In this video, tax professional Ryan Vaughn explains the purpose, timing, and benefits of a year‑end tax planning session. He recommends holding the meeting between Halloween and Thanksgiving (or early December) when most of the year’s financial data is available, allowing accurate projections before the tax year locks on December 31. The session serves to (1) review and ensure implementation of previously recommended strategies such as the Augusta rule (corporate rent rule) and other tax‑saving tactics; (2) assess how those strategies are working, answer client questions, and make tweaks; (3) align client expectations about tax liability, introduce the Profit First tax‑bucket method, and advise on regular tax‑saving deposits to avoid penalties; (4) identify any new tax‑relevant events, gather necessary documents, and streamline the April filing process; and (5) discuss service options, urging existing Incite Tax clients to schedule their included meeting, and encouraging non‑clients or those on different plans to book a session for a fee. Throughout, Vaughn emphasizes that proactive planning can keep more money in the client’s pocket, reduce stress, and prevent surprise tax bills or penalties. The video ends with a call to action to schedule a meeting, share the video, and subscribe.
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What is the year-end planning session and why do I need one? So a year-end tax planning session is a meeting where you and your accountant will look at what has already happened for the year so that you can do a couple things that hopefully will end up keeping more money in your pocket. We like doing these year-end planning meetings between Halloween and Thanksgiving are really ideal, but sometimes we go a couple weeks into December. The reason we like the timing of the year-end planning meeting happening closer to the end of the year is because we have actual data for most of the year, and then we can estimate only a few months. That allows us to provide a much more accurate scenario around the planning that we want to do. So when the year ends, December 31st passes, and now it's January 1st, that— think of that previous tax year now as locked in. So we want to meet now so that if there's anything that we can do, we still have time to minimize taxes. So some of the things that we go over with our clients in a year-end planning meeting is first, We wanna review strategies that we've already told them about that maybe they haven't implemented yet. So it's kind of a follow-up, 'cause I get it. Look, I'd like to think that we're important, we keep money in our clients' pockets, but I also know that as soon as our client leaves the meeting with us, their life starts to happen. And sometimes some of the things that we talked about, even things that they were excited about, can get lost. I mean, I've had clients, we have the Augusta rule or the corporate rent rule that if you haven't followed us on that, look it up. It's awesome. We have a lot of content on it already. But I've had clients that for 2, 3 years in a row, they didn't get it implemented. And every time we met, we reminded them and it just took them that long to get it done. But if we didn't have these types of meetings, the reminders wouldn't have happened. And another opportunity for them to get the strategy implemented wouldn't have happened. So that's one of the reasons. We want to make sure strategies that should have been implemented that we've already talked about are actually running. Sometimes though, the client has implemented the strategy, but maybe they have some questions now that they've done the repetitions a little bit, like are they paying their kids the right way? They can show us the transfers. They can show us the logs, all those types of things, so we can review it to help them understand, hey, you're doing great, or hey, let's tweak it a little bit. But they have enough of this strategy in place that, again, we can take advantage of it for the whole year. Another reason is, look, we are now 6 months away from owing taxes for this year, or, you know, whenever you're watching this. But by the end of the year, The tax window closes, right? Like financial transactions have happened. We now have until April 15th to pay it. Well, if you wait until February or March, or worse, you owe taxes but you don't actually look at anything until after April 15th, you know, you're going to owe some penalties. And what happens if you end up owing more taxes than what you thought? We get that too. And look, I don't— this is going to maybe sound a little rude, hopefully not, but sometimes clients come in with an expectation of what they're going to owe, and then we share the news with them and they're disappointed or upset at us, when in reality they didn't know enough information about taxes in general to even have an idea of what they should owe. And so sometimes we have to be the bearer of bad news. But in those situations where they end up owing more than they thought, One, having the year-end planning meeting now allows them to get on the right page with more knowledge than they don't— that they don't have right now about what they would end up owing. So if they— if it's going to be more than they thought, they have a few more months of planning, of saving that money, setting it aside now. It also is a great opportunity for us to remind them of the benefit of the Profit First system And at a minimum, the way that we recommend saving money for taxes, which is set aside a percentage of your revenue, a little bit every 2 weeks or once a week, depending on how frequently you're setting aside money, set aside just a little bit into this tax bucket. So come the end of the year, you've accumulated a balance already that more than likely is going to cover the amount of taxes that you owe. So it It allows, a year-end planning meeting allows us to get on the same page with expectations and sometimes fix expectations of our clients who think they know what they're going to owe but don't have any tax knowledge to actually justify knowing what they think they should owe. That always helps. Look, planning, going into this scenario with less stress is always better. It also allows us to get all the ducks in a row now. Maybe something new happened this year that you aren't even aware of that has tax implications. Well, by meeting before the year ends, you now have time to gather documents, get things in place, get us the information that we're going to need so that come January 1st, most of your stuff, if you did a year-end planning meeting, most of your stuff is pretty much ready to go. Now you're just likely waiting on actual tax documents to be mailed to you or to be available online for you to download. So it makes the April filing process more smooth. And of course, the biggest reason that a year in planning makes sense is, are there strategies that we can implement now based on your current situation that are going to lower your taxes? Because now is the time. Like I said, if December 31st happens, we're now January 1st, we've missed the window to implement any new strategies. But a lot of the strategies, most of the tax strategies, we can get implemented in the last 2 months of a year so that you can benefit as if they existed for the full year. So that's our spiel. That's why we think year-end planning is important. Call to action. Look, if you're an Insight client, many of our clients pay for a service that includes year-end planning meetings. So if you are in that bucket, this is already included in what you're paying us. So please reach out to your tax professional and get that year-end planning meeting scheduled. If you are on a monthly plan with us but you don't have a year-end planning meeting included, Still reach out to your professional. We can get that in. You just pay for that year-end planning meeting. And if you're not on a monthly agreement with us and we're just invoicing you when we do the work, you can also schedule a year-end planning meeting. You'll just pay for it at that time. And of course, you know, if you're not a client, let's sit down. Let's see if there's something we can do better for you than what your current accountant is doing. Likely there are some strategies that you're not doing that we can help you implement, keep money in your pocket. We just think the world's a better place if you keep your money. So there you go. That's year-end planning. Use the link to schedule below, or if you have your direct contact information for your tax professional, reach out to them. We look forward to serving you and making sure that even though the IRS sucks, they don't have to suck for you. And please remember to like, subscribe, comment, share, especially with this one. If you know anyone who, especially is a business owner, who has any type of income, that means there's an opportunity likely to cut back on their taxes. So share this with anyone you think who might be interested in saving taxes. We want to serve as many people as possible.
