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In the Hidden Money podcast, you'll learn how you can legally use the tax code to your financial advantage. There’s wealth inside the tax code. Taxes aren’t the enemy.
Most people hate taxes (and pay more than they should). But when you view taxes only as an evil expense, you miss out on legal ways to grow your wealth. Unlock the secrets to saving tax and building wealth with the Hidden Money Podcast! 🎧💰 Hosted by Mike Pine and Kevin Schneider.
Kevin Audio: That's why it's confusing of
how it was almost like a point of pride
where he's like, " I've paid the most
taxes in the history of anybody ever."
Mike Audio: You don't need
to overpay your taxes.
You can still pay a lot, and we agree.
We've talked about this plenty.
You should pay taxes.
Our country needs it.
We have a great country.
A wasteful country,
but a great country.
But you wasted money in taxes, Elon.
That's not strategic.
Kevin Audio: Welcome to this
episode of the Hidden Money Podcast.
And today, we're going to be discussing
the difference between tax planning
and tax preparation, 'cause there's a
distinct difference between the two.
And at our firm, Revo Taxpayer Advocacy,
we like to do both, but we really have a
passion for the strategy, advisory, and
consulting piece, which differentiates
us from the other CPAs out there
who just wanna focus on preparation.
And there's a really ⦠It's
a, it's a weird clip of Elon
Musk that we're gonna show here.
Um, it's almost like he's
flexing of how much tax he pays.
But this clip, I ran across it on YouTube
going through doom scrolling shorts and
stuff, and it, it kinda irritated me.
I'll let you watch the clip,
and then we'll kinda chime in.
But it's just ⦠It kinda
hurts my bones a little bit, but
Mike Audio: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Audio: let's play,
let's, let's play this clip
Video: My taxes are actually not that
complicated i do not have any offshore
accounts i don't have any tax sort of
tax shelters i have basically ah tesla
and spacex stock um and um tesla is
publicly traded so all information is
public and spacex is You know, a, a C corp
that is, you know, has outside orders.
So it, it, these, it's, it'll
look with, uh, outside investors.
So it is, they're also, it's,
everything is extremely transparent.
Mm-hmm.
Um, there are, there is no, uh,
there, there are no elaborate
sort of tax avoidance schemes
or, or anything like that.
And I'm literally paying the most
tax that any individual in history
has ever paid this year, ever.
Mm-hmm.
Mike Audio: I am sorry, Elon, that you're
paying the most tax of anyone ever.
I mean, you're the wealthiest man
ever, so thank you for funding
parts of our government, the good
parts and the wasteful parts.
Um, I actually remember this time.
The reason he paid so much tax that year
is because y- you remember Elon did this
thing and bought a company called Twitter?
Kevin Audio: The Twitter.
He brought the kitchen sink in there.
Mike Audio: That was awesome, actually.
So he bought Twitter, and he had
to sell a bunch of his Tesla stock.
And this is-- And that created a lot
of gain, and he had to pay tax on it.
Because he had to sell even more
Tesla stock than he needed to pay
for Twitter, um, he had to sell more
stock and more control of Tesla.
Now, I know that he's a
very polarizing figure.
He didn't used to be until DOGE, which,
gosh, I wish he was still doing it.
But the fact is, is Elon is the
brains behind Tesla's genius.
Same with SpaceX, same with
Video: xAI.
Mike Audio: xAI.
And by the way, Elon, you
don't own just two companies.
There's a whole lot more.
I didn't hear you say Neuralink.
I didn't hear you say any of the
other ones that I follow that
you're doing an amazing job with.
You had to sell more control of Tesla to
cover those taxes than you should have.
And, and some Delaware court judge
took away the pay package that
all your shareholders agreed for,
and so now we have a new one.
Thankfully, you, you, you
headquartered here in Texas.
Good job on you.
That was good tax planning, too.
But you don't have to pay those taxes.
You say tax shelter is like, like
it's an ugly word and, and believe
it or not, we rarely utilize tax
shelters in our tax planning.
Tax shelters is a-- it's,
it's a bugly, big red flag,
but we don't do tax shelters.
We don't use these
crazy offshore accounts.
We use the tax code like it was meant
to, to incentivize entrepreneurship
to grow our economy, which Elon, even
though you paid the most tax of anyone
in that year ever, you've also done a
heck of a lot, probably more than anyone
since Henry Ford, to grow our economy.
Thank you for that.
Um, but you wasted money in taxes, Elon.
That's not strategic.
That's not--
Kevin Audio: Let,
Mike Audio: talk about that.
This is, this, this-- I- I'm going to
admit, I am a huge fan of Elon Musk.
I can hardly tell.
Kevin Audio: Musk.
I can hardly tell.
Mike Audio: My dream is to have a
Cybertruck, but wife says no, so far.
Um, I think he is one of the smartest men.
He's, he's our Thomas Edison.
I mean, he is a genius.
He's done amazing things.
He, he's literally changed
the world single-handedly.
We might actually get to see
someone land on Mars before we die,
which would just be amazing to me.
But you don't need to overpay your taxes.
You can still pay a lot, and we agree.
We've talked about this plenty.
You should pay taxes.
Our country needs it.
We have a great country,
a wasteful country,
Kevin Audio: Mm-hmm
Mike Audio: but a great country.
Kevin Audio: That's why it's confusing of
how it was almost like a, a, a point of
pride where he's like, "I've paid the most
taxes in the history of anybody ever."
That even with DOGE, and I don't
know when that was recorded, it was
Mike Audio: It was pre-Doge.
It was the
Kevin Audio: So it was before
DOGE, so now after DOGE, it
would be an easy sell to Elon.
Be like, "You know the
waste where your taxes go."
Mm-hmm.
Would you not rather have
control of that money?
And that's the biggest difference
between preparation and planning.
And I'm sure he's got tax
planners, like, he has to.
He has attorneys, he has tax planners, he
has everything, but maybe he's the type
of guy that says, "Look, I don't wannaâ¦
I'm gonna be under the, I'm gonna
be under the microscope with theâ¦
Wherever I go, the government's
gonna be looking at me."
Yeah.
"I'm not gonna get cute, fancy, and
creative with offshore accounts,"
and what he calls schemes.
A lot of people associate tax planning
with schemes, or it's like these
fly-by-night guys that say, "Hey, man, I
Mike Audio: a lot of
money."
Or cheating.
Kevin Audio: like- Yeah, or
fraud- Yeah ⦠things like that.
And tax planning is not
fraudulent if done correctly.
It is
Mike Audio: not a scheme.
It's
Kevin Audio: It's not cheating.
But is there risk?
Sure.
There's, uh, risks in every
investment that you do.
Mike Audio: You can not take any
risk, still get audited, and it
still be a pain in the behind.
I mean, it's, it's, it's not a risk thing.
It's, it's being a good steward thing,
and I want people like Elon Musk
to have more capital to continue to
steward the way they're stewarding.
Kevin Audio: stewarding.
I mean-
Mike Audio: mean- Sure ⦠yeah, so, and,
and not lose control of the companies
that you're changing the world with.
And
Kevin Audio: And he's right.
On that clip, I mean, if SpaceX, Tesla,
all of those are publicly traded C corps.
Mike Audio: Well, not SpaceX yet.
It's
Kevin Audio: It's about to
be.
But if it's a C corp, it's outside
his personal tax realm, right?
So there's tax benefits
with having a C corp.
Most all publicly traded companies
are C corps, but in your individual
doesn't really touch u- all
the activity inside the C corp.
So I get how his personal return
on the surface could be relatively
easy if he just sits tight with
those two companies and doesn'tâ¦
But there's planning
Mike Audio: on in those C, C corps.
Well, remember, he sold aâ¦
Well, I'm sure there is pl-
well, they've got tons of R&D.
I hope they're doing R&D
cr- they should be doing.
There's so many credits in the back.
Yeah.
But he had to sell a bunch of that Tesla
stock to fund his, his personal share
of, of what he had to put into, um,
Twitter, or formerly known as Twitter, X.
Mm-hmm.
So, and, and that's, that's
again, and, and sorry
Kevin Audio: if I keep
Mike Audio: this.
He, he, he said in this last filing
where they went for the new pay i-
or incentive comp, where he's gonna
grow Tesla by at least eight hundred
percent to achieve this comp, which
is a good, good reason to own Tesla,
Kevin, and why we ain't selling it.
I don't care how bad it gets.
I'm gonna keep
Kevin Audio: that stock.
I bought Tesla about a couple months ago.
Finally.
But I'm, I'm way-- I'm in
Mike Audio: high, but I'm-
Well, he's gotta, he's gotta make
it grow eight X to get this pay.
It'sâ¦
But a big reason he does, like, I
need to be able to maintain enough
control so that I can put my genius
to work because there's no other
Elons in this world right now.
Um, I almost went somewhere I
shouldn't, but I was gotten a Sam
Altman thing, but he ain't no Elon.
Sorry.
Uh, I shouldn't have done that.
Um, that being said, we talk and
we've, we've done this a bunch, Kevin,
tried to differentiate the difference
between tax planning, tax preparation.
We were talking with our team and our
producers a couple of weeks ago, and
they're like, "We still don't really
understand what tax planning is."
So that's- It's like you said ⦠that's
the genesis of this episode.
So let's walk through, if you wouldn't
mind, I mean, get really elemental.
You and I know what tax planning
and strategy is, but get very,
get very kindergarten-ish here.
Sure.
Kevin Audio: this.
Sure.
So there's two lines of business
that you and I do in our firm.
There's coming to a, toâ¦
Coming down a road, there's
two ways you can go.
One is preparation, which is taking
your W-2, taking your 1099s, taking
your charity deductions, your mortgage,
taking all those tax deductions and,
um, income statements, giving them to
us to prepare your tax return and stay
in compliance with the IRS, filing your
taxes, owing or getting your refund.
That is preparation.
Planning is what you do before
you get to that section.
Planning is I'm going to sit down
with a strategist, sit down with our
team and say, "Hey, I am a W-2 earner,
and I make 300, $400,000 a year."
And then you just have to be quiet.
You don't have to do anything.
Just tell us that, and then
we will take it from there.
We will ask you questions.
Those questions might be,
"How many kids you got?
What's your theology on investing?
Where, where is your money?
Do you want to invest into
certain areas that interest you?"
Maybe you want to invest into real estate.
Maybe you want to invest into oil.
Maybe you want to investâ¦
And we can teach you these things, but
if you just show up and just tell us
the basic details of your life, we can
take the ball from there, and then that
is before we plan, before we, I mean,
prepare your tax returns, we devise
a plan and a strategy, not a scheme.
We're not taking your money offshore.
I mean, there's tax benefits to doing
that, but for 99% of our clients,
that kind of level you don't need.
You just need some tried and true
things to do this year to save on the
taxes so that if we can get proactive
and plan when we go down the road of
preparation, you're going to still send
us your W-2s, you're still going to send
us your 1099s and your charity and your
mortgage and all that good stuff, but
then we're going to take all that data
that you normally would send us anyway,
then I'm going to take this plan we
devise, and I'm going to stack it on it.
And now I have all your data that
is normally would've been filed,
but now I'm adding a plan to it, and
then that plan is going to kick off
better results on the tax return.
So that is the main difference.
Planning comes first.
Preparation comes second.
You don't have to plan.
You can just stay in compliance
and be a good little taxpayer for
your entire life and just pay.
"Here's my W-2.
Here's my 1099.
Mike Audio: just, "It's easy.
I'm done."
I would argue that's what more
than ninety percent of the
American taxpaying public does.
Yes.
They just do it because
Kevin Audio: Yes.
They just do it because they've
always done it, and that is
the purpose of this podcast.
The purpose of this podcast is to
say preparation is a needed thing.
You have to stay in compliance or
else you're going to go to jail,
or you're just not going to report
your, your refund and they're just
going to hold onto your money.
If there's a different way, and
it just starts with a conversation
to say, "Here's my income.
Here-- I ha- I'm married.
I have three kids.
I have-- I'm a business owner.
I'm just grinding every day.
What can I do to save on taxes?
'Cause those monies, the money
that I save on taxes, I can grow
my business, I can grow my family."
And
Mike Audio: is where we come
in.
Yeah, I
Video: I mean-
Mike Audio: that-- I think that
was a great example, but I even
wanna get a little more, um, untax
Video: CPA-ish
Mike Audio: it.
So everyone's got different
goals in life, right?
We have some people, some clients,
they, they've got a job that they love.
They wanna spend the rest of their
career there, um, work their way
up the chain and, and retire with
whatever 401pension they have.
That's great.
We got other clients that they're doing
their job because they need the money.
It's the best-paying job they could find.
They can't stand the
bureaucracy they work with.
They know that, that the company they're
working with could do so much better,
provide such better service, make better
margins, um, do it much better ways.
And when we find people
like that, that'sâ¦
We gotta find out what not--
That's, I think, what you were
mentioning, investment theology.
That's a big word, by the way.
I'm impressed.
Investment theology.
Um, but what is-- what are your goals?
What are you wanting to do in life?
Where do you wanna be five years from now,
ten years from now, twenty years from now?
What do you want your
retirement to look like?
Yeah, financial planner is a good
one, and we know some good ones.
They will help you with that as far
as investment and savings, but they
are not gonna be able to help you with
that as far as multiplying your annual
income that you can invest more with.
So a, a client I was just talking to
yesterday, um, one of our favorite,
my favorite clients, um, he and
his wife, he, he's had this awesome
W2 job, and it's made them a lot
of money for the last few years.
Economy's changed.
He's not making as much money.
Um, but he's got a lot
put away in his 401.
He wants to start his own business.
He knows he can do better.
He's not making as much money now
because of the company policies that
he's working for, not because of
his effort, and that hurts, and he's
got that entrepreneurial spirit.
So we discussed ROBS.
We said, "Hey, you've got
all this money in 401.
Do you really think you
could do this on your own?"
"Well, yeah, but I, I, I don't wanna
pay the penalty of taking money out."
"Okay, let's talk about a ROBS,
rollover business startup.
Let's use your 401to tax-refund your new
business venture and grow a business."
We have other clients that dream about
retiring early, but when they say retire,
they want an active retirement, right?
They want, um, to have a bar on the beach.
They want to just have some type
of their own business that they can
do without killing themselves sixty
hours a week or thirty hours a week.
There are ways to do that, and with
tax planning, the power of it is, is
it can get you there so much faster.
Think about co- the power of compounding.
Now, now I'm getting technical again.
But the power of compounding g-
we should find a YouTube clip that
explains it better than you and I
could on an el-elementary level.
But you've all heard if you put money
away in an IRA when you're starting in
your early twenties, you will retire
with millions of dollars more when you're
sixty-five than if you wait until you're
thirty-five to start putting money away.
That's the power of compounding.
Now, if you're paying more in tax
today than you need to pay with--
'cause you're not using tax strategy,
you're actually investing less each
year than you could be investing.
And that power, that power of compounding,
if you can multiply exponentially the
power of compounding by saving money
in taxes today, putting money away, um,
putting money away in better investments
that you can control, putting money
away in real estate that's going up
versus stock markets that you have
no control over, could go up or down.
All of those things can exponentially
grow your power of compounding.
That's what I think
about when I think about
Kevin Audio: tax strategy.
Start early.
That's what I think about.
Start early and invest early, even
if it's in something conservative.
I mean, there's always that risk
management you have to walk.
But man, Iâ¦
One of our staff members, he came, uh, he
was our, one of our interns, and he came
into my office when we, he first started.
He was, uh, he was n-
20 or 19 at the time.
I love the guy you're talking about.
Yeah.
And he came into my office and he goâ¦
And, 'cause he was doing his
onboarding paperwork, and he just
came to me and he goes, "Hey, what
do I, what do I do with my f-â¦"
I, you know, didn't, didn't
have a 401, you know.
He was grinding at Walmart at the time and
getting his college degree in accounting,
and so we just took him on as a intern.
Well, I told him, I was like, "Man,
the more you could dump into this
401as possible, and we have a match,"
and I ex- walked him through all that.
And he, like he's a
finance accounting guy.
He understands it, but he just
never has took that step yet.
And I was like, "Man, you're 19 years old.
You don't have to do the max right now.
Like, you're starting your life.
You're gonna need a house.
You're gonna need all these things.
But if you just start and hit our
match, and then anything above
that is great as well for the first
couple years, you're gonna retire
a millionaire if you just do that.
Because you're 19 and you're gonna
grow 10 grand a year, 10 grand
a year, that, that's gonnaâ¦
It's just gonna be building
this big snowball."
And to this day, he's still
an employee five years later.
He is still contributing
Mike Audio: higher and higher in his
Kevin Audio: 401.
And he's bought a house.
And he's bought a house.
Yes.
So you can see, and he's
gonna see this fruit.
Like, th- this isn't rocket science.
No.
It really is tax planning can also build
your net worth in that degree, and if
we tax plan today and free up, even
if it's freeing up 10 extra thousand
dollars, and if we plant that $10,000
and it grows 20 years from now into
100,000, that is a very beneficial tax
plan, and we're doing that every year.
We don't have to knock it out.
Like, we've done an episode where
we're saving, you know, we went
through our list of people who
save 200, 180, $300,000 in taxes.
Those are, those are great
stories, and that's a great way to
boost your investment portfolio.
But even if you just save 30,000, $10,000,
that is 10,000 more dollars that's in
your pocket that normally wouldn't been
there, and you can compound and grow
Mike Audio: over
the course of your life.
Yeah.
Now, what you said is wonderful,
and I've always ascribed to it.
I was a big Dave Ramsey fan, and I started
my first job putting money away in a 401.
Um, I got into my mid-thirties,
and I was one of those people who
thought, "I can do this better.
I hate working for the man."
They, the, these tax preparers are not
tax planning regardless of what they said.
And I wish I would've known about
ROBS in those days, but I raided
all of my retirement accounts, my
IRAs, my 401s, took it all out.
I had to pay the 10% penalty.
Thankfully, I didn't have to pay
income tax 'cause we weren't making
money, had net loss every year.
But literally, at the age of 42,
I had zero in retirement account.
And this is another place
where tax strategy, tax
planning can help you catch up.
And you look at my portfolio now, it looks
a heck of a lot better than you would've
thought it did when I was 42 because
you, you are my tax planner, by the way.
Um, we work together, but you
figure out how much tax I'm going
to owe, and, and then we work on it.
Um, but by saving the 30,000 that
first year, the 60,000, the 90,000 in
taxes, that's all money that's gone
into investments that are now growing.
So you can use tax strategy to catch up.
I, I wish, like I said, I wish I'd
known about ROBS in my mid-thirties.
I wouldn't have raided the 401.
I would've, I would've used
the 401to fund the firm, um,
that we're now blessed to own.
But you can use it to catch up.
In a perfect world, you
don't have to catch up.
You could use both 'cause
putting away is one thing.
Putting away a lot more because
you're saving in tax is another thing.
You combine those two and holy moly,
life can be very different, and you,
you, you don't have to answer to people.
You can choose, a-a,
Kevin Audio: uh, you can
choose what to do going
forward.
That's right.
You, it, you, financial freedom
opens the door for a lot of things.
You can give more.
You can travel.
You can, umâ¦
Your, the stressâ¦
Now,
Mike Audio: money doesn't
solve life's problems
No.
Actually-
Kevin Audio: Actually, it's- It
can actually create a lot more
It creates a lot more problems.
Yes.
It does.
Mike Audio: does.
But it's a different set of problems.
It gives you
Kevin Audio: you more options and choices.
It, options and choices is what you
have in front of you, and that's
why maybe Elon, for him, it's like,
"Hey, I don't want to overcomplicate
my life and set up 18,000 offshore
Mike Audio: and
Kevin Audio: do all of this-
I'll do it for you, Elon
cute maneuvering."
Because he can sleep.
He knows where his stuff is probably.
He knows that, you know, it's very
simple, and that's a strategy.
I would, I would argue that it's
probably not the best one, but I also
don't know his financial picture.
I just, I'm judging him in
a 30-second clip, right?
It's probably not fair.
But
Mike Audio: be
Kevin Audio: proactive.
Plan.
Getâ¦
There's, CPAs could do both, but
not every CPA focuses on both.
A, a good CPA should
plan and then prepare.
If you're in a relationship with
your CPA and it's just a preparation
relationship, and they don't know
your goals, they don't know where
you want to go, reach out to us.
Go to revotaxpayer.com.
Just have a conversation.
Just tell us some very basic information,
and we'll take the ball from there.
It's not stressful.
It's very easy,
Mike Audio: It's very easy, and
we'll see what we can do for you.
I'm gonna go out on a limb
and be a psychologist for a
second when it involves Elon.
I don't think Elon's
motivated by money at all.
Like, his first big payday was
when he sold PayPal, and he
got four hundred million bucks.
The guy's in his twenties, I think, right?
Four hundred million
bucks in our twenties.
Would you have retired?
I probably would've.
I would've just gone out in the mission
field somewhere and, and like been
on the mission field in a mansion
Video: In the
Mike Audio: in the middle of
India or something, right?
But what he did is he took all of that.
He took half of it, threw it in
Tesla, half of it, threw it in
SpaceX, and was living in a friend's
house, sleeping on the couch.
Um, the guy, until he got SpaceX and
started building a compound down in,
um, in Texas outside of Austin, he
never had a big place or a big house.
He's not motivated by money.
So he figures that, hey, it's
okay to spend this money on taxes.
But again, even if you're like that
and altruistic like that or not
money motivated like that, think
about the more things you could do.
Think about what other business he
could start and create and change
the world with if he would save
Kevin Audio: more taxes.
That's right.
So thanks for joining us on this episode.
Please like, comment, subscribe.
Share it with a friend.
Share it with that Elon lover.
Share it with the Elon hater.
You could, you could spin this both ways.
Look how smart Elon is.
He's just so simple.
Or look how dumb Elon
Mike Audio: He pays, overpays his taxes.
Share
it.
But yeah, #Elon please on Twitter
so, uh, we have a chance to do
his tax planning, or at least
somehow I can get a Cybertruck.
Kevin Audio: That's right.
So
Mike Audio: we'll see you next time.
Thanks
Kevin Audio: you
Thank you for listening to this episode.
Revo Taxpayer Advocacy LLC is not licensed
or registered as a CPA firm with the
Texas State Board of Public Accountancy.
I'm a CPA, Kevin's a CPA.
We have a lot of CPAs on staff that are
licensed and held to the same standards.
However, when we decided to be
revolutionary and change our
name to Revell Taxpayer Advocacy,
the state board would not allow
that and let us remain licensed.
They say we have to have one
of our names in the firm for
us to be licensed as a firm.
And guess what?
It's not us that's important.
It's revolutionizing the way you feel
about taxes and saving you money.
We are advocates for you, so we were
willing to drop our firm license even
though we're still individually licensed.