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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.
Mike Pine: One specific example that I
lost three nights of sleep over last week.
It was just driving me nuts.
We had a client in a perfectly aligned
opportunity to take hold of that gray
area, run with it, and almost guaranteed,
you can't ever guarantee with the IRS,
but highly, highly likely prevail and
save three million dollars in taxes.
Unfortunately, the seller of this
property was a big national firm,
and they never heard of doing this.
And unfortunately, the client didn't have
any leverage because they were in a rush,
and there was good business reasons for
it, but they didn't make a contingency,
so we couldn't even get the sellers and
the sellers' CPAs on the phone until
Kevin Schneider: it was time to
Mike Pine: to close.
We finally got them on the phone and
here's the deal, the seller of this
property, they're a big business that
buys and sells properties and adds
value, turns them around all the time.
These people, I guarantee, are paying
too much in tax, because they got
their three partners, I think two
partners and a senior manager from
this big national firm, on the phone,
and I start explaining to them the
rule, and they're like, "Well, I've
never seen this, so it can't be done."
Kevin Schneider: Welcome to another
episode of the Hidden Money Podcast.
Today, I am just very
excited, and Mike is too.
First, we got a little housekeeping
because we have filings for
partnerships and S corps due
in over, a little over a month.
So you have about a month and a half,
partnerships, S corps, for all you
people sitting on some financials,
our clients, let's get that stuff in
because if we don't get your data,
we can't guarantee f- timely filings.
So that's the first housekeeping item.
And next, we just wanna also talk to you
about what other CPAs may be missing.
And we often, often hear that when
a client comes to us, they're like,
"I never knew you could do that.
Iâ¦
What?
Are you sure that we can do this?"
And we're like, "Yes,
we are 100% positive.
We do this all the time."
So CPAs out there, they
often stick in a lane.
And, uh, what we see, and I, well,
I guess I won't speak for you, but
for me, when I get on the phone with
another CPA, when a client comes, I try
to bridge that relationship and say,
"Hey, here's what we're trying to do."
And, um, they often just don't
even want to look into it.
They like, "No, it's been
done this way for 30 years.
I'm gonna continue on this path and
not go off of it," because one, it
takes risk, it takes effort, it takes
research, time, and it challenges them.
And some CPAs just don't
wanna be challenged.
Mike Pine: Yeah.
We've got so many examples of
this, but no, I agree with you.
I see that way too often.
The fact is, is, is most CP- CPAs, they're
not entrepreneurial in spirit, right?
They chose the profession 'cause
they like being in a nice safe box.
Um, and that's where
we're different at Revo.
That's, that's our entire team.
We're growing our team to be, "Look,
okay, we need to learn the safe
box," but the entire tax code and
all of the IRS revenue and, and audit
procedures are designed to recognize
most of the tax law is gray area.
If you just stay in the black and
white, you're missing out on so
many opportunities that you're
very likely legally eligible
for, and that drives me nuts.
Um, so the law says you have to have a
more likely than not chance of prevailing
under audit to take a tax position.
Why would the IRS or the Internal
Revenue Code actually have that
rule if everything was supposed
to be yes or no, black or white?
They're not.
Um, and unfortunately, most CPAs,
they're not-- They, they've lost
the advocacy for their clients.
They're a- they're supposed to be.
They're being paid by their clients.
They're supposed to be
advocates for their clients.
They're supposed to be looking out for
their clients and recognizing the IRS.
They wanted things to be black and white.
They're always on the very
conservative side, trying to
raise as much revenue as possible.
They never recommend gray areas.
But gray areas, when the facts and
circumstances actually support it, those
are legal, reasonable positions, and we
got so many of those t- it's gonna be hard
to keep this down to 25 minutes today.
It is.
Um, but let's get
Kevin Schneider: started.
That's an, that's a important part is
I think also a lot of CPAs, they areâ¦
They get into their safe box.
They want to be an accountant.
They like just doing desk work.
Not all CPAs, but most CPAs do not
get into this practice because of the
relationships, the client relationships.
Mike Pine: Well, just, just go
look on any college campus that has
an accounting program, and go to
the accounting program building.
Go interview some of those people.
Just go say hi.
Meet them.
See if they even talk to you,
if they give you eye contact.
And then go to, like, the places, the,
the business management or entrepreneurial
classes, and you'll see a complete
Kevin Schneider: The, the way
different personality set.
So the people that areâ¦
Yeah, you're right.
The people drawn to accounting
typically have that more reserved,
conservative, maybe notâ¦
Personality type.
Mm-hmm.
But a lot of our job, you have to get
to know the clients 'cause like you
said, to live in the gray area, you
can't live in the gray area without
knowing your client, without knowing
their business, without knowing their
facts, without knowing the details of
the deal that they're trying to do.
I mean, you have to get on a phone, get
on a now Zoom meeting, or at least bare
minimum start an email conversation
of, "Hey, tell me what's going on,
and then I can advise you further."
Some CPAs don't even want to dive
into that relationship aspect and get
to know their clients on a monthly,
quarterly, or even twice-a-year basis.
And we encourage all of our
clients to at least twice a year.
We, we offer free discov-
what we call discovery calls
for every preparation client.
So we have two lines of service, right?
We have our prep- preparation, which
satisfies their, that accounting
department feel of what, like an ac- A tax
prep Would feel comfortable doing, right?
There's stillâ¦
You gotta still communicate and
talk and all that stuff, but
that's more traditional tax work.
Then we have our tax planning arm.
Now we-- not all tax preparation clients
are planning clients, but we always
sprinkle in one aspect of planning in
every preparation engagement, so every
preparation client does get what we call
a discovery call, which is you and me
currently, and we just talk with the
client, "Hey, how did your '25 return go?"
We re- briefly review the '25 return.
We get caught up on what was
prepared and the positions taken.
Then we ask, "Okay, this was good.
What's going on for '26?
Let's look forward.
Enough looking back.
Tell us what's going on in your life
today and the rest of the year so
that we can get ahead of something."
And that'sâ¦
We w- wanna touch base with every client.
That's a free service we offer,
Main Video: you know?
Mike Pine: It's a requirement to
actually strategize during the year,
to be proactive- Talk ⦠is to have a
conversation, um, about it and find out
what's going on and what's changing,
um, what's changed in the laws.
But to be fair, I don't wanna sound
like we're just pounding on other CPAs.
It's not necess- it's not most
CPAs' faults that they like being
in this black and white box.
This is how our profession has evolved
over the last 110 years since the,
since the 16th Amendment was passed.
We have been conditioned.
We're conditioned in school.
We're conditioned in
the firms we start at.
We're conditioned on the CPA exam.
We're convi- conditioned on IRS
revenue procedures to just make
everything black and white, move
it to the most conservative side.
But again, like you said, the gray areas,
Main Video: You
Mike Pine: you gotta be careful with
them though, 'cause we have one client
I can think of right now that absolutely
was eligible, and I'm confident that if
the IRS pushes back, w-we'll prevail.
He'll prevail in this one position.
But then we had another client, very
similar, almost the same business
deal, but a little bit different.
They wanted to take the position, and
it is gray, and it was more likely
than not, but instead of being like
90% likely or 95% likely of prevailing,
it was closer to like the 55/60,
and we had to explain that to them.
And that client actually
didn't wanna take the risk.
Drives me nuts.
I mean, at 50-- I would-- Ifâ¦
Would you go gambling if you had a 55%
chance of winning every single hand?
Kevin Schneider: Yeah.
I mean, uh, law of averages tell me I'm
Mike Pine: come out ahead.
Heck yeah.
But I mean, that's also important
to have that relationship with the,
with the client though, so you can
explain the risk and let them decide.
'Cause they are gonna take risk
if they're taking an aggressive
Kevin Schneider: position.
100%.
And yeah, I don't wanna
beat up on CPAs either.
I also think, like, as a firm owner, I
can see the revenue model side of things.
It's like, if I'm gonna stay in
my black and white box, I can
push 10 returns out comparative
to I'm gonna look at every return
independently and get with that client.
That's time.
That's effort.
That's changes.
That's margin.
Mike Pine: That's profitability.
Kevin Schneider: profitability,
unless you have a revenue model
that captures that value add-
Yeah ⦠which, which you should have.
But a lot of clients or
a lot of CPA firms don't.
They might charge by the form.
They might charge by hour.
They might charge by who- whatever
metric they have in their firm.
But you were trained, "I'm gonna
get out 30 tax returns this week."
And for me to pull a tax return aside
and say, "I can save them money.
It's gonna cost me 10 hours," which
is two re- two more returns or
whatever it is, that's a hard sell
to some, some entrepreneur CPAs.
And even being a senior or a staff
member in a bigger firm, you're not real-
you're looked upon your profitability.
Partners are looking at your
profitability, your time sheets.
They're looking at how many returns you're
moving, client satisfac- all of that.
So it all kind of plays into that to
where cultures in firms are also pushing
tax prep speed instead of value-added
Mike Pine: planning.
There's one other element to that,
goes into that, though, on the fee side
and the profitability side, is it's
also partially on the clients, too, on
taxpayers, on their-- the-- y'all's fault.
It's y'all's fault sometimes.
You go to H&R Block, and they'll
prepare your return for 500 bucks,
or you can go to a local single
shop CPA or two-person CPA firm,
and they'll do it for a thousand.
And yet you want or you should want
better service, more strategy, actual
value added from your preparation.
You'll pay them 1,000 bucks, they
don't save you any tax, or you'll
pay H&R Block 500 bucks, and they
don't save you any tax unless they
make an error, which they have.
Well, um, that's not g-
I don't want to get sued.
Um, for us to do what we do,
we gotta charge a lot more.
We gotta pay our staff a lot more to
keep the right people that can think
outside the box that are comfortable
navigating the gray area ethically, right?
And that's more expensive.
So we get a lot of people that come
from these CPAs, that come from H&R
Block or come from TurboTax, and they're
like, "Man, I, I haven't been paying
more than $1,000 or $1,500 a year.
You want to charge $5,000 for
my tax return and consulting?"
Yeah, we have to.
And a lot of them say, "No way."
They, they, they're penny-wise
and pound-foolish, so sorry,
you, the taxpayer, also place
some of the blame there.
But you need an advocate that's
teaching you and telling you and
selling to you and pushing you,
"Get out of that comfort zone.
Get out of that, that old-time,
old-fashioned paradigm.
Get out of it."
Learn that normally you
get what you pay for.
If you're not gonna pay someone
to strategize with you, just go
ahead and pay too much in tax.
That's what most people do.
If you want to leverage the tax code
to keep your hard-earned money and grow
your financial freedom much faster,
find a strategist and pay the heck
out of them 'cause whatever you pay
them, if they're a good strategist,
you pay them $1,000, they better be
saving you 5,000 in taxes, 10,000.
You pay them $20,000, they better
be saving you hundreds of thousands,
Main Video: That's
Kevin Schneider: what we're doing.
Yeah.
And I, I remember when I first started
kind of into the client relations piece
of my career, 'cause every CPA kind of
starts off in the prep side of things.
It's where you have toâ¦
You have to get training wheels.
You have to know how a form works,
how the tax system works, how
all these pieces fit together.
Then once you get comfort in that,
they'll start giving you clients
and actually sitting down with them.
And I remember as a senior, I was charged
with probably 15 to 20 tax returns a
week in busy season, and they would, the
admins would just fill up my schedule.
So cli-
Mike Pine: this was-
Kevin Schneider: this
was- 15 to 20 a week?
Yeah.
And this was probably 2010 to
Main Video: 2014.
Kevin Schneider: 2014.
I was there for f- about four years.
But anyway, the admins would
just stack meetings on me.
So every morning I would come in and I
would look at my schedule and I would have
probably five client meetings that day,
in person, with, in, in, with documents.
So they would come in, I would
take documents, scan them,
prepare their return within an
hour and a half, two-hour window.
Um, if I had any missing information,
I would shoot it back, but I'm
onto the next client within
Mike Pine: two and a half hours.
Main Video: You
Kevin Schneider: have to be.
So I would work probably 10 to 12 hours
hours a day would be about my average.
But at the end of it, it's like I was
just taking documents and putting them
on the page, and I'm trying to do it
efficiently 'cause I have, I literally
have an appointment pushing this client
Mike Pine: out my door.
Main Video: You were
Kevin Schneider: You were TurboTax.
Yes, but, uh, I was a CPA.
But yes, I was doing TurboTax work.
Not, there would, there would be times,
and this is when the bug started hitting
me, is I saw opportunities, restructuring
things, and I would actually s- take
a step back and say, "Hey, we need
to put this entity here," whatever.
I would start doing that, and that's
when the bug started clicking with
me, but it hurt my productivity.
I wasn't able to get my qua- my, uh,
actual number of returns out a week, but
my client satisfaction was through the
Mike Pine: roof.
Like, okay.
Kevin Schneider: cares."
Like- You're adding value ⦠I
was adding value, but the margins
Mike Pine: weren't there.
Because that's how the business
model was designed, and it was a
Main Video: a
Kevin Schneider: a bad model.
And so that's what, that is,
I'm speaking from experience, is
that is what we really wanna go.
Like, I was in charge of getting,
like, l- the 15 to 20 a week out.
I think last week in our entire firm
we got out, it was 17 last week.
Mm-hmm.
17 among probably 10 professionals.
That's almost a- Insane, right?
⦠a, a return and a half per person.
Per week.
Mike Pine: in that now we- So
one and a half per week versus 15.
So literally a 10X if
Kevin Schneider: more difference from-
Per-
a tax
Mike Pine: prep shop- ⦠submission span
Kevin Schneider: versus
a tax strategy shop.
On one return.
Now, that is going to pick up.
Now, they're working a
lot of returns at once.
Maybe they might be working on five to
10 returns that week, but getting and
actually getting one return through our
whole QC process, it, it's more extensive.
There's processes, procedures,
planning opportunities that we look at.
Everything is more detail-oriented to
where we're not just cranking returns out.
Yeah.
That if, if a client could come in and
we can crank their return out, they're
probably not a fit for us anyway.
But, um, I, I was just shocked by that
number, just like, man, we get thatâ¦
But I was like, man, but
we're doing really good work.
Um, and even AI's expediting this.
Like, we are implementing technology
and things like that, which I think
a lot of CPAs, if y'all, if CPAs out
there don't get on top of the AI and
tech change happening, like it seems
like overnight it's changing rapidly.
Like it-- We have seen tremendous strides
in our firm of usage, usage of AI.
Mike Pine: in our firm
of usage, usage of AI.
Wow.
Yeah.
Like, just going, like- Not in preparing
the tax returns, not in creating the
strategies, but in actually seeking the
opportunities for us, in data mining.
There's so many data points.
We were just talking on the way over here.
So many data points out there that
we've traditionally-- we don't
have the capacity to think about.
Um, there are big companies for the
last twenty years that would hire data
scientists that would have to manually
put through this data, and they would
have to limit the amount of data points
they would utilize to do any kind
of service or any kind of research.
With AI, the data points that you
can encompass and, and, and use to
find opportunities to manage your
team, to improve efficiencies,
Main Video: efficiencies,
Mike Pine: it's, it's unlimited.
It's awesome.
But, you know, we're talking about
what other CPAs are missing, so let
me try to get us back on track here.
Um, this is, this is a little what other
CPAs are missing and maybe what some
clients of CPAs are missing, but I wanna
talk about one specific example that I
lost three nights of sleep over last week.
You remember this?
I mean, it was just-- driving me nuts.
Um, we had a client in a, in a really
cool, perfectly aligned opportunity
to take hold of that gray area, run
with it, and almost guaranteed, you
can't ever guarantee with the IRS,
but highly, highly likely prevail and
save three million dollars in taxes.
Um, unfortunately, the seller of this
property was a big national firm,
and they never heard of doing this.
This, this, the, the
strategy we wanted to do.
And unfortunately, the client didn't
have any leverage because they were
in a rush, and there was good business
business reasons for it, but they
didn't make a contingency, so we
couldn't even get the sellers and
the sellers' CPAs on the phone until
Kevin Schneider: it was time to
Mike Pine: to
close.
like the day before when- Yes.
And we finally got him b- And
he had delayed at that point.
And so we finally got them
on the phone and the CPAâ¦
And, and here's the deal.
The, the, the seller of this property,
they're a big business that buys
and sells properties and, and adds
value, turns them around all the time.
These people, I guarantee, are paying
too much in tax because they got their
three partners, I think two partners
and a senior manager from this big
national firm, on the phone, and I
start explaining to them the rule,
and they're like, "Well, I've never
seen this, so it can't be done."
Like, "Well, no, here's how it can be
done," and I explained the tax code.
"Well, but that-- Why wouldn't
we see this more often?"
They're stuck.
And not only did they kill my client's
chance of losing 3 million bucks or saving
3 million bucks, um, which just broke my
heart, but those are who are serving these
people that are selling 20, 30 million
dollars a year of property and paying a
ton of tax because it's never been done
or they haven't seen it done in their
myopic career, then you can't do it.
Even when I was explaining to
them the law behind it, the tax
court case filings, they, the,
Kevin Schneider: Still
couldn't convince them I
Mike Pine: I need to calm down.
I'm gonna need a drink here.
Th-they wouldn't even entertain the
idea, and that taxpayer who's still
with that CPA, they don't know tax.
They don't want to know tax.
They figure, "Look, we are paying
this big national reputable firm.
They sh- they know what they're
doing, and they're telling me
that, 'Oh, this, this isâ¦
You can't do this.'
Okay, fine.
Let's not do it.
Move on to next year."
And they're probably overpaying their
taxes three, five million dollars a year.
That's just gone.
I-
Kevin Schneider: It's hard.
And that's the thing about,
we, we actually-- We talked
about this today, too.
Those big reputable four, big four
firms, I guess they're big six, big
eight now, they put their staff on their
same routine of work, standard of work.
So like the, the example that you always
give is you were doing complex partnership
allocations on these investment
Mike Pine: The most complicated
Kevin Schneider: Million-dollar funds.
Yeah.
But then you went to
H&R Block for your 1040.
You couldn't prep a 1040.
So you, youâ¦
If, if I had a big partnership
problem, Mike's my guy.
But if I have a W-2 and some standard
dedu- or itemized deductions,
I gotta go somewhere else.
So the big-- Just 'cause they're a big
firm does not mean they know everything.
Now, the good thing about the
bigger firms, to kind of play
devil's advocate, is they probably
have the internal resources.
But again, it goes to capacity,
Mike Pine: time, profitability.
But yeah, they have experts in every area.
They should.
And- But then you look
at their business model.
If they send revenue over to
another practice, that comes out
of that partner's pocket, right?
So they get these little fiefdoms, and
even though they have the most amazing
resources, I'd say more than half, if not
three-quarters of those partners, th-they
have to, they, they are incentivized
by their business model to not utilize
the resources that big firm has.
Main Video: Mm-hmm.
Mike Pine: it-
Main Video: it-
Kevin Schneider: the
resources that big firm has.
Mm-hmm.
It, it- Drives you crazy.
Yes.
And so not saying we have the answers
to everything at all, which isâ¦
A CPA cannot know everything.
It's impossible.
Like, you have to leverage relationships.
You have to leverage, like Mike and
I leverage each other, our team.
We leverage our team a lot, too,
saying, "Hey, I'm thinking this."
I went to one of our team members,
uh, 'cause I'm not familiar in farm
and ag accounting at all, or taxation.
I-- You know, we're in Central, uh- We're
in a timber farm, man ⦠North Texas.
Yeah, but it's, timber is just, you
know, it's just gonna grow over 30 years.
There's not a lot of wheeling
and dealing in 30 years.
It's just wait and ti-time.
But I didn't know it, and so I got
one of the team members, and I was
like, "Hey, I need you to research."
You know, 'cause it was, it was a nursery.
And so what we were looking at is what
constitutes in-service time for a nursery?
Is it when you plant the seed,
or is it when the seed is grown
and it's available for sale?
That was my question, because
they're gonna build this big barn, a
million-dollar barn, and they're gonna
have equipment, they're gonna have all
these bonus depreciable items coming
into the farm, but they're gonna plant
this year, but it's gonna take six to
eight months, which puts that into '27.
It takes it twen- till 2027 for the, the
plants to be grown to sell next summer.
So I was like, "Can I take the
depreciation this year or next year?"
Main Video: I
Kevin Schneider: I didn't know.
I've never ran across this problem before,
and that's okay, but I had the capacity,
I had the team to go find the answer.
Yeah.
And so we did a research and circled
back with the client, and it's actually
when the seeds are planted and it's
available for its intended use.
The intended use of the nursery is
to grow plants, so I'm starting my
Mike Pine: intended use when I plant
Kevin Schneider: Yeah.
So now everything- Exactly ⦠all that,
all that, uh, equipment and barn and
all that, we're gonna expense it this
year, and we put all of our research
in the binder and, um, whenever we
prep the return, we're gonna bring that
research into their audit defense paper.
So we're gonna get a sizable
deduction, and I've defended it and
researched it and it's there for the
Main Video: audit if it,
they would get pulled,
Mike Pine: Whereas it would be very
different if it wasn't a nursery,
if they were planting the, the
trees for timber one day, right?
Yeah.
So again, that's where the g-
it's gray area and facts and
circumstances matter, and you've
got to be able to navigate that.
And I would, I would argue that a very
large super majority of CPAs who are in
tax preparation mode, having to churn
and burn, like most business models
out there in the CPA world, when they
arrived at that question or saw that,
it would be like, "You know what?
Let's just ma- let's make sure
Kevin Schneider: until they're grown."
Mike Pine: Let's just--
Let's play it safe here."
Yeah.
Super safe.
"Because that's the way
I've seen it before.
There's no need to go and dig into this."
Kevin Schneider: Yeah.
Um, yeah.
So, all right.
Capacity is a big thing.
Main Video: It,
Kevin Schneider: it's--
Main Video: and having a team.
Yeah.
Mike Pine: Yeah.
I think another issue with w- that CPAs
go wrong in is they will learn a new
strategy or hear about a new strategy
and try to apply it and get burned on it.
'Cause maybe one of the facts and
circumstances that they weren't aware
of or the client misexplained to them,
um, was wrong or didn't fit that model.
So they get burned one time and
they're like, "I'm not going
Kevin Schneider: there again."
And, and-
Mike Pine: then-
Kevin Schneider: PTSD
Main Video: happens,
Kevin Schneider: you know?
Mike Pine: I get that.
I get that.
It happens a lot.
So that's another reason why people
just wanna be safe or CPAs wanna be
safe, do the black and white, make
sure you're a hundred percent likely
to prevail with the IRS in regardless
of the situation or circumstances.
I had this example.
We got one client who'd come in.
We didn't prepare the previous return.
He actually prepared it himself
because he had two leased vehicles.
He was a physician, had to drive out
to seven or eight different practices.
He was an eye, uh, eye
surgeon, really cool guy.
Um, and he had to drive out
to, like, these eight different
surgery centers every day.
But he had two leased vehicles, and those
were his only two personal vehicles.
His wife had a vehicle too, but these
were his two vehicles, and he wanted
to deduct a hundred percent leases.
Went to a CPA, CPA said,
"You can't do that."
Normally, you couldn't.
You gotta have a personal vehicle, right?
The IRS is gonna say no.
Um, you got personal commuting.
You cannot deduct a pro-- a, a full decâ¦
lease payment if you're using it for
personal commuting or personal drives.
It just so happened this guy lived in one
of those weird communities down in Florida
that everyone uses a golf cart, and you've
got the grocery store, movie theater.
Anywhere you need to go is on
this big old huge property, right?
Um- Resort kind of thing.
Yeah, like the Village.
Like the Village, but
it wasn't the Village.
You know, like a retirement community.
Yeah.
But it had everything there,
and he never used personal
mileage on his leased vehicles.
If they ever had to drive off of the par-
place, he would-- he'd go with his wife.
But internally, he always used his
golf cart, and he explained this to the
CPA, and he's like, "You can't do it."
And this doctor, I love his
mind, he's like, "Yes, I can.
Okay, fine.
I'll prepare my return this year."
Granted, he messed up the
preparation, but he took it.
Then he got audited, and that's
when he came and, and, and asked us
if we could help and support him.
And during the audit, the IRS says,
"Hey, so I see he's takingâ¦"
And I represent him.
"I, I see he's taking two leased vehicles.
Does he have a third vehicle
that's his personal car?"
I'm like, "Nope."
"Sorry, you can't do that."
"Yes, we can."
"No.
Let me talk to your supervisor."
We did a supervisor conference,
and I laid out the facts.
I tried to lay out the facts to
the line agent, and he's like,
"Uh, uh, you can't do that."
I'm like, "Yeah, you can.
Let me talk to your supervisor."
And then we explained, showed the facts
and circumstances, and guess what?
No change.
The guy legitimately took those.
But his other CPA, who was a good,
solid CPA, said, "You can't do that."
Why?
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you
Kevin Schneider: can't.
That's true.
In this case, you can.
That's 99 times out of 100,
but that one time could be you.
Yes.
That one out of 100 could
be you, and it couldâ¦
I mean, how much were those leased
Main Video: ve- how much tax do you
think, if you had to ballpark it?
Mike Pine: Yeah, I think in that case,
just the s- tax savings alone was
about twenty-three thousand that year.
Very high, high paid.
But the IRS was trying to
penalize him twice that, right?
So
Kevin Schneider: it ended up
being like a $50,000 bill-
So the benefit was, yeah.
Defending that saved him
Main Video: the elimination of those
penalties, the tax clawback, all that
Mike Pine: Yeah.
And unfortunately, it should have
been a two-hour audit, right?
But after having the supervisor
conference, he said no.
Then we had to go to a management
conference, and then they said
no, and they did their finding.
And then we had to go to the appeal and
do it, and finally we got it through.
Um, and he ended up paying us, I think,
like 25 or 30,000 to save 50,000.
So it
Kevin Schneider: sucked.
Itâ¦
He shouldn't have had to pay that,
but we're not controlling the IRS.
We can't control how deep they
Mike Pine: wanna-
Or how dumb they are.
Kevin Schneider: How
stubborn they wanna be.
I didn't say dumb.
Mike Pine: How
Kevin Schneider: How, um-
Mike Pine: challenged they are
Kevin Schneider: in
understanding the gray area.
Their ownâ¦
Yes.
Well, from their vantage
point, they are, they have to
Mike Pine: to be-
Main Video: beâ¦
Kevin Schneider: have you ever pulled
an audit manual, a technique guide?
If you can Google this at home too.
If you just Google, like, 2026 audit
technique or audit guide, IRS audit guide,
you will see what the field agents have.
It is literally a checklist, A, B.
You know, you're gonna, they're
gonna go down this list.
There is no gray area in checklists.
I don't know if you've noticed that.
There's not, like, an open-ended checkbox
like, "What's your thoughts, agent?
What do you think?"
There's no what do you thinks.
It is, "This is the law.
This is how we handle
Main Video: it," and
there's no gray checkboxes.
Mike Pine: they're actually designed
to cover like seventy, eighty percent
of actual circumstances, right?
They design it knowing that there's
chances, there's twenty percent chance
or even maybe thirty percent chance.
Even if you answer no to that question,
it doesn't mean you follow the hierarchy
on that answer or that questionnaire tree.
They know that.
The line agents don't.
It's the people on the chief tax
council at the IRS, if any of them
are still there, they're the ones that
know the law, and eventually, they're
the ones that have to settle or drop
tax court cases when people finally
Kevin Schneider: push them through.
Yeah.
But most people, and most
CPAs, don't want to fight it.
Mm-hmm.
Any closing thoughts?
I think, um, we didn't want to beat
our own profession up to death, but
we're just trying to really open your
eyes out there and say if any of these
stories resonate with you and you don't
have that relationship with your CPA,
that's probably where I would start.
You need to have active, ongoing,
proactive conversations with your CPA.
Yeah.
If you don't have that
relationship, reach out to us.
We have capacity.
We're hiring people.
We're trying to grow our firm in a way
that actually we can focus and get,
each staff can get one to two returns
out a week, and our firm can survive
Mike Pine: Yeah
and grow and serve, and that's
what we're designed for.
So-
One more closing thought, though.
The story Kevin explained when he
was doing 15, 20 returns a week.
If you are a CPA out there, or
you are a tax advisor, and you are
finding yourself unable to provide
true value for your clients, there's
a lot of good ones out there, a
lot of good, good people out there.
I mean, we were just talking
about the average, right?
But a lot of good, smart, entrepreneurial,
client-focused advocates that have
handcuffs on them at the firm they're at.
Please reach out to us.
We are hiring.
We want you to consider working
with us because we will allow you
to serve your clients and add value.
So please go to revotaxpayer.com.
Check out our careers section.
We'd love to hear from you
and love to chat with you
Kevin Schneider: Thanks for, uh, staying
with us and listening to us banter
about, about, uh, this topic, and we'll
see you on the next epis- episode.
Please share this.
Uh, if you have a CPA and you,
you know, you're like, "Ugh," you
kind of like slide a hand passive
aggressively, send them this.
Maybe don't do that.
But share this with a friend,
like and comment below, and
we'll answer any questions.
And as Mike said, go to revotaxpayer.com
Main Video: to learn more about our firm,
but we'll see you on the next episode.
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.