taxes

What Is Your Tax Pro, Really?

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There is no national requirement that a tax preparer hold a license, a credential, or even have any training or experience in tax before holding themselves out as a tax preparer.

Read that again, because it surprises almost everyone. In most of the country, a person can hang out a shingle and start charging to prepare your tax return with no test, no training, and no credential of any kind. The head of government relations for the National Association of Enrolled Agents once put it bluntly: in most states, the requirements to become a barber are higher than the requirements to prepare someone’s taxes.

Avoid April Regret: It’s Planning Season

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I recently had the pleasure of speaking at a local business that had invited their clients and prospective clients in for an evening chat titled “Avoid April Regret.” Our goal was to let them know about opportunities to avoid overpaying taxes when they file next year.

When I do these types of presentations, especially around the spring and summer, I like to start off with two quick questions: “How many of you went on a vacation this year?” followed by, “Those that went on vacation, did you plan your vacation, or just walk out the door, get in the car, and start driving whichever direction it was pointed?”

Shave and a Haircut: Two New Cuts on Charitable Giving

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If you give to charity and you itemize, there is a change coming that a lot of generous people are going to walk straight into without warning. Starting with the 2026 tax year, the return you will file early next year, a new law puts not one but two separate cuts on the charitable deduction. They stack on top of each other, and for higher earners they take a real bite out of the tax benefit of giving.

“We Gave Them a Discount. Can We Write It Off?”

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Here is a real question a client asked me recently, cleaned up only slightly. “We gave a 501(c)(3) a discount off the full price on a project, and they sent us a letter confirming the discount. Can we claim that as a donation?”

Giving is good, and some giving is deductible, but the deduction follows the rules, not your generosity.

The Augusta Rule: Tax-Free Rent Is Real, But Not the Way TikTok Says

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You have probably seen the video. Some supposed multi-millionaire explains how he bought a Ferrari using a tax strategy involving his house, and the comments are full of people who think they have just found the secret the IRS does not want them to know. That version is total nonsense. But buried underneath the nonsense is a strategy that is completely real, hard-coded into the tax law, and genuinely useful if you run it correctly.

Lease or Buy? The Answer Isn’t Your Monthly Payment.

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Every year I see business owners make the lease-or-buy decision the same way: they tell a salesperson what they want to spend per month and let the salesperson engineer a deal around that number. The car dealership perfected this technique. It has since spread to equipment dealers, copier reps, and software vendors everywhere. ‘What does your budget allow per month?’ is a sales question. It is not a financial analysis.