56% of you are lawless degenerates π§ - opting for the "give me all the above" content on last weeks poll. But I'm here for it. It fits in with the below graphic that pretty well sums up what I'm about: my mission is to lower the cost of capital for business owners, investors, and advisors through accounting, tax, and planning. So this week, we're going to talk about a concept I've been cooking on for a little while: how to capture 80% of good tax strategies and plot them out chronologically...
13 days agoΒ β’Β 9 min read
An unexpected benefit of writing this newsletter for the last 6 months has been the ability to clarify what I do and for whom. The best experiences I've had are when I'm walking alongside entrepreneurs on a path to meet their personal financial goals by lowering their cost of capital - quantifiable and not. This journey usually follows three steps unique to business owners: Get better accounting Get better tax strategy Get better business forecasting I spend a majority of my time on #2, but...
20 days agoΒ β’Β 5 min read
Confession - this is the second newsletter I wrote this week. The first one was a wrap-up of the last few weeks talking about how business owners can turn their business finances around in three steps - accounting, tax, and cash forecasting. But it felt bland AF so I'm shelving it for now. If you want to read it, let me know. This week, what's really been on my mind is partnership allocations. π¬ Mainly because we finally hit our stride and hit a record number of partnership returns filed for...
27 days agoΒ β’Β 3 min read
Last week, we talked about why basic accounting is critical to small business owners - including the extreme real example of having the business valuation move by 7 figures in the wrong direction. If you missed it, check out the previous issues link at the bottom of this email. π But accounting is the boring bit. Once we feel good about our reporting, nailing down the tax strategy is the next big project. ποΈ That's because taxes are the average highest single cost over the taxpayers lifetime....
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 6 min read
β οΈ First - welcome to the new layout of The Plug. I'm still bringing the core content but have added a section below for the latest tax and finance news & some ways I could use your help to grow the impact of this letter. As always, let me know what you think! β οΈ Confidence is everything in business. As a business owner, your team is looking to you for leadership through good times and bad. π And while you can't always predict external impacts, there are some very simple steps you can take...
about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 6 min read
I've been asked by a few readers to do a deep dive on "basis" - and never one to shy away from nerd-level content π€, what follows is as good as I've got. But what should be said first is that entire careers can be built on basis-specific and basis-adjacent niches. So this can't begin to touch on all the nuance and fringe cases. 𫨠But we can get to a really good grasp of what it is, isn't, and why it should matter. Let's dive in. We'll cover the below and hopefully come out better for having...
about 2 months agoΒ β’Β 11 min read
It's officially K1 season. π
A time of year filled with anticipation, surprise, and regret - not unlike my wedding night (badum tss) π°. But it's also the time of year that many novice investors πΆ in private companies and real estate deals start asking questions about their K1s - one of the main deliverables π«΄ they receive from what may be a significant investment they made. So today, we're going in on the most common questions I get from LPs: Why does the Capital Account Reconciliation look...
about 2 months agoΒ β’Β 7 min read
Interest expense is a part of life for nearly everyone. Unless you're a die hard Dave Ramsey (no hate here) π΄π», you likely pay interest expense on your mortgage π‘, credit cards π³, and auto loans π. And it's no less prevalent in business. Prior to 1986, all interest expense paid was generally deductible by everyone - people and businesses. Which, if you've ever looked at an interest rate chart for the 1980s, you'd see why this became a serious revenue raising opportunity for the IRS π Cue the...
2 months agoΒ β’Β 4 min read
Today we will be taking a pretty deep dive into an ownership structure common in real estate - the Tenancy in Common, or TIC. π’ This may be overly deep if you don't care about real estate tax structuring - but it's exactly the thing I nerd out π₯Έ about and enjoy so it's what you get today! Below, we'll talk about: What a TIC is and how it's used π€·βοΈ What are the (lesser-known) rules to run a TIC for tax compliance π What does tax filing look like for TIC and TIC owners π π¨ Before we dive too...
2 months agoΒ β’Β 5 min read