Lights that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with great shows like the salesman podcast today will be breaking down how to live tax-free as an entrepreneur to drop these value bombs I brought Carter co-field into EO fire studios Carter is a license CPA whose goal is to teach entrepreneurs how to live tax-free and today fire nation will be able to do that.

We'll talk about tax deduction 101 we'll talk about how the tax code was actually made to benefit entrepreneurs we'll talk about how to write off travel cars close and so much more when we get back from thinking our sponsors.

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episode shares her best advice for multi passionate business owners listen to the goal digger podcast wherever you get your podcast Carter say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with first of all thank you for having me today and the thing that I believe that most people disagree with is that you have to work really hard for 30 years in your business or your job and then you retire.

To be successful I think that everybody instead should be taking many retirements throughout life so I'm sure you read the four hour work week by Tim Ferris and for me I take a one month vacation every three months into another country and I come back so rejuvenated the next three months end up being successful

in the last so I don't think you have to wait to have many retirements in your life to become successful in fire nation this is actually the theme of our interview here today is we're going to talk about how to live tax free as an entrepreneur and as you heard in the introduction we're going to be talking about some really cool stuff all around this topic because

fire nation may or may not believe a Carter but the tax code was actually made to benefits entrepreneurs tell us more absolutely absolutely so the tax code mostly was get up it but the tax code is nothing more than an incentive system and if you follow their incentives they'll give you massive tax breaks or

essentially you can live tax free if you follow all of them and one of their major rules is that we want you to we want you to help create jobs for the economy because we don't want to create them all and being an entrepreneur being a business owner you're creating job you're stimulating the economy so the government has massive massive tax breaks for entrepreneurs and the sad thing is 90% of entrepreneurs have no idea and they don't take them.

I mean fire nation this is something where knowledge can hurt you when you don't have it and I think this is really important when you listen to people like Carter like when I bring my CPA on on my income reports to talk about this stuff this is really valuable information that can save you time they can save you money they can save you so many headaches they can fast forward you getting financially to where you want to be at such a high level it's it's fun it's not scary it's not

scary it's fun go ahead Carter it's crazy because the average person pays 40% of their lifetime income in taxes so if you make a million dollars over your lifetime you just gave away 400,000 dollars to the government and the thing is like I believe we should all pay the tax that we owe but let's not leave a tip right and so many entrepreneurs are leaving a tip and one thing I could promise is that after today's interview they'll have more money in their pocket.

I love that that's such a fantastic promise and one way to look at is what Carter said fire nation a million dollars you're paying 400,000 dollars that's a huge dollar amount another way is every single year you are working for the government until May because 40% of your year is working for the government when I was in California Carter it was 51% for me so I was working until June 15th for the government every single year before I could put a dime even one dime into the government.

So let's get down to some business what is tax deduction 101.

Yeah so tax deduction 101 is teaching entrepreneurs what tax deductions are and how they can benefit from so tax deductions and right offs are synonymous terms and they basically mean any expense that is ordinary and necessary for you to operate your business you can write off on your income so for me when I was reading about this and learning about this when I was studying for my CPA exam

I had a epiphany and I was like wait you mean that anything that's ordinary necessary for my business to operate I can write it off and what I thought about is that a lot of people's personal expenses john immediately become tax deductions once they start the business and I have a list of a few that I will love to share with your audience if that's okay with you please do run.

Yeah so one of the expenses that people are paying for ordinarily with their regular income and not writing off in their business is their cell phone your cell phone is absolutely ordinary and necessary if you to operate your business if you're taking call so you're able to write that off on your taxes.

Another big one that most people know about is your Apple watch since your Apple watch is a you could check your email check your um check your messages and check your calendar that is also deductible as well and basically what this means is that if you have you know $10,000

in income and your phone bill was $1,000 for the year your income just went from $10,000 to $9,000 and when you add all these deductions up they can lower your taxes by thousands and thousands of dollars and one of my favorite deductions that most people don't take is education right so john you have an amazing podcasters paradise course right yes if I work that a podcasting company at W2 job I bought your course I could not write it off or get a tax deduction for it but if I owned a business that I can do it.

If I owned a business and I was a podcast and I was to pay for your course that education I am able to deduct that education expense against my income and lower my taxes and better myself at the same time this is ways the entrepreneurs can learn how to make more money by investing in courses conferences and things like that and lower their taxes at the same time.

Byronation this is just stuff that can continue to unravel is like pulling a thread on a sweater in a good way that it starts unraveling like wait a second I can pay for or I can write off my phone I can write off my Apple watch I can write off X I can write off Y I can write off Z and one thing Carter that I know you love because you're in sandpull right now and one thing that I love is I'm actually going to be in Geneva France Rome and Istanbul in three weeks from now I'm going on a month long.

I'm going on a month long. I'm myself we love travel we love travel so how the heck do we write off these trips amazing amazing questions so I'm going to domestic first it then international if that's okay with you yes so let's say you want to go to Miami it's close to Puerto Rico and you're going for a weekend right that is a personal trip you're just going out there to see some friends you can't deduct that on your taxes but John I would advise you instead of going on Saturday leaving on Sunday I want you to fly in on Friday.

And I want you to leave on Monday and while you're there on Friday and Monday I want you to find some business activity on Friday and business activity on Monday and business activity can be anything it could be me taking a client out to lunch taking a customer out to dinner going to a networking event or even just working for hours a day the IRS to sit as a work day where you're traveling for hours a day so if you do any of these on Friday and Monday the entire trip the flights the lodging even over the week.

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