@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME Before we get into this week's email — a quick note. My friend Eric Jorgenson just released The Book of Elon — yes, that Elon. It's #3 in Business on Amazon right now, behind only Atomic Habits and Mel Robbins. Eric spent five years pulling together the best ideas from Elon's public appearances — all in his own words. Foreword by Naval. If you're building something, it's worth five bucks. Grab it on Amazon → THE YEAR 1 VEHICLE DECISION There is a vehicle deduction...
7 days ago • 6 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME STANDARD VS. ITEMIZED: THE 2025 MATH IS DIFFERENT The standard deduction exists so the IRS can process 150 million returns without auditing every receipt. It's a convenience. It's not always the better deal. 94% of taxpayers take it. Most never run the comparison. For W-2 employees with a modest mortgage and no state income tax, the standard deduction is still the right call. For business owners in high-tax states — with a mortgage, meaningful state income taxes,...
14 days ago • 4 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME YOUR LLC IS NOT SAVING YOU ANY TAXES If you own a business, pull your last tax return. Find Schedule SE. That number is the same whether you're a sole proprietor or an LLC owner. The LLC gives you liability protection. It does not touch your tax bill. Self-employment tax is Social Security and Medicare — the same thing W-2 employees pay through payroll. The difference: W-2 employees split the cost with their employer. 7.65% each. Sole proprietors and default LLC...
21 days ago • 5 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME APRIL 15TH IS NOT YOUR DEADLINE Filing your taxes in April is one of the most expensive things an S-corp owner can do. Not because of what you pay. Because of what you miss. When you rush a return to meet an April deadline — without your K-1, without clean books, without running final projections — you're leaving deductions on the table, setting yourself up for an amendment, and paying your CPA twice for the same work. The IRS gives S-corp owners six extra months to...
28 days ago • 5 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME BUSINESS OWNERS OVERPAY TAXES EVERY APRIL. YOU DON'T HAVE TO. April 15th isn't the deadline that matters. The real deadline is now. Strategic moves — entity elections, catching up your books, setting up quarterly taxes — have to happen BEFORE you file. Most of them can't be fixed once you're staring at a number you don't like. On March 4th at 1:00 PM CT, I'm hosting a free webinar to walk through what to do with the time you have left — including live Q&A where you...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME 🚨5 DAYS OUT: Real Tax Strategies That Actually Work Nick Huber and I are breaking down the exact playbook investors and operators use to pay less tax in a live webinar on Tuesday 2/24. Cost segregation, entity optimization, retirement strategies, and your questions answered live. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this. Save your spot HOW TO NEVER PAY REAL ESTATE TAXES AGAIN I know investors with $50M portfolios who took millions in depreciation deductions and never...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME 🚨LIVE WEBINAR: How to Pay Less Tax On Tuesday, February 24th, join Nick Huber and me for a tactical breakdown of real strategies to reduce your tax bill. Cost seg, S corp optimization, STR loopholes, and more. Plus live Q&A. Save your spot YOUR MOVE Sarah bought a $900,000 rental property in 2020. She took standard depreciation for four years. Never did a cost seg study. Last spring she called and asked if it was too late. It was not. We ran a cost seg, identified...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME THE REAL ESTATE TAX PLAYBOOK I have written 50+ issues of this newsletter. If I could only send you one, this would be it. Over the next three weeks I am going to walk you through the complete real estate tax strategy. Not pieces of it. The whole thing. Week 1: The framework. Week 2: The implementation. Week 3: The endgame. Let's go. Garrett's Story Garrett runs an IT consulting firm. Last year he cleared $847,000 in business income. He paid $0 in federal income...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME IT'S NOT WHAT YOU MAKE — IT'S WHAT YOU GET TO KEEP Every sophisticated tax strategy — QSBS exclusions, Puerto Rico deals, 1031 exchanges, Roth conversions — boils down to three words: AVOID. DEFER. MINIMIZE. Most people think about taxes one year at a time, optimizing for April 15th. The wealthy think in decades, optimizing for their entire lifetime. Here's the framework they use. RULE #1: AVOID Avoiding tax altogether is the optimal outcome. You would have paid...
3 months ago • 4 min read