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Are you leaving money on the table by not optimizing your tax strategy?

In this episode of the Wealthy Wellthy podcast, Krisstina Wise sits down with Mark Perlberg, a CPA and tax strategist specializing in helping entrepreneurs and high-income earners minimize their tax burden. Mark shares his journey from social studies teacher to passionate tax planner, revealing how he discovered the immense potential of strategic tax planning for wealth creation.

The main focus of this conversation is the often-overlooked importance of proactive tax planning for entrepreneurs and high-income earners. Mark emphasizes that investing in proper tax strategy can yield returns far greater than traditional investments, potentially saving clients millions of dollars over their lifetime.

Throughout the episode, Krisstina and Mark discuss various tax-saving strategies, including hiring family members, utilizing the Augusta rule, and leveraging real estate investments for tax advantages. They also explore options for W-2 employees to reduce their tax burden and the mindset shift required to view taxes as part of a holistic wealth-building strategy.

Ready to transform your approach to taxes and potentially save six or seven figures? Listen to this eye-opening episode to discover how strategic tax planning could revolutionize your financial future.

Wealth Mastery 1/2 Day Challenge:

During the Wealth Mastery Workshop you’ll discover a simple, proven system to break free from money stress, build financial security, and create financial freedom. By the end, you’ll have the clarity, confidence, and tools you need to develop the mindset, relationship, and system to create financial freedom.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/WCNpK5YCRWWY2P6zAqiGfg

Key Takeaways

2:07 Why tax planning is often overlooked

6:19 Mark's journey into tax planning and CPA work

13:26 Investing in strategic tax partnerships

18:41 Explaining the Augusta rule for tax savings

25:09 Gifting strategies for tax and estate planning

31:21 Holistic approach to tax planning and wealth building

38:21 Benefits of real estate investing for taxes

40:05 Final thoughts on the importance of tax planning

Memorable Quotes

"When you invest into tax planning and initiatives in some of these opportunities, you could essentially double your money year after year after year. You're going to see a far greater compounding of your wealth through tax planning."

"The government wants you to invest into vehicles that give charitable deductions. They want you to invest into energy related items. They want you to do things that are going to enhance and provide real estate to the general public."

"I don't think I've ever found an industry or way of making money that is more tax advantaged than real estate because of what you can do with cost segregation, which allows you to front load your depreciation and bonus depreciation."

Resources Mentioned

American Institute of Certified Tax Planners - https://certifiedtaxcoach.org/

Connect with Krisstina

Website - https://wealthywellthy.life/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/krisstinawise

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@krisstinawise

Krisstina's Book, Falling For Money - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692560904/

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Podcast Production & Marketing by FullCast

Krisstina Wise 2:00 - 2:04:

Welcome to the Wealthy Wealthy podcast.

Mark Perlberg 2:04 - 2:06:

Hey Christina, thanks for having me.

Krisstina Wise 2:07 - 2:44:

We're doing a flip here. I was had a great time on your show and now it's so fun to be on the other side of the microphone. So your topic is something that I think most people find pretty dry and boring. Two, they don't spend any time or let alone enough time thinking about or considering. And three, I think a good majority of those that would fall into needing to listen and learn from you don't even realize that it's something they should be doing. Would you, would you agree with those?

Mark Perlberg 2:46 - 3:33:

Absolutely. For the most part it is not a desirable topic. People are very uncomfortable talking about taxes and but what I would say is when you, when you help them understand the return on investment into tax planning and when they realize that the return on tax planning investment will likely be far greater than any real estate cryptocurrency or anything else security wise that they could invest in, whether they're enthusiastic about stocks and, and whatever other things are out there, then suddenly they start to, to realize that there, there's, there's a reason why I talk about this stuff so much.

Krisstina Wise 3:33 - 4:38:

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean I, I certainly didn't pay attention, pay attention to taxes for the longest time and then someone that I had, you know, really looked up to or admired their kind of business savvy, they said, you know, the, the biggest raise you can give yourself initially is to save on taxes. And it was just that shift in mindset that I was always hustling to try to make more money in my business. I wasn't paying a tax, paying attention to taxes at all, which is kind of abdicating it to my CPA and was kind of keeping my fingers crossed that he was doing a good job but that I didn't pay attention at all. And then after I heard that I actually got really interested like what am I paying in taxes and is my CPA really working for me and do I have a strategy? And just by learning just again that one mind shift in my head like mindset shift in my head that next year by do not not making any more money but me paying attention to my taxes. I saved over six figures.

Mark Perlberg 4:39 - 4:39:

Wow.

Krisstina Wise 4:39 - 6:19:

In taxes. But I mean I just thought all CPAs were the same and they're doing their best to save money on taxes. And I mean it was just such a wake up call to realize like he was right, that mentor was right. I gave myself a six figure raise by just Christina Wise paying attention to my taxes, which required I change CPAs, by the way, once I start really learning and questioning these things. And I realized, too, it wasn't boring. There was so much, like, just for a layman like me, that. That isn't into taxes at all, but love business and, like, investing and love wealth building, like, all those pieces. I realized, like, oh, just by knowing a few things and then teaming up with the right CPA and tax strategist, it's actually pretty exciting because there's so much you can do in tax planning that most people don't know about. So that's why I was so excited to talk to you today so that you can share with the listeners that, you know, some of the things that I've learned over the years and why paying attention to your taxes are so important. So, first of all, to start us off before we jump into a conversation on taxes and the reason why, I want to give that little prelude for all of you listening, like, don't pause. Don't, you know, go on to the next podcast. Your eye roll, like, oh, Christine's gonna talk about taxes. This is boring. I'll wait till the next podcast. Like, really listen to this one, because I promise you, you're gonna learn some things that are gonna affect that bottom line. But before we jump into that, give me some backstory. Mark, what got you into accounting? Becoming a CPA specializing in tax and turning this into a business.

Mark Perlberg 6:19 - 8:27:

Yeah, you know, I. I tried a lot of things in my 20s that I wasn't good at, and I just realized I was always good with numbers. So I decided to go back to school. And, you know, in my prior life, I was a social studies teacher in New York City. But a little over 10 years ago, I decided to. To just change everything and focus on my strengths with numbers. And I found myself really bored as a CPA doing audit work, and my way out was going to be real estate investing, hanging around other real estate investors. And because I was always a. I really love the idea of really doing what you love and having financial freedom and real estate seemed like the way to do it. They started asking me questions, how can I reduce my taxes? You're a cpa. You should know this stuff, you know? And I didn't know how to answer the question, you know, like, you're a Jewish cpa. You could at least tell me. And I'm like, no. And I was like, man, if I'm going to learn this about real estate investing and not even know tax planning, like, what's the point? Of my cpa. So I joined the American Institute of Certified Tax Planners and all of a sudden realize that investing into tax planning was absolutely the most effective way to hit financial freedom and it provides a greater return on investment than any real estate. And I became obsessed with tax planning and just immersed myself in the material which allowed me to take on a few clients. You save them a couple hundred thousand dollars, they talk to their friends and pretty soon we have a full blown practice, specializes in, in tax planning. Fast forward. We, you know, we have probably around 100 clients and you know, we have clients who can save as much as $3 million a year in taxes with our planning strategies. And it's just very exciting to see all the different ways you can do it. So, you know, I really do what I love and I'm extremely passionate about it. And it's very interesting, exciting to see all the different ways you can legitimately reduce your taxes with, with so many different vehicles out there.

Krisstina Wise 8:28 - 9:01:

Awesome. What a great story. I didn't even know that story. I love it. It's like you accidentally stumbled upon this thing that you love and you're really good at and to help a lot of families keep more money in their pocket and ultimately build more wealth. So absolutely, that's my passion too. There's so many things we can talk about today, I think for my entrepreneurial listeners. What would you say are the biggest mistakes that small business, small entrepreneurs make when it comes to taxes?

You know, I think we, it depends. Obviously. This is such a cop out. I hate saying it depends. That's such a professional services answer. Right. But here's what I would say is that, you know, our profession under charges and underserves, so you think you're getting a good deal because you're only paying your accountant 2,000, 3,000 a year. But then your accountant can't answer the, you know, can't schedule calls with you and, and they can't really do an adequate job on your return and they can't strategize with you. And there's no way they, and it's not really so much their fault because at that price point they can't afford the staff to provide all the additional support. So I would say that the majority of entrepreneurs out there, especially if you are highly profitable in paying taxes, your issue is you are underpaying and you are being underserved. There is no way any accountant can economically do what needs to be done to, to effectively and efficiently do that return in a complete and accurate way and show you how to save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. So you need to shift your mindset from going to looking at this as an expense that you're looking to cut and minimize to an investment. How can I invest in the, the most appropriate tax advisor and CPA that's going to minimize my taxes and be a strategic partner in this journey together who can legitimately save me millions of dollars over our lifetime of our relationship? Now, if you're just getting started and let's say you're not profitable, maybe that's not as much of an issue here. But, you know, here's the thing. I think that at the very least when you're starting a business, you should at least, or at least sometimes have some sort of conversation at the very minimum to know what can you write off on your taxes? What are you legally entitled to as a tax deduction in the law? Most people never even have that conversation. They make some assumptions, it goes to their account. They may be missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax deductions that they're completely unaware of because they never took the time to learn it and have a conversation.

Yeah, that's, you know, actually that's not the answer I was anticipating. But I have to say, it's, it's spot on that. I know for me, I was probably, I was, I was paying for like a tax. He did my taxes, like tax prep, maybe. And again, I'd send everything in. I'd send over my QuickBooks, he'd file the tax returns and tell me how much I owed. And that was that. Again, that's as much time, much time as I, I spent thinking about my taxes. And we never had any conversations in, during the year at all. It's just tax prep. And it was, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it was a minimal amount. Like it's just an expense item to get the tax prep. And then, you know, now when people know how much I pay in tax strategy and planning, like, holy cow, that's like a salary in many cases, I'm like, yes. But my, my tax strategist, we talk all year long and I don't make any investment decisions without talking to him first. And we look at things quarterly and we break things down and we're doing projections. And he's always looking for ways to save on taxes. And even my last tax, he saved me like $20,000 in taxes by asking a question. For example, like, you have this big accounts receivable on your books, like, is this ever going to be paid? I saw it on here last year also. And I said, you know, no, I just kind of really have it in there. It's a holding spot, hoping maybe one day I'll get my money back on that. And he said, oh, well, if I can remove this and do XYZ, that's going to save you 20 grand in taxes. So it's just something simple like that, that, you know, one decision, let alone everything else. So to me, I just look at it, this is an investment in my business and in my overall life to be able to pay somebody that can think and think outside of the box. And it's not about tax prep, but it's really about tax savings. How do we maximize amount of savings? I can get completely by the book. So to your point exactly, I think that probably is one of the biggest mistakes because we've been conditioned to think that, oh, this is just. That sounds expensive. I want it to be as low cost as possible.

And you'd be amazed by how illogical some people are where, you know, maybe my salesmanship is not the best in the world. But I mean, I don't know how much of a salesman you need here. We get these folks who are making seven figures of profit, but then when they see how much we need to charge for us to be effective and have enough funds to hire the best and most qualified staff and also to continue research on top of our services, you know, they just can't see past the idea that they're going to maybe double or triple their fees for added services. They just, you know, they have this block of their mind and they don't realize that this is the most important and effective investment that they'll ever made they, they'll ever make into their finances. So, you know, it's. When you can see it that way. I mean, just being able to see investing, how you can invest into a strategic partner in the ROI is just so important here.

Yeah. So, great answer. What's the second thing that, like, as far as missing maybe deductions or maybe taking deductions that aren't appropriate, but you know, if you got audited, it could be, it could be problematic or red flags, like when you're, when you start working with an entrepreneur that maybe has been working with a text, what I call a tax prepper versus a tax planner, what do you, what do you see most often? Is there a recurrent theme where you're like, automatically, hey, we should be doing this, this and this?

Yeah. So on the deduction side, usually at that point they know what they can write off their taxes, but we'll give a refresher and what they'll often sometimes learn here, just his camera. But that, you know, learning about, you know, what qualifies for bonus depreciation and opportunities to create the bonus appreciation accountable plans where you can reimburse your escort for home office. These are all small things. One that is more impactful would be the pass through entity tax election. If you have an S corporation, this allows you to offset more than $10,000 of state taxes against federal and for high income earners. This can be, you know, five figures, six figures of savings here. And so when it comes to missed deductions also I would say real estate investors always forget that they can write off their property insurance. We have a lot of real estate investors and they just keep on forgetting that that's a tax deduction. We got to hunt them down for that. And then when I think about missed opportunities, what you know, and where we have the greatest impact and identifying is the more advanced strategies and structures. And there are some things that are reserved for the top 1% that are going to be missed if they're not doing, having a strategic relationship. So maybe they catch, maybe they miss, you know, on opportunities to create bonus depreciation or Augusta rule and all these nice little things here. But then there's these big ticket items that create six and seven figures of savings that are, you're just not going to know if you're, if you're tax prep focused. And that's where we, we see the greatest amount of missed opportunities and where we go in and have an impact.

And is that the mindset of your firm, that our job is to find extra savings that have been missed and to, to do that, that digging or that work or that consultation. Because I just think that it would be the mindset of the firm and the philosophy of hey, this is our job and our value and what we get paid for as opposed to, hey, we just need to, we're going to be working 80 hours a week for, you know, this month out of the year to get all these tax returns out.

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first things we do with, with prospective clients is we review the returns to see what we say. We want to see if the IRS owes you any money and what we'll do for free. And as we evaluate things in the scope of work, we'll review their return with them and show them what the missed opportunities are and if those missed opportunities are amendable. So for one client, sometimes you can amend so One of the most common missed opportunities we see is there's no cost segregation studies, which is a depreciation strategy for the real estate. We saw the client overpaid by about $450,000 in taxes. About 160,000 of the missed savings was recoverable with an amendment. So those are some of the big ticket items that we'll point out. And sometimes we'll evaluate the return on investment into an amendment when you consider, you know, the additional fees and potential compliance risk, if there are any in the amendment. So those are things that we'll consider in the prior year returns. And then as we do the return, if we see, you know, sometimes because we know our clients, that we have the resources to know our clients, we will identify missed opportunities and follow up the clients as we do the returns as well.

Great. So you mentioned the Gusta rule. I take advantage of the guest rule. Can you share with the listeners what that is?

Yeah. So the Augusta rule allows you to, essentially, if you rent out your personal residence 14 days or less, you do not have to recognize the revenue on your tax return. And the opportunity that many people have here is they will rent out their residence to their businesses. If it's an S Corp or a partnership or C Corp, you can charge your business rent and the business gets the tax deduction. But when it hits your account, you do not pay any taxes on the revenue. So essentially you would look up the fair market value of what would it cost for your business to have to use your home and you find a legitimate, you create a legitimate opportunity for the business to use your home for a business event, a board meeting, an event, et cetera, et cetera, and you create a tax deduction. Now I host real estate investor poker and tequila pizza nights. So the tequila, the pizza is all written off, and I pay my, my escort pays me rent. To do this, you don't even. And it just has to be your primary residence. You could also do. Even if you don't own the home, you can still do it. And it's just, it's a nice tax deduction. We love ways where we can create tax deductions without actually losing money. Well, I, I lost a couple of bucks in the poker games, but it was low stakes poker. I lost like 20, 30 bucks and I, I kept the leftover tequila. So that's one idea. Now, here's another example with the Augusta rule, I'm actually visiting my mom for the holidays and I hired my mom, which we love, hiring the family as a great tax, you know, I'm shifting my income into my mom's bracket and supporting my mom, we're actually going to do some business activities while I visit my mom for the holidays and I'll pay her for two days of rent to conduct business activities in her home. So here's a more resourceful, creative way of doing it. So my mom, I'm going to pay her rent and she doesn't have to report it. I get the, I get the tax write off and my mom doesn't pay any taxes on it. And now I'm support, you know, my mom has more money coming from me, which is always a good thing because I wasn't the easiest kid to raise. So I probably can show some gratitude in the meantime as well during the holidays. And that helps her out with buying gifts and stuff.

I love that. And that's just another I see missed opportunity, especially for entrepreneurs is being able to hire kids, especially underage kids, and being able to use those funds for future college funds and just super easy stuff that very few people are taken advantage of. Again, this is something you probably, it's like one of the first things you would advise. But, but few CPAs are given this type of advice to their entrepreneurial clients. So share a little bit more about that, like how you can hire your underage children.

Yeah, we love this as well. And now you, you pay your kids a fair market value of the services performed in the business. And if they are in, you know, working for your business, you, they don't have to pay FICA taxes if you do it through a sole prop. And a lot of people create management companies to do that. And essentially, you know, let's say you're taxed at the, you know, 37 tax bracket and you hire your kids, they're going to be paying taxes at their bracket, which is likely zero on the, you know, the first, you know, first what? I don't remember what the standard deduction is for 24. It always changes. Like what? First $13,000 and then a lot of people say pay your kid the standard deduction and you're done. Well, why not pay them more? Because after that you're at a 10% bracket. Why not pay them 30,000 legitimately pay them what the fair market value of their services is. So if you have a kid who's really sharp and he can learn some basic qbo, you can pay him the fair market value of some basic bookkeeping or financial analysis or photography, you know, do something that they're good at so you can pay them more and that can also go into a Roth IRA to finance their college. Lots of cool stuff here. Now this is really cool foundational stuff that accumulates year after year. And you know, it's really good to have those foundations down. Now we, we, we share that with all our clients. But also we like to focus on the big ticket things as well that create the millions of dollars of savings. But we love hiring the kids and also I think another benefit besides just for taxes here. I love the idea of getting your kids in the business, giving them responsibility here and you know, give, helping them learn what they're good at and having you know, having some legitimate real world business experience with the family.

Yeah. And I totally agree. And again when I just started learning some of these basics and realizing like oh this is just low hanging fruit and like you said, like yeah, there's big strategies but the place to start is just the low hanging fruit that's just easy to, to put extra dollars in your pocket. And, and I had my kids on my payroll and that a good portion of that put them through college because.

I love and, and you know it qualifies them for the American Opportunity tax credit which if you're a high income earner, you make too, you'll likely make too much to get. So that gets them an extra tax credit. And you're going to give your kid money anyways. Why not make it tax deductible and now you can have tax deductible business meetings with your family.

All of the above. Exactly. And again these just such easy low hanging fruit that everybody should be doing. Every entrepreneur should be employing these just very simple strategies. And do you advice as far as now this isn't taxes for the entrepreneur, but it can help. Then when my kids were became young adults after college and just starting their careers, just being able to gift them money each year like could you know, give them money or do different things but just even the gifting and doing the gifting every single year, once a year big really doesn't do a deduction for me necessarily. But it's a big thing for them because they don't have to claim that as income. So can you talk a little bit about that? Just really again that just these what it my purpose of saying this is that those listening can be like I'm not doing that, I'm not doing that. Wait, I'm not doing that. And this could, this could be five to six figures of tax savings.

Yeah. So gifting is also especially if you have a lot of assets gifting is a really impactful way of estate planning. And while we're not experts there, that's, that's another way of just, you know, gradually unloading your assets so it doesn't get hit with these estate taxes and is a little simpler. And also if you were to gift it and they invest and they get taxed at their marginal rate instead of yours, obviously you got to watch out for the kiddie tax. Well, all sorts of ways where you can get your family involved in what you're doing in a tax advantage manner is, is, is a step towards what I call the tax free lifestyle where you're doing what you enjoy and what you're passionate about and would have preferred to spend your money on anyways. But now it's tax deductible because you're enjoying your meetings with your family, connecting with your family and also writing it off on your taxes legitimately because they're involved in the business. And obviously gifting is another way that can create tax advantages when you look at what is done with the funds and when they're, you know, in your, your children's federal and state tax brackets.

Yeah. Awesome. All right, so that's, that's some low hanging fruit. Again, my intention of asking these questions just to cause this. Wait, I never thought about that. Nobody's ever talked to me about that. Let me check into it. The second piece then is, you know, I've been in an entrepreneur my whole life and so one piece of being an entrepreneur is that that we get a lot of advantages, can write off a lot of things. I've taken full advantage of all the family stuff and do family business meetings and trips that we can write off. And, and, but what about the W2, those that tend to be, you know, high income W2s, are in a really high income bracket and can't necessarily do some of the tax planning that we do. What do you, what do you do to. Are you talking to them about real estate or doing a side job where they're setting up a separate llc? What type of advice you given to the high income bracket W2s?

You know, I have a whole. Absolutely. So I have a whole playlist on my YouTube channel just on tax strategies for high W2s or W2 earners. And you know, there's a misperception that you can't do anything because your tax is determined when it goes through that pay stub. But there's actually a lot you can do and especially if you're a high income earner. And so some of the things that we're doing, we have a decent amount of high W2 earning tax planning clients. So some of the things that they really love is with real estate investing. If you get your wife to have real estate professional tax status, meaning essentially they're full time in real estate, you can now create losses with real estate through the depreciation and use those losses to offset the taxes coming out of your W2. You can invest in oil and gas investing, let's say you don't have time to manage real estate, or your wife works full time or your husband works full time, you can invest in oil and gas and that's a passive investment. You do nothing and your investment will create tax deductions. Short term rentals is a workaround. So let's say you both have W2s. You can't get real estate professional tax status. You invest in short term rentals, create massive depreciation to offset your W2. And then there are some ways you can start businesses that give you access to maybe equipment or other things that give you massive bonus depreciation. And with leverage, the cost to create the tax deduction is less than the tax savings. So there are instances where you can invest maybe $100,000 into an asset for maybe a 6 or $700,000 tax deduction. That where you're, you're going to have the money come back in the form of tax savings in year one and some future cash flow. We're also helping clients invest into solar panel rentals where you get bonus depreciation to offset your income and tax credits that can give you tax savings even against prior year taxes. And there are some more advanced and sophisticated terrible structures. And in all these strategies, just about unless there's really good profit, there's either going to be really good profit combined with tax savings, or you're going to find that the tax savings is in far in excess of the cost to create these tax deductions.

Wow, that's some good advice there. All right, we'll make sure to point people to the YouTube channel. And so if a W2 is coming to you and they, you know, they're just doing their 401k match and doing all the normal things and they're in a high tax bracket, combined household income, they come to you and is that part of the work you're doing is saying, hey, all right, let's, let's look at some options here. We can invest in real estate, we can do some short term rentals, we can do some oil and gas. Is that that's part of how the conversation is going and then you're guiding them through that process.

Absolutely. So, you know, and everybody's answer is going to be different. You can take two people with the same filing status and income tax bracket and we can go down completely different paths. Maybe one is really interested in real estate investing, or maybe one is really invested in oil. Or maybe we have someone who says, I just don't want to do anything at all. Just do what you got to do. So I get. So the number on my 1040 is the lowest possible amount of tax of taxes owed. So, you know, and other people love exploring all these different tax advantage investments. We have one guy who goes down to the oil rigs and puts on the hard hat and inspects the wells and he loves the, the, the ROI on the oil. We have other guys, you know, doing some more advanced charitable structuring and excited about that. So, you know, every, the answer is going to be different from everyone. And often times we're stacking multiple ideas on top of each other to maximize tax savings and really looking at how one strategy impacts the effectiveness of another strategy. So, well, we, we do what we call holistic tax planning, where, where we're looking at every possible strategy, how it impacts one another, and also every source of income, whether it be Investments and W2 or Business Income. And looking at all this stuff now and in the future, what solutions are going to create the best possible outcome?

Yeah. So something you're saying there that kind of really leads into this, this last part that I wanted to again kind of bring to the surface is I think kind of the, the common thinking is I pay taxes, I do my tax returns, I maybe have a CPA that helps me do that, like we've talked about, and maybe even a little bit more advanced perhaps. But tax is a separate thing over here. It's just something we have to do. And those that are paying attention want to minimize that. Those that aren't, they're just paying whatever taxes tax bill that they get. But the way you're talking about it, which I think so important is in what I just called the wealth building game. And so when we're less about just making income and paying our bills and maybe retiring one day, which I think that's just kind of the majority way of people thinking about this, it's a shift in saying, no, I want to build wealth, I want to create financial freedom, I want to have cash flow, I work really hard, I want to keep as many dollars in my pocket that are rightfully mine. And I want to build wealth as quickly as possible. And so when we move from that, hey, I'm matching my 401k or my Roth IRA and doing some retirement stuff and paying my taxes to move it to this other side of the equation, it's where it gets really exciting and it's like what you're talking about, it becomes all of it together. Where yes, we're talking about your business and how to structure your business and how to what are the types of write offs or what can we do? Can we put the kids in there? Are we taking advantage of the Augusta rule? Like how do we optimize everything for the business? Is one piece of the puzzle. Working with your, your tax strategist like you. And then it's like, okay, how much do we need to, you know, are you investing in stuff and that. But you're maybe buying real estate or doing xyz, but now where investments become part of the tax strategy and part of the business strategy, that's where it just starts really having big payoffs. Like you said, all of a sudden you're saving people six figures, multiple six figures, these business owners, because it's this multiple play at the same time. It's not these separate pieces. Would you agree with that?

Oh, absolutely. And you know, I'm not against, you know, a 401k matches free money. I say go for it. But look at the growth of your 401k. You know, you'll be lucky if you get maybe 8 to 12% little by little. When you invest into your tax planning and initiatives in some of these opportunities, you could essentially double your. You know, there are instances where you double or triple or quadruple your money year after year after year. And you're going to see a far greater compounding of your wealth through tax planning. And this is not just about tax planning and, and taxes and irs. This is about people start when they start seeing what's possible with tax planning, then they realize what is actually possible with what they can do with when they can retire, what can they invest in now? What can they do with their lives? You know, they can. If you can shave off 10, 20 years from your retirement and now have more time with your family, or if you can fulfill your dream and buy this lake house that you always wanted to buy or you know, start a yoga studio or a non profit with all your tax savings in a tax advantage manner, give back to society more. It opens up just a whole world of possibilities when you understand what are the tax incentives out there for entrepreneurs and investors. And when you win the tax game, it just opens up this whole world of, of, of this whole new reality of opportunities that go beyond the tax savings and really doing what with your life? What do you want to do with your life?

That's so well said. And, and that's what tax, real tax strategy planning is. It's really about business and investing because that's where the tax code, I don't know, 10,000 pages or 50,000 pages, I don't know. But it's really designed for the business owners and the investors. And so that's what real tax planning is, is like how do we build the business and, or create the investments that are going to optimize how much we can save in taxes and additional earnings. And it's again, it's a different mindset. It's a different way to think about taxes.

Yes. Because the government wants you to invest into vehicles that give charitable deductions. They want you to invest into energy related items. They want you to do things that are going to enhance and provide real estate to the general public. They want you to hire people. So when you're doing, you can create an opportunity that does these things, then you will be rewarded by the IRS and it'll open up a whole world of opportunities.

I think it must be pretty exciting from your standpoint that when you have a client all of a sudden you've kind of restructured things, worked with their mindset, got them to the place, what we're talking about and got them investing and saving them and all of a sudden they are saving all this in taxes. Like how does that feel? I mean, again, for me it's like I always thought taxes was boring. It's something I would never want to do and, and all the things. And now I'm thinking, man, there's just so much virtue in being a CPA that's really organized and structured like you are to help families save money. Because like you said, it's, it's money that you can do more giving and it's money that you can use to spend more time with the family. It's, you know, I mean, it's real money.

Yeah, I mean it is really cool to see what are they doing with their tax savings too. Right. So you know, we have like one client where it's, their quarterly payments are far less because they're just buying solar panels now. And like what are they doing with this additional capital and watching how they flourish and grow their businesses and you know, what, where, what kind of impact? You know, we're really creating a ripple effect in their abilities to build generational wealth and you know, maybe quit their jobs earlier or retire. So it's very exciting being coming along the journey with our clients and seeing what they're doing and how the tax planning can impact that.

I love it. All right, just one final question here that, you know, I've been a real estate investor for most of my career and, and I've just loved real estate. I don't even really understand how I saved so much money in real estate through, you know, depreciation, the write offs and things. Just know it works really well. So. And I'm, I'm always eager to buy more real estate for, because every time I buy more real estate I save more in taxes somehow. So why, why real estate? I mean, I know like you said there's other places to invest to get tax incentives and tax write offs and so on and so forth. But why are you fond of real estate?

Well, you know, we, I'm fond of a lot of things. Energy, solar, charitable. I mean even, even stocks are tax advantaged, you know, with long term cap gain rates. But I don't think that I've ever found an industry or way of making money that is more tax advantaged with real estate because of what you can do with cost segregation which allows you to front load your depreciation and bonus depreciation and then with mitigating cap gains with 1031 exchanges or qualified opportunities, own funds. And when you consider that you can pull your money out with cash out refis, your access to liquidity, even though you're investing a lot of your own money is still pretty good here as long as you're doing it right. There's just, I would say real estate has what I see is the easiest way to minimize your taxes and build wealth and just there's just so much incentive step up basis. There's just so many different advantages to investing in real estate. But you know, real estate may not be for everyone because some people may be afraid of being landlords or they may be really interested in other things or maybe all their assets and maybe all their capital is best directed towards their own endeavors right now. But certainly I love real estate because it's, I, there are very few ways that I've seen people get really, really wealthy and pay absolutely no federal taxes.

All right, well that's, that's a good place to, to drop the mic. Anything else, anything else that I've missed, I've been asked that you think is important to share.

You know, I, I would say that you just, I can't really think of anything but one thing I would just iterate is you know, if you are a high inc. If, if you were an entrepreneur at the very least know these foundational elements, you know, you don't need to hire maybe the most advanced tax strategist, maybe just take a course, just learn the basics. But if you are earning, you know, over six or seven, I would say over half a million and up and certainly if you're earning over a million and up and you're not strategizing and you, you're not at least doing, having some sort of conversation, you probably are leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table which could really be life changing. So you know, that's just what I think the audience should think about on, on this topic of tax planning and what CPAs should be doing for them.

Great. Well Mark, thank you. Every time I talk to you, I always pick up something new like again, just a little shift like oh yeah, I didn't quite think about it that way. So I'll, in the show notes I'm going to put a link to your YouTube because you have just so much valuable stuff that obviously is for free and you just, you just teach and I really appreciate that. And then we'll, we'll put a link to, to get in touch with you as well. So anybody that says I think I need to, you know, step it up with, with my cpa, we'll make it easy for them to, to reach you.

Yeah, absolutely. And there's a tons of free resources on our sites as well. We do lots of free live open calls and things of that nature. And you know, we try to help out as many people as we can. So feel free to just reach out. I'm very accessible and we hope to connect and help as many people as we can.

Yeah, thanks so much. And again, for, for those of you that made it to the end, the, the whole purpose of me wanting to bring Mark on and to introduce Mark to you was just to get you to shift your thinking. Like hey, tax planning can be exciting. We might be able to make a lot more money by being able to keep more money. And that's the first place when people are trying to earn more. And saying the first place to get a bigger paycheck is see the place you can save money in taxes is usually one of those easy places to look. So Mark, thank you so much.

Yeah, absolutely. This stuff can be really fun, guys. All right, so don't fear your accountant and don't fear the irs. There's a lot of fun stuff out there. Very fascinating. Some of the stuff we get to discuss.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Christina.

You're welcome. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. If you wish to learn more from me about financial abundance, business, and wealth creation, I invite you to check out my new YouTube channel. Subscribe and receive weekly money education videos. You'll find me at YouTube.com ristinawise YouTube.com T I N A W I S E Otherwise, join me again next week for an episode of the Wealthy Wealthy Podcast, where I interview experts about the intersection of wealth, health, and business. Until then, live your Wealthy, wealthy life.