Tax Tips To Beat The IRS By Age (Legally!)

Money Guy Show

Brian Preston, CPA, CFP®, PFS and Bo Hanson, CFA, CFP® | Fee-Only Fiduciary Advisors

Education, Investing, Business

4.7 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is actually encouraged by our tax code. We walk you through the actionable steps you can take in every decade of your life to make sure your tax planning is optimized. From Roth contributions to capital gains rates, this episode covers a TON of practical information that might apply to your financial situation. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DRINKAG1.com/MONEYGUY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Here's the thing. Tax evasion, completely illegal. However, tax avoidance, legal tax avoidance, is very smart, and it's actually encouraged by our current tax code.
0:12.2	I am so excited because today we're talking about strategies to help you pay less in taxes, and this looks different depending on your stage of life. So in true money
0:22.4	guy fashion, we are going to break it down by age. With that, let's dive right in.
0:34.1	All right, Brian, so let's talk about how to beat the IRS, specifically at the beginning of your
0:39.7	financial journey, in your 20s. And I think the first one, I think this is counterintuitive to a lot
0:45.8	of folks at this stage. Don't overcomplicate it. Well, yeah, look, I mean, a lot of things have changed
0:51.8	just in my time that I've been dealing with taxes,
0:59.7	is that now the majority of us are just going to take the standard deduction.
1:04.6	Matter of fact, 91% of taxpayers choose to take the standard deduction.
1:08.9	And 2022 is the most recent data that we have from the tax policy center.
1:12.3	And that makes sense because the standard deduction after recent legislation a few years back has actually made it where the numbers are high enough
1:17.3	that it captures most people. Yeah, while you could go out and itemize and you could go try to
1:22.3	find those deductions, for most young people, it's going to be really hard to get over the standard thresholds. If you're just looking at 2026 numbers, the standard deduction for a single filer, $16,100.
1:35.4	For a married filing jointly filer, over $32,000. So rather than trying to spin your wheels and track all these expenses and figure out what you're going to do from a deduction standpoint for a lot of folks, keep it simple.
1:50.7	Just take the standard deduction.
1:52.3	You're likely going to be exactly where you need to be.
1:54.7	This next tip, get your employer match.
1:58.6	Look, this is step two of the financial order of operations. It's a twofer
2:01.7	because we absolutely love the free money that your employer's loading you up with. But here's
2:07.8	a lot of times these employers are going to require you to do, they're going to do a 50 cents on the
2:11.6	dollar or a dollar for dollar match. When you put that money into the system, you actually,
2:16.7	there's some tax benefits that actually come from
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brian Preston, CPA, CFP®, PFS and Bo Hanson, CFA, CFP® | Fee-Only Fiduciary Advisors, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Brian Preston, CPA, CFP®, PFS and Bo Hanson, CFA, CFP® | Fee-Only Fiduciary Advisors and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.