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Show Summary
In this conversation, Taryn Jalomo, a licensed tax strategist, discusses the role of enrolled agents in tax representation and strategy. She emphasizes the importance of personalized tax consultations and the need for proactive tax planning, especially for small business owners and individuals with side hustles. The discussion also covers the complexities of cost segregation, the current trends in real estate investment, particularly in the DFW Metro area, and Taryn’s upcoming documentary that highlights her journey and business philosophy.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Taryn Jalomo (00:00)
A lot of what I do is tax strategy. ⁓ Some are really pumping out tax returns and that’s what they focus on. ⁓ But in all cases, all the ones that I work with, they’re looking at the big picture for you. They’re not just plugging the numbers. They’re not just data entry clerks. They’re literally looking at it and saying, hey, what about this? Do you have a home office? Do you have a mileage log? Do you have?⁓ What about your cell phone? Do you use that for business? You know, whatever. They’re going through all the what ifs to ask you the questions to pull out more deductions and to help you, you know, maximize your taxes so that you pay as little as possible. You know, we have a slogan here in our office. We all have to pay taxes, but there’s no law that you have to leave a tip. So we want to make sure that you’re not paying any more than your fair share.
Dylan Silver (00:47)
Bye!Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Taryn Jalomo is a licensed tax strategist who received the 2020 Dallas Area Businesswoman of the Year Award. She was the 2025 Enrolled Agent of the Year and serves on the board of the DFW Texas Society of Enrolled Agents. She just wrapped up filming a documentary called Women and Power, and you can find her on LinkedIn and Facebook. Taryn, thanks for taking the time today.
Taryn Jalomo (02:56)
Thank you so much for having me.Dylan Silver (02:57)
I want to hop right in and get talking about what is an enrolled agent and really what enrolled agents do that that can really help everybody. Right. So ⁓ I’ll ask you, know, what what is an enrolled enrolled agent for folks who may not be aware.Taryn Jalomo (03:13)
So the IRS only recognizes three credentials to be able to represent taxpayers in front of them. If there’s tax issues and that sort of thing, they recognize, of course, CPAs, everybody’s familiar with what that is. They recognize attorneys and they recognize enrolled agents. So we are the only federally licensed tax professionals who are authorized to represent taxpayers in front of the IRS. And our license is federal, the CPA is a state license.They’re dictated by the state board of, know, state society of CPAs for their state. We’re dictated by the IRS, although we work for our clients. We don’t work for the IRS. ⁓ And so that’s our licenses directly from the IRS.
Dylan Silver (03:59)
Now this is nothing to, I would say gloss over because for most folks, everyone has to do taxes. If you’re making money or if you’re not, you gotta file taxes, right? And most people are kind of piecing it together themselves. If you’re W-2, if you’re just getting started out in business, I’ve spoken with countless real estate investors on the show and I would include myself in this category as well, who you don’t even really think about tax strategy until you have a big tax bill to pay, right?Taryn Jalomo (04:09)
Right.Dylan Silver (04:27)
And it would be nice if people did it maybe beforehand, but also too for folks who are W-2 and just getting started with a business or a side hustle, they may be wondering, well, how is this gonna affect my taxes and not aware of what enrolled agents are and what they do.Taryn Jalomo (05:31)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ A lot of what I do is tax strategy. ⁓ Some are really pumping out tax returns and that’s what they focus on. ⁓ But in all cases, all the ones that I work with, they’re looking at the big picture for you. They’re not just plugging the numbers. They’re not just data entry clerks. They’re literally looking at it and saying, hey, what about this? Do you have a home office? Do you have a mileage log? Do you have?⁓ What about your cell phone? Do you use that for business? You know, whatever. They’re going through all the what ifs to ask you the questions to pull out more deductions and to help you, you know, maximize your taxes so that you pay as little as possible. You know, we have a slogan here in our office. We all have to pay taxes, but there’s no law that you have to leave a tip. So we want to make sure that you’re not paying any more than your fair share.
Dylan Silver (06:21)
Bye!I mean, when I looked at the years that I was, you know, definitely doing business outside of my main job at the time I was working in the automotive space. ⁓ I worked for Nissan, worked for Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Ram. I was also trying to make money outside of those jobs. I was doing a number of different things, whether it was Uber or whether it was, hey, I’m gonna sell t-shirts. I never realized that that made me eligible. Hey, I’m gonna start.
company, you’re have an LLC, you’re gonna have a business bank account, and I’m gonna take advantage of some tax deductions. I just kind of figured, hey, I’ll get there when I get there. But really, when you’re starting out, you should be looking at tax strategy.
Taryn Jalomo (07:03)
Absolutely, because there’s things you can do even when you’re a small business, a small side hustle, small Uber or whatever it may be. If you work for a company and you have your 401k, you’re capped out as to how much retirement money you can put aside. ⁓ Some people that make too much on a W-2 can’t contribute to a Roth. There’s a lot of different things that we can help with that strategy on putting money away from the future.you know, and building your nest egg now. You know, the other things that I see a lot of times people will do is, you know, they will go, oh, let’s get a rental house or they inherited grandma’s house and they want to now turn into a rental. You know, so then there’s what ifs and you hear all these tick tock, you know, kind of strategies, know, get an LLC, you know, 1031 exchange, you know, there’s a lot of cost segregation. That’s the biggest one that I hear.
Oh, should I do a cost seg? Well, it depends. You know, if you’re at a lower tax bracket, cost seg’s not helping you. If you’re at a high tax bracket, it will. And the thing about those, you know, that those kinds of people that are selling these things, they’re selling it to you as if you’re paying 37 % tax. Not many people are. And if they’re working with me, they’re probably not because we minimize that. We structure things.
so that they’re not, I mean, my goal is to not have any of my clients pay more than 21 % taxes, because that’s the corporate tax rate. So we want to make sure that you’re not paying 37 % when the company down the road is paying 21%. So.
Dylan Silver (08:39)
You know, when I think about really tax strategy as a whole, ⁓ taking out for a second, if I’m if I’m doing it myself, if I’m going to an enrolled agent, if I know people who may be able to guide me in this realm, there is a learning curve, right? So if you if you don’t even know the questions to ask, you wouldn’t necessarily know, hey, what deductions are available, right? And one of the things and I hired an enrolled agent last year, 2025 and⁓ I interviewed a couple people and one of the things that struck me was it was more of a deeper intake than I thought it would be. I realized, each one of these people, regardless of how well they knew me and this was my first time meeting them and they hadn’t spoken to each other, they didn’t know that I was interviewing multiple people, they…
took it upon themselves to really do a dive into what my specific tax scenario was gonna be. And I’m just starting out. So I kind of felt like, I’m getting like white gloves treatment here. But as I’ve known more and more enrolled agents, this is kind of just the culture. The culture is that each person is gonna have a specific tax situation, whether it’s, hey, we’re current and we’re trying to save on our taxes, or we have back taxes, or we’re just starting out, or hey, we’ve got a business and.
We wanna take advantage of some more deductions and get some strategy there. Each situation is different.
Taryn Jalomo (10:37)
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that’s I offer a free consultation if somebody wants to, you know, interview me, it’s free. I always say it’s 15 minutes, but to be honest, it’s usually more like 30, 45, you know. It depends. mean, if I immediately start talking to them and know that they’re not an ideal fit for me or I’m not an ideal fit for them or, you know, then it’ll be shorter. But, you know, because I’ve had people come to me, oh,I created an LLC ⁓ to put, you know, for a trust. And when I put my home, you my residence, my home in this trust, now I need a tax person. No, you don’t. Nothing changes if it’s just your own house and a trust. That’s for planning if you die. That’s what that’s for. That has nothing to do with taxes. So that’s a short conversation, right? But you get these other people that have like moving parts and this is what we want to do this year and…
you know, I want to acquire properties or we want to get into investments or crypto or all of the things. And we hear all of these rumors, whether it be TikTok or Instagram or Facebook feeds or my friend said, you know, but they want to know what the truth is. So ⁓ I don’t offer a lot of free advice in those onboarding, but I get a feel for, OK, this is what I can do for you. You know, this is how I can bring you value. ⁓
But outside of that, I do offer consultations, know, either 30 minutes or an hour. And I think all of us do, you know. So if you did want to sit down and pick the brains for 30 minutes or an hour, you can certainly do that. And we know the answers, you know, because that’s what we do, is tax strategy.
Dylan Silver (12:11)
Now, when we talk about how fluid this is, right? Taxes, the code changes all the time. This also changes the way people do business. It could change markets, right? When you talk about cost seg, for instance, I’ve seen more more people interested in cost seg because apparently, if I’m not mistaken, Taryn, that there’s more available for cost seg than there was maybe in years prior.Taryn Jalomo (12:37)
Yeah, well, there’s definitely more companies out there that are doing it, that are experts that know what they’re doing. ⁓ What I find with cost, though, is it’s again one of those to talk hot buttons, you know, I heard this is what I should do just because I have a rental property. Well, you know, if your rental property is in losses, you know, which is not ideal, but it happens often, you know, the first few years, maybe it’s in losses ⁓ or they just don’t know how to structure their, you know, how much rent they should really.Dylan Silver (12:50)
Yeah.Taryn Jalomo (13:06)
you know, be charging, et cetera. ⁓ If they’re in losses, cost segs are not going to help them much. It just gives them more loss carry forward. That’s what it does, you know. But if they’re in a gain situation, you know, I have a client that rents out a property just during the summer and they make about $50,000 just in the summer. So does this make sense? Yes. But, you you’re limited because your rental period is not a full year. It’s a portion of a year. So itDylan Silver (13:16)
Yeah.Taryn Jalomo (13:35)
breaks it down and, you know, makes it a little bit more complex. the thing that the cost seg companies often do, and I warn everybody, even the ones I like, this is what they do, you know, they will give you a, oh, here’s how much you can save. But they calculate that for everybody if they’re as if they’re at a 37 % tax bracket. You can save all this money. Well, yeah, if you were at a 37 % tax bracket, you can, but.when you’re not, have to adjust for, you if you’re at a 12 % tax bracket, you’re not going to save that much money this year, you know? So, so that’s when, you know, people, ⁓ I like when people ask me, and I even have clients, current clients, they’re like, hey, this year, because you can do it at any point. You don’t have to do it when you first acquire the product. You can do it any year, any year. So, you know, they’ll come to me, is this the year I should do it? Is this the year I should do it? And some of them that I know are going to do that to me, I’ll tell them this year,
Dylan Silver (14:08)
Right.Yeah, that’s okay.
Taryn Jalomo (14:29)
you don’t do it this year. Or yes, this is the year that we do it, you know? So, yeah, yeah.Dylan Silver (14:34)
Go dive in, yeah.I wanna pivot a bit here and ask you about the construction space. I know you’ve got a background in construction accounting. We were talking before the show. And I’m a Texas licensed realtor, and I lived in Denton, right, DFW Metro. And I really can’t state this enough for folks who may be listening from outside of Texas. There is development happening all over Texas, right? There’s a new.
D.R. Horton, Lennar, Meritage, subdivision going up somewhere near you, And this, for me, my background was in distressed properties and in wholesale and working with flippers and investors and also distressed sellers before I became a realtor, right? I saw, it started to become harder and harder to flip homes. Really, because you’re competing with a home that’s $240,000 brand spanking new, right?
Taryn Jalomo (15:01)
Yeah.Mm-hmm.
Right,
right.
Dylan Silver (15:26)
when that at a lower rate. So what do you do? I’ve seen more and more people now get into ground up construction, get into small multifamily, into syndication, although I know that game is tricky, into some alternative asset classes, RV parks, ⁓ mobile homes. ⁓ I’ve seen people get into ADUs, right? But you do still see people who are of course flipping homes, whether that’s flip to sell or flip to hold.Taryn Jalomo (15:42)
⁓ yeah.and bye.
Dylan Silver (16:36)
I want to ask you, from what you’re seeing, working with investors and then also your experience in construction accounting, is there one segment of the real estate space right now that you would get into if you were starting out in investing? Would it be flips, buy-in holds, short-term rentals, long-term rentals, corporate housing, travel, nurses? Would there be one segment in particular?Taryn Jalomo (16:36)
Mm-hmm.Yeah.
So I think one segment that’s not saturated because the Airbnbs I think are pretty saturated. know, unless you live in a hot tourist area, I mean like a hot tourist area, ⁓ you know, I wouldn’t get into short-term rental right now. ⁓ I just have too many clients that have done it like, yeah, this is great. And then they just lose their shirt and they have to sell them a few years. ⁓ But the midterm,
you know, like you were talking about traveling nurses, I think that that’s a little bit of an under tapped market. So I think that that’s a great area, especially when a lot of cities are putting in restrictions where, you know, anything less than 30 days, they’re not going to let you do it or yeah, Dallas, Arlington, you can only do it in the entertainment districts. You know, other cities are, you know, falling into that. Personally, I live
Dylan Silver (17:37)
Yeah.Dallas.
Taryn Jalomo (17:52)
wedged between two Airbnb properties, one next door and one directly behind me. I share fences and yards with both of them. And then there’s two more in my, my neighbors, neighborhoods, only 41 houses. And we’ve got four Airbnbs. So it’s, it’s, and I don’t live in a hot tourist area. I live, you know, 10 minutes from the six flags and, ⁓ you know, Globe Park and all that. So I live close ish, close enough, you know, butDylan Silver (18:06)
Yes.Yeah.
Taryn Jalomo (18:20)
It’s not nice for us neighbors to have these people because they’re not they’re on vacation. They’re partying. They’re loud. They’re, you know. But anyway, all that just say that a lot of the cities are putting in these restrictions. So people are going, Airbnb is great idea. I’m going to buy this place. I’m going to flip it. I’m going to turn into, you know, an Airbnb property and they don’t do their homework. You know, is your neighborhood HOA allowing this? Is your city allowing it? Is you know, they need to do their homework on.Dylan Silver (18:24)
It’s amazing. Yeah.Yeah, it’s not easy.
Taryn Jalomo (18:48)
But they consider short-term less than 30 days. So you get traveling nurses, you get pilots and flight attendants. I mean, there’s a lot of people that come temporarily to an area for a lot of different reasons. And so that might be a better option.Dylan Silver (18:57)
Yeah.Taryn Jalomo (19:09)
You know, have another client that has done some, what he’s done is he’s bought, most recently, I was just up there so I got to like tour his property, tour this one property they bought. He bought this manor, this huge house that was like the mayor’s home of this kind of quaint little town. And he broke it up into three units and he’s done high end with geo, global geo.I can’t think of the word. ⁓ know that, know, how it’s being heated and cooled by the core of the heart. It’s really super cool. Super cool the way he’s done this and ⁓ soundproofing so you don’t hear each other through the units. So they each have their own garage. Each of them is wired and watered just that one. No common units. But just down the street is like this luxury apartment complex. It’s huge. ⁓
Dylan Silver (19:37)
Geofencing, I’m telling you.wow. That’s advanced. ⁓
Taryn Jalomo (20:05)
And then for a little bit less, you can live in this beautiful manor home that he has completely remodeled. One is a three bedroom unit with a huge master that used to be the ballroom at the top of the house. So it’s this huge master suite. The mid one, the first floor is a two bedroom, one bath. And then he’s done this above the garage, three car garage, this loft that is just stellar. It’s absolutely amazing. Closets everywhere.vintage, you know, he’s redone all of the original hardware and woodwork and it’s just a gorgeous place. But something like that is unusual and it’s unique to the area and still fits in the aesthetic of the town that he’s in. And so I think that that and he’s already got people lined up to move in and he’s already talked to me about we’ve gone over his projections for his profits for this year and one unit will cover all of the expenses and give him profit.
So imagine renting out all three units. So those are the kinds of, know, kind of different type things. ⁓ You know, don’t do what everybody else has done. Do something different. ⁓
Dylan Silver (21:14)
Yeah.you know, when we talk about I want to pivot for a bit here and talk about Dallas, right. And when we talk about DFW Metro in general right now, I had moved from from Denton to where I’m out now in August. And I was already ⁓ acutely aware of how much was going on in DFW. You you’ve got the stock exchange coming out there. You’ve got so much development in Frisco and the surrounding areas. That’s OK. But you’ve also
Taryn Jalomo (21:18)
Mm-hmm.Dylan Silver (21:42)
really got investor interest from around the country as well. So it’s not just people in Texas that are looking at DFW. It’s people from the neighboring states, people from both coasts. Really, I would say maybe the best real estate opportunity, I personally feel like it’s one of the best real estate opportunities, both if you want to live there, if you’re looking at investing, if you’re looking at, hey, I’m going to do one of the segments that we talked about, midterm, midterm rentals, you can’t do short term rentals in Dallas, butground up construction. So with everything that that’s been going on, what’s it been like over the last couple of months or so and are people out there aware of and tracking the momentum that they’re picking up out there in DFW?
Taryn Jalomo (22:26)
think so. I’m pretty active in the community, ⁓ in our area and also, so we’re in a suburb of Fort Worth basically. And I think that the people that I have around here are, definitely have their hand on the pulse of what the trends are as far as real estate specifically. ⁓and the hot areas, the areas that people want to move into, the areas that people are downsizing and moving out of. So we’ve talked about lot of those various things. And then there’s also some major companies coming in. There’s some.
Dylan Silver (23:07)
Yeah.Taryn Jalomo (23:07)
particular ⁓ entertainment child centered entertainment park coming up into the Salina area. So that’s really driving a lot ⁓ of people and a lot of jobs up that way. Anytime that some major corporation comes into town, Toyota came in, about 10, 15 years ago, that brought in a lot ⁓ of ⁓ people. then, all the people from California came in and drove all of our house pricing up.Dylan Silver (23:35)
I know California andTexas, right? It’s like ever-present competition, right? It’s at least what it feels like. know, I joke about this and my Californian friends and audience will be able to appreciate this. A lot of times people move to Texas and then they’re like, we’re moving back to California. But, know, sometimes it’s like, go back. You know, we didn’t necessarily welcome you here with open arms. But the reality is, is that the opportunity for investment, whether you’re selling the
Taryn Jalomo (23:40)
Yeah.Hahaha
Dylan Silver (24:04)
you know, $1.6 million single family home somewhere in California and move into Texas or from the East Coast, move into Texas or the neighboring states. There’s just you can feel it. It’s palpable. know, the recessions aren’t as bad like the downward pressure isn’t so great. And then you just see like, hey, there’s opportunities for institutional, there’s opportunities for mom and pop buyers. It’s really remarkable being up there in DFW. I lived there for a year or so.I’m speaking firsthand here, but we are coming up on time here though, Taryn. Any new projects that you’re working on or how can our audience reach out to you? How can folks get in contact?
Taryn Jalomo (24:42)
Yeah, so ⁓ of course we do have a Facebook page. We try to keep it pretty active. ⁓ That’s probably the easiest or LinkedIn, either one. I have a calendar where they can book appointment. It’s on Calendly, calendly.com slash Taryn Tax Pro, T-A-R-Y-N-T-A-X-P-R-O, where they can book an appointment to visit with me. ⁓And then, you know, the biggest thing that I have coming up is ⁓ I’ve been casting a documentary. It’s about my business, my past, what brought me here, where I’m going, you know, where I am. ⁓ And it’s going to be on Inside Success TV. ⁓ The producers have won Emmys and Oscars, Oscar and 11 Emmys for the series that they put together. ⁓ It’s going to air.
probably in three to five months. ⁓ So if we’re in January now, I’m anticipating maybe, you know, by June, ⁓ April to June. And so I’m very excited about that. I filmed in Miami last month and I’ll be going back to Miami for a couple more events this year, including a red carpet. So that’s kind of exciting. ⁓ But yeah, so I’m very excited about that coming out. We had some…
Dylan Silver (25:54)
Yeah.Taryn Jalomo (26:01)
or they call it B-roll, where some of my clients were interviewed. And hearing what they said about me was very humbling, ⁓ but also ⁓ made me very proud that I’m able to help people and help them to understand their tax situation in words that aren’t over their head, to simplify the tax code. And a lot of them said that I partner with my clients, not justDylan Silver (26:22)
Yeah.Taryn Jalomo (26:30)
the person pushing out the papers. care about their business, I care about their success, and they become my friends that I check up on and follow up with them on how things are going when we make a track and when we make a plan. So ⁓ I’m very excited about business this year and in following years, and I know that that one big beautiful bill is going to be something to be talked about for the next couple of years.Dylan Silver (26:55)
Hey,that’s exactly right. Really congrats on the documentary and on all the success. Taryn, thank you so much for your time today.
Taryn Jalomo (27:02)
Thanksso much. I appreciate you.
