In today's episode, we dive deep into the mindset shift you need to transition from merely saving to truly expanding your worth. It's not just about tax strategies but about taking risks, growing your business, and prioritizing your goals beyond just cutting costs. Whether you're contemplating relocating for tax benefits or struggling with the balance between saving and earning, this episode is packed with insights to help you plan better and find joy in your entrepreneurial journey. Let's get into it and start changing the way you think about money and growth.
What you'll hear in this episode:
03:44 Strategic approach needed for business growth.
09:44 Hiring teenagers for high value tasks is worthwhile.
11:12 Plan better, reduce tax liability, empower sooner.
If you like this episode, check out:
Silence These Voices In Order to Succeed
My 3 Most Expensive Mistakes
How Can You Shake Off Business Boredom and Thrive?
Want to learn more so you can earn more?
Get $50 off your HR audit with People Principles by using code SHANNON50 here.
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Watch this episode and more here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlIuZsrllp1Uc_MlhriLvQ
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The information contained in this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and is not individual tax advice. Please consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you learn.
(upbeat music) - Welcome to Keep What You Earned, your judgment and jargon-free zone for entrepreneurs of all levels. Get ready to learn how to scale your business, save money in taxes, and create a business that grows your wealth. If it feels like the financial side of business is like eating your vegetables, well, then think of this podcast as the ranch dressing to make the process a little more enjoyable. My name is Shannon Weinstein. I'm a CPA and business owner on a mission to simplify money and empower others through knowledge. I hope this episode inspires you to take action, but remember that the information we share is for educational purposes only and is not individual tax advice. Now that we got that out of the way, let's start the show. (upbeat music) All right, so admittedly, I have built my business over the past five years, which is crazy to think about. I've built my business over the past five years, leaning into a lot of what people were asking around taxes, around tax savings, around tax strategy, which is totally valid. What I've discovered in this journey is, and something that I've kind of tapped into. I'll say discovered, but like really honed in on internally, is I started feeling the sense of discomfort. I've always felt this kind of tug of war going on between sharing tax strategies and tax advice, not because of any reason other than, you know, it's not because I'm team IRS, it's not because I'm too conservative or I'm risk averse. It's because I know it's nuanced, and I also know it's a lot of work for a little reward most of the time. I know that it's not a worthwhile battle for the vast majority of people who are listening to me. And although it's fantastic education, and I love sharing this with you, and I will continue to share more about tax saving strategies and ways that you can, you know, not pay more than your fair share, I also realize that shouldn't be your priority from most people who are listening to this show. And what I've leaned into recently is this mindset of you really, it's true, you cannot save your way to wealth. You can't. You don't win the game by sitting on the bench and waiting. You don't really, you have to get in the fucking game. You have to get in the game. And you have to be willing to take risks. You have to be willing to grow. And the type of ambitious person who would be an entrepreneur is the type of person who'd be willing to take that risk. But also, yes, there are ways to save taxes along the way. But I believe that those should be secondary to what your primary strategy and goal is. If you are operating with a default operating system that I will do what it takes to save money in taxes, first, you will not be wealthy, you will not be wealthy. You will be holding yourself back from so much growth. If the first thing you're worried about is taxes. And I'll tell you why, because when you have the mindset of an earner versus a saver, this is something, I actually discussed this with Ryan Panetta on his show. We were talking about this even off camera, about the earner versus saver mindset. The earner's mindset is that of chasing the next thing, growing to a point where you're earning more and you're out earning your spending. And yes, you cannot out exercise a bad diet. I'm a believer of that. So I don't believe in sales will be the cure of everything. I've talked about that before. But what I do believe is that you also cannot cost cut your way. You can't coop on your way to wealth. There's a blend, there's a blend in that strategy. But I think much like a retirement savings account where you're looking at stocks and bonds and you're balancing out your risk portfolio, I think you have to have a strategic risk portfolio. And I think you have to have an idea of how much time do I want to spend focusing on growing my business versus making it look smaller than it is. And I'm going to tell you that in the context of taxes, your goal always with your tax return is to make your self look a little smaller than you are. It's the chance to be humble. I didn't really make much money this year. Don't worry about it. I'm not super rich, don't worry about it IRS. And I think that we tend to be so focused on painting that picture for the sake of our taxes that we forget that our goal is to make enough money that taxes don't matter, right? That's the goal. I had this conversation in Instagram recently where someone asked me, hey, so tell me about Costa Rica. Like what's the tax play there? I, you know, they assume, especially 'cause I'm a CPA, they assume that we moved abroad for tax reasons. Now, is that a common thing to do? Yes. Is it also kind of a sad reality and a sense of superiority to assume that the only reason someone would move out of the United States is to avoid taxes? Interesting. So I answered this question with, you know, three main reasons. The people, the weather, I just added monkeys because why not? We have monkeys and sloths who wouldn't want to live here. I said that facetiously in a sense to say like, there's plenty of other reasons other than taxes to do something. This was not a tax play. This was a joy play and a bit of lifestyle arbitrage in the sense of we earn money and we do pay taxes in the United States. We pay all every dollar, keep what your own company has earned is tax in the United States and Connecticut, the way it has been, which is totally fine by me. I have no complaints about that. But down here, we're able to earn that money using United States prices as though I'm sitting in Connecticut because any given time you don't really know where I'm sitting. So I'm able to earn money in the States because we don't spend all of our time in Costa Rica. I'm able to earn money in the States. And then we take that money and we bring it down here where we pay $500 a year in property taxes roughly. And groceries are a bit cheaper. We live simpler lives. We just need less because we really don't need to go anywhere. We don't use much gas. We walk everywhere. We go to the beach every day. We just enjoy being here. We enjoy the people, we enjoy the culture, we enjoy the vibe down here. It's so much fun. And I say all that to say in the theme of this episode that if the first reason you're doing something as taxes, I think you're missing out. Because if we had looked at taxes as the first thing, we probably would have gone to Puerto Rico, right? Because we would have gone to Puerto Rico where there's more of a tax benefit. But we didn't, I mean, nothing against Puerto Rico, but we hadn't been there. We hadn't really, like, we didn't connect with Puerto Rico the same way as Costa Rica. Like we've been here, you know, Jason's parents loved it here. We just knew we loved it. And I'm sure you have a very similar story with a place that you love. I have friends who love Aruba. I have friends who love even certain parts of Florida or wherever, right? You make your choices. But it's not always about taxes. It's more so about you making the choices that are going to benefit you personally and professionally. And secondarily, hey, while we're doing this, is there any way to minimize the tax burden? It's the second question, not the first, because if you're really just looking at taxes, then why doesn't everybody live in, you know, South Dakota, Nevada, Florida, what was it, Wyoming? You know, like, why don't you all live there, Tennessee? Because there are other aspects of your lifestyle that lend itself to where you live. I mean, look at anyone who lives in California. Clearly, your first decision was not where are the taxes, the lowest, and that's okay. There are plenty of other benefits and redeeming qualities about California. There's a reason why everyone loves living there. But again, people will come to me and say, hey, how can I reduce my tax liability? And I so badly want to respond, how can you be so happy that question isn't really a problem? How can you build more joy? How can you build more wealth in your life where this isn't even really a question that pops up in the first top three questions of where to spend your time? And again, I'm not advocating that you shouldn't have tax strategies, I think you should. But I think you need to pick them, pick two or three, that you're really gonna implement consistently. Pick priority tax strategies that are really gonna move the needle for you. Because one of my philosophies is we better not be, you know, stepping over dollars to pick up dimes is how I put it or, you know, spending dollars to save dimes. That's all you're really doing. You're going to find a way to spend more money trying to save those tiny bits, spending more money more time. My favorite example of this that I've shared on the podcast before is hiring your kids. It's my favorite tax strategy in the whole world because it also involves financial literacy and empowerment for young folks. But here's the problem. For it to be a worthwhile strategy, requires a lot of circumstantial advantage. So it requires you to have like a teenager who's willing and capable and has the capacity and capability to do high value tasks. You know, they can drive you around. It's very cool. So like a 16, 17 year old, this is like awesome. Because you can pay them that 13 grand a year or so and justify why. Because they're gonna be doing high value tasks. But if you're hiring a three year old, a four year old, a five year old, and you think you can afford to pay them like 13 grand, I go, what can a five year old do? That is worth a grand a month. Like it takes a lot to figure that out. And at a certain point, the amount of documentation, the amount of tracking and the amount of, you know, attention that is in need, doesn't really make it worthwhile. You're saving a couple grand in taxes at the end of the day. Yes, you are building wealth for your child as well. There are other benefits. But if you're really focused on the tax savings aspect of this, then it's gonna be a lot of effort with a little tax savings reward. You have to find a better reason to do it than just the tax savings. You should want to hire your kids to teach them about money and to actually have them do work in the business. And oh, by the way, this is a great tax play. But if you're creating W2s and you're fudging it and you're like, just trying to make it work from a paperwork standpoint, it's not gonna serve you. It's not really gonna serve you. You're gonna, you make it audited. A lot will be pulled into question. It just takes a lot of time to paint this picture. So my advice would be if you're sitting in this area of like, you're thinking about, as we head into the tax season, 'cause right now you're kind of thinking about this, of how can I reduce my tax liability next year? What you should be focused on is how can I plan better? How can I be more proactive? Even if your outcome doesn't change, simply knowing what you're gonna owe six months sooner is going to empower you more. Simply knowing what you're gonna owe six months sooner will empower you more than any tax strategy on the planet. Because if somebody can do a pro forma tax return for you and do a predictive analysis of, here's what we think you're gonna owe, and you know that in July, then that would be really powerful because then you wouldn't be so stressed out. But what you have to do is unpack, why are you stressed? Why are you so focused and obsessed with saving money in taxes as opposed to, hey, maybe most of the strategies I've already unlocked, I don't need to get super creative with my tax saving strategies, but I really need to plan better. If you can diagnose that, super powerful. So if you've already taken advantage of certain tax strategies, kudos to you, that's fine. It's for the folks who are watching the YouTubes, the Grant Cardone's shout out to Grant, I love him. But there's a lot of advice that, for example, a Grant Cardone is taking advantage of in his wealth position that frankly, you're just not there yet. You don't have the same clay as he does to mold. You don't have the same material to work with. So implementing his strategies don't really make sense. It doesn't really make sense. You know, you're not gonna follow the diet of an Olympian. You're not one, not one yet. You could be training, but you're not there yet. So follow the type of routine that works for you and helps you accomplish your goals. That's the whole advantage of having a business. It should be that instead of just being a tax savings vehicle, which awesome, there are tax benefits donning a business, it's gonna serve your goals at the end of the day. And if it's not, then you have another machine, another business, another job that is just costing you time at the end of the day, and possibly money. So as we go into this tax season and you start asking yourself those questions of, how can I save more money in taxes next year? Talk about it with your accountant. Talk about it with your tax pro. Even talk about it with us if you want to. And, you know, join CFL on demand. Come join us every month, we have a call. And let's talk about, you know, how can I go into this next year with a better plan on how to manage this tax liability and how to actually manage what I'm gonna pay and make it a little bit more realistic. So please have that conversation, really try to shift that mindset around simply saving to really making it work in your favor in multiple dimensions. I'll see you on the next episode. (upbeat music) One of the best decisions I made in business that saved me countless headaches was getting expert advice in HR as I started growing my team. With so many compliance requirements, especially for virtual businesses, I could never get caught up on everything I needed to learn or I was supposed to do. That's where Jackie and her team at People Principles came in with their signature HR audit for only $349. But get this, if you use code Shannon50, you get $50 off of that. So it's only 300 bucks. You'll have peace of mind by the end of the week with this exclusive offer as a keep what you were in listener. Here's what's included. A step-by-step self-assessment, a 60-minute strategy session with their HR experts to ensure that you're in compliance and you have a plan for getting on track, an HR template to keep all this important stuff in one place and a roadmap of the top three best practices to implement right now in the next six to 12 months. Again, use code Shannon50 to take $50 off of this assessment. Do not miss out on this opportunity or let unintentional HR mistakes derail your business growth. (upbeat music) - Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review on your podcast platform. This small action goes a long way for podcasters to get our message heard by more business owners, just like you. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to information about our guests and ways to get in touch with me. We'll see you on the next episode. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
