37. ROI TAX SERIES 1 OF 8-WHY YOU NEED A PROFESSIONAL CPA.

Get Rich Slow Podcast

Adrienne  00:02

Hello future millionaires. Welcome back to the get rich slow podcast. I am your co-host, Adrienne Shermer. I’m joined by Rob Delavan, Lance Johnson and Sue Horton. Hey guys, how’s it going?

Rob  00:14

Hey. So, Adrienne what are we talking about today?

Adrienne  00:22

As usual, I’m excited about the topic, this is gonna be the launch off for, it’s an eight part series on some tax stuff and you know, nothing’s more important than making money if you want to make yourself a millionaire. But the second most important thing is not losing money to the tax in the process, while you’re building that wealth, and while you’re storing it. So, you know, it’s all about how you organize yourself and that’s what we’re going to go over in this series.

Rob  00:50

Nice. So, we have what this is one in an eight part series and today’s title, is why you need a professional CPA and interestingly enough, we have a spectacular professional CPA and I wanted to share with our audience, just a quick journey of the development of ROI tax, which is Sue’s firm and the benefit that I’ve seen, and the short of it is soon I’ve been working together for years and we’ve evolved to the point where we’re utilizing tax planning, tax compliance and financial planning, in such a way that we’re doing my taxes, which are quite complex, through before the end of the year, and it becomes compliance becomes kind of a just one piece of it. But there’s no unknown and this has been a really fun process to learn from Sue, from Lance. You know, Adrienne, you’ve been part of this, but it’s just been a blast. Man, I’m not even doing it justice. Taxes are not something I dread anymore.

Adrienne  02:12

That’s exciting one.

Rob  02:13

Yeah. So we’ll dig into that. So, we wanted to talk about our recent event. We just did a client appreciation event and it was incredible. We had Barry Mac art, which will link to our comments down below and the opportunity to appreciate just love on our clients, it was a blast and in a way that they under it helps them to kick off this tax season and frankly, this whole 2022 year.

Lance  02:49

Also just promoting the all the things we worked on, you know, the different companies we launched and how we’re working together and the staff improvements we’ve made and the processes, its websites and social media. It’s just it was a great year for the four or five different companies coming together as a unit.

Rob  03:12

Right! Yeah, absolutely incredible and we couldn’t have done it without, you know, each of us. I mean, frankly, Sue, Lance, your guys’s efforts were incredible. Website wise ROI-tax.com. It’ll be in the comments below and we’ll have some links there. The episode ahead, we’re going to be digging in with Sue a little bit. Again, this is episode one of an eight part series. But we’ll get a little bit of Sue’s story. We’re going to basically talk to you guys about why it’s important to work with a CPA versus you know, doing yourself online service, those sorts of things and then what does the process look like to start with a professional CPA firm?

Adrienne  04:01

Yep, absolutely. I love this subject. Because the more you know it, the more you realize you really do want to work with someone. It’s absolutely self-fulfilling.

Rob  04:10

Exactly! Okay, so introduction here. Sue, we got to make this a warm introduction for you. So, we love working with you. I love to call you a friend. You know, business associate business partner, referral partner, I mean, oh, incredible. But we want to get to know you a little bit and trusted CPA is a big deal and that’s definitely in this room and we want to make sure that we’re sharing that with our audience. So, let’s dig into this. So, let’s make sure that we get to story. So tell us about your history where have you been with, how in the world do you get started as a CPA? When you’re a little one was that something you were just had to do?

Sue  05:09

I don’t want to say, wow, I want to be a CPA.

Adrienne  05:15

Play mobile…

Sue  05:17

It was definitely at home because my dad was excellent at math and so instilled that. So, I’m a CPA, my brother is a CPA and my sister is a math teacher. So, it didn’t fall far. But I actually did take the high school bookkeeping course and it was like, okay, this is easy. So, when onto college at University of Oregon, and did decided on an accounting major after I took a class and the professor said, yeah, you ruined my curve, maybe you should consider a major. So like, oh, okay and it sounded good. So, off, I went, I started with a big eight, right now their big four accounting firm, and got my accounting license. But that experience is like huge. You have big companies. I mean, one of our clients at Ernst and Whiney was Bank of America and we were sitting in the Bank of America building in San Francisco. So, when I left there, and was out of the profession, after I got my license, but I was at home with my kids for about 12 years, I said, I don’t know if I want to go back to accounting and then needed to have a job and so my brother was had a firm and said, Come to work with me and so we started our [Inaudible 06:45] CPA firm, because that’s my name or family name and I realized then, and that was where I got the passion was that I could combine the accounting with working with people, and people are just what gives me energy. I love being out there and being social, and I could help them with their taxes, do a real help, but then also do something that I enjoy, which is getting the math getting the numbers to work all together. So that’s kind of how I came to my wow moment was, I love this. I love what I’m doing. So, yeah and off it went, I’ve been at this for 20 plus years with the firm.

Rob  07:36

And then Lance, do you want to describe a little bit of the evolution of the relationship the last couple years?

Lance  07:43

Yeah, so the last 29 years, you know, as a financial advisor, you got to get through the tax gatekeeper. So, in a lot of the big companies, you were not allowed to talk about taxes or anything and so being an owner of tax, being licensed one in the past as I LTP, I have knowledge on it and I just wanted, I knew clients were meeting with CPAs in March, April, May and you know, it’s an incredible hard job where you’re condensing a year’s worth of work, or three quarters of a year’s worth of work, and three months, it’s really hard on an individual and really hard on clients and so then we established, what if we started working on this in the fourth quarter, and started to answer some of those questions when they meet with Sue and they would say, Well, what if we did this and be like, Man, that’s a great idea. Man, that would have been great to talk about that in November, December, when we could have implemented that state that thing and so then, light bulb goes off several years ago about what if we start moving some of these clients to fourth quarter reviews.

We can actually give that advice in a timely fashion and so then the tax return becomes more of a compliance formality, then, oh, my gosh, and then goes from there. So and that’s where, you know, your relationship with Sue and me, brought us together and we found out we had more in common, but it takes time. I mean, there’s a difference in her process and my process and coming together, but when you can have that one, two punch done in that fourth quarter, I think that’s some of our best work that we do for clients. It’s like you experienced, you know, you hated taxes and now you’d like meeting with us. So we can solve some of those problems. You feel like you’re much more proactive and that doesn’t happen when you do taxes on your own. You just like, he’s like you do it last minute instead of proactive.

Rob  10:01

Okay, and I think it’s important to acknowledge just that relationship. It obviously drives both of you and doing that high level of work for the client. So yeah, that’s just, it’s been absolutely fun to watch and a privilege to be a part of.

Lance  10:24

Yeah, we agree.

Sue  10:26

Yes, we do.

Rob  10:32

Okay, so this brings us to our second question. Perfect segue. Why is important to work with a CPA versus an online service?

Sue  10:41

How much time do you have? [Sue’s laughing] I could go on for days, but let’s try and condense it. It really is that one on one experience, and every tax situation is different. I mean, it may seem like, okay, everybody’s got this kind of income and this kind of thing, but it isn’t, you know, maybe this person owns a piece of property, this person has a business, somebody inherited money, you know, and everybody, like, you’ll talk to Lance and already have has different dreams and so you can’t do anything like that with online. There’s questions, you answer them, it moves you forward, and online is all about compliance and you can’t, as much as they tell you on the commercials, that there’s a person you talk to. I mean, that person doesn’t know you, that person doesn’t have…

Rob  11:39

Different person every time.

Sue  11:41

Yes, they don’t have a half an hour to, you know, hear your story or an hour or several meetings, to find out what’s going on and do that tax planning in advance. You’re doing it right there and then and all you want to do is get it done and I’ve had so many people last year, I did my taxes online and got 10 letters. That’s why I’m here this year. So, you know, as many questions as they ask, it’s confusing. I mean, that’s why we go to class and take classes, it can be confusing to us sometimes and how many times the government changes the tax law. So yes, if you’ve got anything beyond a W-2, you need a CPA.

Rob  12:29

Right, and there’s just I mean, you’re touching on that and there’s future episodes and topics here. But this concept of there’s the actual big picture, individual customized strategy for each person and that doesn’t even exist. But the concept isn’t even there online.

Sue  12:49

No, it’s totally compliance and that can be fine if you’re 20 with a W-2, but the minute you start thinking about your future, I need retirement. I need a house. I have kids, then yeah, you need a CPA.

Rob  13:06

Right! So yeah, okay. Adulting 101, right?

Sue  13:09

Yes.

Rob  13:11

Any further thoughts on that, Lance?

Lance  13:14

Yeah, I mean, it’s just, everybody has a story, right? And so further 5-10%, where it’s, I went to work, I collected a W-2, I came back home, I complained about how much taxes they took out of it and then I have so much, and I’m really not progressing. There’s programs out there, you can do yourself and then there’s the 90% other people that need to apply their personal story and figure out the options and I think people only know what they know and so if you’re a proactive person, which a lot of us are not, we’re reactive. If you took a proactive approach, and did things a little bit further, earlier in the steps, you would actually find that there’s things that you could be doing today that would reduce your taxes for 2022. It’s just did you do them and if you didn’t, you know, you pay your taxes, and I just think, you know, somebody like Sue or myself can sit down with you and figure out, man, these are things that you need to be doing in January. You know, and I use the apples in financial planning. We know everybody’s going to have a Christmas expense in planning. So when I start saving for it now, why get the Christmas not saved for it, knowing that there’s going to be an expense, and then put everything on a credit card. It’s like, it’s just getting people ahead of the curve to be able to take advantage and I think what Sue does a great job on is helping people just say, hey, there’s things you can be doing now, that would make it better for you and let’s get going on it and help them through those sticking points. She does an awesome job.

Rob  15:08

Yeah, it’s all its yes this year, but then what about next year and then next year?

Lance  15:12

And that’s the difference, those people that do yourself, they’re like, they didn’t think about it until all sons like, oh my goodness, I got to do taxes. I just go online and do it, but they’re not really addressing the product and thus redoing their and so I think that’s the difference with working with somebody is we’re gonna sit there and proactively look at and give you a list of, you know, 5-10 things you could be doing during the year that would improve your tax return, so that you’re not meeting with her in April going, I’ll go my taxes are so much. What should I have done so?

Adrienne  15:46

We’ve even had clients who changed where they were going to buy a house based on which county, you know, just be on the right side of this line, and you’ll have less taxes for your business. That’s not something that you’re going to go on a website, they’re going to say, hey, by the way, you know, if you had bought a block over, you would be paying, you know, X percent less than you are on your local business tax.

Sue  16:09

Bingo, and it’s the same even on residential homes, you know, home block over so yeah, they have a lot.

Rob  16:18

Yeah, Adrienne, it’s a good point.

Adrienne  16:21

Like, we have a mutual client literally doing this currently they’re working on grabbing a condo on the right side of a line because they made that mistake and it’s worth it and then the shift.

Rob  16:30

Yeah, and there’s so much depth there, Adrienne. I know you have stories for days. You know, you call qualifying somebody for lending and it’s just, it’s a nightmare, where and they’re going well, hey, this is what I made. I’m fine, right? Well, actually, you did your online taxes, and you have to go back and actually we’ve had Sue fix some before and then they got it done. But they spent way more than they had ever even thought that they would be saving by you know, online, so.

Adrienne  17:04

And a day at the IRS office waiting in line. Yes [Sue’s laughing]. Yeah, transaction. That was just a couple months ago.

Lance  17:13

It’s a huge point he makes where, you know, somebody would want to save $200 on tax fee, but then they’re gonna end up spending $10,000 move twice plus realtor fees, because they made the wrong decision on what side a line and it doesn’t seem to make sense to me.

Rob  17:32

Not on the back end, right?

Sue  17:34

But that something proactive part.

Rob  17:36

Exactly! Awesome! Okay, so what does the process look like to start to onboard with you Sue? Somebody realizes, hmm, I don’t think I want to do online taxes this year. Who do I call? They call you? Go!

Adrienne  17:58

Oh, I know this one. They get their shoe box with all their receipts. Bring it on in. All right, every document

Sue  18:08

Right, and Sue says, I know someone down the street. [Sue’s laughing] Okay, so, I’ll either get an email or a phone call and they’ll say, hey, my best friend referred me and so yeah, I say, Okay, let’s talk. So we start with a meet and greet, whether or not that’s a phone call, or a zoom call, or a come in, in person and that’s a, you know, no charge thing because I want to meet with them and they want to talk to me and look me in the eye and we want to see if it’s a good fit, you know, because sometimes people have different ideas than I mean, I have how I like to work and they have what they want what they expect and so we chat, and you know, 95% of the time, we’re gonna make it a go. So they bring in their tax return. I can even talk right there through, oh, this went on, I see you have this, I see you have that and oh, this means this or this means that, I’d say over 50% of the time, they say you’ve taught me more in an hour about my taxes than my other CPA ever did, you know, or what I ever knew, just because I can look down it and kind of get an idea a picture of what’s going on and then we go from there. You know, I get a little information so I can send them out or send them home or email them a tax organizer that just has a couple pages of questions and then their personal, you know, information that stays very private and then we get them set up with an appointment. Then they collect their data and give it to us whether it’s by secure portal or drop it off or something like that and then we put together the tax return or 90% of it, and set up an appointment for them to come in and review it. I’ve looked at it in advance and said, hey, I think there’s a few things they could still do and that’s where I say, Would you like to, you know, when they come in, would you like to meet with Lance and his team and see if there’s a couple things we can do to get something better for you even this year, and start to talk about what next year might look like and that’s kind of where we go with it.

Lance  20:49

And I’d like to add something to that, like, so Sue does a great job of onboarding clients and really working with them to talk about options and then what I tried to do is, how do we utilize Sue’s time in the most effective manner for clients? So you know, there’s three types of clients. There’s the clients that are on a dog on it, right? They got everything organized, they bring it in, and, and so what happens is, that particular client is really the process of getting the tax return. I’ll say almost to completion time, is a lot quicker, right? And so if we’re utilizing your time less on organizing a file or your data, and we can get that data ahead of time, when you meet with Sue, it’s less about what data you’re missing, because we could do that through emails and stuff like that. It’s more about how do I reduce my tax return and what do I need to do right now before April 15 and what do I need to do during the years so that we tee up your tax clients? Then there’s the average that you know, sometimes they bring it in sometimes it’s aftermath are always missing one to four items and things like that and then there’s the last 30% that are like that shoebox theory of, here you go Sue, and that’s a really great use of her time. When costs are going out of control, right, and everybody, everything’s expensive for people, including CPAs and if you’re used a lot, utilizing our times to sort through receipts, and do that, you’re just not getting it and like I said to you, there was a bunch of receipts and it’s sorted through and they just dumped it off and it wasn’t organized. What would be your comment to them?

Sue  22:49

You need a bookkeeper.

Lance  22:50

A bookkeeper…

Sue  22:53

Or a new CPA. [Sue’s laughing]

Lance  22:54

Or a new CPA, or will the cost be a little bit more expensive for that.

Sue  23:00

Well, yes, it’s like because it’s not prepared for me. This year, I’m gonna have to charge you more. But next year, you need a bookkeeper, or I can’t do this for you.

Lance  23:12

So, we want to put clients in a position that they put their best foot forward, teed up so we can give you there’s only so much time that we can give under a certain flat rate and then if not, we got to charge more for it. So, we rather give you the most amount of value and then I start to work with them to get them teed up. So, that then eventually teach people how to do your and tax planning, so that we can really maximize not have the conversation in April, but have that conversational fourth quarter, and that’s probably I think we, Sue and I 100% agree, we don’t agree about everything. But like, we want 100% agree that the clients that do year tax planning, they just seem to be happier than the ones that don’t.

Rob  24:02

Well, case in point, right?

Lance  24:04

You’re an example. Both of you are examples of that and it’s just because clients feel like they’re putting their best foot forward, we’re putting our best foot forward. She’s giving advice that other CPAs weren’t doing. I’m implementing them and helping them get that through and it’s that yin yang, we just see a happier client. Those happier clients costs are less, and they refer more clients. It’s just we don’t understand why more people don’t do it. That’s why,

Rob  24:34

Right! It’s adulting you know, 2.0, if you will, yeah, smarter versus harder.

Sue  24:42

Yeah and the thing that I always like to say is, I don’t want any surprised clients showing up in my office and saying, what do I owe, or where did this come from and that’s never going to happen if they do tax planning because we know exactly, you know, pretty much we know what the answer is going to look like and they’ve already made that happen in advance. So, yeah, no surprised clients.

Lance  25:11

Let me give you an example that client comes in and you know, you owe $6000, $9,000. Let’s just say $9000 is a surprise. Weird year different year and you’re like, holy cow. Now, do you want to know that in April, or you want to know it in November? In November, I can decide to curve my expenditures during Christmas. I can’t tell us how somebody was like, hey, you got a $9,000 bill, and we splurged on Christmas, because it’s been a tough couple years and we went into Christmas, and we spent more money on Christmas. If I knew I had that tax bill that would have been nice to know. So now I got credit card data. Now, I got this $9,000. Man, if I knew six months ahead of time, I could save for more than half of that, and then make the necessary changes. But if that $9,000 bill and you had the Christmas, and then all sudden your for those clients tend to file their tax returns closer to April, May, June and now you’re halfway through the year, and you should have made a change in January, it’s like it’s two years in a row that ends up happening and it’s just too much for clients to graph during a COVID environment. It’s just it’s a lot and we would just like to have put them in a place of knowledge so that they can control what they need to do and their cash flow and people are happier if they know six months in advance and looks like a hero.

Lance  26:47

And Adrienne can give them a loan, because they know what’s wrong.

Sue  26:51

You need a house. They’ll see Adrienne and Rob. Yeah.

Rob  26:55

Yeah, there you go.

Lance  26:56

So, it has nothing to do with the compliance side of things other than getting a step ahead and we’re reading the book, the goal that talks about the problem is at the moment of taxes, the problem was the year before, we’re just trying to teach them how to be proactive. You’re just not going to get that and an online service you just not. So, it’s more of the coping emotional side of taxes. That’s really where the wind is for clients.

Adrienne  27:28

[Inaudible 27:28] companies were run that way, the accounting team would just come in only in January or February and do all the bookkeeping for the year previous. I mean, it’s insanity to think of it that way. But that’s the way the taxes are marketed to us, right? You look on TV, some black and white video of them die covered in papers, and you know, trying to sort through a scene. It doesn’t make any sense. You know, if you really think about it, and this is a recurring theme in this podcast, right? It’s just forward planning. It’s just getting it done making a plan, and then making it really, I don’t want to call it easy, because it does take time to do this stuff and it is complicated subject matter. But obviously, you want to plan ahead, you know, obviously, yeah, you don’t want to have that giant bill or cheque coming to you. You know, I made that mistake. I had the biggest tax return of my life. I gave the government an interest free loan for $10,000. That wasn’t very bright. You know, a little forward planning as I’ve been working with you, is I can already see the money that it’s saving me.

Rob  28:25

So, thank you guys so much for the value here Sue, incredible Lance, obviously. Yeah, it’s we’re beating the same drum. But it’s just dropping that knowledge we appreciate it. Sue, where online is the best way to find you, which will of course put in the comments.

Sue  28:53

Okay, so we’ve got a great new website, www.ROI-tax.com and we’ve got all sorts of information there and ways to contact me and you find it there.

Rob  29:10

Right and we have our client appreciation events on there. Obviously, the educational podcast webinars and then the networking, referral small events also that we’re doing so love that. Did we miss? Do we forget anything there Lance?

Lance  29:28

A phone number! Somebody had a direct need and needed to reach out to her today. She has a wonderful staff, schedule that meeting now. Maybe share the phone number,

Sue  29:41

Okay, because it’s easy. Okay, so the 503-477-7773.

Rob  29:55

Alright and we want you guys to stay tuned for the next episode. Again, this is a part one of an eight part series…

Adrienne  30:04

It was just the kickoff…

Rob  30:05

Exactly! We’ll be learning how to make your 2021 filings simple and finish us up Adrienne.

Adrienne  30:19

Thank you very much. Welcome again to the get rich slow podcast. This is one of eight really looking forward to and deeper into these for you folks. Catch us next time on the get rich slow podcast.

Rob  30:31

Thank you all.