#34: Let's Get Our Taxes in Order with Guest, Cassandra Galan of Galan Consulting

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We're Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a San Antonio area realtor and lender, but most importantly, we're working moms.

The goal of this podcast is to provide support and a sense of community to San Antonio area working moms like us. So join us in trying to find a balance between career, family, and everything in between. Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're here today with our guest Cassandra Galán of Galán Consulting, and we're going to turn it over to her so she can talk about her business and what she does.

Hi everybody, my name is Cassandra Galán. I am a tax preparer and bookkeeper, and I specialize in the beauty industry, but I have other clients in other different industries as well. And so we help you get your books together and file the taxes as well.

Yeah, so this is the perfect time to be recording this episode because we're all dreading filing these taxes coming up. We're getting into that, into that moment. You know, Cassie, I saw you post something the other day that was like talking about like, hey, you know, they've moved the date for these, you know, when we can start filing taxes and, and all that kind of thing. They pushed it a little bit forward.. And I thought, well, that would be nice, except for that people never send out the 1099s in the appropriate amount of time. It's like, I'd love to jump in there and get it done, but it's like you still have to wait on these forms from your people.

Yeah, exactly. I have a lot of clients, mostly individuals that are rushing a file because they want their refunds.

Right.

And I'm like, but we still need everything. And if we're missing anything, it's just going to delay whatever refund you're going to get anyway because we're missing the income and it's underreported. And so you're just going to get a letter instead of getting your refund.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, they don't release stuff like— I think by law they're like, uh, like mortgage, uh, the 1098 for your— the interest that you pay in your mortgage, they're not required to be out until the 31st.

Yeah, most forms are all the 31st.

Yeah, so, but if you start filing 29th, you don't have anything. To file.

And I think that's the date they have to mail it by, right? And so it's like, I, I know that ours is not going to— I mean, we won't get it till after then because, you know, they just, they don't, they don't get their shit together.

So nobody does. Yeah, yeah.

No, I had people calling recently asking, when is my tax form? I'm like, go to— if you go to the website, you can print it once it's available. If not, you have to wait till it's mailed, and they're not mailing it till 31st.

So yeah, I know I still got some 1099s I gotta issue today for one of my clients.

Oh boy. Yeah, getting it down to the wire.

I know, they barely sent me the W-9s last night, so I was like, okay.

Yeah, well, taxes aren't everybody's favorite thing, obviously. And so I'm so curious, like, what made you want to get into this industry? And like, what do you love about— what do you love about taxes?

Come on. Well, Yeah.

So like before I started doing taxes, I was an insurance agent. I used to do, I had my, what is it? P&C insurance license. And that was back when I was in California. And I really liked doing insurance, but you know what, I noticed that what I like most is educating the consumer. So educating them about like their coverages and everything, making sure that they're covered. I noticed that when I do taxes now, I like educating about taxes and how it works. So when I used to do insurance, I first started out working for a broker, a very small broker who mostly sold like Mercury. And then I went to another broker where I did sales, which is nice. Everyone, you know how sales is. And then, um, but at that time I was working like 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. This is also the time that I was pregnant with my daughter. So by the time I had my daughter, I was like, I don't want to work this much anymore. I want to like And in general, I just didn't want to work for anyone anymore. Like, I'm tired of having to ask for the time off or like having to worry if I need to take my daughter to the doctor that I'm going to be like late or have a day off or like, and they were really strict, the company I was working for back then about attendance because they wanted us to be making sales. And so I left them and I went to State Farm and I was mostly doing customer service for an agent. That had already been around for like 20 years. And it was just the same thing, you know, I just, I didn't wanna work for anybody anymore, but I liked doing that. And I had always, and I had always had friends like in other industries, like taxes and more friends in insurance and people that had like car dealers and stuff like that. I guess kind of those industries always like correlate together, you know? And I had this friend who has a tax office out in California. And I asked him about it, like, how do I get my license? How do I get into this? Because I had always heard that like tax people only work like 4 months out of the year. I was, and I, at the time I was a new mom, so I was thinking, oh, this is like perfect. I could be with my, my baby whenever, you know? And so I did it and like the first couple years was like that, was mostly like just tax season for me.

Mm-hmm.

And, but over time you learn that there's so much more to taxes than just filing your tax return.

Like.

It's not just filing your tax return one time per year. It really depends on kind of like what your income sources are. Like you got to do quarterlies, or if you're a business owner, we have much more than that. We have annual reports, we have sales tax and stuff like that. So it's more of an all year long thing. And especially if you're trying to plan for your taxes to save on them. And so over time it became more than just tax season, but then I also wanted to serve my business clients more. And that's when I started offering bookkeeping as well.

I see. Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm sure in your situation, when you know the books are done right, then you know it's a little bit easier to file those taxes, right? So it probably works hand in hand.

Oh yeah, it's so much better because then I already have like a P&L report and right, that's what we need to do the tax return. Yeah. And without the P&L report, I'm like, okay, you either need to send me a spreadsheet with all of this listed out and categorized. Or we have to go to the books, which is going to be much more expensive. So most people that are in that situation will opt to like put together some kind of spreadsheet that we could use.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And is it just you or do you have like employees now or how, how has your business grown over time?

Yeah, I do now. So when I moved to Texas, it was still just me and like our first year of Texas, we were struggling a little bit. And I'm very open about this. I'm not, I'm not like one to hide anything about things that I've been through. So sure, when we first moved to Texas, me and my husband and our two kids, we struggled a little bit because his job that he was set up with was the railroad, Union Pacific. And they kind of like, I don't know, I don't want to say like lied, but it just wasn't what, what they told him. So they said that it was like we work all day long, 365 days a year, blah, blah, blah. And it ended up being like part-time on call. Oh, so, well, it's like a big difference. Yeah, so it wasn't what we expected, so we struggled a little bit. I did Amazon Flex just to get by, you know, make sure that our rent was paid and stuff like that. Amazon Flex is basically like you deliver Amazon but with your own car, so you're still self-employed. Yeah. And so while I was doing that, at the same time when we moved to Texas, I had hired a marketing coach because I knew when I was moving to a new state that it was possible my business could do less instead of more, instead of growing because I'm in a whole new area. And so even though I had always been virtual and I always had clients in like other states, but it's mostly because I've always grown on word of mouth. Um, so I knew moving to a new state, it was possible that could like slow down a little bit. And I had hired a marketing coach and he's the one that taught me that I needed to niched down. Yeah, because back then I was open to like anybody and everybody, you know. And it was— even back then it was— you have the mindset like, well, if I niche down, I'm like rejecting business for anybody that comes across me. And it's not really true because people come across me now that are not in beauty and I still take them on, you know.

Right.

So he's the one that taught me to niche down and how to do my online presence with my social media. I already had a website, but he taught me how to tweak it a little bit. And so anyway, my social media like Instagram and Facebook, I don't, I don't really use anything else like Twitter or LinkedIn or anything like that because that's not where my market is. That's not where my niche is.

I hate LinkedIn. I hate it.

Yeah.

So he taught me all of that. And once I did all of that, That's like where I rebranded because I used to be Total Tag Services. Then I rebranded to Galán Consulting because I wanted a more professional look. And around that time when I rebranded is when Claudia found me on Instagram. Oh, yes. And so, yeah, so she found me on Instagram. Like she said that she had to like look like she was looking for someone that specialized in that. And because I had just recently optimized my presence, she was able to find me like that.

And so just really quickly for our listeners, because maybe they don't know, we had a gal on here before, Claudia Aceves, and she, uh, she's a permanent makeup artist, and that's how sort of we all come to know each other. So that's who she's referring to.

Yeah. So, so she found me and she had invited me to come speak at one of her events that she was hosting. And it was like targeted towards beauty. I was like, okay, perfect. And this is also the first time I've done like any kind of networking. I've never done any networking in California. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. But in my head, I'm like super nervous. I deal with anxiety a little bit.

So yeah, same.

I don't know if you guys have that, but yeah, same here. So it's a little bit scary.

It keeps me running.

Yeah. So, so I did that and I showed up and I remember like I had kind I hired someone to do like my makeup because I'm really not big on makeup myself. I hired someone to do my makeup and my hair because I wasn't really knowing what to expect. I wasn't like, I didn't know if there's going to be a ton of people there, if there's going to be a little people, or like how big her space was. I had never been there before.

Yeah.

So anyway, I showed up and I remember when it was my turn to speak, I like, like I almost like, what is it like you like choke up? Like, yeah, I started stuttering.

Like you get like a frog in your throat.

Yeah. I started stuttering. I was like looking for my words. I didn't even know what I was even like thinking or saying anymore. My vision was going blurry. Oh my gosh. That's how I'm panic attack. Yeah, exactly. Like I almost panicked, but I took a breath and I looked to the side. I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm just nervous. And then I went back and started saying what I was saying. And so that was like the whole start of me doing networking in Texas. And I think that that's what really helped me a lot here. Especially locally, because like I said, it, even though I meet everybody at the networking events, even if you're not in my niche, I can still take you on as long as it's a good fit for both of us. Like, as long as you're not trying to do like full out fraud or nothing like that, then yeah, you're a good client of mine.

Yeah. So the networking helped you grow enough to need employees then?

Yeah, exactly. And, and so because I still do a lot of my stuff online from what my marketing coach taught me online, since I'm all virtual, like I don't have a physical office. And but one of my clients that I met here in Texas, she is very popular online, like on TikTok and Instagram. So sometimes she'll shout me out and I get a lot of clients that way, um, especially for bookkeeping. And all of her— she's very popular because she teaches courses, mhm, and she has students all over in different states. And so with her doing like that, and I get a lot of bookkeeping clients that way. There was a time where it became very overwhelming, where it was like too much influx of clients, but not— it was like a bottleneck, you know, like there's too much coming in but not enough being put out. And that's when I needed to, to hire. So I was telling one of my bookkeeping friends about this. I'm also in a, a bookkeeping coaching group with one of my coaches, another coach, a different one. And so I was telling one of my bookkeeper friends about that. She recommended me to a company that I could use that will provide me with a team of accountants that does like bookkeeping and taxes. So I use them just for bookkeeping only. And because I have already had a tax preparer that has worked under me for like 2 years already. Oh, and so for her, any new clients I get, I pass it along to her because I already have too much to do on my own. Right. So Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Well, that's great.

Wow. Well, that's a good lesson to learn. Yeah. That's a good lesson to share. I mean, obviously moving markets is different, right? Because I think clientele in Texas are going to be a little bit different than your clientele in California or other states where we're just a different type of people here. But also the— what I took from you, Cassie, was the hiring on the coaches. That's a big thing right now. I think it's something I've always been opposed to. I'm like, what can they tell me that I don't know already?

Right.

But obviously they did something to help you build your business. They gave you either the accountability part of it or giving you ideas that maybe you had not thought of. In addition to that, the networking part, that's something that we've truly honed in on this last year is getting out in the community, meeting different people, and just getting out and people knowing you. I know for me, I trust people who I get to see and talk to and I interact with, I work better with.

Yeah.

So that's really neat. I like the fact that she brought up her different types of coaching. You obviously had the marketing coach because when you're self-employed, you have to be all, all of it. You're your HR, your marketing, your sales, your everything. So having those people to support you, maybe in an area that maybe either your degree is not in or your talent maybe is not there to help you understand how to do that and Like, obviously you said, hey, I wanted to rebrand, you know, rebrand yourself and how to get out there. I like the— I don't know who the TikTok person is, but that's something always, you know, get a really good client that likes you and have them give you a shout out. Yeah. Helps you get more business.

That's great.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. And with the coaches, you know, like one of them is the marketing and the other one is just for accountants and bookkeepers and she teaches you not just the skill, but she also does like how to grow it as well. Like how to— and that's something that we wanted to do, right, Erika, when we do that event is like how to structure your business and stuff. So that's what hers was. And even though I know all of that, I wanted to do her program just to like learn how to grow it and what do I need to do, when I need to hire people and stuff like that. All of that's in that program. Yeah. So because like, like you were saying, Marie, when we're self-employed, we have nobody above us to like teach us that stuff. Like, who do we even ask, you know? And so that's like where those coaches come from. And the good thing with her program is that we have a community, like a group of all her other students. And so we all talk, we all bounce ideas off each other, and I've become like really close friends with some of them too. So it's been very helpful.

Yeah. I mean, I recently this year have hired a business coach. And the part that I like, and Marie and I have talked about this before, is the accountability part, right? It holds me accountable when they say like, hey, these are some things you need to be doing. And then next, the next week, it's like, hey, did you get around to doing those things? I wanna be able to say, yeah, I did all that stuff. You know what I mean? Because that's just my, that's the way my personality is. I like to be held accountable and I like to sort of go into the meeting and be like, I did all these things and I feel really good about it. Yeah. So I think that part of coaching, you know, we always say like, you don't know what you don't know. And so it's like, hey, if I don't know how to do this thing, I'll figure it out. I'm going to find out somebody that does, you know, and I think that coaching is a great way to do that kind of stuff, you know, hiring somebody that for sure knows more than me about any number of things. Yeah. So that's awesome. So because we have you here and because of your expertise, I am curious, what, what do you see, you know, not necessarily just in the beauty industry, although I'm curious about that too. Like, how are these, how are these, how are these beauty people messing up their taxes? I want to know what you, I want to know what you see most in terms of maybe like errors or like misinformation in the tax industry.

So like a lot of stuff comes from social media. First of all, like TikTok is so annoying.

Yes, there's so much misinformation.

Yes.

And I like, I see some like stupid videos where they're like open an LLC and then get a business credit card and now you have access to like $20,000. It doesn't work like that.

It's so annoying.

If only.

And then like, and it's like, first of all, like, because that one is more like about getting access to funding, right? But it's like, but you have to actually have a business and like some kind of activity and some sales and whatever to even get a business credit card. Like you have to build your business credit too. And to do that, you have to have sales and all these other things. But so anyway, back to taxes. So a lot of things I see mostly, well, especially in the beauty industry, is like they want to write off things that, like getting their own lashes done or getting their nails done or like getting Botox.

Because it's showing off product?

Yes. Like because it shows off what they do, they think it's a form of like advertising or marketing and it's not.

Oh, that's so interesting. I would never even think that. Wow.

Yeah. And so I do have one client, she's a marketing coach, but she buys like skincare products and she reviews them and does like videos and stuff like that. That's a different story because you're actually reviewing the product and then referring it, probably giving discount codes and stuff like that. But simply like just getting your lashes done and because you're a lash tech, I mean, that's not a write-off, you know?

Yeah, I'll just, I'll just buy a house and show people I can do it and I know how it works, and then I'll write that whole thing off.

Yeah, exactly. Take that 100% appreciation so I can add that back in later for a loan.

So there you go, Marie. So that's the thing, a lot of people I guess like what we were talking about before we started was like they don't know what write-offs are or deductions are. A lot of people don't know the difference between credits and deductions. Like credits are dollar for dollar lower your taxable income. Deductions only lower a percentage of it, you know? And so, um, when I do a lot of consultations and stuff, people ask me the same question, like, what can I write off? And I tell everybody the same thing. It's any— and it's literally word for word the IRS rule— anything ordinary and necessary to your business, you can write it off. As long as it's not something that's like ridiculous, out of the ordinary. Like, people want to write off like their pets because it's security, but it's like, what is your pet? Is your pet there like after hours when nobody's there actually being like a guard dog? No, it doesn't work like that, you know. So there's a lot of things, but I tell them all that same thing. As long as you need it for your business, then you can write it off. So tools, supplies, equipment, renovating your space, furniture, stuff like that, all of that's deductible. Retail products, you know, those are cost of goods sold. So anything like that, those are all things that you can write off, but you just want to make sure you're not trying to go over the top and like, you know, go get Botox and try to write it off or like stuff like that.

So I guess some of the stuff you would think would be common sense, but it isn't. But like, you know, I deal a lot with tax returns. I read them and need them for what I do. And I see a lot of where the hardest thing is where people mix their personal and business expenses and like, oh yeah, mix and mingle. It makes it difficult. Like if you're going to have a business, I always tell people like it's much easier when you're looking to get financing either for your business or for your personal, right? That having your business expenses in one area and your personal expenses different because I don't want to see Netflix coming out of your business account. Like, it doesn't help that way, especially when there's— because when you're, when you're self-employed and you're trying to get a loan, there's unique ways of getting people qualified because something that's on paper isn't necessarily what you make. It's very different than what someone who is an employee and is a W-2, and, you know, a person who, you know, they take taxes and insurance and stuff out of your, your check, whereas You know, when you're self-employed, you have to do all that on your own. So yeah, I would assume like people who are getting started, it would be, you know, for starting a business, try to have your personal expenses and your business expenses separate. So the eyelashes you put on your face would be a personal, and the eyelashes that you buy for someone else would be on your business.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

And so that's something that we talk about in my consultation. Sorry, Erika.

Oh, no, no. I was just going to ask you, like, So then do you have— because Anne-Marie will tell you I'm sort of not good about having conflicting conversations and that kind of thing. Do you have to have these tough conversations with these people, like your clients, where it's like, hey, man, because I know I follow you on social media and you're real big on, like, hey, if you're not going to do this the right way, we're probably not going to mesh as client and preparer. And so do you have to have those kind of tough conversations with people sometimes?

Sometimes. I mean, with my current bookkeeping clients, they're all pretty good about keeping everything separate because when we first do our initial meeting and call, I tell them like, you have to keep everything separate. Like what Maria was saying, we can't have any commingling going on because a lot of my clients are, you know, sole proprietors or LLCs. And LLC, sole proprietors tax exactly the same. So the bookkeeping and taxes are the same. But the problem is once you become an LLC and you're mixing personal and business like that, like, there's no point in even having an LLC if you're mixing it between accounts like that. Let's say someone wanted to sue you because they had like a bad reaction to a facial or something like that, right? And they feel like you're negligent and it goes to court. And so they're looking at financials and stuff like that, they see everything's being commingled, they can argue that they should have access to whatever personal assets you have because you're mixing your personal and business together anyway, because certain things are being— certain personal items or assets are being purchased with business funds. And so, and it is literally just one little tiny extra step that you need to take to prevent that, to avoid any of that happening. And all you have to do is just have either— if you're a sole proprietor, you just have a separate account, right? And sole proprietor doesn't have any protection anyway.. But if you are an LLC, you just have to make sure you have a business account. And anytime you need to pay yourself, it doesn't matter how often it is, it doesn't matter how much it is, because we don't have a payroll requirement like S corps. All you have to do is just transfer from your business account to personal account and then go swipe your personal card for your lashes.

So yeah, you just pay yourself like you normally— like a normal person would get paid, I guess. It's just coming from your own business account.

Yeah, exactly. And, and like I was saying, when you're not an S corp, we don't have that requirement of payroll. So like, you know, anytime transfer the money, if you're in the store and you know, you don't have enough money in your personal account, just log on the app real quick and transfer money over. And that changes when you become an S corp because S corp, a lot of people like try to do this starting out, but they don't know that there's like so much more complications. And requirements by the IRS because you have to put yourself on payroll. So it's a requirement. And that payroll can honestly be every week, every 2 weeks, once a month. There's just some people that do it like once a year. I don't do it that way, but there's people that do it that way because they just like want to have access to their money whenever, however. I don't recommend that. It just makes it more complicated when you're doing like payroll tax and stuff like that. Yeah. But as S corp, you have to do that payroll. And so. You know, you can't just transfer money whenever, however much and stuff like that. If you do, it's then it's a distribution, but you don't want to like make your financials a mess by doing that so much often. It's just easier to figure out. And this is where bookkeeping comes into play a lot too, is because once you know what your numbers are and you know what you're profiting kind of average on a monthly basis, you can figure, okay, I could put myself on payroll this much each week and if you need a certain amount, the payroll processor, like I really recommend Gusto. That's who I'm using for myself. I just went S corp this year myself as well. And when you're using Gusto and you want to do a payroll, you can put how much your net amount needs to be and they'll gross up what it is after, like with taxes and everything included. So that, let's say for example, if I need $1,000, right? I put, I want my net paycheck to be $1,000. And they'll figure out how much in total needs to be taken out for like payroll taxes and everything else.

Hmm, that's good.

Yeah, it helps.

It does, it figures it out for you. And that program, is that like a book, a QuickBooks type thing? But it's not, you said it's called Gusto, is that what you said?

It's, yeah, it's called Gusto and it's only for payroll. So it's just for, you know, like you, if you have employees like me, I have an employee also, my tax preparer, So you just get them set up on there. It'll have them fill out like their W-4 form for their taxes and deductions and to make sure that we're taxing them the right way. Right. And then you can also pay independent contractors on there too. So it'll have them fill out W-9s if you have contractors. Yeah. You can set up direct deposit with them so that their paychecks are all direct deposited. You can— they will also handle filing the payroll taxes for you, the 941 tax forms. And then what else? They do a lot more other stuff. Like if you need HR type stuff, that they will do that. They also help with like offering health benefits to your employees. Wow.

That's like a whole full service thing.

Yeah.

That's so interesting. Yeah.

There's just, there's so much things that people don't know about when they open a business that there's potentials for greatness and there's also potential for a lot of headaches. When you don't get it all up front and you don't understand what's going on. And they don't teach you taxes in school. They just don't. You don't understand. I mean, it's your normal neighbor or whatever. They don't understand. I can tell you how many people I work with that are coming in. Their company makes a lot of money, but they themselves who own this company bring in their tax returns and don't know anything about it. They don't know what their numbers are. They don't understand it. They're just like, here's my taxes, can I buy a house? They don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then Marie just has to tell them yes or no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With all of my clients, I try to educate them on that. And like, like I was saying earlier, I really enjoy the educating part in what I do because because when I do a lot of consultations, a lot of the girls that I work with or that I do consultations with in the beauty industry, they're all really new to like business but also taxes in general because they're usually younger, you know, like they're usually like fresh out of high school or like college age and they really don't know anything about all of that. And so once we get on the call and I explain it and I get into really detail, they feel so relieved because it doesn't have to be as hard as it sounds. You just have to know how it works, you know, and how you can work it to your advantage. And once they know that, they feel so much relieved and like it, it doesn't have to be scary or daunting as long as you're doing it the right way. Um, and you're not— there's ways to make sure that you're not paying like $10,000 at tax time as long as you're making quarterly payments and stuff like that. So it, it's like I said, it, it doesn't have to be as scary as it sounds.

Yeah, yeah, I worked in a tax office for a number of years when I was younger, like 5 years, which is too long. That's too long to do that for me. But luckily I was just doing the phone and stuff. I was just the smiley face at the front. But I remember learning, and this is true, I think people like think like, okay, well it's tax time, like my biggest goal is to like get the biggest refund and all that stuff. But really, I mean, we were, we were always taught, and even my dad taught me like, look, you want to have access to your money throughout the year, not just at tax time. That The ideal situation would be to break even, right? Like you get as close as you can. You don't want to owe a ton and you don't want to get a ton back because then you know that you've had access to your money all year long rather than just a big refund.

The government, if you're getting a huge refund, the government's holding that money and making interest off of it, right? If you keep it, you do your taxes, do your W-4s properly, right? You have the right amount of deductions coming out or taxes coming out. Then you hold on to that money, right? Like, why wait? But growing up, and maybe it's cultural, but growing up it was like, we can't wait to file taxes and get our big old check. Like, you could have had that check 9 months ago. Like, had this money and struggling all year where you could have had an additional, let's say, $1,000, right? You know, every month or whatever, because you— the government's been holding on to it. And understanding how that works It's very foreign to a lot of people who aren't even people, just W-2 employees, like not even some of them self-employed didn't understand how that works.

So you guys have talked now a couple of times about that W-4 form, and I smiled a little bit earlier when Cassie mentioned it because I remember when I was working, like you start a new job, right? And they give you all these papers and like you're trying to fill it out. And I'm looking at this and I'm like, I don't know what the fuck any of this stuff means. And so you just write stuff down or you look at the person next to you and it's like, well, what are they putting down? Like, maybe I should be doing. Yeah. What's happening over here? And so I just remember being younger and you just like, you fill it out and then it's like all of a sudden either a ton of money was coming out of my checks or like not enough money. And I was like, I don't know what any of this means. No one ever showed me what any of this means. But they literally just sit you down in a room and it's like, fill out this paperwork. It's like, I have no clue. I don't know what to do with any of this.

Yeah.

And they're not gonna tell you either.

Yeah.

You're not setting yourself up for success really. I don't think.

And people aren't explaining to you, like when, like I'm 100% commission. Right. I am a W-2 employee, but I am 100% commission. So the way I'm taxed is very different than if I was just a normal hourly wage, salary wage, or whatever. You're taxed more, so you're in a different tax bracket. And it's like, oh my God, I didn't realize that first. I was like, why are they taking so much money from me? This is ridiculous. I'm making less now. But it's just not understanding how it works. And again, if you don't have someone teaching you or someone, you know, maybe grew up and they followed very simple easy form or whatever the case is. You don't really understand.

I just remember reading those directions on there and it was like, if this and this, then put a zero here. If this and this, and I'm like, I don't know, like add it all up. Already my math is bad, like don't also make me add shit up, you know? So I don't know.

But I know I actually failed math in high school. Did you?

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah, people always think that's like accountants love math and it's it— like, we use calculators, we use computers and stuff like that. It's not always about that. We love math, you know what I mean?

That's good to know.

It's a big puzzle of it, like doing taxes. If you look at it the way it works, and when I analyze taxes, it's like a big puzzle. Like, the numbers have to match up, they have to make sense, you know?

And they all—

yeah, it has a system to it. I should go work for Cassie. I think I'm gonna do that. When you need a part-time employee, call me.

But I know you know so much.

I love everything.

I love the math part of it. But truly, it's not— I mean, everybody— like, I'm like, I can't do math in my head anymore. I got to give my calculator because I've done it for so long. But it's understanding the flow of money. And I think that's where so much of our society now since COVID obviously. But women themselves are trying to like, where can I gain the most power and control over my money?. And being self-employed is one way of doing that. But you're going to hurt yourself if you don't understand how your money works for you. So hiring someone like Cassie is important and having that connection with someone and someone who's willing to educate you, right? That's the biggest part of you understanding how the money— you can make your money work for you. So you're not making the mistakes of putting on lashes every week because you think it's a deduction or whatever it is.

Yeah, for sure. And like with those W-4 forms, and sometimes I go over that with my clients too, especially at tax season because we're early into the year. It's like the perfect time to review that and making sure that you're filling it out correctly. And they literally, the IRS just changed it, I think just a couple of years ago and they just made it harder to fill out and more complicated.

They did.

Yeah. Yeah. Like they took away personal exemptions and then you have to put the dollar amount for your child tax credit. So like for me, if I have 2 kids, I would write down $4,000 on my W-4. Instead of writing 2 kids, there's a box on there to let them know if you're married and there's— your spouse has an income also, because that means that you could be in a higher tax bracket, which means you're taxed more. And so if you don't mark that box, you could be undertaxed and then owe taxes. And then if you are someone that works multiple jobs during the year, you have to fill out a worksheet for that on the W-4 because—

whole damn worksheet you've got to fill out.

Yeah.

Yeah, it has like a whole chart and basically you have to like assume or estimate how much money you're going to make throughout the year. And that's always changing if you're someone that's working multiple jobs. I have clients that work multiple jobs and it's just very complicated with those W-4s and they always end up owing.

Hmm.

What a racket. Thanks, government.

It's a lot. It's a lot.

Yeah.

If it's something that you're looking to have, and hopefully being self-employed isn't a headache, but it's something that you need to budget into your, uh, business to hire someone to do that for you. Like, if that's not something you understand and you're like, you know what, I don't want to deal with that, it's definitely worth the money paying to have someone to do it right and do it well, because then you're going to come back. I, I'm dealing with the— I told you this on a different episode that I had a client who owned a very, very small hospice-type business, an older couple, and the taxes were done wrong. She now owes an additional $15,000 now from 2021. Like, she— and she just bought a house. Like, she's like, where does that money come from? And that goes into other— you know, it, it just makes it very cumbersome when you don't have someone who's working on your behalf and, and you yourself don't understand how it all works.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember we were talking about that too at the workshop, and you said that was done by a CPA too, right?

But I don't know if the CPA actually— I don't think the CPA actually did. I think it was someone, maybe a bookkeeper within the, the company that they had. Yeah, in the firm. And they just signed off on it, maybe. I don't know. But it—

I mean, like, they should at least review it.

I was— I felt so horrible for these people. There's They spent a lot of money building this home. They thought they were going to get money back. Now they're going to owe money to the IRS. So it's just a lot of headache for them. And it's something they had no idea. Had they not bought a home, they would have never known that their taxes were filed incorrectly until someone audited it. And then could have been later on that they come back and say, now you owe this money. So again, it's just something to have someone and maybe meeting with their, their tax preparer or bookkeeper on a regular basis to understand. But someone who's willing to educate you is so valuable in the, in the, in this part of your business. Someone who's going to teach you how to understand your money. Yeah.

The reason that I asked that is because a lot of people think that they need a CPA. And in the tax industry, I've seen bad work by any— like, there's 3 different people that you can go to to do your taxes. There's CPA, EA, which is enrolled agent, they're directly credentialed by IRS CPAs or by the state. And then there's people that are like me, I don't hold like an actual credential, but I am registered with IRS with my PTIN and AFSP to file taxes with IRS. And so in the tax industry, I've seen bad tax returns by any of these three. It could be CPA, EA, or someone that's also like me. And that's why I was bringing that up, because a lot of people think they need CPA, CPA. Like, first thing that comes up is CPA. And it's not me like talking crap about CPAs, but it's like a lot of CPAs actually don't even do taxes. A lot of them work—

we just talked about that on the last episode.

I was like, yes, we did.

We talked about it with Crystal, who's a bookkeeper.

Okay.

Because I think I said like, hey, you know, someone asked for for someone to do their taxes, and I probably tagged you, and the person was like, are they a CPA? And it's like, oh yeah, again, and I know this because I worked in a tax office for so many years, but it's like, I'm sorry to tell you, babe, but most of the time they're not doing it. It's the accountants that are doing it. They don't have time for that stuff. They're doing other stuff. And so like you said, they might put eyeballs on it to review, but they're not the ones that are doing your taxes. Just because there's two CPAs in a CPA office There's probably 6 other accountants that are the ones that are really doing the work, and then they'll review it and make sure it's okay. And hopefully it is. But I mean, it's just people, like you said, people think that, and it's like a super common misconception. I mean, if you want to pay more, I guess go that way, but you know, you're not getting any different level. Yeah, you're not going to necessarily get any different level of work because like you said, there are good CPAs and bad CPAs. There are good tax preparers and bad tax preparers. I mean, it's just, yeah, just it just depends on who the person is. I think it's really important to like get— like look at reviews and see, you know, hey, do you know someone that went to this person? Yeah, you know, I do, and they did a great job. I would trust that more than necessarily some sort of certification or degree, you know what I mean?

Right, I agree.

And I think it's really important that whoever you're working with is just ethical, because I've seen tax returns over the years where like, even like I said, by CPAs or EAs or whoever, where they're like adding fake businesses with losses to lower taxable income from wages so that people can get refunds that way. And it's like, this could be done by anybody, you know. And but like I said, I think it's important to work with someone who's ethical. Like me, I always feel like I am very ethical. I tell people that up front. If there's something that you're trying to do, I don't know anything about it, because if I do know about it, we're not doing it. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Well, do you want to tell the listeners how they can get a hold of you for your services?

You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Galán Consulting, or my, my personal Facebook, which I'm very active on and have business on, as well as Cassandra Galán, or my website is cassandragalan.com.

Perfect. Well, that's great. And we will link some of that stuff in the show notes for this episode so that way people can just click and find you right away. So, yeah, I just want to thank you for being on. Like I said, this was the perfect time to do this because this is going to roll out, you know, we'll be in February.

So it was a very nerdy episode.

Yeah, I feel like I was a little out of the loop on some of the things that we talked about, but that's not unheard of. So, you know, that's okay.

Thank you guys for having me.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. I'm so glad you shared some good information about, you know, maybe common misconceptions and that kind of thing, things that people don't really think about, but unfortunately it's stuff we got to think about.

So it's part of being, you know, a business owner, and that's something that we talk about is it's just part of the business, and it doesn't have to be as painful because you have someone like Cassie who can make it better.

That's right, that's right. So definitely reach out to her for your tax needs. And then I will also just thank our listeners for tuning in to this week's episode, and we will catch you guys next week.

See you guys next week.

Thanks so much for tuning in to the Working Moms of San Podcast.

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