@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME WRONG SEQUENCE. WRONG STRUCTURE. WRONG YEAR TO FIX IT. Every tax season is the same story. We field calls in May from first-year business owners staring at tax bills they didn't see coming. Average bill: $24,000. Average reaction: "how in the world did this happen?" The business owner always asks some version of, “What can I deduct? Do I need to buy a truck? Do I need to buy an Airbnb?”In 99% of these cases, the answer was the same. They didn't miss a deduction....
12 days ago • 5 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME THE MOST POWERFUL TAX STRATEGY IN REAL ESTATE REQUIRES YOU TO DO NOTHING No filing. No election. No study. You just have to die owning it. Robert spent 35 years building a self-storage portfolio worth $18 million. He took every depreciation deduction available. He ran cost seg studies on every acquisition. He 1031 Exchanged rather than sold. His tax basis had dropped to almost nothing. On paper, he owed millions to the IRS. He never paid a dollar of it. When his...
19 days ago • 3 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME BOOKKEEPING WAS JUST THE BEGINNING Better Bookkeeping is now Visor. Same team. Same service. Same platform. The name changed because bookkeeping was never the right word for what we built. A visor cuts the glare so you can see what's in front of you. That's what a connected accounting system does. That's what we've been doing for four years. We launched on April 16. The day after tax season ends. On purpose. Better Bookkeeping was about fixing the past. Visor is...
26 days ago • 4 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME Coming at you a day early this week. It's April 15. This can't wait. (Plus a can't-miss webinar happening tomorrow. More below.) HAPPY TAX DAY Every April 15, Donald Rumsfeld mailed a letter to the IRS alongside his tax return. Same letter. Every year. This is the 2014 version. "The tax code is so complex and the forms are so complicated, that I know that I cannot have any confidence that I know what is being requested and therefore I cannot and do not know, and I...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME April 15 is six days away. If you're filing on time, you still have a window. If you're filing an extension — which most business owners with complex returns should — you have until October 15. Either way, this is the right time to read this. This is the final week of the deduction series. Weeks 1 through 3 covered the standard vs. itemized decision, vehicle deductions, and home office. This week is everything else — the deductions that add up to thousands and get...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME THE SELLER SAID $1.2M. THE REAL NUMBER WAS $840K. I've reviewed dozens of P&Ls for business buyers over the last few years. The pattern is the same every time. Seller says EBITDA is $1.2M. You look at the CIM, the broker's deck, the trailing twelve months. Everything lines up. Clean business. Good margins. Fair multiple. Then you dig in. Revenue that came from a one-time contract that won't recur. Add-backs the seller swears are legitimate, but half of them require...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
@baldridgecpa WORK WITH ME SET THIS UP ONCE. DEDUCT $3,000+ EVERY YEAR. There's a home office deduction worth $2,500–$8,000+ per year that most S-Corp owners either skip or set up wrong. The ones who skip it think the rules are complicated. They're not — once you know which rules apply to you. The ones who set it up wrong are using the simplified method. $5 per square foot, max 300 sq ft, $1,500 maximum. That method is designed for Schedule C filers. For most S-Corp owners, it's leaving real...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
@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...
about 2 months 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,...
2 months ago • 4 min read