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117. Slash Your Tax Bill: Insider Strategies for Solopreneurs with Mark Myers · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: One of the greatest things about being a solopreneur is that you can design a business around your desired work style and actually follow your passions. But here's the thing. It's still a business and one that likely needs to support you financially. We've talked to countless financial professionals on this show, and we've yet to come across an interview where we don't want something new that we can apply to our business. Our interview with the tax savings architect himself, Mark Myers, is no exception.
• 0:26
  Carly Ries: He's helped thousands of individuals permanently reduce their annual tax bill, and we dive into a few of his pointers in this episode. We discuss things like the most effective tax strategies for people running a one person business, how solopreneurs can get the IRS to fund a portion of their retirement a 100% tax free, how solopreneurs can measure cash flow, why it's important, as well as retirement savings options that are available to solopreneurs. We discussed this plus so much more, so be sure to tune in. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my co host Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1.
• 1:15
  We take pride in being part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone.
• 1:51
  Okay. So before we jump into this episode, I just have to share this new free offer we have called the SoloSuite Intro. Being a solopreneur is awesome, but it's not easy. It's hard to get noticed and most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one person business.
• 2:13
  So if you're lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even if you're just lonely running a company of 1, be sure to check out Solo Suite Intro at lifestarr.com and click on products and pricing at the top menu. It's the first one in the drop down. Again, it's totally free, so check it out at lifestarr.com. Click on products and pricing, and it's the first one in the menu. Hope to see you there.
• 2:41
  Mark, we're so excited you're here. Welcome to the show.
• 2:44
  Mark Myers: Thanks so much. Great. Thanks for having me.
• 2:46
  Carly Ries: Yeah. So it's funny because we've actually had, like, quite a few financial professionals on here, CPAs. But, Joe, I feel like every time we do, we still get new information that we're, like, oh my gosh, that is mind blowing. I didn't think about that and so I love having financial professionals on because there's you always seem to have a little bit of unique take, unique recommendation, and so I'm so curious to see where this conversation goes. And I kinda just wanna start from the beginning.
• 3:15
  Our audience is primarily made up of aspiring solopreneurs. So you have people that are, wanting to leave their job and just haven't yet and they want to be a solopreneur or they're just getting started. So let's start from the basics. What would you say the is the best way solopreneurs can set themselves up for financial success from the get go?
• 3:35
  Mark Myers: Great question. Well, you know, when you look at, entity structuring, usually that's a question that they're gonna have. You know? Should I be a sole proprietor? Should I be an LLC?
• 3:45
  Should I should I do a subchapter s election? If they're gonna be a solopreneur, the first thing that I would look at is, you know, possibly doing a sub chapter s election on an LLC. Right? They need an LLC for asset protection. They want their business.
• 3:59
  I would recommend that they put their business in some type of entity structure just to protect themselves, their personal assets from from lit, litigation. Now the question is, okay, now that they have this entity structure, why would they potentially wanna make it a subchapter s? Well if they make it a subchapter s, this nasty little thing called employment tax, you might get some reprieve. Right? So essentially depending on what you can justify your salary to be as a solopreneur, well, all the way up to, you know, say you charge yourself you give yourself a $60,000 a year salary, if you can justify that, well, everything above 60,000 to the threshold of 168 or 170 is not going to have an employment tax.
• 4:44
  That's 15%. So essentially think about that all the way up to around $168,000 every dollar that comes to you, what if you're in a regular LLC or sole proprietorship, you're paying employment tax. So the subchapter s election, you can potentially shave off that 15% employment tax liability on a portion of your dollars so long as you could justify that you're paying yourself enough salary. Right?
• 5:11
  Joe Rando: Yeah. this is do I get into the melting brain mode here, Carly? So this is new to me. So you're saying that if you can say that 60,000 is reasonable for what I'm doing, but I just made a $160,000 this year. So that other 100,000, I'm gonna just take as a distribution.
• 5:32
  That can be taken without the 15% of self employment tax?
• 5:36
  Mark Myers: A 100%. That is exactly right. So the question then becomes making sure you can justify that you're paying yourself a a salary that's commensurate with other solopreneurs that are in your space. But it could be a significant, tax efficiency because that's 15% adds up, you know, because if they're as a solopreneur, you're either sole proprietor LLC, you're paying 15% employment tax on everything up to 168,000. So if you can shave that down with the S Corp election, it really helps.
• 6:12
  That's one. There's a few other things that you could do as well, but I think that's probably the first kind of step. Step 1. It's a destructure.
• 6:22
  Joe Rando: And that's true in all states?
• 6:25
  That's true in all okay. Wow. Excellent.
• 6:28
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Because we're spread out across the board here. I'm in the Rockies . You guys are east coast, so we are covering our bases. So that was step 1.
• 6:36
  What is step 2?
• 6:39
  Mark Myers: Yes. Step 2 I would say that, let's continue down this path of entity structure. Are you utilizing the coupons that are appropriate for what you do? And with the subchapter s election your business now becomes a third party or a third person. So it's interesting now that you have a business like if you're an LLC, you're a single member disregarded LLC, well then that's just an extension of you.
• 7:12
  But if you get an LLC and you decide to make it a subchapter s election, it becomes a whole new entity. It's an individual. It's as far as the, legalese, like, when they're looking at the entity, you've got odor a and the s corp election. That's a completely separate entity and an independent individual in the mind of the federal government. So now that you have this business that you own that's an additional entity, well, did you know that you could rent your home to your to a third party up to a certain number of days per year and the rent that you receive from that third party is not taxable.
• 7:51
  Well, that's a great thing for to do if they have enough subchapter s election, and now they have a an entity that they could rent their home to, that's tax free income up to a certain number of days per year as long as you can justify it. So where do you have your board of director meeting? Where do you have your fiscal responsibility meeting? Where do you have your marketing strategy meetings? Where do you have your, you know, whatever business growth specific meeting, will you have it at your house?
• 8:15
  Why? Because you can charge your business rent and that rent that comes for your business is a deduction to the business. Right? So less profit from the business and not taxable to the business owner because you're following 2 tax codes that have been around for about 60 years.
• 8:31
  Joe Rando: Now now if the
• 8:32
  the business involved seeing people in person so like, you know, we have a lot of coaches and some of them, a lot of them are virtual now, but some see people in person and that person came to the house, would they be able to just basically have a monthly rent that they charge their business in order to have access to that part of the house in order to host it as opposed to event driven?
• 8:56
  Mark Myers: Yes. That's a great question, Joe, because now we're looking at 2 different applications of code. 1 would be more or less you maybe have an office space in your home and you're carving out that office space and taking a deduction for that office space. So now if they have clients over, they're gonna be having a meeting in that office space, and that's gonna give them that deduction. But where we're going now is if they do have that person over for a meeting in their home, the income is not taxable up to the certain amount of days per year that are allowable.
• 9:31
  So essentially every day above that, they're losing their tax efficiency on that. So I think that the key here is balancing it out and saying, you know, what do I want to use my home for? And is it more appropriate for me to use my home for this tax free income up to a certain number of days per year? And after that, you know, maybe you don't use your home anymore. Or if you do, you just don't take a benefit for it.
• 9:55
  Right? Because you don't get as much benefit as you would if you use the, you know, the the rule.
• 10:02
  Carly Ries: this is the second time I've heard about this actually in the past month, and I hadn't heard of this prior. And I'm just like, oh, there's so many things a solopreneur is just don't we just don't know what we don't know. I'm so glad you're answering some of these questions. Are there any other strategies that people should be thinking about from a tax savings standpoint?
• 10:24
  Mark Myers: Those for solopreneurs, those are generally right out of the gate, the best ones that I like to talk about. Paying your kids is also really important as well. So if you've got kids that are, old enough to actually start doing some meaningful tasks, then paying them is great because they have up to 14,600 per year. There's no income tax for them. So now you're only paying employment tax unless you pay them from a specific entity.
• 10:49
  Now you can avoid the employment tax too. So there are different ways to look at that.
• 10:53
  Carly Ries: When you say meaningful tasks, do you mean, something that 12 year old could handle or, like, a 5 year old can handle even if it's beneficial to the business? Like, is there an actual age?
• 11:03
  Joe Rando: Why are you asking about a 5 year old, Carly?
• 11:08
  Mark Myers: I think somebody just had a kindergarten graduation. Great question. So here's the thing. If you're gonna pay your children, there's an income tax efficiency there. Right?
• 11:23
  It could be 0 tax that includes 0 employment tax if it's paid from the right kind of structure. But say, if you do have a sub chapter s and you're actually getting to do stuff for your business, was a deduction to your business and it's not taxable to your child, but there is an employment tax estimate. So, obviously, you're getting income to the family that is void of federal and and possibly state if you live in a state that has state income tax. But that being said, you're not gonna put on the docket, I had my 5 year old do marketing research and r and d. Right?
• 11:56
  She's really great. But what you could do Carly, is you could give your cute little 5 year old a royalty agreement and start putting her images on your marketing collateral. So now you've got, lay baby on your website, your marketing collateral, you have her images, and you're paying her an annual royalty just for her cute little face on some of your marketing material, and that's an easy one. then you don't have to keep track of how many hours they worked at well, you know, a 5 year old can shred paper. Shredding I mean, if you get a 3rd party shredding company, that's gonna be $200- $300 a month to come shred your papers.
• 12:37
  So you could just pay your 5 year old 200 or $300 a month just to shred paper, when you need to. So those are things that you just have to be able to justify that it's reasonable to pay them what you're paying them, and they actually can accomplish the task. It's not out of reason to say that they can't do it.
• 12:53
  Carly Ries: Interesting. because for me, I think of child labor laws and all of that, and, I didn't know where that played into everything. Because it's even hard to find volunteer work for that age now, let alone a real job. Wow. Fascinating.
• 13:08
  Alright. That is good to know. And you've also mentioned that there is, a way to get the IRS to fund a portion of their retirement or of a solarpreneur's retirement a 100% tax free. Is that one of the things we've already talked about or is that a whole separate scenario?
• 13:26
  Mark Myers: Well, you know, it's interesting. We've talked about a part of it. Right? Because there are 75,000 pages of tax code. There's lots of coupons.
• 13:36
  When I say coupons about I'm talking about tax codes that you can apply and following that code to get that efficiency, it's also giving you a tax benefit. So I've only I've talked about pay the kids. I've talked about, you know, subchapter s selection to, you know, kind of lower your salary so you're saving in, employment tax on the amount above salary between. I've talked about, you know, renting your home to your S Corp, right? So those are 3 things.
• 14:01
  Now there are many other things that you can do. It's just that how much income do you have and taxes is net zero game because once you start getting down in the lower tax bracket, sometimes it becomes less efficient to do anything. But to your point, where I was going with the the federal government, funding your tax free retirement is, well, let's just say you did rent your house to your business for the allotted number of days per year, and you did pay your child for the treading per month and and the royalty fee, and you did save taxes, right, on the sub chapter s selection of the salary. So maybe say literally on an annual basis that saves you $15 at Texas. Just making a number up.
• 14:42
  It could be a little more, could be a little bit less depending on the state and all the variables. So now think about, that's $15,000 that that the federal just government or the state just funded towards your retirement, right? Because there's less taxes you paid by following their rules. Now here, how do you make it a tax free? Right?
• 15:01
  Because now you didn't pay taxes on the 5th or you say $15,000 in tax, but now you need to invest it. So that's where you go with do you put it in a Roth if you still can? If you make too much money, you can't put it in a Roth, but you could probably put it in a Roth for your child if you wanna take take care of them in the future. But the other side is if you start getting into insurance, Right? For a year for for decades decades, wealthy individuals had used properly structured insurance to shelter future income.
• 15:30
  So let's just say you took $15,000 a year of tax savings through these three strategies and you put it into a a a cash value life insurance policy that's essentially maximizing the cash and minimizing the death benefit, What it's doing is giving you an alternative savings bucket, and it's gonna give you usually 4 to 6% compound return over time, but you're not paying taxes on it anymore because you're not paying taxes on the gains, and when you access the cash value, you just take a loan from your policy. So that's where you can take that 10 or 15 or 20 or maybe if you're saving 50 or 60 or $70,000 a year, a 100, you know, wherever the the goes with regard to your income, start shifting that into either, you know, Roth buckets or backdoor Roth. You can go IRA first and you can go in the backdoor, which is interesting, or go into, like, a cash value life insurance. But I don't usually go there because I'm not really managing money. I'm not telling people how to shepherd their money. my client does that. Most of my clients come from financial advisors and tax professionals. So they're bringing me into the equation to add these additional layers of tax efficiency.
• 16:39
  Carly Ries: Okay. So I'm so glad you said that because let's say we have a person listening right now and they're like, I'm really good at baking pies. I went out on my own to start a pie business. You just spoke a foreign language for the past 10 minutes. I have no idea what you were just talking about, but I need to know who what types of professionals should people people hire if they just don't know anything about money, and how often should they meet with each of these people?
• 17:10
  Mark Myers: Awesome question, Carly. Well, just financially speaking, I usually recommend a good bookkeeper. Because they're well worth their amount of payment, because most people, especially small business owners, they're running all over the place, just getting their business organized, growing their marketing list, growing their client base and all of a sudden it's like December and they have no record keeping. They just have things on scratch pieces of paper
• 17:43
  So getting a good bookkeeper to really keep up with their expenses and their income on a month to month basis is gonna be key. And then, of course, the layer above that would be, you know, who's gonna do your tax preparation of filing? Right? So now you know your numbers. Now you need somebody that knows what to do with those numbers. Because it's just now they're saying, okay. Well, I've got these numbers. How about we look at a, b, and c with regard to making sure that you don't overpaying tax? So bookkeeper, good c p a, those are the first two.
• 18:18
  And then you start going into once you start making pretty good money, then you might wanna start bringing me into the equation. Right? Because I'm not gonna be doing the tax prep of tax filing. I'm gonna be saying, hey. These are the things that your average CPA or even your above average CPA
• 18:33
  Just don't have the bandwidth to know because there's just too much for 1. You know you can't be as they say jack of all trades, master of none. So CPA's have enough on their plate just to stay compliant and making sure that they're keeping up with all their workload and preparation and filing. Whereas when you start making more income, you need to bring that additional layer.
• 18:55
  So I'd say bookkeeper CPA and then bring me in when that tax bill starts creeping up. And outside of that, you know, you always want a good financial adviser. Somebody that can say, hey. what should you do with your profits? you know, the amount that you don't need for your lifestyle. You know?
• 19:11
  Carly Ries: And, Mark, for people who, haven't read your bio yet or anything, can you tell them what you are just so that they know the third person they need to hire in this equation?
• 19:22
  Mark Myers: Yes. I've labeled myself a tax savings architect. A lot. Because there's not a lot of, individuals in my space that are doing what I'm doing.
• 19:32
  And really when it comes to reducing your tax liability, there's 75,000 pages of tax code. There's a lot in there that says, hey. If you do this, you can actually get a tax benefit. If you do that, you can actually get a tax benefit. The question is, where are all these coupons?
• 19:49
  Right? They're in there. And do they apply to you, Your business based off of what you're doing or or what your income level is. Does it make sense for you to start another business that ox optimally will reduce taxes in your current business? So there's all these things that best my focus is I go out there and I explore a due diligence, I vet, and once I I find these coupons, I put them in my toolbox and essentially when the CPA or the financial advisor or the business owner comes to me directly and says, hey.
• 20:21
  What more can I do? Because I've been to my general practitioner. I've gone to my my family physician, and this is doing whatever I can, but I've got this headache that won't keep going away. Maybe I should see a neurologist.
• 20:32
  Right? Kinda like the neurologist coming in and say, hey. Let me help you and your general practitioner add some efficiencies that I'm gonna take away some of this pain, and we're talking about tax pain essentially.
• 20:44
  Carly Ries: Oh, sure. Well, so the other question I had is you said after you would
• 20:47
  be like a financial adviser if you're making good money, but that is a very subjective number I feel like for people. So what number is does it make sense for people to talk to an advisor?
• 20:59
  Mark Myers: Well, that's a good question, Carly, and thank you for asking it because really with the advisers, it doesn't even matter. I mean, if you have $10 of net profit above your expenses, what should if you don't know what you should be doing with it, get a financial adviser that you can trust in. You know, there's a lot of noise of the space on that.
• 21:19
  Someone you trust that's highly ethical but also highly knowledgeable is key. And really when you're looking at that, you know, I'm not saying that a financial advisor that's not a registered investment advisor is not phenomenal way to go, but when you have a registered investment advisor, they have a fiduciary responsibility to essentially give you the information and they have to disclose to you what they're getting compensated on or what they're not, and a lot of them are fee based these days where literally you're paying them a fee just to give you some guidance, you you know, just the same you paid for anyone, a personal trainer, etcetera. Show me how to do a workout. And they're giving you the best things that you could do based on you, and they're not trying to push you into this mutual fund or this treasury or this type of whatever it is that they get compensated on. So financial advisors, the minute you have more money than you need to to spend on your lifestyle, that's when you get the right person in place because you want it to grow. You want that to grow. But when it comes to tax efficiency, that would be bringing me in above and beyond your CPA. Let's say you wanna start you wanna you know, if you're long as you're paying $25 or more in tax per year, then it's probably a good idea to start bringing that extra layer of of of efficiency on top of your CPA to say, what am I missing? Not that my CPA is doing a bad job.
• 22:39
  It's just what else is out there that they don't have time to go find, you know, that I might be using?
• 22:45
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Well, so let's marry your two roles because, for an adviser, they'll help with retirement and everything, but there are tax benefit tax benefits with some retirement strategies. And how what would you recommend for a solopreneur when it comes to retirement savings from a tax perspective?
• 23:03
  Mark Myers: Yes. So retirement wise, I'm a big advocate of getting taxed on the seed, not the harvest. Therefore, when they're saving their dollars now, maybe just get the taxes out of the way and put the money into a bucket that they never have to pay the taxes again. So as a solopreneur, you can do, like, a a solo 401k.
• 23:29
  So now at a solo 401k, you can actually have a Roth bucket. And now even if you make more than the allotted amount of income because you know you start getting phased out. The more income you have, they won't let you do a Roth. Because the IRS, the central government knows that there's gonna be a bigger harvest at the end.
• 23:52
  So that's where you could integrate, like, say, a Roth 401 k, pay the taxes now, and may have never paid the taxes again. Because once you start making more and more income, there's gonna be less and less ways for you to do that outside of cash value life insurance and some type of Roth option that, again, phases out as you make more income. So I'd say that right out of the gate, just make sure that you're putting money in these tax deferred structures so you can at least pay, put that money to work for you. But at the end of the rainbow, you wanna you know, what does that outcome look like? And I'm a big advocate of just kinda getting the taxes over with now and never paying them again.
• 24:32
  Carly Ries: So let me ask you this question. Maybe this is better for bookkeeper, but I think you could shed some light. Let's say people are like, Mark, I hear what you're saying. I trust everything you're saying. This is great advice.
• 24:43
  However, I'm a new solopreneur, and I have clients right now, but I don't know if I'll have them next month. And it just it like, my client base ebbs and flows. From a cash flow standpoint, do you have any recommendations on where like, when to put stuff towards savings, when to put stuff back into your business, when to go on vacation? Like, how to pay yourself basically. Like, there's a lot to juggle, and I think people have great intentions sometimes, but just don't have the money to do with it.
• 25:12
  Mark Myers: Well, that's when, you know, you have to think about how important is it for you to grow your business and be successful. And certain things that you're not doing will could potentially be creating to your lack of success. Right? So now you have to think about, well, wow.
• 25:28
  Do I really need a bookkeeper yet? Well, interestingly enough, when you outsource, there's a lot of great opportunities for low cost bookkeepers on an outsource basis. So just because they're not your neighbor that is charging a US rate doesn't mean they're not a phenomenal bookkeeper. And also you can go with part time like I only need you to do bookkeeping for me, one day a month or it might be an hour this month. It might be 3 hours next month.
• 25:59
  It depends on how much volume of business I did, how much data I'm giving you. So that's where I think those types of things, you really need to measure your business to be able to efficiently grow. So that's the things I would be less hesitant to skimp on. Oh, I don't need a bookkeeper.
• 26:17
  I don't really need to keep up with how much I'm spending and how much I'm making and what am I spending it on and what times. Because when you have that data, it's like an amazing opportunity to see, you know, how can you adjust efficiently. Right? If you can't measure something, how can you expect to grow?
• 26:34
  I don't even know where I am. You know, like, you're not measuring it. You gotta basically be able to measure it and then determine am I growing from that?
• 26:43
  Carly Ries: Sure. Oh my gosh. So much information, So, Mark, full disclosure before you hopped on, I was like, Joe, we have another financial professional. We'll see how the conversation goes, decide if we're gonna keep it or not. Mark, you're a keeper. you're a keeper. So much good information in here. I feel like we could talk about this for hours. But we ask all of our guests this question. So I want to wrap everything up with this.
• 27:10
  What is your favorite quote about success?
• 27:14
  Mark Myers: I'm a big Henry Ford fan. I like what he did with the t model and just scaling. And, you know, he has a great quote that's, "whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're always gonna be right." You know. So mindset is super important.
• 27:28
  So I like that one a lot.
• 27:30
  Carly Ries: I love that, and I think it's very important for this conversation as well. So, Mark, this has been so great. I mean, you are like you said, not a lot of people do what you do. Can you take on clients that are not in Florida? How does that work? if people wanted to work with you, are they able to?
• 27:50
  Mark Myers: Absolutely. I work with clients in all 50 states. Sometimes I'll get international clients to call and I'm like, you know, unless you have a US based tax bill, I'm not at the point where we're looking at tax law in your country. So I'm sticking to US right now. We've got 75,000 pages that I still have to know so, any state and, you know, essentially, sometimes the first, 20 minute consultation is complimentary.
• 28:15
  So feel free to go to my our website, taxwisepartners.com. Again, taxwisepartners.com, and you can learn a little bit about us. If you don't wanna talk to me yet, just, you know, send us some information about you. We can do a little case, send you some case studies and maybe a little, hey. This is your tax savings kind of window that from what we see based on the information you provided.
• 28:36
  And, of course, if you wanna schedule something, we've got a calendar there. You literally just find a time and date that works for them, whether it be phone call or Zoom and book it and it's no fee to just chat with us for, you know, the first 20 minutes or so. Well, 20, 30 minutes just to see what we can do for you.
• 28:53
  Carly Ries: Wonderful. Great. Well, I need to go find some papers for a 5 year old to shred. So appreciate this conversation. Mark, come back whenever.
• 29:04
  This has been such a great interview.
• 29:06
  Joe Rando: Yeah. Really, really great stuff. I don't usually get surprised on these conversations, and this was a good one.
• 29:12
  Mark Myers: Joe, Carly, thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure to be here.
• 29:17
  Carly Ries: And listeners, we hope you enjoyed it just as much as we did per usual. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us that 5 star review. Subscribe to YouTube. Subscribe to your favorite podcast platform. We just love the follows.
• 29:29
  We love that attention because it keeps us going with what we love. Anyway, we will see you next time on the aspiring solopreneur. Have a good day. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go.
• 29:49
  So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com. That's community.lifestarr.com