Episode Transcript
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[Music]
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Welcome to the Brave New Wealth Podcast.
I'm your host, Juliana,
Giavenua to the Moon,
Gienvenido at Pobo,
Vilcomen alle.
I've welcomed you in four languages,
I hope everybody feels welcome here.
Now in this podcast,
we will discuss reinventing wealth,
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mentally, physically, socially and financially.
This podcast is sponsored by Engineer Tech Services,
where I am a director.
Engineer Tech Services is a subsidiary of Engineer Tech's Advisory.
And our goal is to empower business owners,
CPAs, advisors with proven expertise,
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education and innovating innovative strategies
to help your clients, yourself,
reduce your tax burden.
And most of will take advantage of all the tax incentives
that are available, but not always obvious.
So we're here to help.
Please reach out if you fall into those categories
(01:16):
and see what we can do for you,
especially with the tax season approaching now.
Now is the time to act.
Now in each episode,
I will have experts in their field coming on,
sharing their insights.
And the hope is really that you get inspired,
you learn something new that will help you move you,
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yourself forward in your personal life, in your business.
So you can reach your goal a little bit faster.
So even if a topic is familiar,
sometimes it just takes a new perspective,
a new voice for the coin to fall and for aesthetic action.
So I'm really excited about the guests that will come on
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to learn about their lives,
to learn about how they overcame their challenges,
and they grew from it also to talk about the successes
they've had and how they've achieved them.
So follow us each episode to learn something new.
Please leave some comments and let me know,
let us know what you've learned,
because that's always great to read.
(02:21):
If you've learned something new,
and I am sure that you will get a lot of value
from these discussions,
that you will be able to take some things for you
and for yourself and for your life, your company.
I am hoping that you will have a lot of those aha moments
when you listen.
So get comfortable, grab your favorite drink,
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and I know Z, let's go.
Thank you so much for coming.
To the Brave New Wealth podcast today,
I'm excited that you are my first guest.
I'm so excited to be here, Juliana.
Thank you, thank you.
And so just so that the listeners know a little bit
who I'm talking to, I'll give a brave introduction,
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and then of course we'll dig more into it as we go along.
So Heidi Henderson is one of the partners
at Engineer Tech Services,
a tax mitigation firm supporting CPAs,
their clients, as well as business owners,
and real estate investors,
take advantage of tax incentives,
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so they don't pay one penny more than what they are required.
At Engineer Tech Services, Heidi oversees the marketing
and advertising efforts along with business development for ETS.
Her career has been spent in private accounting
within the commercial estate development
and construction industries.
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This background allowed her to quickly adapt
to the services offered by ETS
as they relate to CPAs, business owners,
and property investors nationally.
And she enjoys traveling,
loves the outdoors, biking, skiing, booting,
and horse bike riding.
So Heidi, welcome.
(04:10):
I am excited that you are here today,
and I'm excited, even though we work together,
there's a lot of things I wanna learn more about.
No, in the Brave New Wealth Podcast,
we look at wealth from multiple different aspects.
So we look at mental, physical, social, financial,
(04:30):
of course there is all the definition of wealth,
but these are the things that we focus on here.
So to start up, to start up,
before we go into career and everything else,
I would like to ask you,
what is something you have done recently
that is a bit outside of your comfort zone
(04:51):
that has contributed to growing?
And you can pick, you don't have to do all the categories,
you can pick if it's something mentally
that you've done or something with physical,
health or in your social life or even financially.
Like a step, something that you would not have normally done,
but you know, you're like, you know what,
(05:12):
I'm gonna just do this because I need to grow
and I'm gonna dig the gem.
(laughs)
Absolutely, I mean, that's such a great question,
because I think when we,
I'm a huge believer that when we stretch ourselves
out of our comfort zone and we take a leap of faith,
that that's oftentimes when we receive the greatest reward.
(05:33):
It's really by working through the fear,
a friend once told me about a book called,
Feel the Fear and do it anyway.
And there's something to be said in that.
I am naturally from a personality perspective,
I can probably more on the introverted side than extroverted,
(05:53):
and I also tend to be, you know, because I'm very analytical,
I have a master's in tax and accounting.
I love the numbers, I love the analytical side of things,
but what happens is you can become frozen
by over analyzing things.
And when you do that, it's like analysis paralysis.
(06:14):
So I have all of this information, I have all of this data
that I've learned and I've accumulated throughout my career.
I love to read, I love to learn,
I'm constantly stretching myself personally,
spiritually, intellectually, physically.
I'm always pushing myself through showing and training my horses,
through pushing myself physically.
(06:35):
I was an athlete in college, through high school in college.
So I love that the personal challenge,
for me on the financial side, because of that very,
again, analytical aspect of myself,
sometimes it's a little scary to take that leap of faith
into alternative investments and doing something outside
(06:57):
what I think many people consider to be the norm,
which would be, I'm gonna work a job in that's my career,
I'm gonna grow, I'm gonna save, I'll put that into my 401k,
I'll have someone manage that in a diversified fund
through stocks and bonds, and at the end of my career,
I can retire and have this plan.
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That's cool, that's the thing that we grow up,
I think learning and being taught to do.
And certainly I've always had that mentality,
but being in the space that I'm in,
I consult with people on how to be more strategic
and how to think outside the box.
So I have to balance that side of myself
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that almost knows too much,
because I'm so in the weeds with the tax implications,
tax benefits also risks, how the IRS views things,
and many investments as it relates to alternative investments
through real estate and a number of factors.
So that's long winded lead up to answering your question
(08:00):
that what have I done outside of my comfort zone?
Really it's stepping more into those alternative investments
and trusting the knowledge that I've gained
and I've learned over the years
by investing with many of our clients
in syndicated real estate funds.
Actually a lot of oil and gas investments,
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a number of different things that I know personally
about the tax benefits that are associated with those.
Real estate is one of the biggest ones
where it gives us an opportunity to create,
it's this mentality that we hear about
when people start to look at building their own generational wealth,
it's what can I do to really become financially independent
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and to create passive income?
And so that is probably the biggest, I know it,
but actually taking the step and doing it is a whole nother thing.
So that's where I'm always stretching myself
is forcing myself to get off of the comfort train
and say no, we need to jump out and actually do something
(09:06):
outside the box and make smarter financial decisions.
Wonderful.
Well, thank you for sharing and I can feel that as you say,
I think I'm a little bit like you where I may have a tendency
to kind of go with, you know, when it comes to finance,
stay a little bit more conservative,
but they're, you know, in the past three years
(09:26):
being in the specialty tech services,
I've learned so much about all the opportunities
that are available to, you know, anyone who's gonna dare
a little bit.
All right, we'll dig a little more into this
when, you know, we talk about your role than everything else,
but just on a personal side.
So I'll tell you, you know, we work together,
(09:47):
but of course, you know, we're in the weeds
and, you know, doing our day to day things.
So I looked you up a little bit and I actually find out
you had your own podcasts.
- Yes, do.
- Healthy, wealthy and wise.
And I listened to the episode with Kim.
- I pulled that major.
- A beautiful thing, which I'm gonna plug,
(10:08):
you know, plug it in in the notes for people to go in
and check it out.
So I was a, I was amazed because so Kim is also a partner
at ETS and she is a Heidi's older sister
and they're both amazing.
Amazing stories.
We're not gonna, I'm not gonna tell you about Kim's story
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because, you know, that's that podcast
and she's also, I'm also gonna invite her to come on.
But something I was excited about is, first of all,
to find out that you're like 18 months apart
just like me and my sister.
And you have like that twin thing going a lot of times,
which I can totally relate to.
- I see.
- You're talking about having, how do you call it?
(10:51):
Almost like you can read each other's mind.
- Like telepathy.
- Yeah.
- You totally do.
You absolutely, I mean, growing up so close in age,
I think you absolutely develop a, you know,
unique ability to see and feel each other's emotions.
To know what they're thinking, you know what they're gonna say.
And Kim and I've worked together for a long time now
in addition to just living life together.
(11:12):
So it's been interesting.
- Yes, I was excited to hear that
because my sister is now, you know, it's Christmas time,
we're recording in between Christmas and years you guys.
So my sister flew from Dubai and she's, you know,
she's 18 months apart and we always laugh
because we're like, pop into same sentence at the same time.
We do the same orki where things are the same time
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and then we just laugh at each other.
And sometimes I'm like, we're not twins.
Like I wonder why we are so in sync like that,
but you know, it was fun to see that.
It was the same for you, but a question I had for you,
you know, I explain a little bit, you know,
you like the outdoors.
Where does that come from?
Just being, you know, an outdoorsy person.
(11:56):
It seems like that's part of who you are in your MO
and then we'll talk a little bit about your love
for horses too.
- Absolutely.
I mean, that's opening a whole can of worms.
I don't know if you really want me to go there.
I might not stop.
- Yes.
(laughs)
- They'll listen about your favorite things.
- Okay, just have a little bit of, you know,
(12:17):
tell us about your favorite,
well, where does your love for outdoors comes from
and then what led you into just dispassion for horses?
I think that's, that would be interesting to know.
- Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I think when we look at ourselves
and really, we really look inside
to really better understand who we are
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and as I said earlier, you know, we're oftentimes challenging
ourselves to improve and to be better
and to be stronger or understand,
why do I do what I do?
You know, I've been that way much of my life
because I am a processor.
I'm introverted and very analytical.
So information comes in through relationships
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or through, let's call it in the day-to-day world.
Networking Events, it's called a networking event.
I'm not one of those people that thrives
in that environment, that environment takes a lot from me.
And as much as I love it, I love connecting with people
at a really deep human level, very personal level,
more on one and one.
So those big social environments, they draw the energy
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from me.
And what I found is, you know, in my family growing up,
we really weren't a big, you know, outdoorsy,
animal-focused family.
I'm just one, this sort of came out of nowhere
and just wanted to only ever be outside
and just had a love for animals when I was very young
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and was constantly trying to bring more.
My parents were like, no, we're not gonna doubt the whole.
Yeah, all the strays out there.
Yeah, yeah.
But for me, the outdoors in any form or fashion,
'cause I pretty much like to do anything if I can be outside,
it's, I think it's because it's the emotional release.
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And I found that with horses as well.
People who look up, you know, the equine therapies
where they're working with people with disabilities
or people with older and with handicaps,
it's because there's this really bizarre connection
between the human psyche and the equine world.
It has something to do with heart connection,
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which we can get really woo-woo there.
But it really as science begins and continues to expound
and understand those connections,
I've realized in my life that that's been a huge source
of what I say feeding my soul.
So those environments allow me to process,
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they allow me to release much of sort of the stress
and the drain that I feel being in highly social environments
with much of what I do.
And so that's where I find that release.
So that's why whenever I have a free moment,
I really strive to balance that
and coming back full circle to your, you know, brave new wealth
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and also my podcast as well is really,
it's that we can achieve balance
and truly being, if we wanna call it wealthy,
is about finding balance to where we can strive
in our careers, we can be financially successful,
but if we're not taking care of ourselves emotionally
and mentally and physically and spiritually,
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then what is it all matter?
If you have all the money in the world
and you're miserable and stressed out, what does it matter?
And so that's one thing I work very hard to do in my life
is I love what I do, I love my work,
but really making sure that I take time for the balance
and allow myself that time,
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because I find in those moments as well,
your meditation or through outdoors or hiking,
or whatever it may be,
that's where we actually allow ourselves
the freedom of thought
and those moments to actually be creative.
And I think that's where a lot of success comes from.
- Yes, no, that's beautiful, that's beautiful.
(16:19):
And absolutely, that's the reason why I wanted to, you know,
start this podcast.
And I really, I honestly didn't know you had one
because it's like, were you like spank alike?
(laughs)
But the more the better, the merrier, right?
You know, this is beautiful.
So when did you first encounter the horse?
'Cause you said your family wasn't really into animals
(16:41):
and whatnot, is really something that's innate from you.
So when was your first encounter?
And you were like, this is, you know, I love them,
you know, 'cause there's plenty of different animals
to pick from.
- Yeah, and when did it become your thing?
- Yeah, you know, when I was, we moved,
I grew up in Northern California outside of San Francisco
(17:02):
and we moved up outside of Portland, Oregon
when I was about 10.
And my aunt had horses and I had a couple of cousins.
So when we moved up there, we started to spend
a little bit more time with them
and it gave me an opportunity to be around horses a little bit.
It was really my first experience
and I just was hooked.
(17:22):
I just, I was just completely enthralled.
I always tell people, you know, they're like,
oh, my daughter's starting to ride
or, you know, my son wants to take lessons.
And I said, here's when you know, you let them have their experience,
you wait until they get bucked off,
especially if they get hurt, this sounds horrible.
Wait until they get bucked off and they get hurt.
- They get hurt, they still have a ride after that.
(17:44):
It's in 'em.
- Okay, ruined.
(laughs)
- Yes, yes.
You see, I mean, you know, I've been horseback riding
and all of the things, but I still have that little bit of fear
and luckily I've never fallen off a horse,
but it's always like in a bike on my head,
like I don't know that I would be able to go back different waski.
(18:04):
I've hurt myself pretty badly and then I'm, you know,
'cause I always hear that thing.
Like if you fall off a horse,
you just gotta get back on as quickly as possible
or you know, I'm like, well, how about you just don't fall?
- Yep, yeah, if you do it long enough,
it's gotta do them to happen.
Well, thank you very much for sharing that.
So we're gonna switch gear a little bit.
(18:26):
So Heidi and I met at the beginning of 2024,
I saw Heidi present here in Dallas at Hexfer financial
and it's a financial services firm,
helping business owners.
And you were talking about specialty tech services,
and I had been in that world with, you know,
(18:49):
beaten capital for a couple of years
and I was so impressed when I heard you speak about it
'cause as you know, a lot of people don't really know
if it's not your specialty, it goes over a lot of people's head
and I'm like, she speaks out language.
And you did such a beautiful job so much so that that day,
you know, you had a big long line after a presentation
(19:10):
where people came to you, you know, to learn more and talk to you
and I didn't talk to you right then.
You know, I had your information 'cause you're always so good
about giving the whole world your phone number.
(laughs)
Well, like she's really like trusting and, you know.
And so I texted you and you were so kind and cordial
and answered me back like very quickly
(19:32):
and you know, we connected that way.
Come to find out, you know,
our companies were a little bit already connected
but because we, you know, we all have our own tentacles,
I didn't know.
After that, the Habukon front-scam
so that was in Genetac services, you know,
presenting, bringing the CPAs together as an advisor
(19:54):
with all the beautiful things you have to offer.
And at that point, I'm still at, you know, beaten capital.
So I was really impressed with just the knowledge
that you have and the passion that you have for what you do.
So tell me, tell us, tell our, you know, listeners,
how did you end up at InGenetac services
(20:16):
and in the tax world in general?
'Cause I know it wasn't originally a background
but you kind of get, you know, like, I think a lot of people,
you kind of fall into it and then it's like,
oh my gosh, there's so much in here.
Yeah, I have no idea about for sure.
And the first thing, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, when I was in college,
I took a temp job at a real estate brokerage in Oregon
(20:41):
and the gal who owned that brokerage firm
was a very successful woman.
And I was not raised in that type of a home.
My mom was kind of more traditional,
my parents lived more traditional lifestyle.
And so it was really interesting to be exposed to a woman
(21:03):
who was really strong, really powerful, really successful
and I loved working with her.
And that's where I think I started to get the flavor
for real estate and the benefits
and really seeing success come through that sector.
So long story short, I ended up kind of doing multiple things.
(21:24):
You know, I think when we're in our 20s,
we're always exploring and trying different professions
and different opportunities.
My husband at the time actually was in construction
and had started a custom home building company.
And so I had quite a bit of familiarity for years
with real estate, with commercial developments,
(21:45):
with residential developments and building,
and blueprints and all of this stuff.
And through that, managing the accounting there
and then eventually moving on to become
the controller of a resort in Utah,
I really loved, again, I love the challenge.
I love the challenge in my career.
I love challenging myself personally.
And that was a wonderful job.
(22:07):
But once we finished developing out the resort,
it became very mundane.
It became very much just, you know,
monthly financial statements.
And I started to realize, you know,
I want something a bit more challenging,
a little more dynamic and something
that might get me in front of people a bit more.
Yeah.
And again, much of that was in real estate.
(22:27):
And again, I was still surrounded with a lot of people
in the real estate development space
who had become very successful in their lives
in their careers.
And so that was very intriguing to me,
as opposed to just working as an accountant
in more of a standard, you know, job role.
So Kim, actually, my sister,
and we were just talking about,
(22:48):
had started to work with Julio, our founder
at engineering tech services.
And she came to me and said,
you know, you really should come work with us.
Everything we're doing is relating
to what your whole career is, but it's real estate.
It's taxes, it's accounting.
And I said, I don't even know what you're doing.
(laughs)
- Yeah, she'd been there when she--
(23:11):
- She'd only been about a year, year and a half.
Maybe a year when she really started to say,
hey, I think you should come work with us.
And it probably took me another year,
years the conservative side of me saying, yeah, maybe not.
But here I am, almost 14 years later,
working with ETS.
(23:31):
And it does very much fall in line
with my understanding and knowledge of my career
of real estate developments, construction,
and looper and costing all of these things
that roll into accounting methodologies and taxes
and how we really look at investments
to optimize tax benefits, many of the credits,
(23:55):
the deductions that write off the associated,
incentives ultimately that the IRS provides for investors
because there's risk in that.
And what incentives are made to do is to coax investors
to do or perform certain activities
(24:16):
that are gonna be best for the social good, right?
Or for our communities.
And so really the incentives that roll into that
as they relate to real estate are pretty dramatic.
I mean, I really don't think there's anything else
that comes close to the benefits
that from a tax standpoint,
correlate to the real estate environment
(24:37):
or investing sector.
So that's kind of how I ended up from one
into the consulting side.
- Thank you.
Thank you so for people who are not super familiar
with this whole world,
like what would you say are,
just briefly what are tax incentives
and what are the most common tax incentive
(24:58):
in the real estate world?
We're gonna try to stay in that sphere
because of course, with tax, we can go all over the place.
- Thousands, thousands of them.
But like just so someone who maybe has not heard about it,
he has this for the first time.
What are real estate tax incentives
and what are the most common ones
that people should really pay attention to
if they own an Airbnb or a commercial building
(25:21):
or their business owner in their own, their building,
what would you say they should pay attention
to first and foremost?
- Yeah, I mean, with real estate depreciation
is really the number one biggest opportunity.
It's the reason that investing in real estate
has so many tax opportunities that are associated with it.
(25:43):
The reason being real estate is a tangible asset
or it's real property.
And the IRS allows us to depreciate
or what that means is to write down the cost
of those assets over a certain period of time.
That deterioration ultimately,
let's use an example of a short term rental
because we're seeing so much of that in the real estate sector.
(26:08):
If we have a short term rental property
that someone's buying, if you do nothing to that property,
the IRS agrees that it's useful life
is about 27 and a half years.
That is if you don't replace the roof,
if you don't upgrade anything over 27 and a half years,
the value of the structure itself is going to be worth less
than what it was when you bought it.
(26:29):
Now, it's interesting because when we buy real estate,
we buy real estate for the sake of appreciation.
We believe and we have seen through the course of our lifetimes
that real estate appreciate and value,
but typically that appreciation does also tie
with ongoing improvements and keeping the property
functional, operational, and repairing things
(26:52):
as they need to be repaired.
So that depreciation or that write off
of the asset as it deteriorates over time
is what is allowing investors to buy an asset.
The big key to this is most investors
are able to use financing to do that.
So if they're putting 20% down,
(27:14):
they're getting an 80% loan on the value of that home.
The IRS gives you a deduction of the entire home
over the course of time for the total amount,
even though you're getting a loan or using leverage
for a significant portion of it.
And so that's what happens as investors can put 20% down,
(27:34):
but maybe getting a deduction that is larger than the down payment
they put out that home because of how the tax code is written.
And so one of the strategies are incentives,
which also then expounds on that is cost segregation.
And cost segregation is becoming more and more applicable.
(27:55):
We see far more knowledge and education.
And we work hard certainly with our company
to educate investors and real estate owners
on the benefits of cost segregation.
But it's a fancy term for just,
we're itemizing all of the assets within a property
and then helping those be written off
over an accelerated period of time.
(28:17):
And so we're able to take those quickly,
take those deductions and write-offs.
And again, essentially, we're getting a larger write-off
often times than the initial capital or down payment
that they put in a front for actually acquiring that property.
- Excellent, yeah.
So of course, hopefully people are not super familiar
(28:39):
with the whole world of real estate
and tax incentives see the benefit
and the reason why people would go into it.
And also, I'm hoping some light bulbs come on
and like, hey, I need to look at this because
that relates to me.
So maybe give me a couple of examples,
maybe that are freshening your mind of people
(29:00):
who have really benefited in recently.
Some of the deals maybe that you've closed
and they just got a really great deduction
or one industry type of industry.
- Yeah, and an incentive that will be helpful.
(29:20):
- Yeah, I mean, one story I'll share,
I have a gentleman that I remember,
for some reason he's one of those conversations
I've ever been remembering having almost 10 years ago.
And he was an investor who was just getting into real estate
beginning to buy some rental properties
in Southern California
and had a pretty good income
(29:43):
and we're saying, look, I don't wanna just sit here
and do my minimum 401k contribution.
I wanna actually grow and begin to shift this
into real estate night.
I feel like this is something I would enjoy more.
So he started to buy rental properties
and we had many conversations about what properties
and how are we gonna depreciate this
(30:03):
and how do all the write-offs function
with how this all rolls?
And so he bought a couple of properties in this first year.
That was 10 years ago and today this particular client
of ours, again, I love these stories
because I think it is,
it's proof that the American dream is still very achievable
(30:26):
because this guy, young guy, he was the time he was
in his late 20s, started buying rental properties.
Today, 10 years later,
he personally owns over 800 units
and he manages or co-owns through syndicated partnerships.
He is a general partner but he has investors come in
(30:46):
and syndicated funds that he structures
and he now is managing over 3,500 units
in his syndicated structures.
And I think it's so incredible to watch that growth
and he was able to use cost segregation
to really help speed that process up
because again, if we use the example of a $500,000 home,
(31:10):
buying that, we'll call it, we'll call it a $600,000 home,
we have to attribute something to land.
So the value of the asset itself is $500,000.
Cost segregation for a property like that
is probably going to create anywhere from 100 to $150,000
(31:30):
in deductions in the first year,
particularly if we get 100% bonus depreciation back.
So you can Google that if you don't know what it is.
Chat GPT-A.
Yeah, it works.
But yeah, but a $500,000 home
and he's claiming $150,000 in deductions or depreciation
(31:50):
in the first year, his down payment on that property
was probably about $120,000 to buy it.
So depending on his tax bracket, how much taxes he's paying,
this could be saving him $70,000, $80,000, $100,000 in taxes.
So again, if he's putting down $120,000 down payment,
(32:15):
he's leveraging the rest,
then he's going to utilize cost segregation,
he's going to create a windfall of tax savings,
which could be $100,000 or so, high level example here.
But let's say saving $100,000 in taxes,
typically most investors, what they realize is,
"Well, shoot, what do I do now?"
(32:37):
And the response is, "Well, okay, now I need to buy another property
or make improvements or add an ADU or do an expansion."
We see all of those things.
But all of those situations are taking that $100,000
he did not pay in taxes,
allowing him to then put that down as a down payment
on the next home due cost segregation again.
(33:01):
That $100,000 he put down, it's now depreciation again.
He's going to depreciate it again on the new property.
And so it creates a cycle.
And I was at a conference of last year,
and I love it, I have this guy
that I've actually been working with for years.
And he goes, "Hidy, I just have to keep buying properties now."
It's like every year I have to buy another property
(33:23):
because I need the depreciation.
And I was like, "Well, there are worse problems to have."
Yeah, it becomes a drag, huh?
Yeah, yes.
But it really does allow,
and I've seen personally firsthand,
our investors be able to grow their portfolios
and to be able to change their family.
A lot of times people retire
(33:44):
and end up becoming full-time, real estate investors.
And it changes the whole game.
But it's very doable.
It takes a little leap of faith.
But it's really, I personally, I love that so much
because I've seen it happen,
and it's a pretty beautiful thing.
Awesome.
Thank you.
That's a great story.
That's awesome.
(34:05):
So now let's talk about a little bit
how at EngineerTech Services, we support,
you know, the CPAs and advisors.
What does EngineerTech Services has to offer to CPAs
and advisors who do not do sophisticated, you know,
tech strategies or real estate incentives,
(34:28):
but yet their clients falling to, you know,
that field and they, you could use to help basically.
Yep, yep.
The reason that we, well, should back up,
we have focused from day one on being a specialty tax.
(34:48):
So what that means, think of it as the medical space,
we're a specialist in the medical world.
The CPA is a primary care physician
and then the specialist really is doing orthopedic surgeries.
That's really what we're doing when it relates
to people's businesses, their taxes, their investments.
We have structured this company from day one
(35:08):
to not compete with CPAs directly.
We get asked all the time if we'll do tax returns,
we don't and we don't want to
because we have the ability to come inside by side hand
and hand along with our CPA partners
to work with their tax clients
and create the strategy, bring in the expertise,
(35:30):
the subject matter expertise for real estate
or research and development or anything
that really is specific to that business owner
and help them implement that.
We do the study, we even do the complex tax forms,
but then the CPA is able to just take that stuff
and file the tax return
and it's been a really beautiful relationship
(35:51):
with how we've been able to support the CPA industry
at a time when there's honestly just not enough time
to go around, there's not enough people to do the work
and so this is one thing that using a professional trust
worthy reputable, we've been around for 25 years.
(36:11):
We've really strived to be that white glove provider
to where we can come in hand and hand
and work as a high level advisor
to help support them in their clients
and honestly we make the CPA shine
so they don't have to be the experts
but they just have to know when to call
and the right people in the right situations
and we love that, we love how we are able
(36:33):
to support CPAs in that space.
- That's wonderful, thank you, thank you for sharing that
and yeah, I mean, we know that CPAs are always of a worked,
they're not enough of them and so any help is,
I know they welcome the help when it's not the area of expertise.
(36:57):
Now, internet tech service is also has like these little
hidden treasures and little golden nuggets to help CPAs
and to help advisors and can you talk about some of the things
that I just had a conversation with a family member
(37:18):
who owns a vet clinic and I told him a little bit about,
well, have you just dug into all of the things
that your area provides and usually even the CPAs don't always know.
So what are some of the things that internet tech services
help with on the CPA level just for them to become better
(37:39):
and improve what they already have or add onto
and also business owners.
What are some tools kind of on the periphery
of the main things that we do?
- Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of time back there.
And we have a lot, what we've done over the years
(38:00):
is when we've seen an opportunity, we see a need,
we're like, how can we help solve this need?
We see a need in the conversations we're having
and so what would be the solution or a solution
we can help our partners that is really gonna solve some of that.
So there are two areas.
One, there's the area on the CPA firm side itself.
(38:21):
We actually did an acquisition about six years ago
of a firm called the Growth Partnership
and they really for 25 years have focused on nothing
but supporting CPA firms in their actual practice,
so practice management, marketing, firm growth, partner retreats,
how to structure, how to train their staff to be better leaders,
(38:44):
not about compliance, not about better tax professionals
but how to make them be better communicators
and better leaders because that's something
that is so difficult for many accountants
who are trained very technically.
So we acquired that firm to help again,
expound and support our CPA partners
(39:06):
and bring additional services online
where we were seeing some of those pain points
and saw an opportunity to help support them in that.
And then segueing into another acquisition we did
which I'm really excited about is a technology platform
that we have acquired which really helps identify
any and all incentives like you're saying hidden treasures
(39:28):
that could be available for a business owner
or for a tax client.
So whether they're developing something,
building a new company, starting something,
building technology, what might be available to them
from a funding perspective and it is just unbelievable
but this database has almost 2,000 incentives
(39:50):
that it can quickly identify with basic information
about where's the business located,
what city, what state, what type of business is it,
what type of clients are they serving
and we can look at those pieces of information
and be able to quickly identify opportunities
to help drive incentives and drive funding
to help support those companies.
(40:11):
Ultimately what we want at ETS,
we do believe that the American dream is absolutely achievable
and our clients are business owners.
They are the people that took the leap of faith
to start their own company
or to become a partner in a business
that they have ownership in
and its success is their livelihood.
And not just theirs but for their family
(40:32):
and their future and their children.
And so we really want to help provide support
in every aspect of helping go them up
and helping them see even greater success in those businesses.
- Absolutely, thank you so much.
This is great.
So I'm really hoping that anyone who turns in
who's a business owner or a CPA is like,
(40:54):
"Okay, I gotta dig into this."
'Cause it's pretty amazing.
So one more question, we're getting to the end of this
but it's the end of the year
and a lot of things,
a lot of people kind of rush to us
and luckily December 31st doesn't mean
(41:15):
that all of the tax incentives are gone
and we're starting in the year.
So what are some of the incentives that you would see
at the end of the year, business owners,
real estate investors should look into
before the next sex filing?
- Yeah, what can still be done?
(41:35):
- Yeah, it too late.
- Yeah, a little bit above.
When it comes to real estate,
one of the wonderful things is cost segregation
in many of the real estate incentives
are applicable retroactively based on when that property
or improvements were performed.
And so if things were done already for 2024
(41:58):
or even 2023 and prior,
we're still able to go back and capture many of the deductions
and the benefits of those investments
and roll that onto the next tax return.
In terms of capturing right offs or incentives for 2024,
if you haven't already made the investment,
it's too late for that, I would say,
(42:21):
but that's really important to continue
to think as we roll into 2025, it's a new year.
You do have an entire year but it goes fast
and beginning to educate yourself
on where to invest, what to invest in
if it is real estate, what area, what sector,
what investments are available.
(42:41):
It's really, it's been amazing,
as I look at real estate investments
to really even find good deals,
it takes a lot of time and a lot of due diligence
to be watching and tracking that stuff.
And so I would encourage people start early,
educate yourself which we live in such an incredible era
right now where we have so much data in our fingertips
(43:05):
to help educate and help us learn to be better investors
and how we can utilize these to reduce tax
and to take those dollars that we would otherwise pay
to the IRS and then convert those into growth assets.
But it really needs to be done early on throughout the year
(43:26):
so that by the time the year is done and finished,
you're able to then roll that up into the tax return.
So like I say, people who have investments already
if they bought an asset, if they did major improvements,
we can still capture many of those incentives
and look at those.
If they haven't, then it's really about planning
for 2025 and future years
(43:48):
and for how to start to lay the groundwork
so that they are prepared for the next tax year.
- Awesome.
Well, thank you.
I hope and I know this can be very valuable
for a lot of people listening.
Okay, one last question.
Again, what is your, and I know, it's a little bit out there
(44:09):
but what is your personal prediction for 2025
when it comes to the tons world
and what you foresee, things happen.
- Oh boy.
- What's your, what are you feeling?
Okay, crystal ball moment.
So we do a lot of work in DC
(44:32):
as it relates to saying a breast
of what's happening in the tax code
and which tax incentives because much of what we do
and we as partners are all in real estate as well,
we are huge proponents of supporting real estate investors
and developments and continuing many of those incentives
that are currently built into the tax code.
(44:53):
However, 2025 is the last year where there are many tax cuts
that will expire.
I mean, a slew of them and throughout the year
will then convert into significantly higher tax rates
for pretty much every investor, pretty much every taxpayer.
The new administration, we're already kind of keeping up
(45:17):
to speed with the conversations that are happening
behind the scenes.
We have actually seen a draft of the tax bill
that they're working on.
Their goal is to have a tax bill pass
within the first 100 days of their administration.
So that would put us at what the January, February, March, April.
So sometime end of April, mid May,
(45:40):
there's a very real possibility
that we will have a new tax bill.
That right now is being proposed with an extension
for 100% bonus depreciation.
It also includes a repeal of the R&D amortization Act
or 174 amortization complex topic,
but it does impact companies
(46:02):
that are doing research and development in the US.
And then a number of other tax cuts
that will essentially be extended
that were originally part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
it was passed in 2017.
2025 is going to be a big year
as far as tax bills and the discussion
(46:22):
and the debate that occurs.
And I think everyone's on pins and needles
waiting to see what's gonna happen.
So I think we're gonna see some big changes.
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much, Heidi.
It's been a pleasure having you.
I love working with you, digging to your brain
and seeing all the beautiful things
that we do at Engineers Act Services.
(46:44):
I wish you a very fun new year.
Thank you.
And we wish you all the very best for 2025.
But I'm sure I'll have you over again.
So thank you so much, Heidi.
Thank you, Julian.
It's always so fun chatting.
And I love working with you
and appreciating guests on the podcast.
(47:06):
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Brave New Wealth
podcast with Heidi Henderson.
I hope you learned a lot.
Make sure you leave your questions in the comments sections.
Visit the website so you can learn more
and take advantage of all of these tax incentives
if you are in that situation.
(47:26):
I'm your host, Julianne Villegas.
And I hope I will see you next time.
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