Tax Hacks & Trump Accounts: How to Keep More of Your Practice Income

Announcer:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to be. Please be advised, we do speak with an honest tongue and may not be safe for work.

Casey Hiers:
Hello, and welcome. This is Casey Hiers, back at the Millionaire Dentist Podcast in studio with co-host, Jarrod Bridgeman. What's your middle name? I've never done the initial.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Ray, R-A-Y, because I'm a ray of sunshine.

Casey Hiers:
Jarrod R. Bridgman.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So, yeah, my middle name is the firstborn son of every generation has that middle name. So, it started with my great-great-grandfather and all the way down through my son.

Casey Hiers:
Firstborn son used to get the full inheritance. Now, you just got the middle name, huh?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, I mean, that's all we could afford. Casey-

Casey Hiers:
Because of those damn taxes, probably.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes, yes, yes. Casey, before we really get into anything really deep and talk about taxes, which is what we're doing today, because we all love taxes, is I just wanted to complain about last week. We talked about chili and the chili cook-off, and I made a bomb-ass chili, and I didn't even make the top three out of five.

Casey Hiers:
Who did you upset?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I don't know.

Casey Hiers:
You need to do some introspecting. Your chili was pretty good.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And I had like five or six people say, "I voted for you for number one." So, I think it was rigged.

Casey Hiers:
Who's lying?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, who's lying? So, I'm going to send my-

Casey Hiers:
Who did you upset?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. I have an intern this year, and I'm going to have her do some detective work for me. I already know she didn't vote for mine because I saw it.

Casey Hiers:
You counted the votes. You're keeping score. You're taking names.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. I was taking peeks.

Casey Hiers:
Just like the IRS.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. That's right. So, Casey and I, we wanted to talk a little bit about some quick and fast tax tips for this year, and we did consult with our CPAs. So, this isn't just us making things up on the fly. We've had some real people with real credentials-

Casey Hiers:
We got some smart people here and we-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We do. And they make us look smarter.

Casey Hiers:
... we were feeling uninspired on a topic, and you pulled a bunch of CPAs in a room and pretend fired them and got their attention.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, I did.

Casey Hiers:
And then, they gave us a bunch of ideas for tax tips and things that they are navigating, doing, or those who maybe don't have a great standard of care and accounting should look out for, a checklist, right?

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yes, yes. And this is for people, you may have a CPA already, you may have your tax preparer, but as we've spoken on many previous podcasts, just because they're a CPA or because they say they're a tax preparer may not mean they're the best at it.

Casey Hiers:
A lot of things slip through the cracks.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. That's right.

Casey Hiers:
When you own a business, that's going to cost you.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I mean, things slip through the cracks on your day-to-day personal life, let alone the business side, which we know, as a practice owner, you're dealing with 100 things at once. So, we wanted to put together a quick little tax tip list here. Number one is before using a tax preparer, make sure you reviews their ratings and their credentials. Make sure they are up-to-date. Because I've seen cases on the news here and there where a CPA has to do things each year to continue to keep their license. If they lose their license, they can no longer call themselves a CPA. And some people do that here and there.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, that's probably more rare. But I think that's a good tip. And we see it from time to time where million dollar, $2 million practices will review their taxes for a couple years, and they're not a CPA. They're a registered tax preparer, but they're not even a CPA, which is pretty basic. And that's something that was overlooked by the practice owner.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, I mean, when you go online to order products, let's say, from Amazon or Walmart, whatever, do you check the reviews on your products? I tend to. How many stars out of five does it have? But if a particular firm, particular person has 150 reviews on a website and 99% of them are bad, it might be-

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no, my wife looks at reviews. Life's an open-book test. And so, if you take the time, you can do some research.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And see some of the trends.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. But no doubt, you want to get a feel for them. What is their online presence? What is public information that you can look at? But more importantly, are they actually a CPA? And really, when you hire a CPA, the biggest complaint I hear is, "Oh, they're too conservative. They're too conservative." Well, maybe have that conversation before handing them the keys to the castle. Have a good feel for their-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Their style.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. Make sure you're on the same page.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no doubt about it. And again, that's basic, but it's overlooked. And that's step one.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, and as you've talked before, sometimes it feels like once you've already latched on to the CPA, you're too afraid to leave because it's so much information to carry over to the next.

Casey Hiers:
Change is hard.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Casey, let's say you've got your preparer, you've got your CPA, you're ready to kind of start doing this. Make sure you have all of your tax documents before you prepare your return, because honestly, it's easy, again, to miss stuff. It could be a big one that could cause possible penalties and interest from the government. And I mean, you're already paying. You don't want to pay more.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Well, it's just good communication. A lot of times, practice owners don't communicate a lot with their tax preparer. They talk to them a couple of times a year. If you're going to piecemeal what you're sending in, make sure that's communicated. So, it's not like, "Well, here's most of it." No, you want to make sure you get all of it. This isn't one of those things, 80% right's good enough because again, the repercussions are serious.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah. And they could really, really hurt your wallet there. Kevin Roten, our CPA and MBA, he wanted me to mention this one. This is a pretty good one. There are some after-the-fact deductible retirement contributions that you can still make for 2025 right now. For example, the employer profit share contributions and IRA contributions. So, some of those, you can still make your contributions, and then take that on your 2025 return, which is something I didn't know.

Casey Hiers:
Well, that's nice because again, a lot of practice owners we talk to, they have these conversations in 2026 for calendar year 2025, fill in the blank for whatever time span you want to talk about. But a lot of times, when you have those conversations after the fact, you're stuck. So, this is a nice area where you can still have some flexibility to maybe balance some things out or fund things better if your situation allows.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
That's right. And so, if you have any more questions about that and you're not already working with us, make sure you talk to your CPA on that one. And along the same lines, up through April 15th of 2026, you can still make HSA contributions for 2025, which I didn't realize that either.

Casey Hiers:
No, that's fascinating because so often, you have to make that estimation, or it's like trying to predict the future. And well, I don't know. Am I going to need it or not? So, that's fascinating that you can do it again in the following calendar year for the previous calendar year to again have the most clean and pristine tax situation. And there can be some opportunities. Again, can be significant.

Quick story. My fifth graders learning, I don't know, history, and what is it? Taxation without representation and all those things. And I just had a quick conversation with her about taxes and how historically, governments or empires have ultimately overtaxed their people. And I said, "Taxation can become tyranny real quick." She had a test, and she put, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." So, she sort of blended what I said, and I was cracking up. That's awesome. And she said her teacher corrected her. I said, "Well," I go, "That's up for debate." We won't die-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
You're not wrong, but you didn't say the exact quote or kind of thing, right?

Casey Hiers:
Well, I don't think she liked the tyranny part because when I was talking to my daughters, I was just sharing with them, you get this much money, and then, this entity takes this much money, and ultimately, typically, it's a hungry beast that's never full, and they continue to tax you. And I was on one with my fifth grader, and I got into tyranny, and tyrannical governments, and the Boston Tea Party.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, so one of the big ones I was told to bring up is this will be the first year, the first opportunity to apply for those new Trump accounts. It's like basically a savings account for children. The big thing is right now, is any child, U.S. citizen-born child between January 1st of 2025 and December 31st of 2028 will automatically receive a $1,000 contribution from the government into their personal Trump account. But that has to be opened. So, this would be the first year to apply for it. So, any child can get one of these accounts, but only the ones from January 1st, 2025, and forward can receive the thousand-dollar contribution.

Casey Hiers:
Interesting. And that's a good one to ask your tax preparer. Hopefully, they have CPA after their name, if they've accounted for this. Again, is it a ton of money? No. A thousand bucks. If you had twins, 2K. Really, it's more of are my people on top of things? Or are, like you said earlier, things slipping through the cracks? This could be a good litmus test. And hopefully, when you ask them these questions, they're like, "Yeah, of course. I'm not a moron." Unfortunately, a lot of tax outfits out there will, "Oh, you know what? That's a good idea."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, we'll apply for it. It'll cost you an extra 50.

Casey Hiers:
A lot of practice owners I talk to, they say they're frustrated because they'll bring ideas to their CPA and ask them about it. And they're like, crickets, right? "Well, no, I don't know. Yeah, that's great. I'll do it."

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Well, I'll look into it.

Casey Hiers:
Which provides some like, "Oh, geez, why am I the one bringing these ideas to my CPA professionals?" And again, some of these things, it's good to potentially keep them on their toes and asking these questions to really test them. Because again, if they're not doing the little things right, again, you're going to look up and have a $30,000 tax surprise and $100,000 tax surprise or a big refund, which-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Yeah, I mean there's worse things than a big refund. But again, that's money that you gave the government to just hold onto for you for a while, and it could be used in other places.

Casey Hiers:
Cashflow is a big challenge with practice owners, and a $50,000 refund, how great would that cashflow have been throughout the year, versus thrown in a big chunk that typically just, they say, "Well, let's just roll it into next year," again, to make the CPA's job easier, not to help and improve your cashflow. And again, the lens that these people should have is how is it helping you, the customer, your cash flow, your situation? But these are good things to ask it.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
It's just after 40 years of my life, being told and seeing how everybody else reacts with tax and returns is like people treat as like a big bonus. You know what I mean? That was already your money, bro.

Casey Hiers:
It's your money.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Finally, our last little notice. Have fun, guys. Have fun with your... I'm just kidding. There's no fun in taxes. Nobody likes collating. Nobody likes taxes. But here's a good one. If you received an IRS identity protection personal identification number, that's a freaking mouthful. An IP PIN, make sure you bring it for your tax returns, or it will be rejected. And if you don't have one of these IP PINs, but you want that extra fraud protection, you can apply for one on the IRS website. So, this is just another little thing that can add protection to your identity and all that kind of stuff. And if you have already applied for one previously, you need to have that number from here on out, because otherwise, it's what's helping verify your identity.

Casey Hiers:
No, there's another after-hours topic in there somewhere.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
I know. So, if you're like me or even like Casey, sometimes I don't remember my passwords to things, and I have a little sheet that I write things down on so I can remember. This is a pretty important one to make sure you have on hand.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, no, that's for sure. And again, you want to have it personally somewhere and not just expect your tax preparer to have all those things.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Anywho, Casey, thank you so much for coming in today. Before we roll out, did you have any other things you wanted to mention or bring up?

Casey Hiers:
Yeah, we're doing a little Florida swing, like the PGA golf tournament. They're heading down to Florida for their swing. So are we.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And you're playing on that too, right?

Casey Hiers:
No.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
No.

Casey Hiers:
I did get mistaken for that once.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Nice.

Casey Hiers:
We were traveling for an event, and there was a big golf tournament in town, and I was in to present.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
There's worse things to be mistaken for.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. Like, "Oh, when's your tea time when you play?" I just started laughing. But no, we'll be in Gainesville, Florida. We'll be in Jacksonville, Florida, heading up to Bozeman, Montana, for one of our events.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
We're going to Asheville, North Carolina, Johnson City, Tennessee. There's a lot of really cool things. Cleveland and Pittsburgh are also coming up soon, so if you want to register and attend one of our events and see Casey, one of our other wonderful speakers, and just learn more about the business side of dentistry, taxes, planning, all that kind of stuff, register and go, guys. I mean, you learn a lot. You get to meet us, you get some food, you get some bourbon.

Casey Hiers:
The only people that don't have fun is when we go through everything and the presentation, and they've realized for three or four decades that they've just completely dropped the ball. Those people-

Jarrod Bridgeman:
And they're mad at you, but really themselves.

Casey Hiers:
Yeah. And they're just like, "I wish I would've seen this 20 years ago." Other than that, you're going to have a great time.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
So, here's the deal. So, see it now. Don't wait 20 years.

Casey Hiers:
There you go.

Jarrod Bridgeman:
Okay? Geez, guys. Thanks, Casey.

Announcer:
That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist Podcast is brought to you by Four Quadrants Advisory. To see if they might be a good fit for you and your practice, go on over to fourquadrantsadvisory.com and see why, year after year, they retain over 95% of their clients. Thank you again for joining us, and we'll see you next time.