Read The Transcript Here:

Steven Jarvis, CPA (00:51)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next episode of the Retirement Tax Services podcast, Financial Professionals Edition. I’m your host, Steven Jarvis, CPA. And joining me this week for the podcast is a local friend and financial advisor, Mary McDirmid who’s here in Spokane with me. Mary, welcome to the show.

Mary McDirmid (01:07)
Thanks for having me. I do love a local connection.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (01:12)
Yeah, it’s so fun. I love being able to do things virtually and help people all over, but I’ve definitely made the effort over the last couple of years to have more of a presence here in Spokane. It’s fun to be part of a community and support what’s going on. So Mary, you and I have had lots of conversations over the years. In particular, for this conversation, we want to talk about this overlap between tax planning, financial planning, and tax preparation. In fact, I think what prompted you joining the podcast was actually a post I’d made on LinkedIn about, what does this experience look like? I probably said something to the effect of, just want to mandate that every financial advisor prepare a tax return, because I think it’s good information. But before we dive into your experience with tax prep and how it informs what you do now, just give us a little bit of a background of what your involvement in the financial planning world looks like.

Mary McDirmid (01:57)
Yeah, awesome. Yes, I did write, I volunteer as tribute. I have prep taxes in my previous life. Yes, so I started in 2016. I’m coming up on 10 years, which seems short and long all at the same time. I happened to be pregnant with my second child, Ruth, and she was born with a rare disease. So I…think this industry is wonderful and brutal all at the same time. And I used to drive to work thinking I can be a good person and I can do this job. And that is true. I am a good person and I can do this job, but the atmosphere, the vibe, let’s say in 2016, it’s just hard.I think it’s just hard and I think more people are speaking up about being a person and doing this job and we’re going to change the face of the industry a bit, but I do get, like we go to networking things and I’m like, yeah, I’m a financial planner and I’m like, yep, roll your eyes. I get it. You’ve met 600 of me and that’s cool, but let me tell you what I do for a living, right? And let me tell you why I’m different.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (02:57)
So Mary, when you say you started in 2016, that’s when you started into financial planning. So before that was your more traditional tax prep, let’s get some returns done. And then you transitioned into this wonderful world of financial planning.

Mary McDirmid (03:10)
Yeah, yeah, so I was one of those real crazy workaholic people. So I had two jobs, which was awesome during tax season. So I got my degree in accounting and finance, thought I wanted to be a CPA, which I love that you are, worked for a CPA for six months and realized like, I’m a little more extroverted than they probably want. And the ladder up to like ownership or client facing seemed very long and I just wasn’t patient enough really. I’m sure I would have been a wonderful CPA if I could have gotten to that spot. It just seemed very data entry for very long time and I wasn’t really wired that way. And so I had a job for Collector Car Auction Company, which of course you did. I worked for Collector Car Auction Company and then in the tax seasons for 10 years, I prepped tax.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (03:54)
Well, Mary, I think that’s helpful insight for people who’ve never been on that side of it, because I’ll touch a lot of financial advisors who I think somewhat generously will assume, oh, well, CPAs are a lot like CFPs or whatever credential somebody happens to have. But the tax professionals are a lot like financial advisors. They do numbers. They work with people all day. They like have these client relationships. And most of the time, that’s not really true because a financial advisor is more it can be traditionally or stereotypically is more on the client service, like sales side of things. And I don’t mean that in any kind of negative way, but it’s, hey, here’s, here’s the things I know and the things I’m going to help you do. You’re helping somebody navigate this like path through life where you’re kind of having to convince them over and over again, like this is a good idea and this what we need to stick to. Whereas on the tax professional side, out of the gate, pretty much everyone is just doing data entry. Sure. It’s, it’s a little bit complicated data entry. There’s a lot of rules with it, but you start sitting at a desk, just brightening things out, trying to get as much done as you can. There is no like, hey, this is the plan you should follow. You’re just, this is the way it is. Good luck. Like there isn’t inherently that back and forth like client service dynamic. And so that’s the foundation that a lot of tax professionals come from, which I think is one of the places we start to see a little bit of conflict between financial advisors and tax professionals because they just start from inherently different places.

Mary McDirmid (05:12)
Well, yeah, if you think of like the process of doing a tax return, it’s a year thing. It’s like, okay, give me all your stuff for this year. I’m going to process and give you an output for the year. Right. And so, and I think like I worked for a great CPA in town and he actually paid me off efficiency. And so I was actually, that was my first commission based job, which sounds kind of crazy and different, but like the more efficient I was, the more I got paid. So he’d be like, okay, this costs X amount to prepare for Y client, you get 25 % if we’re more efficient. And I was like, okay, like I can be efficient. Like I can set up things and the next year every time when somebody comes back, you get really efficient with it, right?

(05:54)
But that is a year to year game, right? It’s not a…Wow, I wonder what the things we’re doing now and how that’s gonna look in 15 years. And also, like what you said, it’s a translation to me of very big ideas that are pretty far down the road and a commitment of it today. Like, I’m gonna commit to put Axiomoney away today to have this great thing happen down the road, but it’s not happening now. And in the tax world, you’re like, okay, well if I do even a bit of Roth contribution today or whatever, it does impact my tax return today, right? So you get that instant gratification kind of type of scenario. And also like I’ve heard people come through, even them not knowing I was a tax before be like, well, how much are you going to save me this year? And I was like, yeah, that’s not how this kind of, this doesn’t work. Like the billing of hiring someone to save you money that year. And then it’s just a wash because it costs you $600, but you saved $600 by finding something in my tax return, right?

Steven Jarvis, CPA (06:58)
I’m glad you bring that up because we’ll come back to that last piece. You said I want to want to circle back just for a second, though, because you talked about it being year to year, which I totally agree with that. That is one of the challenges on the tax professional side. It’s hey, you hired me to do my twenty five tax return. Let’s get twenty twenty-five done. The other piece of that and this I think this is kind of implied in what you’re saying is that it’s also very much rear view mirror. It’s what already happened. And I think that’s a dynamic that’s been reinforced both by taxpayers and tax professionals, of most people want to ignore all of this until January or February. We want to talk about it for a shorter period of time. And then we want to move on and not talk to each other again for a year because we’d rather pretend taxes don’t exist. And when we do talk, when consumers and tax professionals talk, it’s usually for that last point you made. It’s how much can you save me right now? And what’s been fascinating to me about that dynamic is that since I work so closely with financial advisors in the work I do, all the taxpayers I work with have a financial advisor.

(07:53)
And so I get to talk to their advisors. I get to see them after they have had meetings together. And you’ll have savvy clients who will go to their financial advisor, make long term plans for the next five, 10, 20, 30 years, and then leave that meeting and metaphorically or actually go right into a meeting with a tax professional and still say, how much can you save me right now? Iit’s been so ingrained in all of us that taxes are inherently always bad and we should always delay them as long as possible.

Mary McDirmid (08:22)
Totally, yeah, and I think that’s the trap, right? That’s the trap you get in, because you’re like, yeah, I’m 44, I am 44, I’m in my high income wage years, I’m gonna shove a bunch of money in pre-tax, and yes, that saves me this year, I’m pumped. But yeah, as you know, with all financial planners, you cash flow that out to when you have to take your RMDs, so you don’t have actually take that money out before then, it’s painful, right? But we don’t know that or think about that, unless you know somebody that’s taken RMDs or RH has inherited, and IRA qualified, then you don’t know, you don’t even know what I’m talking about. Like you don’t even know those acronyms exist, right? And so I just think both of our industries talks in very complicated terms and we don’t take the time to be like, let’s make this crayon, let’s make it easy, let’s also make it so it’s absorbable. And also like, I don’t want my tax person to be like the bad guy. Like I like owing, I’ll o, like just to be straight up. Like I don’t want to loan anybody my money for a full year. Like I’ll owe up to a party large amount because I’m like, cool. I’ll pay my bill when it’s due. I don’t want to pre-vave. I don’t have to. I’m not that human. But I also know the game, right? I know the game because I’ve done tax returns for people. So I’m like, yeah, like you’re just loaning people your money. You’re not actually getting a check in April that…is helping you, right?

Steven Jarvis, CPA (09:47)
It’s yeah, it’s just it’s just your money back. Yeah, so to Mary, let’s talk about that because that’s again, I think where this conversation originally came from was a post I made on LinkedIn that if I had a magic wand, I would make every financial advisor to prepare at least some number of tax returns. I don’t think that everybody needs to go out and become an EA or a CPA or do hundreds of returns. But you just spoke to it there that there’s insight that you have this perspective you have that you gained because you prepared tax returns. Are there other things that come to mind of Things that stand out to you of, I get that better than most because I’ve seen how the sausage is made.

Mary McDirmid (10:18)
Yeah, think I mean just qualified money in general of like shoving money into a 401k. Yes, if they get a match all those things are great. If you want to max out you can you just know as long as they know the deal like know the chessboard right if you know you that’s going to be due at some point you can’t put money away pre-tax and not end up paying tax at some point. Will you be in a lower high tax bracket, then all depends on the scenarios you have within your family dynamic, right? Do you have a pension? Okay, that’s painful, right? I mean, let’s just like talk inside, like pensions are painful and amazing all at the same time, right, with qualified money. I think people think they’re being sneaky with farms and rental properties and like I’ve seen some stuff where you’re like, no, you’re not fooling me. You’re definitely not fooling the IRS, right? Like you don’t have a farm, you have chickens and you sell chicken eggs and you don’t actually have a farm. And that kind of ages me, right? Cause I haven’t done it in 11 years. So it’s probably like they fixed some of those hobby laws rules and some of that stuff. Also like.

(11:24)
A couple people got audited when I was there, like, home office, better be a freaking home office. They’ll come to your house, right? Like, don’t have a home office with a bed in it where someone can sleep. Like, that’s not a home office. That’s an extra room where you put a desk, right? So like, I think some of the sneaky things people thought they were doing, I was like, that’s not, that’s not gonna work. That’s not gonna and like you owe tax, just pay the tax you owe. Like it’s not like they’re trying to rip you off. You shouldn’t try to rip them off. Like don’t overpay, but like just follow the rules.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (111:58)
Yeah, pay every dollar you owe, just don’t leave a tip. There’s two thoughts that come to mind as you’re describing that. One’s a little bit a tangents, we’ll just a tiny bit down and then we’ll bring it back. This conversation has come up several times recently of, and actually most of time it’s talking to people who aren’t in either profession that know I’m in taxes and they say, hey, how come more people don’t get caught doing X, Y and Z? The most recent one that came up was S-corp elections with zero salary. I was talking to a good friend recently. He has a lot of friends that are in like a 1099 sales environment and they get, it’s probably a relatively kind of insular group. And so all of them probably work with the same CPAs, but he’s telling me, talking to these friends and they all, they’re all 1099 sales people. They all have S-corps. None of them pay themselves a salary. Like, hey, how come more of them don’t get caught? Well, first his question was, can they do that? And it’s like, well, technically they can, it’s just not allowed and they will get in trouble.

(12:47)
And so one of the thoughts that’s been coming to mind more recently for me is the IRS is notoriously decades behind on technology, but that won’t last forever. And a lot of these things that you’re describing, even before AI has really advanced the last couple of years, even if we just go to computers like five or 10 years ago, when the IRS finally catches up their systems, they won’t even have to audit people. This stuff will get automated and people are gonna get destroyed and…

Mary McDirmid (13:14)
You got home office. Like, there’s a checklist of risky things, right? And you’re like, cool, cool, cool.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (13:18)
There’s gonna be part of me… Yeah, they’re just, they’re going to run it through and just, okay, every S-corp that has profit, but no salary for the owner, they’re all going to get flagged. Like, and there’s part of me that it’s going to be a guilty pleasure to watch all of those people just get destroyed because there’s so many people who are so flipping about it. Anyways, that’s a whole different rabbit hole we could go down. I’m, I’m going to stick with AI or not. I’m going to stick with the approach of I’m only going to do things on a tax return that I’m going to feel good about explaining to an IRS agent. Even though I know less than 1 % of the returns I do are ever gonna get audited. I’m still gonna do it in a way assuming that every one of them could be audited and I wanna have a good explanation. That’s why when I do have, it definitely happens where I have clients that get audited. That’s just part of the deal. I don’t get scared when that happens. I don’t love it. I would rather not deal with it, but I’m not scared because I know I wasn’t trying to pull one over on them.

Mary McDirmid (14:03)
Yeah, you’re backed up. You got the receipts, right? You’re like, I’m not doing… I think that’s a misnomer too, where people, like, I’ll go get my taxes done by a CPA and then they’ll sign off and I’m cool. And I’m like, that is part of it, but you can’t ask them to do shady stuff.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (14:15)
And it’s still your return. Your name still goes on it next to the CPAs. The other thing I wanted to pull out of what you were talking about, Mary, especially with the qualified money is that, and I have to watch myself on this too, because it’s just so easy to throw around the word tax savings. But I think most people use the word tax savings incorrectly. That basically we will look at anything that lowers my tax bill today, we’re just going to call it a tax savings. And you were hitting this right on the head of, hey, someday that bill is going to come due. And there are a lot of these things that are just tax deferral. Some of them are more obvious. When you put money into a 401k, that one’s a little bit more well understood of, this is pre-tax money. I’m going to pay taxes later. A lot of people get surprised they have to pay taxes on pensions. They don’t realize that’s pre-tax money. That’s qualified money. Constantly people misunderstand depreciation, 1031 exchanges. There are so many things in the tax code where it’s easy for us to sit back and think of the IRS as this ambiguous blob of no one and that they have no good ideas or logic or reason. But it turns out, yeah, it turns out there’s still all real people there and Congress really likes taking our money when they have the chance to. And so when they give us an opportunity to save money now, it usually means they’re just gonna ask for it later.

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Mary McDirmid (16:04)
Yeah, and that’s why I’m like, I would have never known that stuff unless I’ve seen taxes with a 1099R and it’s somebody in their 70s at the time when I was doing it, 70 and a half. And they’re like, there’s notes in there that says, I don’t want this, I don’t need this, right? Or something, like, they’re like, why am I, you can see the notes of like, why do I have to take this out of my account? Right? And you’re like, yeah, they need, they’re gonna have their tax money. And I think the secure acts hasn’t really hit our generation, but they are going to be screaming. When a parent passes and you have 10 years in your highest earning years to drain out of an account, let’s say it’s $2 million, that is going to bump you into a tax bracket you are not going to love. Now, you get inheritance, congratulations, that’s super amazing, and I’m pumped for you, but not in your highest tax earning years, not spread over your lifetime anymore. That’s a reality. They’re gonna get their tax money and now they’re deferring it. Like, well, let’s say deferred. Like, your parents deferred it. They passed away. They still have chunks of money. They’re tugging RMDs. They’re deferring it to your generation and we are going to be the recipients of that.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (17:21)
Mary, I’m glad you bring up Secure 2.0 because as we’re recording this, the one big beautiful bill just passed and we don’t have nearly enough time to dive into that on today’s episode. But one of the things I’m trying to help people not lose sight of is that just because a new set of legislation passed doesn’t mean all the old stuff went away. And yeah, permanent, we’ll talk about that in a second. And not only is Secure 2.0 still out there, but there are still provisions that are just now being implemented. 2026, is gonna cause a lot of confusion and problems for people as catch up contributions suddenly all have to be Roth.

Mary McDirmid (17:54)
Exactly. How many times were we in meetings together where I’m like, do we have to take these every year? In a 10 year run, do we have to take it every year or can I wait for my clients to retire, take it all in year nine and 10 and split it up when they’re not having income? And there was zero answers forever, right?

Steven Jarvis, CPA (18:11)
That’s right, I remember that. We were doing a lunch and learn here at the FPA of Spokane. And I think that was long enough ago that I had to just basically honestly say, you know what? Not entirely sure. And so that was only within the, it’s been a year or 18 months now, the IRS finally did say, actually what we meant was, even though we told you we meant something else, what we meant was, yes, you potentially will have RMDs.Because Mary, to your point, a lot of people haven’t even come across this yet. So. The important thing to remember is that in most cases for non-spousal beneficiaries, if the decedent was taking RMDs, the beneficiary has to continue taking RMDs, although at a different amount, because why not make this as complicated as possible? And then yes, in 2026, we start dealing with catch-up contributions being required to be Roth, which will create all sorts of administrative issues. So definitely be checking with TPAs on that. But Mary, before I lose the thought on it, let’s talk about permanent tax changes. I love when that gets thrown around. So how come you’re using sarcastic air quotes?

Mary McDirmid (19:10)
permanent. I mean what permanent tax changes has ever been permanent? Like I don’t even know, I can’t even in my brain I’m like can I think of one? it maybe? I mean not even the brackets say the same right? Like I was like maybe the tax brackets and I’m like no, no.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (19:22)
I since income taxes started, there haven’t ever been a time where there weren’t income taxes of any kind. So the existence of income taxes so far has been permanent. But yes, I think I always give Ed Slott credit for this line, but I really love it of the tax code is written in pencil. That’s the simplest way to think of it. Just like Congress made a bunch of changes recently, they can make changes anytime they want. Permanent does not mean what you think it means when it comes to anything in the tax code.

Mary McDirmid (19:49)
Well, and I think the thing that we just mentioned to you like Secure 2.0 came out and like we’re like, I want to advise people on the best possible way on how they do this. had a client who of course, their parent passed away right when that happened and she’s like, do I need to take these out? And I’m like, they haven’t told us yet. So like you’re still working. Like let’s, let’s just wait. And then we’re just waiting and waiting and waiting. And then it comes out and you’re like, okay, cool. Let’s take it out. Let’s, let’s pay the tax. Let’s do the thing. But like just because it becomes signed, into law, the operational side of that I think nobody has the real idea of like how long will this take to be in operation? Who writes these, the tax law, who publishes them, who’s checking, then like what gear does it, can we get this in before we have to do a tax return? I think that was one of the things of Secure 2 is like, well, we can’t even implement this before we have to start filing, because tax forms are coming out to people and we can’t make this change in February, right? That’s brutal.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (20:52)
That’s probably another one that you have more perspective on than many financial advisors having done taxes is, sure, it’s July, this big, beautiful bill just passed. A lot of people might think, that’s tons of time. This won’t be a cataclysmically awful tax filing season for the tax filing world. And it will be because for anybody listening who hasn’t read the actual text of the big, beautiful bill, which I don’t blame you if you haven’t, I’ve only read sections of it. The bill itself is not written in a way that you can like implement and file a tax return based on. It’s a lot of, well, we changed this compared to the last law, and we extended this compared to the last law and we amended this compared to the last law. And so that all has to be taken and then put into actual IRCs into actual Internal Revenue Code. And then that all has to be taken and put into actual tax forms, which means that it’s felt the 1040s felt pretty stable the last several years, pretty minor changes, to the 1040 itself. I don’t think that’s gonna be the case this next year. I think we’re in for quite a few changes. We’re probably in for some new forms or some overhauls of how current forms work. Schedule A is definitely gonna look very different. And that all takes time. And going through that process is when all the unintended consequences come out. Not that I’m gonna sit here and predict that we’re gonna have the next backdoor Roth contribution out of this bill, but something will come up. It’ll most likely be tax attorneys that figure it out. They’re like, here’s what this says, even if they didn’t mean it. Now it’s written into law and we can do this other thing. So there’s plenty of fun to come.

Mary McDirmid (22:18)
Yeah, yeah, and I just think, I mean, without doing tax returns, I don’t think I would know even small implications, like extending the RMD age, right? Like for a certain group of people, great. Now you look up every year, like, okay, when were you born? You’re on this RMD schedule. You were born this year, you’re on this, like, something that doesn’t sound like it would impact, the return in total really does. And now that’s on both of our sides, right? Like when can somebody take an RMD? When are they supposed to? When do they have to? What amount? And then if you’re different age groups and different times, like that’s just a nightmare. Like just, it’s the same for everybody or not. Like when they do that in age bands, it makes it like not, mental gymnastics that you want to do when you have all these forms in front of you and you’re like, okay, I got to crank this out. Oh yeah, but what age were you? And then yes, did you take this? And then, oh no, no, no, you didn’t take it. Now you have a 25 % penalty because we missed it last year. Got to call your planner. That’s a huge mistake, right? Like that can like, I think go down a road really easily where everybody’s like, I’m just going to say sorry upfront. This year’s going to be kind of a cluster and we’re going to figure it out. But like, yeah, we’re all going to make a bunch of mistakes.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (23:28)
Yeah, which I really appreciate you talking about that way, Marion, because I think there’s gonna be too many people, we see this every time a big tax law changes, there’s gonna be too many people on the tax prep side who say, geez, I’m just gonna wait until they figure out the actual forms, I’m gonna wait until the implementation happens, which really means I’m gonna wait until January or February. And that, unfortunately, will happen a lot. But there will also be too many people on the financial planning side that say, well, this is a tax thing, I’m gonna wait and see what the tax professionals have to say. I’m gonna wait until after this first tax filing season. We’ll see how this all shakes out. And who really loses in the process is the clients, unfortunately, because if you don’t have proactive collaborative relationships, this is a big part of reason Retirement Tax Services was even started, was financial advisors came to me and basically said, hey, we can’t find CPAs who will play nice with us. And while we’ve made a lot of progress being able to offer that service to many advisors and continue to look for new advisors to partner with.

(24:20)
I will say that I’m meeting more and more CPAs who, when financial advisors approach them correctly, and by correctly I mean as actual peers, as they treat them like professionals, they want to work proactively so that everybody, including the client, wins. I’m finding more and more tax professionals who will come to the table and be active partners, but it takes a good partner on both sides of it. as much as, this conversation could feel to some listeners like, geez. Yep, that’s gonna be a mess and there’s no answer so may as well not even try. And that’s the wrong takeaway. It’s nice to be able to have these moments and say, yep, this is gonna be hard, this is gonna be challenging, but I mean, your options are cross your fingers and hope for the best or be proactive and serve your clients. So I mean, for me, I’m gonna pick be proactive and serve my clients. Yeah. Yeah.

Mary McDirmid (25:00)
Well, then have a team, right? You got two smart people and they’re looking at something from different points of view. Like I’m into that. Like I would love that rather than, we’re beaten to the same drum and we agree on everything. No, there would be things where even me and you would be like, yeah, what, what about this part? Like, what are we going to do here? This is the, this is, is the conflict that we’re going to have. What do you think? How can we work through this? And then how do we communicate it in an efficient way to the clients? So they know we’re both on the same team for them even if we don’t always agree on XYZ. It’s not like we’re married, it’s not like we’re always kumbaya with each other. There are going to be conflict things with a financial planner and a tax person. There just will be. But as long as you’re like, we’re working through this conflict on your behalf and yeah, we have different opinions, but we’re going to come to a conclusion and we’re going to give you the answer that we think is the best this year and then we’re going to keep analyzing, keep working on it, keep collaborating. I think that’s the advantage.

(25:55)
Even if you don’t agree, it doesn’t mean that you’re not working for their best interest. That’s the whole point of all of it. Yes, this year is important. Yes, the long term is important. But how do we marry those in an efficient way that makes sense to them? I think just our worlds make things so much more complicated than they need to be. In reality, give it to them in Crayon. Give it to them in English. Don’t take more than an hour.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (26:19)
All the important things. Well, Mary, to make this actionable for all of our listeners, if you haven’t already, even though it feels like this bill is new and everybody hasn’t really sorted it out yet, which is true, now is the time to be building those relationships, to be reaching out to those tax professionals in your life to say, hey, I know you’re probably still working through this. I wanna know how we can support, collaborate. I wanna know when we can have conversations about this. And then I say it all the time, but it’s going to be especially important for this next year as everything changes, you’ve got to be getting tax returns for all of your clients every single year. Especially in a year where there’s so many big changes, there’s just, there’s too many variables, it’s very prone to error. And so this is especially important to be getting tax returns. And as the financial planner, you don’t have to be auditing the whole return, you don’t have to sign off and give your stamp of approval, but you do need to at least be looking for the things that you were recommending to make sure. The impact you’re having on the tax return is coming through correctly.

Mary McDirmid (27:14)
Yeah, that’s what gonna ask you. Like I always want to texturing because I like them. I can read them. It’s so much information. It gives you everything you need. Like literally everything you need. Do you think the planners like are… don’t know how to look at them and get the information they need? Do you think that’s a hesitation of why they don’t think it’s something they need? Or what do you think is the resistance?

Steven Jarvis, CPA (27:33)
Well, Mary, now it’s just gonna seem like you’re a plant because I think that is the case at times and it’s why advisors give us such great feedback on the checklists that we put together, on the courses that we put together on reviewing tax returns. Because for advisors, is most advisors have never prepared tax returns themselves and so it does feel very foreign. It feels like, geez, how do I take this 70 page document, this 90 page document, whatever it is, and efficiently get through in a way I can deliver value? And so that’s why we put out checklists and resources and master classes and we have memberships. Anybody listening can go to retirementtaxservices.com and check all that out. Mary is not a paid spokesperson for us, but I do appreciate the question because it’s very real. It speaks to, you’ve seen this firsthand and there is this bouncing act of, we can have this thing over here that sounds really nice in theory of I should get tax returns and review them, but for most advisors, the immediate follow-up question is, but how? And so that is.

Mary McDirmid (28:24)
What is this? It’s gobbledygook, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I prep them. know them. know where they’re not. I can follow the form. I can follow the things, even though they have changed a bit from when I was prepping but like it’s so vitally important. Like you get little, if you only get one thing from them, get their tax return, it’s like, then you have everything. Their they make, distributions, you know how their mortgage basically, you can do some back math on things, right? Like there’s, it’s all in there. So if you only had one thing for me to do a plan on, if I could like choose one document, you can only have one, period. Nothing else. I’m going with it.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (29:04)
Mary, we got too nerdy on all this other tax stuff. I do wanna just take just a minute though and have you just talk just a little bit about the work that you do because you collaborate with other financial advisors at times, especially when it comes to special needs planning. And we don’t have time to do justice to what it is you do, but this is a topic where so many, you and I were talking about this before we hit record. So many people don’t make their plan for life assuming that this will become part of their life. You certainly didn’t. I don’t think anybody does, but then so many people end up in this situation where it’s, now somebody, whether it’s a child, it’s a relative, it’s somebody in your life that you love and care for now has this complication that has financial implications, that has so many things going on in life. And it’s something that comes on unexpectedly. So talk just really briefly about how you collaborate with financial advisors and how people can reach out and get connected with you if as they listen to that, they’re like, oh yeah, that’s come up before and I have no idea what to do.

Mary McDirmid (29:54)
Yeah, yeah, so like I said, I was pregnant with Ruth when I started this industry and then I realized, wow, this planning is so much more complicated. I am trying to make very high level, complicated things into crayon for our family, especially because efficiency, time, they wanna just love on their kids and I want them to do that as well, right? But from a financial view, like I’m not just planning to retire and then just spend my money and support my kids in whatever way that meant for a traditional family. Like I will also be supporting Ruth through her life in some form, financially and emotionally, right? And so what does that mean? Just on a high level is like the house we live in is in Mead and I love Mead, right? But it’s not on a bus line. So even if I could put a tiny home on there, have a tiny apartment or have some kind of separated living, she won’t have any autonomy to get anywhere because she might not drive. So it changes just a small thing where you’re thinking about where you’re going to live in retirement to a big choice. Should we get condos together? Can I buy something that she could then live in after I’m not around? Every decision has just a different lens. I tell planners, this gets financial planners usually most of the time, it’s like, this is a typical plan, right? This is your plan and your wife’s plan, right? Now you put these on and this is that kiddo, right? I’ve got to look through the lens of them to get your plan together and their plan. They’re not separating out, unfortunately, ever. And then the heartbreak that I told you about in a tax way is…All of our assets that are gonna go to support Ruth in the future go into a special needs trust so that she can keep the benefits that she needs while that special needs trust is taxed at the highest rate. And that is a gut punch to tell people, but I’m also a planner that’s not, one of my clients told me the other day, she’s like, you’re very direct and I appreciate it. But it comes with kind of a weighted blanket that is nice.

(31:51)
But I don’t know how to describe that in any other way. And I was like, well, I’m into that. That’s amazing. I am direct. I’m not going to not tell you the truth or not tell you the things that are hard or not tell you that future thing that’s in 10 years that is really, really scary. But I’m also gonna wrap you in some help. Yeah. And so we work obviously with the main public. We’re working on the whole, let’s call it the wholesale model. So working with planners. So we charge a fee to do a plan and then we work with the planner to make sure they can implement it. So we would put the plan together, hand that plan off to another planner, advisor, wealth manager, however you want to language that out. It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re working through some kinks, let’s say.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (32:31)
Any new model is going to have kinks to it, but part of reason I wanted you to touch on that was because again, this comes as a surprise to most people. Most people are not planning on a kid being born with a rare disease. So if an advisor is listening to this and wants to know it for the future or has a situation that they could use someone who specializes in this, how do they get in contact with you? How do they follow up with you?

Mary McDirmid (32:49)
Yeah, allneedsplanning.com, pretty easy to find. I am trying to post as much as Steven on LinkedIn and the socials, but I’m not quite to that level. He’s like on a super amazing level, like a schedule that I’m jealous of. But yeah, I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. We have our own Facebook group too where you can be as open with your questions as you want to be so it’s not open to the public. But just look up All Needs Planning and me and my partners. there so I two partners that are in Virginia as well so we can cover all the time zones and make sure all of our families are supported.

Steven Jarvis, CPA (33:23)
Mary, I appreciate your time and your insight in sharing so much of that. And again, that’s allneedsplanning.com. Check Mary out on LinkedIn. Again, really appreciate your time, Mary. And until next time for everyone listening, good luck out there and remember to tip your server, not the IRS.