Stop Guessing What You'll Owe in Taxes [E241]

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve

Do you actually know what you'll owe the IRS next spring, or are you just hoping it works out? And if your accountant has been extending your taxes for years, is that actually saving you anything?

This week, Hunt Demarest, CPA with Paar Melis & Associates, kicks off a two-part series on taxes by tackling the piece most shop owners skip entirely: tax planning. Hunt draws the line between tax preparation (backward-looking, mandatory, and reactive) and tax planning (forward-looking, optional, and the thing that actually keeps you from getting blindsided). He walks through the exact five-minute math he uses to annualize a shop's net income from partial-year numbers, why extending your return "to lower audit risk" is a myth, and the personal-return landmines, like ACA marketplace credits and phased-out child tax credits, that catch shop owners off guard even when the business side looks fine.

Whether you've never run a tax estimate in your life or you just want to sanity-check what your accountant is telling you, this episode gives you the framework to stop being surprised every April.

What You'll Learn…

(02:29) Why this isn't the tax-saving episode you expected

(05:00) Tax prep vs. tax planning: it's about timing, not paperwork

(05:53) The financial-analysis cycle behind every good tax plan

(07:14) Why most shops never build a real tax plan

(09:08) Busting the "extending lowers my audit risk" myth

(09:57) When it's time to fire your accountant over extensions

(11:30) The annual tax planning calendar Hunt runs for clients