STP 102 | A Therapist's Guide to Tax Season
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[00:00:00] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: The minute you accept money from a customer, you become a business. You have a responsibility. It's not a, I don't feel like it. I don't want to, I'm too scared. You took on a responsibility to stay in business and that means you need to be able to know your numbers. And, and part of that is looking at your financial statements. So your responsibility as a business owner is to look at those numbers every month, ask yourself what's working, what's not working, and then what do I need to save for my taxes. And that is going to allow you to stay ready and make better business decisions.
[00:00:41] [00:01:00]
[00:01:10] James Marland: Hello, this is James Marland. Uh, thank you, Brooke, for that awesome introduction. Brooke is going to be a future guest on the podcast where we talk about systems. and supports. It's a wonderful conversation. I love talking about those types of things that people need help with. As you can hear, I am under the weather.
[00:01:32] James Marland: Uh, it's uh, it's been a hard week for me. Hard week and a half of realizing I am not the superhuman person That sometimes I think I am and one of the big lessons I learned over the last week is when everything depends on you and you go down, there's going to be a lot of problems, a lot of problems with the current work in motion, and then also a lot of problems with digging out from the [00:02:00] work that is in motion that you didn't get done just to get back to efficiency.
[00:02:05] James Marland: So one of the, one of the lessons I learned and I wanted to share with you is get those support systems in place, in place now before you really need it. Cause if everything depends on you and you don't have things documented, you're not even going to be able to tell people how to help you or what to do.
[00:02:25] James Marland: So that's one of the things I've been working on. Um, and I'm, I am getting some support with podcast production and some of the social media so that I can focus more on clients and discussion and building webinars and things that, uh, teaching, teaching type activities. So, uh, as you're starting your business and your growth, make sure that you are fanatic about documenting things and how things get done and the lessons that you learn so that even if you don't have everything documented, you're going to have best practices written down.
[00:02:55] James Marland: Or is. You know, some of your brain written down so that other people [00:03:00] can get that, pick up the ball. I had a checklist, um, started, but it, it's, uh, you know, it just, this, this illness, and it was only a cold, a head cold with a massive sinus, sinus pressure. It, it really taught me that, uh, I need to be more prepared for when strikes.
[00:03:25] James Marland: So, uh, today though, we're going to be talking with Danielle Hayden and she helps people with their financials. And she's going to give us some practical tips and preparation around taxes and preparing and deductions and record keeping that we all need to have. And there's just, At the top of the show, she reminded us, you know, we're business owners.
[00:03:50] James Marland: We need to know these things. We need to be in touch with our numbers. Uh, that's what you signed up for. You made a promise to your, your [00:04:00] customers to stay in business. So you. You don't need to know your numbers and you don't have to do it all your own. Um, in fact, doing taxes and things like that, it should, your time is best served serving your clients, not, not doing your books and your taxes.
[00:04:18] James Marland: So hire people for that, get the support you need for that as you grow so that you're not taking on the burden much longer than you need to. All right, so, um, I'm going to move on to the episode, and I want to thank, uh, Danielle for giving us her wisdom and experience, and there'll be links in the show notes for where you can find her services, uh, at the Course Creation Studio homepage.
[00:04:45] James Marland: All right. Thanks, everybody. Have a good week.
[00:04:49] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Well, hello. Uh, thanks for joining the scaling therapy practice. This is your host James Marland. This is the show where I help you put your [00:05:00] mission in motion. And today I'm joined with Danielle Hayden, a CF CPA and co founder of Kickstarter accounting. And we're at the beginning of the year in 2025.
[00:05:13] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: And just, I. I'm getting ready, prepared to do taxes and realizing maybe I haven't done things the right way in 2024. And I want to know how to start 2025 outright and how to get the most, uh, deductions from the business. So, uh, Danielle is here. That's, that's what she does. She loves doing it. And we were talking about in the show notes, things that would take me or in the pre show things that would take me three hours, takes her and her team five to 10 minutes because they do it all day long.
[00:05:47] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So I'm really happy to bring her on the show. Danielle, welcome.
[00:05:50] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Thank you so much for having me here. Um, I know sounds odd for me to say this, but I'm really looking forward to this conversation and I love talking about this. So, uh, I'm here for you.[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Great. Um, and I, I'm sure I'm not the only one that sometimes shudders when you think about taxes, deductions, bookkeeping, accounting. But that's why we have experts and people to help
[00:06:13] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: because they're an expert at what they do. So, uh, before we get into the questions about deductions and preparing yourself for 2025, like, how did you get started?
[00:06:25] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: It, it, there are some people who, uh, it sounds like you'd like to talk about numbers and you're attracted to that and it's, it's a repellent to other people. So what, what got you started in, uh, the accounting and helping people with their financial services?
[00:06:41] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So I have a pretty odd
[00:06:43] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: story for, for for taxes. I don't have your typical story. I wasn't bred to be an accountant at all. Um, I actually was a creative. I worked as a hairstylist. So after high school, um, I did cosmetology in high school, became a hairstylist. I was working behind the chair [00:07:00] and I had an ability to use the numbers to hit my sales goals. Um, read my paycheck, um, just use the systems that were available to me to really optimize what I was doing. And I found myself teaching the other girls in the salon. How do you do the same, same strategies, how to read their paycheck. And I had this knack for explaining it to them, and we were unstoppable.
[00:07:24] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: I mean, we really grew the salon together. Um, fast forward, uh, went to school for accounting, uh, ended up in corporate. And I was doing a very similar thing, where I used the game of money. The game of financials and numbers to help the CEO management team investors. I helped them use money to make better business decisions so we could hit our goals, do more of what's working, stop doing what's not working. Um, and then I realized that every single business owner. [00:08:00] I don't care how big or small you are. You deserve access to the same information. And so, nine years ago, I started Kickstart Account Inc. Um, and KSA Tax Partners to help business owners be able to get access to use numbers to, um, manage and grow our businesses.
[00:08:19] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: that's, that sounds like, um, a really important service for making decisions, right? Like how does knowing your numbers just quickly, like how does knowing your numbers give, give the owners the ability to make better decisions,
[00:08:34] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So I'll give you an example of a client that just came up recently. She was a brand new client. We did what we call a catch up. So we put all of her transactions into, into QuickBooks. Uh, she hadn't done it, you know, all year long, no big deal. Well, big deal, but we helped her got everything in there and on our financial review call, She said, I'm so mad at myself because I would have hired help like a virtual [00:09:00] assistant.
[00:09:00] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: She had a contractor she had been looking at. She would have expanded her business faster by hiring, investing in marketing, but she thought that she wasn't profitable and it wasn't until she actually looked at her numbers with us and had everything organized in a way that she could read. She's like, wow. I missed out on the opportunity to really grow my business this year because I was too afraid to look at my numbers.
[00:09:29] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: right? They don't want to open the door for the monster in the closet, but they proposed monster in the closet. But.
[00:09:35] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: story in her head.
[00:09:36] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: it's, it's, it's actually a bunny rabbit or something. You know, it's not, it's not that monster just makes noise, but if you don't know, if you don't look at it, you don't know, and you can't deal with it.
[00:09:46] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: It's almost like, um, well, I have, I had a, I had a water leak behind the, the, um, the bathroom sink. And I didn't know about it. And [00:10:00] then I didn't do anything about it until we we ripped up the floor for something else. And then we found out we had to rip up more work. It's I never took a look like it was there the whole time.
[00:10:10] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Like it was easy and obvious to see if I would have done the work to look for it. But there there it was. And so if you don't know, If you don't know your numbers, one, you can't grow or make those decisions. Or two, you don't know what, what is back there slowly eroding your bank account. So it's good to do that.
[00:10:29] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Checkup.
[00:10:30] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: can I tell you a tax story too? And not to scare anybody, but It's tax season, so I
[00:10:36] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah. Tax season. Yep.
[00:10:38] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: We had a client who, um, she came to us and she said, I'm doing my own bookkeeping. I think I'm pretty good at it. And I just, I'm outgrowing it. I need somebody to take it over.
[00:10:47] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: We're like, alright, no big deal. We do a financial review before we, um, onboard her. And it was the worst conversation I ever had to have. Because for three years, [00:11:00] her financials were wrong. And she underpaid in taxes.
[00:11:05] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So we had to amend three years worth of taxes and she owes more money in taxes, penalties and interest. And she said, I wish I would have known then
[00:11:17] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: that I owed that money instead of waiting for, for, for now. So kind of like your bathroom sink. Um,
[00:11:23] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah.
[00:11:24] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: we don't know what's growing.
[00:11:26] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: There's lots of stories, but if you don't know your numbers, you're not able to make decisions or you're not, you're not able to stop those things that you could have stopped, you know, months and months or years ago. So today we wanted to talk about. Getting ready for 2025. Like if you're, if you're frantically running around and thinking about like, Oh man, I didn't do anything for this year, but you can stop that, right?
[00:11:49] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Like you can be prepared for next year or you can get prepared for your accountant. Or whoever does your books, uh, when you, you, when you have to file. So we're going to talk about [00:12:00] two things, getting prepared, but then, uh, maybe some overlooked deductions. So what do you want to tackle first?
[00:12:06] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Um, let's talk about staying ready first.
[00:12:08] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Okay. Staying ready.
[00:12:09] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Good. I need to hear this. So you're, you're, uh, teach me, teach me Danielle. How do I stay ready for my, for, you know, the thing that I know is going to happen every quarter and every year.
[00:12:21] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: You know, um, my, my mom used to say growing up, there's two things in life that we know we're going to pay taxes and we're going to die. And as business owners, we wake up in February every year, we're like, Oh my God, I have to pay my taxes. Like, I'm so surprised. Like I, I forgot to do my bookkeeping and, um, so there's, there's no surprise.
[00:12:40] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Um, however, I want to say there's also no shame. I, I've worked with thousands of business owners now and you're not alone. You are not the only one, but what we can do right now is, you know, put our, put our foot in the sand right now and agree that this isn't going to go on [00:13:00] any further. And even if it's not my firm, right?
[00:13:03] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Like we do this at kickstart accounting, but finding somebody to help you do what we call a catch up, right? They can pull in all of your, your transactions for an entire year for you. give you a pretty little bow. I call it the puzzle, right? Like a thousand piece puzzle, right? You are making money and spending money all year long.
[00:13:22] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: You got all these puzzle pieces everywhere. Your bookkeeper is going to put all those puzzle pieces together for you, and you're going to get a beautiful puzzle. That puzzle you can then use to file your taxes for last year. But now here is the gold. It's what you do next. So we actually won't accept a client who only wants a catch up but doesn't want ongoing services. Because I truly believe if I allow you to do a catch up and then go back on your own, you're just gonna be back at my door next December and that's against my core values. I want you to stay ready for taxes. So once you do that [00:14:00] catch up, once you have everything organized, you need to stay. Um, on top of that month over month and your job as the business owner again, I don't care how big or small you are. The minute you accept money from a customer, you become a business. You have a responsibility. It's not a, I don't feel like it. I don't want to, I'm too scared. You took on a responsibility to stay in business and that means you need to be able to know your numbers. And, and part of that is looking at your financial statements. So your responsibility as a business owner is to look at those numbers every month, ask yourself what's working, what's not working, and then what do I need to save for my taxes. And that is going to allow you to stay ready and make better business decisions.
[00:14:47] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So it sounds like. You should be scheduling time to look at your numbers on a regular basis.
[00:14:57] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: I think everybody should have an accountability partner. [00:15:00] I think it's really interesting, um,
[00:15:03] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Ooh.
[00:15:05] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: I, I hired a coach two, two years ago for, for my health and, and, and nutrition. And at first I was like, I'm just going to do this for like three months. I'm just going to learn, learn how to do this on my own. And I've been working with her for over two years now because I love the accountability that she serves for me. And, and we do this for our clients. So no matter what, Whether you had a down month and you're scared to look at the numbers, if you had a record month and you're too busy, um, you didn't have time to update your bookkeeping. You don't know how to update your bookkeeping, no matter what. As bookkeepers, we go into our clients, QuickBooks, we keep everything organized for them. So we keep it all together. You're out doing your thing. We keep it all together. No matter what happened this month, we're going to be your accountability partner by showing up in your inbox. And you're [00:16:00] going to receive your CEO dashboard, also called the snapshot, your financial statements, so that you can then do your job as a business owner, which is to review those, those numbers and, and, and ask yourself those, those key questions about, uh, you know, about your numbers.
[00:16:17] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So if I, so you, you mentioned something that my brain latched onto. It's like the puzzle piece. Like if I look at my QuickBooks and all my accounts, it feels like a thousand piece or a 10, 000 piece puzzle. Like it, it really does. And I'm, I'm not a huge business. Like I'm not doing millions of dollars. You know, I'm just, I just have a few clients that I'm serving really well.
[00:16:36] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah. But it's still, you know, dozens and dozens of transactions in different accounts and doing things. It feels like a lot of pieces and I can imagine, you know, a therapist or another person who has multiple, um, staff to track and benefits and, uh, [00:17:00] expenses and building expenses. You know, I work from home.
[00:17:02] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: I have my building expenses. It's not, I don't have rent. I mean, I have mortgage, but whatever. So, So all those, all those things can feel like, like the puzzle dumped on the table upside down, but it sounds like your company should, you know, you put it together and then you show them the box. Like it's so much, you know, the, the front of the puzzle, like this is what it's supposed to look like.
[00:17:26] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: You don't have to put it together. We put it together for you. This is it's, it's supposed to look like this. We made it look like this for you. And then you can, you know, uh, do the, do the, uh, make the decisions and build your company based on factual information, not covered up information that's lying on the, you know, lying in pieces on the table.
[00:17:47] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So I really liked that puzzle explanation. And it does, as, as a business owner, it does feel sometimes like I am trying to put the puzzle together by myself, um, and, and getting that support. [00:18:00] I have an accountant that does my taxes, but I do the day to day, you know, the week to week stuff. So that the second point about having a buddy or a, an accountability person that keeps you accountable to do your books, do your numbers, look at the numbers is also something that if you don't have it, you're, you're, you're, You might be, you might be tempted to not even look at it, to not even open that door.
[00:18:28] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: I bet you see that, you know, a lot.
[00:18:31] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: all the time. All the time.
[00:18:34] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So, so being always prepared means, um, if just summarizing, like setting time aside to look at your numbers, be accountable to somebody. What are some other tips on being always prepared? Uh, that you can tell the audience.
[00:18:51] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So we provide our clients with what we call the tax reserve number. Here's what happens all the time. If you're listening to this podcast, [00:19:00] I would imagine that you are growing your business. Um, you are doing well because you are educating yourself and every year you get better and better and better. Your tax payments that you are required to make by the IRS are based on last year's earnings. So when you file your tax return the tax accountant will say hey, here's your coupons. Here's how much you need to pay the IRS Go on and have a great year you continue to scale your business your revenues growing your profits growing and You didn't set aside anything else for taxes because you thought you were golden, right? Wrong We need to make sure that we're saving for taxes throughout the year. So our clients receive their tax reserve number, not saying don't pay the estimated taxes. Go pay the estimated taxes to the IRS. That's what you're required to pay. But you need to save money on top of that if your [00:20:00] business is doing better. So when you're reviewing your numbers, you need to be able to see Um, yes, what's working, what's not working, but then you also need to be able to look at your profit so that you are saving enough for, for taxes and you are staying ready. I believe that every client or every business owner should have three accounts, uh, like checking and savings accounts. One account to just operate the business, you know, bring in income, pay your bills. Second one is for your tax savings. I set that money aside, it could be in a high yield savings account. And then the third one is like your rainy day fund, one to three months worth of operating expenses that you can, you can have set aside in case anything ever happens again in a high yield savings account. But all of those things that I just said, you have to know your numbers in order to know how much is put in the tax account, um, how much is one month worth of operating expenses. So it allows you to stay ready.
[00:20:57] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: I think the, um, [00:21:00] the, the peace of mind that having an established system like that would bring would be super, uh, just freeing, you know, what have you worked with somebody like you set this up and they, they say, Oh, my word, this, I feel so light. When I have this working well,
[00:21:17] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: I mean, hundreds of clients at this point over the last nine years have said I feel confident. I feel lighter. I know that this is being handled. I don't have to do anything. I mean, imagine having that time, time back. Um, one thing that, that business owners will say to me all the time is, well, I'm spending like a Saturday morning once a month.
[00:21:36] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: And I'm like, what?
[00:21:38] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: We get, we started our own businesses so that we can live a life that we love. Go take your freaking Saturday morning back and let somebody else do your, your bookkeeping. and and our, uh, This is how we handle it. And, and I know there's a lot of other bookkeepers out there that, that do similar. We, we price our services based on our clients, uh, revenue. So if you are [00:22:00] just starting out in your business, you're not paying the same amount as a million dollar business. We have pricing that, that, that, um, scales with you as a business owner. And I only bring that up to say. It's more likely than not that you can afford to get help in your business. Usually people aren't getting help because they're scared, they have a superhero cape, or they have an ego.
[00:22:28] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: all three would prevent, prevent you from getting, getting help.
[00:22:33] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Mm hmm.
[00:22:34] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So, so we could probably talk a little bit more about always being prepared, but one of the topics I wanted to touch on, um, is deductions. Like, you know, what, what are some miscomments? misconceptions about taxes and deductions, or what are some overlooked write offs that people can have?
[00:22:55] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: I mentioned my house a little bit ago, you know, is that something that I [00:23:00] saw you? And I'm like, I wonder if she thinks,
[00:23:02] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: uh, like you, you, you did, uh, alarm bells go off as I was mentioning my house.
[00:23:08] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: It's like, ding, ding, ding, let's talk about that.
[00:23:09] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah, yeah. So, uh, let's talk a little bit about, you know, maximizing deductions and misconceptions about business owners about what they might have with tax deductions.
[00:23:19] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: There's a lot of fear around, well, there's two camps. There's some people who, you know, they take their client on a boat, on their boat one time and all of a sudden they're writing off their boat and their RV and right. So I'm never going to tell you that that's appropriate. Um, I also, I saw a real from, um, like a tax influencer.
[00:23:37] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yes, that exists. Um, but he was talking about, you know, make your. Spouse and your child and your mother, um, your board of directors so that you can take them on vacation. I think that's highly inappropriate. I think you should have a real board of directors. Take your family on vacation because you're taking your business serious and now you're making enough money to take your family on vacation.
[00:23:58] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So, [00:24:00] I I believe there's camps of people who will push the envelope and then there's a whole other subset of us who aren't taking what we deserve because we're afraid of the IRS. And so I really want you to ask yourself when you're at the store when you're checking out, um, when you're online, am I using this for business?
[00:24:18] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: I recently bought this, uh, remarkable tablet and I freaking love it. And I said, I was kind of had both credit cards out and I said, I am 100 percent going to use this for business. And I actually haven't touched it yet personally. Um, it's a business expense and I wanted to, you know, one area that I think that we, um, struggle with as business owners is.
[00:24:42] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: You're like, I want to buy one for my team, so I'm going to load some kickstart branding on this remarkable, um, load it with kickstart tools. And then I want to be able to send that to my, my team members when I do that, it's not, it's no longer a gift, it's [00:25:00] a business office expense. It is a tool that they are going to use in their business. If I just sent them a remarkable. I would have to qualify that as a gift and the IRS actually doesn't allow me to do that. But if I arm it with some branding and tools and I know that they're going to use it for Kickstart, it now becomes a piece of equipment that they're going to use for business. Does that make sense?
[00:25:22] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah. So equipment, it sounds like the category of equipment and business tools is, is something that people might overlook or just because they don't, they don't understand the rules. They wouldn't, they wouldn't categorize it as a business expense or, or, or the other, the other thing is, is it a gift? Like it's deciding, is it a gift or a business expense?
[00:25:44] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yeah. When we're giving it to somebody else, is it a gift or a business expense?
[00:25:48] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: I bought a mouse for my computer, you know, that's a business expense. I use it every day
[00:25:55] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: for businessy things.
[00:25:58] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: What about, so [00:26:00] do you get questions about cell phones? Because I use my cell phone for business. I do a ton of email. And social media and like following up with people, LinkedIn and whatever.
[00:26:09] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: But I also get like, you know, I text my mom on it. So what, uh, what do you, what do you think about that?
[00:26:14] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So I would say a portion of your cell phone should be paid by your business. So maybe it's not 100%, maybe it's 80% of your cell phone goes on the business account and 20% of it is paid. What I really don't wanna have happen is that you're on a family plan. And you're suddenly paying for your
[00:26:33] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Uh, yeah,
[00:26:35] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: your mom's phone. So I'm less concerned about if you take your whole cell phone as a deduction or not. I just don't want your whole family plan going on the business card.
[00:26:47] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: yeah. That makes, that makes sense. Mm-hmm
[00:26:50] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: And that's the same with travel too. So I recently, um, last summer I, I was doing a speaking engagement in Orlando. So I said, obviously I'm going to take my [00:27:00] nephew who's seven and my kids and we're, um, and we're going to rent an Airbnb there. So we went down early. My flight was a business expense cause I was staying for the conference and their flights were all personal. The
[00:27:13] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Airbnb we stayed in was personal. When I got to the hotel for the conference, I started pulling out my business card.
[00:27:20] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: My lift on the way from the Airbnb to the conference was a business. So it's just, it's really being cognizant of your whole family going to Florida. It's not a business expense. You going to Florida to speak at the engagement. That's a business expense. Um, but I want you to take your flight. Like I hate when I hear of a business owner saying, well, I just paid for it on my personal card.
[00:27:43] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: No big deal. I'm like, but it is a big deal because that's a business expense. Put that
[00:27:47] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: on the right card. Yeah,
[00:27:50] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: um, I mean that, that sort of like, you, you gotta have separate cards, right? Like you gotta have separate accounts for business and, [00:28:00] um. personal. Um, so you can take those deductions if you, if you're, if you don't do that, it's going to be much more difficult to separate everything and to get everything in the right category.
[00:28:13] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So I, I'm just thinking about things off. Uh, another thing I spend a ton on is like online education and courses and like, um, learning just skill building as a business owner. Uh, those are deductible as
[00:28:28] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: 100 percent business expense for sure.
[00:28:31] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Now I had somebody, now I'm just, now I'm just riffing questions.
[00:28:35] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yeah, I'll be, I'm, I'm here for it. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:38] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: I had somebody say, Hey, I already had too many deductions for my, for my, my business this year. Um, can I, can I, when do you know you have too many deductions?
[00:28:53] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yeah. So some people like to play a game, um, where they want to show as [00:29:00] little profit as
[00:29:01] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: possible, or they know that they've already, um, they're already losing money for this year. So they say, I'm not going to spend anything else this year. I'm going to wait for next year to spend. And some people play the game the opposite direction.
[00:29:13] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Like I'm really profitable this year. So I'm going to buy a bunch of things now
[00:29:17] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: for next year. Yeah. Yeah. It's a dangerous game that I just don't play. So
[00:29:22] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: for me personally at kickstart, I am just, um, I'm going to pay the taxes regardless, whether it be this year or next year, the business expense is going to be an expense, whether it lands in this year or next year, it depends on how you want to operate as a business owner.
[00:29:41] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: so they're not gonna pay you back the government if you lose so much money They're not gonna be like, oh you lost 80, 000. I'm you know, we're gonna pay you 60 of that back Like once you're at negative or two zero, you're at zero. I guess that's that's what they're trying to do. They
[00:29:57] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: And you could carry forward your losses as well. So [00:30:00] if you have a significant loss, you'll carry forward your
[00:30:02] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: losses into a future tax year. So I think what those people are saying is just, I've lost enough money for this year. I, I, I'm not gonna have to pay taxes. So let me. Let me push that to next year and it can reduce my tax liability next year. Again, I'm not so worried about that. What really hurts my soul is when I hear of a tax account telling a business owner that they are profitable and to go spend a bunch of money in November,
[00:30:29] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: December. We had a client who did this. She took a bunch of money as a draw, built a pool and, um,
[00:30:37] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: she took it out of the business
[00:30:38] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: took it out of the business.
[00:30:40] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yes. So she took it as a bonus. Well, what the CPA didn't take into consideration is that she was opening up a brick and mortar location and she
[00:30:47] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: needed that money
[00:30:49] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: super cash intensive for, for, yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:52] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So then she had to take out a bunch of debt and she's been in a debt cycle for like three years from that investment.
[00:30:58] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Mm hmm.[00:31:00]
[00:31:00] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: so we listened to our CPAs and we. pause, like does that really align with your core values because you're going to pay it regardless.
[00:31:12] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah. Um, the, so,
[00:31:21] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: so, so I'm, I'm struggling because I want to learn, you have, we have six overlooked tax write off categories, and we only got, we only talked about equipment. So are you able to briefly talk about some of the other overlooked categories? And if somebody wanted more information, I'm sure they could Reach out to you.
[00:31:37] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: But what are some of the what are some of the overlooked categories there?
[00:31:41] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So, um, uh, gifts is one of them, equipment. Um, another quick win that, that, um, that we use with business owners is when you're buying clothing, your clothing is not a uniform. If you can use it for any other, um, [00:32:00] Use it's, it's, it's your clothes. You buy it through your personal account. However, if you buy a new coat and you brand it with your business name, it has now become a uniform.
[00:32:12] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Oh, no way.
[00:32:13] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So I need a new beanie hat. I just, I'm going to put the kickstart logo. It's a business expense, new gloves, branded. It's a business expense. Um, so that's a way to turn clothing, um, into a business expense. uniform write off costs. Um, talk about the home office, uh, for a moment. Um, so as an LLC, you will pay your, um, housing expenses from your personal account, your mortgage, your rent, utilities, uh, past control, all that is coming from your personal checking account, but there is a tool as an S Corp So you have to be taxed as an S Corp.
[00:32:51] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So this is as you continue to grow your business, um, you've turned your LLC into an S Corp. People ask me all the time, how do I get more [00:33:00] money out of my business? That's a business expense. So I'm lowering my business's tax liability, but I'm not paying taxes on it. And the accountable plan is the best option for this. When you're an S Corp, you can create an accountable plan where you are paying money cash from your business account to your personal account. for the usage of your home office. So every single video that anybody has ever seen of me, I am in these four walls
[00:33:27] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So
[00:33:28] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: and my business pays rent for these four walls. Um, and, uh, and this is not based on square footage. It's based on market value of an office here in Ohio. So it is a way that you can get cash from your business to your personal account. Um, as a business owner. Now, as an LLC, you're just taking the deduction on your tax return. You can't actually move that cash, but that's a way to get more cash out of your business.
[00:33:58] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: are there are ways to [00:34:00] As you grow, get a more from your house, especially as working from home and content creators. And I'm talking to course creators and even therapists that they, they do a lot of work from home. Like you do, you can, uh, the barriers have been broken down and they're going to continue to break for, uh, using your home.
[00:34:20] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: So are there other categories? I lost count. I think we did four.
[00:34:25] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yeah, we got four. Um, the other one is, is to know your numbers. So
[00:34:30] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: we did, we did cover one major topic.
[00:34:33] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Um, and lastly is to separate your business and personal. It might sound elementary, but for every single business owner, um, I can't tell you how often I hear, Well, I'm just going to use my my personal card.
[00:34:47] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: I'm at the checkout. Like, I just, I don't, I'm not going to have two transactions here. My daughter has seen me do it so often growing up that as she was growing up, she was like, well, mom, isn't that a business [00:35:00] expense? Come on, put that on the right car because she has seen us do it for so long. You, when you are diligent about keeping your business and personal separated, you are able to maximize your deductions. I want everyone to go through the income statement. You can do this. Um, uh, we have a download. If you go to kickstartedcountainc. com slash gifts, um, you can download the tax deductions. I want you to go through every line on your income statement, advertising and marketing. Is there anything that you're paying for personally that is actually marketing your business? Then. Services. Is there any services that you're paying for personally that should really be a business expense? Contractors, service providers paying yourself. Are you optimizing the way that you're paying yourself as a business owner? [00:36:00] And I want you to go down each line and ask yourself that same question. A lot of times it is just a barrier to even thinking about What is actually a business expense and I promise you that right there, that exercise, you're going to find business expenses and that's going to maximize your business deductions.
[00:36:19] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Great. And that's at, uh, the what's the webpage again? I'll put it in the show notes.
[00:36:23] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Kickstartaccountinginc. com slash gift.
[00:36:26] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Yeah. Okay. It'll be in the show notes and it sounds like a very valuable resource. Um, to, to use cause you wanna, we want to pay what we owe, but we also want to earn a, you know, not pay more than, yeah,
[00:36:44] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: You know, here's the thing is I don't want anyone to ever pay more than they owe. I want you to take everything you can as a business expense. But not to the point where you no longer have a healthy business. What happens when you go to buy a house or a car loan? [00:37:00] Um, or you want to sell your business?
[00:37:02] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: We're not running our business to just have a tax write off. We need to create healthy, sustainable, profitable businesses so that when you go to buy your new home in five years, which you're not even thinking about right now, You have tax returns and, and payroll stubs to be able to show that your business is profitable over time. If you are taking every deduction, like the boat and the RV and paying your kids, and, and you can't show that you have a profitable business, then when you go to sell the business, when you go to buy a new car, they're not going to want to help you continue. There's a balance there so that we can live healthy full lives.
[00:37:40] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Yeah,
[00:37:42] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: uh, great thought to, to think on and to end with this discussion. But I want to, I want you to tell us just as we wrap up, what do you guys do? Who do you serve and where can people find you?
[00:37:56] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: kickstartedcountainc. com is the best place to find us. Uh, you can [00:38:00] come find out more about myself and the team. Um, we have our podcast business by the books where we are talking about how to use your numbers every week to, uh, Um, manage and grow your business. You know, we help, um, business owners starting at solo preneurs, um, you know, celebrating their first 100, 000, um, up to about a million dollars in, in, in revenue.
[00:38:21] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So we are, um, partnering with our clients to take bookkeeping off of their plate, um, give you back your time. Give you peace of mind and confidence, uh, help you as an accountability partner, making sure that you have your financial statements every single month, and then we do the taxes for our clients.
[00:38:41] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: So a tax season, we come in and make it the most efficient, peaceful process that we could possibly provide, uh, during tax season. And we're just on a mission to help business owners. I want to make a difference in entrepreneurship.
[00:38:56] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Awesome. Well, Danielle, thanks so much for joining [00:39:00] me on the show. It was a pleasure talking to you and learning, uh, from your experience and I love your heart and mission.
[00:39:06] danielle-hayden_1_01-09-2025_130430: Appreciate it.
[00:39:07] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: All right. Uh, thanks. Thanks for listening to the scaling therapy practice. All right. It's now time to, if you're listening to this, uh, and it's tax season, well, at any time, really, you should be always ready.
[00:39:19] james_1_01-09-2025_130429: Right. Right. Daniel, always ready. All right. It's now time to put your mission in motion.
