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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Q Edmonds engages with tax expert Steven Young to explore the intricacies of tax strategies for real estate investors. They discuss the importance of proactive tax planning, overcoming tax anxiety, and the value of building relationships within the tax and real estate community. Steven shares real-life success stories of clients who have navigated tax challenges and emphasizes the need for financial education among business owners. The conversation highlights the difference between tax compliance and strategic tax planning, aiming to empower listeners to take control of their financial futures.
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Steven Young (00:00)
and then there’s threeQuentin (00:00)
Yeah.Steven Young (00:00)
years later and they’ve got this like huge weight on their shoulder. I visibly see people taller when they leave my office. Because they come walking in and they just, they have this weight on their shoulders, you know? And I help them out and I do all those tax returns for them and I get them organized and almost always, not always, but almost always, they end up owing a lot less than they thought they were gonna owe. Or they’re even getting money back. I’ve had it where…Quentin (00:11)
Yeah.Steven Young (00:25)
They’re getting money back and they could have gotten it like years ago, but they didn’t do it. And they just they visibly feel taller and they feel better.Quentin (00:29)
Yeah, yeah.Quentin (00:29)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. Excited to be here. ⁓ And I’m excited to talk about this subject, but specifically with this guy. Like I think without this guy, I probably wouldn’t be excited to talk about the subject because we probably gonna talk a little bit about taxes, right? I know we all love to talk about taxes, this is the, yeah, right, exactly. But this is the guy you want on your side when it comes to talking about taxes. And so.
Steven Young (02:29)
IQuentin (02:35)
I’m excited for us to peek through his lens. He’s going to give us information for real estate investors that can help, that can really, you know, help you, you know, keep the money in your pocket, you know? And so I’m excited to talk to Mr. Steven Young. How you doing today,Steven Young (02:52)
I’m great, how are you?Quentin (02:53)
⁓ man, I’m doing great. doing great. I’m so happy about this conversation that we’re going to have. I’m so happy that we got an expert, somebody that knows his way around the subject. And so I’ll be honest with you, man. I kind of just want to dive in. I want you to talk to the people about what your main focus. I’m not sure what operating markets you’re in. I’m not sure if that applies, but if it does, let’s talk about that. But really just take this kind of on a journey into your world and let us know what it is that you do,Steven Young (03:23)
Yeah, absolutely. So I own Savvy Tax Strategies and Bookkeeping. and I’m the SOS for the IRS is my tagline. I am, I do operate in all 50 states. I am an enrolled agent is the official designation, which is, it’s the highest designation for the IRS. And so I’m authorized to work in all 50 states with all taxpayers and I can represent you in front of the IRS.just like a CPA or a tax attorney can. The difference between like an EA and a CPA or other tax pros is that most of them, not all of them, of course, but most of them are focused on compliance work. They’re focused on putting numbers in boxes. They’re really, they’re historians, right? They’re reporting what happened in the past.
And I do that, of course. I do the compliance piece for my clients. But my real focus is helping you on being more proactive and looking in the future. What are you doing this year? I meet with my clients quarterly, typically. But right now, we’re three and a half months in before the end of the year. Where are you at financially right now? What do we need to do to be able to help you minimize your tax liability or
Whatever your goals might be, ⁓ you may not want to minimize your tax liability if you’re trying to qualify for loans to be able to buy more real estate. So we’ve got to look at what your goals are and help you out with your, to minimize your taxes as best possible given that. And then also of course, profit first, being more profitable on paper
in reality and in your bank accounts. But if we want it on paper to be able to qualify for loans, we definitely want to have an organized system.
for your business and that’s one of the things that we do.
Quentin (06:04)
man, I love it. Now I know tech talk, I mean, from my end, it’s not always easy in this climate. I’m not sure how it is for you. You probably make things look very easy, what’s the key to keeping that machine running smoothly? What’s the key to really kind of keeping things on your end, kind of the way they need to be?Steven Young (06:25)
Yeah, you the biggest key is looking at it. ⁓ I think that we so often, if it’s something we don’t know, if it’s something we’re uncomfortable with, we become ostriches. We stick our head in the sand or in the pillow, right? And we just pretend it doesn’t exist. I help a lot of people that are three, four years behind on their taxes. And it’s not because they were, they don’t want to pay taxes or because they’re bad citizens. It’s because something happened, something medical.Quentin (06:28)
No. ⁓Steven Young (06:54)
or they started their own business, or they started investing in real estate, and they weren’t sure, like the unknown happened, right? They weren’t sure what their taxes were gonna be. They always did it themselves, but now they’ve got two properties, or they started this business, or they’re 1099, they didn’t pay any taxes, they didn’t put any money aside, so they don’t know what to do, they don’t know what’s gonna happen, so they just become an ostrich, and they pretend it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t exist.Quentin (07:18)
Yeah. Yeah.Steven Young (07:21)
and then there’s threeQuentin (07:21)
Yeah.Steven Young (07:21)
years later and they’ve got this like huge weight on their shoulder. I visibly see people taller when they leave my office. Because they come walking in and they just, they have this weight on their shoulders, you know? And I help them out and I do all those tax returns for them and I get them organized and almost always, not always, but almost always, they end up owing a lot less than they thought they were gonna owe. Or they’re even getting money back. I’ve had it where…Quentin (07:32)
Yeah.Steven Young (07:46)
They’re getting money back and they could have gotten it like years ago, but they didn’t do it. And they just they visibly feel taller and they feel better.Quentin (07:50)
Yeah, yeah.Steven Young (07:56)
Sometimes they’re crying, you know, happy tears. Sometimes they’re crying because it’s fixed. But that’s the biggest thing is let’s look at it. Let’s look at your financial statements. Know where you’re at. I had a client come in one time or prospect, should say, come in one time and he said, my dad told me that I should know where my business is every Friday.Quentin (07:58)
So, yeah.Steven Young (08:16)
So every Friday night before he left the office, he would pull a P &L. He would pull a profit and loss statement. He would be able to see exactly where his business was every Friday night. The only time we do that, most people, the only time they do that is when they’re looking at their bank balance and they’ll pull up their bank statements or something and they’ll see. And the reason why they’re doing it is because it’s Friday night, they’re going out and they’re wondering how much money they have to be able to spend. they’re doing bank balance bookkeeping.Quentin (08:31)
Yeah.Yeah. Yup. Yup.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Steven Young (08:44)
Do I have money to buy the drinks for the girls?Quentin (08:50)
Will this card be declined?Steven Young (08:54)
It’s not gonna be a pretty sight if this card gets declined in the bottom of dinner.Quentin (08:56)
Exactly!Absolutely. No, man, I love it. Again, you know, I love your perspective. I love having you on just to see things through your unique lens. And I love how you talked about just the relief that people can feel, you know, after talking to you. It’s funny because I was going to tell our tech team to clip it where he said, they leave your office crying. We just want that’s all we’re going to clip. But no, but they leave crying. But no, I…
Steven Young (09:23)
No, dude, we can’t even thank you!⁓
Quentin (09:31)
But no, but I mean, because this is, mean, this, you know, taxes is the thing that a lot of us worry about the most, especially, like you said, 1099 entrepreneurs. Like this is what we worry about so much. And especially, like you said, people that’s just starting out, because that’s, that’s something that they don’t teach when you tell you, you know, go in the business for yourself, you know, when that tax time come likeIt’s like, ⁓ man, know, this is really something that you got to get acclimated and adjusted to.
And so I’m glad you shared that. And honestly, if you’re open to it, you know, because there are moments when there are times when things get real, right? There’s, I’m sure you got a ton of stories of people going through different kinds of situations. And I would just wonder maybe if you could share a story like that for the listeners, just so again, take a look, take some deeper into your lens of how your business kind of see things.
in like the triumph that really can come out of some of these stories. So was wondering if you should say more stories like that. Maybe at least one more that maybe you could share.
Steven Young (11:09)
Yeah, absolutely. So I have this one client who, without giving too many details, she had some issues family-wise and had her first husband passed away. And so that kind of threw her in a tailspin. She herself made pretty good money and it was all W-2 even. So taxes were already being held out, but she didn’t handle the taxes. And so, I see this a lot actually.but she wasn’t the one to handle the taxes. He passed away unexpectedly. And all of a sudden she’s got to try to one, figure out, navigate that whole family situation with little kids and all of that. But then also like, what do I do with the taxes? And so she was four years behind. We just got her all clinging up. Actually, no, I’m sorry. She was farther than that. She was five years behind. And here’s why I remember that.
The fifth year. So the IRS, they want you to catch up. If you’re more than six years behind, you typically don’t have to do more than six years unless on that sixth year or somewhere on there, the IRS finds a reason that they want you to go back and file the rest. So I’ve had people 10 years behind and I’m like, Hey, you don’t, worry about years seven through 10, right? Well, let’s just start with 2000 or whatever, no 2019 and we’ll move forward. Um, the,
Challenge though with that is the IRS doesn’t give you money back after that third year. So they want you to file for years five, four, five and six, but they’re not gonna give you the money back. And she was getting money back for years four and five. And it was, so that I felt really bad about that one, but there’s not much you can do about it. But at the end of the day though, her coming in, she was prompted to come in from a mortgage broker. She wanted to buy a house and you
Quentin (12:39)
⁓Gotcha. Yeah.
Steven Young (13:02)
can’t do that if you haven’t filed your taxes. And so the mortgage broker is a friend of mine and he said, you hey, you need to call, talk to Steven. You need to get all of this settled up. And so we got her all caught up and got them all filed for her. ⁓ And she was definitely one of those situations where just that weight was lifted from her, right? Like she wasn’t trying to be a bad person, right? She wasn’t trying to not pay her taxes. Like I’ve got plenty of those people. I’ll do Facebook ads and I’ll get people.Quentin (13:24)
Yeah.Steven Young (13:29)
commenting on their going out, taxes are illegal, taxes are theft. I’m not going to disagree with you, right? Like if you want to say the 16th Amendment is a fraud and we shouldn’t have to pay taxes and they’re voluntary and all that, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong. But what I am going to tell you is that I don’t look good in orange. maybe you don’t care, but I’m personally going to pay you. But I am going to pay as little as I can. And so…Quentin (13:32)
Yeah.Yes!
Absolutely. Yeah.
Steven Young (13:57)
I’ll just work within their rules, right? They gave us some rules. They’ve got a really big code, really big code. And I’m part of a group of about 40 of us that we’ve gone through that code. And we have found different strategies that we can use to help you pay as little as possible in taxes legally, using legal audited ⁓ rules. so the IRS, they incentivize business owners, real estate investors.Quentin (14:03)
Yeah. Yeah.Yeah.
Absolutely.
Steven Young (14:26)
And so we do everything we possibly can to help them.Quentin (14:30)
Man, you are making a conversation about taxes. So much fun, man. I never thought I’d have so much fun talking about taxes. This is great. I love you, Steven. I love you, man. Who need? Who need, man? Who need? But no, I love it, man. I’m loving this conversation. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on, like, solving or scaling next? Or let me say this, like, what’s the next real goal for you and what you’re doing?Steven Young (14:33)
Who knew? Who knew that could be fun? ⁓Yeah, the real goal is just getting the word out and making sure that people understand
not all tax professionals are looking to help you save money on your taxes. Most of them are historians. Most of them are simply looking to try to report the numbers that you’ve already done and that there is a difference between a tax strategist and a tax professional. ⁓ And so really what I want to do is be able to be more proactive.
and really create a strategy. So when I have a client come to me on the tax strategy side and they want, all the, I put together a whole, it’s about a 30 page, incredibly boring. You want to go to sleep at night, you read this kind of a thing, right? And it’s got all the different strategies based on your specific situation of what we can apply in your business, your real estate, whatever it is to be able to help you to.
reduce your tax liability. And again, that’s based on your goals. You may want to buy a house next year, in which case you don’t want to reduce your tax liability, because if you show that you made no money, the bank ain’t gonna give you no money. So we gotta be careful with that. And that’s one of the first questions I always ask people is, what are your goals? What are you trying to do in the next couple of years? Because I don’t want to screw that.
Quentin (16:47)
Yeah.Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I love it. One of the final questions I think I want to ask you, and I know, you know, I normally ask this from, of course, from like a real estate point of view when it comes to building relationships. But I heard you say, you know, it’s 40 of you, know, 40 of you, y’all got together, y’all went over, you know, the big book. so within your world, within your sphere, like how, how important are relationships? Like when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, like what has made the biggest difference for you?
Within that, you know, that room.
Steven Young (17:27)
Yeah, absolutely. Masterminds. I’m part of two different coaching groups. I’m a certified Profit First professional. In fact, I’m leaving tomorrow to go to New Jersey to be at ProfitCon, which is the profit convention for profit first professionals, which is a book by Mike McCallewicks that you can find on Amazon. around for like 11 years.If you’ve got real estate investors primarily on here or want to be real estate investors There’s a profit first for real estate investors. I think you can get it on Kindle for like a buck or something like that ⁓ But but the so anyway, so it’s a masterminds right the tax strategy group I just caught back from Texas last week where I met with ⁓ there was I think 20 of us in the room last week and and meeting with you know our coach so I spend thousands of dollars a year to be part of
different masterminds, different people. I’m pretty smart, I’m a pretty smart guy, but there’s other people that are lot smarter than me. And so when we put our minds together, we’re able to really come up with some different things. we’ve only got so much time and I can only research so much. And so when we have other people that are doing it as well and we can find the different ideas and have different companies come to us too. The other thing too is when there’s a group of us, we look a lot more interesting
Quentin (18:24)
Yeah. yeah, yeah.Steven Young (18:50)
to a company that comes to us and says, hey, we’ve got this idea for equipment leasing, would you be interested in helping us? Now there’s 30, 40 of us that are doing it versus just one, right? I can bring four deals to the table, but 40 of us can bring 80 deals or a hundred deals. And so we’re able to kind of use that as well. relationships, masterminds, huge, 100 % huge.Quentin (18:50)
Yeah.Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah,
Yeah, I’m glad I asked the question, man. Again, your unique lens, man. I love hearing this, man. And I’m sure our audiences love, the viewers love hearing this. listen, before we wrap, this has been fun. So before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, because they may need you, Mr. Young. So if someone wanted to reach out to you, collaborate with you, or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you,
Steven Young (19:37)
So my main website for my business is SavvyTaxStrategies.com. And that’s where all of my main business stuff is. But I’m also building a community. Again, community is important, right? So I’ve got a school community called the Savvy CEO Alliance or SavvyCEOAlliance.com that you can become a part of. It’s free and just providing financial information. My goal is to really help business owners, entrepreneurs to be…Quentin (19:49)
YeahLet’s go.
Steven Young (20:05)
more educated on the financial side of their business. ⁓ So many of them go out of business because they don’t understand money in, money out. And so I’m just, I’m looking to help educate and, and, you know, help help people to start businesses and stay in business.Quentin (20:22)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, sir, Mr. Steven, man, I thank you, man. I thank you for making this text talk so fun. So, you know, inviting, like, I mean, I think people listening to this, some of them are going to feel like, there’s hope, know, there’s legitimately hope. And so I hope they take the information, rewind it, y’all, get the information. SavvyTechStrategy.com, did I say that correct? So, y’all. ⁓Steven Young (20:49)
Strategies,yeah, Savvytaxstrategies.com
Quentin (20:52)
Strategies.com listen get in contact with Steven. Let’s get this weight off our shoulders. And so sir, I thank you man Thank you so much for your time for your perspective. Thank you for your stories. Thank you for Bringing levity to the room when it comes to this conversation. I truly appreciate you so much man. And so ⁓ Yeah, we need more people like you that’s doing this the right way. So thank you so muchSteven Young (21:07)
Thank you.Thanks again, I appreciate it.
Quentin (21:16)
Absolutely. And so everyone else, we giving you some golden nuggets today. We, we, we didn’t bought the value straight to you. So my ask is that you go ahead and subscribe. There’s one little click, go ahead and subscribe. Cause you do not want to miss out on these amazing conversations. So Mrs. Steven, thank you again. And to everyone else, we will see you on the next time.
