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All right, welcome. So, I am doing now that it's near the end of the year, it's
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December 2025, I'm going to do a year-end tax strategy series of podcast
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episodes. And to start, this one will be the summary video, and I I do want to
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get some as much helpful information out to you as possible in this one, but then
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the following, we're going to do eight additional episodes after this. uh those
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ones will have a lot more in-depth information. But for to start, I want to
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talk about so year-end tax strategy or tax planning. Just kind of step back and
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think about really what that is and not just why we do it. We do it because we
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want to save on taxes, but kind of like I want to talk about the like rough
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structure of how we do it. So, I'm sure you've seen online. And I've even done
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some episodes on here where it's just like these are these are the top five
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taxsaving strategies or uh pay your kids, get the deduction right off your
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house, write off the car. Like there are lots of very specific things you can do.
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But if you step back and think of like how we get to those conclusions like
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when is a strategy because every strategy is not good for everybody or
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there's specific things that are not good or even applicable for everybody.
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So it's like how do we step back and really like just start to think about
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really what might make sense for you. So you have to start with where you want to
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go. So where you want to end up like the type of structure, the type of if you're
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a business owner, the types of investments you want to own, the type of
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life you want to you want to live. So you have to start with the end in mind.
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You have to think through things like that you're willing to do or not willing
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to do. When I bring up real estate, as you know, a lot there's people that are
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like, "I'm never going to own real estate. I never want to clean toilets."
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Which you don't have to. You can hire cleaners for that, but but even then
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there's think about strategies and specific things you do or want to do or
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don't like to do. Um, and then we kind of blend that and then we blend it with
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like there's hundreds and hundreds of things you could potentially do, but
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just going through every single list is very timeconuming. So we're we we want
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to start with the end in mind, but there's so many options that it can get
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very daunting and confusing. So it's like how do we meet in the middle? Like
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how do we get from point A to having so many options to deciding on what makes
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the most sense and moving you into the next step and moving you the direction
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to actually implement and apply some of these strategies and planning
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techniques. So to in the very beginning so very beginning of a tax planning or
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strategy session I love to just see where we're at like understanding under
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the current circumstances in the current year what's going to happen if you don't
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do any planning you don't make any changes like how like how are the chips
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going to fall like how how are things going to end up if you don't do anything
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so start with that so we have I have our tax the tax projection worksheet which
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is just document what's happening now and if you've met with me oneonone just
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going through like what's going on now and then we kind of just plug in some of
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these opportunities. We can see the impact that it's making. So start with
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that. Start with the tax protection. See where we're at now and then here is this
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framework. So I'll jump right into it just so this episode won't be too long.
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There is an eight-step framework that I go through that really is something I
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put together to help categorize kind of the main areas like the types of
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strategies that we can do because there's there's different strategies for
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everybody and depending on your scenario and I've talked about personas in the
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past and there's business owners and high net worth people and employees,
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people that are just into real estate like there's different strategies for
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everybody but the framework works for everyone. Like the framework cannot it
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can help you decide which kind of persona you relate to when you're tax
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planning. But here's here's the framework. So here these are the eight
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things and I'll just kind of do a high level review but give you some general
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recommendations on each of them as well. So the first one is make sure you're not
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you're not missing deductions. So this is for business for anyone. This applies
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to everyone. If you have you have to think of like what scenario you're in as
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an individual taxpayer say W2 employee what type of deductions you have they've
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got like or just in general travel business use of home Augusta rule paying
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kids reimbursement plans uh charitable giving strategies it does depend on your
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scenario and so in the in-depth episodes I'll do on these I'm going to give the
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persona the type of person and the type of deductions that that would relate to.
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So if you're an individual taxpayer, what are the deductions available to
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you? I'm going to go into those details. So number one was deductions. Number
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two, one of the like age-old strategies, really old strategy is deferring income
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and accelerating expenses. Sometimes people that's the only tax planning they
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do, but by kicking the tax can down the road into the future, it can be helpful.
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Time value money potentially you're in a lower tax bracket the next year. That is
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definitely a strategy. And then number three is tax credits. We want to
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consider what type of tax credits that are available to you depending on your
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situation. R&D credits, solar credits, energy efficient property credits,
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hiring credits for specific types of employees you hire, tuition credits, uh
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electric vehicle credits, all that all that fun stuff. I'm going to cover some
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of those those main ones. Uh number four is entity structure. So this is the type
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of like whether it's LLC's or Ccorporations or S corporations like and
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like your estate planning structure and partnerships and all this stuff and then
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there might be an entity structure like just as an individual person like do you
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need a trust like would a trust make sense for estate planning and like when
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it applies so there's typically like estate planning reasons legal like
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liability asset protection reasons and then there's some tax considerations as
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well. So entity structure, we're thinking of those three things. And then
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number five is tax brackets, which like tax brackets, like we have a tiered
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tax bracket system, right, in the United States, but there's other tax brackets
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that you can use. There's types of companies like a Ccorporation that has a
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different type of tax bracket than an individual tax bracket. If you have
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other owners or you have family members or kids, is there are there ways and
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there are ways to use their tax brackets? Whether you're splitting
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ownership or the way that you're doing distributions or paying wages, you can
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use other people's tax brackets to your advantage and planning for that. I'll
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give some specific strategies on that. Then number six is conversion, which is
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like converting your income, the type of income you're receiving to other types
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of income, which it might sound weird, but income, there's all sorts of
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different types of income or in there like the different types of income, you
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know, that part, but it can be taxed in completely different ways. Like capital
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gains are taxed differently. There's dividend income that's taxed
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differently. So that's like investment or portfolio income, self-employment
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income, just wage income. You're getting hit with payroll taxes on that. Just
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owner draws type of income or just income from being a business owner type
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of income. It's all taxed differently. And there's ways you want to you need to
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consider like the worst type of income and you want to move it to the the
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better type of income where you're typically taxed less. Okay. Then there's
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two more. Number seven is taxexempt income and cash flow considerations. So
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like as part of the strategy, let's like let's look at what options are out there
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to receive like in what ways can you receive tax exempt income or just have
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taxexempt cash flow. And there's loans like you you can have loan proceeds that
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are taxfree. There's capital gains when you're low tax brackets, municipal
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bonds, um income like if you have a private foundation and the private
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foundation's earning income, it's a really low tax rate. um receiving gifts,
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getting withdrawals from HSAs, um selling your personal house, lots of
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lots of different opportunities there. And then the last one is investment
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planning. So a lot of times this like you need to have enough cash of course
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to make investments that can have an impact on your taxes. Big part of the
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tax strategy of course is like we want more cash for you and more net worth for
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you. And so to do that, like you need to have savings or you want to create
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savings to get into investments or in into ways that'll create net worth. And
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so that's definitely something you want to be yeah watching out for. So those
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are the eight we'll cover in the next episode. We'll cover the next uh we'll
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cover each of these individually and go into all the details. See you later.
