019 | The Value of Planning: Steven Jarvis CPA Retirement Tax Services

[00:00:00] Patrick: Welcome to the Vital Strategies Podcast, your go to resource for expert insights in the ever evolving world of tax, finance, and wealth building. On today’s podcast, we’re going to feature an episode where I was interviewed on the Retirement Tax Services Podcast with Steven Jarvis, and how we’re able to provide value well in excess of our fees.

[00:00:19] Patrick: We also discuss how there isn’t a one size fits all solution, and each client gets a custom plan with implementation depending on their specific goals. I’m your host, Patrick Lonergan, and I’m thrilled to share today’s conversation with you. Let’s dive in.

[00:00:38] Steven: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next episode of the Retirement Tax Services Podcast, Financial Professionals Edition. I’m your host, Stephen Jarvis, CPA. And with me today on the show, I have Patrick Lonergan, a financial advisor who has built pretty much his entire practice around taxes. And an advisor have had a chance to spend time in person with, which is also always a bonus to me.

[00:00:59] Steven: So Patrick, welcome to the show. And it’s great to see you again. Yeah. Steven, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. We had the chance to meet at FinCon in New Orleans this year. I think next year it’s going to be in Atlanta for anybody listening who does content creation of any kind. It’s a great conference.

[00:01:13] Steven: There’s a pretty consistent group of financial advisors that come. So we have a lot of fun when we’re there, but it’s also lots of great content. Patrick, what were some of your takeaways from the conference before we dive into the tax side? Yeah,

[00:01:24] Patrick: I think there’s a few first, it’s just the network, meeting people like you and connecting and hearing what’s working and what’s not in the industry is always a lot of fun.

[00:01:33] Patrick: And just how you’re running your practice and business in general is great. And then just getting insight from people that are out there doing it, having success. And specific areas, whether it’s YouTube, blogging, podcasting, there’s just lots of really good information you can take away. So yeah, it was a good time.

[00:01:50] Patrick: I’m looking forward to next year. I’m already signed up.

[00:01:52] Steven: I certainly appreciate that. That’s what you focused on. I promise I didn’t seed the question, but it fits right into why I was so excited to have you on the podcast, which is that I also love learning from people who are doing things in practice.

[00:02:02] Steven: And I love being able to share that message with my audience so that it’s not just theory. Because even though I work with clients, I’m still not a financial advisor. There is a difference between what I do and what most of my audience does. But as we got talking at FinCon, I learned more about what you do.

[00:02:16] Steven: And you mentioned it before we even hit record today, that it might not have been your original intention. You didn’t just grow up thinking someday I’m gonna be a financial advisor that leads with tax planning, but this is how your practice evolved. So tell us a little bit about what your practice currently looks like.

[00:02:30] Steven: And then how this progression happened for you.

[00:02:32] Patrick: Yeah. So currently our practice is focused around entrepreneurs that have a net income of a million dollars and up, and they don’t feel like anybody in the marketplace is doing tax planning. They feel like a lot of their. Advisors their team they work with is really good at collecting the data and doing the compliance, but nobody’s saying, Hey, it’s July.

[00:02:53] Patrick: Let’s look at your trajectory you’re on and figure out where you’re going to be from a tax perspective. And then let’s match your cashflow up with that and then figure out how to fund strategies that will reduce your tax bill. And it took a minute for us to figure this out. I’ve always been an entrepreneur.

[00:03:09] Patrick: I dropped out of law school. Buying some real estate, then I had financial advisors coming to talk to me to show me some cool strategy with the mutual fund and my main concerns were, how do I grow my business and how do I manage liquidity when I got into financial advisory after the real estate market melted down in nine and 10.

[00:03:28] Patrick: It just really was our focus to serve the entrepreneur and figure out what needs they had and

[00:03:32] Steven: show up and add value there. I liked how you described your approach to that, where it’s okay, let’s get, and tell me if I’m interpreting this wrong, but it’s really, let’s start with low hanging fruit that’s necessary for every business.

[00:03:43] Steven: So, I mean, any entrepreneur who’s making a million dollars in net income has to pay taxes. And geez, unless they’ve got like this really dialed in subscription model, they probably have variable cashflow. So we’re starting with a real necessity that they’re most likely not getting from their tax preparer, their tax preparer, it’s probably doing the bare minimum of helping with the compliance.

[00:04:01] Steven: Maybe they sent them vouchers for estimated payments that most likely probably didn’t make sense for the next year. So you’re coming in as the starting point. Hey, let’s pick the low hanging fruit. take care of something immediately demonstrate that we can add value. But you tagged on the end there that that might be where you start, but then you’re using that cash flow plan that you’ve set up to say, then what are strategies we can fund that I would assume with the goal of minimizing their tax liability.

[00:04:25] Steven: So talk more about how that transition happens and what kind of things you’re looking for.

[00:04:29] Patrick: Yeah, absolutely. So we’re a huge proponent of not just lowering the tax bill, but also building wealth. So I can go buy a bunch of stuff, right, and get a tax deduction. But if I buy a depreciating asset, like my favorite is, Oh, go buy a G class, you get a tax deduction.

[00:04:46] Patrick: And it’s like 200, 000 on a depreciating asset doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And our strategy never works. Really revolves around that. So we’re really looking at how can we take free cashflow. And that’s something we spent a lot of time looking at. Clients will sometimes be like, I want to get my tax bill to zero.

[00:05:03] Patrick: And it’s like, well, that sounds great, but we’re almost always going to have to pay tax on what our lifestyle expenses are. That if we’re spending 300, 000 a year, 30 grand a month, we’re going to pay tax on that much money. The rest of it, we can work on reducing, but really we’re looking at. Okay, here’s our free cashflow.

[00:05:20] Patrick: And there’s some strategies where it doesn’t take a lot of investment. You know, if we make the right entity selection, there’s some tax benefits there on payroll tax, that type of thing. But then we start looking at, okay, where can we put our dollars where we can start building wealth? And that could be in retirement strategies, Cash balance plans, that type of thing that really help us minimize the tax bill without screwing up the global cashflow because we have this thing called the cashflow calendar and we put on there everything from the home remodel to business investments to tax strategies to make sure that we are always living in this margin of safety.

[00:05:56] Patrick: Let’s call that band somewhere between 500 and a million dollars of cash. Okay. And it just depends on the entrepreneur on where that margin of safety needs to be. But anything above a million dollars in that example would be inefficient. We need to get those dollars to work. Anything below that threshold is danger zone.

[00:06:11] Patrick: So we just don’t want to run somebody out of business because they ran out of cash. So we’re projecting forward the tax strategy and everything else they have going on in their lives to make sure it fits in. That threshold and it just gives the client a ton of peace of mind. Like, okay, cool. I know I can execute on this strategy without running out of money.

[00:06:28] Steven: And Patrick, I like that every time I ask you a question about taxes, you’re tying it back to cashflow. I’m a tax guy. I talk about tax all the time, but I’m constantly trying to reinforce that we need to make good life decisions and then figure out the most tax efficient way to do them. People like saying, don’t let the tax tail wag the investment dog or however you want to say it, but it’s so natural for you.

[00:06:45] Steven: Underlying this is yes, we can minimize taxes over the long term, but that’s no one’s primary goal, or if it is, we probably need to help them readjust that because sure, we could do some things that get taxes to zero this year, but is it worth it? Are we really building wealth? I like how you talked about tax savings and wealth building together because tying our tax strategies back into a cash flow calendar.

[00:07:07] Steven: I love that concept. To me is both a great way to explain to a client and something that we can keep coming back to and build from, especially in a year where, cause there are going to be years where, Hey, maybe there’s not anything exciting from a tax standpoint that we can do this year. We still have this cashflow calendar that we’re working on together to have that foundation.

[00:07:24] Steven: Yeah. And one

[00:07:24] Patrick: thing you said that I think is critical is it can always be super exciting to talk about the financial aspect and all the different strategies available to us. But really our planning all starts with what’s most important to you. What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish?

[00:07:39] Patrick: Because At the end of the day, I can come up with a fantastic tax strategy or financial strategy or reduction strategy. But if it doesn’t align with your goals and help lead you to, I don’t know, we’ll call it a more fulfilled life, then what’s the whole point? Like, let’s do this for a purpose, not just to have a bank account with a hundred million dollars in it at the end of the day.

[00:08:00] Patrick: Like, I would rather see the account balance be zero and we lived a full life over here with great relationships, experiences, growth, contribution, health, that type of thing. Versus Nobody likes us and we got a bunch of money. So, well, I think you made a critical point there that we always start with that and then we build strategy around it.

[00:08:19] Steven: Yeah. Having a bigger goal than let’s stick it to antiris is really important for long term tax savings. So Patrick, you talked from a general sense of, Hey, we start with this cashflow planning, then we move into strategies that might be relevant. Now, there’s been a few different things that have come up recently online on podcasts about value versus volume.

[00:08:37] Steven: And so I would love for you to speak to, cause I’m sure you have a whole laundry list of things you could do with each of your clients. And as you look across your entire book of clients, there probably is a whole spectrum of things you have done. But as you look at a specific client. What’s that approach look like?

[00:08:51] Steven: Okay, great. We’ve established our baseline cashflow calendar. How do you decide the order you’re presenting them in? How many are you presenting at a time? Is this something you take care of in the first 12 months you work with them? Or this is a 10 year project. I mean, what’s that approach look like? So

[00:09:05] Patrick: really every client starts off on the same trajectory.

[00:09:10] Patrick: And we meet with all of our clients monthly. We charge fairly healthy monthly fees. Most of our new clients are somewhere between five and 6, 000 a month in fees they’re paying us. Now, sometimes we’ll offset that with the AUM, but. The reason they’re paying us so much is every client starts off with the same six meetings.

[00:09:27] Patrick: So we have data meeting, you know, where we’re collecting all the data. And then there’s a few meetings around data. We get to the data confirmation meeting where it’s like, here’s your cashflow and your balance sheet, everything correct there. Yep. That all starts looking good. Then we have key observations.

[00:09:42] Patrick: So here’s everything we see going on in your world. Then we have a solutions meeting. So the key observations is really all of the problems. We don’t want to call it the problems meeting, but here’s all the problems we see in the five areas of planning that we look at. And the five areas are tax, legal, investments, insurance, and cashflow.

[00:09:58] Patrick: So we’ve got observations in all of those areas. And really we’re leaning on some planning partners in all of those. We’ve got some CPA partners, some legal partners, some real niche tax strategy people that we’ll go and talk to and just see what opportunities they see. I feel like we’re very wide, but not very deep.

[00:10:15] Patrick: We know enough to be dangerous. So we lean on experts in different areas. And then once we get through the solutions meeting, we’re really looking at a scope and a schedule that aligns back to the client’s goals. So here’s what the next 12 months are going to look like. Here’s all of the work we have to do.

[00:10:30] Patrick: And that could be everything from we’re going to help get the estate plan lined up, if that’s a key priority. And then obviously every July looks the same for every client. We’re estimating where they’re going to be for income, what the tax liability is going to be, and then start looking at tax planning there.

[00:10:46] Patrick: But it’s really hard from our perspective to uncouple tax strategy with those other four areas of planning, the legal investments, insurance, and cashflow. So we see all these things working together to Create an integrated and coordinated plan. So that’s really how we work on it. And it’s going to be dictated by the calendar and when tax deadlines are due.

[00:11:10] Patrick: And then what the client’s goals are is really how we’re structuring our scope and our schedule for our

[00:11:14] Steven: clients. So Patrick, you mentioned the fees you charge. I remember you talking about that when we were together in person. So since you opened the door on that one, especially since I’m not an advisor, I’m always curious on this because in the CPA world, most people charge an hourly rate.

[00:11:28] Steven: No one really talks about that hourly rate is, and no one complains that. The biggest firms are charging a multiple of the smallest firms just kind of happens. And so it’s been fascinating to me in the financial planning space, how much, um, fighting there is about how people charge and what an acceptable fee is.

[00:11:43] Steven: And again, not advisor myself, but the conventional wisdom would say, wow, Patrick, you’re charging so much more than the average advisor, which for me, honestly, I love to hear when it goes along with such a clearly articulated value proposition, because we can take the cliched statements of, you know, the price is only an issue in the absence of value.

[00:12:05] Steven: And as you describe, Hey, here’s the things I’m doing for someone on a monthly basis. And here’s the calendar looks like. To me, it totally makes sense why you didn’t just say, Okay, well, here’s the average fee and I’m going to charge that because you’re doing something significantly above average. What I’m curious about, as I say all that, is how has that evolved over time?

[00:12:22] Steven: As you roll back five years or ten years, how long has your fee looked like that? What was that process
for you? Where was the point where you said, well, I need to be charging a lot more because of all these things I’m doing.

[00:12:32] Patrick: Yeah. Thank you. So I think the biggest opportunity for us, the reason we could charge those fees is we went back and did the math over the last two years and figured out what we saved our clients on average.

[00:12:44] Patrick: And we’re at 280, 000 a year of income tax savings, not deductions, but savings. And so when somebody pays us 72, 000 and they save 280. Probably the best investment they made every year. And typically when we work together, that’s an annuity, like every year they’re saving those same dollars. And we’re just helping continue to execute on that.

[00:13:06] Patrick: And it’s interesting. It’s hard to save clients that are making two 50 to 500, 000 a year. They’re not making enough money to charge enough, but we’re still doing the same amount of work. So we found there’s sort of a little bit of rare error. The higher the net income gets, the more we can save them and the more valuable we are.

[00:13:26] Patrick: So that’s, I think the key driver in the value side of things. And then just a quick point on monthly fee versus hourly fee. I don’t like the hourly fee because it disincentivizes the client to call us.

[00:13:41] Steven: 100%.

[00:13:42] Patrick: Please use us for every single thing you’re doing. You’re buying a washing machine. I’m exaggerating, but like call us, you know, you should finance it or pay cash.

[00:13:51] Patrick: The answer is to pay cash. But so we like that model because it just encourages a ton of engagement. We used to do planning on a one off fee basis. Like, Oh, we think this would be about 15, 000 of work, but really, I think this comes from, I’ll say the world you live in, in regards to like the flat fee planning type of thing.

[00:14:14] Patrick: I think there’s some. Real value in that. I believe I listened to your brother on Michael Kits’s podcast and it really shaped the way I thought about planning. And I’m like, I sort of love this idea. It takes all the conflict of interest out of the equation. Let’s just have a flat fee for the value we provide and work really hard to provide more and more value to a unique client.

[00:14:35] Patrick: And so that’s really how we arrived there. We were charging five, 10, 15, 000 planning fees. And then we were trying to, after the fee was over. Have AUM investment in maybe some insurance products, that type of thing. I grew up, you know, I started in the insurance world. So we like to make sure that box is checked too, but that’s really how we started and how we evolved to where we’re at today.

[00:14:59] Steven: I appreciate you sharing your perspective. It’s always helpful to see how people think about this. And I totally agree with you on the hourly versus monthly. That’s why in our firm, we don’t charge hourly fees. Basically, we have an annual relationship that we’ll bill monthly at times. But we want that same engagement of, Hey, I don’t want somebody to feel like every time they pick up the phone or send me an email that they’re going to get an extra bill.

[00:15:19] Steven: We structure our fee in a way that 99 percent of what we come across is going to be covered every now and then. And for us, about the only exceptions when we have a client who comes to us, who needs help amending a tax return that we didn’t help them originally on. So there’s been literally a handful of times that we’ve said, well, this is outside of the scope of what we normally do.

[00:15:37] Steven: We are going to charge you for this. But 99 percent of the time. Our fee covers everything. And then we have that higher engagement. So I loved it. That’s your approach. I do want to circle back and especially since this is a tax focused podcast. I don’t want to let you off the hook too easy. You said that your average annual savings, and you described it as annuity.

[00:15:55] Steven: So this is every year, average annual savings, tax savings, 280, 000. So talk a little bit about more of maybe top three areas that you’re seeing and help us with the math of how are you getting to. 280, 000 of savings on an ongoing basis.

[00:16:11] Patrick: Yeah. So I think the lowest hanging fruit that we see is the QBI deduction right now.

[00:16:16] Steven: Yeah.

[00:16:17] Patrick: And part of the problem with some of the CPAs that we work with is they’re not looking at net income and wage before the year end and you can’t do anything about it after January 1st. Like right now we’ve got a client, he’s going to make about two and a half million dollars this year. He’s got three employees wages.

[00:16:36] Patrick: We’re going to be about 150, 000 in the business. He was hardly paying himself anything. And I’m like, we’re leaving a ton of money on the table here. We have to raise your wage to the way the QBI deduction works. We can get that number to be the same. And it’s like, let’s not leave those dollars on the table.

[00:16:53] Patrick: That’s a huge one. And that doesn’t take any investment. It’s just good administration and bookkeeping. So. That’s one that we really go after. And then second, we find a lot of times we have business owners, they own a bunch of real estate and their spouse might be a real estate professional. It’s shocking how often the depreciation there’s not cost segregation studies done that type of thing that can help accelerate a bunch of those losses, especially with the tax cuts and job act.

[00:17:21] Patrick: You can take a hundred percent bonus depreciation and there was 80 percent this year at 60 percent next year, but it’s still a lot of money that we can use to offset income. Then there’s strategies. I mentioned this earlier, but cash balance plans, if a client has a lot of free cash flow and they don’t need it to grow their business, we think those are a great solution.

[00:17:43] Patrick: Again, that can work nicely with the QBI deduction. If we have to increase their wages. And then depending on how old they are, they can get four or 500, 000 into a retirement plan. And then, you know, at 37 percent tax savings, like there’s a few hundred thousand right there that we saved that they were maybe just parking in a brokerage account.

[00:18:01] Patrick: And the cool thing about the difference between those two is the IRS is going to fund about a third of that retirement plan because we get the tax savings that can go over there. So if I had to look at low hanging fruit that we regularly are getting, it’s Transcribed Some of the depreciation, QBI deduction, and then cash balance plan.

[00:18:19] Patrick: Those are our strategies we really like to lean on to create some margin for our clients. I

[00:18:24] Steven: appreciate you sharing this. It really reinforces the value of focusing on who you serve, because for people listening who primarily work with the industry tagline of pre retirees and retirees, you know, people with a million dollars or more of best of assets, those people need to be served.

[00:18:40] Steven: And that’s great. If that’s your niche, but if that number, and that’s part of the reason I dug at it a little bit, that number of how could you possibly save someone 280, 000 a year in taxes? Well, when you work with entrepreneurs who have more than a million dollars in net income, and you understand how some of these things can play off of each other, the numbers become real in a hurry.

[00:18:59] Steven: When you understand that the qualified business income deduction isn’t just about, did I have net income that especially for entrepreneurs, for the owner of a business, it’s about. This isn’t just how much was my net income. We’ve got to look at what are those factors that bolster how much of the QBI deduction that I actually get.

[00:19:15] Steven: So now the math starts to feel a little bit more real because if all you say is, Hey, I saved my clients an average of 280, 000 in taxes a year, that can feel a little click baity, like, no, no, that’s like the people say in their whole life is the answer to everything. But that’s why we take the time to drill into these things because these numbers become very real when we can apply them to specific situations.

[00:19:35] Steven: Yeah,

[00:19:36] Patrick: absolutely. It really is. Once somebody makes over a couple million dollars a year, oftentimes we find our clients spending caps out at about 30 grand a month. So when you think about that, they have a million dollars that they can spend on tax strategy because there’s maybe. Five or six hundred going to the IRS, and then there’s another million dollars that they can allocate somewhere.

[00:20:01] Patrick: So that’s where the margin happens. And we have some clients that are making 15 million a year and we’re saving them a million and a half dollars in tax. Like that helps the number a little bit for sure. Yeah. Where, when we have somebody on the lower end that might be saving 60 or 70, 000 a year. So there’s a little bit of offset.

[00:20:17] Patrick: Not everybody falls into that 280, 000 range, but yeah, it’d be great if they did. Yeah, that’s how we’re doing it. And it really was almost a shocking number to go back and look at. I think we, and our clients find this, we provide a ton of value outside of just the tax savings side of things. Like we get them organized, get them reinforced that their CPAs and legal team love us because they can connect with us and we get them exactly what they need and it helps.

[00:20:43] Steven: yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that at the end, because that was the point I wanted to bring back. As you talk about the fee that you charge, that’s for everything that you do, and I’m just bombarding you with questions about just this one sliver, which happens to be the sliver that is the easiest to quantify of, hey, I charged you this, and this is your tax savings every year, which is a multiple of what I charged you, and oh, by the way, we’re doing all these other things, and so, I love being able to explore those dynamics because that’s when everyone’s winning.

[00:21:09] Steven: That’s when you’re excited to have them as a client. They’re excited to have you as a professional. This isn’t a game where it washes and everyone comes out even like everyone’s coming out ahead.

[00:21:17] Patrick: Yeah. And one thing I’d like to just acknowledge, I feel like I’m not as good as the traditional financial advisor in the context of, I don’t know how to sell financial advisory.

[00:21:27] Patrick: Without this, like tax care over here, like, Hey, look at this cool tax thing I can do if I just have to go, Hey, this is going to make your life better and it’ll give you some peace of mind. I’m just not that good at selling that. So I’m like, okay, I can quantify this piece over here. We’re just going to do a ton of this.

[00:21:42] Patrick: We’re really going to lean into the tax side of things and show up and provide value. And we’ll do all these other things. I’m just not good at selling those other things. So I hear the traditional financial advisor go. Hey, we’ll take your retirement account and make life really easy for you. And it’ll be 1 percent of your assets.

[00:21:57] Patrick: I’m like, I just, I’m not good at that. So I commend the financial advisor that can do that. It’s just not in my skillset. So that’s probably a little bit why I’ve leaned into the tax

[00:22:06] Steven: side of things. Well, I mean, good for you for identifying what’s value to your clients and what works for you personally in the world of podcasts and social media and online content.

[00:22:16] Steven: It’s easy to gloss over things and generalize and say, Oh, this is how everyone should do it. But there’s general concepts we can all pull from. But at the end of the day, the people who do the best work for their clients, who deliver the most value, who find the most opportunity are the ones who take those general ideas and then customize the heck out of them to their situation, to their strengths and to their clients.

[00:22:36] Steven: So good for you for being. Committed to the process and continually improving. Yeah, thank you. Patrick, we always like to make sure we’re taking this information and turning it into value, which means helping people take action. So as you think about the progression of your firm and getting to the point where you’re at, or maybe even where you plan on heading next, what are actions you recommend to advisors who are interested in leveling up what they do around taxes?

[00:22:57] Steven: Yeah. I think one of

[00:22:59] Patrick: the best things you can do is invest in yourself. And I think about the education, I’m always looking for new opportunities to go learn and develop. And I look at what you’re doing, you know, I love your tax reference guide. I love the backdoor raw, like all of the pieces you have are just great tools in our tool belt.

[00:23:17] Patrick: Thank you. So. I feel like if you really want to separate yourself and you just keep stacking up those skill sets and it allows you to solve a more and more complex problem at the end of the day, if we’re concerned about a robo advisor replacing us, like there’s a problem there because we’re not adding much value.

[00:23:35] Patrick: Yeah, we’re not connecting with the client. So. The way I see all that coming together is just stacking all these skills on top of themselves, going out and finding what the marketplace is looking for, finding a problem that’s not being solved. And we sort of see that on the tech side, but I’m sure there’s a million other problems out there that advisors can add value to their clients lives and go, okay, I can get really good in this arena, serving this market, and we can really move the needle for people.

[00:24:03] Patrick: So I think that’s the main drivers, really just get educated. And again, this is not a paid promotion, but
you do such a great job educating people. I appreciate it. Thank you. And love the newsletter. Love the resources you put

[00:24:17] Steven: out. It’s great stuff. So thank you. Well, I certainly appreciate that. We did just a release in 8606 masterclass.

[00:24:23] Steven: I think you’re referencing the guide that we put out, but to really expand on that, we recorded a whole masterclass on it. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, go to retirementtechservices. com. That’s available. And I want to throw out this reminder is Patrick’s talking about the importance of education.

[00:24:37] Steven: I also want to make sure that on your list of action items is that tax planning becomes a year round conversation. Because it sounds like you’ve already done that, Patrick, and I’m sure that’s part of where the value is coming from for your clients. You specifically talked about July, but don’t let the tax deadline, don’t let April 15th be the only guiding star for when you talk about taxes.

[00:24:56] Steven: In fact, all of the people I know who are delivering massive value around taxes are advisors who can make this a year round conversation so that we’re having proactive and intentional conversations outside of the tax filing itself. So whether it’s taking the master class on backdoor Roth contributions around 8606, getting education, incorporating this into your client meetings, making sure you’re getting every client’s tax return every single year.

[00:25:19] Steven: These are things that go on your calendar throughout the year, not just once a year. Absolutely.

[00:25:24] Patrick: And to just piggyback on that, you’re right. There’s April, there’s July for us. There’s September, October, December 31st. It’s like, we’ve got all these tax deadlines that we have to be constantly doing work for our clients and they appreciate it

[00:25:38] Steven: brings a lot of

[00:25:38] Patrick: value.

[00:25:39] Steven: Well, and since you mentioned it earlier, just again, a reminder, the RTS desktop tax reference guide is something I always have printed and laminated on my desk. It is 2024 now. Make sure you go out and get the 2024 version downloaded. We have this fun couple of months where we have to still care about the 2023 rates as we get the filing done, but then on to planning.

[00:25:56] Steven: We want to be focused on planning. So stay tuned. Patrick, again, it was so fun seeing you in New Orleans. Thanks for taking the time to come on the show. Really appreciate you being here.

[00:26:03] Patrick: Yeah, Steven. Thank you so much. Again, I appreciate you having me and I appreciate all the good work you do for the industry.

[00:26:08] Patrick: Thank you

[00:26:09] Steven: to everyone listening until next time. Good luck out there and remember to tip your server, not the IRS.

[00:26:15] Patrick: Thank you for listening to the Vital Strategies podcast for links to the resources mentioned in today’s show See the show notes of this episode at vital strategies comm forward slash episode 19. Follow the vital strategies podcast wherever you listen to podcast and don’t forget to rate and review the show Letting us know how these tips are helping you pay less tax and build more wealth If you’re wanting to find new ways to minimize your tax bill and discover all the ways that you can send less money to the IRS Go to vitalstrategies.com/client and fill out a short survey. Don’t pay any more tax than you have to. As your business grows, you want to have those dollars available to building wealth so you can live a great life. Go to vitalstrategies.com forward slash client to see if it’s a fit for us to work together. We look forward to having you back next week where we’ll help you pay less tax, build more wealth so you can live a great life.