How tax strategy can maximize profitability in your business
Welcome to Process to Profitability. In today's episode, we have a special guest joining us, Kimberly Tara, a certified tax coach and business growth advisor. Kimberly is here to share her expertise on tax strategy and how it can save you money and make your business more profitable. As a mom of four young children, Kimberly has successfully built her own business while balancing her family life. She believes in empowering female service providers by educating them about proactive tax strategies. Today, we'll be delving into the world of tax strategy, discussing everything from entity selection to deductible business expenses and beyond. So, let's get started on the path to maximizing your profits and minimizing your taxes.
Timestamps:
[00:01:27] Meet Kimberly Tara
[00:02:55] Running a business as a mom of young kids
[00:05:51] The benefits of tax strategy in creating the lifestyle you want
[00:09:49] What tax strategy is and how it's different than tax preparation
[00:13:57] Finding a tax strategist for your business
[00:17:32] Just increasing your year-end expenses is not tax strategy
[00:21:31] Other examples of tax strategy for online business owners
[00:25:33] 3 steps for finding the right CPA for your business
[00:32:02] Connect with Tara
Key Topics:
The role of the CPA in explaining and educating clients about finances and taxes- The speaker's decade of knowledge and expertise
Viewing working with a financial professional as an investment with a return on investment (ROI)
Saving money through tax savings and avoiding missed opportunities
The goal of saving clients more money than they spend for services
Tax strategy as a proactive way to reduce tax liability
The importance of consulting a tax professional instead of relying on social media for advice
Using the tax code to benefit businesses through tax strategies
The difference between software-generated strategies and those developed by certified tax coaches and strategists
Finding the right type of accountant or CPA for specific business needs
Understanding the basics of tax strategy and how it can save money and increase profitability
Resources:
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: If taxes tend to scare you and you feel like you have no idea what you've been doing, I think this episode is going to be really interesting. We've been talking about making data driven decisions in this series, and today Kimberly is coming to talk about tax strategy and how it can actually make you more profitable in your business by saving you money.
[00:00:21] This goes beyond just filling out your taxes into thinking about your business differently so that you can make a plan and a strategy for saving on your taxes at the end of the year by making smart decisions throughout. We talk a lot about what tax strategy can look like and what you can do if you're not currently working with a tax strategist on your own and then how you can find someone who can help you do this in your business so that you see the ROI on working with a professional to think about your finances differently.
[00:00:56] Kimberly is a tax strategist and business growth advisor who is passionate about educating and empowering female service providers when it comes to the financial side of running a business. She partners with her clients to maximize profits, reduce taxes, build wealth, and create a legacy with her team. Kimberly is also a mom of four little kids in ages six and under, and has built her business and family simultaneously.
[00:01:21] Hi, Kimberly. Thanks for joining me today.
[00:01:24] Kimberly Tara: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Meet Kimberly Tara
[00:01:27] Samantha Mabe: I read your official bio, but can you tell us more about your business journey and how you have evolved and changed to get to where you are today?
[00:01:38] Kimberly Tara: Absolutely. I would love to because it's funny that I never really realized that there was a story in there in my journey to where I'm at in my business.
[00:01:47] But essentially, I'm the child of two entrepreneurs. So I knew at some point I was going to have my own business because I saw my parents doing that growing up. I liked some of the things that it provided us in our lifestyle and some of the things were drawbacks and we could talk about that and how I have a different view of my business.
[00:02:04] I was actually a chemical engineering major for three and a half years before I switched to accounting. So once I switched to accounting, I was like blowing through the classes because time was ticking. I needed to graduate. I had made this change in major very late in life, and I thought the world was ending when I changed my major. I guess I chose like sophomore year of high school that I was gonna be a chemical engineer because I liked chemistry and I'm a planner.
[00:02:26] So I switched majors. I ran through the accounting track, got my internship, did my public accounting stint. Sat for the CPA exam. All the things you know, all the traditional things, if you will.
[00:02:39] My husband and I, we were living in Atlanta at the time and I wanted to move back to New Orleans to be closer to family. So I thought if I'm moving and I'm change my job, my employer, because they didn't have a location here, I might as well take the leap and start my own firm.
Running a business as a mom of young kids
[00:02:55] Kimberly Tara: I didn't know, but I was 10 weeks pregnant at the time. I had already given my resignation. I had already done all the things. So I was like I guess we're gonna just do this and we're just gonna figure it out as we go. And part of wanting to have my own business was wanting to be a mom, being, having that flexibility with my children. I remember my mom was really present in my brother and I's lives growing up and that was always gonna be very important to me. I just didn't intend to start them exactly at the same time.
[00:03:22] So I definitely think that starting our family and growing my business and growing my family at the same time has definitely given a little bit of a different feel over these last seven plus years of growing my business.
[00:03:34] I also realized recently that I hit six figures in the first 12 months of starting my practice, and I didn't really realize that was an achievement. I'm an Enneagram three, so anybody who knows anything about Enneagrams knows that threes are high achievers. And I work with a coach and she's that's a really big accomplishment. And I'm learning not a lot of people do that.
[00:03:55] But I will also say on the flip side, by 18 months in, I was totally burnt out. I couldn't keep going. We were expecting our second child at that point. So yes, I hit this major revenue milestone, but I also wasn't being a present mom, having the flexibility, all the things that I so desired out of actually having my own business, I wasn't getting that.
[00:04:15] It's funny because as a CPA, I'm gonna sit here and tell you that money isn't everything. I don't think that money is everything. I think that having wealth is having a balanced life, is having inner peace and calm and joy and all the things.
[00:04:27] It was in 2018 that I became a certified tax coach in addition to being a CPA. And that was where I really learned, I like to call it on steroids, about tax strategy and how I could save my clients more money and let them keep more of their hard earned dollars in their pockets.
[00:04:45] And the timing was just, I'm not very woowoo, but I really do believe that everything happens in the right time. And this was absolutely the right time for me because not only was I able to bring this incredible service and value to my clients and to new clients who would come to work with me, but it also, it taught me more about value-based pricing instead of hourly pricing or low retainer pricing.
[00:05:10] Everything is the billable hour in public accounting. And I, I still have some PTSD around that because I've had a couple of coaches along the way ask me to do time audits, and I just simply can't. I just simply cannot keep track of my time after I kept track of my time for so many years in public accounting and everything was based on the billable hour and not value and productivity and efficiency.
[00:05:30] And so I really run my business differently now, but I think it was very serendipitous that we were expecting our second child, I was able to get this licensure, bring this knowledge, these savings to my clients, and that was what they really wanted. No one really wants to pay to have their tax returns prepared because the government says so, and there's nothing, there's no real benefit to you. You're just following the rules.
The benefits of tax strategy in creating the lifestyle you want
[00:05:51] Kimberly Tara: Whereas tax strategy, I have a client, I think the most we've ever saved one individual client is $101,000 per year, and that was gonna be for seven years. So it was over $700,000 that we were able to save for a client through their tax strategy. That's a win for me. Like obviously that was a huge win for this client. But even for me to be able to deliver that to a client where they were able to pay off their mortgage and, really fund their three kids education accounts. There's something that I just really love about that and it's very impactful for me.
[00:06:18] Since then we've had two more children. I have four children in total. They are all 22 months apart, and it has really been over the last four years, just me being very aware of how little time I actually have in a day. How little time I have for myself. The hours for my business are very, they're very condensed because I do school drop off and I do school pickup and I want to be there for those things. I've really built a business around my family's schedule and my kids' needs, and that's what I've been working towards.
[00:06:58] So I really haven't grown in terms of revenue over the last couple of years, but I've grown in having time freedom, more flexibility not needing to always be working and hustling to be making money. And that's just, it's been an incredible journey.
[00:07:21] I've learned so much about my business over the last seven years, but as I started marketing a little bit and meeting other female business owners who didn't know all of this and they were getting horrific service from their CPAs or their tax professionals. No one was having these proactive conversations with them. They were waiting three months just for a response or waiting three months to have their tax returns prepared.
[00:07:47] And so it really changed my mission from I want to grow to. I need to help these women, I need to educate them. They deserve a good CPA who is responsive and proactive and creative and is educating them on tax strategy. And that has really changed why I'm here, my purpose, my firm's purpose, why we do what we do. And it's just been an incredible journey over the last seven years and I'm super excited for what's to come.
[00:09:03] Samantha Mabe: I love that you have really built your business knowing that you wanted to be able to be a present mom and have used tax strategy, not only for your clients, but just as a way to think about how you can approach money and how you can approach business.
[00:09:23] Kimberly Tara: Yes, and I'm really big about around building wealth. And I will say that I do think wealth is so much more than money. Like I said before, I think it's about happiness and health and inner calm, which is something that I'm really focusing on right now in this season of life.
[00:09:37] And I think that tax strategy is an often overlooked way of gaining some financial wealth through, through getting cash back into your business.
What tax strategy is and how it's different than tax preparation
[00:09:49] Samantha Mabe: Okay, so let's start off and talk about what tax strategy is and how it's different from tax preparation, which is probably what most people are familiar with.
[00:09:59] Kimberly Tara: Definitely. I would say, first off, when anyone hears the word tax or taxes, they instantly have this negative, like we, we get nervous, we start sweating. We think about the IRS, are they coming to get us? Are they gonna put me in jail? We have this visceral negative reaction to it. And so first off we don't need to do that.
[00:10:16] But secondly, yes, then our mind goes to April 15th, filing my tax return meeting with my accountant once a year. Ooh, I gotta catch up on all my numbers because we know that many business owners out there aren't monitoring their numbers monthly throughout the year, they do it all at the end of the year to get it ready for tax time. So that's typically what we think of.
[00:10:35] And in its essence, tax preparation is just a historical rendering of your previous year. We're just, we're taking everything that happened, putting it on the IRS's designated form that you then submit and file with them to tell them how much you owe to the US government in federal taxes, and if you have state taxes that you need to pay as well. It doesn't benefit you in any way. It's just something that you have to do. So most business owners, most taxpayers, absolutely dread it.
[00:11:06] I relate it to telling a toddler that they have to do something. Whereas if you make it think, make them think it's their idea, then it's usually they're more willing to comply. The IRS is telling us that we have to do this, so pretty much no one is willing to comply. Especially because once you comply, usually then you have to give them money.
Tax strategy is about proactively reducing your tax liability
[00:11:22] Kimberly Tara: Strategy on the other hand, Is proactively and creatively, throughout the year, monitoring your net taxable income and thinking about how you can ethically and legally reduce your tax liability.
[00:11:44] And the reason I say ethically and legally is because I'm not a big social media person, but I've recently started watching like Instagram and other people and the amount of bad information that is out there on social media as quote unquote tax advice, which is not even coming from a tax professional. That's the best part. It's either incorrect or they're not giving you the full story, or they're not telling you the exceptions to the rule, or they're not telling you that you're gonna be over the income threshold. So it's not going, you're not going to qualify, all these things. So legally and ethically is very important when you're thinking about what types of tax strategies you want to implement in your business.
[00:12:28] Why I love it is because it gives business owners who are in a unique position to really use the tax code to their benefit, it gives them this opportunity to say maybe if I do this instead of this, then that would be a business deduction instead of a personal expense.
[00:12:47] But you have to do this all throughout the year. So let's talk in terms of 2023. You can't wait until January of 2024 to start thinking about this. The year is done. There's very little that you can go back and do. But if you're thinking about this in February of the current year, or June of the current year, or even October of the current year, even if you start doing tax strategy in October, you're still gonna get three months of benefit of savings before the year comes to a close.
[00:13:16] It's about being proactive. It's about being creative. You have to know your numbers, so if you're not keeping up with your numbers throughout the year, you're not gonna be able to do tax strategy because you have to know the information to be able to make decisions and to think about the strategies that are going to work best for your business.
[00:13:35] So that instead of paying, let's say $30,000 in taxes, maybe you only have to pay $10,000 in taxes. And what would that extra $20,000 each year mean for you, your business, your personal life? I think we can all agree that $20,000 back each year would be an incredible amount of money for us to reinvest in various aspects of our life.
Finding a tax strategist for your business
[00:13:57] Samantha Mabe: So if somebody's thinking okay, tax strategy sounds great. I wanna get money back and not have to spend it. Let's start with, do most of the tax people that we would encounter actually offer this as a service and help us with this?
[00:14:13] Kimberly Tara: That is such a great question. There are not as many professionals, tax professionals who are actually offering the strategy piece. There are plenty of tax professionals out there who are fantastic preparers, right? They do a great job of taking the information that you bring to them, knowing the questions to ask, making sure that you're following the rules and providing an accurate quality tax return come tax time.
[00:14:45] There are a select few out there who say that they offer tax strategy, but I've seen it and they're using, there are a couple of softwares out there, if you will, that they let you plug this information into, and so they're CPAs or accounting professionals and they market that they do tax strategy. But I know for a fact that they're just plugging your information into a software. Whatever the software spits out as some possibilities and some savings, they just take that and provide it to you in a report form.
[00:15:15] Then there's those of us that are certified tax coaches, and there are also some tax strategists out there who are not necessarily certified tax coaches, but I sit down and I'm reading the tax code or I'm taking continuing education about advanced tax strategies. And so I'm not really, I'm plugging information into a software or a spreadsheet to do the math for me. But my brain and my firm, we are actually doing the strategies because we know them. We don't need a software to spit this out to us.
[00:15:48] And so I think that is what makes it different, because that's where we're able to say if they're not really familiar with tax strategy and they're just plugging it into software, they're not gonna know to say, 'Yeah, but if we move this around, then we could do this.' the software can only spit out what you're telling us.
[00:16:05] I really do think that you want someone whose brain thinks like this because that's the creative portion where you say, okay, you're doing it this way right now, but what if we didn't do it this way? What if we could change it? And so it has to be for a bonafide business purpose. So then we have to say okay, can they change it? What's the bonafide business purpose? Does it make sense?
[00:16:25] And the other thing that I really wanna say is there are a couple tax strategists out there, or quote unquote tax strategists out there, I see them provide business owners with tax strategies, and I'm, y'all can't see my air quotes, but my air quotes of tax strategies because it'll save business owners in taxes, but it costs them more in all of the fees to make those moves or to. Implement the strategy. And so yes the tax savings are there, but you're spending equal amounts of money, if not more, to make that tax strategy happen and you're just giving yourself more headache.
[00:17:00] Tax strategy comes with a lot of documentation. It comes with a lot of paying attention and crossing your T's and dotting your i's. And it's totally worth it and it's worth the savings, but not if your fees that you're gonna have as a cost to implement that strategy, in my opinion, that's eating into your tax strategy and your tax savings.
[00:17:21] I don't think all practitioners view it that way because they just wanna market to you the tax strategy and say, oh, I can save you $20,000 by the way, it's gonna cost you 18,000 to make this happen.
Just increasing your year-end expenses is not tax strategy
[00:17:32] Samantha Mabe: Okay, because I think most of us are probably thinking, okay, I understand tax strategy when we get to the end of the year and everybody says, you should make sure you bump up your business expenses, so you have to pay less taxes.
[00:17:47] But I think this is really going deeper than that because you're using the tax code and the laws and the rules to figure out, okay, what else can we do to reduce this without you having to just go spend it on something that you might not need.
[00:18:04] Kimberly Tara: Yes. I'm so glad you brought that up because the whole tax strategy, quote unquote, of we'll just go buy an asset so you can depreciate it. I loathe that as a tax strategy because it's not a tax strategy. It's you going out and buying, a $70,000 car. You're still spending $70,000 on that car, more if you need a loan on it, right? Because now you're gonna pay interest on that vehicle purchase. So yes, you're seeing the depreciation, but you're also still going to be out that cash plus more to make that happen.
[00:18:37] Now, if you've been needing a vehicle for your business, if your business has been needing a truck, then by all means, if it's in your budget and it makes sense for this tax year to go do it, then go do it. This is why I can't stand the tax advice on social media because they're like, go buy your 6,000 pound vehicle and depreciate it with bonus depreciation. I work with online service providers and those people are online service providers, so I would love to know what their bonafide business purpose is for using that vehicle in their business. Because they do everything virtually. So when the IRS comes to audit you, what are you going to tell them was the bonafide business purpose for that vehicle, which is why you were depreciating it in your vehicle?
Make sure you don't miss any deducations on your tax return
[00:19:21] Kimberly Tara: But I do wanna say that making sure you haven't missed any deductions is definitely a tax strategy, and that is something that we work with our clients on because some of it's a mindset piece. So if you're a newer-ish business owner, it can sometimes be difficult to go from that employee mindset to employer mindset and expenses that you might have had in the past as an employee were not deductible on your tax return. But now as a business owner, they are a business expense. So that's one way that we wanna make sure our clients are not missing deductions. Actually just making sure that they understand that this is now a business expense because they are a business owner.
[00:20:05] The other thing that I see for missed deductions is actually tracking them. If you're putting expenses on a credit card here, and then you're paying things via PayPal here, oh, but sometimes I send a Venmo, oh, and then I use my checking account to ACH it. You could very well miss the PayPal expenses or the Venmo expenses. So now you are missing deductions that could be on your tax return.
Make your travel expenses into a business expense
[00:20:28] Kimberly Tara: And then the final step, which is the more advanced step of making sure that you're not missing business deductions as a business owner is, again, getting creative and proactive. So for example, one of the things that I like to teach our clients is how to make travel expenses a business deduction. And there are some rules that the IRS puts out of what qualifies as a business expense when it comes to travel.
[00:20:56] So what we need to do is be creative and proactive to make sure that our travels meet the requirements so that it can legitimately be a business deduction and it's legal and ethical.
[00:21:07] That I know that's a lot. That's a lot to swirl around, but it goes from the most simple act of just making sure that you're tracking all of your expenses, all the way to the true tax strategy of working with a qualified professional who can assist you and teach you how to turn non-deductible expenses into deductible expenses.
Other examples of tax strategy for online business owners
[00:21:31] Samantha Mabe: Okay. Can you give us another example of what this might look like for an online business owner who is like a service provider?
[00:21:39] Kimberly Tara: Yes. Everyone loves to talk about electing S corporation status, right? So maybe you start out as a sole proprietor or, and then you get your LLC, which I always like to say anytime I'm talking about LLCs, remember, there is no LLC tax return. That is something that is with your Secretary of State. That's how you register. That's more in the legal sphere, but becoming a limited liability company then allows you to have more tax return filing options.
[00:22:10] And so everyone loves to talk about this elusive S-corp. So I would say when you're starting to approach the 100,000 gross revenue threshold, and really it does depend a little bit more on your profit margins and your net taxable income, but at most, people don't always know their net income, but everyone typically knows their gross revenue and how much money they've brought in. So that's why I like to use that a hundred thousand dollars mark. Because depending on your profit margin, that's a good place to start.
[00:22:45] So by electing S-Corp, you are removing some of the self-employment taxes that you have to pay on your income tax return if you're a sole proprietor filing on Schedule C of your form 1040. So that one is, it's really easy, in my opinion it's a little overly thrown out there by business owners, other tax professionals.
[00:23:12] And so what I want you to hear is if you are approaching that threshold where you say, okay, I think it's about time for me to and we call it entity selection. You're changing the type of entity that your business files taxes. And I want you to remember that you then need to have a reasonable owner's compensation and an accountable plan. Those are two things that if you're going to use the S-Corp election to have reasonable owner's compensation and an accountable plan.
[00:23:46] So entity selection is another form of tax strategy, and I would say for most online service providers, once you're starting to approach that gross revenue mark, it's time to start thinking about how you file your taxes, what type of entity you file as, because that really can save you on those self-employment taxes, which are 15.3%.
[00:24:12] Samantha Mabe: Okay. And I think that is one we have heard of. People have talked about S Corps, and I'm not even sure we all know what that means, but we know some people say it can save you money.
You need to know your numbers to benefit from a tax strategist
[00:24:22] Samantha Mabe: So I think a lot of this is, we have to think about our business and bringing on somebody who can help us with this because this is not something most of us are ever going to be familiar with.
[00:24:37] Kimberly Tara: I agree. So I'm not saying I agree because, I just want more business. I'm actually a very honest person who's I don't think you're ready for us, or I don't think that we'd be a good fit. And I've had a couple of people come and want to work with our firm, but they didn't have it wasn't that they didn't have a bookkeeper, it was that it was October and they couldn't tell me their numbers for the current year.
[00:24:58] And so like I mentioned back in the beginning, if you don't know your numbers, if you don't know your net income, Don't go to a tax strategist because th they're just gonna take advantage of you. I hate when it's oh, just come sign up for tax strategy. We'll save you money. But they haven't looked at anything. How do they know that they can save you money without looking at your tax returns, without talking to you about your situation, talking to you about your current year and where your numbers are and what your goals are for the coming years? All of that plays into coming up with your tax strategy for your business and your personal situation.
3 steps for finding the right CPA for your business
[00:25:33] Kimberly Tara: And I would love to give you my three step process for finding the right CPA for you and your business.
[00:25:40] And that is, first assess what type of accountant or CPA you need. These words, accountant, CPA. They're just thrown out there and many people don't realize that there are different types of CPAs and accountants and Somebody might specialize in payroll, someone might specialize in taxes like I do. Someone might specialize as a bookkeeper. Someone might just do CFO, chief Financial Officer, services, and then you have auditors and things like that we don't even talk about in the online world. So make sure that you know who you need, right? If you don't have a bookkeeper, or you as the business owner are not keeping accurate and timely records of your business numbers, you need a bookkeeper first. You don't need a tax strategist. You need a bookkeeper.
[00:26:26] So once you've figured out in step one, who your business actually needs as an accountant, as a CPA, the second step is to do some research. Ask your business friends who they're using, Google, do whatever it looks like for you. But after you found three or four or five people, do your due diligence and really follow up. Check references, check their licensure, right? Like I'm in Louisiana, so you could go to the state board of CPAs for Louisiana and call them or put my information and ask, has anybody ever filed a complaint? Are they up to date on their licensure and their continuing education hours?
[00:27:03] And then the third is to interview at least two to three CPAs before choosing one. Because hopefully at this point you've narrowed it down and they're both qualified or they're all qualified. But they might answer questions differently or they might have a different approach, or one might be more responsive than the other, or you just get a better vibe for you and your business.
Your tax strategist should stay with you long-term
[00:27:25] Kimberly Tara: Because one thing that I want to really leave here is this is a relationship. This is hopefully in all going relationship where you place a lot of trust and confidence in this person. They are playing a very vital role in your business and your personal livelihood when it comes to your money and your finances. I don't encourage you to hop around year after year if you need to make a change because there's a reason, make the change. But really try and do your due diligence upfront to find someone that you want to be with for a while, that you really trust, that you're confident in the education and the answers that they're giving to you.
[00:28:05] Because I can tell you, my clients that have been with us for seven years, I know their businesses like the back of my hand. I don't have to look at anything when they call or email. I know how to guide them and how to talk to them.
[00:28:19] Whereas businesses that have just come on board in the last year, were working to get up to speed to learn their businesses that way. But just, you can't, it's time.
[00:28:28] And so I would encourage you to try and find someone that you wanna be with and have a relationship with for the long haul and feel that vibe with them that they're your person.
Find a CPA that will answer your questions and educate you
[00:28:37] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, that's great advice, especially interviewing and seeing how they answer questions. I know in my business, like this is a topic that I don't know very much about, but you want somebody you feel like you can ask questions of they're going to take the time to answer them. They're not gonna nickel and dime you for every question, or at least you understand how that process is going to work so that you're not sitting there going I have this question, but I'm afraid to ask it because I think it's gonna cost too much or it's gonna be complicated, or I'm not gonna come out feeling confident in what I've learned at the, on the other side.
[00:29:10] Kimberly Tara: Absolutely. So true. Yeah. We don't nickel and dime our clients, which is a, again, why I probably, I don't like the billable hour. But also I've unfortunately heard a lot of stories and I feel like I expect this from from male CPAs and financial professionals that they speak very condescendingly to women.
[00:29:27] But I've recently heard some stories of some female CPAs in the online space that also made their clients feel that way. That there was a lot of shame in asking the question or the way that they responded, and that's just so disappointing. We should be held to really high standards because of the type of work that we do. And it's never okay to shame someone or make somebody feel less than
[00:29:49] We all have questions, right? I think sometimes that I feel really stupid when I ask an Instagram question to a marketer. I'm like, 'So like, how do I post this reel? Like how do I make a reel?' And they're probably thinking girl, this girl is she's dumb. Like she doesn't know anything. But that's not my wheelhouse, that's not my zone of genius. And if I spent all my time trying to master how to make a reel on Instagram, it would take away from my time spent as a CPA and tax strategist and making sure that I have the knowledge for my clients.
[00:30:18] So I think just remember that, I don't think that you should know all of this as a business owner. I do think that you should have some working knowledge around your business, finances and taxes, and you should have some understanding of how it works. But no, you should be asking me questions and I should be willing to explain and educate you on those questions because that's my job and that's what we're here for. And I don't expect you to know this information like I know this information, this is over a decade of knowledge in my head that I could never get out for someone.
[00:30:52] Samantha Mabe: And it makes so much sense when you say we have to stay in our zone of genius and we have to know a little bit about everything. Especially as the CEOs of our business. We have to understand okay, this is why we're doing this, but I don't need to know exactly the tax code, but I need to understand that this decision is going to be profitable for my business. And understand that tax strategy and working with somebody is actually beneficial to my business and not just I'm paying somebody money and I don't know really what their ROI on that is.
[00:31:25] Kimberly Tara: Yes. Oh, I think that working with any sort of financial professional should always be an investment and there should be an ROI.
[00:31:32] I think I can say all of our clients save more int tax savings and missed opportunities or we've had some people come in and their tax returns were incorrect when they were previously filed, so we were able to amend them for them and get them some money back.
[00:31:47] It is always our goal, we cannot guarantee it cuz the IRS does not legally allow us to, but our goal is to always be saving our clients more than what they're spending with us. Because I think that's what we're here to do. I think that's part of our job.
Connect with Tara
[00:32:02] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. Awesome. I know we talked a lot about this and it's probably something most of people aren't familiar with, so do you have any resources where people can learn more about tax strategy, learn from you and connect with you if they want to dive deeper into this?
[00:32:17] Kimberly Tara: Yes. The best thing to start, so we talked a lot about those missed deductions, right? That's the easiest thing that you can do as a business owner by yourself without working with a professional specifically, is ensuring that you're not missing out on any deductible business expenses. I do have a resource. It's 118 tax deductions for service providers. And whether you've been in business for six months or six years, I guarantee you there is probably something on this list that you're like, Ooh, I never thought of that. This is something you can be doing on your own without having to engage a CPA.
[00:32:52] I love getting voice messages on Instagram. I call Instagram my landing page because I do not post on social. I wasn't kidding when I said I don't know how to really make a reel. Like I, like it's bare bones how to make a reel. So I don't post a lot, but it's my landing page, but I love voice messages in the dms back and forth and connecting. If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer without knowing everything. I'll do my best to answer for you.
[00:33:17] And then there is an opportunity to learn with us. We have the Wealth Learning Lab and that is where we are educating female business owners, service providers, how to start thinking in terms of tax strategy and to just start viewing their finances and taxes a little bit differently and to really step into their role of CEO confidently because they understand their financials. They understand their taxes, they understand how to be proactive and creative, and then they also have access to pick my brain as a partner.
[00:33:55] Tax strategy and business finances in general, it's really not a one size fits all. Every business is unique. Every person has a little bit of a different situation. And so inside of the Wealth Learning Lab, it was really important to me to still give that opportunity to receive customized support so that you can get your questions answered and say, 'hey, you talked about how to do these travel expenses and how to turn them into a business expense. Am I doing it properly? Here's what I'm thinking. Here's the plan that I came up with. Can you provide feedback or can you go deeper into that?'
[00:34:29] And that's so important to me because I do really feel like everybody's a little bit different when they, when it comes to their business, finances and taxes. You need to have someone who can actually answer specific questions for you and not just have it be a template or a course or something that's one's trying to be a one size fits all.
[00:34:49] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing, and I will leave all the links in the show notes so people can connect with you, but I am so excited for my listeners to dive into this topic and start thinking about all of this differently so that they can make these smart decisions in their business.
