Mar 25 2018 53 mins 7
Eric Levenhagen is a CPA and owner of Prowise Financial Coaching.
Eric’s mission is to empower entrepreneurial abundance. To that end he leads small business owners through a proven process to drive permanent profits into their business, minimize their personal income taxes and maximize their after-tax wealth.
Early on in his career, Eric identified that most of the financial services industry is broken and not built to get entrepreneurs the best results. Outside of the office, Eric enjoys spending time with his wife and kids. His hobbies include reading, following college and professional football, and music.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- The difference between tax preparation and tax strategy
- How forward thinking can help you prepare for the next tax cycle
- Avoiding letting the new tax laws just “happen” to you
- The tools you may be using already to get proactive about tax savings, and some tools to be aware of
- Advantages of different types of corporate entity designations – should you be a sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp?
- How to find tax specialists with the experience and training to help you be proactive in your tax strategy
- Tax law changes that effect what is and is not deductible as a business expense
- Understanding changes to both corporate and personal taxes and considerations for each category
- Tax ramification differences between having employees and subcontractors
The Golden Nuggets:
“As entrepreneurs, we go to school, we get training, we have a set of skills and a ton of passion – but nobody really teaches us about how to handle the money.” – Eric Levenhagen
“We help you answer the question, ‘How do I pay as little as I can in personal income tax legally and ethically, and how do I use the information from tax professionals to make my business better, to run it better?’” – Eric Levenhagen
“What a tax strategist does is to help you in doing some forward thinking: where is your business going, where do you want to take it in the coming year, in the next three to five years? A tax strategist asks those questions and helps you plan accordingly.” – Eric Levenhagen
“You can let the new tax law happen to you, or you can introduce one or two strategies that are right for you, and optimize these new laws to make a big difference in savings.” – Eric Levenhagen
“Why did you decide to designate your business as an S-Corporation? The answer is not ‘because my tax person said that is the best thing.’ The answer is, ‘to minimize your self-employment tax.’” – Eric Levenhagen
“I get a lot of questions about how the new tax law might effect the actual operation of a business, or decisions an owner might make. Really the effect on day-to-day operation will be very limited.” Eric Levenhagen
“Before you throw up your hands and say, ‘this is all too confusing,” understand - with the new tax law, a future-looking solopreneur or small business can potentially see a tax savings of between $5,000 and $10,000 by working with a proactive tax professional.” – Eric Levenhagen
“You can respect the power of the IRS, but you don’t have to fear them. There are perfectly legal strategies you can take advantage of to save on taxes without raising any red flags with the IRS.” – Eric Levenhagen
“You just need to make sure that if you decide it’s better to, say, have contractors instead of employees, make sure that your working relationship with them is set up so the IRS will recognize that same working relationship.” – Eric Levenhagen
