135. How Wealthy Women Think Differently About Taxes

In this episode, Kimberly dives into how women business owners can take control of their finances and stop overpaying in taxes. She outlines three critical mindset shifts that differentiate wealthy women: viewing taxes as a strategic opportunity, educating themselves to make confident financial decisions, and investing in long-term support. By embodying these shifts, women can transform from being reactive to proactive in their wealth-building journey. Kimberly also introduces actionable strategies like optimizing entity structure, employing children for tax benefits, and using retirement planning to achieve immediate and future savings.

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Transcript

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welcome to Keep More Money, the podcast for profitable women business owners who are tired of overpaying in taxes and tired of chasing down their CPA, deferring to someone else for every financial decision and getting hit with surprise tax bills every April. If you've ever felt like you'll never truly get on top of your business finances, this show is for you. I'm Kimberly Tara, CPA certified tax coach, multi-business owner, and mom of four Little. With over a decade of experience and more than 15 million saved for my clients in just a few years, my mission is to educate and empower women just like you to keep more of their money, reduce financial stress, and create lasting wealth. Taxes suck, but they don't have to hold you back. I'll show you how to make tag strategy simple, fun, and easy to understand. You've worked hard for your success. And now it's time to keep more of it. Let's dive in. Welcome back. I am so excited for today's episode because there comes a point in your journey. As a business owner, we're doing okay with. Money just isn't enough anymore. You've grown, you're profitable, and you're done reacting. You don't just want to make more money. You want to keep it, grow it, and use it strategically to build the life and legacy you've been working toward. That's the difference between staying stuck and stepping into the mindset of a wealthy woman. It's about choosing and learning to think differently because here's the truth, wealthy women. They don't see taxes as a punishment. They don't ignore money because they feel intimidated and they don't chase cheap options or settle for quick fixes. They rise above all of that. Wealthy women flip the script. They see taxes as an opportunity, not just another task. They educate themselves enough to confidently lead, or at the very least be in the conversation, and they invest in the kind of support that frees them up to. Build wealth faster with less stress and a lot more clarity. And those are the three shifts we're diving into today. Because once you start thinking the way wealthy women think, you stop reacting to money and you start owning it. So it's time to step into that new version of yourself. Let's break down the three shifts. Wealthy women make shift number one, wealthy women see taxes as an opportunity, not another task. When you think about taxes, you're probably thinking about compliance. That's basically a fancy word. That means filling out the forms, submitting them on time to the government and praying. You don't get audited, but that's it. That's the whole system. Most CPAs and business owners exist in. And compliance is important, right? I'm not saying that you don't need to file your tax return correctly or make sure you meet the deadlines you do, but compliance is the bare minimum. It's the bare bones of what's required to check the boxes and keep the IRS off your back. Wealthy women see taxes differently. They know taxes aren't just a bill to pay. Taxes are an opportunity, an opportunity for strategy. Taxes are a tool. They're one of the most powerful levers that you can use to build wealth, and wealthy women refuse to leave that lever untouched. When you say taxes as compliance, you only think about them on or around April 15th. You only think about the forms, the preparation, getting your numbers together. But when you shift your viewpoint and start to see taxes as a strategic opportunity, you begin to ask questions like, how do I structure my business so I'm not overpaying? How do I turn everyday expenses into legitimate business deductions? How do I plan ahead so I know my bill in advance and I'm not blindsided? That's what wealthy women do. They don't wait for April to be told what they owe. They don't wait until February to reach out to their account and then wait another three weeks to hear back. They use the tax code all year long to create savings, create clarity, and therefore have peace of mind. Lemme give you some examples of what I mean here by strategic opportunities. take entity structure for a second. That's the technical way of saying how does your business violates tax return. You might think being an LLC is enough. I have an LLC, I'm official, I'm covered. But the truth is, if you're a sole proprietor, meaning you're the only owner of the business, you default to filing taxes as a sole proprietor. But when your profit grows, filing your LLC taxes as a sole proprietor could cost you thousands of dollars in self-employment taxes alone every single year. Wealthy women know that at a certain point it makes sense to elect to be taxed as an S corporation. It's not just a form. It's a strategic move. It's the difference between handing over an extra five figures to the IRS or keeping that money and using it for your family, your business, or your future goals. But wealthy women also know that it's not advantageous to do this too soon because it will cost you more in administrative fees than the tax savings. Here's another one, the Augusta Rule. If you've never heard of this, the Augusta rule essentially allows you to rent your home to your business for up to 14 days each year. And the money your business pays you is completely tax free. If you're only thinking about compliance after the year has already ended, you'd never even know this existed. But wealthy women, they're using this shift. They're using this to shift money tax free from their business into their household. That's strategy. Or how about paying your kids? Most people think of their children as expenses, not assets, but wealthy women, that's you now know that by legitimately employing their kids, legitimately is an important word there. In their businesses, having them do real work appropriate for their age, that they can shift income from their higher tax bracket into their child's lower tax bracket. That means money stays in the family instead of going to the IRS. At the same time, you're teaching your kids about money, responsibility, and taxes in a way that no classroom ever will. You're preparing the next generation. That's legacy building on a whole new level. Now, let's do that even further and go years or decades down the road and talk about retirement planning. When you're only thinking about taxes as compliance, you might say to yourself, I'll deal with retirement later, or, there's no way I can think about contributing to retirement right now. Maybe you just stick money in an IRA. If you work with a financial advisor who provides you. But wealthy women know that contributing to a solo 401k or a EP IRA isn't just about the future. It's also about right now, every dollar you contribute to one of those types of retirement accounts lowers your taxable income this year. That's a immediate savings combined with long-term investing power. Again, that's strategy. But wait, what about a Roth retirement account? Maybe it makes sense for you to pay taxes on that income right now instead of in the future. The opportunity here is to use what's happening in your business to benefit both now and in the future. And here's my point with all of this. Wealthy women don't see the tax code as a punishment. They see it as an opportunity. It's not a one size fits all. It's full of possibilities for business owners like you to take advantage of. And while everyone else is just handing over money blindly trusting their accountant, wealthy women are asking, what can I do to keep more of my money? Take Jessica and Cares. For example, they knew they were staring down an exorbitant tax bill at the end of 2024. Their business had more than doubled, and they had every intention of finding a tax strategist over the summer when things started picking up well. Life happens kids, and before they knew it, December had rolled around, how this impacted my firm and me personally. This was actually the one that took me the longest to do, but it has changed everything in my firm. I hired a full-time tax accountant at the end of 2023 To do that, I had to take on more clients by myself and take a pay cut. But our firm has grown from around 200,000 gross revenue annually to 800,000 in gross revenue so far this year, and it's September right now. That's less than two years. And more importantly. I'm not working the crazy hours and stressing about always responding to clients like I used to. And as a rule, anytime I want to invest in something, I simply say to myself, okay, that's two new retainer clients that I can do tax strategy for the thing I am a freaking genius at and love doing. So I can hire the marketing expert because I would much rather do tax strategy than marketing. So maybe your first step is, is small. It's upgrading from a DIY spreadsheet to a professional bookkeeper. Maybe it's scheduling a one-time session with a tax strategist. Maybe it's investing in one program or mastermind that helps you grow your confidence and starts to opening new doors for you. The ripple effect of those decisions, those small steps, when you have better support, you make better decisions. When you make better decisions, you keep more money. When you keep more money, you can reinvest, and when you reinvest, you grow. That's how wealth compounds, not just financially, but mentally, emotionally, and strategically. Just like our clients, Ashley and Elizabeth, who were able to hire their first team member after working with us and keeping more of their money, they run a successful ad agency but didn't have enough leftover after paying themselves to support their families. They needed help as they were growing and tax strategy was the vehicle that gave them the cash, the infusion they needed to get started with a team member. Wealthy women know there's a difference between cost and investment. A cost strains your resources. It doesn't give you anything back, like overpaying in taxes. An investment multiplies what you already have, like investing in a qualified tax strategist, a mastermind, or an in-person event, and they treat support as one of the most valuable investments they can make. So now I want you to imagine this scenario. You're laying in bed one night after a long but productive day. You're bundled up in soft PJs in a blanket with your eyes closed because you've got a hydrating face mask on. You're about to make a big decision in your business. Maybe it's hiring a new team member, launching a new offer, buying a piece of expensive equipment. Instead of this decision keeping you up at night, you're simply going over in your head all of the great advice you've gotten from your financial team over the last few days. You've got a bookkeeper who has your financials up to date. You've got peers in your corner reminding you that you're not alone, and you're able to make that final decision with so much clarity and confidence, you know exactly what you need to do. The next morning you take your face mask off, read a few pages of a book and doze off to sleep. That's the difference. That's what wealthy women buy with their support systems. Clarity, confidence, speed and peace. And this is what ultimately turns your profit into something more. If, you know, investing in the right support would give you 10 times the return. If you, if I handed you a$10 bill and you knew the right support would instantly turn that into a hundred dollars bill. What would stop you from doing it? Why wouldn't you do it? Because wealthy women don't think in terms of, can I afford this right now? They think in terms of, I can't afford not to do this right now. And when you start thinking like that, you will be unstoppable. So let's recap what we've covered. Shift number one. Wealthy women see taxes as an opportunity, not just another task shift. Number two. Wealthy women educate themselves so they can make confident decisions. And shift number three, wealthy women invest in support, not quick fixes. Three shifts simple in theory, but when you actually embody them, they will change everything about how you think, how you decide, and how much money. You get to keep. I wanna offer you a reframe. Money is not something that just happens to you. It's not this unpredictable storm that shows up every April and wipes out all of your hard work. Money is something you can take ownership of. You can design it, you can direct it, you can architect with it. Wealthy women don't fear tax season and they anticipate it. They plan ahead for it. They don't defer all the decisions to someone else. They guide it in conversations, they're in it, and they don't apologize for investing in themselves and their business because they know every investment multiplies. They don't ask a man for permission, and you can step into that mindset too. Wealthy women create the life they want. They don't just wait for it to happen to them. It all starts with these three shifts, one small step at a time. So the question I'll leave you with today is this. Are you ready to stop reacting to money and start ruling over it? Because the moment you choose to see your business taxes as an opportunity, choose to educate yourself just enough to lead and choose to invest in the right support. You step into a new version of yourself. You're no longer just running a business. You're building wealth, you're creating a legacy. You're living from a place of power instead of panic. And that is exactly what I want for you. If this episode has you realizing that you're ready to stop thinking like everyone else and start thinking like a wealthy woman, then you need to be in the room and make money moves live. This event is designed to help you make these three shifts in real time with support. Over those three days, you won't just learn tech strategies, you'll learn how to see money differently. How do we anticipate tax season? Instead of fearing how to step confidently into the money conversations that you should be a part of? How to finally build the kind of support system that allows you to keep more of your money while creating more time and freedom for yourself. You'll leave make money, moves live with a new way of operating as a CEO one that's not reactive, but intentional. A woman who doesn't wait for permission, but claims her seat at the table and leads with clarity and power. So if you're ready to step into that confident wealthy woman version of yourself, meet me in Charlotte this October. Go to terra cpa firm.com/make money Moves live, or click the link in the show notes to grab your ticket. This is the room where that very shift begins. This is where you belong and you deserve to be. As a successful business owner, this is where you get to start ruling over your money. like the wealthy woman you are already becoming. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I'll see you next week when we're going to take it this a step further, talking about the number one reason you're overpaying in taxes. I'll chat with you then.