Employee Tax Strategies (TFM 12)

All right, here's another one. Okay, now this one I've got to say a disclaimer on because I am not a certified accountant. I do not have the ability to give you legal advice, so I'm going to be very touchy about this. But as an employee, as a W-2 employee, you have a lot of resources to your advantage that if you do talk with an accountant, there are ways to be able to create some money there. Okay, again, I've got to be very touchy because I do not give any sort of advice on this.

I am not certified or anything like that. But you have a certain amount of taxes withheld, okay, from your paycheck, and then you get a tax return at the end of the year. You actually have control over whether more taxes are withheld up front or less taxes are withheld, meaning right now when you get your paycheck every single week or two weeks or whatever, you have taxes withheld. You might be able to change some things with your company, again, when you have the right advice, change some things with your company so that less taxes are withheld, which means instead of getting a tax return at the end of the year, you might actually end up owing money. And you might go, Chris, well, why on earth would I want to owe money?

I look forward to my tax return. Well, because who's keeping your money? Either the company or the government, the IRS is keeping your money, or you're keeping it. Wouldn't you rather have access to your money right now so you can use it to leverage it and flip it, even if it means owing money at the end of the year? Okay, that's the first thing.

But the second thing is this. If you're an employee, you know, you're getting a tax return, right? But if you have a small business. And on the side of that, that is, let's say, losing money, then it offsets your income. But let's say that your small business lost $50,000 this year.

And, again, these are just hypothetical numbers. Then you're at zero. You're zeroed out. So if you get with an accountant, if you go talk with an accountant and you go learn more about this from a professional who is licensed to give you advice, there are a lot of resources and advantages to being a W-2 employee that you can use to your advantage here. And I'm not saying.

You should go start up a business just for the sole case of losing money. Okay? That's not what you should do. What I am saying is that when you do some of this stuff, like some of these funding methods we're talking about, when you do go out there and middleman websites and become a broker for some stuff and do things like this, or you join a direct sales opportunity, these are businesses. And every expense becomes a write-off.

So every time you're spending money, that becomes, in essence, a loss. If you go to a conference. And that offsets the amount of money you made through your job. So when you learn a little bit about this, you realize that without doing anything different, just doing what you're already doing and getting creative with your accounting, not illegal. Again, I would never endorse anything illegal.

I'm just saying buy the books with the proper structure. Then you can absolutely set things up. Okay. Ask around to one of your friends. Go, hey, is anybody an accountant?

Is there anybody that knows how this works? Say, is there a way for me to, you know, ask somebody who's certified. Go ask these questions. Or, you know, do I have to be having this much tax withheld every single week? If I wanted to be able to have more of this money up front to use right now, what would I have to do?

Of course, legally. What would I have to do? And a paid financial consultant will tell you exactly what to do. Okay. Or say, you know, and it might have to do with the dependents that you have.

It might have to do with how you claim the business. But there are things that you can do that are to your advantage that you can free up money there. There's things that you can do that can significantly increase your tax return at the end of the year. Especially if you have a business on the side that's losing money. Okay.

So just look. Here's what I'm saying. Learn about it. Learn about those resources. It's a huge bonus when you figure it out, when you learn about it.