that kind of thing. Talking to business owners, that is a key thing that I keep hearing is I can't get in touch with my person. They can't get back to me. They're too busy, you know, whatever that is. I would encourage any professional, especially a bookkeeper, tax professional and accountant, start taking note of that client service and a, a lack of responsiveness is really starting to, irk taxpayers, know? I'm trying to do my absolute best to, not have so much volume that I can't get back to my clients within, you know, a day or two at, at the latest, especially if I'm doing someone's bookkeeping and accounting, that high touch service, I think is really, really important. I think the, the lack of qualified professionals is, I, I understand it's making it difficult. Mm-hmm. But I can see that the public is starting to take note of, Yeah, when professionals can't get back to you. that's been a common theme for a long time. And I don't wanna go too much longer because we've already been recording for an hour, but one of the things that's coming up a lot for bookkeepers is the fear around AI taking over a lot of stuff. And it's like we forget how valuable we are in just communicating frequently and proactively with our clients. So if that's the one thing that you implement or do better, like that's gonna be your job security. I agree a hundred percent. A hundred percent. So. Thank you so much, Adrian. it was a blast having you on the podcast. I know this episode's gonna go like viral. I'm just gonna call it right now. two, whenever we get a chance, Yeah, know. absolutely. I know we have probably, I probably have so many more questions. Um, so yeah, if you're listening and you want to have Adrian on the podcast again, or maybe we do like a live q and a session or something, that would be really cool. thank you so much for taking the time to share with our listener, and I hope you have a beautiful day. You too. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Okay. care.