Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Dentists, Puns, and Money is a podcast focused on two things: The financial topics relevant to dentists leaving clinical practice and the stories and lessons of dentists who have already done so.
1. The stories of dentists who have transitioned from full-time clinical dentistry.
2. The financial topics that are relevant for dentists making that transition.
If you’re a dentist thinking about your exit from clinical, and you’d like to learn from the experiences of other dentists who have made that transition, be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app.
Host Shawn Terrell also dives deep into the many financial components of exiting dentistry, including tax reduction strategies and how to live off your assets.
And, we try to keep it light by mixing in a bad joke… or two.
Please note: Dentists, Puns, and Money was previously known as The Practice Growth Podcast until March 2022.
Shawn Terrell (00:02.998)
Welcome to Dentists, Puns and Money. I am your host, Shawn Terrell. A reminder before we get started that while the name of the podcast is Dentists, Puns and Money, the name of my financial planning firm for dentists is actually called Dentist Exit Planning. So just thought I would clarify that as there sometimes is confusion about how these two things are associated together, the podcast and my financial planning firm. As a reminder, we help dentists
Build their financial treatment plan for life after dentistry. That's what Dentist Exit Planning does. So with that out of the way, a little story. My family has a lot of stories that we've accumulated through the years and we like to retell these stories when we get together. less now than we did before. But one of our sort of inside joke stories is called, Don't Forget the Buns. And it.
originates probably from 30, 35 years ago in the 80s or 90s during a Thanksgiving dinner. We had got the turkey and the mashed potatoes and the sweet potatoes and the cranberries and the corn and all the fixings, fixins for Thanksgiving dinner. But at the very end, we realized that we forgot the buns or the rolls for Thanksgiving dinner in the oven.
and they got burned pretty bad. And it happened a couple different Thanksgivings. And the point of the story is that when you're doing something kind of big and you're thinking of all the big things, it can be really easy to forget something small or insignificant. I'm not, I am not a chef. My brother's a chef. But one of the things I've noticed about cooking a big meal is that
The buns are always at the very end. throw them in the oven for like five or 10 minutes just to kind of toast them at the very end of getting everything ready. So as you sit down to eat, it can be easy to forget about something that insignificant until you smell the buns burning. So I think this is a relatable story as it relates to getting ready to file your income taxes. And I thought it was relative at this time of year because a lot of dentists are probably starting to get all the forms and look at their notes.
Shawn Terrell (02:26.123)
to think about what they need to get together to what they need to get together to then meet with their CPA and file their income taxes for 2024. And the reason it's relative is because as you're getting everything together for filing your taxes for 2024 in the spring of 2025, I think it can be really easy to forget something relatively small that might make
a big deal in filing your taxes. So I have a tax filing checklist that I am offering for free. And that's kind of the point of the podcast. And I just want to hit on a couple things on the checklist. It includes like things to think about for your income from 2024 your deductions and any potential tax credits that you might be eligible for. But the tax filing checklist is good in that it kind of like helps
hopefully to keep anything that needs to be on your taxes or your tax filing from falling through the cracks. One of the big ones that you need to make sure you get are 1099s, especially if you are taking money out of tax-deferred accounts, you should receive a 1099, it's a form, electronic or in the mail and a hard copy to report your income from different places.
In this case, I'm talking about a tax deferred account, especially if you're taking required minimum distributions in your retirement or your post-clinical life. Make sure you have all your 1099s from those custodians. And if you've had any interest or dividends, you should have those forms as well.
The other thing I think is a good reminder is that a year is a mighty long time. So it can be really easy to forget something you did financially, like say back in February of last year, in February of 2024, when you go to file your taxes in March of 2025. for example. So this checklist, this tax filing checklist, I think is a good helper to make sure you don't miss anything. A couple reminders as you get ready to file your taxes.
Shawn Terrell (04:41.744)
As far as I know, there is no credit, no points, no avoidance of a potential audit by getting your taxes filed as fast as possible. So What I see some people do at times is try to get their taxes filed in like early February, which you can do, but just be aware that if you do do that and a corrected form shows up after you already file your taxes, that could create a problem. So
I've never heard or seen on the IRS website that there's any credit or any huge benefit to having your taxes filed by or like in February. So get them done. Don't wait till the last minute, but you also don't have to like rush to the finish line either. I used to work in TV news a long time ago and every year on tax day or April 15th, we'd like the TV news station would do a live shot of people like dropping their tax returns off at the post office.
like to get them postmarked by April 15th. So don't be that person, but also you don't have to get them done super, super quick unless you really, really have a strong reason to do that. Another big reminder is If something doesn't get reported correctly on your tax return, it effectively never happened. And I've mentioned that I like to ride my bike a lot. A lot of cyclists use an app.
to track their mileage called Strava. And there's a saying in the cycling community that if it's not on Strava, it never happened. And that's kind of true with your tax returns. So when you meet with your CPA or the person that files your taxes and you get that preliminary thing done, make sure you go home pretty quickly if you can and look at everything as it's put together and make sure it's right. I still remember a few years back when our youngest son was born, I...
I am 100 % sure that I told the person that files our taxes what his correct name was, but he put down a name that wasn't even close to what his legal name is. And if I hadn't reviewed that and caught that right away, that would have been a big problem at some point, maybe the next year or maybe several years down the road when you're...
Shawn Terrell (06:59.234)
you know, using someone as a dependent like my son on your tax returns and the name is wrong, that's gonna eventually have to get corrected. And it would have been a lot harder to correct on the backend than me catching it on the front end and making sure it got fixed. So make sure you take a brief glance at everything. If you don't understand something, any good CPA I would think would spend a few minutes with you to make sure that
If you think something is wrong, they can like take a look at it and see if it actually is wrong or not. So I would strongly advise doing that. And remember these CPAs and the people filing taxes are doing probably hundreds of returns. So it can be really easy for an honest mistake to happen. So even though you're paying someone to do that job, you as the actual taxpayer and the individual
are the last line of defense to make sure that everything gets on your tax return correctly. So as I mentioned, I have a free tax filing checklist that you can download. How you can download it is going to depend on how you're listening or watching this podcast. So if you are listening on a podcast app on your phone or some other place, you're going to want to go into the show notes.
and you're wanna scroll down into the show notes for a link that says "Resources From Episode." Click on that link in the podcast app in the show notes and that should take you to my LinkedIn, or excuse me, my Linktree page where I have all these links that I can compile in one place. And on that Linktree page at the very top there's a section called "Resources." and in resources you're gonna see
a button that you can click for tax filing checklist. It's a lot of steps. It's more steps than I wish it was, but it's just the reality of trying to put links in software in some instances right now. Click on that tax filing checklist link, put your name and your email in, and you will receive a PDF copy of this checklist at the email that you put in. If you're watching on YouTube, great. Thank you. Our subscribers have been going up. Please like and subscribe if you do watch on.
Shawn Terrell (09:23.041)
YouTube to the Dentist Exit Planning YouTube page. In that main profile on that Dentist Exit Planning YouTube page, there is a link to our Linktree site that I just referenced and basically follow the same steps. Just click the link at the top of our profile on the YouTube page, go to our Linktree site, under the Resources section, this is a lot of steps.
Look for tax filing checklist put in your email and your name and you will receive a PDF copy of the checklist At that email so That's all I have for today. Hope this is helpful as you start to gather documents and prepare to file your 2024 taxes. As a reminder Dentist Exit Planning is a financial planning firm that helps dentists build financial treatment plans for
Life after dentistry post clinical life after clinical. So if you're interested in that, you can always shoot me an email. The link for that is in the show notes as well. And that's all I have for today. I'm Shawn Terrell. I am the host of dentists. Excuse me. I'm the host of Dentist Puns and Money. And before I go, just a few basic disclosures. What I've shared today is not tax legal or financial advice. You should consult with your
hired professional for specific tax legal and financial advice for your situation. And anything I've said should not be construed as individual advice. I think I've covered it. Okay, we'll see you next time on Dentists, Puns and Money.