Solar Sales Uncensored
Solar Sales Uncensored
You Would Be Brain Dead Not to Own a Solar Business! Tax Insights from Courtney Epps
Hey there, Solar Sales Uncensored tribe! You're not going to want to miss this episode because we're diving headfirst into the goldmine that is tax strategy with the one and only, Courtney Epps! She's not just a tax strategist, she's a fractional CFO, and the brains behind "More Relaxing, Less Taxing: Why You Would Be Brain Dead Not to Own a Business." Courtney is all about helping you guys squeeze out every cent in tax savings.
Now, Courtney has seen it all. She's run an insurance agency, a network marketing business, and she's helping entrepreneurs rake in the savings. Here's the secret sauce: she teaches how to structure a home-based business just right to save big bucks on taxes. We're talking converting everyday living expenses into business expenses, saving families $4,000-$8,000 a year on average. How cool is that?
We're pulling back the curtain on Courtney's time speaking at a Tony Robbins' event, and the mind-blowing shifts that happen when you're rubbing shoulders with the big earners. And here's something you probably didn't know: there's a huge difference between a CPA and an Enrolled Agent. Courtney breaks it down and explains how the right choice can help you discover hidden deductions and structure your business for max savings.
Ever thought about running a home-based business to pay for your kid's college? We're covering that, and more! And here's the best part: Courtney has an exclusive membership program, and she's offering a discounted Tax Strategy Session just for you, our awesome listeners.
So, are you ready to supercharge your tax strategy and totally transform your financial future? I thought so! Don't wait—book your Tax Strategy Session with Courtney now at https://lstaxstrategy.youcanbook.me/. Let's do this!
Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of Solar Sales Uncensored. I am your host, aaron Browning, and I am really really excited for today's conversation with the one and only Miss Courtney Epps. For those of you that don't know her, she is a fractional CFO, she is a tax strategist. Excuse me, we're really going to touch on the difference here. She is a multiple bestselling author. Two of her books more relaxing, less taxing. And then what's your plan B, which we're going to take a deep dive on today? Miss Courtney Epps, how the heck are you, my friend?
Speaker 2:I'm doing amazing. Hope you're doing well.
Speaker 1:I am. I'm getting over a cold, so hopefully my voice is okay, I feel fine, which is all that matters, but the lingering effects. It is what it is, but I didn't want to delay this conversation. In fact, Courtney, before we jump in, you don't even know this story. I'm going to embarrass myself, but I have to share it with the audience. I first got linked up with you It's probably been almost three years now through Eric Warrie.
Speaker 1:It was an online event. I think it was right. When COVID just hit, You were one of the keynote speakers. Truth be told, when people talk about taxes, it is not my love language. I do not get excited. I'm just being honest with you. I'm sure you've probably heard it before.
Speaker 1:Eric did a lousy job promoting your session on that event. I started multitasking. I'll be honest with you. I come back. The chat was. I've never seen a chat blow up like this Courtney, this Courtney, that, Ms Epps. I mean it was going crazy And I said, oh my gosh, what did I miss? I start messaging all my business partner friends who were on the call. They could not stop singing your praises, And so I will own it. It was by far the best segment and they had some amazing, amazing speakers. So I wanted to first embarrass myself and to let you know that you stood out in one of the biggest network marketing events that I've ever run a part of. You were just, you were just an absolute rock star. Well, if you don't mind, can you give the audience a little bit about your background and what you do, what your claim to fame is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Yeah, so I've been an accountant for 22 years but I did not take it seriously. For 16 of those I actually tried to do everything, but which is what actually makes me a good tax strategist and a fractional CFO and a lot of the fractional CFO stuff. I had to give that all up because our accounting practice is growing so quickly And for those of you that have never run ran a business I probably wouldn't hire a CFO that has never ran a business, either in the in the dirt or grown a business. So it was hard for me to train people in order to do fractional CFO work. So we just started really hitting hard on the tax and the tax strategy because I can help more people that way.
Speaker 2:But I've owned insurance agencies, accounting firms I had. I had a really large agency when I was 29 years old, had about 2,900 clients. I sold that. The guy sold it to stop paying me, lost everything, tried not to be an accountant for at least six years. I did not want to be a professional because I was so scared of screwing up, you know, and so I started working from home. I started a vinyl signing banner company after that And I realized the massive benefits of having a home-based business, and then someone led me, led me down the road of going into network marketing, and I did network marketing for about six years full time, and then I would do accounting part time, and then I finally decided in June of 2017 that I had to focus on doing accounting full time because there was no one else that can actually teach what I knew, and so that's what I did. So we've built from a $24,000 a year company that we were doing in 2016,. We're at 3.7 million today Wow.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen listening, i hope you heard that You probably have the same reaction. When I first met her on a one on one with my wife, within 20 seconds I elbowed my wife and said hire her on the spot. Like I just knew it's the confidence, it's the fact that she's been in the trenches with us, like I absolutely love that. So what was that like turning point for you to where you you mentioned? you didn't like doing what you were doing and all of a sudden you fell in love with it. I guess, like what, what changed?
Speaker 2:So June of 2017, I spent 50 bucks to go to a Tony Robbins event. I had not worked for two months, Like so. I hadn't worked in my network marketing business, I was doing a nutrition business and I had not worked in my accounting business. I just had some personal stuff that was going on and I couldn't get out of this funk. And I went to that event and I realized I was undervaluing myself, So I was getting the wrong type of clients and that was causing me not to be able to pay my bills. I kind of needed to. I was self sabotaging myself because I'd lost that business. I made one wrong decision and sold it and I screwed myself over. I realized I had massive limiting beliefs that I could not. I didn't know how to get to $100,000 a year. I didn't know how to get to a million dollars and nor did I believe I could do it.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that Tony said, he's like you are. You are a failure. If you continue to allow yourself to be a failure, you'll always be a failure. And I'm like man, that's like. That's some stuff. So because I mean, I thought by not trying again, you know, like I wasn't going to fail.
Speaker 2:And I'm looking at my kids. I have six children. They're now 21 to 10. So 21, 20, 19, 18, 16 and 10. And I'm looking at my kids, like going to McDonald's, buying, you know, and my daughter just said this this morning I have three of my kids that work full time for me now. And my 21 year old said, you know, mom, like we had to go to McDonald's and we had to eat and we got eight cheeseburgers because there's eight of us and we would get a large fry and we would get three large $1 drinks. And I looked at that. I just told my staff that this morning and I'm like I realized what failure really looks like. It was not attempting, And so the other thing that I realized is because I was in a deep, steep data state of depression And I realized that you get to choose, Like you get to choose whether you're happy or sad, or miserable.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's all about you know, your how, you, the emotion that you put into whatever is happening to you in your life. And if you could choose to be happy over being sad, why in the hell would you ever be sad? And so you know, I came out of that event and I actually grew. I doubled our practice. We were doing about 7,500 bucks a month, which was not enough to make it And I didn't really have a plan at all.
Speaker 2:From July, which was the next day, from July to December And the year before that, we'd only made like $17,000 in that six month period of time And I'm like I don't know what in the world we're going to do. But I came out of that event and I'd had a couple of appointments of people that asked me, you know, if I would meet with them and talk to them about fractional CFO work, and I ended up getting all of those clients. It was 6,500 a month. So I shifted my mindset at that point and went there And then. So I did that for about a year and I was a fractional CFO for about 12 companies.
Speaker 1:What does that mean for someone brand new to this?
Speaker 2:So a fractional CFO is just somebody that helps you, stand alongside you and helps you run your company. You know the benefit of being a home-based business owner network marketer. You don't have to. You don't need a CFO Like you just need to go sale Like. You don't have to do all the things that most businesses do. But I had 12 of these companies that needed me to stand alongside them, make sure their books were up to date, look at their budgets. You know, help them run their company and tell them, give them ideas on what they should do or shouldn't do, and I was generally good with that And I really, i really loved it.
Speaker 2:But fast forward that a year I went to I was listening to a webinar by Grant Cardone and this is kind of 360. I just got back from an event for Grant Cardone this past weekend and I was able to tell him you know, have a conversation with him and say look, man, i listened to your $49.95 webinar and I was on my way to Tampa, florida. This is kind of crazy because I had a whole bunch of clients that needed legal services And so I got. I was upset about a company that I was going to sign up for and I couldn't get the licensing and all this stuff and it was just too much work. And so I found another company that was doing kind of the same thing And I had a meeting with owners of the company and so I was gonna sign up for this network marketing company.
Speaker 2:I was driving to Tampa signing up, meeting with owners this company I was gonna do you know, i never marketing part time and I was gonna do my accounting practice full-time, because that was That was the idea, like I was always gonna do. That that was always the goal. Me and my husband had that decision made. Soon, as you get to a point where you're making at least 10 grand a month from the accounting practice, you can go do what you really love to do, which is network marketing.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:So I'm on my way to Tampa, i'm listening to this little webinar by Grant Cardone and he says you know, the average household income in America makes $60,000 a year and they'll pay 14,000 this year in taxes and their take home is $46,000 and what's left over is they've got to pay for the cost of living and 50 $53,000 a year is the cost of living and that means that the average household income America is gonna go and at $7,000 a year. to Work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, take two weeks, pay vacation say it again louder for the people in the back.
Speaker 2:So the average household in America is gonna going to go and debt 7, that is actually $12,000. This year statistics have actually gone up. So that is $7,000 a year. To work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, take two weeks pay vacation and I just happen to be in a spot where I'm an accountant right, not even a tax try just at this point. I'm not. I'm telling people what to do, but I'm not charging people on what I was teaching them how to do, right other than CFO. I didn't even know to book tax strategy sessions or anything like that, because that wasn't that was unheard of in the accounting industry. People don't teach you how to free up money and taxes because we don't learn how to free up money and taxes. We don't even have a class on how to free up money and taxes. Hey, we only have one class on how to prepare tax return by hand, like nobody does that ever.
Speaker 2:So so I heard those statistics and I just happened to be in a place where the year before I Had done or my years of being involved in home-based business and now we're marketing I would. I did over 900 tax returns of people who were WTO employees before and then they started their home-based business And I knew that I could save on average, a $48,000 a year in taxes for a person, for a family, for a household, and I'm like man. So if the average house was going into at $7,000 a year And I can save them $48,000 a year by having some sort of home-based business and taking what they're currently spending money on today Not extra money, just what they're currently spending money on and I can help convert that into business expenses as opposed to living expenses. We're just redirecting the money now I'm saving them $48,000 a year. So I literally turned the car around because at that point it was an ethical thing that there is nobody else like Courtney If you sign up for this one company, no other company in that in the network marketing world is going to have an account at telling them Look, this is you're actually need to find a home-based business, you need to stay in it long enough to win for the tax benefits alone.
Speaker 2:And then, if you just do a couple of things that I tell you to do to get money and tax savings, save money in taxes Now you'll start being, you'll start making money and then from there, once you start making money, i can teach you how to keep more of that money.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:And so that was kind of my aha moment that I had to, i couldn't do network marketing anymore, that I had to go alongside network marketers and actually start sharing that story. And I picked up the phone and I called seven network marketers that I knew that had 10 plus 10,000 plus people on their team. Like I reached out to them on Facebook Hey, can I call you? I got an idea. Can I, can, please, can I, can I just get some feedback from you? and Six of them told me, yes, you can put this content in front of my team. And the seventh one is not even in there. We're marketing anymore. All the rest of them are doing amazing. But the six told me, yes, and then that led me to actually my first speaking engagement was for less brown.
Speaker 2:Wow, one of my all-time favorites, by the way Yeah that was a first first speaking engagement I ever had was for less brown by the way, audience She's name dropping.
Speaker 1:This is facts like those are the people she hangs out with just got done. Hanging out with Grant Spoken lesses event Eric Warry. I'm just blown away.
Speaker 2:For those Tony's. So I'm on Tony Robbins. If you look up Tony Robbins and Courtney Epps, you'll find me on his website.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are. You are a badass like you absolutely are. You said a bunch there and one of the things that that I've known you now long enough that I've heard you say that a whole bunch of times. So the average person who who opens, starts a home-based business, you're going to be saving them on average between four and eight thousand. I want to make sure I heard that correctly.
Speaker 2:Yep, and the reason why it's four to eight is it depends on your tax bracket. Okay, so many. Obviously, the higher the tax bracket, the more money you're going to save in taxes. And it's not on things that you're spending extra money on, because all you have to do is get involved in the company.
Speaker 2:And I would suggest, go to a continuing education event like be like me. I mean, we went from making seventy five hundred dollars a month and Not knowing what we were going to do the last six months of the year to making Four hundred thousand dollars a month, i mean. And that was an event, right, that was. I mean. Obviously there was other events leading up to it, but when you go to events and you get the knowledge and you I mean I think a lot of it's like on stage.
Speaker 2:You look at people and you're like Man, if they can do that, like I'm so much better than they are, like I should be making that kind of money. Or you look at it and you say, if they can do it, i can do it too. And you get around, just like being in a room with people who are making more money than you. It does something to you mentally And I did that this past weekend and I'm like shoot, like I'm thinking small. Like you know, i committed to a $50 million company. There's nothing like, there's nothing new about a $3 million company. We already did that. Right Now, we need to be a $50 million company.
Speaker 1:So it's funny. Yeah, your circle matters, it really does And obviously the people your bumping shoulders where I can see that. So back to that $48,000, because I'm sure there's people in our audience who are thinking about do I get started in solar For one? make sure you're joining a solar company. That's $1099. So you could actually utilize a lot of the stuff she's going to talk about today. But I want to make sure people who are sitting there on the fence kind of weighing the option Do they have to be like a rock star in the company to get that $48,000?
Speaker 2:No, you just have to attempt during an income And so the IRS. Actually the attempt per the IRS is three to five days a week for 45 minutes a day. So and here's what I tell people, like, find something that you can open your mouth and talk about. Like I don't really care what that is, if you can open your mouth and speak or you know. I mean, if you're a millennial now and you can use your thumbs, then you can message people. But you know, for me it's if I'm going to sit down and have a conversation with someone, if I just tell them what I do and in a matter of three to five minutes and I'm done with that conversation and we go back on to our meal or whatever else, then I'm now being able to write that off as a tax deduction because I attempted during an income And my intention is always to make money.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it. I want to be clear on that because I obviously I know that I think many people are like oh, i got to be Courtney, i got to be Aaron, i got to be so-and-so for this tour. No, it's an attempt, like asterisk, that word highlight it And I absolutely love that. Something else you said in the beginning I want to make sure we're clear with everybody. What Talk about tax strategist, like, what is that and how does that differ to everyone else in this space?
Speaker 2:So you know, most people are dealing with tax preparers, right.
Speaker 2:You have a CPA or you think CPAs are like the most amazing things on earth. They are not. I would just tell you, like let me just break down first what a CPA is and what a CPA is not. A CPA is not someone that's typically going to save you money, and the reason why is because they abide by something called a circular 230 rule, and a circular 230 rule means that you cannot be overly aggressive with the tax return and if you or you can lose your rights to ever file a tax return, and it's a state board, so you can only typically operate in the state that you work in or you live in. And so I'm an enrolled agent, and a enrolled agent is the only credential you can get with the IRS, and I actually have the ability to, you know, go to tax court with my clients, so that's not something a CPA can do. So they it's almost accountable as a tax lawyer.
Speaker 2:Obviously, i don't go to tax court very often, don't plan on going to tax court. I want to go to tax court, but we have the ability to be able to do that. So, and the only difference is I have same hours, right, i had the same education, i had the, but I didn't want to work for a CPA for a year. You have to work for a CPA for a year in order to, even even if you pass all four parts of the exam, you have to work for someone for a year.
Speaker 1:Well, Courtney.
Speaker 2:Epps is not working for anyone.
Speaker 1:Period.
Speaker 2:I love it, i work for my clients, but I'm not working for you know. I'm not having somebody tell me what to do, and so I'm in an enrolled agent And so what I what I do as far as the tax strategy goes is my job is to figure out how can I take what you are giving me and how can I tell you OK, we need these, this more in deductions, right? I'm not just taking your information and saying, ok, let's hope for the best, that this works out. We're trying to find deductions that you missed. We're trying, like by doing bookkeeping. We are then in turn, structuring you properly so that you can keep more of your money. You know, if someone is structured as an S corporation and you're paying yourself more than 20 percent of your net income, you're paying yourself too much, and so that now you're overpaying and self-employment taxes, you're paying in overpaying and the past are into deduction. So we're just looking at your situation and trying to figure out how can we allow you to keep more money back in your pocket.
Speaker 2:And a lot of times, if any person who gets on the phone with me that happens to book a tax strategy session, they're like I want to save money and taxes And I'm like well, are you a business owner? Well, no, i'm not a business owner, but that's that's first. Like you've got to find something to attempt to earn an income so that you can free up money and taxes. And then from there, we can do other things. We can, as you, make more money. We can do conservation easements, we can do natural gas, we can invest in things that give you tax deductions. Don't invest in 401ks, four or three bs, seps and symbols. I'm just telling you that right now And you can book a tax strategy session and ask me why. But that's not where you're going to provide, get massive wealth from, and that's not a good way to. You don't want to defer taxes, we want to eliminate taxes.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it, love it. Ladies and gentlemen, i hope you're taking notes. I hope you're picking it up. I'm falling in love all over again. By the way, this is uncensored. I'm going to be honest and if I ever talk too much personally about stuff you've done, tell me to be quiet. I don't want to get in trouble with anybody.
Speaker 1:My wife and I were overpaying ourselves, so when I hired her, that was one of the first things we had to go back. I think it was three years retroactive. The other thing, too, with tax strategy. That comes to mind when I think of you And, honestly, this is how I introduce you to anyone that I care about That's a business owner. It's proactive versus reactive.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Like, like that, is it Like? honestly, if you ask me that is how I sum you up Her and I, with my wife, we're meeting I think it's quarterly. Now We're planning ahead for the next quarter, versus at the end of the year. Did I do everything right? Like that's the way I've run my business for the last 20 years? Never again, like, never again. So that alone, i think, is just having you in my corner, having you as part of my inner circle. I just I love it. It's freeing, so literally. Thank you for that. Like you just do an amazing job. Let's talk about some common write-offs, deductions that home-based business owners get that they might not be aware of, and you know your top three, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:So one I mean hiring your kids is the biggest one for me because I have so many kids I got six And this year you can actually pay your children to work for you, for do anything that you would get someone else to do. So if you're not good at marketing online, then get your kids to help you market online. Get them to help you clean up the house, get them to clean up your swimming pool, get them, you know, get them to events, one of the things you know I think that I'm most proud of, and, for those of you that know Eric Wory, maybe your team a lot of people who know.
Speaker 2:Oh, they do, for sure, you know I got invited. I was the only person that had ever got invited to speak at Beyond Leadership, alongside Eric Wory.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And he'd had this event for like 10 years, and so I always take one of my children with me to events And so I took my son Wells with me to this event. He was 16 years old just turned 16 at the time, and you know he's sitting beside me. For the two days I did my piece and we get to the last day, the hotshot day, or the hot seat day, and Wells is one of the first three people that walks up and he sits down right in front of Eric Wory, in front of a room of six and seven figuring commanders There's about 200 of us in the room And he says I want to be like my mama, i want to be a speaker And I want to know what it's going to take. I know I'm only 16 years old. I want to know what it's going to take in order for me to be like her. And you know the things along the way, like my kids have seen us, you know, really, really suffer and try to make, make business and make wrong decisions and things like that, and but he had the confidence to go in front of a room full of people to think, you know, these are my peers, like they're no different than me And then just go sit down and say this is what I want to do. So Eric spent about 20 minutes with him, talking to him and telling him how to get there and what he needed to do, and he didn't need to worry about the fact that he was 16. You know he was. He was going to make it work And so Now have a seat.
Speaker 2:You know that, being able to take my children with me to events, you know I will take them as personal assistants, and so they'll go, and not only are they working for me, but they're learning right. They're sitting right beside me, they're getting the same information that I'm getting, and then they walk away. So all of my kids have been to Tony Robbins events every single one of Tony's events, i mean. So they have been engulfed in that. But I've also paid them to work for me, so you can pay them 13,850 a year.
Speaker 2:You don't have to pay any taxes on it. Now you probably want to contact us to help you set it up properly. You can't just transfer money into their bank account. There's some steps that you have to take, but you have to process payroll tax returns. But it's, you know, 500 bucks a year for us to do all the work, and then it's gonna save you about 5,000 bucks per child per year. So that's a huge tax deduction. No taxes if they're under the age of 18, there's no unemployment taxes, no FICA taxes. No, no State or federal taxes that they have to pay.
Speaker 1:What's the? legal precedent for the age you can start.
Speaker 2:Correct. So the president is it's held up in court as seven. But obviously you can pay your kids to be models. You know I tell people if you're gonna pay them under age seven, probably pay them half. You know, like 7,000 bucks a year. But if you're, you can pay your children to model and take pictures and post those on social media. So you're growing your organization. You know you can pay them the 13,850. You can pay them more than that. The only reason why I say the 13,850 is Because that's the standard deduction this year and they don't have to pay taxes on any of that money. They don't have to file a tax return and then you get to claim it all as a hundred percent tax deduction. So that's one.
Speaker 1:By the way, that was one of the first things, outside of amending our previous three years because we overpaid, that was one of the first things we utilized. Now, both of my boys through Courtney, that they're paying for their sporting events, they're paying for field trips. I mean, it's freaking amazing. Love it, yes.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that we are starting to add, we actually are starting in an insurance division Here in in the office, because of course you are really.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, my son is actually. He's going to be taken over that division. I'm super excited about it. We probably send 50 million dollars a year in insurance and Financial stuff that people should be doing, so we're gonna start doing that here.
Speaker 2:But anyway, the I Got blown away yesterday. I was gonna set up a life insurance policy for my kids, all of my kids. I want them to have a life insurance policy, not a Roth. I, you know, a Roth is fine, but to me, a life insurance policy is more beneficial because they can carry it with them. And It was like we're putting in five thousand bucks a year for the kids and they're gonna get a $300,000 life insurance policy and then after ten years, we stop, we don't even have to fund it anymore. It'll fund itself, and then they're gonna have several hundred thousand dollars as they can, because it's gonna continue to build and tax-free tax-free, no, you know, no, no, going through probate, none of that stuff.
Speaker 2:And so I'm like man, we really have got to start synchronizing To get doing like paying the kids. Then we can take what we're paying the kids and put that into a Roth IRA, we can put it into a, you know, an insurance plan. So you know, whatever you want to do with it, or you don't have to. You know, do those two things. You can actually use that money for vacations, you can use it for Sporting events, you can use it for school, you can use it for college whatever you want In addition to paying your kids. If you have children that are over the age of 18, you can actually pay them for college. So you can give them 52 50 a year that they don't have to pay taxes on and you don't have to pay taxes on. You do have to withhold Self-employment taxes or FICA taxes their portion and then yours but you still have the ability you can keep paying them to work for you.
Speaker 1:Freakin love it. What about grandkids anyway, when older, that's grandkids, same thing.
Speaker 2:So I'm saying, kids work as well, and here's the thing. So if you have an S corporation And some of you may have that on here You don't want to pay them through the S corporation. You want to pay them through a separate kids payroll. And the reason why is because anybody you pay through an S corp, you have to withhold FICA taxes because this is on separate entity. So if you you want to pay them as a schedule seat and so we help you do all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I can't sing her praises enough. That's the thing I love about her. It's not just giving us advice. She takes care of it, takes care of it. So any of you listening to this, don't go try to do this yourself. Don't go shop it, don't go outsource it. She does it all like she's able to set it up. She knows what she's doing better than anyone else, so just use her for all of it. So that was a big one. Obviously, that's only for home-based businesses. What's another one?
Speaker 2:Yes, and then that also leads to other employee benefits. So like riding off your swimming pole.
Speaker 1:Say it again, say it again. I knew you're gonna say it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you get the ability and this this is tax code. This is straight-up tax code, like it literally says that if you have employees and you allow them to use your facilities, which is a golf course, a tennis court and a exercise facility or you can, you can use it as a Pool, a swimming pool. If you allow them to use your property, you can't discriminate between your employees, but if you allow them to utilize those facilities, then it's a hundred percent tax deduction. So huge, huge deal, like we have, you know, probably a 250,000 dollar swimming pool. We bought a house last year. The pool came with it. It was expensive, but I can now bonus depreciate that swimming pool as a quarter of a million dollars and ride that all off. Then we took a building. We were gonna actually relocate our, our office To our home because I was trying to get back to a home-based business as hard and fast as I could.
Speaker 2:I bet I bet the staff didn't like it. So we're still in our 6,000 square feet, but I took the building that we were gonna Relocate everyone to and we turned that into an exercise facility in a game room and so all of our employees have access to it and, you know, none of them use it right, other than our children, for the most part, because it's, you know, far away and We have it on our property. So that's super important because we have a home-based business. We we call our home-based business home-based business gurus and we utilize that from the house. The kids I have kids that work at my house, i have kids that work here and we allow them to utilize those facilities and because of that is a hundred percent tax deductible.
Speaker 2:Now Here's a kicker if you don't have kids and you allow your team or Or you have reps that come, people that are, you know, attempting to get in in your business, or potential customers, if you allow them to utilize your facility, then you can write off a portion of your game room, your You know amusement, or the gym, the tennis court, the golf course, though those can be written off based on business use percentage. So if you were to use it, you know 50% for business use. You'd be able to run 50% of that, so that's a huge deduction in itself to be able to take advantage of Either on the employees level or being able to use it for business use of home.
Speaker 1:So big so big, by the way you because of this up years ago. That's the reason we're we're now getting a pool is because of this, and it made it more obtainable, more affordable. I just love it. What about solar? so, if a if a sale, we call him a seller on our team, with our company. If, if, if, they actually go solar themselves, is there anything we can do in terms of marketing? because now it's a sign of their house, they're having people over, they're showing people any, any added benefits.
Speaker 2:I Well, you're already getting the deduction for solar, which is what 26% this year 30, 30. 30,. okay, i thought it went down to 26.
Speaker 2:It did, they bumped it up to this year to 30. Okay, so you're getting 30%. You could, because that's a credit you are. That's bigger than an actual tax deduction, so you wouldn't necessarily be able to write off that. Now, if you were to spend money because that's already, you would be double dipping. So you're already getting the credit on your personal tax return. So you wouldn't get a tax deduction because you're already getting that credit, which is higher. For the most part, most people are not in a 30% tax bracket. On federal and then on state. They're getting the same benefit I think almost every state. But if you were to spend any money on any sort of solar websites, if you spend money on a monthly payment, then all of that would be a tax deduction for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so business expenses, like for our company right now it's 85 a month to keep the websites, all that sort of stuff. all of that you can do.
Speaker 2:Correct, and any money you spend in advertising or marketing, obviously you know that's going to grow your business. I mean, if you're advertising and marketing and then from there that would all be 100% tax deductible as well. I mean obviously not necessary. when you're doing a home-based business, you know a lot of people get started and they don't spend any money on advertising or marketing. But I mean, let's face it, if you want to really, you know, pound it and go out and start building a business, you're going to put in the effort and the energy in order to do that. If you treat it like a business, it'll pay you like a business. If you treat it like a hobby, it's going to cost you money.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it. One other thing too, and I skipped on this, but I want to come back to it. And, by the way, please, please, i don't want to get in trouble. Our first strategy call that Courtney. My wife and myself did. She speaks the same language. It was very short, very direct. I asked her a couple of questions, instantly knew that she was the boss and I said dude, go do your thing. I didn't call her dude, but I did now. And she said give me your last three returns, let me see what I can do and we'll circle back. And so I looked at my wife and said cool, send it. Send it Whenever we paid for it. Go, ever do it. Thinking it was almost a posturing about being honest, like what's she going to find? Our last accountant CPA was amazing. Can I say how much you saved us? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, I should make sure I don't get in trouble.
Speaker 1:It was over $150,000 that our last person missed, like hopefully you see why I had her here today. That is huge. I used to dread at tax time. I look forward to our quarterly review calls now because it's creative. We're strategizing, there's a reason behind the madness. So for all of you and I think we have a special deal right now for anybody that wants to get in contact they can schedule a strategy call, just like my wife and I did with you. Correct, is that right? And how does that work? They would use the link that we're going to give them. They hop on that call. Do they need to prepare or anything else they need?
Speaker 2:Yep, So they'll upload. You can upload the three years worth of your last year of your tax returns And what I do in that call is just go back and try to find everything we possibly could. Are there missing deductions? Were you structured improperly? And, guys, if you've overpaid a lot in self-employment taxes and you had an LLC in those years, then we can go back and amend up to three years and get that money back that you ever paid. It may take some time And for Doran and Erin, I'm sure for a while they're like there's no way in the world the IRS is going to ever send me this money. And they were shut down. Like I think we did all of this stuff during COVID and nobody worked. None of these people worked at the IRS. So it took quite some time, but we got all that money back And so now the IRS has taken about four to six months to amend tax returns.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the way, during that time period I think there's still one we're waiting for Has nothing to do with Courtney and her team. They've been great, it's just. It's the climate we live in. I now look forward to two letters I call them letters checks from the IRS. That's right, like we get notified. We're running to the mailbox. Three years ago, before Courtney, that was not the case. I was hiding from it. I wanted no part of it. That's the power of it. I'll make sure we throw the link on there And anything else you want to add that perhaps I didn't cover.
Speaker 2:I think I think about two tax deductions. I think the third one And to me I think is one of the most important is continuing education. It's going to advance and spending money. Now you can write off your meals, you can write off your cell phone, you can write off your internet, you can write off your travel right, You can take your family with you. And I kind of maybe give it an example. I think it works really well.
Speaker 2:If I pick up the phone and I call Erin and I'm like Erin, look, I'd love to see you, love to share something with you. Let's go to lunch Now. Could I share that information with Erin on the phone? Sure, But if Erin's visual, it's going to be really hard for me to do that. So you know, I like to meet people in person. I still like to have conversations and sit down. But even more than that, I like tax deductions. So I'm like man, it's tax deductible for me, Like let's go have lunch, I'm paying. And so I pick up the, I go and I get in my car and I drive to Erin wherever he's at, where I fly to Erin. Both of those are tax deductible And this year it's like 63 and a half cents per mile that you can ride off for having a business, or you can do actual expenses, So actual gas, actual oil, changes in insurance, all the good stuff.
Speaker 2:So I get in my car and I drive to Erin, I sit down and have a conversation with Erin. I tell Erin what I'm doing. I tell him look, man, I mean because this is what I believe the network marketing industry does. So when someone asked you what you do, let me just tell you what you really do in the network marketing space. You are providing a service at wholesale versus retail, So it's direct to consumer, And then from there you are providing people with a way that they can make an extra stream of income while you're making an extra stream of income, And you can do that together. And the third part about that is providing a way for people to free up $4,000 a year in taxes while you're doing the exact same thing. So it would be selfish for me not to think that you, Erin, want to save money in taxes, because I think everybody hates paying taxes.
Speaker 2:Right, I had to pay $7,000 last year on my $3.5 million $3.7 million and I was very upset. I was extremely upset. It was the first time I ever had to pay taxes. I mean, I was like I'm like, seriously, and I had to give $6,000 to state And I'm like, oh my God, like that was $13,000. I was, I was pissed off, Like I was really pissed off, And so I didn't plan enough. Right, I should have done some more. I don't know, maybe that wasn't too bad, but I was very upset about it. Let me just put it that way.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I love about you, though.
Speaker 2:Yes. And so I'm having this conversation and Aaron looks at me and he's like Courtney, i'm pretty sure you're going to hell or jail. And I'm like Aaron. What part man did you not comprehend about the fact that I'm providing a service at wholesale versus retail, providing a way that you and I both could make some extra money, cause we're friends anyway, we like hanging out with each other, we get to go on vacations together, do all these things together, we can both make money and then we can both save money in taxes. What part of that did you not comprehend? And you're going to look at me and you're like what do you mean? Well, i mean, because I had this conversation with you I don't care if you joined me or not, like that's irrelevant man, i wasn't. I didn't even think you were going to join me, cause I didn't think you had the money. But you know what? I told you what I was doing.
Speaker 2:And because I told you what I was doing, i get to now write off this meal that I'm paying for I can actually afford to pay for it, cause I'm not paying so much in taxes. And then, from there, are you getting to write off your meal, erin? No, okay, great. So, and then from there, i'm going to get back in my car and I'm going to get back in my Range Rover And I'm going to write off everything to do with my Range Rover, because I use my Range Rover in order to talk to you about this business, and then from there, i will call you on my cell phone. So now I get to write off my cell phone. I need my internet in order to run the business, so I'm going to use my internet and I'm going to write that off. Then I'm going to write off part of my house. Erin, do you get to write off your house? No, you don't.
Speaker 2:Okay, so then, erin, here's the next step. I'm going to hire my kids to work for me. I was paying them money anyway to do nothing. I'm going to hire them to work for me. I'm going to give them money, and then I don't have to pay taxes on that money, and neither do they, to the tune of they're saving me $28,000 a year, erin, and taxes by hiring my kids. And then, from there, now I get to write off my swimming pool because I hired my kids, and then I get to take my children with me to continuing education events to meet people like Les Brown. My son has met Les Brown, eric Warrie, tony Robbins. He's not met Grant Cardone yet. That will happen.
Speaker 1:It's coming.
Speaker 2:All of my kids, and so now they're learning from the greatest of the great, who have more than I do, who I want to strive to be like, and they see that situation And 100% of it, the continuing education, the travel. I typically will spend two or three days on the front end with my kids in an event, or two or three days on the back end doing whatever it is that they want to do. We get to write off all of that And then, from there, erin, guess what else? Because I have a home-based business, 100% of my medical bills and 100% of my medical insurance is tax deductible as a business expense, because I've set up a system in place, an HRA in place, in order to write off all of those. So, at the end of the day, you're making money as an employee, you're paying taxes. You have no options on how to lower those taxes. But and then you buy some of your needs and your wants.
Speaker 2:But for me, as a business owner, because I made a decision, because I made a commitment to do something, to attempt earning income to tell you what I'm doing I now get to make my money. I get to buy the things that I want and I need right A lot more than you do because you're paying more in taxes, even if I'm making the same amount of money. And then, from there, what's left over? that left over I'm now paying taxes on. So which one would you rather be? Which system you wanna be in?
Speaker 2:It's a mic drop, drop the mic 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:I love it. You're passionate about it. You're treating this thing like a business. You're educating people. You are the real deal. I'm gonna make sure I throw the link up there And I think we even have a special rate, is it? I don't wanna say the number. How much is it for someone to book that strategy called with you?
Speaker 2:It's $99. $99.
Speaker 1:Guys, gals, $99. $99 to have someone go take a peek at this. She's gonna. She's gonna. The other thing I said hopefully you don't this doesn't offend you She has to earn your business from that call. Like that's the goal, like she's not, $99 is nothing to her. She's gonna go through your last three returns, whatever you upload, and find the holes. And I promise you I don't care how good you think your person is or people, she will find them. This is her specialty. This is what she does. She won't even help someone unless they own a home-based business. Like that's it. Courtney, i can't say thank you enough. You are the real deal. I am grateful to have you in my corner. I appreciate you taking time from your really busy day job to come spend time with our audience. I can't thank you enough. How do people find your books? How do they get in contact with you outside of the strategy? call.
Speaker 2:So my website is otbtaxcom. Obviously, you can buy my books on Amazon, But you can go to OTB Tax. You'll find our books. We have a membership. you know you can book a tax strategy session, but use that link that Aaron has sent. so we know where you came from.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it. And once again, i'll throw that in the podcast description, also on the YouTube channel for those of you that prefer to watch it. But, courtney, once again, thank you from all of us. If you guys got value and I know you did I have a feeling I'm gonna go ahead and say it and offend a lot of people already. This will be the number one episode we have done so far. I guarantee it. Please like share review. We do this from contribution. That's the only reason. Once again, courtney, thank you so much. I'll talk to everybody soon.