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Tax Credits for Small Business: Hidden Money on the Table
Tax credits are leaving thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—of dollars on the table for small businesses who simply don't know they exist. Tim Lowe of Guardian Financial pulls back the curtain on these hidden opportunities that could transform your bottom line.
The Workers' Opportunity Tax Credit to R&D tax credits and everything in between.
What makes these services particularly valuable for small business owners is the risk-free approach. With no upfront costs and a streamlined assessment process, businesses can discover their eligibility without diverting resources from their core operations. While large corporations employ full-time tax specialists to capture these benefits, Guardian Financial levels the playing field for small and medium-sized businesses whose owners are focused on their expertise rather than tax code complexities.
Ready to stop overpaying on taxes? Visit Guardian Financial's website where seven simple questions can reveal what tax credits your business qualifies for—potentially transforming your financial outlook this tax season and beyond.
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People are leaving a ton of money on the table because nobody knows.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome back to the Build With BBB podcast. I'm your host, casey Farmer from Better Business Bureau, serving Central Oklahoma. Today on the podcast we have Tim Lowe with Guardian Financial. Tim is a longtime friend and accredited business owner. We're excited to have him on the podcast today to talk about tax credit for small business. Tim welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2:So, tim, I always like to start out all of my podcast episodes with tell us a little bit about your business, how you got started, what you offer and how you might be able to help small businesses.
Speaker 1:Well, I got started probably in the six or seven years. And I got started I was in the insurance business and had a guy with life insurance come and talk to me about it and I talked about tax credits and my degree and I used to be an accountant a long time ago. It didn't work out, I didn't like it, but tax has always interested me. And he talked about these tax credits and I was like it's got to be easier than selling insurance. People have to qualify it's. You know, everybody pays taxes and everybody would like a tax credit. So I got into that and it's been done for six or seven years somewhere in there and just liked it and it's something I'm interested in and people always need to save on their taxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what all services does Guardian Financial offer?
Speaker 1:Well, we do tax credits for small businesses. We do some life insurance and some retirement stuff plans, but mostly tax credits for small and medium-sized businesses. Big ones have accounts and lawyers to take care of all that stuff. Small businesses don't have anybody to help.
Speaker 2:And your ideal client is somebody with you know one to 10 employees, or is there a specific industry that you really feel like you can help?
Speaker 1:No, we do a lot Like manufacturing is a good one, but really any retail business, anybody who's hiring. There's huge hiring credits and people. Some people know about them but very few people use them and so anything. If you've got any employees and we can work any size business, we can work on the biggest business too. We work with that too.
Speaker 2:When you say hiring credits, let's go down that line. Let's talk about hiring and what that looks like and how you might be able to lend into some of that Okay.
Speaker 1:There's a thing called the workers' opportunity tax. It's been around since the 80s. The problem with it is it's a lot of work. You've got 20 pages to fill out. You've got a certain time to fill it out. About 20% to 30% of people qualify, so you spend three or four hours. They work for a couple of people and they don't qualify.
Speaker 2:So for that specific tax credit, only 20 to 30 percent of people who yeah, it was originally for ex-convicts and ex-military to help them find jobs.
Speaker 1:This expanded to you know where you live, if you're on assistance, anything, all kinds of stuff, just to go to that program. They all expand but they've been around forever but they're difficult to do and what we've done is we've made it, we've simplified it where, if you're hiring somebody and what we've done is we've made it, we've simplified it where if you're hiring somebody, feel like they're giving a resume or fill out an application you give it to us and we take care of it from there.
Speaker 2:What are the?
Speaker 1:types of tax credits. Small businesses be aware of that are headed into the busy season? I assume yes. So there's, if you own commercial property, there's. It's called a cost segregation study. It's a. Cost segregation study. Basically, your building depreciates in 39 and a half years. Well, a lot of it the roof, the air conditioner, electrical.
Speaker 2:It's not going to last 30 years.
Speaker 1:No, it's going to last seven, eight years. So you can get credit up front worth hundreds of thousands of dollars Each million dollar building worth your building's worth. They're all different, but they can be worth $7,500,000 tax credit year one.
Speaker 2:For that type of tax credit. Let's say that you rebuilt a building on. You had an existing building that's been there for a long time. Then you rebuild a new building. Is that kind of like a that property still counts because it's been there for so long? Yes, you're losing the original foundation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you redo it like car dealerships. They have to remodel everyone's hotels Every time they remodel. They can do it again.
Speaker 2:Wow Okay.
Speaker 1:And then if they sell that, the next guy can do the same thing. Okay, and if he sells it next year, they can do it. You can keep on doing it. But like car dealers and hotels, they have to, restaurants could be a great deal because they have to remodel every five, six years.
Speaker 2:And that's like a step model ever five, six years, and that's like a step. I'm just asking. But you have to do that because of the industry.
Speaker 1:Well, like the car dealers, like Ford and Chevy, they don't want you selling out of a nasty old building. You've got these nice new cars, but look at your old building, yeah, and hotels especially, I mean all day in doesn't want your building to be all beat up, so they make you do it regularly.
Speaker 2:Okay, what other tax credits are available?
Speaker 1:Well, we look for local state all kinds. We kind of have a system that runs in the background. But we do R&D tax credits and they're year-to-year ongoing and we do some like a credit card audit.
Speaker 2:Tell me about the D tax credit.
Speaker 1:R&D, research and development. Okay, yeah, so if you I mean chemical companies or drugs they're always coming up with new drugs Well, they can write off big parts of their payroll and what they do to create those. You kind of get some incentive to build newer stuff. But manufacturing, if you have a new process, restaurants, if you do a new way to run a restaurant, any kind of new process or any kind of new thing you're working on developing, you get a credit for that and it's year after year. So the drug companies, they get them. You can apply for it year after year. Yeah yeah, it just kind of keeps running. We kind of.
Speaker 2:we take care of all that you do all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do that and we do it all. We don't charge anything up front. So small businesses that don't have accountants and lawyers, there's really no, no, no downside to it, Cause we're going to look. No downside to it because we're going to look. If we don't find anything, it doesn't cost you a penny.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And that's the key to what we do and why we help small business because they don't have to come up with all the money up front.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's expensive.
Speaker 2:Well, you've been on the other side of that. You've really been an entrepreneur and done a lot through the years.
Speaker 1:I've done a few, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what other tax credits?
Speaker 1:Well, we do. Well, we do property tax rights. So if you're building, every year you get a new property tax bill and you think yours too high, we will go in and we go to the hearings, we do everything, and if we don't find anything like again, it doesn't cost you anything um, and then we will, I mean we will argue with them, fight with them, the city and the county, and this is how big the building is, and we will do all that on our dock.
Speaker 1:So you, you, at no cost. There's certain it's gonna be a certain size building, certain amount. I mean we can't do just little stuff. You go in there and do it, but anything, mostly commercial stuff we can have, and then we do local and state tax credits, whatever credits are out there.
Speaker 2:If the city's giving credits, we'll probably sit two plugs into just about everything so for any small businesses who are listening today, I know you've got an absolute. You just have tons of information on your website that businesses can find. Tell me a little bit about that. What information is there and resources and things that they can find?
Speaker 1:Well, we actually have on our website basically about seven questions that will ask you and then it'll give you an estimate so we can do everything online. I mean, I can send a deal out to them and they can. You got 10 buildings, put all the information in there. It'll kind of tell you, give you a pretty good estimate of what it's worth and what you can do. So really, there's no. I mean you can do it all day, every day. People can, wherever anywhere in the country, in your pajamas. Yep, yep, you can do it. Yeah, do it in bed time, do whatever you wake up and do, but there's nothing. There's basically about seven questions and then they will go through and they will, you know, with all the stuff they can look at. Now they know everything, they can find it out. So it goes in the. It'll find your building, see when it's built, and they pretty well know what industry you are, I mean your hotel. They're usually worth about this much.
Speaker 2:You're located. It all comes down to just all the nitty-gritty details that are going to help place what's best for you yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's really, it's I mean, seven questions. It's automated. Oh it's all automated and really if you own the business and then I mean whoever does your taxes can give me all the information.
Speaker 2:I think we've talked about this a few different times, but for some businesses it's like leaving money on the table, because these credits are out there. They just might not know about it.
Speaker 1:People are leaving a ton of money on the table because nobody knows. You start talking about taxes, their eyes glaze over and they go right over the head. Yeah, they go. Okay, tax I don't, but people don't know there are. The government has a ton of credits but they're not very good at advertising them. There's, they're out there, they're all over. There's. Big companies make tens of billions of dollars and don't pay taxes Because they probably have a full-time. Oh, yeah, they've got full-time. I mean I bet they spend a lot of money but they save a whole lot more than they spend. You and me have a business. Yeah, I mean we're trying to make payroll. We have no clue.
Speaker 2:Your goal is to help the small business.
Speaker 1:Yes, help small business. You got a guy who builds roofs. He doesn't know anything about taxes. He doesn't want that.
Speaker 1:No, but he's an expert on roofing, yeah, and there's a lot of kids Doctors. Good thing they're good doctors because they don't know any of this. They got in to be a doctor and to help people, or plumbing, whatever they got into to do that. They didn't get into the book work because nobody likes that. Just that. There's really no risk.
Speaker 1:Just reach out and I can send you a thing. We don't even have to meet, drive around town, don't have to do anything. I can send you a deal and you can look at it. It's really a very simple process. We've made it where they don't have to do anything. And there's really we have a deal called it's a tax management system. You kind of sign up and it does have a cost. It's like five, six dollars a month and it runs behind the scenes as you hire people and do stuff. If you, you know, try to put in there. I'm looking at a new building. They can tell you where's the building, what's it's worth and what your tax credit can be, and they will look at those new credits. They will show you look, there's this new credit that you might be qualified for.
Speaker 2:So this tax management system, is it subscription through your?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, well, it's called Growth Management Group is who I work with Stripe. But they have the system. It just runs behind the scenes, it doesn't bother you, it doesn't do anything, it doesn't take your time, it doesn't do anything, it doesn't take your time, it doesn't. You know, it's not calling you every day asking questions. It just runs behind there and it'll spit out there's new tax credit.
Speaker 1:Here's your credit, and we do the paperwork, we send it to you or your account, wherever you want it sent, and then they take care of it. We don't do any accounting. We don't want to change your accounts. We don't want to change your credit card people. We don't change anything. We tell you where the taxes are, where the credits are, and let your people handle it. So there's really no, we're not trying to change the way you do business or anything else. We're coming on the outside. Here's the tax credit, have your people take care of it. And then here's the paperwork, signed, ready to deliver. If you get audited or something, we come in and we will prove. You know the tax credit and stuff like that. We're not going to say, right, you're on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're there to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to be there and we're going to defend what we've done.
Speaker 2:So link down in the show notes for anybody listening. Today We'll have a variety of resources and a link to Guardian Financial's website so that you can fill out that seven what did you say seven questions.
Speaker 1:About seven questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to kind of get until later.
Speaker 1:And the taxes? I mean if you're on April 15th and you owe a bunch of taxes, those tax cuts can come pretty fast. If you're on a building, we can do it almost instantaneously we look at the building and then you can use that credit as you need it.
Speaker 2:What's that cutoff date for people to reach out to you? Because we are getting? This episode should go up in February. Don't call you on April 13th.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I don't call you anytime. I mean, if you're in April and you're in a hotel and you're in a lot of taxes, I mean we can get it. Yeah, we can plug it in and get it done, because we're we don't do the taxes, so we're not, we're not working seven days a week to get those done, we're just doing this. And if you have the credit, I mean you can. I mean, if you owe taxes you already filed, Do you have to file April 15th and you owe taxes and you're making payments on it and we find your credit, you can use it then.
Speaker 2:Oh perfect.
Speaker 1:If you owe taxes, you can use the credit Okay, and if not, you can use it last.
Speaker 2:Tim, thank you so much for being on our episode today. For anybody who wants to connect with Tim, Ronnie and Financial, all the information will be linked below as we enter tax season. Thank you so much for listening today and we will see you in the next episode. Bye.