In this episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick shares key tax‑saving strategies discussed with tax authority Tom Wheelwright, aimed at helping listeners reduce year‑end tax liability and preserve cash for investment and wealth building. The conversation covers several actionable areas: (1) the looming reduction in the estate‑tax exemption threshold and the need to consult a state tax attorney promptly; (2) cost segregation for real‑estate investors and the phasing down of bonus depreciation (100% → 80% in 2024, 60% in 2025, 40% in 2026), encouraging acquisition of qualifying property before year‑end to capture higher depreciation benefits; (3) Section 179 expensing for equipment, vehicles, and software, allowing full immediate deduction of qualifying assets; (4) awareness of additional credits such as the R&D tax credit and the Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction, which may be limited after 2024; (5) maximizing retirement contributions for self‑employed individuals (SEP, SIMPLE IRA, solo 401(k) up to $66,000 in 2024); (6) timing tactics—prepaying expenses or deferring income—to shift deductions and taxable income between years; (7) health‑related tax shelters like HSA and FSA contributions; and (8) a final call to action urging listeners to contact their CPA within the next six weeks to identify any missed opportunities. Throughout, the tone is conversational and instructional, with a supportive, optimistic sentiment toward proactive tax planning.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. As we are nearing year-end, I think it's important that we look to maximize our, our tax savings, minimize our tax liability so that we have funds to turn around and invest, build wealth, as we talk about here so often at No Days Off, and influence, impact our local, state, and national economies. As we spend more money, many of us investing in real estate create more housing. It just spurs more economic growth. So I'm a big fan of minimizing taxes because it's what you turn around and then do with that money that I think serves everyone. So as we're closing out the year, we need to be thinking around like, what are the— what are the steps I need to take before the year's up to make sure that I'm maximizing my, my taxable expenses and minimizing the exposure I may have? Well, just a week or so ago, I had our good friend, friend of Metrics, the mastermind I run, and a friend of many of you Tom Wheelwright joined me for an hour conversation with our Metrics Masterminds members. And Tom, if you don't know Tom, well, you should. He's written a couple books, Tax-Free Wealth. He wrote the Win-Win Wealth Strategy. He has been alongside Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. He's one of the Rich Dad Poor Dad advisors. Tom is the authority on tax. In addition to being the authority, he runs a great podcast, the WealthAbility Podcast. He puts out a newsletter. The guy does an awful lot and he shares it with all of us. I just think he is the authority when it comes to this stuff. And so I had an opportunity to talk with him or interview him in front of our group for about an hour, and I want to share with you a few things that Tom shared that will help us limit our tax exposure before the end of the year. What are the strategies? And in no exact order here, these are just some of the notes I took. First, Tom had shared, uh, for whatever reason he went right to this, uh, he said that we all need to get with our, uh, a state tax attorney, a state, a state law attorney, and talk about our respective estates. Many of the laws are potentially changing next year. A lot depends on who's in office, but as it sits right now, there's a, there's a significant change in estate tax liability. In other words, the estate tax threshold is going to go down by 50%, and for many of you listening, it will directly impact you right now. And for many of you listening, you're not quite there yet, but you will be there because you're listening to this podcast. You care about wealth building. So Tom talks specifically about estate tax, and he said, get your estate in order and do so soon before changes to the estate tax law. So get with your attorney. The next thing though that we got into, uh, I talked with Tom a little bit about cost segregation. We've talked quite around, quite a bit around cost segregation. It's a strategy many of us deploy. But in summary, for those that don't know what I'm talking about, if you are a real estate professional, cost segregation is a strategy used for your real estate investments. It allows you to kind of break down or segregate the different components of a building or a house and categorize them into these different components that have shorter depreciation periods. So in essence, this allows you to reclassify parts of the property and reduce or shorten the periods of depreciation. So it accelerates the amount of depreciation deduction that you could take through cost segregation. Now, there's a component of this known as bonus depreciation, and this is the kicker. This is the important point. The bonus depreciation has been phasing down for the past couple of years. It was, it was included as it was 100%, and that was made so through the Tax Cuts and Job Act of 2017. But it's gradually phasing down. As a matter of fact, in 2024, bonus depreciation goes to 80%. 2025, it goes to 60%. 2026, it goes to 40%, and so on. Unless some changes are made, which we'll see how next year plays out, bonus depreciation will continue to phase down. Now, there's still benefit, don't get me wrong, to the depreciation. Long story short, you just don't have the same degree of accelerated depreciation that you have today and you had last year, and it's going to be less next year. So the idea here is you may want to look at acquiring another property before end of year if you could possibly pull it off. It's kind of late, you may have to pay cash, but you will get greater benefit out of the depreciation of a real estate property if in fact you qualify by acquiring it in 2024 versus 2025. So Tom talked about cost segregation and about bonus depreciation. In addition, Tom talked about if you're self-employed, make sure you're maximizing your deductions and your credits. Specifically, he talked about Section 179, which you ought to go Google. Section 179 is when your business needs equipment like vehicles or software, things of that nature. You may want to consider making these purchases before the end of the year because you can fully deduct the cost of qualifying assets in the year in which they're placed in service. Many of you have heard of 179 because this is the old 6,000-pound vehicle rule. So one way to minimize your taxes is to quite possibly acquire a business asset prior to the end of the year. So if in fact you are in a business that requires you to have a vehicle and you, and you acquire a vehicle before the end of the year because you need it, not necessarily because you just want the tax benefit, but because you need it, it benefits you to buy it on December 30th versus January 2nd. As a matter of fact, I did that exact thing last year. I acquired a, a new vehicle £6,000 in the last week of the year. So Section 179, be aware of that. There are also other tax credits I'm not going to talk about right now, but the, the R&D tax credit is out there. Most people don't know about that. Google R&D, like research and development tax credit. Uh, qualified business income, known as the QBI deduction. If you're an owner of a business, you may qualify for this. Take a look at it. This is something that might be phased out next year. Now, the next thing that may apply to you, it applies to, to most self-employed individuals, retirement contributions. This is your reminder to make sure you're maximizing your retirement plans. So consider maximizing your contributions to your SEP if in fact you have one, or if you have a simple IRA or a solo 401(k). These things can provide massive tax deferral benefits. So for an example, in 2024, a solo 401(k) contribution can be up to $66,000. So you don't need to know the ins and outs of these things. What I'd be doing if I was in your shoes is calling my accountant and saying, hey, I've got a month or two left to maximize retirement plans. What am I missing? What have I not done that I need to do? Where is there an opportunity for me? One thing Tom mentioned that I thought was super smart, and we all could— we all can play this game: accelerate expenses and delay income, or vice versa. Accelerate your expenses and delay income. What do I mean? Can you prepay expenses? You may be able to prepay certain expenses, uh, before the end of the year. Maybe it's insurance premiums, or maybe it's rent. And when you do this, you increase your expenses, which increases your deductions in the current tax year. So if I have a vendor that I'm paying something to all next year, and I know for certain I'm going to have that vendor for the entire year, can I call that vendor in December and say, hey, what do you think about me paying you 10 months right now? You give me a break because I'm paying you up front. Like I said, give me, give me 12 months for the price of 10, and I'll give you all this cash now. So you created an expense for yourself, you negotiated a discount, and that vendor's happy because they got revenue in advance. On the flip side, could you defer income? If it's practical for your business, consider deferring some of the income until the new year. Push your income out to January 2nd because this reduces your taxable income. Now, the opposite may actually be better for you depending on your specific scenario? Should you, instead of prepaying expenses, extend expenses into the next year if you can and create, create more income? Because maybe this is a year where you've just had less income than you traditionally do, so you have some room there. Maybe instead of deferring income, try to pull some income forward, again create more income in this tax year because it's a lower income year for you. So Tom talked about timing, and I thought that that was really smart. Think about your health-related tax deductions. Have you funded an HSA? Have you funded an FSA? HSA is the high deductible health plan, and it's $8,300 that you can contribute to that for, for your family in 2024. Maybe there's an opportunity there you want to take advantage, or you want to take a look at that. In conclusion, again, I just want to get you thinking. I don't know if I've nailed it all, but I think what I want to do, the objective of this episode, is to just get you thinking about action steps you can take in the coming, call it 6 weeks before the end of the year, to limit your tax exposure. Most of us don't think about this stuff until it's potentially too late. So even if none of what I covered with you today applies, at least we got you thinking. And I want you to pick up your phone and call your CPA and ask the question, what have I not done in 2024 that I need to do in order to minimize my tax exposure? That alone might save you thousands upon thousands of dollars. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
