Ep. 28 | One Big Beautiful Bill Review
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John Tripolsky:Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the Mr. R show here brought to you, we'll say produced, edited, whatever we wanna call it, by the MRR Institute. But why you're here. Right? I'm sure it's for the free CP, but I promise at the end of this, you're gonna take a little bit more with you back to your practice than just fifty some odd minutes of time doing something else.
John Tripolsky:So put down the coffee for now. We don't want you to have too much energy, but do grab a pen maybe and a little piece of paper or even this if you have an old tax return. Maybe if a really bad no. We're gonna leave that alone. We're we're not gonna do that.
John Tripolsky:But our topic today, we are gonna look at the one big beautiful bill act again so that OB three, we're gonna dive into some specifics on it with our guest. But you don't wanna hear from me. I promise. Chris Pacquero, welcome back, sir, to your own show. How you doing?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I'm doing great. Thanks, John. It's always a pleasure to be back on the mister r show. Tax professionals, welcome back. And we are all in that process of digesting OB three.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:We're gonna focus this month's episode on individual tax provisions. I we have a special guest. And so the fact that you're getting this podcast complimentary, you should be honored, right? Because the special guest this week or this month rather is Kelly Bender, enrolled agent based out of Pennsylvania, and Kelly and I have been teaching tax season updates for the last few years, but she is an amazing presenter, has spoke all over the country, and I always enjoy her sessions. And what I really enjoy about her as well is that she takes a very entrepreneurial mindset as a tax professional.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:We know a lot of the folks out in the in the tax and accounting community. We're really, really good at the technical part of tax preparation, accounting, bookkeeping, etcetera, etcetera. But sometimes we struggle with that entrepreneurial aspect. So she brings a wealth of knowledge, a ton of great experience, and we're gonna get a little more personal history. But, Kelly, welcome to the mister R Show.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Thanks for joining us.
Kelly Bender:Thanks, Chris. Yeah. I always joke. I I'm an entrepreneur who just happens to be an accountant. So I think that bodes well for me.
Kelly Bender:I am a little bit of a tax nerd or maybe a lot of a tax nerd, but I'm also definitely a business junkie. And so that is certainly my passion to help other, not just accountants, but all entrepreneurs run more effective businesses. And so I appreciate that little shout out that that is kinda what I ooze and bleed on most days.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:And even though this episode's focused on individual tax provisions, many, many items bleed into businesses. And and, Kelly, I I wanna get a little more history about your practice. I love your practice that that and I've had the pleasure meeting many members of your team, which many of them are actually your family members, which I think is pretty awesome. But but as you know, Kelly, there's no separation of church and state when you're a business owner. So many of the people listening, the tax thresholds listening, have those clients, and these individual tax provisions are gonna affect them, but those clients also own businesses or rental properties.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So, yeah, tell tell us about what's special about about your practice and some of that. And then you're actually another, podcast host hostess, I should say, as well.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. Well, so for our practice, we do work primarily with small business owners, and we really focus on supporting them through all the ages and stages of life. So from that baby business owner, that person who is just, like, getting started, I I very soon have, like, a book coming out where I kind of approach what that baby business owner, that first set of questions and things you have to do, all the way to exit. And I deal a lot with aging business owners who, as you know, yes, are are both, you know, intertwined with personal and business, and then are moving on to the next phase, whether that be retirement or on to the next stage, and moving through an exit. And so we really work through that with all of our clients, and so we primarily focus with that small business owner clients, and we always say we understand them because we are them.
Kelly Bender:And so it's just kind of yes. You mentioned a lot of a lot of our employees are actually family or, somehow related to us, and that does make it special and challenging. And but, again, everybody's building for the same purposes Mhmm. Which is really kinda cool. I think that we're actually a stronger family because we're building together.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Oh, and that's how many of our clients as tax professionals operate. You know?
Kelly Bender:Yeah.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So do you now with your family, does your do sometimes the conversations around the holiday dinner table get into business, or do you guys kinda shut that down when they when you walk through the door and, you know, focus on on other things if you you know? Is is it is it hard to turn it turn that part off?
Kelly Bender:I don't know. I mean, you've met me in person and see me. I don't really have an off switch. So for me, pretty much everything intertwined into almost every part of our lives has something to do with business, but it's not in a way that is like we we can turn it off if need be. It's not like we're coming home and and griping about clients or something like that.
Kelly Bender:It's usually related to what's, you know, a potential opportunity or just different things that we've all encountered. And all of us try to encourage everybody around us to be kind of active learners and readers and consumers of the next big things and finding new innovative ways to be better. So it usually has some overlap, I would say, in all ways, but, you know, I I don't get any complaints. So maybe maybe sometimes very, very late at night, my husband will be like, can you please turn it off? But Right.
Kelly Bender:You know?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Have you ever and I now we're gonna jump in. Have you had a situation where personality wise, certain clients gravitate to someone else and away from someone else? I could tell you with my business partner who we talk a lot. There are some clients that that just love him way more, yeah, and and which is great. Like, I I and then some trying to gravitate towards my personality.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:We're very complimentary in that way. But
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I think I think that's anybody. I mean, everyone has their own special sauce. Everybody's unique in the way that they experience and communicate with others. So certainly, some of us maybe have, you know, different pros and cons that people love us or or dislike us a little bit more.
Kelly Bender:But, you know, I think that's what makes everybody so unique. Everybody can there's no one right way to formula to success too. So even for accountants, like, we can all be meeting the needs of our clients in our own individual unique way. We don't have to change who we are to do that. But certainly, some some people I think some people like me a little bit more, but my my team's really great.
Kelly Bender:So I love when somebody tells me they actually love somebody on my team more than me. I think that's actually a personal compliment. So
Chris Picciurro, CPA:No. That is great. And the other thing we have to mention is that you and I, like, two weeks after this bill passed, maybe three, we're able to to see each other at a conference, and we agreed this will be referred to as OB three in our in our lives.
Kelly Bender:Is correct. This is there is no other terminology that is correct. This absolutely is o b three, and if you say anything else, you're wrong.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I we'll see how this goes on the TSU routes. We're gonna we're gonna find out. We could get some you know, they they like to hand out snacks and stuff, so hopefully, no one chucks an apple at us or or donut or something like that. But
Kelly Bender:I'm quick. I'll duck.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Yeah. We've got, yeah, we've got we've got we're still pretty mobile. Well, so this we're gonna talk through, you know, not just the the tax law changes, but kinda how you think that's gonna affect different segments of taxpayers. Maybe drop a tidbit on. I know you do a lot of tax planning and strategy as well.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Ideas that that a tax professional could take to their clients. So this is gonna one, it's gonna be there for tax professionals to either learn something new to maybe reinforce something that they've researched but just haven't had someone talk through it. And then maybe some practical applications. We're gonna talk about some of the effective changes for 2025, some of the changes for '26, what are permanent changes, what are temporary changes. There'll be a little bit of overlap, because something could be in '26 but temporary, '25 and permanent, and then we're gonna kinda wrap up with some, you know, some takeaways and some ideas as practitioners.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So let's jump into 2025, effective changes. One big one that I personally didn't see coming was the car loan interest deduction. I guess, you know, the federal government wanted to play nice nice with Ford and General Motors and Chrysler, whoever wants to assemble a vehicle in this country. But this is a this is a pretty pretty big deduction for some people.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. This one is gonna be interesting. So this is a brand new type of deduction. So for, you know, our our practitioners here, we we are gonna commonly refer to, I think, this car loan interest and a number of other ones that we talked about that are gonna be in this sort of middle ground where their deductions after AGI Right. But not subject to itemized.
Kelly Bender:And so this is one of those. Right? Is that that this is another one. Know, Kelly, I don't Middle ground ones?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I gotten I I I mistakenly called this deduction deduction and a couple of these other ones above the line at a at a presentation just because in my mind, I'm thinking, well, it's not an itemized deduction, and I was quickly reprimanded. Felt like I was back at all. I might just go and someone slap me with the ruler. You know, so so I've changed how I frame this to it's a deduction for nonitemizers. Someone that's that might be a church attendee, think about it.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:It could be a purgatory deduction. You know? It's somewhere in the middle.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I'm calling them I'm calling them between the lines because, like you said, yes, there's lots of people who love to be very technical. And the way to understand this is, you know, we we first have to have a test for adjusted gross income
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Correct.
Kelly Bender:For whether or not we're gonna qualify for this deduction. And then if we meet certain AGI limits, then we're gonna be able to take this deduction regardless of whether we then take standard or itemized deductions for the second part. So it's kind of like a between the line test, and a lot of this is gonna have a lot of circular calculations. So I don't wanna get too hung up in that, but we could unpack what the heck this deduction is. Right?
Kelly Bender:So this car loan interest and and, you know, you have outlined that it's it's gonna be for these new vehicle loans, and it's the interest paid on the loan, but there's some caveats. So, obviously, I mentioned we have an AGI limitation on this one. So we've got once we get over, it looks like a 100 or 200 single or or married joint, we're gonna have some limitations that kick in. But the big caveat is the vehicle then has to be assembled in The US. So back to your point, the incentive structure here from the government putting this deduction out is that they want taxpayers to buy vehicles that are final manufactured in and assembled in The United States.
Kelly Bender:Right? So it's sort of this America first type philosophy with car loans. And then if there's interest on the loan, you're gonna get to take the deduction. Now that's up to $10,000, but I gotta be honest. I don't know how many people I'm gonna see with a $10,000 interest on a car loan, or maybe I am unaware of how expensive cars are, but that seems like a lot of money to me.
Kelly Bender:So I don't I don't think we'll see dollar amounts that high, but that's how it's gonna look.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I agree. This could be in that all what I call the all hat and no cattle category. So for instance, if you had someone with over $10,000 of of car loan interest, chances are they're over the income threshold, or at least I hope you are. Yeah. That's a lot to commit to to your vehicle.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. Because that's like a thousand bucks a month.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Of interest. Right. But, hey, you know what's gonna happen is when you're shopping for that new vehicle, the salesperson is now gonna be able to say, they're gonna line up, Kelly, with your favorite people, the people that used to knock on doors and sell, like, solar or new window dressings or doors and windows, but you get a tax credit of, oh, yeah, a whopping $150 or some crummy you know, remember those old energy credits. So you're gonna be able say, you know what? The interest on this vehicle is tax deductible.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Doesn't mean you could and that's something, you know, as tax pros, we need to be aware of that, just because something's tax deductible doesn't mean that a tax payer could deduct it on their tax return. They're like you mentioned, there are phase outs.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I mean, I can't wait for this because nothing to me says, recipe for success than a car dealership giving tax advice. And so I am so excited for how this is gonna play out in real time when it comes to tax.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Well, I think John's excited because, you know, this does apply to motorcycles. He might fire up a motorcycle again. I know he sold his baby before.
John Tripolsky:I never even thought about that. Maybe we'll get, like, a fleet for myself. You know? Yeah.
Kelly Bender:I should caveat, because you did mention that maybe not everybody sees this. I start all conversations with a heavy dose of sarcasm. So if you thought I was serious there, please understand that my facial expression tells a different story. I should, you know
John Tripolsky:That's what makes it fun. Makes it fun and interesting.
Kelly Bender:That disclaimer in there.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Alright. Here's a and, again, you know, we're this is these are gonna be major provisions for individuals. We're not gonna hit everyone. I'd rather I'd rather touch on less and and put some context and some color to it for lack of a better term. This one has been very popular.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:The no tax on overtime deduction, and it does come with caveats as well. What, well, kinda like I mean, here's the first thing. What the heck's overtime? Where
Kelly Bender:This one's this one's gonna be fun, mostly for 2025. Now remember, and we're talking about this, all of these provisions, and I think the car loan is as well, these are temporary provisions that are really only gonna last depending on, but for the most part, from 2025 to 2028. So there's gonna be a four year window where we're gonna get these deductions. And then unless congress, you know, repasses a tax bill and make some of these things permanent, if they were popular, they're gonna go away. So it's important to understand that these are short term provisions, not long term.
Kelly Bender:We'll get into some of the permanents, but these are in that short term here for now type category. This one is gonna be interesting. So, you know, most individuals who are hourly hourly workers understand that the work week is based on a forty hour week. And if they worked more than that, they would be paid overtime, which is traditionally time and a half. So the the difference here now with this deduction is that you're still paid time and a half by your employer, and all of that sort of calculation stays the same as far as your paycheck is concerned.
Kelly Bender:So I think that's important to understand that for people who are thinking, oh, I earned overtime. It's supposed to be tax free. That's not how this is gonna work. You're gonna still just earn the money from your employer at the paycheck level. You're going to receive your paycheck with the with the overtime, all the same as you always have.
Kelly Bender:Nothing happens until you go to file your tax return next year. And then you're going to be able to exclude, and again, this is one of those, like, between the line things, you're going to be able to exclude the half. So that's also a little bit different because remember, for a lot of people, they're thinking no tax on overtime, and they're thinking, well, I got time and a half. So the whole the whole thing is excludable. But it's really only the portion for the the half, the the little extra that you got.
Kelly Bender:That part you're gonna be able to take as deduction.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Exactly. That's that's where I mean, it's still generous. This again, this could be a this could this could have be something where I don't know. I mean, if if I'm if I represent a very an hourly wage based area and I advocated for this, I would be be a popular thing when they go to the voting booths and at the midterm election and or in four years. We'll say that.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. The one thing I wanna say with this from a professional perspective is that I I think that it's important that we are talking about it because believe it or not, we may have a lot of our taxpayers that are clients. And and maybe it's where, you know, we have taxpayer spouse and one has a, you know, full time job, and that's the one where, you know, they're on salary, something like that. But then maybe the spouse has, while they're raising small children, has the part time job.
Kelly Bender:And they, though, may be receiving overtime, and it's not something that we're normally accustomed, quite honestly, to caring about. So this is gonna be one of those things to look for. There is gonna be a separate place on the w two where they're gonna report this for us. But I'm gonna say this. I will be super cautious about whether our payroll companies will be appropriately reporting this for 2025 specifically.
Kelly Bender:I think by '20 by the time '26 comes around, this will happen really well. But for '25, I think the caution point for our practitioners out there is you may have to be asking people for their pay stubs because this might not get reported well on these w twos. The payroll companies just got this new law, and now they have to change their software. We all know how that's gonna go. This this I think it's gonna be a heavier lift for this tax season coming up than in
Chris Picciurro, CPA:this Yeah. We've and it's funny. We talk about, couple things. When you're advising your clients, what you might realize is the withholding tables didn't change in '25. So your clients will will probably be have a larger refund with the same amount of w two wages and all the facts the same in '25 than '26 because I think by '26, they're probably gonna change.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So meaning, your client had earned overtime throughout the year and and still now and they're probably still getting withheld and hear that misconception that they think it's taxed at a higher rate. No. This is where the holding is at a higher rate because it's annualized. And I see that I could see that problem in a year and a half from now when a taxpayer comes into your office and says, hey. You know, they don't look at their w two.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right? Why why is my refund so much less? So it'll just be interesting, you know, how this all plays out.
Kelly Bender:Yep. That's gonna be gonna be fun. Lots of questions this year for sure.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I agree. So during the election, there was some banter about no tax on Social Security. And instead of that getting enacted, you know, it's it's kinda like when you you start out with their spouse say, honey, I'm gonna we're gonna go out for an awesome dinner on Friday, and then it's, like, Friday morning, you're kinda tired. And then, like, you know, but noon, you're like, dang. I wish I didn't offer that.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Maybe I you know, and then you end up going somewhere okay, but just getting a carryout because you just wanna stay home. So this we start off with no tax on on Social Security. We end up with the temporary senior deduction which could be beneficial for many. This is one of those, again, in, you know, between the lines deductions, and I've got a another thing I wanna point out just as a practitioner you know, to practitioners, I've been talking to practitioners about about how we're go I mean, this is extra work for us as a practitioner. And how are you gonna underwrite this?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Like, you know, if you're on subscription, that's one thing. You're value billing. And if it were me, I would seriously consider having some type of additional charge for any clients that have a schedule one a, which is now the new schedule for all of these these type of deductions because you're not penalizing people that don't, but there's definitely more thought, more work. And it's not just the work. It's gonna be the explanation of taxpayers don't understand things get phased out, and all these phase outs are different.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I don't know. What are your thoughts as we jump into the
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I mean, if you're listening and you're a practitioner, hear me now screaming it from the rooftops. You need to raise your rates. We have a serious problem in our industry, and many of us are aware of it in that we have an aging population of practitioners, and we have a huge underbilling problem. And we have people doing tax returns that are doing them for way too cheap.
Kelly Bender:And if you're sitting and listening to this, then you're automatically because you care about your education and understanding how the tax code works for the benefit of your clients. You're already in the upper echelon of practitioners. And so for me, I just want you to hear from somebody else to say that you need to value yourself at a higher at a higher dollar value because this stuff is hard, complex, very, increasingly, you know, a lot of work, and you should be well compensated for it. And so please do not sell yourself short. Please raise your rates.
Kelly Bender:Absolutely need to make sure that this is clear, you know, and I do not care for the few people that are going to whine. Most people, believe it or not, you're afraid of something that's not going to happen. You're afraid of your clients whining. They will not. It's fine.
Kelly Bender:Please raise your rates.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So Absolutely. And, again, as as a practitioner, it's it's not that we begged for a tax overhaul, tax law Alright? We there's some beneficial things. There's a great some great planning opportunities, but we're rolling with with what we have. You know?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I mean, shoot. When for I mean, you guys I know you and and another topic, but I know you're you're in your family on a farm. And, you know, when when eggs got expensive or maybe they still are, who knows? You know, there's egg surcharges on menus. There were chicken surcharges on menu.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So, honestly, I I would do a schedule one a surcharge for any client that has this this schedule. But
Kelly Bender:However you do it, just charge more for
Chris Picciurro, CPA:it.
Kelly Bender:Yes. That's all. That's all I can do.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Well, tell us about the temporary senior deduction.
Kelly Bender:General? Yeah. So this is, you know, like you mentioned, this got a lot of weird press and and not not really helped by anybody in the press, but this is a senior deduction. This is gonna be available for taxpayers who are 65 and older, and it has no effect of whether you are collecting or receiving Social Security. So I think that's important because a lot of people are saying that it's no tax on Social Security, and that's not what it is.
Kelly Bender:It's for those who we consider seniors, which are 65, and you're gonna get $6,000 for each individual in the household who's over sick age 65. Now there is a phase out on this. So same thing. We're gonna have that phase out that happens at 75 or one fifty on this, and it starts to phase down. Couple caveats for this.
Kelly Bender:Marry filing separate, not a good situation for this. You're not gonna get it. Everybody's gotta have a Social Security number, so that's important if you've got some ITINs or things like that involved in your taxpayer situation. It's a four year window also. Here's where I see the opportunity.
Kelly Bender:We all know if we're working with older taxpayers that there's probably certain of our of our clients who are really not in super high tax brackets. And right now, for the next four years, they're gonna get, if they're a married couple, an extra $12,000 to take off of that total income that they pay tax on, which might in fact bring them almost down into the 10% or even below, you know, zero bracket type thing. Okay? Is this an opportunity to be having planning discussions about the nature of the assets that your clients have? I could see this being a real good opportunity for some Roth conversions to be happening in this in this next four year window because of this additional $12,000.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I couldn't agree more. I mean, we're looking at '25, '26, '27, '28. There's four years. If you can if you're married joint, you could ultimately, you know, you could ultimately take almost $58,000 of income tax free. Maybe Roth.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:And even if your client doesn't need the cash, convert that pre those pretax dollars to a Roth.
Kelly Bender:That's right. So this is gonna be a $50,000 opportunity, if not more, because realize that with some people with these deductions, it's gonna bring other things down. But I agree. I think the planning opportunity and the communication to clients now is, particularly those who may not work with us with a financial adviser, realize that for a lot of our clients, we are their only one professional adviser in their life. This is the opportunity to be communicative and express your value by having conversations, sending out newsletters, doing videos, doing, you know, hosting events.
Kelly Bender:I don't care how you do it. Of course, I'm doing all of them, but, like, talk about this because this is opportunity for your clients, and then you look like a superhero. Who doesn't wanna be a superhero?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Everyone wants to be. It's just which one? That's another episode. So so, Kelly, so it's good to be over the age of say, think by the way, wouldn't it be nice if all these phase outs were the same amount? Just just personal thought out there.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:But and then yeah. So the government's telling our friends would Right.
Kelly Bender:It's when you should not spend too much time memorizing any of these numbers because they all change. I have no idea. I'm not gonna pretend like I can remember them all.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Well, we're seeing a theme too most now. You know, a lot of these credits and deductions do require Social Security number, so that's telling me that there may have been some improprieties. It's telling me that there's a there's a a focus on making sure the deductions and credits are going through, getting allocated to US resident taxpayers. And there doesn't really that that's just what it is. Right?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So it's okay. That that's fine. Hey. I like that the government considers a mature age person 65 because John always makes me feel old. So I feel pretty good.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I've got some you know, I just graduated this year. It was one of the most proud days of my life when I rolled into Kroger, and I got my my one a day vitamin, and it was Centrum Silver. Yes. I got to age 50. So now
John Tripolsky:oh gosh. You know you know what, sir? You you know, when it comes time and I chime in very few times in this podcast. Right? But this one, can't leave alone.
John Tripolsky:When it comes time for you to be a a potential AARP member, I think I'm gonna be the one to hand deliver you the the invite letter. I'm gonna, like, interject, you know, cut off the mailman and hand it to you.
Kelly Bender:I I think the AARP also, like, starts at 55 now too.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Well, for some my wife received AARP information. She's four years younger than me.
Kelly Bender:Okay. Maybe it's 50 then.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I don't know. She's only 46.
Kelly Bender:Some people think you're old.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:That's okay. You know what? There's certain sports of being 50 and older could be beneficial when you can get into the senior bracket.
Kelly Bender:I'm not there yet.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Oh, I know. I I'm I'm way older than everyone here. So Wiser. So the government says, yeah, it's better to be mature aged. Oh, it's also better to crank out more kids.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So expanded child tax credit. Right? Because what and that extra $200 is really gonna help out. But, no, I think this is, you know, this is this is a good thing for for families. And and and, really, you know, this has a higher threshold, but you can tell us a little bit about the child tax credit.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. So this is great. And like you mentioned, so I think we we're hitting all of the different ages and ranges with these tax cuts, which is why I think, you know, people the o b three has a ton going on in it, and it's good to understand that these changes are gonna hit almost everybody in every category. So with the expanded child tax credit, remember that we were actually operating under our current expanded child tax situation. It was $1,000.
Kelly Bender:When go back in the way back machine. It was only a thousand bucks per kid. And we all know that kids are super cheap, so a thousand bucks pretty much covers their life at a thousand dollars a year. That's about all it costs. So they threw that up to 2,000, and that's where we've been.
Kelly Bender:There might have been a period of time where it was 2,500. We we bumped it around during COVID maybe. It's been at 2. Now it's moving upward, and it's gonna index with inflation. I just think this is nice and logical.
Kelly Bender:I wish a lot of these things kind of index to inflation. We're seeing this a little bit more. But what this just means is that maybe, if I'm wishful thinking, we're not gonna have to have so many tax changes to affect things that should just naturally move forward as people's incomes raise and grow because of inflation. And so maybe we won't have to see as many structural changes to the tax code if they're tying these things to be indexed with inflation. So I think this is a smart move.
Kelly Bender:That credit's gonna go up to 2,200, so not a huge change. The refundable portion goes up to 1,400. Little change there as well. All both of these are now in indexed, which is very nice. And so again and then we have some AGI limitations, of course, two and four in this case, 200,000, 400,000, but that's you know
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Well, yeah, I'll give you an example of something that was not indexed to inflation was the capital loss carry forward deduction of $3,000 for Mary Joynt. And it's like, come on. You know?
Kelly Bender:That deduction has been the same for in I maybe maybe as long as I've been alive Yes. I
Chris Picciurro, CPA:think. Definitely is the at least 20 that I've been doing this. It's just
Kelly Bender:Okay.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:It's just
Kelly Bender:long, long, long time.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So but you're you may you know, your point is well taken. It might not seem like a big deal, like, index for inflation. Okay. It's a couple percent more. Well, what's a big deal?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Went up a $150 a child tax credit. Well, once you have it stuck at the same spot for forty years or whatever, then it is problem. You know? It's so, anyway
Kelly Bender:no. And and I think I'll add, because I don't know if you mentioned it in here, if not, we'll talk about it. But one of the other things that goes along with, you know, the incentive structures, obviously, we're talking about child tax credits. There is another little temporary provision in here for new babies born from '25 to '28 in addition to this child tax credit called the Trump accounts. And that could be a whole session to unpack, but those are also a real just kinda carrot being hung there, which is gonna start with seed money from the government for new babies of a thousand dollars apiece, and that's gonna just be a temporary thing as well, but those are out there.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right. Exactly. And I, you know, I did listen to your podcast episode. You made some really good points on those Trump accounts, and we're we're you know, there's still some clarification. I know the w two changed because employers will be able to contribute to to those Trump accounts.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So that's gonna be something I think we'll probably do maybe something separate on just because that's so new, something different down the road. But, yeah, absolutely, those trauma accounts are gonna be something to really to think about and, you know, maybe we're gonna have a a new 10 maybe there'll be a ten ninety nine RT one day. I don't know. It'll be a new ten ninety nine r. So Tax Cuts and Jobs Act came along in 2017, increased that standard deduction.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So in in but that standard which made, I saw a stat that, about 30% of people itemized before TCJA, and now only about 10% of people itemized. Now a lot of the clients that that people listening to this podcast do, you know, do itemize, but, oh, I think a lot of people don't. You know? And so with a higher standard deduction helps out a lot of people. Well, that was I believe that was made, permanent with OB three.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Is that accurate?
Kelly Bender:That's right. Yeah. So, you know, again, it's if if you're a younger tax professional and you're just getting into this world, you maybe weren't even aware of what the tax code looked like before 2017. But for those of us who have been around a minute, and either don't have hair or it's slightly graying, we remember what the standard deduction was, and and that standard deduction was only about $6,800. And then we had this other weird thing called an exemption.
Kelly Bender:And so a lot of people forget about this because it was, like, eight years ago, but the exemptions were then, like, a per person offset if you qualified. So that got put into place where we basically doubled the standard deduction and removed exemptions. And so a lot of people didn't think a a ton about it at the time, but we as tax pros knew in in you know, if we were thinking about it, that this was actually temporary. So if we had not made this permanent in o b three, we would have reverted back to those very much lower numbers. And so this is a good change.
Kelly Bender:This is gonna be a great permanent effect. And really, let's think about what this means. For a married couple, the first for 2025, you have this number here, $31,500 that you earn as a married couple is tax free. That's amazing. And so, you know, it's important to look at that and realize that that's what that standard deduct does and gives now that first 30,000, or if you're a single person, the first $15.07 50.
Kelly Bender:You get to earn in a tax free mode, and then now after that point, you start to take away with deductions and, you know, pay tax above that.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right. I mean and then and then piggyback that on to maybe the extra $12,000 if you're a senior, to get the senior deduction. I mean, it's it's pretty it's pretty generous. And and, you know, sometimes there's some sentiment around taxes just, you know, the wealthy, high asset, high income people benefiting. I I feel like there's provisions all around o b three that help a variety of different segments of taxpayers.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Let's put that one.
Kelly Bender:That's right.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Yes. Mhmm. Well, let's look into 2026. What are some of the changes that we see, you know, taking place in in the '26? One of them is the expansion of the child independent care tax credit, especially for lower and moderate income households.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I mean, so this one's gonna be good. I could argue that this one doesn't maybe go far enough because anybody with small children, they they kept the expense limit the same here, which, you know, can be a little bit, I would say, disconnected from the reality of how expensive childcare is. Mhmm. But it is what it is, so we'll take with it what we can get.
Kelly Bender:But what it is is that for a dependent child, if you have both taxpayer spouse working and earning income or if one is in school, you know, so this doesn't work for households where we have the benefit of one spouse staying home and not earning an income and one going to work. But this if works if both are working, then $3,000 a kiddo in expenses. And now starting next year, the credit rate, which had been 20%. Right?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I believe it was 20 was 29.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. All the way up to 50. So we're gonna get up to $1,500, and that goes in a credit, which is important to realize. Because remember, when we talk about we were talking about everything previous. Well, the child tax is a credit.
Kelly Bender:Those were deductions, a lot of those. This is a dollar for dollar credit off the tax. So $1,500 in tax credit is actually a pretty nice bump.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:That is.
Kelly Bender:And so that's really gonna be helpful, particularly for those in the lower end of the earning spectrum here, and they've made this credit purposely to be beneficial to those in the lower income brackets. Brackets.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Agreed. Agreed. This the next one is the the dependent care flex spending account maximum. So I think the theme is childcare is extremely expensive. Luckily Mhmm.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Our children are not in the childcare age anymore. My wife might think I am, but but at least mine are not. John's John has to have a daughter in that childcare age.
John Tripolsky:I'm in the trenches.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Yeah. He's in the trenches. You know, the child tag the child independent care credit, you know, unfortunately, I mean, quite frankly, it does phase out pretty quickly. $150,000 for married joint, $75,000 for single. Now that was a decent you know, I mean, I'm not saying that's not a good living.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:However, when you start there's no indexing for where you live. Like, if you're a single parent, you know, living in Southern California, you're probably scraping by at $75,000 where you're getting
Kelly Bender:fixed out.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:In in all reality. So the dependent care FSA allows people to put money in pretax, like, through their through through their w two, and that limit increased I think, a decent amount percentage wise with and that's effective 2026. So, yeah, can can you kinda talk on that a little bit how that the difference between the the dependent care FSA versus the child independent
Kelly Bender:tax Yeah. So remember and you you can use the two in tandem if your expenses go over, but if you have available at work what's frequently called an FSA or a flex spending account, and it includes an option for dependent care. I always tell our clients, this is the first place to start. Go to your employer, enroll in that plan, use that, because it's coming through pretax to you, from your paycheck, which is the number one best way to get this. So get all that income to come through pretax, and then you basically get your bucket of money, and you spend it on your dependent care expenses.
Kelly Bender:You know? And again, when we say dependent care, this is not just like baby day care. You know, preschool programs frequently qualify for this. Day care, after school care, certain things like that. Like, those are all included in that in this conversation.
Kelly Bender:So the dependent care FSA is actually I would rank that above the dependent care credit Yes. Because it's gonna have a better bang for your buck. And now that limit, for a married couple is gonna be $7,500, $37.50 per, and that is a bump. It was 7,500.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Absolutely. No. I think that was that was very generous. And like you said, they can work in tandem. So fill up that FSA book.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Because remember, a lot of these other deductions are based on your adjusted gross income. If you're contributing to your so when you're consulting your clients, the child tax credit, child and benefit care credit is a credit that reduces your tax, but it doesn't nest that those expenses don't reduce your adjusted gross income, which could drive a lot of these other deductions. So it's very interesting when we talk about marginal tax rates different than tax bracket, and it's very important to understand that.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. That's right. And and that's a really good point is that the FSAs are not gonna be income limited, which, you know, that's important for some people to understand that if you have that options at work, take those, because frequently those are the places where regardless of how much money you earn, you can get into them. Whereas some of these other things, they keep throwing in income limitations. And so particularly if you're right in that kind of mid range where, you know, I see a lot of middle income people get stuck.
Kelly Bender:They loo they make a little bit more money, and then they lose a credit. It just, you know, doesn't work out well in their favor. So if it's at work, take it there first.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right. And and you've probably seen it. There's been times when someone in that middle income range who knows? They could have kind of their their incomes at, let's say, $1.40 married joint. Everything's humming along.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:They're qualifying for all the credits, and maybe they inherit some savings bonds from from a deceased uncle or grandmother that they they they don't come to you and talk to you about planning. They cash them in, extra money during the holiday season. It's $20,000 of income. That just blew up a lot of their a lot of their stuff. Right?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:They just blew up a lot of their credit. So, yeah, it's so you you know, as a tax professional, you really need to think about that forward thinking and planning for your clients. This next item, I think is going to continue to be expanded. We we are seeing a trend of the expansion of five twenty nine plan benefits. You know, starting from it being very specific as far as what the expenses could be used for.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Now it continues to open up. It also continues to have a larger distribution amount tax free if you have qualified expenses. What are even eligible expenses? And there's even that now this wasn't necessarily o b three, but we know that there's that Roth conversion opportunity down the road for five twenty nine plans.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. Five twenty nines are are definitely no longer what they started out as, and, you know, same thing. History helps you air is that they used to just be kind of after tax savings vehicles. Maybe the state would give you a credit, and even that was limited, and then you would be able to have the money to grow tax free if you used it for college. And either, you know, because they were so popular or because somebody lobbied in the right organization, they've continued to evolve in what they can be used for.
Kelly Bender:So we saw a couple years ago with, I wanna say, Secure or Secure two point o, where it went where now we have k 12 tuition that can be taken out of $5.02 9. So we can have this money put into a $5.02 9 that can now be spent for k 12 tuition, which is super helpful. That now has been doubled. It was $10,000 a year. They took it to 20.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right. So
Kelly Bender:that's great. And then this one, I think, is really cool. And so I wanna just remind if anybody's listening here and you are in the younger category of a tax professional, and maybe you're blessed enough to have a five two nine with some money in it, you can use this now for test prep and credentialing in a professional setting. So for us, you know, we have professional credentials. These these credentials can be paid for with $5.02 $9 now.
Kelly Bender:So I also hope that this allows for an expansion of some professional education for people, maybe, you know, an ease into the workforce for that younger generation maybe has a couple extra dollars sitting in that $5.02 9 and now can be used for these additional, you know, kind of exam fees and stuff like that. Because, like, you know, the EA and the CPA exam particularly is very expensive. And, so it's, you know, cool. You can use this for that.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I agree a 100%. You you now you have more outlets for that. There are a little bit of changes to health savings accounts. I think that there's a little bit of an expansion of what is a qualified high deductible health plan. I'm always, you know, to be quite vulnerable here.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I'm always a little uncomfortable talking to clients about HSAs, not because I don't I see a huge benefit in them, but I also don't wanna misadvise them as as to figure out, are they even eligible? So the eligibility requirements loosen a little bit. As a tax professional, I'd love to hear your take on it. I tend to to talk about the tax benefits of it, but I always make sure they talk to their health insurance adviser, their employer, to see if they, you know, they have a high what's called a high deductible plan, and they can make HSA contributions.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. So I'm a little more bullish on these HSAs. These these might be my absolute favorite mechanism in in the tax code. I love the HSA so much because it's one of the few things that we sort of get that just has all of the tax benefits wrapped up into one, and I don't know who thought of thought them up originally, but I love them. They're triple tax free.
Kelly Bender:They're great, and this expansion now really allows people that were being excluded because they wanted to stay in the super cheap monthly fee for health insurance, like the catastrophic or those bronze health plans as we've now categorized health insurance into, you know, bronze, silver, gold. Now people at the you know, who wanna pay the absolute lowest possible monthly out of pocket premium, a lot of those plans are gonna be expanded to be included and be considered for high deductible status, which is going to allow you to couple it with a health savings account.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:In in
Kelly Bender:Why this is so important is that you can basically make your out of pocket medical expenses tax free.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right. No. And they are you agree because it's it's pretty rare someone deducts medical expenses on the schedule a. It's pretty rare they go over that threshold and still itemize. The nice thing with HSAs that's coming through is that you're gonna be able to know, there are some some what we boutique or white glove subscription model primary care physicians that are outside of the health insurance.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:You know, they they basically they're private pay, and they have their own subscription model, and those expenses are now gonna be eligible for for HSA. So I think that's that's that's good. The limits did go up, and I I like that they continue to go up. You know, with with now almost $9,000 in family coverage, and and that doesn't include catch up contributions as well.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. And remember one of the little tricks here with the HSA that I think a lot of people forget is that with HSAs, these are, you know, they're individually owned, like, bank accounts, right, for the individual who has them. But remember when you're advising your clients that because some people will say, well, they're not gonna spend that much in expenses. That's fine because you can get into these without income limitations, which is helpful if you have somebody who's in the higher income bracket, they're able to get into it. If they cannot, they absolutely cannot spend the money out of the HSA, Once you're over, you know, I think it this is I think it's 59 and a half, but like like all the retirement accounts, you could just take the money out like a normal retirement account distribution if worst case scenario, you were the healthiest person around.
Kelly Bender:You couldn't find any dollars to spend on anything medical. And remember, medical's a broad term. So don't look at it just as a health savings account. There's also a possibility to look at it like a secondary retirement account, which then I just think gives it so much more usefulness.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I agree. No. HSAs are are are pretty underrated, I think. Well, we went through a lot of the provisions that are gonna be taking place in 2025 and '26. I wanna just walk through what's good permanent and what's temporary.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So most of these we've already talked about. It's just, you know, because each each new rule has a couple different It's either what year does it what year does it take effect? And is it here to stay or just here for a good time? Depending on what happens. So, you know, as far as permanent permanent, extensions, this is something that's important.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Are the you know, we talk about the standard deduction being higher, but tax rates. Our tax rates are supposed to go way back up after the TCJA expired. And now those larger what we call larger tax brackets are are have been made permanent.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. So remember, the word permanent in congress is only as good as the paper it's written on. So when we say permanent, that is until somebody else comes along and changes it and, you know, writes new rules. But for now, this is not one of those sunsetting provisions, and so, yeah, those brackets are permanent. And again, why does this matter for us to know?
Kelly Bender:As practitioners, if we have knowledge about what's coming in the future, we're not fortune tellers, but it does help to have some good data to say, hey. Next year, based on x y z, you're projecting to move up a tax bracket. It's very helpful if I know what that tax bracket is.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Right.
Kelly Bender:And so that's that's where this is gonna become helpful, is that now we know what the brackets are, and we know, you know, what the future ranges are gonna be with income. So we're gonna be able to help our clients plan better.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I agree. I agree. We talked about the, you know, the child tax credit baseline being permanent now, so that's that's a positive for for families. You know, it's interesting with that child tax credit is that cliff of a 17 or under under 17 years old. So that you know, but just 17 kinda gets screwed, I guess, for, like, better terms.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:You got a bunch of college credits, but you also have that child tax credit, but that's just something to to be aware of.
Kelly Bender:Don't you have a kid in that range, Chris?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I do. I have a 16, 15, and 12 year old. So yeah.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. Have that. At 17, man, it's like they're still in high school. You don't get a child tax credit, but they're not in college. It's just that weird expensive year.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:It's a really weird it is an odd one. Hey. Our friend, the salt tax deduction. That's that we hadn't talked about yet, but that's again, and I agree with you, quote, unquote, some things are temporary, some things are permanent. This one's a temporary change.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So ultimately now, but with the PTET being, you know, allowed, I guess, you could say. I don't know how to better say it. And the the increase in state and local income tax deduction, we're gonna see a lot more clients itemizing, and we're gonna and really, especially for business owners, there's really no excuse you shouldn't be deducting your state tax.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I mean, so I don't know what the and when you said PTT, so remember that that pass through entity tax, that that's about, I wanna say, maybe 29 or 30 some states that have a tax and have enacted that workaround. And just remember, this is not a it's a legal loophole. So sometimes people get scared of the loophole, but the PTT is very legal. It is very by the book.
Kelly Bender:You are allowed to do it. Couple that with the SALT now with this expanded SALT. Now the expansion of SALT is temporary. We're going from 10,000 to 40. When we say SALT, state, and local tax, that's gonna go up to 40, and then there's some phase outs that maybe are gonna occur in there.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Mhmm.
Kelly Bender:And then after twenty third wait. You have on this 2030.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:2030 and goes back.
Kelly Bender:To 10.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Mhmm.
Kelly Bender:Again, nothing is consistent. I love it. I love when we don't keep anything consistent.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Well, yeah. So that that makes our lives easy. Hey. At least we're not coding tax software. How about that?
Kelly Bender:Why you should raise your rates? You gotta remember all this stuff in your head. No?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Yeah. So the mortgage deduction stays in place. PMI is now gonna be deductible starting in 2026. You know, especially the interest rates being higher, housing costs being higher. I think of more people are subject to that private mortgage insurance.
Kelly Bender:Agreed.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:That could be that could be something good for for your for your clients. But if and it but I would say one thing a lot of tax professionals missed, I would bet if you if you have a firm that's preparing a decent amount of returns, we've all probably missed it. We probably missed the mortgage interest deduction cap. Right? We may have accidentally allowed a client to deduct too much mortgage interest based on their acquisition debt cap.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:So that's something to, you know, something to to think about. I do wanna touch on, you know, we're wrapping things up here. We had so much good stuff but charitable contributions have gone through a change. Especially in 2026 here, right? So, they're they're now a few years ago, we had, I think it was during the pandemic, we had that truly above the line charitable contribution deduction that, of course, every one of your clients at least had a couple $100 to it, $300 of charitable.
Kelly Bender:Everybody was very charitable that year.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Yes. They were very. But charitable contributions, there's gonna be a little bit of a change in a in a floor put in. Maybe people are just getting a little fat and sassy with this deduction. I don't know.
Kelly Bender:I don't know. I'm really frustrated by this one. I gotta be very honest because I I don't I don't quite understand. So, you know, if you were a generous giver and you were already taking the itemized deduction for charitable, I'm really not sure why you threw in a floor. I mean that.
Kelly Bender:Because these people are already in the in the highly generous category. So I'm a little bit frustrated by that, and I do think it's gonna catch some people by surprise. So remember, both of these changes are now these are not happening yet. These are both 2026 changes. So a lot of people are gonna have questions about them.
Kelly Bender:We've got two new things happening. So if you you mentioned if you're a non itemized taxpayer, you're gonna get another above the line deduction for 1,000 or $2,000 depending on and and it should say that's the max. So the actual deduction is actually how much you gave away. Right. Because it's not Oh,
Chris Picciurro, CPA:we forget about that. Right? We think it's standard. Yo. You love these combined.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:If you're listening to this, man, we'd love to especially if you watch this on the on our YouTube. Give us a give us a holler. How many clients have you seen come in and say, I want the standard charitable donation deduction?
Kelly Bender:Right. They said I say, how much did you give away? And they're like, what's the standard? I have no idea. I said, whatever you gave away.
Kelly Bender:That's what the number is. Oh,
Chris Picciurro, CPA:man.
Kelly Bender:So we have that one and two, and then charitable. Again, we're still up at 60% of AGI. So for our big givers, there's still a really high percentage that we can give away. But we do have this new point 5% floor. If you think about it, think about this like we think of medical expenses.
Kelly Bender:You have to exceed the first point five before you get to take the deduction. So that's gonna add a little complexity for sure. I'm a little bit, like I said, frustrated by it. I don't love a limitation on charitable contributions because I think for those who give that one, you know, just shouldn't really be taken away, but nobody asked me. So that's what
Chris Picciurro, CPA:it is. I know. Remember those twenty one zero six expenses that we all loved? Yeah. You you know it.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:You're listening to this. You know you had that police officer that miraculously bought, you know, four new uniforms every year and had them dry cleaned every time he or she worked and also bought a lot of, you know, ammunition and and went to the drive or went to the driving range. Yeah. Went to the gun range only for work purposes. Point is, I think the IRS saw through all that.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Nothing that we love police officers here. We're just saying a lot of those unreimbursed employee business expenses even were though they wouldn't put a 2% floor in back in the day, may have just been inflated a little bit, and they're gone. And guess what? They said, you are permanently gone for now.
Kelly Bender:Yeah. I don't mind this one at all. I thought this was the best change for TCJA. I'm happy to see it go. I thought this was a very, again, broadly subjective sets of expenses with a lot of people who did not keep good books and records, and so I'm happy to see this one go.
Kelly Bender:Great.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Me too. It was a lot of times a lot of work for not much squeeze. A lot of juice
Kelly Bender:for Exactly.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Squeeze for not much juice. You know what I did like, though? Educator expenses. Now still, my as my wife is being an an educator, $300 is is not much. However, they did broaden the definition, and we're talking about the educator expense deduction, which is a, above the line deduction, not between, not the purgatory, and not itemized.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:And now coaches, administrators, because, I mean, like, for instance, my wife is a is a teacher. She would became a school counselor a year and a half ago. Technically, in 2024, she was a school counselor and she didn't have quote unquote classroom expenses of a teacher. We'd have to determine and look at my tax return to see if we actually considered it that. But now as a now as an administrator or a counselor or a, the thing about speech, you know, speech specialist for lack of better say.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I think I need one. Right? Any of the special educators that come in and help, they should get that same deduction in my opinion. So congratulations. You you received that.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:Just kinda wrapping up. We talked about those temporary provisions. Right? They're here for for a little here for a time, not not a long time. Who knows?
Chris Picciurro, CPA:The car interest deduction, the no tax on overtime, no tax on tip, and I'm gonna refer refer to it as our senior. Not sorry. Our mature age deduction. All with different phase outs. And I I would love to, as we wrap up, kinda get your opinion on some of the themes of this.
Chris Picciurro, CPA:I mean, you know, they're they're requesting VIN numbers, which is nice. I've been doing this long enough where miraculously, especially in Michigan, everyone donated a boat or or very expensive car every year, took a deduction for it as a noncash deduction. A lot of that stuff's been cleaned up, where where we now need VIN numbers and Social Security numbers for many of the the credits and deduction. Kelly, any other final thoughts or any any takeaways from these individual provisions or maybe one or two tips you can give to that we haven't given already to to fellow tax professionals as they work through, work through these changes?
Kelly Bender:Sure. Yeah. So I think that you kinda mentioned it. One of the things that I think the OB three does is it expands some of the provisions for some of the things that we, on the tax professional side, have seen abused by less than, shall we say, scrupulous tax preparers or advisers over the years. And so I do think that some of these compliance provisions that we're seeing with Social Security numbers and VINs and things like that, I think that we need to look at this as a positive because if you're on the side of wanting to do what is right and true, but also in the best interest of your clients, you should see this as a positive.
Kelly Bender:You should see as an opportunity to, again, elevate yourself as a professional, raise your rates to be appropriate. Do not worry about these people that are fly by night charging, you know, $30 a return. Those are not the people you should be concerned with because they don't care, and they're gonna get flushed out by a lot of these technical provisions anyway because they weren't following the rules. Don't worry about those people. Worry about being the absolute, you know, utmost best professional in field.
Kelly Bender:I think some of these things are gonna be great for fleshing out a lot of this really there's a lot of bad out there, and I'm excited for the future.
John Tripolsky:Kelly, thank you for joining us. I know you've been on a number of the Teaching Tax Flow podcasts with us, and those are
Chris Picciurro, CPA:those are always fun.
John Tripolsky:And, you know, again, Chris likes these ones because I can't talk a whole lot on this show. I gotta keep my mouth shut, and he enjoys that. Any opportunity he gets, he takes it. But thank you for joining us.
Kelly Bender:You're welcome. It's fun. Thanks, guys.
John Tripolsky:Absolutely. And if anybody's anybody's more interested in something else behind, just or I should say, in beyond was probably the better word here with this podcast, this topic, feel free to reach out to us. That's the, mister r Institute, or we're gonna see some show notes here. I always reference them some way or another. So a couple links in there.
John Tripolsky:Check them out. Kelly's contacts in there as well. But, yeah, get the free CPE. Don't be lazy. It's kinda like my favorite tagline, I think, in all of our shows.
John Tripolsky:If if you're that lazy, you can't click on a link in the show notes, well, then you got bigger problems. Probably shouldn't be driving either because you're not about shortcuts. But, yeah, check it out. We are there to help you. Kelly, obviously, you're doing all kinds of things as well to support some tax pros in this industry advancing along.
John Tripolsky:So everybody appreciates it. And if anybody is, again, interested in this topic, this show, subscribe to the podcast too. It's that easy. Do that. Again, don't be lazy.
John Tripolsky:We'll see you back here again on the Mr. R Show.
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