Transcript

Steven Jarvis:

Hello everyone and welcome to the next episode of the Retirement Tax Services podcast, Financial Professionals Edition. I am your host, Steven Jarvis, CPA, and in this show, I teach financial advisors how to deliver massive value to their clients through tax planning. Returning to the show today, I have a very special guest — Micah Shilanski! Micah, welcome!

Micah Shilanski:

Steven, thank you so much for having me back on the podcast. I thought after   the last one, I was banished by the way. So I’m glad it wasn’t that bad.

SJ:

No, no, you certainly weren’t banished. You actually, you’re coming back for a Moose Camp as we record this, which for our…any TPR listeners who have been around for a while, you might remember a string of emails earlier this year that came from Moose Camp last year. So we’ll just keep this theme going — of you and I doing things around your Moose Camps.

Steven Helps Out with Tax Returns While Micah is at Moose Camp [1:06]

MS:

You know, Moose Camp is a great place. Number one, when I showed up there, the first thing one of our buddies said was no COVID talking whatsoever for the next two weeks. And I gotta say unplugging from social unplugging, from everything for two weeks and not talking about all the crap that’s going on was amazing. A downside of that of course, as we come back, there’s a little bit on your plate that you gotta deal with, and we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the tax issues that can come up during, in September.

SJ:

Yeah and in fact, that’s why we went ahead and scheduled this podcast, because your team reached out to me while you were out at moose camp, because, you know, as a member of RTS and wanting to have tax returns reviewed, they sent over a return and said, “hey, we’d love for you to take a look at this, we have some questions on it, and just any other feedback you might have.” And as I went through that return, there were some pretty big red flags that stuck out — some that your team had already identified, but we were able to kind of quickly put together, “okay, here’s what we need to address.” And when you got back, you were able to then turn around and then go and address that with the tax preparer.

MS:

And I got to tell you, not to make too much of a plug for RTS, but this was a huge win with our team in getting this set up because even if they had called me on my SAT phone and they would have done it, they would have had to explain and walk the returns for me because again, I am in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, there is no internet and I did…I got to climb a mountain to get a good SAT reception. So, you know, there’s no easy way for me to see this return and when the question came up, it was great Steven, to have you available, the team reached out to you, you’re able to review the tax return and then again, QSL for making sure we’re delivering value to client as soon as I got back. So it was wonderful.

SJ:

And I got to tell you, not to make too much of a plug for RTS, but this was a huge win with our team in getting this set up because even if they had called me on my SAT phone and they would have done it, they would have had to explain and walk the returns for me because again, I am in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, there is no internet and I did…I got to climb a mountain to get a good SAT reception. So, you know, there’s no easy way for me to see this return and when the question came up, it was great Steven, to have you available, the team reached out to you, you’re able to review the tax return and then again, QSL for making sure we’re delivering value to client as soon as I got back. So it was wonderful.

MS:

Okay. So let’s, let’s step back a little bit until kind of the beginning of the story, kind of what we’re talking about and where it led up, if that works for you.

SJ:

Please do.

MS:

So we have a couple of physicians that we work with. Now, advisors out there, we know physicians are phenomenal at communication, we’re turning in documents timely, signing…nope, I haven’t found those guys either, right? All right. So they’re really great at practicing medicine and what they do, they’re not really good on the other things, they kind of think about it once and it gets checked off. So normally we do a really good job in following up and getting things done. Well, this particular client, there were two of them, married, they were running as a sole proprietor. We had talked about it a decent amount in the past, moving to an S-Corp for the payroll tax savings, which is really nice. The reason we…it took a little while to move and Steven, you know this and for our listeners, to make sure we’re on the same page — the biggest thing when you’re moving to an S-corp versus a sole proprietor is how you’re receiving money. The IRS really doesn’t like you to take monthly owner distributions out as an S-corp, they consider that payroll. So we’re not getting any payroll tax savings, so it took a little bit [time] to get to the client, to the cashflow where we could live off quarterly distributions. So that was kind of our game plan. We had got most of that set up in 2020, and the plan was talking with the client this year, 2021. We were going to make that switch to an S-Corp. That was what we had chatted about. That’s what we had chatted about with the CPA at the end of last year, right? In November, when we had talked, we had gone through all of this. That’s what, all of our notes and Steven, you were able to read my notes, when I was gone, which was great. The team sent those over to you and that’s kind of what it said, right?

SJ:

Yeah. That’s a pretty accurate summary.

MS:

Perfect. So that was the thought process. And then of course, reality comes in, right? That was our theory of what we were going to do and reality comes in, and our team is bugging the clients and, and trying to get copies of their tax return, because they hadn’t sent it over. A failure on our part was that we should have gone out to the CPAs sooner and we didn’t, but September 10th comes around, which is right around a retirement contribution deadline and the client calls the office and says, “Hey, I want to make a $75,000 contribution to my retirement account.” My team’s like, “great, not a problem, we’re still missing your tax return, we’ve been following up trying to get it.” So the client says, “okay,” finally gets us their return. When the team looks at their return and all they requested for was the individual return, because that’s all we’ve received in the past because they were a sole proprietor. They look at that and not only is the sole proprietor missing from the tax return, but there’s no retirement contributions on there whatsoever. So the team is looking at this and saying: “All right, well, this is clearly over my head, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t tell him how much to put in his SEP account, I can’t tell him much to put in his retirement account, he wants to put 75 grand in, but nothing is mentioned on the tax return, what do we do?” And Steven that’s when they reached out to you and sent you this information.

SJ:

And you know, a lot of times on this podcast, we talk about getting tax returns and reviewing them as if they all happen in this nice little timeline where everyone does things on time and we can have things exactly where we want them. But unfortunately this isn’t that uncommon, that you talk about something in November of last year, just due to filing deadlines or extensions, maybe the       client doesn’t even have a return until late in the year and now, whether they’re physicians or anyone else, they’ve completely forgotten about that conversation in November.

MS:

Amen.

SJ:

A hundred percent that’s gone from their mind, all they’re thinking about is last year’s done and over with. It all happened magically perfectly, there’s no questions left, let’s talk about this year, because when you’re talking about that $75,000 contribution, they were already moving on to, I want to do that for 2021 and their mind, there were no questions left for 2020, right?

MS:

Right. Everything was being wrapped up and being done, so where was this contribution and where was it at? And so you were able to point out some great things for our team, one, pointing out that the sub contributions were not there and you very wisely said, you know, you didn’t prepare the return. There’s probably more things you weren’t going to recommend how much the client could put in a step because it wasn’t put on their tax return and there might be something else there in the documentation that we didn’t see. And so when I got back, I was able to reach out to the client…and correction, I reached out to the CPA first, I called the CPA’s office and I said: “You know what? I need a copy, when I looked at their returns, there was now a business tax return that wasn’t there in the previous years,” I said, “I need a copy of that.” One of the reasons, Steven, I really encourage to get multiple years of tax returns and I know you do the same thing, and I always want to lead with asking questions is [because] I hate being wrong. Yes. [laughs] I know this is an ego thing. I get that. All right. But it’s a really good thing to learn, regardless of your ego, take the default of the other professional, [they] probably know something you don’t right? Learn from them and it’s a much better way to have the conversation. For example, if I had called the CPA — and she’s a good CPA, we work with her — and I was like, “WTF, how come you didn’t put a sub contribution on this? We’ve been doing it for the last five years. How did you miss a $75,000 retirement contribution? What the heck were you then thinking?” No. Had I had led with that, the conversation probably would have went a little south. What do you think?

SJ:

Yeah, yeah. That probably wouldn’t have gone over so well. I know if you called me like that, even if I was completely wrong, if you started the conversation like that, I’m not going to do a lot to try to play nice; at that point, I’m in it for what works out for me. And I liked that you start with questions and for RTS members who have already sent me returns and gotten the videos back with my insight, you’ll notice that a lot of times I’m not giving you just declarations on every line item. A lot of times I’m giving you questions to make sure you have all the context because we really want to make sure that we understand what else might be at play. Part of the reason there’s so much opportunity with tax planning is because it’s so complicated. It’s really hard to see one or two line items and say, “oh, this must be the exact situation,” and so I love the approach you take of — let’s, let’s lead with some questions, let’s understand if there’s something else I’m missing? We clearly have an issue we need to get resolved, but let’s start with: “Hey, you’re a professional too, help me understand what went on here?”

MS:

And so this is something that I led with when I called, what we’ll call the CPA…um, Sue’s the client, right?

SJ:

Uh, yeah, Bob and Sue are the clients.

MS:

We’ll call her Sarah?

SJ:

Sarah. Perfect.

MS:

Sarah is the CPA and I give Sarah a call and again I’ve worked with her in the past, and the first thing I want to lead with is, you know, “this is my fault,” that’s where I take the stance, in saying: “You know what? We should’ve been more on top of the ball on the SEP contribution. We were not. We don’t quite know what’s going on in this picture. I see something’s missing on the return, but I should have been bird dogging this better, and I wasn’t, I apologize. Now we have this problem we need to solve. We’re past the September 5th deadline…15th deadline, excuse me, and I don’t see any SEP contributions on the retirement account at all. What do we need to do?” Now, when I had first called the CPA, they weren’t available; so when I talked to the assistant, they sent me the corporate tax returns. When I looked at the corporate tax turns, the CPA did put the SEP contribution on the corporate tax churn. So great news, it was on there, just wasn’t the documentation we received. So there was a two-part problem to this, Steven. Number one is that the SEP contribution really wasn’t documented well for our office to see and make it. The second part — at no point in time did I have a conversation with the client or the CPA about them switching to an S-corp in 2020, it was all 2021. So this was all like brand new information. When I had met with the client earlier this year, they said they were still a sole proprietor. Now this is a great clue that the clients have no idea…I mean, highly educated individuals, phenomenal in their specialty, and have absolutely no clue on how finance or taxes work. So my fault, and again, you know, my fault on this one, I should have been more proactive with the CPA in March. I talked with them November of last year, everything was on track for a schedule C, we weren’t moving to an S-Corp, I wasn’t even thinking about it.

SJ:

Yeah and this really drives home the point of why we stress so often — you need to get the actual documents. This isn’t a trust issue from the standpoint of, we think clients are intentionally misleading us, but this is just not their wheelhouse, like you said, they are incredibly educated, intelligent people, and yet they’re just, they’re telling you…and they thought they were completely honest: “we’re a sole proprietor.” And so this is why you have to get the documents. These things are so nuanced and complicated that we can’t just take their word for it and go with it — the client’s the one who loses in that situation. If you want to deliver value to the client, you need to get the actual documents and make sure that you’ve seen for yourself here is how it’s set up or here’s how it’s not.

MS:

And Steven, one that we see all the time, not particular to this case, but I always hear it, well by come an LLC. Well, great, how are you taxed on taxes and LLC?Great clue they have no idea how taxes work, right? They know they have to pay them, but short of that, because there is no taxation as an LLC that we know, right? But sometimes it gets confused. So rewind it back to this client. I called the CPA, I said: “Hey, clearly this is my fault. We had a communication issue.” I explained the SEP issue that was there and also asked the question about the     S-Corp. And I said, “Hey, this is my fault. I had missed it. I had put it in my notes that, when we talked last year, that we weren’t going to do the S-Corp until 2021.” And then, Sarah, the CPA goes: “Yeah but when I met with them in December, we had the opportunity to do it. So we just went ahead and did it,” and then she said, “and I probably should have told you about that.” That would have been great, Sarah! [laughs loudly] I really would have liked to have known that, right, that this was happening, but it was done, right? It was done. They made the decisions, they did the returns, and so it took the client from where he was thinking, between him and her, they were going to make a $75,000 sub-contribution to where they couldn’t, they could make less than a $10,000 contribution because in the S-Corp they’ve reduced their income. And we didn’t have a K plan set up last year because the plan was not for them to do an S-Corp. It was for them to do S-corp in 2021. So we were a year behind this because of a last minute decision, the client and the CPA made together.

SJ:

Yeah and Micah, you can speak about this more, but I’m going to assume that there’s probably a lot of reasons that you didn’t want to just force it through the end of 2020, because some people will kind of market or advertise: “Hey, you should always switch to the S-corp! Do it right now! It’s nothing but upside. Just go ahead and do it!” They make it seem like a simple thing — but there’s a lot we need to consider and a lot we need to have in place before we make this change, so that we’re documenting things correctly, we have it set up the right way, so if the IRS did ever come asking, because sometimes they do, we can show…not just “hey we made this election” but we were operating as an S-corp. So when you’re queuing clients up for this, I mean, what are some of the things that are on your list of, hey, we need to make sure these are in line and then we’ll make the switch?

Micah On How To Make The Switch To S-Corp Carefully and Effectively [13:18]

MS:

So one of the things that we’d like to do as you know, that buckets is a far superior system, when it comes to retirement planning, as well as income planning, yes, I said that just for Jarvis, all right. So we like to use income buckets to help self-employed people plan, so what we do with this is we kind of set them up in their own little paychecks, and I love this for my scheduled C clients, my sole proprietors. Basically we create an income bucket at Schwab. Why Schwab? Because that’s where the custodian is, and wherever you want. I just don’t want their local bank because I don’t want them to be able to easily see it. And I’ll get clients to put a hundred percent of their income into that account, and then we’ll kick them out a monthly income, kind of like a payroll right? Now it’s not payroll because this is all under a schedule C, it’s all subject to self-employment tax, etc., but Steven as you’re seeing, what we’re doing is that we’re getting them used to getting a paycheck, we’re getting them used to how this is going to operate under an S-Corp, and then once a quarter, we do a larger distribution. So I’m getting their cash flow consistent, so they know what money’s coming every single month, I’m getting them used to living on a payroll and I’m getting them used to being able to have money on a quarterly basis for profit sharing distributions. So that’s the first step I want to see before I move someone to an S-Corp. And now what have we done? Oh, sorry, go ahead.

SJ:

I was just gonna say…I just really want to quickly highlight that what you just described is not the IRS’ requirements of how you prepare for this; this is the process that you’ve found to most effectively help prepare your clients so that this is a great experience for them. You’re going beyond just, “hey, let’s check the box on compliance,” and saying, “how do I really deliver massive value and make this an amazing experience?” So I just want to highlight that it’s such an incredible approach, but this is something you’ve learned and intentionally designed because you know it’s going to make their experience better and prepare them for that.

MS:

That’s right. Now Steven, what I heard, because I know I’m up in Alaska, so I just want to reiterate that — what you said was buckets was the most effective way to deliver massive value to clients?

SJ:

If that’s the way you want to hear it, Micah, that’s great. [laughs] Let’s let’s go back to the S-Corp thing.

MS:

All right. Fair enough. So I really liked setting it, and again, that’s just picking on Matthew Jarvis, but I really like setting up the income buckets in this way because it’s going to allow clients to live on this. And again, if we make a mistake and you tell me from the CPA perspective, if they’re a schedule C and we do this and they end up taking more money out, they’re not really doing quarterly distributions, have we caused any tax issues whatsoever?

SJ:

Not a one. Nope.

MS:

Not a one. Now, if I’d flip this around, if a client wasn’t very good in quarterly distributions and I said, “great, we’re going to implement this S-corp, I’m going to pay you $5,000 a month, and you’re going to have a $50,000 a quarter distribution,” and the client comes to me every month and pulls 30 grand out of their Schwab account, and now every month they’re pulling 30,000 out of their Schwab account, Steven, is there a potential issue with that?

SJ:

Yeah I’m sure, because under S-Corp now you’ve got the distinction between what’s payroll and what’s distributions, and while there’s a potential advantage in doing that, the IRS still expects this very vague term of reasonable compensation, and there’s some really easy ways to raise giant red flags, if the IRS comes in like this. And so the way you’re describing it, if yeah, if you’re pulling out monthly distributions, as opposed to payroll from an S-corp, that’s an easy red flag for the IRS, you’re not even making their job hard.

MS:

No, no, that’s super easy. So, and again, this really depends just like everything else on your client, how disciplined are they on their cash flow, these particular clients weren’t super disciplined. So I love to have that set up running about a year in advance to prove the concept that yes, we can operate in an S-Corp. Now we can pull the trigger on an S-Corp and I’m not worried about quarterly distributions, I’m not worried about the IRS coming in and saying, “well this is payroll,” because it’s not, because we’re taking profit sharing on a quarterly basis and payroll is happening on a monthly basis.

SJ:

Yeah. I love that approach.

MS:

The other part that I do with this and I’d love your feedback is this also as you know, to make a retirement contribution, generally, a solo 401k in this particular case because they had no employees is going to be much more advantageous in an S-Corp than it is going to be just on a schedule C because again, with reasonable comp, we can help lower their income down, let’s not get into that discussion, let’s make my math easy and say the reasonable comp was 60 grand just to make my math easy — If we were in a SEP world, then all we can get as a percentage of that $60,000 into a retirement contribution, right? However, now that we’re in a solo-K plan, now I can max fund that solo-K plan with 20 plus thousand dollars and a percentage of profit sharing. So again, now we can combine these other retirement accounts to get more advantageous benefits to our clients.

SJ:

Yeah, you’re spot on. Even though the total possible contributions, the limits are the same on the S-corp side; when we’re doing the SEP side of it, there’s that additional percentage of income we have to look at. So given the same numbers, we might come out with a different amount we can contribute to SEP — a lower amount as opposed to the solo-K.

MS:

So that’s the…your advisors know, right? Listen to this, you guys know the benefits of these plans, and that’s the reason I like to get this set up in advance with clients using our income buckets, because now the 401k is being funded, we’re funneling that money to a separate account, we’re getting everything done in advance, so this doesn’t become a “oh crap it’s September 10th, where the hell is the money?” And especially with a 401k, you have payroll requirements, you gotta be marking that out as payroll that you’re taking this money out. So again, S-Corps are a little bit more complicated and I like that set up in advance.

SJ:

Yeah, I love the way you’re describing that and it’s a good reminder for any tax topic we’re dealing with on clients that the better job we can do teeing them up for things like this and advance the more successful the experience is going to be. Maybe it’s a little bit more detailed talking about S-Corps, as opposed to talking about doing QCDs or something else, but we want to plant these seeds early, start helping to educate our clients and make this an incredible experience, not just something that, oh, well that happened. Make sure they know what you’re delivering for that.

Taking Extreme Ownership and Learning Opportunities For The Team [19:04]

MS:

Yep. So now what we need to do…now, if I take what we just talked about and let’s go back to our clients, right, that we have this issue with. One, that the CPA was really great, and Sarah was like, “yeah, we should have let you know about this and we didn’t.” So we set up a different communication plan with that CPA in advance. We need to make sure I’m talking before I meet with the clients. I need to make sure I’m talking with the CPA and making sure we’re getting on the same page, especially this next year, especially any big changes that were there. So we got on a communication plan. That’s really, really important. Second thing we’re going to do — we’re going to do a three-way meeting with the CPA next time the clients are in, and we’re going to go through this and make sure all three of us are on the same page, and are getting it together. The other thing is just really reiterating to the client how important it is that they understand their tax structure, and they understand the contributions. Now that they’re moving our payroll, the good news is we shouldn’t have the SEP issue anymore because we’re withholding money every single month from their paycheck into a 401k. So that’s going to be funded on a monthly basis. Now we’re going to be dramatically ahead of it. One downside with the client, of course they miss that…good news is it was small, it was less than $10,000, but they missed that less than $10,000 contribution into their SEP account. So that’s going to be the bad news, that’s going to be there. So I’m going to take responsibility for that. I’m not going to blame somebody else. And we can argue whether or not our team had a good discussion on this, whether it was our fault or not, but I’m like, “nope, that’s not how extreme ownership works, extreme ownership works by you taking responsibility and moving on.” So I’m going to own that to the client and just say: “This is our fault. We didn’t communicate this better. This is how we’re going to fix it,” and I’m probably going to waive their quarter fee in lieu of the tax savings that they miss.

SJ:

Yep. Micah, I want to highlight this because that’s such a great way to describe how extreme ownership should work. That it’s not about — some convoluted discussion about whose fault it was or who started the problem, what you said is: “I’m responsible for fixing it going forward,” at least that’s the way I heard it. And that’s the extreme ownership works. Now, if we have a particular relationship where we’re constantly having to do this, maybe we have to reevaluate that relationship and do something to change it?

MS:

That’s a graduation conversation in that relationship, right? One of you needs to leave.

SJ:

Whether it’s the client or another professional, but when we get in these situations, we have to start with, how do I own this? What do I need to do differently? And I mean, I don’t know that you could come across a situation where you’re completely spotless and there’s nothing you could’ve done differently because we always have room for improvement. So I love that you take that approach of: “Okay, what could I have done? So that means I need to take ownership. I need to take responsibility.” I’d be waving your client’s next quarter fee to show them, “Hey, I’m committed to how this works and that we follow through on everything.” I think it is a great approach.

MS:

And there’s some great learning lessons that were taken back to the team.  Number one, this is still why I carry a SAT phone, so the team can still reach out to me. Number two is I love that you reached out to Steven and, and got this done. But when in limbo…and this is an interesting question I’d love, actually other advisors feedback on, but if you’re in limbo right now, and you’re coming up with a deadline, put the money in a retirement account. Because what’s the worst that happens, especially in a SEP account? We re-categorize it for the next year because the custodian doesn’t do any annual reporting on what that contribution year was for. So worst case scenario, we put money in and we roll it to the next year, what to do? Or if it’s an excess contribution, we pull it back within a month. Really no harm, no foul. So, you know, there’s a lot of things that we could do on that side. So it’s a great team training opportunity as well.

SJ:

Yeah. I love that recommendation that you take out experiences like this and turn them into team training, to say: “Okay, great. What did we learn from this one? What do we do differently next time?” You talked about putting a communication plan in place with Sarah, but yeah, from the team standpoint of, “are there decisions that we can go ahead and make up against a deadline that don’t have the potential for significant negative ramifications but sets us up to take advantage of potential upside?” And you’re exactly right in this situation —  probably would have just been better off to just go ahead and make the contribution kind of no harm, no foul, if we got it wrong, we can fix that.

Adding Contributions Into the 1099 Letters [22:44]

MS:

Yeah, pretty easy. Now the other thing that we’re going to probably do is on our 1099 letters, which is a huge value add we do in January, we’re going to put inside of there — what the contributions people have made to the retirement accounts. That’s one thing that really hasn’t come up but on our self-employed clients, it’s more and more important where they’re funding. So we’re going to start adding — have they made contributions and what tax year that was for, and then again, that’s one more piece that I can now give to the CPA, right? One more piece I can now give to the client. Would this have prevented it? I don’t know, but maybe the CPA would have looked at that 1099 letter and said, “hey, we’re missing a SEP contribution, make sure this happens.”

SJ:

That’s a great recommendation. We have an example 1099 letter available for RTS members, but we’ll get it updated and have a place for that before we roll it out for a Q1 value add, so that members can put their logo on and use it with their clients. So I like that recommendation.

MS:

Perfect!

Action Items [23:32]

SJ:

Yeah. Micah, I’m looking down our list of things we wanted to talk about and I think we’ve covered them. So we want to make sure that we have clear action items, right? Because knowledge without action is certainly not value. So you’re my guest, I’ll let you go first. What is something you would recommend to advisors listening? Let’s put this into action, add some more value to their clients.

MS:

Working on your communication with your COI’s, your centers of influence, always take responsibility, right? Always step up. And it’s amazing, the advisors I talked to and I’m just as guilty as you, in my own mind, I’m like, this is bull crap, this isn’t my fault, blah, blah, blah, look at all the stuff I had done. That’s my head trash but the reality is that doesn’t help the client and take responsibility, work on that communication with your COI’s.

SJ:

Yeah and you gave a great example in talking to Sarah. Always starting with “this is my fault,” because what that does is now they’re immediately thinking of solutions, not defenses. When you lead with…okay, Micah has taken responsibility for this so we can just solve the problem, we don’t have to worry about who is at fault here. And then the other phrase that’s always helpful to use when you’re talking to COI’s is “help me understand” — that’s another one that just keys them up for, “hey let’s solve this,” and not, “hey, let’s figure out who is wrong”. So I liked that. Always take responsibility when you’re working with your centers of influence. The next action item I’m going to recommend is that, you know, we talk about getting tax returns a lot on this podcast, but really you need to be getting multiple years of tax returns, at least two years of tax returns, and once you have clients in this habit, obviously you only need to get each year as it happens; but as you have prospects come on board, as you have new clients, that start with you, make sure you’re getting multiple years so that you can look for those changes, things you expect to change or changes you weren’t expecting. Having those side-by-side comparisons, really expedites, kind of looking for those initial yellow or red flags. That really helps the review process.

MS:

You know, and with that, don’t take the excuse from clients that’ll come up, and Steven, I don’t know if you’ve heard this or not, but sometimes clients will say, “well, I’m not going to give you this year’s return because it’s weird, I’m going to give you last year’s return because it’s going to be closer to the future,” but the problem is the weird returns are what’s going to bite you in the butt. Um, I mean, those are the ones that I want to see, sure, maybe in the last year, maybe 19’s return is more accurate for the future, but I still want that 2020 return, and we’re going to be sticklers about.

SJ:

Yeah. Great. Please give me the context of why you think this is the exception. I still want to see it, because there’s probably a good chance I’ve looked at more tax returns than you and when we’re talking to clients, so there’s probably things I can pick out. So yeah, this needs to be part of your process, this can’t be an option. As long as it’s an option, they’re going to opt not to do it because that’s how most of us operate. So make it mandatory — that this needs to be part of the process for you to do your best work, you need to have tax returns. The last action I’m going to recommend from this episode is that if you are an RTS member, make sure you get a return submitted to me and my team for review. We’re getting a lot of great feedback from advisors who are taking advantage of that, Micah included, and it’s really just one of the many value adds that we give to our members. So make sure you’re taking the time to do that. If you haven’t seen, or you can’t find the email with how to get that submitted, just send an email to advisors@rts.tax. My team’s happy to help you get that submitted so that we can get you some insight and help your clients out.

MS:

Awesome. Well, Steven, thank you for all the good work, by the way, I’m loving the newsletters that you get that are getting put out. It’s great information, great content. So shameless plug there for RTS, but I do like it, it’s a great stuff that’s coming out and I’m especially excited about this next year.

SJ:

Yeah, me too. In fact, I actually just heard from Christian in your office, asking about the newsletters and some things we’re putting out. So I know it’s getting used. Our membership keeps growing. I was actually at a conference recently and got to meet some RTS members, they’re all over the country. So Mikah, I really appreciate you being here today, taking the time to share this client experience. Sometimes the ones that didn’t go quite smoothly, aren’t our favorite to volunteer that “hey this happened” — but we get to learn a ton from it. So appreciate you doing that.

MS:

You know, one of the things that we’ve learned so much in the aviation community up here in Alaska, uh, because I’m a pilot, is the pilots that crash, it’s amazing what you can learn from them and all those little things that you were doing the exact same, and that’s one of the things we need in our advisor community. We need to be able to step up and raise their hand and be like, “hey, I could have done this one better,” and we all should learn from that because all that’s doing is adding massive value to our clients. So thank you for the opportunity to share.

SJ:

Awesome. Well, thanks everybody for listening until next time. Good luck out there. And remember to tip your servers, not the IRS.