As we get ready for another year to close, have you taken full advantage of tax-saving opportunities?

In this episode, Ash breaks down everything you need to know before the year ends to ensure you’re setting yourself up for success when tax season comes.

Ash covers topics ranging from retirement accounts, proper tax deductions, and ensuring you’re taking full advantage of tax savings but still not doing anything that would worry the IRS. Ash also discusses COVID-related financial assistance and why you need to make sure you’re reporting any help you may have received. Plus, he talks about something you may not have considered regarding the long-term planning of your business and some of the money you may have received from the PPP loan.

Be sure you listen before you jump into the new year (or this is an excellent review as you start the following year). Saving money is always a good thing!

If you have specific questions about any of these topics for your practice, or if you'd like to have another question answered on a future podcast, please reach out to the Edwards & Associates team. Please also contact us to find out more about Ash's financial course.

Visit us at: https://EandAssociates.com

Hello and welcome to another episode of Beyond Bitewings. And in today's episode, well, it's actually a little sad because it's the last episode of the year 2023. And to record this episode, we have a very special guest. Her name's Aaron. She's actually the director and editor of our podcast Beyond Bitewings. So, Erin, how are you?

I'm doing well. I'm still in shock That we're at the end of 2023, but I'm too well.

Yeah. Same here. I was just about to, you know, see it with and I'm like, oh, what? Is it the last episode for the year? It's crazy how time flies.

It is. It is.

And, you know, just reflecting back, I just remember that our 1st episode aired November of 2020, meaning it's been 3 years we've been doing this.

Yeah. You will hit a 100 episodes next year. That's a huge, huge, huge milestone.

Wow. Thank you. Thank you. And, honestly, I don't think we could have done it without your help, so thank you.

Well, I know so I can only imagine, and I will say this, like you mentioned, I do a lot of the editing or we we're recording. I am not obviously a dental practice owner, and I have learned so much from your podcast. And so I can only hope The actual dentists dental practice owners have learned a lot too just in all your information. So Yeah.

I mean, that's the idea. Right? Just to make sure that our listeners are informed and well learned and they seek the help that they need, you know, hopefully to do things the right way and to make sure that they can benefit from it, you know, the information and as well as, some of the resources that we're offering.

Absolutely. So that's good.

Now I had a thought as a last episode, and we may have done this in prior years, but I feel like it's almost needed. Maybe do this episode on like the tax and I know this is boring when you hear, oh, no. But if you really think about it, when the time comes, come April or October, if you do an extension, you may wonder, oh, I wish I knew this before the year ended so I could have implemented it. So I feel like sharing some of those tips and sharing some of that knowledge would go a long way. What do you think?

I would agree. And let me just say, Ash, yes, numbers can be very boring, but I don't think saving money is boring to anybody.

Yeah. I know. I agree with you on that completely, especially again, around this time of the year, if you can realize, Oh, wait, if I do this, I could save quite a bit and that would help with the presents that I bought. Why not?

Exactly. Pay off those credit cards come January 1st.

Right. So 2023 has been interesting. Honestly, the COVID years, as I would like to call them, have been interesting. There's been a lot of tax law changes and rules. A lot of them to benefit some of the, businesses that were vacated by this epidemic, but we're at that time where a lot of those benefits have depleted, but there's still some due diligence work that needs to be done, and I am specifically talking about the ERC see credit, the employee retention credit. Now I know there are a lot of third party companies that helped out, not just our clients, but a lot of our listeners to, acquire that credit, but what these third party companies are failing to inform the people that are applying for this credit is that, additional work is needed after applying for that credit. So the ERC credit, again, just to remind our listeners, it's an employee retention credit. It's basically a credit based off of the payroll tax that were already paid in.

So when you apply for this credit, you have to file for amended payroll tax reports, and consecutively, you also have to amend your business tax returns. And if your business tax returns are flow through type tax returns, then then your personal tax returns as well. Now the third party companies, they do help with amending the quarterly payroll reports, but they failed to inform their clients that, hey, talk with your CPA or your accountant and make sure that the 10 forties or the other business type tax returns are also amended. I should also mention that there's also been a lot of abuse of this credit ever since it came out and Iris has hunkered down, they've actually, formed a special unit that is going to basically scrutinize every single person that has applied for this credit. So it's pertinent that you make sure that you have done everything by the book. You have amended your tax returns, your payroll tax reports to make sure that if there's an audit that you have correctly done your work and you've applied for the correct amount. So that's one thing.

So, Ash, can I ask a question about this? Absolutely. Like, What if you what if you took the credit, let's say I don't know if 2021 was viable to take the credit, but, like, in 2022 Right. You're listening to this. It's 2023. Can you go back and fix that if you realize maybe you didn't file correctly?

Yeah. Absolutely. So it's an amended tax return. Right? So you may have already filed your tax return, again, with the original numbers before you file for the credit. So after you file for the credit, you can always go back and, you know, file a corrected tax return, so to speak. We call it an amended tax return and that should take care of it. So the ERC was one of those benefits. Of course, the PPP loan was there.

A lot of people applied for it and there was the forgiveness program there as well. So it was all forgiven. And for specifically for some of our healthcare clients, you know, there were the HHS stimulus packages as well. But what I'm trying to say is, all these benefits, all these, additional help, so to speak, that was provided, that gave a giant boost in their cash reserves of the business. And what happened was a lot of these businesses got used to the increase in expense of doing business, not just inflation, but also the fact that a lot of the people that are working, they started asking for more money and rightfully so to some degree because, I mean, they have a life to live as well. They have bills to pay. But what happened was, employees upon their ask, as soon as they ask for it, the employers provided to them without really sitting down and calculating if that's an overhead that can be sustained after the cash reserves would deplete. And I feel like we've started that phase right now where a lot of the companies are done utilizing that PPP loan that they received their, they've deleted their ERC credits or maybe, you know, some other funds that they've received.

And now all of a sudden they're like, woah, why is my bottom line so low? It was never like this. I'm making more money, but I feel like I'm actually making less now when I'm, you know, paying all my expenses. So to kind of mitigate some of that I would say, if you get the time, and I'm not saying you have to do it during the last week of December, you know, when you're out with your family, but maybe sometime in January, if possible, look at your financials, kind of see which expense items have gone up and see if there are ways to kind of bring it back to a level that seems more okay with you. Because at the end of the day, your bottom line needs to be an amount that you're happy with so that you can continue to do what you're doing. Otherwise, what'll happen is a point will come where you will feel burnt out, and that's also another thing that I'm seeing a lot of, and you'll just call quit. Right? And I just want to reiterate that when you do that, you're not just going to be impacting your life, but also your team members that's on your payroll. So very important to kind of also look at your financials to make sure that from an overhead head standpoint that, you're where you should be. And if you're thinking, oh, you know what, the big ticket item that I see here that's like way above than what it used to be are my team member expenses, I'll tell you right now that's across the board, but there are ways to mitigate it.

I feel like we've recorded some episodes with some great people very recently where they gave some ideas on how to lower that by, you know, cross training or, you know, hiring people from other industries that may be willing to work for a little less than what, let's say, somebody else within the industry is asking for. So, you know, give those episodes a listen. Great tips there, but again, coming back to controlling your overhead and payroll being the number 1 ticket item for a majority of the listeners out there, the other thing that I would also like to bring up is we are in December, meaning next this month will be January. And some of you may know this already, but for those that don't, so January 31st is the deadline for, filing the 10.99 forms for all the temp help you've utilized for all the contractors that you utilize. And typically the 10.99 form requires for the preparers to use some information, that information is typically obtained through a form called w nine, so make sure if you get the time to obtain that completed w nine forms from all the people that you've utilized for your contract work or for any kind of independent work, basically people that were not on your payroll, and it should ask for the full name, the mailing address, the social security number or the tax ID number, and that's basically it, I believe. Now, if your preparer is going to e file the 10.90 nines, then they're also going to be asking for the email address of the recipient. And now the form does not ask for that, but asking for it ahead of time will definitely help out your CPA or your preparer for the 10.90 nines. Now payroll on the W two side, right, so people that are currently on your payroll, and if you happen to be on your own payroll, one thing to pay attention to would be your withholdings.

So fine tune your paycheck withholdings and specifically the FIT withholding, which is the federal income tax portion, just make sure that that withholding is on par with the tax bracket you belong to. Oftentimes we run into this issue where, you know, especially during tax planning, we'll talk to our clients, we'll tell them, okay, make sure you update you're withholding to this next year or for other people within your household, maybe for your spouse to this amount and then, you know, pay the quarterly yes payments. That way, you know, your due amount should be this, but what'll happen is they'll make the quarterly payments, but they forget to update the withholding. So when it's time to file for the tax return, there's huge due amount, and that always throws people off. So if you want to mitigate that, if you want to make sure that the amount of taxes that you're paying, you stay on top of it. You want to make sure there's not a huge due amount at the end of it. Just make sure that you pay attention to the FIT, the federal income tax withholding portion of your W two. Right? So if you are the owner, you just contact contact your payroll service provider.

If it's your CPA or if it's ADP, Paychex, any of the big ones or any any whoever you're using to adjust it accordingly so that it's on par with the tax bracket you're in.

And, Ash, is it typically us with that? Like, is the typical rule as a self employed just being at 0 by the time they are, you pay the IRS. Is that what you have most of your clients do?

So 0, that's that's difficult. Right? And I guess I have to say it depends. For some of our clients, we can do that. For our other clients that, let's say, have a four zero one k plan that they're have implemented within their business. They just don't know how much they're going to fund or which vehicles to utilize. Sometimes they'll intentionally wait till it's time just to look at the cash reserves to see how much they're going to fund because that funding amount, which is in turn the deductible amount, will determine what their tax will be. So for those types of clients, it's very difficult, but for other clients, you know, that's pretty straightforward. We just have w twos or they've been making the same amount of money every year.

There's not really much growth or change. For them, it's easier to make that, estimate.

Got it.

Okay, now this is also another thing that may be specific to people within our industry, but a lot of times dental practice owners, they may utilize their dependence to help them with some of the clerical work or maybe to use them as models on their marketing platform, and they would like to compensate them. And you can really just make sure that if the compensation is mostly for tax benefit purposes, that in the year of 2023, the the gross wage amount does not exceed more than $13,850 per dependent. And for 2024, that amount has gone up, so it's going to be 14,600. Now it's important to pay attention to that number because I'm not really sure how you will pay your dependent, whether it's once a month, once every 6 months, or biweekly, however you pay maybe your staff, just make sure that that total amount at the end of the year does not exceed it because if it's below that, what you can do is you can actually set their FIT again, going back to the federal income tax withholding, you can set it to 0. Right, the social security tax or the Medicare taxes will be automatically drawn out, but the FIT, you set it to 0 and then you should be good. Right, if you need more details on that and why it's done, I say reach out to your CPA. They'll be able to because it's it's going to be a bit of a conversation, but there's definitely a benefit to it, for some people and, those are the limits. So I just figured I should mention that just in case any of you are wondering what that amount is.

And are there any age limits to the dependent?

So that's actually a very good question you just asked. So, typically, there's the working age. It's much simpler for that, but, oftentimes, I have seen, people employing they're dependents that are minors specifically for the purpose of being a model on the marketing platform. So if let's say you are using them for your social media or brochures, pamphlets, or whatnot, it's okay, you can't compensate them. The only thing you have to be careful of is make sure that what you're paying them is going towards something that benefits them. Right? So you don't you just want to be careful that you don't put it back into the business, right, don't set the direct deposit back into the checking account of the business. Rather I would recommend if you have, let's say a college savings plan for your dependent, like a 5.29 plan, you could set the direct deposit directly into that. Right? And there are some benefits to it actually, doing it that way, or if you set up like a Roth IRA for them, you can set those pay into that.

Again, also an excellent way to go about it just because I'm a huge fan of these types of vehicles because they grow tax deferred and you have the power of compounding on your side, so little amounts going in there, they have a huge impact and by the time they have to go to college or, you know, they're retiring that that amount grows to a significant amount. So to answer your question, I wouldn't say there is. I guess, you may receive a notice from the labor department, you know, if they're a minor. But as long as you can justify your stance, you should be fine. Now

Okay.

Let's talk about donations because I do get asked this a lot, and specifically now. So there are a lot of causes out there right now for which you may feel like, oh, I really need to help this out or, you know, help the situation somehow. So let me, go to this link and make this contribution. And that's all fine and dandy, but if you are seeking for some kind of a tax benefit from your contribution, your charitable contribution. One thing you have to pay attention to is that the organization where you're going to be donating, are they set up as a five zero one c three organization? And I'm going to repeat that again, five zero one c three. For most charitable organizations, if you just go to their website, you're going to notice they mentioned that somewhere in the bottom bar corner that we are a 501(three) exempt organization. That way, whatever money you give to them, you can actually deduct it on your tax return if it's allowed for you to deduct. Now, speaking of contributions, I feel like it's also important to mention what can qualify and what can't, because I run into that issue too.

So sometimes certain organizations, if especially if you're part of it, they'll offer like gala tickets or something near end. Right? And they feel like, oh, you know, me and my wife, we bought 2 tickets that were like $25100 each, so that's a $5,000 deduction there. Wrong. The full amount is not deductible, especially if it's for a gala ticket because there's some benefit that you received. Right? So the food that you received, the show you saw, all of that, those things cannot be deducted. So typically for a charitable organization, when they host galas and whatnot, you're going to notice in a month or 2, they're going to send you a letter or an email where they're going to say that the tax deductible portion of your contribution is this and that's the amount that can be deducted. So let's say again, going back to our earlier example, you spent $5,000 for 2 tickets, gala tickets, it may say that the deductible portion of your tickets in total were 1400. The rest were for food and show and whatnot.

So at that point, only $1400 of that can be deducted. So it's important to know if you are counting on, okay, how much am I going to contribute and how much do I need as a deduction to pay attention to those things. So the less benefit you receive from your donation, odds are the better your deductible ability from that contribution.

So, Ash, I have a question about this. Can your business buy the tickets as a community reach out and try to Write them off that way.

Absolutely. So you actually brought up an excellent point. So, if the business buys a ticket, again, if it's a five zero one c two organization, it can be deducted. If you're getting some kind of a benefit of it, again, the letter, you're going to be receiving that letter, you're going to forward it to your CPA and the CPA is going to adjust it. So let's say there was a meal portion to it, there was an entertainment portion and of course the difference, the additional amount you paid is the contribution amount. Your CPA is probably gonna split it into 3 categories, 1 for meals, 1 for entertainment, and then the remainder portion as your contribution. Now you actually brought up an interesting point because sometimes we will have people that will pay for sponsorships. Let's say they have kids like a PTA sponsorship or something, and they'll say that's a charitable donation.

I would recommend at that point to kind of speak with your CPA or your financial adviser to see what would be the best way to characterize it. There may be options for you to be able to deduct it. Maybe not as a charitable contribution, but just something to kind of not automatically assume it's going to be charitably deducted, but there may be other ways of going about it. That's just something you need to talk to your financial advisor about.

Okay. Can I ask 1 more question about 501 c threes? Absolutely. With the popularity of sites like GoFundMe and, like, the Way where you can contribute to help people. Are those are you able to write off those donations, or is GoFundMe not Registered as that.

Excellent question. So GoFundMe is what you would call like a third party vehicle. So GoFundMe is more like, I guess, you could say, like Amazon. Right? They don't really own all the products and the companies that are selling them, they're just helping with the process of the sale. So GoFundMe is helping all these people that are asking for money and they're helping raise those funds for those causes. Now you did bring up an interesting point because earlier when they first started, I can't remember which year. It's been a few years now. Pretty much all the causes that they tried to raise money for were not 501 c three, meaning any money given to GoFundMe or through GoFundMe was non deductible.

However, in recent years, I have seen GoFundMe work with 501 C3 companies or institutions. So if let's say you're using GoFundMe to, I don't know, donate to Red Cross or any of those other charitable organizations, then it is still deductible.

Interesting. Okay. Glad good to know. Mhmm.

Let's see. So we up until now, we were talking about cash donations, but what about noncash donations? Right? Again, I'm about a year when we're like, oh, I need a new piece of furniture or I need new clothes, but my closet's full. Maybe I need to donate some of what I have. There's a lot of stuff that I've never worn before. So when you pull it out and you donate it, that's good, but just make sure that when you're going to these places, let's say like Salvation Army and Goodwill, typically, they'll give you like a small card, which we call a receipt. Make sure that they have listed down what was donated. It's important that you get like an itemized list of what was going on. Now if you have like 2, 3 bags full of just random stuff, you know, it's gonna be very hard for them to itemize everything.

But as long as they can put something there like a back full of clothes, a back full of toys, a back full of, I don't know, silverware or what have you, that's still good enough. Just make sure you don't bring a blank card because I've had that happen for when they're like, oh, I donated stuff to Goodwill, here's the receipt. And I'm like, it's blank. It doesn't say anything. And again, I'm talking about goods that are probably not of material value, but let's say you have some goods to donate of material value, let's say a car or a piano or some expensive furniture. At that point what I would recommend is for you to either independently hire an appraiser, appraise what you're about to donate, or to go through a charitable organization that may have an appraiser on the payroll, you need a letter of appraisal that will say what it's worth. Then that's what you need to provide to your CPA or your accountant to apply. Now that's now I should also mention, this is assuming that all you guys out there that are listening intently to this are eligible for itemized deductions.

Because if you fall under standardize the deduction, then all of this, what I'm telling you right now regarding donations won't matter. But if you itemize your introductions, please make sure to get those support. Very important. The other reason why I'm also going to mention it's probably more important now to have all your support than ever before is because IRS has actually started using, wait for it, AI technology. So just like how other businesses have already started using AI, you know, to improve their efficiency or, to be able to offer more services, Iris is doing the same thing. So they're going they're currently using artificial intelligence to be able to, filter out more, people to audit, and you just want to make sure that if you ever you get audited. You have all the correct support so you can continue to keep those deductions. Because if for whatever support you can't provide, guess what's going to happen? You're going to take away those deductions, and you're going to owe taxes on it.

Now Yeah. Speaking of audits and deductions, I feel like I need to also mention the 2 categories that I feel like it's abused more than any other category, which would be meals and travel. So meals Right. I should also mention during COVID times, there was a special rule out there, you know, just to help out the hospitality industry to allow 100% deduction on all your meal expense business meal expense. But in 2023 and going forward, it has gone back to 50% deductible. So that's one thing you need to be aware of that's no longer a 100% deductible. The other thing you have to be aware of is it needs to follow the principle of ordinary and necessary. Now let me talk about it without going into too much detail.

So your business meal must have a reason, a business reason, and the other thing to pay attention to here is necessary. So you have to make sure that you if there's an audit, you can prove to them that it was necessary for you to have that business meal, and it's something you do. So if it's let's say, you take a lunch time out of your work every day and every day you meet someone, right? A vendor or someone within your profession or maybe your manager, that then it becomes ordinary because that's just how you do business, right? But if you have like just random expenses every now and then, and then when when the time comes, you say, oh, yeah. I I went there with my wife and kids because we were talking business. That's not gonna fly. So just just be careful of that. And the other thing I'm going to say is I know that us, we have a habit of saying, and it can get difficult especially with the meals. What I would want you to do is at least at the very least, on the receipt that you get, on the back of it, just write down the name of the person you were having lunch with and what you talked about.

Just a couple of bullet points, and then store it in a shoebox or somewhere. Right? Maintain those invoices, those receipts, and that's good enough for meals. The second one that I mentioned, that I feel like also gets abused, the travel one, also has to meet the ordinary and necessary requirement, right, for it to be a valid business deduction. So again, going on a trip with your wife and kids because you had CE there doesn't mean you're going to get full deduction. Your portion because you did attend the CE will be deductible, but your wife's and kids is not going to be no, there is a loop here. It's not all bad. So let's say if you go down to Florida for a c class, you would have to get a hotel. Right? Now if you still maintain 1 hotel to house your wife and your kids and the cost hasn't shifted, then that's fine.

But if let's say you get a 2nd room for them, that's an additional cost that wouldn't have been there if it was just you, then that portion is not gonna be deductible. So make sure that whenever you're trying to deduct your travel expense, you can validly show that it was ordinary and necessary for your business purpose. The other thing I just remembered, so and I feel like maybe, Mo, a lot of our clients within our industry, they tend to do this. What they'll do is they'll look at their numbers and they're like, oh gosh, we actually made more than what we projected. So I know we're going to incur more taxes. So to mitigate some of that tax, maybe we should buy a giant equipment. Right? The depreciation from that equipment's gonna come right off, the taxes. So at that point, what I would recommend is this.

First of all, figure out if you actually need that equipment. Right? Don't just buy it for tax purposes because you're not getting a dollar for dollar benefit. Right? If you buy $100,000 equipment and if you're in the 37% tax bracket, the benefit would be $37,000, not a 100,000. So you're out of your pocket of that 63,000, and we don't want that. So only buy it if you need it. The other thing I'm going to mention is that the way we can actually depreciate it in the current year is after it's been placed in service, meaning you can't just pay for the equipment and expect it to be depreciated. It actually has to arrive like be shipped and arrived to your location and you need to plug it in. Replacement service for you to be able to deduct it, so that's important to know.

And then once you decide, let's say you're in that area. You're like, you know what? I figured that out. I found the right vendor. They don't have any backlogs. They can actually get me the equipment in time. I can install it before year end. All good. Once that's done, make sure you get a copy of your invoice.

If you finance the equipment, make sure you get a copy of the finance agreement for your superior account, because they are going to be asking for that.

Okay. That's good to know about being in service.

Yeah. A lot of times people miss that. They feel like, wait, as long as I paid for it, shouldn't I be able to deduct it? Yep. You can, but the timing will depend on when you place it in service. So either it'll be deducted this year or the following year. That will depend on when you put it in service. I guess I should talk about some of the income related items. So TAO tax credit, I get asked about that as well.

So one thing you have to realize is that if you are single and you're making more than $200,000 a year or if you're married and you're making more than $400,000 a year, you are no longer eligible for title tax credit. So depending on what your income is, household income, that will also determine whether you qualify for that tax credit or not. Because I've had people where, you know, initially, they were making less than that and they would get it continuously for years and then all of a sudden they don't get it and they feel like, oh, this tax credit was not applied. What's going on? Nothing was wrong with how the tax return was filed. It just means that you were phased out of it. Your income is down. You're a high net worth person, so you don't qualify for that tax credit. Something similar I also hear is, regarding student loan interest.

Right? So we have a lot of dentists, medical professionals that acquire a huge student loan before they graduate. And they feel like, okay, you know what? At least the interest portion of it will be deductible. So that's fine. But the issue is with dentists or doctors there to make good money and quite often, once they reach that threshold, their student loan interest is no longer deductible. So please keep that in mind as well. So if you're single, making more than $85,000 a year or if you're married making more than $170,000 a year, your student loan interest portion is not deductible anymore. Let's see. Income related items.

Retirement. Yes. And that should probably be an episode of its own, but just to, you know, briefly touch upon a couple of topics or pointers regarding it, but you have the 2 commonly known IRAs, the Roth IRA and the traditional IRA. Well for the Roth IRA that also has a cap income cap. So if you are single and making more than $153,000 or if you're married and making more than $228,000, you're not going to be able to contribute to a Roth IRA directly anymore. Now there are ways, there's a backdoor method that you can utilize to fund a different kind of IRA. Again, talk with your CPA or your financial advisor. They'll be able to guide you through it, but keep that in mind.

Now let's say for whatever reason, you can't contribute to a Roth IRA anymore, but you've already contributed some just because the year before you were below the threshold, but this year, let's say, you bought a couple of businesses, did really well, and now you're above that threshold and you've already contributed some amount because you do do it in chunks, right, throughout the year, consider recap characterization of those contributions, maybe to a traditional IRA. So that's also something I would say to keep an eye on. So if you're above that income level and you've already funded some into your Roth IRA, consider recharacterizing it, those contributions. And I would like like, I would recommend highly to make sure you have it done. If not before year end, absolutely before 4 15 of 2024. Speaking of raw Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Erin.

I was just gonna say that is, like, you can I just learned this last year about the donate or put putting money in your Roth IRA? Just because you don't get it Not get it in before December 31st. You can continue up until a certain point in the next year Right. For the year prior.

Right. Right. And it's interesting because for most tax rules, they say you have to make sure it has to be paid before year end. But for retirement vehicles like broad traditional SEP four one k, you actually have more time into the following year to fund it. So that's also something may want to talk to your CP about then I'm not really sure what kind of IRAs you guys contribute to, but for a ROP and traditional, it's typically 4:15, but for some of the other ones, you actually have time till, your extended deadline. So if you extend your Yeah. Deadline, you have time till then to fund it. Now speaking of Roth, if now a lot of you folks sometimes ask me, you know, I'm considering a Roth conversion.

If you are, one thing that I would recommend, and it's also because you have to be aware that when you do a Roth conversion, you actually incur taxes. So it's a taxable event when you fund a Roth. So the timing of it of when to do it would be when you're still in the lower tax bracket. So if you're actually considering, you're like a planner like me, you're like, you know, the next 10 years, is it what I'm gonna do? Is it what I'm gonna do? If it's Roth conversion is something you're considering, make sure to do it earlier than later just because you can save, some taxes because you're in the lower tax bracket. And even if it's going to cost you some money, assuming you're still young, you know, because you're doing it early, you will have time on your side, meaning you will have the power of compounding, right? It will grow exponentially because you've done it earlier than later. And that will actually mitigate some of that cost that you have to incur in taxes for the conversion. And speaking of income, the other item I should also mention is that let's say if you're already doing some kind of a business, right? You're a dentist, so most of your income are patient fees. If for whatever reason you start collecting income from a different source.

Right? Let's say you're speaking at seminars now and you're getting paid for it or, you know, you're teaching taking courses for dental assistants, any kind of out of the ordinary type income items, just make sure you let your CPA or your accountant know that, hey, from this year on, I've actually started doing this. I have a different kind of source because it may be something that you can still continue to take in from your existing LLC, but if it's completely out of the ordinary, you may need to set up a separate LLC. And again, that's something that needs to be speculated by your CPA and needs to be recommended. Hey. You know, you really should be picking that income up separately.

Oh, that's interesting. So you can't just feed income in various areas into 1 LLC.

It it needs to be related because then the whole ordinary natural, it gets very tricky.

Got it.

Right. And and specifically if it's real estate related, I would say. Now sometimes it could still be ordinary if it's a building or a space being rented out to a dentist, but if it's being used for something else, then it becomes passive income, and it needs to be reported separately.

Okay.

Mhmm.

Yeah. Definitely a lot to consider in just a few Short weeks, but good information to know.

Thank you.

And set yourself up for next year too.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Because some of these things, they'll roll into next year as well, so that's good. So anyways, well, again, it is the end of the year. I wish everyone happy holidays. It was a pleasure and thank you all for letting me be the host of the show for, wow, more than 3 years now and I hope to be here and do this a lot longer and I'm also appreciative and glad to have Aaron on our team. And I really hope we can continue to do this and then maybe one day, I don't know, go really big with it.

You'll be the dental podcast. Right? Dental practice podcast. Yes.

There you go. That's the goal. Well, thank you all and happy new year. I wish everyone the best and thank you, Aaron, for being on the show.