0:00

You told me you were like me . How many more CPAs are we gonna

0:02

go through ?

0:02

The reason that I ask that is because no

0:04

person is going to be perfect . This person is

0:06

not your personal concierge

0:09

type of CPA where they're exclusive

0:11

to you . They're not your concierge .

0:13

Representing Mr Paul Deity , as his consigli

0:15

glarey you know what I mean .

0:17

But some of them advertise a lot more than just

0:19

a regular CPA position . I get that and you feel like

0:21

, well , because I'm paying a premium , you're gonna look at my

0:23

stuff in a premium way .

0:24

So that's what Judge Judy says . That's called

0:26

puffing . Do you want this face

0:28

?

0:30

to believe . You should believe it because that's the

0:32

truth . I don't .

0:34

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0:45

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0:47

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0:49

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0:52

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0:54

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0:56

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0:58

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1:02

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1:07

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1:23

. What's

1:25

good everyone . Welcome to another episode of

1:27

Docs Outside the Boxes Q&A Time . I'm

1:30

Dr Ne . Host of Docs Outside the Box .

1:31

I'm joined by Dr Renee , who

1:34

has all the answers .

1:36

I don't know if you have an answer to this one . Uh-oh

1:38

, You're not really a tax person really .

1:40

No , I'm not really a tax person . I can talk

1:42

about taxes , but it's limited , yeah

1:45

.

1:46

I think what we're really good at is we can

1:48

give you the overall sense

1:50

of what you should be doing with your taxes or the

1:52

strategy that you should have with your taxes , but

1:55

you really need to go to a specialist , that's always

1:57

the case with the show . That's even the case with the

1:59

financial advice guys , all this stuff . You

2:01

guys should always be getting information specifically

2:04

from your tax professional or whoever

2:06

your personal finance professional is , before

2:08

you go ahead and take any

2:11

type of action . But I

2:13

get questions all the time , whether

2:15

it's from friends , colleagues , people

2:17

who just write into the show and they want to

2:20

know how we do certain things .

2:22

Yes , how we do

2:24

certain things , not how everybody

2:26

should do certain things . Ok , people , how

2:30

we do

2:32

certain things .

2:33

I think that's pretty right . This is exactly

2:35

how it happens with us .

2:37

With us . Ok

2:40

, don't know , listen , don't

2:42

come for us talking about some . Well

2:44

, the Darko's has said that . I should know

2:47

. We never say you , we

2:49

say this how we do certain things

2:51

.

2:52

Alfred , can you hook us up with the disclaimer

2:54

on the bottom ?

2:54

please .

2:58

But yeah , listen . So I got a question

3:00

that I actually was talking

3:02

with a colleague about this , but I decided to write it down

3:04

first so people can really understand the

3:06

context and then we'll just get into it . So shall we

3:08

just jump into it ? Let's do it All

3:10

right , so real quick . This is a surgeon

3:13

who has been doing locums for a couple of years

3:15

reached out to me out of frustration and

3:18

we had a conversation , so let me just write out the

3:20

question so you guys understand . Hey

3:22

, doc , I've been working as a locums

3:24

doc for almost two years . I've recently

3:26

found out that I owe the IRS thousands

3:28

of dollars . I'm not happy with my relationship

3:31

with my current CPA . It's

3:33

hard to get in contact with them , everything

3:35

is reactive and when I

3:37

finally get through , the calculation has

3:40

drastically changed and it's for the worst

3:42

. Actually , the calculations that the CPA

3:44

calculated is worse than what the IRS

3:46

sent me . Oh damn , information about

3:49

you can give me a Kevin Hart . Damn , right there

3:51

.

3:51

Damn .

3:52

Come on , give me a little bit more . Damn , there you

3:55

go . That's what I'm talking about . I'm

3:57

really frustrated with my CPA . What

3:59

things are you doing to get the most out

4:01

of your relationship with your CPA

4:04

? That , basically , is the question

4:06

that I was answering to

4:08

dude . It took me an hour to get through

4:10

the situation , but before

4:13

we answer it on this show , I think the most

4:15

important thing is to . The

4:22

most important thing is to . Mom has been diffused

4:24

. Sorry , I had to start my timer . I'm

4:27

like what is going on here ? The most

4:29

important thing is to give the caveat

4:31

of folks . There's two things that we

4:33

need to let you know . One we are currently on our

4:35

fourth CPA . Oh yeah , just

4:38

so you all know , we're on our fourth CPA

4:40

and I always say this nobody

4:43

is going to care about your money as

4:46

much as you do . This is true . Nobody

4:48

is going to care as much as you do .

4:51

That's how I'm going to leave it at that .

4:53

The reason I say that is , I say

4:56

is is you got me ? The

4:59

reason I say that

5:01

is listen

5:04

, these CPAs , a lot of them

5:06

. They got a lot of clients and

5:09

although they say , hey , we are going

5:11

to take care of your taxes , we're going to

5:13

reduce your burden , and all of that stuff

5:15

, they don't have to open those

5:17

letters from the IRS . They're

5:20

not getting audited , you're getting audited

5:22

, they're just helping you with that . So

5:25

everything that occurs ultimately

5:27

, when they are helping you , they are helping

5:29

you in lieu of you . You are the person

5:31

who is getting those notices

5:33

. You are the person who , when a tax thing

5:36

or a tax IRS , when

5:38

you're submitting your vacation or when you're

5:40

submitting your taxes , it's your name

5:42

on it . So the reason

5:44

I bring that up is just so people know that

5:47

you got to educate yourself on this . And

5:49

it's tough right . If you own a car , you

5:52

go to a mechanic . The mechanic says you've got a CV joint

5:54

, this and this bearing is out of place

5:56

and a fuel injector is like I don't know

5:58

what that is . I don't know any of that stuff . I didn't go to Apex

6:00

Tech Auto mechanic . Now there

6:02

is a good trade . You know what I'm saying

6:04

. I don't know any of this stuff . How

6:07

am I supposed to figure this out ? I just want to pay

6:09

someone to tell me what the problem is and then go

6:11

on . So yes , they will take your

6:13

money , they will provide an invoice . No-transcript

6:17

was what they really fixed , what you really needed , right

6:19

?

6:20

Yeah .

6:21

And that is the struggle . I think this

6:24

guy has Right , this surgeon

6:26

who reached out to me , which is I found

6:28

someone who was a recommendation from

6:30

another doctor . Things started

6:32

out really sweet and then

6:34

, all of a sudden , I can't get in touch with person

6:36

or dude or whoever it is . And

6:39

now I'm getting these notifications

6:41

, letters from the IRS .

6:43

Yeah .

6:43

I owe money . I can't reach them

6:45

. I can't reach them . They finally

6:48

do some calculations and

6:50

it's worse .

6:51

It's worse what ?

6:52

an IRS . So then you start to think are

6:54

they even really doing their job ? Are

6:56

they just stringing me along ?

6:57

Right , or are they qualified to do it Right

7:00

? That's the other thing . Well , they have the qualifications

7:02

. No , I mean

7:04

in terms of there's one thing to have a qualification

7:07

on paper or electronically

7:09

or whatever , but there's the other thing of having

7:12

the actual acumen . Do

7:14

this person know what they're doing ?

7:17

And therein lies the problem , Right ? How

7:20

do you , as a client , figure out if

7:22

the professional that you're paying ? That's tough If

7:26

they are qualified to do their job

7:29

.

7:29

That's tough . How do ?

7:30

you figure it out the first time you start working with someone .

7:32

That's tough right .

7:32

We see that in medicine Because , like I said guys , we're on our fourth .

7:34

We see that in medicine .

7:36

You didn't figure it out on the first , the first time , the second

7:38

time , the third time , we see that in medicine

7:40

, do you know what you're doing ?

7:42

Well , this paper says I know what I'm doing , but

7:44

when I go into the operating room , when

7:46

I go into the delivery room , when I go

7:49

into the exam room , that

7:52

might not equate to what this paper

7:54

says .

7:54

I'll be really honest . There's . You know , when I drive

7:56

home from one of my locums' beds

7:59

, it's like

8:01

five and a half hours away . I drive

8:03

home and I think about all the

8:05

operations that I did and how somebody

8:07

else will take over and take care of the patients

8:09

. It's a great thing and

8:11

we always strive for really great outcomes of our patients

8:14

, and sometimes it doesn't occur . A

8:16

lot of times it does . There are times when it doesn't

8:18

. One of the things that I always think

8:20

about is these

8:22

patients that I take care of . They don't

8:24

have a choice as to who's going

8:27

to take care of them . Yeah

8:29

, right , like if you have appendicitis

8:31

and you live in a small town , or if you have appendicitis

8:33

and you live in any town , like whatever ER you go to

8:35

, whatever surgeon

8:37

is located there , that's who you're going to get Right

8:40

. And I think about it . I'm like man . I just come into

8:42

this room , I explain everything to them , I even

8:44

show them pictures , I tell them how I'm going to do the case .

8:47

They all say yeah , yeah , they

8:49

don't know you from a hole in a wall , they don't you know

8:51

, they haven't gotten recommendations from you

8:54

or for you , like

8:56

they have no choice , whereas

8:58

choosing a CPA , you

9:01

obviously have a choice . But

9:04

again we're on our fourth

9:06

CPA . We've been recommended

9:08

to CPAs in the past

9:10

by you know people who

9:12

we trust . But

9:16

the question is there's a person who is

9:19

referring the CPA

9:21

to you even know if

9:23

they're having the best

9:25

experience . That's

9:27

the other thing .

9:28

This is the issue , right , and

9:30

it's not an error . It is the

9:33

school of hard knocks . Yeah sure , we're

9:35

on our fourth .

9:36

Yep and it can be a majority of them majority

9:39

of them have been recommended by other people .

9:41

How do you know ? And to be honest with you . I'm gonna

9:43

I'm not gonna lie to you . We're on our fourth CPA and I still

9:46

kind of like I don't know how long this is gonna

9:48

last right right just to be honest with

9:50

you , right ? so I'll tell you guys how we

9:52

do it . We have our CPA

9:54

. We meet with our CPA four

9:56

times a year . The reason why we do

9:58

four times a year is so that we can talk about every

10:00

quarter . We can say , okay , this

10:03

is how much you've built in QuickBooks , mm-hmm

10:06

. Is it equivalent

10:08

to the amount that you've paid in taxes

10:10

, or are you keeping up with your

10:12

tax payment , like your estimated tax payments for

10:15

the state of New Jersey , as well as federal taxes

10:17

, mm-hmm ? Also , what

10:19

are the goals that you want to get through with this year

10:21

? Do you want to save more

10:23

money in a 401k

10:25

or a sep IRA or some type

10:27

of retirement account ? Do you want

10:29

to pay yourself more in a salary ? Do

10:32

you want to like ? I'm bringing up all these different

10:34

things . We'll get into it more specifically , but

10:36

continuously . Four times during this year we're

10:38

having these conversations to find out if we're meeting

10:40

the projections right and

10:42

that reason I like that approach is that

10:45

person is keeping you accountable .

10:47

You didn't say is this I'll

10:49

be damn .

10:50

Look at you and you're able to keep that

10:52

person accountable if you

10:54

know what you're talking about . That's called growth

10:56

.

10:58

It's growth .

10:59

It's called growth . You're right . What

11:02

, where I'm getting at , is what

11:04

do you do when you don't have

11:06

the knowledge ? Mm-hmm . You meet with your CPA

11:08

four times a year . How do you

11:10

know if they're telling you BS or you or

11:13

not ? My answer is is you

11:15

got to educate yourself ?

11:16

Yeah , I think . So the the meeting Four

11:19

times a year , I think is

11:22

actually pretty

11:24

important , because

11:26

One , it keeps you accountable

11:29

to it keeps you in tune

11:31

Right , it keeps you in tune . Many

11:34

of us have grown up

11:36

in , especially in the W2

11:39

world , right , if you're in the

11:41

W2 world , you grow up with

11:43

the well , you just do your taxes at the end of

11:45

the year , you don't worry about anything because

11:47

your job should have taken everything

11:49

out like it's not your problem

11:51

until the end of the year , and you

11:55

go all the way till you know . You got all

11:57

the way till April 15th of the following

11:59

year to basically put everything

12:01

in , and that's literally the only time

12:04

you need to think about your taxes . Now

12:06

, this question in particular

12:08

is different from that , because he's

12:10

a locum stock and so therefore

12:13

, he is his own employer . And

12:15

If you are your own employer

12:18

, then you have to think about Yourself

12:21

from the employer side as

12:23

well as the employee side , and

12:25

that's , that's just gonna take a little bit more

12:27

effort , it's just gonna take a little bit more effort

12:30

in exchange to have your freedom Right

12:32

, you gonna have to you're gonna have to work a little

12:34

bit more . That that is .

12:36

That is the work because a lot of people say I don't want to have

12:38

a boss , I don't want to have . This is like are you ready

12:40

to take your own boss ? Are you

12:42

ready to do the things that your boss

12:44

, in essence , is already doing for you , if you had an employee

12:46

gig ?

12:47

Right , because , guess what , your W2 employer

12:49

ain't just sitting back . Somebody

12:52

has set up , you know , some

12:54

sort of system for Everyone

12:57

to have their take , their taxes taken

12:59

out appropriately , like all

13:02

of this has been set up . So the question

13:04

is did you do that due diligence

13:06

on your end ? Because

13:09

you are not a W2 , you

13:11

know , like you were before , so

13:13

I , it's just gonna take a little

13:16

bit more effort .

13:17

I agree . I agree , if you so , let's . Let's get into the meat

13:19

of potatoes of like how we do it , some

13:21

of the resources that we use , but

13:23

before we jump into that , let's take a quick break and

13:25

we will be right back . No matter where you

13:27

are in your career , you've seen patients your

13:29

age or younger get seriously

13:32

injured , have a long-term illness

13:34

or even have a mental health issue that affects

13:36

their ability to work . Now , what

13:39

if that was you ? Know for a ? What if that was you

13:41

? Without disability insurance

13:43

, how are you gonna replace your paycheck ? An

13:46

episode 176 Jamie Fleissner

13:48

of Sefa life insurance explains why

13:50

the best time to buy disability insurance is

13:52

during your residency .

13:54

Most people , most physicians , acquire

13:56

their disability policies during residency

13:59

, and there's several reasons . First of all , when

14:01

you're younger , you're able to obtain the

14:03

insurance because they ask you a whole host of

14:05

medical history and so you usually don't

14:07

get healthier over time . Usually you

14:09

get less healthy over time . So when you're

14:11

healthy , it's easier to acquire

14:13

the coverage . Number two it's also less expensive

14:16

because it's based on your age and your health . You're

14:18

not getting younger or healthier over time

14:20

, so you're at the ideal time . The earlier you get

14:22

it and the younger you are , the less expensive

14:25

it's going to be so , whether you're

14:27

a resident or you're in attending , it's never

14:29

too late to protect your income .

14:31

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14:33

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14:35

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14:37

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14:44

, calm . Okay

14:47

, we are back . So , more

14:49

or less how we do it I mentioned earlier , we meet

14:51

with our CPA four times a year . The biggest things

14:53

that we want to talk about is okay , what

14:55

I do is , when I get home , I fill

14:57

out a timesheet and Then

14:59

I invoice . If I work

15:01

you know 20 hours or how many

15:04

hours and then I do all of that

15:06

stuff in QuickBooks . Quickbooks sends an

15:08

electronic email to the hospital

15:10

thing , the hospital gets that . They get

15:12

my timesheets , they get my receipts the receipts being

15:14

like the hotel and what have you

15:16

and then eventually I get paid . Either they

15:19

send me a check or I get a direct deposit right that

15:21

goes into my bank account . So

15:23

not only is my CPA helping

15:25

us with making sure that the invoicing is correct

15:28

, making sure that the checks and

15:30

the payments that we get match , they're also

15:32

doing what's called bookkeeping also , so we pay an extra

15:34

fee for them to bookkeep . So bookkeeping

15:36

made basically is is they go into our accounts

15:39

and they make sure that oh wow , this

15:41

$100 check that you got from the hospital

15:43

, that is for the work that you did on December

15:45

15th 2023

15:47

, and they're able to match all of those things . Yeah

15:49

the amount that you charge that

15:52

you use to charge for your Tesla , that's

15:54

for specifically driving to your

15:56

locums gig . Therefore that's tax-adductible

15:59

. Yeah so not only does the , not

16:01

only do you Need a CPA who's gonna be able to Properly

16:04

you know , tax , you know

16:06

, do taxes with you . You need to have someone who's

16:08

going to be able to properly categorize

16:11

all of the payments that you're making , or all

16:13

of the Money that you're bringing in , so that the

16:15

CPA can do a right job . Yeah , right

16:17

. So these meetings are what's

16:20

going on , essentially . So . Are we all on

16:22

the same page with bookkeeping ? Are we

16:24

all on the same page with taxes ? Are

16:26

we all on the same page with the income that we're bringing

16:28

in ? Then we talk about hey , me

16:30

, renee , how much do you guys want to say for the whole year

16:32

? How much do you want to pay yourselves ? Mm-hmm and

16:35

based off of that , our company

16:37

creates a salary for us , right , our

16:39

company creates , we determine as

16:42

a company how much we're gonna pay neat

16:44

separately , how much Renee's gonna get

16:46

paid , and then from there

16:48

that determines what we

16:50

can put into our retirement right . So

16:52

, folks , we have what's called

16:54

in our for our retirement plan . With our business

16:56

, we have something that's called a solo 401k

16:59

, very similar to people

17:01

who are listening right now . In your employee , you have a 401k

17:04

. Basically , it's the same thing . Yeah , right

17:06

, it's just that we run that plan Mm-hmm

17:08

, okay , and based off of how

17:10

much money's we're getting in , how much our salary

17:12

is , that's gonna determine what the maximum

17:14

amount we can put into our 401k

17:16

. It's works just the same way , right

17:19

? So this is part of the meetings that we're

17:21

having throughout the entire year Are we going

17:23

to be able to max that out ? Mm-hmm ? Are we trying

17:25

to max that out ? Things like that ? Yeah

17:27

, so earlier also , I mentioned

17:29

okay , guys , I don't know

17:31

if I'm gonna keep the CPA . We're

17:34

happy with our CPA , but sometimes they make mistakes

17:36

, right ? And sometimes you start to question like

17:38

, hmm , like are we doing the right thing

17:40

? So , for example , like , we just found

17:42

out that there are several months

17:45

so we do Roth 401K

17:47

contributions . I'm not gonna get too much

17:49

into the specifics , but basically , just

17:51

like you will contribute to your 401K

17:54

, we contribute to our 401K , but we do it

17:56

in a Roth-type manner

17:58

, right ? We were finding out

18:00

that there were several months where

18:02

we thought a contribution was

18:04

being made but they were not

18:06

. What was on

18:08

our basically in essence a W-2 slip

18:10

or on our pay slip didn't match

18:13

what was actually in our 401K . So

18:16

somebody wasn't transitioning the money

18:18

or transferring the money in and

18:20

you have to get it in in a year's time

18:22

, right ? So , for example

18:24

, let's say you're trying to max out your contribution

18:27

. Let's say you want to put in a total of $20,000

18:29

in there . Let's say

18:32

by the end of the year you only put in 10 . January

18:34

1st you can't go back and put anymore .

18:36

You can't go back .

18:37

Right , it's done . So that was a big

18:39

deal to get that fixed . Like I

18:41

didn't pick that up , you know who picked it up ? Our

18:44

financial planner , right . So

18:46

we have a financial planner who , in addition

18:48

to a CPA , in addition to a CPA

18:50

, so our financial , when we have these meetings , the

18:52

meetings like we are scheduling these meetings , like I

18:55

have on the email chain , it's our

18:57

CPA , it's our financial planner . And

18:59

then we all come together and the

19:01

CPA brings documents . Our financial

19:04

planner brings documents and we're hashing

19:06

it out and trying to make it work .

19:07

Yeah .

19:08

So yeah , like there are times when I'm just like mmm

19:11

, you know , and then after

19:13

a while you remember , you told me you're like Ne , how

19:15

many more CPAs are we going to go through ?

19:17

Right , and part

19:19

of the reason that I ask that is because you

19:22

know .

19:24

Becauseen .

19:24

Becauseen the

19:27

reason that I ask that is because no

19:30

person is going to be perfect , right

19:33

, no person is going to be perfect . This

19:35

person is not your personal concierge

19:38

. Cpa type of CPA

19:40

where they're exclusive to you , right , so

19:43

they're not your concierge .

19:45

Representative , mr Paul Viti . As is , consigli

19:47

glari .

19:48

You know what I mean . But some of them , some of

19:50

them advertise like

19:52

, like they are Like , not like they are

19:54

personal , but they advertise

19:58

a lot more than just a regular CPA position

20:00

. I get that and you feel like , well , because I'm paying

20:02

a premium , because they start

20:04

to charge a premium , well , you're going to take

20:07

care of my , you're going to look at my stuff in a premium

20:09

way .

20:09

So that's what Judge Judy says . When Judge

20:11

Judy says , that's called puffing , Do

20:13

you want this face to

20:17

believe ?

20:18

You shouldn't believe it , because that's the truth . I don't .

20:20

That's called puffing .

20:22

Yo , she is addicted to Judge Judy guys

20:25

.

20:25

I love that show . I love that

20:27

show , but no , that's called puffing right

20:29

that basically , I'm the best . I

20:31

can do the best . You're going to get the best job . You're

20:33

going to have the best experience . You come with

20:35

me . That doesn't mean you're

20:37

going to get exactly what you want , okay

20:40

, that just means that

20:42

I Overstating under

20:44

delivery . It might . It

20:47

might , but it just states

20:49

that you're going to basically purchase

20:51

my service and that

20:53

pretty much is it . And as long as I do minimally

20:56

what I say that I'm going to do , then

20:58

I'm meeting . You know , I'm meeting the requirements

21:01

. I might not meet your expectations

21:03

, but I'm going to meet your requirements . But

21:06

the other thing I was going to say is that I

21:08

think we should take a step back .

21:10

Yeah , let's take a step back Right when you want to go .

21:13

To the point of do

21:16

you even understand

21:18

what you

21:21

know ? Do you even understand all

21:24

of the things that can be tax

21:26

deductions for you ? Are you even educated

21:28

on that ? Yes , Right , that's

21:31

gonna be extremely important , that first meeting

21:33

that you have with the CPA , like the

21:35

very first meeting when you're trying

21:37

to figure out is this the person for you or

21:40

whatever . That one of the things

21:42

that you , I think you should look

21:44

for , and I think that we look for

21:46

specifically , is is

21:48

this person in tune

21:51

with the way that I work ? And

21:54

if they are in tune with the way that

21:56

I work , are they willing

21:58

to have a conversation

22:01

with me that is more educational

22:03

than is directional

22:05

? Right , Are they teaching

22:07

me something ? Because if you just you

22:09

know , if your first meeting with your

22:11

CPA is just basically

22:13

talking over your head , saying things

22:16

that you're like , okay , well , this sounds good , but

22:18

you don't feel like you

22:20

could reproduce that conversation to somebody

22:23

else because you haven't learned it , then

22:25

that's probably not the CPA for you . You

22:28

need to have somebody who one is

22:30

asking you questions . We do this in

22:32

academic medicine all the time . Right , you

22:34

gotta do your needs assessment first . Figure

22:37

out who your student is , Figure out what they know

22:39

, what they understand , Because before I

22:41

tell you everything that I know , I

22:43

gotta know what you don't know , and I gotta teach

22:45

you that first . Otherwise , if I tell

22:47

you everything I know , you're

22:49

gonna have a deficit and it's not gonna make a difference

22:52

.

22:52

I would say find a bunch of CPAs and interview

22:54

them in fashion . Don't just

22:56

interview one and then say I'm gonna

22:59

go with that person no matter what . Because

23:01

that's what happens People will interview just one and

23:03

then either they meet their

23:05

expectations or they don't meet their expectations . But because you've

23:07

only interviewed one , well , I'm just gonna go with that person and

23:09

I ask them the questions you don't have

23:12

a metric , you don't have any type of measurement

23:14

, right . You have to find a bunch of them and

23:16

interview them , and I do think

23:18

the question of the tax deductions and all

23:20

that , basically what that comes down is are you educated

23:22

to really have a conversation with that person

23:25

? How do you know what ? Yeah , they could be teaching

23:27

you something , but they could be teaching you something wrong .

23:28

Yeah , so you need to do your research as well .

23:30

So I think this is a great resource . If

23:33

you're watching on YouTube , you

23:35

can see this book . If you can't

23:38

, and you're listening . This is a book called

23:40

Tax-Free Wealth . It's written by Tom

23:42

Wheelwright , cpa how

23:44

to build massive wealth by permanently lowering

23:47

your taxes , and this book I read

23:49

probably about six or seven years ago , and

23:52

this book really changed my mindset on taxes

23:54

because it really helped me to understand that

23:56

the IRS is not really . I looked at the

23:59

IRS more of like they're there to punish you

24:01

, and this book teaches you like the IRS

24:03

is really more of . If you follow their

24:05

instructions , they will properly reward

24:07

you Reward you for it . It's almost like a game , like gamifying

24:10

certain things , and it helped me

24:12

to understand a lot of tax

24:14

deductions and a lot of things that we could

24:16

do to improve our tax situation

24:18

. Now I'm gonna be really honest with you this book is not gonna give you the exact

24:21

specifics on all of the different lingoes

24:23

, but what it does is it makes you dangerous enough

24:26

so that when you go into a meeting with your CPA you're like

24:28

, boom , see , what happened is on page

24:30

47 , when it says

24:33

educational credits and cream of the crap

24:35

and saving all these different things

24:37

. It just makes you a little bit more

24:39

dangerous . As to understanding

24:41

what you should be asking

24:44

, because I think one of the number one things

24:46

that people have a problem with and it's said in

24:48

this question is why is my CPA

24:50

so reactive ? Yes , and what

24:53

we mean by reactive and reactionary as opposed

24:55

to being aggressive or proactive

24:57

, is you give them your receipts , you

25:00

give them all those different things . At the end of the year , folks

25:02

, it's too late by the time . You're at that point

25:04

where you're just giving receipts and you're filling out an organizer

25:06

and you're talking about all the charitable contributions

25:09

and you have three weeks left to go . The game

25:11

is done . The game is done so

25:13

if you have that type of relationship with

25:15

your CPA , please only expect

25:17

that to be a reactionary thing . They're

25:20

gonna come back to you and say , well , yeah , I did your taxes

25:22

. It would have been $5,000

25:24

, $10,000 , $20,000 , $50,000 cheaper

25:26

if you had done ABC D-E-F-G-H

25:29

and people get really upset about that . But

25:32

that relationship starts in January

25:34

, not in February

25:36

or March of the next

25:38

year , Right , when the taxes are due on April

25:40

15th , 15th and reading

25:42

a book like this will help you to have asked

25:45

those questions to them and saying hey , listen

25:48

, like what we're doing

25:50

, we have children . Is there a way

25:52

we can get our eldest kid on

25:54

the payroll ? Why ? Because , well

25:56

, if I'm gonna end up paying taxes anyway , or

26:00

if the money's going to leave the bank account some

26:02

way rather than it going to Uncle

26:04

Sam . If Uncle Sam wants me to

26:06

pay somebody , if

26:08

I don't pay them , then I'm gonna have to pay Uncle Sam , then I might

26:11

as well pay my child .

26:11

You don't pay .

26:12

Lil Darko . Pay my child , pay

26:15

my child to come and clean the office , exactly

26:17

.

26:17

Right and that's the thing right Is

26:20

that you have to be having

26:22

these questions in your head and

26:25

these questions up for discussion

26:28

pretty much very often

26:30

Like how can we

26:32

decrease our tax burden ? And

26:35

remember that the premise

26:37

of decreasing your tax burden when

26:40

you are a business owner is

26:42

that the more you spend

26:44

on the business

26:46

, the lower your tax

26:48

burden will be . But it has

26:51

to be legitimate tax or

26:53

legitimate purchases , the IRS

26:55

wants you to spend money to

26:57

create business .

26:58

They want you to promote business and

27:00

using your business to go to the gas station

27:02

to fill up your gas , your car if

27:04

you're using it to go to do whatever job

27:07

you need to do , that's gonna be rewarded . If

27:09

you decide to put money into your 401k

27:13

they don't want a bunch of poor people at the end . Right , that's

27:16

a thing that you're gonna get rewarded for . These

27:18

are things that reading this

27:21

type of book and understanding this book will help you have

27:23

a more educated experience with

27:25

your CPA . And then the other thing , too

27:27

, that we do that

27:29

people don't know about is our business

27:31

. Our locums business pays us me

27:33

and Renee personally rent .

27:35

Yes .

27:35

Right , so we have a home office . There's a portion

27:38

of the house that's specifically for

27:40

you know what we do with our

27:42

locums company . We have a computer

27:44

in there , we have chairs in there , you

27:46

know we have a fax machine in there . We do

27:48

a whole bunch of things and that is just specifically

27:51

for that work and

27:53

, as a result , you need electricity

27:55

to power that place . You need heat to power

27:57

that place , you need to use a portion of the internet . So

28:00

what we did is , with our CPA , we

28:03

created a contract between equal

28:05

access excuse me , not a contract . We created a lease A lease

28:07

, yeah , Between me and Renee and

28:11

our company and we came to an

28:13

agreement that

28:15

our company is going to pay us a

28:18

certain amount to basically do business

28:20

in this damn house . And we've been doing that

28:22

for a couple of months , or sorry , for a couple of years now

28:24

For a couple of years . yeah , and we have all the information

28:26

, all the stuff , so our iris don't come for us , right ? We

28:28

, we , we we , we , we have the receipts Right

28:31

and they pay us a certain amount every month . We

28:33

write a check from the business to us and

28:35

that is our locums

28:37

company paying us rent .

28:39

For doing work here . Yeah , Rent and partial

28:41

utilities , and that you know . Again

28:43

, that's the thing , right Is that ? A lot

28:46

of times people will say , like , how do these

28:48

millionaires and billionaires end

28:50

up paying no taxes ? Well , that's how . Oh

28:53

, they know the laws yeah well , they know the laws

28:55

and you know the trick is

28:57

. The trick is this how do you incorporate

28:59

so much of your personal

29:02

life into your business life

29:04

that now pretty

29:06

much everything that you do becomes a

29:08

business expense ? That's a hack . That's a

29:10

hack .

29:10

That's what you hope for .

29:12

Right .

29:12

That's a hack right , and so you could

29:14

say , hey , you know , we grossed , you

29:16

know , $5 million this year , for

29:19

example , but if

29:21

you spent like $4

29:23

million , then really you

29:25

only made $1 million . Now

29:28

the taxes are probably gonna be

29:30

a little different between $1 million

29:32

and $5 million , but the

29:34

point is that you want so

29:36

many things to be a business expense that

29:39

you wanna lower your tax burden in that

29:41

way , and that's something that you can't

29:44

just have in a meeting with your CPA . You

29:46

have to be looking around your house , thinking

29:49

about all types of things , thinking about your children

29:51

, thinking about the car you drive , thinking about

29:54

the food you eat , thinking about every little

29:56

thing that you can think

29:58

of , to be able to say how

30:00

could I make this a business expense ? And

30:02

if it's a legitimate , legitimate

30:05

look y'all legitimate

30:10

business expense

30:12

, If you can make it a legitimate business

30:14

expense , then you will lower

30:16

your tax burden accordingly . But

30:18

you gotta be thinking about it .

30:19

It can't be an afterthought , yeah so you

30:21

know it's a legitimate expense for me to have a Tesla

30:23

.

30:24

Yes .

30:25

And that car stays parked in the driveway

30:27

. When I'm home I don't use it right

30:29

. When I use it for work

30:32

, I have to charge all of those chargeings

30:34

. That's a tax deduction and

30:37

that's the way how it works . I have the receipts , all of those

30:39

different things . The charging gets charged

30:41

to our bank account or , excuse me , to the business's

30:43

bank account . The loan payment

30:46

or the lease payment comes out of the business

30:48

because I need a way to get to work and

30:51

the IRS doesn't say which car you can get . It

30:53

just says how you should get the car and

30:55

how you should use the car .

30:56

I decided , that's what I wanted to do , so don't go put

30:59

the car under your name and then

31:01

say it's exclusively for

31:03

the business right so our business

31:05

and we teach our son this right

31:07

Cause he loves the Tesla . He loves

31:09

the Tesla and he's always like , oh

31:12

, I want to take it , I want to take it there . And we

31:14

say to him that's not our

31:16

car , that car belongs

31:18

to a business . We don't even tell him

31:20

our business . We tell him that the car

31:22

belongs to a business and we are just

31:25

borrowing that car so that

31:27

we can use it for work . So

31:30

that's really important for you to be thinking

31:32

about constantly what

31:35

you can do to lower your tax burden , and

31:38

don't expect your CPA to

31:40

come up with all of the ideas . Yeah

31:43

, they're not gonna come up with the ideas .

31:44

You have to bring that up in a meeting , and that's ultimately

31:47

what I said to that surgeon . I

31:49

was like listen , the fact that I'm telling you that we're on our fourth CPA should

31:51

tell you something already right now . Like

31:55

you move on , you use

31:57

them . If you finally get enough knowledge to realize that the person's

31:59

not doing as good of a job , or maybe you've kind of outgrown

32:01

the relationship , it's time to move on , and

32:03

that's kind of what we've done . And

32:07

now we know the questions to ask , right . So someone

32:09

can say , and they can huff and puff

32:11

and all those different things . And then after a while you're like

32:13

, yeah , I don't think we're gonna

32:15

work really well together , but

32:17

I don't think that that should discourage you

32:19

from doing some type of side business

32:21

, side hustle , hustle , locoms

32:23

or what have you . You can still figure it out . You

32:26

gotta know the right questions to ask , right . It's the same

32:28

thing with medicine , like once you get out of residency

32:30

, guys like you got the knowledge

32:32

. It's just that there's certain things that you're gonna have to

32:35

just educate yourself on On your

32:37

own , on your own , and just figure it out . That's how

32:39

it is , that's how it works . And

32:41

so I think when I got

32:43

off the phone with this surgeon they

32:46

were really positive about it . You could tell they were a little bit

32:48

kind of hesitant of having to

32:50

acquire the knowledge . But I said the reason

32:52

why you're calling me is because you haven't acquired the knowledge

32:54

and what's gonna happen is you're gonna keep bouncing from

32:56

one CPA to another CPA to another person . I'm not happy

32:58

, I'm not here . Once you figure out the expectations

33:01

based off of your knowledge , you can say you know what . This

33:03

person can only take me so far . Then

33:06

you're less angry and more like

33:08

I'm gonna use that energy to

33:10

kind of educate myself and

33:13

go from there . So , yeah , once

33:15

I figured out that those transfers weren't

33:17

taking place , I was kind of like , but

33:20

then I was also kind of happy that we found it

33:22

. We figured it out and I'll continue

33:24

to educate myself on well

33:27

, how is it that maybe I can make sure this issue doesn't

33:29

happen again ?

33:30

How do we ?

33:30

figure this out , is it time to move on

33:32

? Who knows . But the most important thing

33:35

is that I recognize that and that's

33:37

what we want you all to see is that , like

33:39

, for us it ain't perfect , but

33:42

we know that . Hey , we realize

33:44

that we got blind spots . What can we do to fix

33:46

things up ? And we want you all to know

33:48

that it's not gonna be perfect , but

33:51

you gotta keep moving forward .

33:53

Keep it moving forward . Yo keep moving . Learn from those

33:55

mistakes put in the checks

33:57

and balances . For us , the checks and balance was

34:00

having the financial planner also

34:02

to kind of see what was going on . And

34:06

so , yeah , I think that I

34:08

think , even

34:11

if this surgeon decides to stay with

34:13

the CPA , regardless of what they

34:15

decide to do , leave the CPA , stay with the CPA

34:18

. It sounds like there's some educating

34:20

that's gonna have to happen regardless

34:22

.

34:23

So you know , hey , listen and we

34:25

always hear for questions . We always hear to answer

34:27

it . I didn't realize how many times people ask me questions

34:30

. People ask you a lot of questions . Yeah , I didn't realize it . A

34:32

lot of people call me out of the blue like , hey

34:35

, let me get your opinion , or they email me or

34:37

they send us whatever it is . They ask

34:39

us questions about a lot of different things , so we're always here

34:41

to answer it for y'all . Any question , just

34:43

submit it to us and let us know . Alfred

34:46

, if you can put the number below the text

34:48

number of how to text us

34:50

and reach us , we'll also put that in the show notes and let

34:52

us know .

34:52

Or you can slide into our DMs

34:55

on Instagram Docs

34:57

Outside the Box .

34:59

Docs Outside the Box . Anything else you

35:01

wanna share on this or ?

35:02

Um , no , not really . I think

35:05

we covered a good bit of that , but

35:07

yeah .

35:08

I'm wondering if the next episode should be us

35:10

celebrating that I'm no longer gonna

35:12

be working at a locum spot anymore . No

35:15

, that's another topic for discussion . So

35:17

basically , guys , I just found out that I'm

35:19

not gonna be utilized at a hospital anymore . I'm

35:21

kinda sad , but I'm also kinda like oh , that was cool . It

35:24

ended in a really positive way .

35:26

Yeah , yeah , cause that's how locums usually goes , right

35:28

, is that ?

35:29

They were building their trauma center . They've

35:31

gotten to a point where they're like fully staffed and I

35:33

really liked it and they gave me the opportunity

35:36

to become an employed doc . But I was like nah .

35:38

Not gonna be able to do it . Can you do

35:40

it ?

35:40

I'm not gonna be able to do it . Yeah , it's just , I don't wanna

35:42

move my family to a different location at this point

35:45

.

35:45

But you know you don't wanna be W2 .

35:47

And I don't wanna be W2 at this point .

35:49

You don't wanna be a boss .

35:50

Yeah , At this point I don't wanna boss , but

35:53

the person who I would have been working

35:55

under , I would go to battle for that person

35:57

.

35:58

Okay , that's a good thing .

35:59

That person , that surgeon , is a very good

36:01

leader , that surgeon is a very good surgeon

36:04

, that surgeon is a very is a . I'll

36:06

just leave it to you like this , and

36:08

people know what I'm talking about In trauma surgery

36:11

, in surgery in general , there are

36:13

very few gentlemen , or

36:15

there are very few gentle women in

36:17

surgery left and not to say

36:19

that there was before , but there's just not many

36:22

who just you look at them and you're like you're

36:24

a good dude or you're a good woman , like

36:27

I rock with you . You make really good decisions

36:29

. You respect everybody . He's one of those

36:31

dudes that I'm like . I can work with you anytime If

36:33

you ask me for anything . I trust that you're

36:36

coming from a good place .

36:37

You don't get that from everybody . Yeah , well , that's

36:39

good then . Oh yeah , that's a good experience

36:42

All right y'all .

36:43

We'll catch you guys on the next episode of Docs Outside

36:45

the Box . Let us know if you want us to answer

36:48

any more questions . Send us more questions . We'll answer them for

36:50

you , oh you have so many questions .

36:53

You have so many questions that have remained

36:55

unanswered . We need to do more Q and A . Yeah

36:57

, we should , because you got a lot of questions out there . We should .

36:59

We gotta do more Q and A . We gotta make it more fun too , also , man , yeah

37:01

, all right , y'all , we'll

37:03

catch you guys on the next episode . Peace is Peace

37:06

.