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Hit 7 figures but losing 5 figures to taxes? Earn a 6-figure income but feel financial chaos? Welcome to the show helping you Simplify Your Numbers.
Most business owners in the $1M–$10M range feel like "passive payers"—surprised by a massive bill every April and wondering why their hard work isn't reflected in their bank account. Host Fabrice Metan, a veteran CFO and tax strategist, cuts through the noise of complex financial data to provide straightforward, actionable insights for the "7-6-5" entrepreneur.
This podcast is the bridge between traditional bookkeeping and high-level advisory. We move you away from a reactive "compliance mindset" and into a proactive strategy where your business becomes your greatest wealth-building tool.
Stop being a passenger in your own financials. It’s time to simplify your numbers, maximize your profit, and hold onto more of what you earn.
Subscribe to join the 7-6-5 community and start your transformation today.
Ep06
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Fabrice Metan: [00:00:00] If you've been filing with the same CPA for the past three years, there's a high probability that your tax return has not been challenged in a long time. The problem is that might cost you 20, 30 or sometimes even $40,000 in overpaid taxes.
So today I'm going to walk you through real cases where we found some gaps in how to know if this is happening to you.
[00:01:00] So there's something that I like to call the compliance trap, okay? And it's usually happening over three years, over the first three years of working with a client for most CPAs, right?
Most CPAs are gonna be historians. People that are very technical with the tax law, but are not strategists, right? They're not necessarily there to think outside the box and help you implement all the strategies that are available to you. In year one. Your CPA is giving high attention to everything that you're giving them because that's the first time that they get in front of your tax situation that they have to make sure that nothing is missed.
In year two, you have more familiarity, right? So the CPA is now understanding everything that you have going on. They assume that there's not a whole lot of changes. They might ask you a [00:02:00] few questions to double check, but for the most part, your situation is pretty familiar, and so they move forward with it.
And in year three, autopilot. We totally understand what this client is like. We assume that everything is the same. We don't really ask any challenging questions anymore, and we just file. That's when there's a trap. That's when you can find yourself in a situation where your situation may have changed, or maybe you could have implemented more strategies, but your CPA never brought it to the table.
And so today I wanted to walk you through three different cases of clients that came to us with, generally what we ask for is the last three years of tax returns that were filed so we can do a thorough tax review and double check all the things that could have been missed during that timeframe to decide if, one, there's a chance that you could amend and recover some of the taxes that you've paid. and two that you may be able to put together a better tax savings plan for [00:03:00] the current year.
Case One Vehicle Depreciation
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Fabrice Metan: And so the first case is a client that came to us and you know, was essentially saw, saw himself gross more money over the last three years. So every single year, the income that he was bringing in from his business almost doubled, right?
And so this client comes to us. We review all the tax returns, and one of the things that we noticed is that in one of those years where he paid a lot of taxes, he had a business vehicle in a year that he could have applied a hundred percent bonus depreciation to take the entire value of that vehicle against his ordinary income.
And instead the CPA that he worked with, essentially used what we call section one seventy nine. Which is always, you know, most, in most cases is limited and can lead you to only take a certain amount of depreciation in that year. The issue was that was the year that we, that the vehicle was placed in service and where he really needed the [00:04:00] deduction, and so by simply going back to that tax return and amending it and then consequently amending the tax return right after we essentially were able to recover about $10,000 of taxes that he had already paid for that year.
The client was so grateful because essentially that amount of money that he recovered was enough to cover the entire tax planning engagement that we had with that client. It's almost as if he received that benefit for free.
Case Two Rebuilding Books
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Fabrice Metan: The second situation that I can remember is a client who came to us essentially with a Schedule C business inside his personal tax return, and had some very high numbers and a lot of.
Round numbers and not a ton of deductions. And so I asked the question, how do you handle your books? Where do you maintain the books? And he mentioned that, well, he doesn't really do any bookkeeping. The only thing that he provides, you know, his CPAs essentially the sales report from his cr from from his CRM and and POS system, and just a few of the expenses that the CPA might [00:05:00] ask for.
So to me that was a little bit of a red flag. If you don't really know your numbers, you have no idea what your income truly is to determine what your true tax liability should be. And so I've asked the client, would you be okay with us reconstructing the financials over those last three years to really determine where you were?
Because to me, it seems to me, based on the conversations we had, that you may have overpaid in taxes. And so the client allowed us to pick up everything, all of the documents. The bank accounts go through all of the transactions to really determine what the net income was over those past three years. By going through that process, we realized that the client had overpaid about $16,000 in taxes, and so we were able to recover all of that money through the process.
So it might be an expensive process to go through, but most of the time you would probably recover 3, 4, 5 times what your investment was in that type of work.
Case Three Itemize Deductions
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Fabrice Metan: The last line that I can remember is a [00:06:00] client who essentially used the standard deduction in a year where they could have itemized. But let me break that down for you.
So if we just take the 2025 tax year, right, for example, your standard deduction for a married filing jointly couple would be 31,500 right now. If you're able to itemize your deductions, which is a list of specific deductions, like your medical expenses, your state and local taxes your property taxes, your mortgage interest, your donations and charitable contributions
essentially, if all of those deductions add up to a higher number than the standard deduction, you have the right to take that higher number. Which reduces your taxable income dollar for dollar. Well, in that year, my client essentially had about $51,000 in. Itemized deductions, but instead the CPA opted for the standard deduction, which was about [00:07:00] $30,000 or so at that time.
So you can see a $20,000 over re you know, income that was over reported and essentially cost the client a lot more in taxes. And so I think by. Going back and amending that tax, tax return and taking the itemized deductions, we were able to recover five to $6,000 in taxes simply by that, that process,
and so these are the type of things that could easily happen when you have the same person that you're working with every time. And so I always challenge my, you know, my clients or other people out there to always get a second opinion. Just to get an idea of exactly if everything is, you know, you're covering all your bases.
Five Signs Your CPA Misses Savings
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Fabrice Metan: Especially as your income continues to increase Alright, and so now I'd like to give you five signs that your CPA is no longer looking for savings, and this is how you will be able to determine if this is happening to you or not.
Sign One Plan vs Prepare
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Fabrice Metan: So sign number one. You haven't had a tax planning conversation this year. So let's talk about tax planning [00:08:00] versus tax preparation, right? Tax preparation is something that happens after the year ends, and it's more reactive, right? It's based on whatever the facts are at that point. Tax planning is something that is proactive and actually happens before the year ends.
So the question that you might ask is, when should a tax planning conversation actually take place? I would say that between January through April 15th, it's probably impossible, right? We are all swamped at that time. Your CPA has no time to sit down and talk about strategy, but once that period ends, most of the time we would have several clients that we would've filed some extensions for.
And so between the months of May through August would generally be the best times to start asking questions or the best time to sit down with your CPA to dive into what can you do differently in the current year. September and October we're back into [00:09:00] filing all of those extensions.
And so you're probably not gonna get a chance to talk to your CPA then, but you may be able to also have that conversation in November and December towards the end of the year. And so when it comes to tax planning, that is something that needs to be done at very strategic points in the year. And if you can do that in a proactive manner, you can save yourself a lot of money.
I think the most, the simpler way to drive the conversation is by simply saying, is there anything that we could have done different last year? Right. Based on how much you've owed, is there anything that you could have done to reduce your tax liability that would generally start? Helping your CPA think about, okay, let's look at your situation, and then from there, break down the things that could have been done that weren't done before the end of the year.
Typically in our case, it starts with reviewing that very last tax return, sometimes the last three. That helps a ton. And then based on that information, we can then present a custom [00:10:00] tax savings plan. This is what you've done in the past. These are the things that you could do differently, and based on that.
This is what it looks like in terms of tax savings, assuming that your situation does not change at all. And then we can also look at potential tax savings based on the new information that you're providing. So another thing that you may bring to that conversation is, here's what I did in 2025, but here's what I'm thinking about doing in 2026, so that you can now start strategizing around those de deduct decisions, right?
And then from there, once we determine exactly what the tax plan is and we go in and implement all of those strategies, the next step is essentially to monitor the plan and monitor your life as you go throughout the year so that we can see how the current income at that point, when estimated for the entire year, would affect you from a tax standpoint and what can be done to change that situation if it is not in your best interest.
Signs Two and Three Stale Strategy
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Fabrice Metan: So the second red flag. If your tax [00:11:00] strategy looks the exact same as two, three years ago, see, your business is evolving and your life is also changing as time goes on.
So it's very important that by sitting with your CPA, everything is being analyzed to make sure that. There are no changes. There's nothing in your strategy that we should start, you know, thinking about. And on top of it, the tax code also changes. So when there's a change in the tax code, we need to use all of those opportunities to amplify the tax savings that we can get you through the strategy.
Number three, no one is asking questions about your business. So. Simply put, they're asking for your financials and then whatever you have to provide at that time, they move forward with it instead of asking you specific questions like, how many miles did you drive for business?
Right? How much money did you spend traveling for business? You know, different questions like that that can allow us to take more deductions than what is actually seen on the [00:12:00] surface.
Signs Four and Five Get Reviewed
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Fabrice Metan: Number four, you only hear from your CPA during tax season. So if you're dealing with someone who should be a strategist for you and you only hear from them during tax season, that could be a red flag, right? Because throughout the year they should have had more conversations and more meetings with you in order to determine exactly where you stand, how that might affect you on the tax.
from a tax standpoint and essentially from there, finding ways to get around it or to reduce your tax liability.
And number five, you've never had your return reviewed by another professional. And so that's actually something that we do at our firm. You know, if you visit simplifymynumbers.com, you'll be able to find our schedule where you can go there and actually pick the tax return review, which is something that we normally start at $150.
But if you're listening to this episode, I will make sure that you have a code in the show notes where you'll be able to schedule one of those for [00:13:00] yourself at no cost at all. And so whether you are listening to it on your favorite podcast media, or if you're catching this on YouTube, you should be able to find that in the notes.
And hopefully, you know, our team can dive into your. Personal situation and see how we may be able to help you uncover some of the savings that you should have had over the last few years.
Second Opinion Wrap Up
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Fabrice Metan: And so that's pretty much it. If you've been fouling the same way with the same person for so many years, whether it's 3, 5, 10, 20 years, sometimes with the same CPA. I would definitely think that it would be a great idea to get another, a second opinion. Okay? Just to make sure that you're crossing all your T's and dotting all your i's, you're not missing anything.
And from there you can determine if this is the right person for you to continue to work with, or if it's time to find a new professional. Looking forward to seeing you on the next episode.
[00:14:00]