The Mark Perlberg CPA Podcast
The Mark Perlberg CPA Podcast
EP 129 - Meet the Woman Behind America’s Top Tax Planners
We trace the “domino decision” that turned corporate burnout into a calling and show how timing, not tricks, drives real tax savings. Dominique Molina joins us to reveal practical ways to choose your tax rate and stack permanent advantages without gimmicks.
• Why timing beats complexity in tax strategy
• Permanent savings versus simple deferrals
• When to accelerate income or delay deductions
• Prep and planning collaboration to avoid waste
• Real estate developer opportunities with CCM
• How to vet claims, court history and oversight
• Designing plans around cash flow and financing
• Whole‑picture planning across crypto, real estate, business
• Typical savings ranges and when fees are worth it
• FAQs on credentials, structures, and thresholds
certifiedtaxplanners.com — whether you are a taxpayer seeking help or a tax advisor ready to level up, explore resources and get matched to a licensed planner
taxplanningchecklist.com — get an introductory course into tax planning
prosperocpa.com/opportunity-report — get a free opportunity report and a custom video on what may be possible for you
Have you ever had one of those domino moments or decisions that just changed the outcome of your career or life or one thing that was the major turning point or ripple effect for so many other things down the line? Well, for me, uh, that was when I was a corporate drone, and I needed something to do with my license and career that actually got me engaged. And uh I came across um the American Institute of Certified Tax Players, and that was the domino for everything you see right now. My decision to join the organization led to Prosperal CPA, my company now, which is a team of as of right now, a team of 12. By the way, we need a couple more, so you need if you know some tax professionals, send them my way. Uh also that has led to me finding my fiance, starting my company, and a lot of my mentors and coaches along the way. And so much of what I do originated, it all comes back to the the decision I came to learn um tax planning and the just which led to the discovery of how amazing this stuff is, um, and how empower how powerful and impactful it could be, and also how fulfilling it is to perform tax planning. And I'm super excited and honored to have a guest here who is responsible for that domino. Uh so I'm gonna introduce you to Dominique Molina. Dominique, can you introduce yourself in 60 seconds or less?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, thank you. But I've never been introduced as a domino before. That's amazing. Thank you for that introduction, Mark. Yeah, so my background is as a CPA as well, and I think most of us CPAs, we take the traditional route, uh, which I did as well. And um, you know, you you find yourself uh oftentimes building the exact career you don't want. And uh, so I'm no different in that respect. And uh I discovered tax planning along the way, and tax planning has just been that domino for me: changing everything, changing my relationship with clients, my career trajectory, my income potential, my family, my own personal uh uh enjoyment in life. So I think you and I have that in common. We found tax planning, and tax planning helped us really uh take on a new lease on life for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So now listen up to the audience here. So we're gonna talk about uh not only this as a profession. So if you are a tax professional listening to me and taking some of my ideas, by the way, which is all right. Um, or if you are one of our clients or prospects, or you want to learn more about taxes, taxes, and tax strategy, we're gonna dive into all of that here. Uh so Dominique, I want to know from you. Let's talk about on the on the planning side, you as a planner. Yes, I'm curious to know uh what is the um the most you've ever saved someone in taxes? Ooh. In a single year.
SPEAKER_00:My record in a single year is over. Gosh, now I have to remember because it's going way back. Um it was a$40 million gain. Let's see, and what was the savings on that? It was about$12 million in a single year for one for one taxpayer.
SPEAKER_01:Was that a was that on that was a the the tax plan that you were talking about at the conference?
SPEAKER_00:No, actually, I don't know that I've actually shared this one before. But um the it in in reality, Mark, it was a very simple idea. It was recognizing a timing issue that was going to come up where the taxpayer was not put in a position to maximize a deduction that they were going to lose. And that's really what our role is, right? That you don't have to have these overly super complex, sophisticated ideas to generate a lot of value. Now, I've done a lot of that as well, but that's what pops to mind when you ask that question, right? Is something that was relatively simple, but so easily missed. Why? Because we're so busy being a historian. We're, we're seeing people and we're we're classically trained to look at what's already happened in the past. And you're you're limited on your options when the year's already over. Right. And instead, if you position yourself before year end where you have time and space and awareness of what's possible, now you can actually spot these things when you can actually do something about it. And that's hugely impactful, whether it's a very small, simple idea or something that's more complicated than that, where you do some shifting and and some structuring of things. Either way, it's afforded to you because you're taking action ahead of time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I had a uh an episode on this, and then I also did a talk in front of a group of affluent entrepreneurs, and I said, tax planning is all about timing. And before we, and while there are these sexy and sophisticated structures out there, a lot of what we do, and even a lot of these sophisticated trust vehicles and all sorts of things, a lot of it comes down to the simple matter of timing. And at a high at a high level, right, what we want to do here is we want to recognize our income, ideally never or over time. Yeah, usually, you know, usually, depending on what bracket we're in, and we want to get our expenses in immediately so we can see the return of investment on either writing off our expenses, our charitable deductions, et cetera, et cetera. And there are so many things that all that really come down to just timing and and just thinking about that piece of timing when you sell something and and timing when you recognize an expense or so many other variables can have such a profound effect.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. And that's what what you're really doing in those instances, Mark, is you're allowing your client, your taxpayer, to choose which rate they want to pay. I think sometimes we view the tax system as a victim. Well, the tax system just happens to me and my taxes, whatever it is, but it's really empowering people to use the law to their advantage and get strategic with it to say, you know, gosh, wouldn't it be nice, for example, if I knew that I was permanently locked into a 14% tax rate for life, or in some cases, 0% tax rate for life, right? And that's totally possible only because of tax planning, because we're devoting that time and attention to that.
SPEAKER_01:And also what's interesting here, and you kind of got me thinking about this, and then we we really dove deep into this is like when you time things properly properly, it also unlocks permanent tax savings. So that deferring, yeah. So deferring your income that doesn't sound so sexy. Putting your money into a 401k, you're like, well, I gotta pay later. That's not that exciting. Well, hold on a second. If we if we could get you to this bracket, now we're unlocking a QBI deduction, 20% potentially. We may also be unlocking child tax credit. We may be unlocking an additional$30,000 state and local tax, and those are permanent tax savings that will not go, that you do not have to pay back when you take the money out.
SPEAKER_00:Ever again, yes, permanent. I think that's a really important distinction to make, too, Mark, is that you really do it through a combination of things. But what irks me sometimes is that we get this focus on the current year and we say, hey, let's do the 401k as you mentioned. It's a deferral, and that's an important distinction. That is not a permanent difference. It can become a permanent difference with a plan. So if I have a plan on how I'm gonna get that out later at an advantage rate, now you have a complete package, right? But all too often a lot of people are focused on what can I do to make that number go down right now? And we'll deal with that stuff later on. And I don't know. And I got to tell you, I see people that are paying 22, 23% today. They defer, defer, defer, and then they run themselves into RMDs where they're now in a 35% tax rate for the rest of their life. Oops. Now we're paying more than we would have paid if we had chosen to pay the lower rate, but you don't have that choice anymore. So you really can't afford to be nearsighted and just focused on that one number today. It's gotta be the full package. It's not a one-time thing, right? Planning is a constant activity that you should be really invested in the outcome of for sure, both as the advisor and as the taxpayer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, another thing here, and a lot of people silo their prep and their planning teams. And it's okay to have specialists in either area, but you need you need some sort of collaboration. Um, not always, but a lot of times is incredibly important because sometimes we can make decisions on the timing as we're doing the return. And sometimes we're seizing while we're doing the return. So we've had instances where the client says, Okay, I got these five cost eggs. Uh, I'm gonna just do them all in this year. And we say, we don't know, it depends. Let's see, wait till the dust settles. Let's see what you actually get back on these K1s. You may not want to do an additional cost egg here because you may find that you don't buy any more real estate and you may find your income grows and you need the cost egg next year more. So we may even extend the return and wait until September until so we know when is the best time to apply uh the depreciation and and to accelerate the depreciation, or how or do we elect out-of-bonus depreciation for a certain type of property uh property life? So there's all these decisions we can make even after the year end, like we can decide, okay, how much are we actually going to put in this retirement account now that we know we're looking at this this year and this the last year? So there's there's just so much ongoing thought, and and there's just so much um that goes into doing this if you want to do it at a high level.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You what I think you're highlighting, Mark, is the the idea that deductions are not worth the same amount, right? So if you've got you brought up five cost segregations, the timing is critical on that, right? Because we can be so good at what we're doing that we get their tax rate down so low that that next cost segregation isn't worth as much. Because if I drop your taxes from 30 to 14%, do I really want to pull in deductions when they're only worth 14%? No. I actually want to save that and use that for a time when they're worth more. When it when it matches up with the client's needs, right? Because we're also kind of balancing out cash flow needs and what it what do they have going on in their life. So uh you brought up this term of silo, like working in a silo. We don't want to work in a silo outside of the client's lifestyle either, right? Because it's important to understand what they have going on and what's coming up in terms of investments in the business or expansion or even things in their personal life. And we try to balance all that together and a really good tax plan will do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we we have what we call like a tax planning DNA. Each client has their own tax planning DNA. Some are gonna prefer the more liquid-friendly strategies because they have expensive lifestyles or needs and it or they just need their cash.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so they're gonna want to do the higher ticket, higher, you know, things where you're using leverage to get depreciation or other types of deductions, and others are gonna be more conservative and they're gonna have plenty of cash aside. So they're okay with an 80 cent per dollar deduction on oil and gas to get them into a good tax bracket. So it's like everybody's different, there's no one size fits all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then you combine things like financing into it. You know, if I've got a business that's heavily dependent on financing, say I'm in real estate development, for example, and I've got the need to finance properties and get mortgages and HELOCs. Um, do you really want a strategy that's going to show super low income? Or would you be better served by a strategy that uses more tax credits so that you can show significantly high enough income to get the qualification for the financing, but you still save the taxes. It just depends on the line of the tax return that the bankers are reading, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've had those conversations with the banks. They're like having to justify uh our tax tra, you know, that the client actually is not losing money and it's just tax strategy. Um I want to backtrack because you said earlier you saved someone$12 million on a timing strategy. Yeah. Now the tax geeks listening to this, and I attract a lot of them, they're gonna want to know a little more about how can just a timing strategy save you$12 million in taxes.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So we have lots of uh carryover rules that apply to different types of deductions and credits. And I think it's a very missed opportunity. You usually find these things if it's not your current client. Let's say you're looking at a brand new client to you. A lot of the details for these things are found in the white paper detail of someone's return. So those schedules are super important to pay attention to because, again, there's expiration dates on these things. How long will the credit carry over for? How long will the deduction carry over for? So a really common one is charitable deductions, right? And so we see this with charitable giving strategies, whether it's a donor-advised fund or a charitable trust or from the past easements. These things have limitations, whether it's 30, 40, 50, 60% of AGI is your cap on what you can deduct. And then what happens? The rest of that rolls forward for certain amounts of time. And if you don't use it during that time, maybe because you've been really efficient at your tax planning and you get taxable income down so low that they cannot use that carryover credit, right? Then poof, it just expires. So in this particular case, that's what I noticed. They had a charitable contribution that was rolling forward and we were on there last year. And wouldn't you know it was like October when I'm taking a look at this thing? Brand new client to me. That gives us very little time to move. Well, what's the solution in that case? The solution in that case is timing strategies with our deductions, because it's better to defer deductions if you want to purposely show higher income, right? When would I want to purposely show higher income? Well, when I've got already a deduction to use or a credit that I can use against it, or I'm in an extraordinarily low tax rate. I might want to freeze and permanently pay tax at that rate for the rest of my life, right? Because once you've paid it, it's done. You've recognized the income, you've paid tax on it, and you're never going to pay more tax than that in the future. So we freeze that rate, right? So the issue is how do we accelerate income into the current year? And we can do that a number of different ways through basis of accounting, for example, through Roth conversions, for example, where we purposely do the conversion, but all of that has to be done prior to the end of the year. That makes our income go up, our AGI and our taxable income go up. And we're fine with that. Why? Because we've got a deduction that needs to be used up because it's going to expire. So that's all it was. Again, seemingly very simple on the process. The implementation was somewhat complex in that there were some, in this particular case, they were doing some capital gain recognition on some uh appreciated assets in their portfolio. So that needed to be executed and needed to be executed timely so that we could do that recognition and claim the deduction. Um, but had that happened, had that conversation happened any later in the year or even in for sure into the next year, there would have been nothing we could do. And it would have been, oh, whoops, they they lost that$40 million deduction. Oof.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, I had a great um I had a YouTube episode you guys check out called User or Lose It Deductions. And it was just on that topic of when you look at the phasing ins and outs of deductions in particular, it's like you can make too little to get your your deduction or credits, or you can make too much. Yeah. And a lot of times I and I tell my staff this is never let a good tax bracket go to waste. Yes, you have a good opportunity, and if you're not even gonna get your itemizer standard deductions because your income's so low, right, that's an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yes. With there's no carryover mark for a standard deduction. Nope. Right? You don't use it, you don't get it. And uh and so something as simple as a Roth conversion, I mean, that's a no-brainer, right? Why wouldn't you use your standard deduction at least to convert something to Roth tax-free? Uh, but again, it's one of those things where the timing is so important because again, if I'm if I'm a an advisor and I'm waiting for my client to ask me about this stuff, for example, yeah, you're gonna be waiting a long time because they don't know what they don't know. If I'm waiting until they tell me that something has happened, I bought a property, I formed an LLC, I quit claimed this property into the LLC, or I sold a business. Our hands are tied. There just isn't a lot that we can do. And so, as advisors, part of our role is being assertive in leading that discussion. It's forcing people to give you the information that you need so that you can be the guide in those situations. Because if we're just waiting for them to tell us, they don't know.
SPEAKER_01:So, you know, um I didn't know tax ploting was a thing, and you know, I found CTC um actually indirectly through someone else who I've now done business with and I was just Googling people who had tax like financial planning and tax backgrounds, CBA backgrounds, who first referenced this group. Um and I think it's the longest standing and the largest group or educational resource for tax planning. Um, and I see a lot of other stuff out there, and I I see influencers and you know, quasi-educators give some misinformation too on certain areas of the tax law. And there's all sorts of ideas and different ways where people define tax planning as pushing products and if you wear this wristband that tracks your health, you're materially participating and renting out medical software, or you can you can invest with a bunch of people in a farm, you don't have to pick up the poop, but you're still materially participating from your your you know your house on the hills in in La Jolla Beach. I see a lot of stuff. Yeah. And I'm sure you see a lot of stuff too. So yeah. What would you define as you know, real what is what when people are thinking about they really need tax playing? Well, how'd they how do they make sense of whether they want to learn tax playing or they need tax playing? What should they be looking for as the the what's what's the real stuff and what's the stuff that's maybe where where's the pretenders?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's that's hard to discern sometimes, right? And I think there's a lot happening now with AI that helps contribute to that. AI is very, a very convincing liar, right? I've gone round and round and round with Chat GPT many times, kind of saying, but what about this and what about that? Oh, yes, you're right, and still give me a bad answer. So it makes it really tricky. And I I do have to say that is one part of tax law, Mark, that really makes me angry. It makes me angry that at the end of the day, the taxpayer is left holding the bag. The taxpayer, the uneducated lay person, the person who signs the return under penalty of perjury, that everything is accurate and legal, when there's professionals out there that don't fully understand the tax law, that makes me angry because how are you able to discern what's garbage, the poop on your farming story, versus what's legitimate actionable advice? And unfortunately, the answer is somewhat complicated. And so the approach that we take at the institute, look, we're a nonprofit organization, and part of the reason that we're nonprofit is because we wanted there to be oversight and integrity in the license. We wanted to provide a way so that the public has some recourse. The public can make a complaint, the public can report someone and say, hey, this person's holding them out as a holding themselves out as a certified tax planner. And this is what happened. This is my experience. So that there's a committee that can investigate those complaints and there's a process for resolving that, right? That's what's really needed, is we need oversight in this area. And uh because the taxpayers ultimately left holding the bag, they need good resources so that they can go and get things vetted and find out is this legitimate? So I think at the end of the day, you definitely want to look for reputable license holders that have oversight on what they're doing so that there is a watchdog in the environment to suss out what is legitimate versus garbage, because it's not always easy to tell. There's not always a bright line that says, this is bad, this is good. And that's the purpose of the court system, really. The court system uh is the final judge and arbiter over what's legitimate and versus what's not. And so a real easy way to discern that is to say, well, what court history do we have here on this particular issue? And you bring up technology. If I'm wearing a wristband or a health tracker that's marking my movements, do we have court history where they have said, yes, that counts? And when we have new things on the market, that takes time. It takes time for the courts to have a case that winds through the process where we get a definitive definition. And so I think working with somebody that has reputation, that has a focused and expertise in this, look, this is deep. It's complicated. We're talking about law here. So it's really important that you understand what the background is of the person that you've selected to be your guide and your advisor as they lead you through these conversations.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we um, and you know, one thing I found because I I built the I was really I was able to build a strong foundation in tax planning um before really starting to take on clients and probably spent about eight months of just studying and research and watching the trainings before I took on a client. And what I found was that that time I dedicated, which was hundreds of hours, um, built a foundation for me to then explore, okay, there's all these other vendors, all these other ideas, projects, and opportunities, and and and to actually use that the foundational knowledge that I gained at CTC and then apply it to assess is this really uh compliant? Do these principles allow this to work? Because a lot, especially when it comes to materially material participation, people will butcher their understanding and twist and turn the interpretation of that, and or they'll just they'll just assume that their audience doesn't know what it is.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Or they don't know what it is, honestly, Mark, right? You don't know what you don't know. And so sometimes these people are really well-meaning, but they just lack the experience to understand this stuff is like an onion, and you're peeling back these layers of different laws and how they um interact with each other. Different, you know, referred as code section 479.2a sub nine for the definition of this, and then go over here and read this law over here. It's complicated. And I don't think people are always well or uh malintentioned. I think sometimes they have they get excited about these things, right? And sometimes there's an investment connected with it and a big paycheck at the end of sending that, selling that investment. And look, this stuff is complex. It's complex for us. I've been doing this over 25 years, and it is complex. And so I think finding somebody that's plugged into um a community of like-minded individuals where we act as a sounding board for one another. And so one of the things we do at the institute is we have a due diligence committee and we meet regularly and we act as a sounding board for each other. We bring up, oh, but what about this court case over here? And what about this legal definition? And they don't always have clear answers to these issues, right? And so together as a group, we just kind of highlight the issues, point out the conflicts, um, try to come up with explanations and follow tax logic for things. And then really at the end of the day, you say, how confident am I about how I feel about this? And am I willing to see this all the way? Am I willing to take this to the Supreme Court if I need to? Do I have the financial backing to do that? Do I have the right experts on my team that can see this all the way through? And a lot of times the taxpayer is going, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be the guinea pig. I don't want to be the name on the headline, you know, that that uh proves that. And and sometimes you find clients that do. They're like, Yeah, let's take this all the way. That's great.
SPEAKER_01:So I know you do a lot of research here. Is there one strategy or idea in particular this year? So for me this year, it's been on um, I've been doing a lot of solar stuff with solar, but I'm wondering from you, yeah, what is one particular strategy this year that you're most excited about exploring in the world of tax planning?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's a great question. Um, well, there's some really exciting things that have come up with the uh one big beautiful bill act, or ABA as we we refer to it. And um changes, I think, that I actually just taught a class on this yesterday that are really exciting for those in the real estate industry, specifically for developers. So there was kind of a smaller, less popular talked about provision in ABA that changes the definition of a an allowable basis of an accounting for real estate developers in particular. And it allows more developers to qualify to use the completed contracts method of accounting or CCM. And what that does is it allows you to defer the capital gains. Now, you also are deferring your deductions as well, connected to that development. So these things are never a one-size-fits-all approach. But what it did is it really opened the door to a lot more in the real estate development community to use this method of accounting. And that means longer amounts of time to defer uh the tax. Now, remember, I just got done saying, Mark, you never just defer and then forget about it, right? So, what that does is it gives you time for your plan to develop so that you can also time strategies when that recognition occurs so that you pay a lesser amount of tax on it. Meanwhile, in that time, and the time that you have really depends on the length of the contract for the development project. But during that time, you can enjoy lower tax rates. And so we want to accelerate income into those years so we can permanently realize. low, low tax rates on that income during that time. So that's one example. And and the thing is the tax law is always changing, right? So I like that you framed that question as what has you excited this year? Because every year there's something. There's something new and exciting or that we get guidance about through court process. And uh so there's always something uh that's cool for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Yeah. Well you find, you know, if you can push back the recognition and you have your cash, you can do things to prepare for when the tax arise and also build your wealth. Yeah. Let's talk about now what we're going to do is I'm going to get into some of the most commonly asked questions on the topics we've covered today. So first question here What is a certified tax player and how are they different from a regular CPA?
SPEAKER_00:Well I touched on this a little bit Mark a certified tax planner is someone who has undergone rigorous training. There is oversight and requirements regulations on the license itself. They've got to maintain a certain amount of continuing education specifically in the tax planning industry to maintain that credential. And as I mentioned we've got oversight there's a committee that sets the requirements for that and there's a process for handling taxpayer complaints that come up during the administration of that license.
SPEAKER_01:What is meant by tax planning?
SPEAKER_00:Well tax planning as you mentioned is I I look at it as you're intentionally shifting and adjusting and structuring how you handle your business and your investments to better qualify you for deductions, strategies, credits and loopholes that maybe you otherwise don't qualify for the way that you just found about your business.
SPEAKER_01:How do high income earners legally pay less taxes every year?
SPEAKER_00:Well we do just that, right? It's real simple. It's simple as saying hey this particular deduction or credit is just out of reach. I don't qualify for it now because A, B, and C. So can I put myself in a position where I do meet requirements A, B, and C so that now I do qualify and I'm legally entitled to take it.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I'll add to this a little bit about high income earners is that some high income earners get clobbered with taxes. But to do it right, not only do you have a plan in place but also if you can live below your means so you have enough cash to deploy into things that will reduce your taxes. Because if all your money is put right back into your lifestyle, it gives us less opportunity to help you facilitate certain transactions and activities that'll further drive down your taxes.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah and now if you deploy all of it into your your lifestyle now you're at the highest bracket and you're going to get clobbered. But other folks being seven figures profit are in very low brackets because of their ability to have the cash set aside. And there's a bunch of other things you can do as well.
SPEAKER_00:We can kind of even prove that with data mark when we look at information that comes out from the IRS data book we can see specifically higher income people. So let's say owners of certain types of businesses that on average make about$1.7 million a year yet are paying about 14% average in tax and we compare that to a more commonly owned business structure and those folks are averaging about$400,000 of income a year and yet are paying 40% in taxes. The numbers don't lie, right? It's a difference of who's using strategy or not. So um even though we can see in the numbers that those making more money pay less tax, you have to really understand the why. Why are they paying less tax? Because they're investing in tax strategy and that's what affords them the ability to do it.
SPEAKER_01:Is tax planning really worth it or should I just have my taxes prepared once per year?
SPEAKER_00:Well that depends right tax planning should be worth it. If it's not worth it meaning if you don't know that you're saving more than it's costing you, then it's probably not worth it, right? The numbers tell you whether it's worth it or not. So if you're curious about whether or not you could benefit from tax planning or whether you're doing everything that can be done for tax planning, have a second look. Have a tax planner take a look and they'll be able to tell you hey I I see this amount that you're not currently taking advantage of here's what the cost is going to be for that and then you have enough information as a consumer to make an educated decision about whether it makes financial sense for you to do it.
SPEAKER_01:How much can a good tax plan actually save me if I make$5000 per year or more?
SPEAKER_00:Well for someone who's making half a million dollars or more savings can range anywhere from$50,000 to$150,000 and sometimes more. The biggest opportunities come from entity structure, from deferral design, from real estate strategies. Again, many a lot of people overpay simply because no one's analyzed their situation proactively the higher your income the greater your leverage to actually legally reduce taxes. And it's just a matter of simple math right the higher income I earn just statistically I'm paying a higher tax rate so I pay higher tax dollars but you can take somebody who makes$150,000 a year and they can easily save$20,000 a year off of their tax bill it's all relative, right? Still meaningful difference in the numbers how can I reduce my tax bill well that's very dependent very dependent on your personal circumstances right the fastest way to reduce your tax bill is going to be to plan before December 31st. You want to identify misdeductions in credits, especially business related ones you want to use timing strategies, deferring income or accelerating expenses when it makes sense, right? And you want to structure your income so that you can get better tax treatment. So the key here is don't wait until tax filing season. By then most opportunities are gone.
SPEAKER_01:How do certified tax planners charge for their services and are they worth the fee?
SPEAKER_00:Well I think coming back to the worth it, that should be very easy to tell. If you don't know how much you're saving, ask. But they really should be telling you and we train our certified tax planners to communicate that because you want to know am I getting a good return on my investment here? Right now many certified tax planners will be able to quote you a fee up front it's going to be a flat fee for developing your plan and then there will be optional ongoing maintenance and things like implementation. The fees typically range anywhere from 10 to multiple six figures depending on the complexity of the plan. But again the average taxpayer saves far more than the fee often in the first year.
SPEAKER_01:Can tax planning help with crypto real estate inside businesses all at the same time?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Yeah. Good tax planning is going to look at your whole picture not just one income stream. We're going to take into that the consideration all of the things that you currently have going on but also what are your future plans? I think a lot of people say I want to grow my wealth and they may or may not have some idea in mind of how they're going to achieve that. Each area crypto real estate side hustles they all have their own tax planning opportunities and pitfalls right and so the magic happens when you can coordinate them all under one tax strategy. And that's really how you legally minimize taxes all across your entire portfolio.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I, you know, when I started off I really worked hard to serve the niche of real estate investors. And what I realized was all these almost all these real estate investors had other income sources that allowed them to afford real estate. And I said if we're not first off if they don't buy another property to do cost segment if that's our only thing we can do to reduce our taxes we're going to find ourselves useless pretty soon. Yes especially with when bonus was phasing down. And I also found that you have to look at everything even if you're a specialist in one area you have to know everything because all of the things that are going to hit that 1040 are connected. So you have to plan for all of it. And and then I think to myself sometimes especially with real estate investors it's not just about how we can use real estate to reduce your taxes and obviously there are amazing ways to do that in particular with depreciation but sometimes the strategy is how do we create tax savings to afford more real estate. Yes. And then that real estate further drives down your taxes and now we see this compounding snowball peck effect of building wealth and driving down taxes when we do it right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah there's this coaching aspect that comes from it right and what you've described Mark I think the challenge that a lot of tax advisors have is that they're working with very limited information. There's not a line on the tax return that says what are your future plans right you have to be able to have those conversations with people and that comes from skill and practice. You develop these skills over time. And unfortunately a lot of tax professionals rely on whatever the taxpayer's telling them just doesn't occur to the taxpayer that hey maybe I ought to share that I have a special needs child or maybe I ought to share that I have this goal of paying for my daughter's wedding next year or maybe I ought to share that it's always been my dream to have a family vacation home where we can all come together from all over the country and visit with each other. It doesn't always occur to them to share that information. And so then the tax advisors are going, well, I didn't know that. How can I do that if I don't know it. So it's a really a collaborative process that happens between the planner and the taxpayer. And it's a really amazing thing. And I think one of the most common pieces of feedback that we get from taxpayers when we work hand in hand with them in this way is you're part of my advisory team. We're like partners on this. And so we see a lot of things in our business and we can bring up these types of ideas. Mark you've seen a ton of things in real estate and that's invaluable to bring to the table with your clients when you can reference that and say well you know I worked on this one deal and we did A, B, and C. What if we did that here? It's immeasurable value that you're be able that you're able to bring to the table. But that kind of surpasses the things that are measurable in dollars and cents so that you can tell is this a wise investment for me to put something into tax planning.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely all right well Dominique this was a wonderful conversation and I want you to tell those who want to learn more about your organization and just see what you do where's a good place for them to go? What's a good call to action here?
SPEAKER_00:Good place to go is certifiedtaxplanners.com and on that website whether you're a taxpayer that's looking for help we can get you connected with someone who's licensed to do that. You can also see a lot of resources on ideas and hear feedback on some of these strategies that you hear about in social media or on ChatGPT and you wonder, hmm, is that legal? And if you are a tax advisor and you're saying hey I'm serious about this I like that idea of bringing this into my business or improving on this part. I want to be able to do more for my clients. I want to be able to work with them in this collaborative way. We've got information for you there as well.
SPEAKER_01:Fantastic and for those of you listening if you want to get an introductory course into tax planning to start seeing how advanced tax planning may impact you go to taxplanningchecklist dot com taxplanningchecklist dot com or if you want to get started right away we're going to send you a free opportunity report where I will send you a video illustrating what may be possible for you based on your circumstances go to prosperocpa.com slash opportunity report prosper prosper with an LCPA.com slash opportunity report and I will be sending you a video based on all the information you give me to help you see what may be possible. Dominique thank you so much for your time and for all you guys listening I hope you enjoyed the show and uh we got more great stuff coming your way thanks Mark