{"id":259,"date":"2025-05-13T22:12:41","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T22:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/?p=259"},"modified":"2025-05-13T22:12:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T22:12:41","slug":"not-just-an-accountant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/not-just-an-accountant\/","title":{"rendered":"Not \u201cJust\u201d an Accountant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last month, Ben Affleck\u2019s new popcorn thriller,\u00a0The Accountant 2<\/em>, hit theaters, nine years after the original delighted audiences. Early reviews were positive, and the Hollywood trade rags reported a $24.5 million opening weekend gross. Millions of Affleck\u2019s fans flocked to their local multiplex to see their favorite number cruncher wrestle with spreadsheets, fight bogus deductions, and clean up the books with style and panache.

Boy, were\u00a0they<\/em>\u00a0disappointed. In the first scene, Affleck wows the ladies at a speed-dating event with the news that they don\u2019t have to amend their previous returns to take advantage of missed depreciation. (Spoiler alert: he trudges home from the event without finding true love.) Quickly, though, the movie ditches the accounting references and turns into the sort of overplotted shoot-em-up you\u2019d find starring Liam Neeson or Jason Statham. It\u2019s a satisfying ride, though, and a second sequel is already in the works.

Accounting is full of hidden beauty, subtle drama, and suspenseful cliffhangers. Will the debits match the credits? Will the balance sheets\u00a0balance<\/em>? But it\u2019s not Affleck\u2019s skill with numbers that makes him so compelling. He\u2019s not\u00a0just<\/em>\u00a0an accountant \u2013 and it\u2019s the \u201cnot\u00a0just<\/em>\u201d that makes him special. It\u2019s also what makes him a lot like\u00a0us<\/em>. (Except for the gunplay.)

Right now, there are over 660,000 CPAs in America, along with 65,000 Enrolled Agents. If you assume their average height is five foot seven inches, and stretch them head to toe, they\u2019d reach from Grand Central Station all the way to the outskirts of St. Louis. That\u2019s a lot of competition! What\u2019s a hard-charging tax pro supposed to do to stand out from all those rivals to attract clients?

In Ben Affleck\u2019s case, his character Christian Wolff is\u00a0an escaped convict and autistic savant who works mainly with gangsters, drug cartels, and money launderers. That\u2019s a\u00a0great<\/em>\u00a0target market for someone who\u2019s willing to risk death if he misses an IRS deadline. It\u2019s full of fascinating, colorful characters. It also presents fascinating, colorful tax challenges. For starters, code section 280E specifically denies any deduction \u201cfor amounts paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business if such trade or business (or the activities which comprise such trade or business) consists of trafficking in controlled substances (within the meaning of Schedule I or II of the Controlled Substances Act).\u201d

But most of us aren\u2019t interested in adding \u201ccheating death\u201d to the \u201cSkills\u201d section of our LinkedIn profiles. How do you attract clients if staying far away from professional hitmen is one of your personal goals? Well, that\u2019s where planning comes in \u2013 specifically, tax planning to help clients pay less.

Most tax pros do a perfectly good job telling you how much you owe. They get the \u201cright\u201d numbers in the \u201cright\u201d boxes on the \u201cright\u201d forms, and file them by the \u201cright\u201d deadline. But then they call it a day. There\u2019s little, if any, planning done to help you pay less. Maybe it\u2019s because your circumstances don\u2019t lend themselves to planning. Usually, though, it\u2019s just because they\u2019re too busy\u00a0doing<\/em>\u00a0taxes to have time to\u00a0plan<\/em>\u00a0them.

What\u2019s the answer? You need more than just an accountant. You need the Christian Wolff of tax planning. You need someone who can proactively eyeball your returns with an eye for savings, and identify the concepts and strategies that can avoid taxes you don\u2019t legally have to pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, Ben Affleck\u2019s new popcorn thriller, The Accountant 2, hit theaters, nine years after the original delighted audiences. Early reviews were positive, and the Hollywood trade rags reported a $24.5 million opening weekend gross. Millions of Affleck\u2019s fans flocked to their local multiplex to see their favorite number cruncher wrestle with spreadsheets, fight bogus deductions, and clean up the books with style and panache.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[129,127,130,128,131,4,126,11,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-taxes","8":"tag-not-just-an-accountant","9":"tag-proactive-tax-strategies","10":"tag-small-business-tax-help","11":"tag-smart-tax-moves","12":"tag-strategic-tax-advisor","13":"tag-tax","14":"tag-tax-planning-vs-tax-prep","15":"tag-tax-savings","16":"tag-tax-strategy","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}