Stop Overpaying the IRS: Discover the Best Business Structures to Save Thousands

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Description:
In this eye-opening episode of Transform Your Future, host Eddie Isin sits down with Roger Pearson, a master tax advisor with over 50 years of experience in small business management and tax advising. Roger shares invaluable insights on how to structure your business to minimize tax liabilities legally. Learn how to save thousands by understanding the best business structures and avoiding common tax pitfalls.

Timecodes:

• 00:00 - Introduction
  Eddie introduces the episode's theme: minimizing tax liabilities through proper business structuring.
• 02:38 - Meet Roger Pearson
  Introduction to Roger Pearson, his background, and his mission to help small business owners save money on taxes.
• 05:09 - The Problem with Current Tax Education
  Roger discusses the lack of practical tax education for small business owners and the common mistakes they make.
• 08:13 - Understanding Business Structures
  Roger explains the differences between sole proprietorships, LLCs, S Corporations, and C Corporations, and their tax implications.
• 12:11 - Role of an Enrolled Agent
  Roger details what an enrolled agent is and why they are crucial for small business owners.
• 15:44 - Choosing the Right Tax Professional
  Tips on how to find a tax advisor who genuinely cares about your business and can provide personalized advice.
• 19:30 - Tax Law Changes and Their Impact
  Discussion on how the 2018 tax law changes affected deductions for W2 employees and what business owners can do to navigate these changes.
• 22:52 - Home Office Deductions and Other Complexities
  Clarifying who can take home office deductions and the limitations for different business entities.
• 25:13 - Practical Tax Strategies for Business Owners
  Practical advice on how to legally reduce your tax bill, including setting up as an independent contractor and utilizing business expenses.
• 29:44 - Creating a Solid Foundation for Your Business
  Roger shares his approach to educating business owners through online courses and consulting, emphasizing the importance of a strong business foundation.
• 35:17 - Real-Life Success Stories
  Roger recounts success stories of clients who have saved significant amounts by restructuring their businesses based on his advice.
• 41:41 - The Importance of Ongoing Tax Advice
  The benefits of regularly consulting with a tax advisor to keep your business optimized for tax savings.
• 47:40 - Final Thoughts and Contact Information
  Eddie and Roger wrap up the conversation with final thoughts. Information on how listeners can contact Roger and access his educational resources.

Links and Resources:

• Roger Pearson’s Website
• Transform Your Future Newsletter

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Transcript

0:00

It's just when you get into your seventies and like I am, you start looking back at life and you say, well, what does your life want to mean? And when it really comes down to it, I mean, it's not how much money that you've made in your life that counts in the end. It's how many people's lives you've improved. And it's not only good philosophy. I mean, it's a good Christian philosophy. That's what this country is built on, and it is a good way to live. I think it gives you a lot of peace and a lot of satisfaction. Yes. So I said I'm going to put all this knowledge into a course because online courses are really the thing nowadays for those that are willing to take the time to earn. I did, I did. It's got seven hours worth of video and everything. It goes through all the different legal formats, it goes through all the paperwork requirements, how you should keep your paperwork, how to put it together. Because the better you put your paperwork together, the better the people that you hire can do their job for you. And then it goes through all of the tax consequences of all the legal formats and how all these three things tie together to work together to help you build a solid foundation onto your business. Papaya. Hello all. Welcome to another episode of Transform Your Future with me, Eddie Isin, where I sit down with entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and high achievers as they identify areas I can improve on and guide me to further my self-improvement practice. For more information and insights, join the newsletter@transformyourfuture.com reinvention, personal growth and identity. Today's guest is Roger Pearson. For over 50 years, Roger has created, sold, or managed many small businesses. But in 2001, he switched course and began working as a master tax advisor. In that time, he watched hundreds of small business owners lose thousands of dollars needlessly. Recently he made it his mission to provide entrepreneurs the knowledge to build solid foundations under their business, to keep more money in their pockets and give less to the government. That sounds really good, by the way. Welcome, Roger. How are you today, sir? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Yes, sir. So I've got some questions I know that I want, but I got to tell you the idea of less money going to Uncle Sam and more money going in my pocket, that is a very good idea. That's something that I would like to talk about for sure. Let's talk a little bit about that. Well, the thing about it being from a small business background, most of my life when I got into doing taxes professionally for other people, I specialized in small business. That was my thing. And over time, I would watch people just paying so much in taxes they didn't have to pay because they simply didn't have the education. And it's no wonder because there is basically no education in this country to learn as small business people. There's a few of them sprouting up here and there, but for the most part, there isn't. For several years I taught tax classes actually, I taught taxes, and I would have college business majors come in and sit in my class and they would come up to me afterwards and they would say, we ask our professors about this type of stuff, and they tell us we have to go find the answers someplace else. They didn't teach that knowledge and that just blew me away when I heard how can a business major in college not be taught the structural values of running a business? It makes no sense. They get 'em ready for the corporate world, but not for the small business world. And there's two totally different things, although the basic principles, if you're on a management track with a large company, the more you know about business structure that the small business has to put up with, the more value you are to your employer and the faster that you can advance through higher management levels, which was what my experience was when I did those times. The decades that I did go in and work for other people, I knew what they were doing, what they were talking about, what they wanted, and how it all worked. And I was able to get into higher management positions because of that. So it is an all around thing that you need to know all about, legal structures of business. You need to know how to handle the paperwork of business, which is what everybody hates, and you have to know what the tax consequences of every make in your business or you're going to throw away lots of money. You don't have to. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know that some of my audience, I work in sales and sales strategy. I work with businesses to create sales strategies and bring a sales team in. And I also work a lot training and motivating sales teams and individuals, especially commission only salespeople and small business entrepreneurs and such. And I know one thing that there's an area that is a little tricky, I guess, and that there are commission only salespeople who work in a W2 environment where they're not getting 10 99, and so they have to get a little bit creative of how they can write things off. And I know that's a major area that I think there's some confusion in. Are you familiar with that? Kind of? Yeah. I mean, that basically changed in 2018 when the current tax laws went into effect. Prior to that, you could take all of your business expenses, your W2 business expenses that your employer did not reimburse you for, and you could write them off on a schedule a itemized deductions if you used itemized deductions. And at that time, the standard deduction was so low that that was fairly easy to do. I had so many clients just go into shock and 2018 came around and I had to tell them, no, you can't deduct any of that anymore. Exactly. They said, you need to go back to your employer and renegotiate to see, okay, you either need to make more money or more commission, or you need to set up something where you can be reimbursed for part of your sales expenses that you're doing out on the road, that that company is getting free grants at the moment. And that was the only really way to stop it because tax wise, because of what Congress did in lowering the tax rates, they had to cut someplace, and that's one of the places they cut. They tried to cut the things that the least number of people in the country use, and unfortunately, expenses for salespeople was one of those things. And navigating that is a little bit difficult, and I know we need to be educated about these things and how to handle it, what we can write off, what we can't, those kinds of things and track those things so that you have justification at the end when you put in the paperwork. But one way that we've tried to handle this is having a business, a corporation, and working and then just putting all the income together and then taking the write offs out of it that way rather than just doing a W2 income and not have a business. Does that make sense? Is that something that you do that makes perfect? Is that ethical? Well, that's. The rub. Yeah, it's right there on the line. You have to be very, very careful with that because the IRS can come in and they can recharacterize income. Most people do not know this. For instance, if somebody is treating you as an employee, as a W2 employee where they're telling you what to go, when to go, how to do it, the whole thing, just as if you, but they're trying to pay you as an independent contractor, not a 10 99. They're asking to go into that business and recharacterize all those people as W2 employees and hand you a nice bill for back taxes and penalties and fees and everything else. So you have to be real careful with things like that. At some point it may be better. The other thing that I would advise people to do is set up yourself instead of running on just a W2 or a sole proprietor, set up like an S corp and go to your employer and said, I want to be paid as a 10 99 employee instead of a W2 employee. Now there's goods and bads about that as far as the tax part of it goes, then you're allowed to write off all those expenses against your income. And it could be when you go into a negotiation like that or say, oh, I'd rather be paid this way than that way, you're going to lose benefits and things like that generally. So you have to weigh that into the factor how much those benefits are worth. And most people have no idea how much their benefits are worth. They just know what the net amount they get in their W2 is. And so you have to weigh that to get it. And then there's other ways you can negotiate. Well, if you say, okay, I want to be an independent, paid as an independent contractor instead of W2 now, could you pay me this much more an hour since you're not going to have to pay half my social security and Medicare in anything anymore? So there's a lot of ways to look at that and really to know whether there's something you should get together with a good tax advisor, prefer, be an enroll agent and sit down and run the numbers, several different scenarios and find out before you even go in and talk to an employer about this type of thing, whether that would be a good fit for you or not. And it may not. It depends on the amount of expenses. Some salespeople have huge amount of expenses, especially with the cost of gas nowadays. Yeah, absolutely. What was that term you just used when you said get a tax advisor? You used a certain term about, oh. An enrolled agent. Yeah. What does that mean? Enrolled agent is like the PhD of the tax world. Now, there's several different classifications that can practice that can represent somebody like a lawyer represents you in court. There are certain people that can represent you with with the IRS. So you don't even have to tuck the IRS. You can give this permission to do that. CPAs by definition, can automatically represent whether they know anything about taxes or not. Lawyers can represent before they RS, but enrolled agent is somebody that is the only classification of representation that you have to earn. By knowing tax law, you have to actually pass three, three hour IRS exams to become an enrolled agent, you have to take 25 hours worth of continuing education classes on tax subjects and ethics every single year. And so if you really want to know somebody that is versed in taxes, that's the highest that you can get in the profession. Enroll enrolled. Enrolled agent is called an. Enrolled agent. Yeah, right. That's above a CPA. Yeah. I mean CP, a lot of people think that CPAs are experts in taxes, and some of them are take tax classes every single year because they have to take continuing education. Also, the fact is that to get a CPA certification, you have to take some basic tax classes your first year to get your certification after that. I love that you changed things very recently. You never have to take another tax class the rest of the year. And I find that many CPA firms doing taxes on this is a side job. It's extra income for them. That's why they do so many extensions for people and then just do 'em after tax seasons over and they got some extra time. And it's a shame. It's a really, really shame. And some of the things that I teach people in working with them is how to pick a good account or a good CPA if you want them doing your taxes also. And I have clients also that they have a bookkeeper or CPA to do their accounting because that's what they're good at. And then they have a separate tax advisor to do their taxes, who they take their p and ls to. There's a lot of things to take into consideration when Let's talk about that. What is some good criteria for that? Well, the thing about it is I hear so many, and I hear these because I have to fix the problems that are created by these things. And that's one thing I've learned over the years. I tell somebody that if they're, whoever they're doing their taxes with and even their bookkeeping with, if they don't want to sit down and talk to you, if they're one of these firms to just drop it off, I'll call you when it's done, run away, go away. If you care about your business and your money, run away because they don't care, especially if you're a small business person. I mean, the number one thing you're looking at for anybody, you bring on your team, and you absolutely should bring on a tax advisor and a bookkeeper or accountant on your team because you want to be out advancing your business, not taking care of something. You can pay somebody a minimum amount to do, but the things you want somebody that cares about your business. It is just when I take on a client for instance, I mean, I know more about the trades than most trades. I think because I take on a painting business, I have to learn the painting business. For me to give that person good advice on how to handle his taxes and how to handle his accounting and everything else, I have to learn his business. I have to learn how he works, how he prefers to work, how he prefers to run his business, and then I can give him proper advice. But you need to find somebody that's willing to sit down and talk to you about those things, that ask those questions of you, that allows you to ask questions of them. Then you're going to have somebody that is proper to bring on your team. But if it's just this, oh, you're just another number type attitude you're getting from these people, run away. Find somebody else because they're going to cost you money in the long run. Yeah, and I think a lot of individuals don't put a lot of thought into getting somebody to do their taxes. They'll say, oh, well my friend, he does taxes. He does my taxes and I love him. Why don't you just call my friend? And that's as much education and research that they do to find somebody. So I think that's good having some criteria. And I like your criteria of if they don't want to sit down and ask you questions to better understand your business and your situation, run like hell. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I know that this is a little bit kind of off topic, but what are the challenges when you have a corporation or an LLC for that matter, and really your main income source is coming from a W2 income source, but you're buying equipment, you have some services that you use, maybe you use a part of your house to run the business and put your equipment. What are the kind of complications between that? Why is that a difficult area to navigate? Well, the law simply states at this moment, we don't know what's going to happen 2026 depends who gets voted in this fall because the current tax laws are slated to go through the year 2025, and then everything's on the table again. Whether it gets turned upside down again, whether those deductions will come back again, who knows? And I can't even project what that may be. But the fact is that W2 employees cannot deduct the expenses that they incur creating their income other than to negotiate a reimbursement from their employers. Now, if you have a W2 employee, if you have a side business, that's a different matter. Your side business can be income. If you have a side business going, it's got to be proven to be profit that you're intending to create a profit that is just not there to get out around the tax laws. IRS is asking a lot more questions than they used to. They're not using all that new money. They just got to go after$400,000 enough people. The number of IRS letters that I've gotten this last year just on solar proprietors is amazing. Showing to approve that they actually have the deductions. Really claiming. Yes, it's vastly improved. It's two or three times what it was just a previous year ago is what. I'm getting. So don't believe everything that you read in the media because there's more things happening at the IRS than they're talking about. So you have to be careful. You really have to be careful of that. The only way that you can deduct things is if you're in business for yourself basically, and you can deduct it against 10 99 income or just cash business, however you make your business, then you can take home office. Sole proprietors can take home office deduction. Corporations cannot, as corporations cannot. Partnerships cannot only as corporations that have not become an LLC, because once you're an LLC, then that's a different classification of business. So even you have to be very, very careful about that also. So they. Haven't. Really. Left you a lot of options as the salespeople in this country currently. Yeah, it's terrible. And you got to figure out some creative way to handle this as an individual. Because when you think about it, I mean, okay, if you're just the average commission only salesperson probably makes $60,000 a year, $75,000 a year. But anybody who's working at a high level, we're talking about making 150 to $300,000 a year of commissions. And when you're in that level, if you don't have a way to handle that, I mean, we're talking about a lot of money that the IRS would expect from that income. So getting creative has been something that I've worked on in my life to do stuff. But it's getting harder and harder, like you said, since 2018, how things are working. But I'm just fascinated so much information about this. Most people, even the people I talk to who do taxes, don't have that much inform about things I've learned more in the last five minutes with you than I have from some of these other people. There's other avenues you could do. For instance, you could take, if you're making $160,000 a year, you want to shelter part of that, you want to do things. You could buy some rental real estate, become a landlord, and you're going to end up with depreciation, all kinds of other deductions that you can deal with there, which if you manage it yourself, you can't take losses if you have somebody else manage. But if you manage it yourself, you can take up to $25,000 worth a year in losses. I mean, yeah. And. Then there's some other structures like 4 0 1 ks and things like that that you could move money into so you don't have any tax liability. And maybe in the future, your tax liability be less, which whenever they say that, I always feel like that sounds like a terrible plan. I be making more money when I'm older. Why should I make less money? But I know what the justification is. It's just a funny thing to me. But when you were talking just now, you mentioned about only certain types of business entities can actually even take certain deductions. What was it you said about personal deduction of space you use in your home or things like that? Oh, the. Home office deduction. Yeah. The home office deduction can only be by people that are sole proprietors, otherwise that file a Schedule C along with 10 40, whether they're a single member LLC or just a sole proprietor. Anything beyond that cannot. The IRS just says, no, you can't, because here's, here's the weird logic about it. If you own an S corporation and you were to try to take the home office deduction, well, they ask corporations a separate entity. So for them to do home office deduction, they would have to rent it from you, the space from you, the corporation would have to rent space from you. Well, that would make you a landlord. So then you'd have to file a Schedule E to claim that income that the corporation is paying you and take the deductions against that. And so one washes the other and the IRS says, no, no, we're not going to pay that. And so you just can't do it. So you have restrictions like that also. But what about a C corp? Now, a C corp is a totally different thing. And I run my business under a C corporation. A C corporation is a totally separate entity from the taxpayer. It's just like IBM or Microsoft or anything else. They pay their own taxes, their own expenses and everything else. It's totally separate thing. And there's other benefits and things. There's more overhead, but there's also some other benefits that you can give yourself when you get into benefits and four oh ones and so forth and so on that you can do that you can't do with the others. You see, because the C corporation is the only legal entity that actually pays its own taxes. Everything else, partnerships has corporations and sole proprietorships all pay their taxes on your personal tax return. It all flows down your personal tax return. So I mean, if you really want to put up a wall, you can do a C corporation. And that does do that. And that doesn't help your W2 any. But as far as if you're running your own business, definitely you can do that. Now, at the current rate, sometimes it's more advantageous because the current rate for C corporations is 21%, used to be in the thirties, and who knows what it's going to be in two years. And on your personal return, you may be paying 24 to 30% if you make 150 to$200,000 a year. So that may not be advantageous in the current situation. So these are all the things that a good tax repair is going to be able to sit down and talk to you and advise you. I just have one more question about that. So if I go to look for property in another state and I fly there, I stay in the Airbnb for the weekend and I bring a couple of people from my team, am I able to write off the airfare, the Airbnb, and maybe even some of the meals from when we're out of town? As long as it has a business purpose? Yes. Yeah, because looking at properties to invest in. And that's under a separate company from UW two. Yes. Yeah. That's all for business purpose. Now, if you were to take seven days and four of it would be for personal and three for business, then you would just prorate it. Yeah. You hear a lot of things. And while I got you here, I just want to make sure that the things I'm hearing, some of them are not true. Some of them are true. So I'm just running it by you. So let's talk about how you help educate businesses because I think that's interesting that it's a need. There's a real need in the marketplace that people get involved in business, they start doing things, and they maybe don't know how to set up the business entity. And maybe they're getting the wrong advice from some people because when I hear people talking about business entities, for some reason, a lot of people just like to say, open an LLC, open an LLC, open an LLC. And I'm like, why LLC? How does that help you in this specific situation? And so the education that you provide to really look at what's the pros and cons of the different business entities when you start them and how that's going to affect you as a business in the future. I think that's really important. Tell me a little bit about the education that you offer small to medium sized businesses. Let me start with the LLC thing, because that is one of the most biggest misconceptions there is in the entire business world. And LLCA lot of people think is a corporation. It's not. It stands for limited liability company. And they came up. It's not recognized at the federal level, it's only recognized at the state level, and all 50 states now have one. It took 10 years for all 50 states to pass that. And they all work a little bit differently. All it does is give you, because prior to LLCs, sole proprietorships and general partnerships had no liability protection whatsoever. If somebody sued the company, they could attach your personal assets. So all LLCs do is give you somewhat of the same personal liability protection that you would give you open to corporation, so you don't have to go through that extra overhead. Single member LLCs at the federal level are considered sole proprietorships and multi-member LLCs at the state level, at the federal level, considered partnerships. That's all that does. So the LLC doesn't pay taxes. The individuals do Correct. Who are the members. All that does is add, instead of you having to buy a million dollar liability protection for your personal assets for owning a business, it gives you that you pay the state so much a year depending on the state in Florida, for instance, $138 and 50 cents a year they want. And you add that layer of liability protection on top of your business. That's all it does. That's all it does. And that's the biggest misconception out there because people think, oh, I'm opening a corporation. Well, no, you're not. You're just adding liability to your existing business is all you're doing. So what I did, I mean, I've been teaching people all this stuff at the tax gas for, well, I just finished my 22nd year that I've done it now, which is incredible to me. I started as a part-time job 22 years ago until I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do, and here I am. So a couple years ago, I got to thinking I would love it is just when you get into your seventies, I am, you start looking back at life and you say, well, what does your life want to mean? And when it really comes down to it, I mean, it's not how much money that you've made in your life that counts in the end. It's how many people's lives you've improved. That's really, and it's not only good philosophy. I mean, it's a good Christian philosophy. That's what this country is built on, and it is a good way to live. I think it gives you a lot of peace and a lot of satisfaction. Yes. So I said, I'm going to put all this knowledge into a course because online courses are really the thing nowadays for those that are willing to take the time to earn. And so I did. I just got seven hours worth of video and everything. It goes through all the different legal formats. It goes through all the paperwork requirements, how you should keep your paperwork, how to put it together, because the better you put your paperwork together, the better the people that you hire can do their job for you. And then it goes through all of the tax consequences of all the legal formats and how all these things tie together to work together to help you build a solid foundation onto your business. This is what they don't teach in school. I mean, I don't teach marketing. I am the last one you want to teach marketing to. I'm probably one of the worst people at marketing there is. But When it comes to knowing how to put together a business and to properly structure it to give yourself a fighting chance, because I mean, small business is the backbone of this country. We have to save it and we have to educate it, and we have to make it solid. And so I put this together and I've put it out there. People can take it. It's basically a college level course. But I've not only done that. I mean, I have a lot of free information on my website. I've got a YouTube channel that teaches some of this basic stuff that the paid course is the college level course. It's the stuff they should be teaching in college. They should be teaching in school, but they aren't. And it comes in. And then I have other people that says, I don't have time. I'm not a study type person. I just want to sit down and I want to be able to talk to somebody and ask all my questions. So I also added consulting services and tax advisory services where people can just get on a zoom call with me, and we sit down and we talk it out and answer all their questions and give them a starting basis whether they can go. Just out of curiosity, what was the shift for you when you did this? You were just working with businesses, doing their taxes and advising them on their taxes and their business. That's what you were doing before. And then you decided to create the courses to help educate people and impact more people's lives by giving them the foundational education they need to set up their business correctly and take the maximum write-offs that they can to keep more money in their pockets. What was that like? What was that like, that pivot there where you did something completely. Different? The pivot is when I hit 20 years in the business, I says, at some point I'm going to have to rehire. And so I want to be able to pass it along when that time comes. It's not come yet. I got a few more years in, I think. But when that time comes, I want to be able to have something put out there. I want to be able to say, okay, I'm not going to help you in this capacity, but I'm going to move over here into another capacity where I can help work with people and help them achieve their dreams. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's great. What kind of challenges did you face with that? I mean, setting up courses, making videos, setting up the website, putting all that out there, figuring out how to get referrals and connect with people. I mean, it's like a brand new business that you basically opened up. It. Is. And. You did it in your late sixties or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Basically, yes. I. Mean, most people, they think their lives are over. When they hit 60, they figured, I'm done. What was going on that you were willing to take that challenge on and push through and whatnot? Well, I'm not the rocking chair type. I'm just not. There's two things in life. I also discovered and examining life is, there's two things in my life that I enjoy. Number one is education. Because I was an education major in college, it's just I went and did student teaching and said, I'd get fired every year. I can't teach for this government school. System. Because they don't allow you to teach. This is back in early seventies. And they had the new math where two plus two equal five, and they threw out phonics. And I said, this is ridiculous. And school boards were dictating what books you could teach from, and you can't teach for anything but that. And I'm going, these people are nuts, which they were. So I've taught in the business world most of my life that or an individual, but that, and the other thing I really love is creativity. I love designing. I've done a lot of designing. I've owned design firms, landscape design firms, web design firms. I just love creating things. And so I had a background in computers since while I got into 'em in 89, before Windows was even a thing. And I've been web design and education and everything. I had to learn how to videotape. That was the biggest challenge. How to write scripts and videotape. The scripts weren't so bad, but the videotaping and editing. Being an on camera, being an on camera spokesperson. So that was the biggest challenge there. But I'm pretty proud of what I put together. My biggest problem is I'm lousy at marketing. I'm just lousy at marketing. I'll admit it. And people don't see the need until lost a bunch of money, unfortunately. And I had a lot of people, I go to different business meetings and things and they say, oh, well, that's why I went and hired a CPA take care of all that thing. I don't need to learn it because I'll just hired somebody else to take care of it for me, and I don't have to think about it. And unfortunately, in every profession, there's good and bad. And unless you know the subject yourself, you don't know that. You don't know. If I had or somebody come paint my house, I know whether they've done a good job or not, because I've done it myself. I learned it. So when I hire somebody, any trades person, I've usually done it. I hate plumbing. I hate plumbing. But when I hire a plumber, I know if they're doing it right or not, because I've done it out of necessity mostly during my life. But I've done it. And it's the same way with business. If you're going to run a business, learn the business of business, And then whatever you want to do, sit that on top of it. Yeah. Again, I think it's very valuable and I think it's great. I mean, you're a young man, really today. I think things are different. Today. We live much longer. We have been now educated enough to live a more healthy, vibrant life, most of us. So I think there's lots of opportunity for you to keep going before you throw in the towel, maybe even create another business. It could happen. It. Could happen. I never counted anything out. For sure. But I think it's great that you did that and took the opportunity to put all that information that was in your head and from your 20 years of experience, put it in a form that somebody else could learn and understand everything so that they can get a leg up instead of going out there and having to spend the next couple of years making terrible mistakes before they then go find the information, hopefully to help them. Correct. So I think that's really great. And then when you do the consulting, is there different specific trades that you're involved in or you work with all kinds of companies? I work with all kinds of company. I mean, the courts itself comes with consulting, but for people that, I have options for people that want that, just that. And the other day I was on somebody that was in Italy because it was an American citizen, moved over there and wanted to start a little business over there, and you didn't know how to do it. So you never know what you're going to come across. It makes it very interesting. It really. Does. But I built a corporate website that I finally had to redo my corporate website. I had all these things going on to where it just one website links to everything, rather than me giving out three different website addresses and things like that. And I have your info, so I'll drop it in the show notes to direct people to your website and your course so that they could take advantage of that. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. So Roger, tell me a little bit about you're doing this thing and you're making an impact and you're leaving a legacy. Tell me a little bit about what does that feel like for you working with these customers and making an impact for them and helping them to better themselves in a way and put more money in their pocket, make their business a better structure? What is that like for you? A lot of people, a lot of people say, well, taxes are just numbers. And I tell people, well, I couldn't think of anything more boring in my life than being an accountant. No offense to the accountants out there because if you like it, good for you. But me, to me, it's taxes. It's like me against the IRS. It says, how do I use the IRS rules to benefit my clients? And this is what the big corporations do. This is why you're hear, well, this corporation didn't hardly pay any taxes, whatever. Exactly. Using the tax laws for the benefit of their clients. If you're buying equipment, do you write it off this year? Do you write it off over several years? Do you use depreciation? Do you use section 1 79? How do you structure this to correspond with your projected income for that particular year to get the maximum deductions to reduce your taxability? All these things are fun, but here's for instance, let me give you a story. Two years ago, I had a lady come to me. She had started a new business as a home cook, a home chef, and she was very successful. The first year she made a hundred thousand dollars net profit, and I told her what she was going to as a Schedule C, what she was going to owe, and she was with all the W twos and everything else in the house. It was over $6,000 in taxes. I says, no, you came to me early enough of the year that I can do something about this. So I had got her restructured into an S corporation and restructured everything. The end result was instead of owing $6,000, she got a $2,500 refund. That's good, because I taught her and she listened because she listened to me. I have people that don't listen to me, and I have stories about that too. But she listened to me. We did it. I knew all the loopholes and the laws to make this happen and not loopholes advantages the law to make this happen. And it was able to do it for her, and she was very, very happy client at that. Point. But there's only, not every tax pro would know how to do that. Not every tax professional knows how to do that type of It has. To or would even take the time. Or would even take the time. Exactly. Or even cares, because a lot of 'em are just like accountants or Next. I sometimes get a lot of grief because I'm told, will you take too much time with the clients? I says, no. I take the time necessary with the clients to do the best job for them I can do, and if the day I stop doing that is the day I should retire from what I'm doing. Yeah, that makes total sense. But I have lots of stories like that. That's what I get off on, being able to do things like that for people. So I know one of the interesting things is this relationship. When you find somebody who is a tax professional and an enrolled agent so that you can maximize your deductions and everything, how often do you meet with this person and communicate with them? Well, you should meet more than once. You should meet no less than twice a year. Usually you'll meet during tax season. I always recommend in February, by the end of February, always if you're running a business, and then again in October, November timeframe because you need to really look over what's happened during the year at that point and project what's going to the next year to see if you need to make any changes before the end of the year. That would impact anything going into the next year. And there are some people, when you get into larger businesses, when you get into the half million to million dollar businesses, then probably want to have a look quarterly. You really do. But a smaller business, I'd say twice. I have a lot of people, they'll touch base with me. Sometimes it's just a phone call where they tell, we pick up the phone, we talk about where we're at and things like that. Towards the end of the year, thinking of doing some things the next year, they want my opinion on how it would affect them, things like that. But that's the type of relationship that you should really have. It's just not somebody that, and it's not that I work in the tax office all year. I only work in the tax office mostly during the tax season, but for my small business clients, they all have my phone number. And so a lot of 'em, they will pick up the phone and call me or text me or something the rest of the year, and that's fine also. Yeah. What are some of the big mistakes that you see people making when they're starting a business? The biggest mistake people make when not starting a business is paperwork. They don't keep track of their paperwork. They have fso. I have had people come in that their accounting system is their checkbook, their bank statements, and that doesn't work. And then especially if you're commingling it with your personal funds, I mean, that is the worst mistake that you can possibly make. I had one gentleman, he'd gotten into sales and it was on a 10 99. He was selling energy contracts between energy companies. Just was very good at it. He made a quarter million dollars the first year on a Schedule C, and he came in. He didn't keep track of anything, he just put it all in his personal bank account and wrote money out of that. And I tried to reconstruct as much as I could, and I said, you're going to be audited on this. You need to be, this kind of money has to go through a corporation. You can't be doing this what you're doing. You need to do this and this and this, and this is how you need to keep paperwork, this and this and this. And he came back to me the second year and the only thing he'd done is open a business checking account. That's it. That's it. I said, you're going to be audited. Now. No business entity. No schedule C. That's weird. Yeah. He didn't listen to a word I said, except open a separate business account. And he was audited for that those two years. He was audited. I told him he was going to be, and after that, he listened to me. He went out and he restructured his corporation and everything. He hired a accountant, and actually he learned well enough from what I had taught him in those three years that he actually opened another S corporation and another business. And I lost him as a client because of that, because he's just having everybody take, but that's all right. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I took somebody that knew nothing and three years later, even though it cost him a cost less, he wouldn't listen to me. Here he owns two corporations and is very, very successful with them. So that's satisfaction too. That's why I do these things. So when he opened up the second business, he now had the foundational education so that he did it better from the beginning. Exactly. Exactly. He started it, right. So yeah, it was glad to see. I was glad to see that. So I've really enjoyed our time together. Thank you for helping me answer some questions of my own and better ways to do things. I'm going to drop the information so people can get in touch with you because I think anybody, especially people who are looking to break away from their nine to five and start some kind of side hustle to turn that into an opportunity so they could leave their full-time job needs to get some education understanding about all these things so they could set it up correctly from the beginning instead of doing what the other guy did and having to pay the price for two years before they fix everything. It really, I think it pays. I think it pays. Education always pays, it always pays many times over the cost of it. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you, Roger. Thanks for coming on, and I'll be back in touch with you. Thank you very much. It was a good conversation. Yes, sir. For more information and monthly topics of interest, please go to transform your future.com and join our newsletter. It.