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Billion-Dollar Tax Savings: A Conversation with the Tax Goddess

• Ed Mathews • Season 4 • Episode 172

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Website: taxgoddess.com

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Ed Mathews:

Greetings and salutations, Real Estate Undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews, again with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm grateful that you make us a part of your day Today. I have Shauna, The Tax Goddess, and Shauna, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time today. I know this is a busy time of year for you. September 15th is looming large and so welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time today. I know this is a busy time of year for you. September 15th is looming large and so welcome to the show.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and, yes, there's a deadline, but you're giving me a respite from that thing.

Ed Mathews:

So obviously your name forebodes what we're going to talk about today. But for those folks who haven't discovered you online or on LinkedIn, or where we discovered you, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for a living?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

You got it. So let me come at it from a slightly different perspective. Everyone always thinks that their CPA the person preparing their taxes is looking for every possible strategy to possibly minimize their taxes. So that's where Tax Goddess comes in. We specialize in tax strategy, tax mitigation. I am a CPA, I have a master's in tax, certified tax, tax professional certified tax strategist, which, if you want to get into what all those lovely little initials mean, I'm happy to. Very long story short, it means we're the top of the top in the tax strategy game.

Ed Mathews:

Specifically, and so who is your typical customer?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

You always come from, of course, nobody wants to pay tax. But really what you're looking at when you do look at those CTC, really, as you start to get more and more specialized, that's when you start looking at what is really the right fit for a CTC versus a CTS, for example. So, being a CTS, we're looking for people that are taking home at least a million dollars a year taxable, paying at least $150,000 a year in tax Right Now. That's not to mean that tax strategy isn't for people paying $20,000 worth of tax, because who wants to pay more than you're legally required to pay, right? So we do publish quite a lot of information trying to make sure that people know some of the strategies that are out there. So, even if you're working with just your CPA, if you can implement one strategy and that saves you $5,000 a year, that's a lot of money. So cool yeah.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, okay, and obviously coming at this from a we're at an interesting time and not to get political, but I'm going to get a little teeny, tiny bit political. We're at an interesting time, we're recording this in the second week of August and so the big beautiful bill just passed and there was a whole bunch of goodies in that bill from a real estate perspective, and so I'm curious about your perspective on the items that were passed and how that affects our real estate world.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Absolutely In my mind. There's really two big ones Now. One of them, we had it, we lost it and it came back, which makes me thrilled, and that, of course, is the 100% depreciation on big equipment or anything 15 years or less as far as property life. So, especially in the real estate field, that's your cost segregation all day, and I'm sure it's a topic you've covered. So just mini, tiny recap you have a building, you bought it for a million dollars, you're breaking it down to its little tiny components for three-year life, five-year life, seven-year life and anything 15 years or less. You basically get to write off 100% of it in the first year.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Now, this is fabulous if you are the real estate professional or if you're going the short-term Airbnb type rentals where it's less than seven days, average, that kind of thing Because effectively, if you buy a property a year, you'll never pay tax, never, ever again, and it's completely legal, which is why the IRS actively hunts anyone that says they're a real estate professional, right, especially if they have one spouse that's like a W-2 and the other one is a real estate professional. Thrilled, I'm thrilled, thrilled that this thing came back in. Hopefully we get to keep it. I never know, as you said, political I'm like it's here now, it might be gone tomorrow.

Ed Mathews:

It all depends on who's driving the bus.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Absolutely. And there's one little tiny caveat here that a lot of people didn't catch and it's already pissed off a couple of my clients is it doesn't start until January 19th. So if you bought that new Hummer on January 18th, you're SOL. You don't get the depreciation, you don't get the specialty stuff.

Ed Mathews:

Okay, so question there. So we were talking about that in the context of real estate, right? A boiler or a dishwasher or things like that, anything to do with the apartment building that we own, right, but you also mentioned a Hummer, and so does that also pertain to vehicles and equipment and all that? Tell me more about that.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

It does. So you have to be, of course, with vehicles, the IRS, very high scrutiny on vehicles. And I call it a Hummer because when this whole thing came out 15 years ago about special depreciation and you could massively write things off, the very first thing everybody went out and bought was a Hummer. So they called it the Hummer law. So it's always just stuck.

Ed Mathews:

Don't sort it out.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

I think that's one of the things that people don't really realize. Heavy equipment, yes, it could mean an air conditioning unit, it could mean a fridge, it could mean a boiler right, but heavy equipment, if it's used for business, can also mean vehicles. And so one of the things a mini cat is a good example, those little tractor things that drive around and pick up dirt and stuff. So if you're actually on the site doing construction, that certainly works. But Hummers Now, I think the big thing here is you have to look at the difference between more than 6,000 pounds and less than 6,000 pounds, and this is why the Hummer was a key, because back in the day the Hummers were more than 6,000.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

why the Hummer was a key because back in the day the Hummers were more than 6,000. So now that we've seen this law come back into place, right, more than 6,000 pound vehicles that are used, whatever percentage, for business. So let's say you do buy now it's the G-Wagon, that's the big thing everybody's buying, right. So let's say you buy the $150,000 G-Wagon.

Ed Mathews:

If you use it 100% for business, it's a $150,000 write-off, if you have the income to support that write-off, and who defines, and how do you define the percentage that you use? Because most people are thinking, okay, I'm going to wet my thumb and wave in the air and go 92%, right, but that's not the way it works.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

You can't do whatever you want In our world. There's something called the aggression scale. Okay, zero to 10. Zero, meaning the IRS never calls you, never, ever, except for a random audit. 10, meaning we're all going to jail.

Ed Mathews:

Leave on about a six.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

So a 10's going to jail. A nine is out the phone doing shady stuff, hoping you don't get caught. That's this air thumb thing. And eight is you're doing everything legally. You still might get a call, but like you can prove it.

Ed Mathews:

I get ordered. I just better not lose, exactly you want to win.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

And so that's where a strategist comes in and tells you here's all the laws, right, detail, nitpicky. So I will tell you the one thing that our clients absolutely hate about me and love about me. I will make you document all the thing because it is not worth messing around saying oh yeah, I drove at 98% for business, but I had one car in the family and nobody else has a car, right, so you never went grocery shopping, you never went to the movies, you never went to pick up your mom for lunch, right, so one of the easiest. It's actually an app. We've been using it now for 15 years Mile Mile. I'm in love with it.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

It just runs in the background. The only thing you have to remember is every morning, when you're drinking your coffee or whatever, go swipe left or right for business or personal. You got your mileage records. There are few things that the IRS will hit on as almost immediate red flags. Mileage is one of them. The whole thing about the W-2 with a real estate professional being married it's an automatic and it's not that you did anything wrong. It's just what they're looking for because they know people abuse it.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, yeah. So that 10% that abuse it affect all the other honest people the other way around.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Yeah. So listen really, if it ever comes to an audit, what you really want to be able to do is they'll send you a letter saying prove this and this, and you want to be able to send back a super nice highlighted circled tapes totaled. Here's my records. You want to be able to send one package where the auditor opens that document and goes, oh, they're one of these, their tax got to slide. They're so organized, they have everything that could possibly be needed, right, why even look? Because the auditors are looking for places they can find money, right, and if they know you're that organized, they're not going to find anything.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, it's minor at best, right.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Here's this receipt I forgot about. Now you owe me 10.

Ed Mathews:

Years ago we got a letter from the IRS and my wife is an accountant by trade. We are that classic family where she's a W-2 and I'm a real estate guy. The letter hits our mailbox and I get home. She's there with a paper bag breathing into it. I opened it up and we owed $16.85. And I'm like I got it. It was in the mailbox because the mailman had left our neighborhood Happy to pay that bill Didn't even look at it.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

A lot of people a lawyer friend of mine has always said I love people with morals because people with morals will spend a bunch of money trying to get around. Do whatever it is. If you get a bill from the IRS that you're happy with, who is happy?

Ed Mathews:

but you're happy with $16?. Yeah, there could have been a couple of actually zeros behind that. Take the win.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Yep.

Ed Mathews:

Love it. So you mentioned two things. What was the other thing that you were we talking about opportunity zones or I've forgotten what the original question was.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Would you mind asking me the original question?

Ed Mathews:

As far as the big beautiful bill, there were a handful of things that targeted real estate folks like me and so I'm curious about we just talked about cost seg and the bonus depreciation, one of my favorite things in this little bill. I am not political in any way, shape or form, but I loved that provision of that bill. Forget the rest of it. Who cares? I do care, but not today. What are some of the other provisions that kind of popped out at you that we should talk about?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

The other one that really caught my attention was the ability to write off business interest, because technically, business interest previously had been capped at 70%. So you took your income at 70% and here's how much you were allowed to deduct with a 30% limit. There were all these kind of phase-ins, phase-outs. They've upped that limit significantly and you get the SALT deduction too. But with the interest they've added back depreciation and amortization, and when you do cost seg and you have a million-dollar right, your taxable income becomes very small, which means that the amount of the interest you're allowed to write off is also very small. So now that they've allowed you to add back into your number the depreciation, amortization, the amount you're allowed to deduct as interest is significantly higher, and so for a lot of people those expenses were just lost, they were just gone. So that one really caught my attention as well on the real estate side.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, and for those of us keeping score at home, you also mentioned SALT, so for those folks that aren't familiar with that, can you tell me about that?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Absolutely Sorry, jargon.

Ed Mathews:

It's my job, oh yeah.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

I love it. Yes, salt stands for state and local taxes. Ok, now, previous to four or five years ago, if you lived in California and you paid $100,000 in tax to California, you got a $100,000 write-off on your Schedule A itemized deductions. The SALT limitations came in and capped that at $10,000, which for anybody making a good amount of money is basically nil. Right, it means you couldn't deduct things like your car tags and licenses, your property taxes Just property taxes alone in many places is more than that, let alone income taxes you're paying. So this huge amount of deduction got capped. Now they did. It's not I'm not thrilled with it, but it's better than zero, right. They took this old cap from $10,000 to $40,000. But key impacts here if your adjusted gross income is more than $500,000 as a married couple, you don't get it. It starts phasing out and it goes back down to $10,000. They have promised it's not going to phase you out. The max minimum is $10,000. But if you can do tax strategy, other tax strategies to get that taxable income down, stay under the $500,000 limit, at least you get the full amount of $40,000.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Now there's a key provision here that has actually been implemented. When the original SALT law came in the 10K cap, many of the states said, hey, we'll help you out, and they created something called the PTE, the pass-through entity tax. So if you have a business, a partnership, an S-corp, one of the flow-through entities C-corps but if you've got one of the flow-through entities, you can actually have your business pay the tax on your behalf and effectively you get to double dip it. The tax has been paid and the business gets a tax deduction for it. So you're actually making money if you have an S-corp or Purchase Rep or LLC taxed as and, to be clear, your mileage may vary because that's a state provision.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

State by state. It's a state provision, but the last time I looked, a couple months back, it was something like 39 out of the 50 states, so maybe not everybody, but yeah, I live in Connecticut, so they're all heading that direction.

Ed Mathews:

I'm willing to. To bet there's probably something that the governor nailed us on there, but that's neither here nor there. We live here for other reasons. In terms of the, you had mentioned something that's near and dear to my heart, and that's documentation, and what I mean by that is I'm a former techie, a recovering techie, really, and so process and technology are my thing. No-transcript, what's not that big a deal, or is it? Every piece of pulp that walks in the door needs to be categorized? What's your thinking on that?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

I'm also, of course, huge on documentation. I take a photograph of absolutely everything. Every document, anything that's got a number on it in any way gets a photo taken of it. Okay, for me, it's about having a database, because if there's an audit and they're saying, what's this? $2,379, whatever, I use Evernote. I tell our clients to use Evernote because Evernote has an amazing search capability.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

It'll search images, diagrams and receipts and all those things. So for just having a place to store stuff that's easily searchable, I'm a big fan of Evernote. The other comment here would be when you get to the point because now we're talking about accounting records you're lucky because you have a built-in one if your wife's helping you with the accounting stuff.

Ed Mathews:

A long time ago I asked her hey, would you like to partner? And she goes you work very differently than I do and I much prefer being married to you than being your business partner. I'm like all right, okay, you learned something new 37 some odd years between dating and married, that she knows me well, so that's okay, that's a good thing.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

And I think you've hit the nail on the head. I am a big believer of having the right team in place. So when you get to the size where you're trying to stay up for that extra two hours drinking that extra cup of coffee, trying to do your own bookkeeping, hire a bookkeeper.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

That's the job, that's essentialized in yes, please do not try to do things that are not your specialty. If you give me messy books, I'm going to send you to go get them cleaned up by a professional, because I can't even advise you, because I don't even know what the real numbers are.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, and here's the thing. We have a separate company called Clark Street Digital. One of the primary things that we do for folks is bookkeeping. We hire certified public accountants in the Philippines for a very reasonable price. We pay them very well relative to their peers, but relative to peers here it's apples and dump trucks in terms of what we pay and those folks. We started doing it with our own in-house and it turned out so well that we started offering it to some of our friends and friends of friends, and pretty soon we grew a business.

Ed Mathews:

And I'll tell you there are certain things technologies we use to make it easy. The fact is that having someone highly competent, highly trained, educated, understands process, understands they don't need to understand the tax laws here. All they need to do is understand what we keep and what we don't. And your rule was probably a valid one, which is anything with a number on it. Take a picture, we keep it and put it somewhere. You can find it and hopefully you never need it, but you might. And given that we're in the real estate business, uncle Sam is usually very curious about what folks like us. What we do, it's better to.

Ed Mathews:

There's a book that I read a long time ago. It's called Feeding the Bee, and it actually is. It's a parallel to what we're talking about here, but I think it is apropos and it's an over-communication strategy so that you can show them here's infinite detail. Here's exactly what I'm doing, to the point where they grow in confidence, go okay, all right, you've got it together, I don't have to worry about you anymore.

Ed Mathews:

And our relationship with our tax entities is the exact same way. Right, we give them everything, even stuff they don't ask for, because I want to take everything off the table in terms of hey, what are you doing? Right? One, I like sleeping at night. And two, it also cuts down on our professional costs because the audit doesn't last three years. It lasts a matter of a few days to a few weeks. Yeah, and that's it. And so I'm only paying Shauna, the tax goddess, her million dollar an hour salary for a very short period of time. And just the simple act of taking a picture and storing it someplace where you can go get it when you need it, because you will be audited, it's a reality.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Real estate.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, that's what I mean. I think the average is like one or 2% plus.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

So if you're a Schedule C, Schedule E, it's 6% to 7%. Add on top S-Corps are five to seven, partnerships five to seven. If you add on top the real estate professional, it's almost 35. Wow, so you have a one in three. So TikTok, it's only a matter of time.

Ed Mathews:

That's the context, right, and you want to be spending your days hunting new deals and meeting investors and growing your business and taking care of your properties and all the other things you have to do. You don't want to be sitting in for a fluorescent light in a conference room talking to somebody who you know nitpicking every little piece of your world that I guarantee you you're not going to remember, because I don't remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what I spent at Staples in March of 2019 or whatever.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Yeah, and it takes you all of 30 seconds. You're already standing at the Staples counter. You've just gotten the receipt in your hand, put it down on the counter, snap a picture and then you can throw away the receipt. What do you?

Ed Mathews:

want I'm fine.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Now, actually, it's an interesting commentary. It will be interesting to see where the AI comes in, because it used to be that a photo of a receipt was just as good as a receipt itself, but now the AI can create anything it wants. So I don't know if this will accept photo.

Ed Mathews:

OK. So if you want to entertain wire fraud and other versions of fraud to get over on a nine dollar trip to Staples, Hats off to you there, my friend.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

When I'm coming at it the other way, say at what point does the IRS say I don't know if that receipt is valid or an AI-generated receipt?

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, there's no way to know. Just look at, go on TikTok and look at the videos that are being made which ones are the human being and which ones are coming off of VO3 or whatever else is out there.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

What's the famous one right now? Little bunny rabbits jumping on the trampoline, or something.

Ed Mathews:

Babies talking like adults, which I think is hilarious, and the Sasquatches and all those are hilarious, but it's really hard to tell the difference between the real and the fake. Yikes, yeah, so, okay, yeah. So just take a picture. And MileIQ is a godsend, I'll tell you. It is something it's always on my phone and the one thing that I'm bad about is doing the swiping, but I can usually tell by the address that I went to what I was doing. And then I go back to my calendar if I really have to and I go. Okay, I knew where I was and when. In doubt, I, but very rarely, because it's usually it's not my calendar. It never happened. So, ah, cheers, right, okay, so let's get into the final five I'm always curious about obviously you run, you are tremendously successful and nevertheless you get out of bed on Monday morning and go to work and help your clients. So for me that's purpose and I'm curious how you define purpose in your life.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Yeah, absolutely the same thing. Multiple people have said Shauna, why don't you retire? Why don't you do whatever? I'm like, what am I going to do with my day? Like for me, I love helping people. Like, we just surpassed $2 billion in savings for our clients.

Ed Mathews:

Wow, congratulations. Oh, my goodness.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Let's go for $10. Let's go for $100. Like I'm in, right, that's really when I get. They're heartwarming stories right. One of the very first stories that really settled in my mind about why I do what I do, client had come in, started doing what we call a TC, a strategic tax coaching program. That's how we help people. Very long story short. She left.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

She came back a couple of months later. We were going over her plan and she couldn't stop crying. She was like, her eyes were red and I'm like are you a penny? Do we need to stop the meeting? And she said I just found out that my five-year-old son has cancer and I don't know how I'm going to pay for it. Could you imagine as a parent? And I said listen, here's the deal, right, stop the meeting, we thing. Because of the choices and things you've already done, you saved yourself about $60,000 in taxes. You have the money, goosebumps, even today. I mean she just said that's the kind of stuff that I'm lucky enough to be able to bring to people that they don't even know that they have hidden sources of cash that can change their life.

Ed Mathews:

Right, that, what an amazing story and wow, that's really cool. So I'm also curious about, obviously, being the successful professional that you are, you've had help right. Life is a team sport Process. Growing a firm is a team sport. Real estate is absolutely a team sport, and so I'm curious about the mentors you've had in your life over time and, specifically, what's the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

I'll come back to the mentor's question. The best piece of advice I ever got was life isn't going your way, Don't have a good cry and then pull up your pants and get on with it. Because that actually came from my mother, Because when I started my business it was always supposed to be me and a secretary in a home office. I grew the firm to 123 people. We've got huge teams that always, when anything goes wrong, it's life right. When anything goes wrong, I'm like, okay, get on with it, because that's all you can really do.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

But I've been lucky enough along the way. I've had good business coaches, like general business coaches, good sales coaches. If you're not a salesperson, it's a good skill to have, no matter what you're doing. I'd also say some just really good people that will actually tell you the truth, because sometimes you get surrounded by people that are like, yeah, so that's a brilliant idea when it's really not and it was a bad move and nobody told you because they didn't want to hurt your feelings. I'd much rather have a friend say listen, you and I need a tequila shot because I have some news to tell you. I would much rather have that in my life. If you can find those people. Hold on to them.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, I'll tell you, I had this mentor. His name's Mike Gonnerman God, he's got to be in his mid-80s at this point. He was the CFO of a company that I worked for back in the late 90s early 2000s. That company ran into a brick wall, but Mike and I got to be friends. I started off a consulting firm back in the early 2000s.

Ed Mathews:

I was probably I don't know young 30s. I would meet Mike for breakfast at the Newton Marriott in Boston, just outside Boston, once a month. I'd have a little slide deck that I would have prepared and it was the list of things that I'm doing to conquer the world and he would let me ramble on for 15 or 20 minutes and the eggs would come and we'd start eating and he'd go okay, here are the 19 things you're screwing up and here's how you fix them Right. And it was valuable. He saved me from so many dumb things and most of the time I actually listened to him, thank God.

Ed Mathews:

A 30 year old dude thought he was really stinking smart. It was only so much, and the fact is that's invaluable, and I tell people when I bring them onto our team. I was like, look, I don't have to be right, we just have to get it right. If I need someone to be a cheerleader, I'll go buy my mom breakfast right, and she'll talk about all the wonderful things that are going on and I have that in my life and she's wonderful. But what I need is you to hit me between the eyes with exactly what's going on.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Truth, facts. Give me the details.

Ed Mathews:

I couldn't agree more with you.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Love it.

Ed Mathews:

So I'm also curious about because one of the times that I didn't listen to Mike were big mistakes and there are several decisions I would love to have back. So I'm curious about a decision that you made over the course of your career that you look back on and go, boy, if I had that one back, it would be revolutionary, because I know exactly what, knowing what I know today, right. So I'm curious what mistake do you look back on, or decision that you look back on and go, wow, I'd really like to have that one back and what'd you do about it?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

So, good or bad, I'm a very trusting person, right, and the mistake was trust without inspection. I'm a very trusting person, right, and the mistake was trust without inspection. So the fix is now inspect what you expect and I've changed it now because now there is there's reporting in KPIs and show me the work, show me the goods, show me. And I think if I had really taken that to heart when I was a little bit younger, there would have been some things that wouldn't have happened, which would have been nice.

Ed Mathews:

Absolutely Okay. All right, fair enough. So I'm also always interested in, and I know you're incredibly busy, but I also find that leaders like you and me for that matter tend to take in information and sharpen that saw on a very regular basis, and so I'm curious about the book, physical or otherwise. That's on metaphoric nightstand, right, whether it's on your iPhone or it's on your laptop or whatever, but I'm curious about that book on your nightstand and who you're paying attention to these days.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

I love it. So at the moment I am in a little bit more of a reflective phase. So I am actually reading a book and it's literally sitting on my counter the Daily Stoic Journal by a guy named Ryan Holiday. It comes in a two-pack right One is a journal and the other one is telling you about the theory, why the Stoics did what they did and where it came from.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

And it's interesting to do a little bit more of the introspection, because generally I'm looking at everything outside, looking at other people's issues and questions and details, and so it's been fascinating. I'm about 30 days in and I'm going ooh, I didn't realize. That's why I thought what I thought.

Ed Mathews:

So it's interesting because I feel like it teaches you Fascinated by stoicism, and it's something that I've learned very late in my midlife because I tend to be a emotional, fiery kind of strong personality.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

So stoicism is.

Ed Mathews:

I'm Irish. So there you go. Yeah, so I'm Irish. So, yeah, the last thing that I'm very curious about, and you mentioned growing from you and an administrative assistant to one hundred and twenty three plus people in your firm. Congratulations, by the way. I'm curious, get it.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

For me it's the ability to do that instead of having to do something else. So I get to rather than I have to A hundred percent and little things, like I've got three dogs and if it's eleven, twenty three in the morning and I decide I want to pet tummies, then that's what I do.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

You know, so freedom and I think that's to me that's the ultimate entrepreneurial goal is I will work my fingers to the bone, but when I decide that it's lunchtime and I want a pet puppy tummy, then that's what I'm doing, and I'll tell you.

Ed Mathews:

I don't know if you know this, but dogs are way better than human beings. So we have three dogs too.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Live on camera.

Ed Mathews:

So we have two Goldens a Snowball and a regular Golden, who are awesome. The Snowball is dumb as paste but she's a sweetheart. And then we have a little Chi-Chi. I just put her on my TikTok because she had her nails clipped and she was very brave. So we celebrated that at the Matthews house and actually she wasn't brave. She was brave, according to my daughter.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Much more important.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, I'm a big dog, percy 100% agreed On this end.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Let's see, I've got my biggest girl. She's about 135 pounds, she's a Connie Corso Great Dane mix, my big tank. I've got a male German Shepherd at about 85 pounds and then I call him my mixed berry. He's 55 pounds but he's got husky and terrier and sharpay and I think his DNA test came back and literally said super mutt, everything, all the things.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

But, I have a little like farm on my property and I have no steaks, no rats, no, nothing. He can have full run of the property, which is there you go, problem solved, sean.

Ed Mathews:

I've really enjoyed this conversation. When you are not saving entrepreneurs from the tax man, what do you like to do? How do you spend your time?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Oh, probably out in the garden. So just imagine a little farm. We raise quail, in the winter we raise rabbits, and I've got 88 fruit trees on the property. So I mess around in the garden.

Ed Mathews:

Awesome, and if people want to learn more about you or your firm or all the things that you're doing, what's the best way to do that?

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

TaxGoddess. com Super easy to find.

Ed Mathews:

All right, shauna, the Tax Goddess, thank you so much for your time. It was truly a pleasure. I wish you continued good fortune and hopefully we'll get to talk again soon.

Shauna The Tax Goddess:

Sounds like a plan.

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Ed Mathews - Clark St Capital

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