NoBS Wealth

Ep. 135 - The IRS Nightmare is a Myth: How to Escape Tax Hell Without Going Broke

• NO BS Podcast

Share episode

Stop hiding from those IRS letters. They're not coming to drag you away in handcuffs.

The biggest lie the government ever told you? That tax debt will ruin your life. Here's the brutal truth: 99.9% of people who owe taxes will NEVER see the inside of a jail cell. But they will lose sleep, relationships, and thousands of dollars in penalties because they believe the fear-mongering.

In this no-BS episode, Stoy Hall sits down with Morgan Anderson, EA – a 26-year veteran of tax debt resolution who's seen it all. Morgan destroys the myths that keep you paralyzed and reveals the real playbook the IRS doesn't want you to know.

You'll discover:

  • Why Al Capone's case has absolutely nothing to do with your $20K tax bill
  • The massive system breakdown that's actually working in your favor right now
  • How COVID broke the IRS machine (and what that means for you)
  • The single phone call that can stop wage garnishments before they destroy your reputation
  • Why your "tax professional" might be setting you up for a $700K disaster

This isn't feel-good fluff. This is war strategy.

Morgan pulls back the curtain on settlement negotiations, payment plans, and when to fight versus when to fold. If you're a business owner drowning in payroll taxes or an individual getting crushed by penalties, this episode could save you decades of financial pain.

The government wants you scared and compliant. Time to flip the script.

Connect with Morgan Anderson:

Warning: This episode contains explicit tax advice that may cause sudden feelings of empowerment and the urge to finally deal with that pile of IRS notices.

Welcome to the No BS Wealth Podcast with Stoy Hall, your candid guide to financial clarity. In our third year, we're spicing things up by enhancing community ties and bringing you straight, no-fluff financial insights. Connect with us on NoBSWealthPodcast.com, and follow Stoy on social media for the latest episodes and expert discussions. Tune in, join the conversation, and transform your financial journey with us—no BS!

As always we ask you to comment, DM, whatever it takes to have a conversation to help you take the next step in your journey, reach out on any platform!

Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin

DISCLOSURE: Awards and rankings by third parties are not indicative of future performance or client investment success. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investment strategies carry profit/loss potential and cannot eliminate investment risks. Information discussed may not reflect current positions/recommendations. While believed accurate, Black Mammoth does not guarantee information accuracy. This broadcast is not a solicitation for securities transactions or personalized investment advice. Tax/estate planning information is general - consult professionals for specific situations. Full disclosures at www.blackmammoth.com.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

The boogeyman that, that terrible entity that no one wants to talk about. The IRS, everyone hates taxes. We get it. And when you get that letter that you're, you know, either past due on taxes or you just get those random letters in general, you get that icky feeling. You get that, oh. Lord, it's all coming down on me. The world's gonna explode. But we're here today with Morgan Anderson to one tell you that that's not the case. There are always a solution. There's a way out. There's a way through it all, and I'm really excited to dive into it today. Hey everyone. We know taxes are very complex today. We are going to scratch service a little bit, but later this year we'll go even deeper. So without further ado, Morgan, welcome to the show.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Thank you so much for having me. I know people hear what I do and they cringe. I actually see like people pull back. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. It's not that scary. Let me, let me take away that nasty, you know, three headed monster image that you have in your head because it's just something that we have to deal with. You've faced tougher challenges. You can get past this one as well.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Absolutely. So before we go into that, give everyone a little background where you're from, how you even got into it, and then why are you so focused on the tax debt piece of it? Because in the accounting world, with your EA and all the tax up, there is a hundred different routes to go. Uh, we would really love why the tax debt and then we're gonna get into it.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Okay, so I had no direction at life. I'll be fully transparent with you all. I was 25 years old managing a candle store in Boulder, Colorado. Bored outta my mind, like I'm a numbers person. I am. I'm a logic thinker. Like I love working through problems and doing retail. I was like, there has to be more to my purpose. So I answered an ad for an administrative assistant. Out of the Boulder Daily camera, and I ended up interviewing with a company that was on the forefront of this whole tax debt resolution corner of the world. And I tripped into a world by accident that I loved. I could be a problem solver. I got to help people when they were scared, they didn't know what to do. And man, I put my head down and just threw. All of my efforts into learning how to be excellent in dealing with tax debt and helping people psychologically work through it, you know, because I, I would deal with people where the first things out of their mouth, mouth when they talk to me was, am I gonna go to jail? And that is a very real fear that people have deeply ingrained. And it's because the IRS and the state tax agencies have fostered that, right, which we can talk on later. But I became inspired by the results I could get for these people and the, the physical and, and vocal relief I could hear talking to them from our first conversation to our fifth, to our 10th. To the final solution and calling them and saying, okay, we got it done. Here are the terms. You're no longer gonna have to be afraid of those nasty letters. Bank account, levy, or or garnish, wage garnishment threats like you are free. Just stick to these guidelines moving forward. I'm always here for you, but I don't ever wanna hear from you again. Right? Like that. That felt good to me and that's what I've based my whole career on, and that's why after doing this for almost 26 years, I still love what I do.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

I mean, that's amazing. One, because doing something so long you still love what you do is just simply amazing. Mm-hmm. However, I'm sure there is such a, it's ever moving our tax code, so I'm sure that things change and adapt, so it keeps it all fresh. But let's hit upon those misnomers then. Yeah. One people go to jail. Two, how big is this fine. Do they levy all those threats? Walk us through the actual true things that happened from those.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Okay. Keep that list. Because I get into every question you ask me. So the first one, will I go to jail? It is true that people do. We're talking about such an infant decimal percentage of people who owe past due taxes. Your common business owner, individual who owes income tax, you are not the target. They're targeting people like think about what Al Capone went to jail for. How did they actually get him? They got him on tax, right? That's what he went to jail for. That's the level of people that they're looking for. They're looking for human traffickers, and they tie it to taxation. They're looking at drug lords. They're tying it to taxation. You're looking at people who are. Evader people who create these, these tax return strategies where they're lying on tax returns over and over and over again for their clients, those are the people that are getting in trouble in going to jail. It's not our common neighbors or, or anybody really in our community. These are high ticket people that they're targeting.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

It's a really common thing to let everyone know is IRS in general. Even with audits, it's the same way. Like it's such a minuscule amount that you as a random person will get it. They truly are going for the big ticket items. That's where the money is. And to your co to what you're talking about. Al Capone, they wanted to get him from the gang perspective. They wanted to against exactly crime. It just so happened to be their. Weigh in was through taxes, so. Mm-hmm. I love that you hit upon that. Okay. What about fines and fees and all of those things that come along with it? Um, what about those?

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Yeah, they exist. There's no two ways around it. I'm not gonna tiptoe around it. If you owe a tax debt, you start accruing additional fees with penalties and interest from the moment the tax was due moving forward. So. If you have a tax debt situation, know that every month you push off dealing with it. You're letting that balance do grow. So use it as an inspiration to be proactive.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Absolutely. And then you said garnishing loving le weight wages about words today. Hello. Good us through. Are those threats, do they happen? What's going on there?

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Yeah. Now I, I will tell you since COVID. Before COVID, the IRS was a pretty well-oiled machine. They had all their divisions and departments in place. The tech system was in support of it. So you knew when you had a debt within 60 days, you'd start getting your first notices. And I was just doing some research on this about the efficiencies of the IRS in 2018 versus what they reported in 2024. And you can tell that COVID and shutting down our government for six months broke the internal systems. So. The hard part is yes, you owe the debt and it continues to grow with penalties and interest, but they haven't been on top of their game with collecting, and it has lulled a lot of taxpayers who have a tax consequence into this kind of quiet slumber. They're like, well, I'm not really hearing from the IRS other than these ankle biter notices. Their computers spitting out. So I'm not even having tax liens right now being filed. They're not calling. They're knocking on my, not knocking on my door. I can just kinda let this debt be and focus on other things. And I'm here to tell you, you don't wanna do that. If you're proactive with handling it. Not only are you in control, you don't have to go into that reactionary mode of, oh my gosh, all of a sudden they do issue a bank levy and. You go into your bank account and your funds that were$2,000 yesterday are now zero.'cause it will happen. But if you ignore it, and then the computer system does put you into that active collection aspect. Let's say you're working for a company, you've been with them for 10 years, right? And you had some missteps on your annual tax returns and you owe$3,000 to the IRS. It happens more often than you would imagine, and it's okay, but you gotta be proactive because if not, they can issue a wage garnishment to your employer. And imagine walking into the HR department, right? You've been with them for 10 years, you're a well-known employee, they love you. You get awards and you have to answer to your HR person about this wage garnishment notice that they got. It's embarrassing. You know, and, and it happens. But if you are proactive, I'm telling you, if you call them and say, Hey, I've got an issue, I need to deal with it. Or if you get a tax debt resolution expert involved who is contacting them on your behalf, you take away that unknown, right? So you're more in control. You are driving the dialogue from that moment forward, and you can take action to prevent it. So instead of hiding and shying away from dealing with it, be proactive because that's how you protect yourself from all those things from happening.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

All right, so we talked about kind of the misnomers, true, false, those things in there. Mm-hmm. Now let's dive into, really, there's two components. There's the individual and then there's like the business owner. Mm-hmm. So let's start with the individual. What is the common occurrence that you see of one, the debt and how it, how it occurred, or why they're in this situation and by the time they get to you, where are they at emotionally?

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Great questions. You know, there are a thousand different reasons why somebody would have an income tax debt. I. There really is errors with completing the W four. When you're a W2 employee working for a company, you fill out the W four and it signals how much income tax you have withheld from your pay Well, for the last four or five years. The W four is really misleading because you could say, I'm, I'm married. There's two of us, right? We're filing joint and we each only have this one job. But if you're in the higher tier of payroll level, just noting that won't withhold enough tax. I can't tell you how many people are like, wait a minute, I claimed married filing two. You know, and it didn't withhold enough tax. We've had a lot of clients come to us with that. And we've had a lot of clients come to us where a parent has passed away and they've inherited money, and instead of getting with a CPA or an investor and talking about what to do to shelter those monies from being taxable, they do something with it that converts it into being taxable income. We've had people who are busy running a trade. Like a tile, a floor and tiled person, they're just head down. I'm earning money, I'm making money, and I'm spending it, and I'm making money and I'm spending it. And at the end of the year, they look at it and go, oh my gosh, with my self-employed tax, I now owe$20,000 for 2024. It just happens for a variety of reasons. Typically when somebody reaches out to me, the first thing I hear is, am I gonna go to jail? Which we already addressed. But the other thing that I hear is, well, I don't want you to think bad of me. And that breaks my heart because first and foremost, everybody, you, me, everybody listening is doing their very best. If you accrue a debt, it's none of my business and I'm not gonna judge you over it. Don't feel ashamed. Don't feel ashamed, or be too ego driven to call somebody and say, Hey, I've got a problem and I think you can help me with it, because that's gonna keep you caught in that debt cycle. Right. So the first thing all of us should know is we're not experts at everything. We can't be, I mean, I hire people to watch my kids and teach my kids in school because God knows that is not my cup of tea. It's okay. As a business owner, you may be excellent at laying. Laying tile, right, or doing landscaping, cutting down trees. That's your area of expertise. And be okay with other people having expertise in areas that isn't yours and that it's okay for you to lean on them. Because they do know what they're doing. They do know how to solve this problem that you're coming to you with. So yeah, that's for individuals. That's typically the, the psychology, when they call me, there's this like sheepish feeling almost. Don't ever feel that way when you call us.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Yeah. And I wanna double down on the other experts, like having professionals in, in your court and having a team. Mm-hmm. Again, I, I couldn't raise my children and teach them because

Morgan Anderson, EA:

I love that you laughed at that. Yeah, just, that's not my, my thing,

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

just not my strong suit. No patience. But a lot of people go to TurboTax or go to those tax layers and truly don't just hire a CPA. And I know it's, you know, it's getting more expenses and stuff like that for your individual, but I, I press people still to do it for two reasons. One,'cause you don't know what the hell you're doing. Right. It's just a game and you're relying on a software and software's wrong. Sometimes two. If you have the right one, now they're helping with that liability piece of it. If they make a mistake or not, they have to fix it. They're on the hook for it. And that's really where you want to be because then if an audit comes up, or if these situations come up, you have someone in your court that already knows their situation that's been in it, and they can make that adjustment a lot faster than you can. And when you get those random notices that are spit out, you can just like say, Hey. What is this? And they'll go, oh, I'll take care of it. And it's taken care of. Yeah. Yeah. It's that relief and, and having that feeling of someone has your back in those situations to me is worth the$400 or$600 or whatever the filing fee is around your area or whoever you hire. So really look into that because that's worth it more than just the true filing fee. I know some of those are free, but. Having that backing, just when, when people get it, I can see the relief off their shoulders just in case that 0.00125% chance of getting audited comes up. Right.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

I completely agree and if, if I, could I take it a step further, if you are self-employed or you have financial situations that change throughout the year, it is so worth it to call your tax professional and say, Hey, can I sit down with you for an hour? We've had some things change. If you're a business owner and you're self-employed, you're, you have flow through income, get with your tax professional quarterly, because if you are only getting with them the following spring. So we're in 2025. If you get with them in March of 26 and say, okay, here's all my records for last year, and they say, oh my gosh. Well, based on everything you did, you owe$35,000 of income tax. You are talking about historical data. At that point, you can't go back and change and make a pivot halfway throughout the year to minimize that tax consequence. So I cannot encourage people enough. Don't just have a once a year relationship with your tax professional. Get with them quarterly.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Yes, tax planning at least twice a year, and if your CPA or accountant or whoever it is does not do that, might be time to find a new one. Because business owners self-employed, it is beyond paramount because then as your financial planner, right, I'm pushing that too. I can see those adjustments that need to be made. But if we don't have that relationship and we're not working throughout the year, again, like you had said, there's nothing we can do after the year. Mm-hmm. Soon as one one hits, there's like two things we can move. Yeah. With your IRA or something like that, but outside of that, there's nothing else. You're kind stuck with it. So that's, that's huge. Alright, so we've talked about individual, we've just mm-hmm. Dipped our toe into the business side of things. Yes. Now, listed upon that business owner and. What typically tax debt are they holding back? I know it might not always be income tax might be something else, right? Why don't you enlighten us with what you see there and kind of what their feelings and emotions are when they come to you.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Okay, so big one, payroll taxes, right? I cannot tell you how many times people come to me with a payroll tax where they say, okay, we were on top of things. COVID happened, and then it kind of fell apart. I, you know, things just happened and it fell off of my focus. I give my people their W2 at the end of the year, but I haven't filed or paid a payroll tax since. It happens all the time, you know? Payroll tax is one of those, those things with the federal government, especially state governments, they're a little quicker on the draw. But federal government, it'll take them a year, year and a half, sometimes even two years before they realize you should have been filing and paying and haven't been. And by that point, this sounds bad, but they've given you enough rope to hang yourself really, because if, if you are in a financial pinch, right? And you're paying electricity for your warehouse, and if you don't pay that, that electricity bill, what happens? They shut it off. And then you're in the dark and then you can't operate. Payroll taxes aren't the same because it takes them so long to figure out that you have fallen behind. By the time they realize it. You are 3, 4, 6, 8 quarters down the road, and if each quarter you owe 25,000 and withheld taxes that need to be paid over and match taxes from the company, you're then looking at a hundred, sometimes$200,000 plus all the penalties and interest. So they let you by not. Being so focused on your requirements, they let you get into a really deep hole, and sometimes it's so hard to work your way out of. The other thing is sales and excise tax at the state level. And can I share, I, I just had somebody come to me and, and this is a heartbreaking situation. They provide security personnel. Okay. Did not know that one of the states they've been operating in has excise tax tied to services. They caught on the state, audited them in 24, going all the way back to 2011. They now owe over$700,000 in excise tax penalty and interest. And the guy said, I had an accountant. They just, they didn't tell me that this was a requirement and they went back and looked at the contracts. The, the, the contract with the accountant was only for income tax preparation. It. So, I mean, on the business owner side, there is full explanation of, Hey, I just didn't know. I thought, like when I told my accountant we were going into, into the state that this would be a requirement, knowing that, you know, this is the service I provide. And because they didn't have tax advisory. Involved in the contract, it all falls on the business owner. So it's so important that you advocate for yourself. You have clear communication with your tax professional once a year. If you, if you decide to add a service to your business, sit down with your tax professional and say, okay, this is how it works. Do we have exposure for any additional tax obligations? If you have A-C-C-F-O working with your business, they ought to be in charge of this. But a lot of people are smaller, right? Most small businesses are like 10 people and lower, right? So you're operating on a budget string. Employee wise and worker wise and focus wise. So odds are most of the people who are listening to this have that smaller business where it's you and you are the one who has to have that relationship with your tax professional. Just be forward thinking and proactive with everything having to do with tax.'cause that, that one broke my heart. It really did. It just, and it happens more often than you would imagine.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

I and I. Tax professionals. I apologize if I'm going to attack you. Okay. From this perspective, because in, in my with this too, yeah. There's tax advisors. Mm-hmm. There's tax advisoree, there's tax planning, there's accountants, there's EAs, there's CPAs, there's those that do public accounting. Private accounting. There's also those that do just income tax or do all of the taxes for the business. Some do just business. Some do personal and business. That Chaoticness is not okay for the end user, right? Mm-hmm. My industry does the same way. We have financial advisors, financial reps, insurance agents, financial planners, et cetera. Mm-hmm. And I'm a huge proponent of each one of us being the CFP myself should take on the hat of we need to know it all, so that way we can make sure to guide them in the right direction. Doesn't mean I'm the one filing taxes, right? But I do know the laws and the rules so that way I can ensure that they're not missing something. And I see it often, and I know the tax industry is getting cannibalized and there's a lot of movement there and not a lot of people wanna work there. But part of that is because like you are not helping that end user at the end result of saying, Hey, these are all the things you need to think about. Here's my scope, but don't miss all of these because these could be, these could be fatal. I mean,$700,000 could be definitely fatal for a business, um, depending on how they operated. So like. Yes, tax professionals, but you know what they should or should not be doing. Regardless if it's in your scope, make sure you're having that conversation and asking the right questions too. It should not be on the end user and that client all themself because they don't know what they do. I

Morgan Anderson, EA:

completely agree and I've seen this time and time and time again story I really have, and it's when I am working with a client, when my team is working with a client. We dig under every layer of the onion we can think of to make sure when we're addressing the situation, we know all of it. We've had situations where someone comes to us for a state issue and then all of a sudden we're digging in and something doesn't smell right. We found embezzlement for, for tens of our clients, hundreds, just digging into the financials and saying something isn't right here. And financial people, you are involved with the FI numbers of the business even more so than we are. So when we're uncovering this stuff, when we're finding, oh gosh, okay, you came to us for a state issue. We've also got an IRS issue. And where is that money going? It's coming outta your bank account. Oh my gosh. It's going to your in-house accountants. Pocket What? So, and I've seen it where payroll companies have been processing W fours for employees and all of them of one business is claiming like eight and nine dependents. It's like, wait a minute, there are 15 employees. Why are they all claiming this something's wrong? So you should take it upon yourself to be proactive and say, Hey, business owner, I was just looking at all the W fours for your employees. This. It doesn't make sense. You may have one person with eight dependents, but not 15. Maybe there's a misunderstanding here. Can I talk to them and just make sure everybody understands the tax implications of what they're putting on this? I mean, that to me is somebody who has integrity with their position, to me is somebody who truly cares about their clients and who wants what's better for them. No matter whether it's in their scope or not. Because if I have that level of integrity with a client, I know they are gonna trust me. They know I'm looking out for them. They know I care about them In this industry where everything is starting to go like you, you touched on Intuit QuickBooks. They had this big marketing bash this past. Filing season. I don't know if you saw that, where it was like breakup with your tax professional.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Yeah.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

I cannot tell you how many inside threads on social media tax professionals were like, what the heck? QBO we're the ones that tell all of our clients to use QBO because it's all integrated into our tax return platforms. Why would you bite the hand that feeds you? Intuit, what are you thinking? Uh, sorry. For all of you who aren't in the tax or finance world, I mean, this has been a big blow up within the industry and the problem is when you're dealing with, like you had touched on doing Turbo tax for your tax return, there's a time and a place when that's appropriate, right? That's usually the W2 employees. You maybe have a dependent or two, you maybe own a home. When you get to anything outside of that level, right? And that kind of was the h and r block, Jackson Hewitt level of tax preparation work. That's what they're there for. But when you are a business owner, those programs are only as good as the data you put into'em. It's only gonna lead you to more questions if you enter data that will trigger those questions coming. And a lot of times they miss it. So, sorry, I kind of went off on a rampage, but you can't, you don't know what you don't. No. So as tax professionals, we really need to look out for our clients because they don't know what they don't know, and they don't know if they give you bank statements with some of the things flagged as business versus personal, which commingling just is another, but we could talk about that later.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

It is. The big thing that I deal with with new clients, like, oh my Lord, and it takes so long to get it cleaned up so long again, we're gonna go deeper folks, I promise. Yes. We'll go deeper at some point. Yes. So let's get back to the full picture. Okay. What does the process look like? Someone comes to you, I have whatever debt burden, either personal or on my business or both. What does that process look like? What's the timing? What's all the things that go into it to mediate that, that, uh, debt.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

First thing we do is have a conversation. You know what? From all the notices you've received, what do you owe? What's your financial condition right now? Because you could owe$5 million in unpaid taxes to the IRS business or personal, and if you can't afford to pay it. That takes us down one direction that that's talking settlement. Because the federal governments, the state governments, they know that they can't squeeze blood from a turnup. They know it. If you don't have the money to pay it, it doesn't do them any good to keep saying, well, you keep owing us. They will cut their losses and say, okay, but from now on. You've got to stay compliant with your obligations. As long as you do that, we'll settle it. And then that settlement is based on your financial condition. And so when we deal with a client, we always sit down and say, okay, let's have a conversation. No pressure. Do you have time? I wanna take as much time to speak with you, to feel comfortable about having a good understanding of your case, your financial condition, and what are your expectations? What are your fears? Because I can. Throw a bunch of those out the window, you don't need to worry about that anymore with where you are and what's going on. And we map out a game plan. We typically start with an investigation because we wanna pull the data from the IRS or the state. We wanna look at more of your financial picture because all of our negotiations depend on that financial picture being the backbone. We need to look at what options that state will allow. We know the IRS, but every state is a little different, and then we come back and say, okay, we've called them, we've gained a picture from of what they're looking at when they look at your tax situation. We've told them, Hey, you're working on a solution. We've bought some time. They're not gonna take collection action for the next 30, 45, 60 days. It's gonna allow us to come sit down and really frame out a great solution. We've pulled your financial data from you. We've talked about it. We've talked about compliance moving forward, how you stop adding to the debt, and this is the resolution that we see is gonna be best for you. Here's some other options. Let's talk about those. But this in, in our wisdom. In having done this for as long as we have, this is based on what you've shared with us and, and what they've shared with us. This is the best solution. And then we make a game plan from there. I mean, I, I, I love these ads on TV where it's like everybody's an offering compromise. Well, that's not the case. You know, there's always a, a family standing on the front lawn of a beautiful home, and we owed 200,000 to the IRS and we hired x, y, Z company and they settled it for$2,000. That is not that person's picture, I'm just telling you that right now. I mean, you, you, they will always work on a solution. They'll always accept an A solution based on your financial condition. If you're settling at$2,000, you certainly don't have a$500,000 house behind you, and a manicured lawn tended to buy a landscaping company like they don't. That doesn't happen

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

when you're going through this and you're doing this whole deep dive investigation. How often is it that you end up just like having to amend the tax returns because there was a mistake on them that reduced? Is that, like, does that happen often or by the time they get to you it is what? It's,

Morgan Anderson, EA:

you know, sometimes, sometimes an amended return is appropriate, but more what we're seeing right now, I, in the current climate that we're dealing with, we're dealing with a lot of businesses that had ERCs filed that weren't. Accurate that they shouldn't have claimed. And now we're dealing with more the opposite of the fallout from the fraudulent ERC mills. Told everybody you can file for ERC and didn't pay attention to the PPP correlating rules. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of businesses come back with a, oh my gosh, I got a bill for$30,000 for the second quarter of 2020. What do I do? Then we say, okay, well let's look at the other quarters, because if they ruled it out on one, odds are there are more, um, that that is a hot topic right now.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

That makes a lot of sense.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

Yeah. But if we do come across an anomaly where an amended return should have been filed or will benefit them, then we certainly, um, we deal with the client, but we also talk to their tax professional and walk through it because we collaborate with the client's, CPA or ea, whoever their tax professional is, and with their bookkeeper. Because we feel like we're kind of stepping up onto the bench for a little bit to be a teammate. We do our job, we help make sure everybody on the team knows what's going on, and then as soon as we're done, we say, okay, great. Let us know if you need us again. And we back off.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Yeah. That makes sense. So,

Morgan Anderson, EA:

yeah.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Well, as we get to the end of this, what is one thing you want our listeners to take from today in this episode? That they can instill and implement into their lives, their tax lives, whatever today that will help them down the road,

Morgan Anderson, EA:

communicate with your tax professional. On a consistent basis, don't shy away from that. And I guess my second part would be is if you do get a notice from the IRS, like, don't let the cortisol spike and a sweat breakout on your brow. No matter what that envelope contains. It's something you can deal with. It may be a little uncomfortable, you may need to pull in another party to help solve it, but deal with it and move on. Don't let it hang over your head anymore.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Know that you're not alone. Yes, there are experts out there to help you. There's resources to help you so well with that, again, we're gonna dive deeper into this because I know everyone listening is like, well, I have this situation. I wanna go into this. I wanna do that. Yeah, we will definitely do that. Okay. This year. So we're gonna appreciate your time, appreciate everything you do because it is needed so much, and it's so enlightening to hear that, hey, it's okay, there's a solution. Mm-hmm. And it's not as bad as you think it is. So thank you.

Morgan Anderson, EA:

And thank you for having me. I love that you have this platform to educate people because it's so important. You know, people tend to shy away from talking about money and talking about finance and talking about financial problems. Throw it out there, get it out there. Get it out in the open. The sooner you do, the better you're gonna feel. So thank you for having this platform.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:

Awesome.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Stoy Hall

Host
Head Shot

Morgan Anderson

Guest

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Top Advisor Marketing Podcast Artwork

Top Advisor Marketing Podcast

Matt Halloran, CRO at ProudMouth
MONEY WITHOUT MATH Artwork

MONEY WITHOUT MATH

Karen Coyne, CFP®
Demystifying Money Artwork

Demystifying Money

Misty Lynch
On Purpose Artwork

On Purpose

Out and About Communications
Planning & Beyond® Artwork

Planning & Beyond®

Ashley Quamme