In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick outlines ten actionable tax‑planning tactics aimed at self‑employed individuals and property owners. He emphasizes that proactive tax strategy accelerates wealth creation and urges listeners to discuss each item with their CPA. The list includes: (1) obtaining a second‑opinion review of the past three years’ returns; (2) leveraging rental‑property depreciation through cost segregation; (3) using the Augusta Rule (Section 280A) to rent a personal property for up to 14 days; (4) applying Section 179 for large‑vehicle purchases; (5) maximizing contributions to retirement plans such as SEP and solo 401(k); (6) fully funding a Health Savings Account; (7) claiming home‑office deductions; (8) paying children or other family members to shift income and reduce payroll taxes; (9) optimizing business structure to avoid unnecessary filings; and (10) timing income and expenses to defer or accelerate tax liabilities. Throughout, Gubernick stresses that while he does not provide deep technical detail, listeners should bring these buzzwords to their CPA to uncover potential savings, ultimately reinvesting saved dollars to generate more wealth.
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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. Today we're gonna get better at wealth creation, and we're gonna do that by covering the top 10 things that I think you need to be thinking about right now around your tax strategy. See, creating wealth, it goes without saying, the more money we have to invest, the more wealth we can create. And so focusing on tax strategy and specifically tax savings accelerates our path to creating more wealth. So I want to go through the 10 things that are on my mind right now The things that I'm meeting with my accountant around or thinking around as it pertains to tax, being that we are roughly in the middle of the year, uh, many of us extended file tax extensions from 2022, and we have that coming up here. We have to have those filings in. And, and if that is you or is not you, you're probably planning for, you know, regardless, you're planning for 2023 taxes and should be accelerating that planning process. If you're not already underway. So because of this, I want to run through this top 10 list, and I think that this might be one of the more important podcasts that we've done to date. So please, please, please listen closely, especially if you're self-employed, as many of our listeners are. A lot of what I'm talking about today applies to those that could take advantage of things, given that you are in fact self-employed. So Let's go through the 10 things that are on my mind as it pertains to tax planning right now. Number 1, your CPA. You may have a great one. You may have someone you love. That being said, you've got to be testing that CPA on a regular basis. And when I say testing, what I really am saying is I'm a firm believer that every so often you should be taking your past 3 years' tax returns and you should be handing them off to a different CPA, maybe one that's been referred to you, and asking that new CPA, "Hey, if you were to do anything different with respect to my past 3 years, what would you do?" I think having that second set of eyes, uh, on your tax returns, number one, might create, uh, some new opportunities, maybe things that were missed and and therefore quite possibly a new CPA relationship is in order. Number 2, and what would be even better, is that you learn there are no changes to make, which maybe means you've got the right person that's managing your taxes. Bottom line, I start with CPA review because I think arguably the greatest difference many of us can make in our tax strategy is working with a CPA that has a deeper understanding or a deep understanding of the tax process. The truth of the matter is, as our wealth grows, as our income grows, as the complexity of our business world grows, we very well may outgrow the CPA we're working with and we're now escalated or elevating to, to the next level. So always, always, always, no matter the personal relationship had with that CPA, you want to get another opinion and you want to always be on your toes and considering you know, what it might look like if you had someone else doing those taxes. Number 2, buzzword, right? And a lot of what I'm going to cover are buzzwords. I'm not going to go deep into these strategies. I want you to take these words and I want you to go talk to your CPA. Number 2, depreciation of your rental properties, and more specifically, cost segregation. Now I'm not going to do a deep dive on cost segregation. That's a conversation for another day. Many of us have heard this term. Many of us may know how it works. Bottom line, if you have rental properties, you need to ask your CPA, how can I better leverage the depreciation expense? And tell me a little bit more about cost segregation and how it would apply to my scenario. That's all you need to know. If you want to go learn more about cost seg, by all means, go ahead. But I want to make sure that you're knowledgeable enough to just ask the question around the term. Which leads me to number 3, something many of us have become more familiar with over the past few years, the Augusta rule. The Augusta rule, which is, which in essence means you're going to be renting your property out for 14 days or less per year. And could you quite possibly be renting it to your business, thereby creating a business expense? Again, I don't want to go too deep there, but we should all be leveraging this effectively. So you're going to want to ask your accountant about Section 280, the Augusta Rule. Number 4, another section, Section 179, the 6,000-pound car or SUV rule. Massive savings opportunity here for us with respect to tax. Many of us are utilizing it. Again, not going to go too deep. You just want to know Hey, if I buy a new vehicle this year, does it in fact qualify under Section 179? How do I structure it such that it qualifies under, under Section 179? Number 5, are you maxing out your retirement options? Things like a SEP or a solo 401(k) or other retirement plans. Are you taking full advantage? Ask your accountant. Number 6, Are you matching— maxing out your health savings account? Are you set up properly for an HSA? $7,750— $7,750 is the max for family. Are you contributing that amount to an HSA? But first, are you actually set up properly for it? Ask the CPA. Number 7, home office expense. This is one that's missed a ton. Why? Well, because some of us are told, hey, it's a red flag to have a home office. I think my accountant would say otherwise. Many of us didn't even realize we created a home office when in 2020 we were forced to stay home a little bit more, and now we're still there at least a portion of the week. Some of us think that because we have a business office, we can't have a home office, and that's just not true. Ask your accountant. How does this home office expense work for me? How, how could it work? Number 8, paying your kids or family members. This is a big one. Something that's been a buzzword, you know, paying the kids buzz term as of the past few years. How do I pay my kids? What work could they be doing? How must that be treated or structured? What must that flow look like? How do I eliminate payroll taxes in doing that? Ask these questions of the CPA. Number 9, one that I think is overlooked quite often but could result in massive savings, business structure optimization. What I found in coaching and consulting with so many business owners, many of them are set up in a rather inefficient way from a tax, strategy perspective. So business structure optimization, I'll give you an example. Sometimes I'll see a bunch of LLCs created, which thereby with their own EINs, which thereby creates new filings that are frankly totally unnecessary because there's one property owned by that LLC. Now again, consult with your CPA, but maybe that LLC should be a disregarded entity. There's another buzzword for you to ask the CPA about. Bottom line, are you filing too many returns because you're not structured optimally? Check that out. And then the last thing, number 10, timing around income and expenses at the beginning and the end of each year. Most of us operate on a cash basis, so deferring some income into the next tax year or pulling forward certain expenses into the current tax year could have a sizable, sizable impact on your tax bill. So the question for the accountant: what can I be doing today or towards the end of this year to maximize the tax benefit from capturing more expense or deferring more revenue? That's what you should be asking about. So in conclusion, these are 10 things I've thrown at you. I don't expect you to know them inside and out, but I do strongly encourage you to run through at least the 9, numbers 2 through 10, with your CPA and ask how you can take advantage of these things, or am I taking advantage of them to the level I should be? My guess is we all can do a little bit better job. There's probably opportunity, and I hope that you can take 1 or 2 or 3 of these things and save a few more dollars this year. And when you save those dollars, you end up reinvesting into the economy, into the housing market, into whatever it may be, and you spur even more activity and ultimately create more wealth. That's the objective here. So that's all we have for 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.
