PDF What Your CPA Isn't Telling You LifeChanging Tax Strategies Mark J Kohler Books

Product details Paperback 240 pages Publisher Entrepreneur Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2011) Language English ISBN-10 9781599184166 ISBN-13 978-1599184166 ASIN 1599184168

What Your CPA Isn't Telling You LifeChanging Tax Strategies Mark J Kohler Books Reviews

• You have to read through a lot of blah, blah, blah..."we walked down the hall...it smelled like cement" to get to the point of each chapter. I get the premise that you don't want to bore people with the details of taxes and accounting. BUT here's the rub, you just bought a book to learn about taxes and accounting. So maybe I want some of those details. He gives you just enough to get you interested so want to go to a CPA (him maybe) and pay for the details. This is the second book I've read from a professional recently that the whole book was one big sales pitch for their business. Genius! And they get us to PAY for the sales pitch.
  
  In all seriousness, you will get some interesting tidbits of strategies. And depending on where you are, just starting or experienced business owner, will depend on how much you get. I didn't learn anything new until the last few strategies of pay your family, rental properties and self directed 401k's. You could get more out of it. But he doesn't explain anything in detail to the point where you could do anything with just this book. I can't really recommend it.
• A few nuggets of great ideas about the necessity of owning rental property, but to get to these points you have to plod through hundreds of pages of useless anecdotes about high-five-ing his brother in law and smiling at his wife. Who cares. Just get to the bottom line.
• I have owned my business for almost a decade and have gone through my fair share of bookkeepers and CPAs. None of them have shared this kind of information with me. I read this book and an afternoon and I have far more confidence about my financial future than I have ever had. I highly recommend this book for anybody who is a small business owner or who is thinking about becoming a small business owner. I am sick to my stomach to think that I did not have this information for many many years, but I am excited about the future now that I have it.
• Provided nothing profound. Overall a pretty lightweight resource and probably not much value to anyone already running their own business. On a positive note, however, the diagrams comparing S Corp, C Corp, and LLC were useful.
• Very easy book to read. Shouldn’t take more than a day. I’ve learned so much! It’s more than real estate, don’t be fooled by other comments. If you are looking to get an idea of how badly you need to get your house in order, this book will do just that. I recommend this book to every small business and potential new business owners just so they know what really goes behind a successful business when it comes to taxes.
• Another great book to read for finding out what may not be in a CPA's best interest to tell you, or who lacks knowledge to share with you. There are bookkeepers, accountants, CPA's, and then there are CPAs that have actually thought about the law they try to work within. This is info from a lawyer/CPA who is able to see this from both points of view.
• The book could be made a lot more succinct. It does have some good ideas, such as HSA, business deductions for children working in the family business, real estate deductions, and self directed IRA's. But I feel the book is not being completely honest in many ways. For example, the thing about real estate deductions - even losses - when this is really not that easy to get. If you want to be a "real estate" professional for irs tax purposes, you first have to satisfy stringent (and some say impossible to satisfy) rules ... and even when you think you do, you will inevitably raise audit red flags if you do take non-trivial amounts of deductions.
  
  About real estate in general, you also don't get to write off that much - depreciating value of improvement - not land - over 27.5 (or 49 for commercial) properties. What you do deduct, you also also do have to pay capital gains later. Yes capital gains is delayed, and yes capital gains is supposed to be taxed lower, but don't forget you have to pay property tax, maintenance, etc. over the years. I am not saying real estate doesn't offer a tax benefit, much have been written about it. And whether it is good depends on many factors, but the tax benefit should be considered tangential, not primary. What drives you to real estate investment should be the business of real estate investing, not tax.
  
  Also about self directed iras, one needs to be very careful about the many "prohibited transactions." The book barely touch on that. If one isn't careful, one might even think that one can use self directed iras to fund one's small business ideas when it's strictly prohibited!
  
  About HSAs. Yes, it's a good idea. But remember you have to keep careful receipts of ALL medical expenses. Also - when I was shopping last year, HSA premiums seemed pretty high, too. Again, for some this can work ... for others (say a family of four, including 2 young children), it depends...
• As a young entrepreneur (23 years old) my family has little knowledge on business, let alone taxes, to give me any insight.... But this book gave clear insight on how it's greater than just simple tax deductions. If you love yourself and your family you have an obligation read this book 10 times over until you've mastered the art of living "The American Dream".