Many practice owners quietly pay business costs out of their own pocket, a home office, a personal cell phone used for work, mileage in their own car, and never get that money back in a tax-smart way. Others have the business reimburse them, but do it so informally that the IRS could treat every dollar as taxable wages. There is a right way to do this, and it is one of the cleaner tax tools available to an owner-employee: the accountable plan. Done correctly, it lets the busi

The S corporation is a popular structure for a good reason: it can reduce the employment taxes an owner pays on business profits. But that benefit rests entirely on getting one thing right, and it is the thing the IRS scrutinizes most closely: reasonable compensation. An S-corp owner who works in the business must pay themselves a reasonable salary before taking profit distributions. Set that salary correctly and the strategy is legitimate and valuable. Set it wrong, and the

One of the most common questions a business owner has at year-end is a simple one with a costly wrong answer: when is a payment actually taxed? If a client pays you in December for work you will not finish until the following year, is that this year's income or next year's? Under cash basis accounting, the answer often surprises people. This guide explains how the cash method recognizes income, sourced to the IRS rules, so you understand when a payment becomes taxable and can

For a high-earning practice owner, a 401(k) alone often does little against a tax bill driven by strong practice income, because the contribution limits on ordinary retirement accounts are relatively low. There is another type of qualified retirement plan designed for owners who want to set aside larger, deductible amounts: the defined benefit plan. This guide explains how a defined benefit plan works, what the IRS permits in 2026, and the rules and obligations that come with

The qualified business income deduction, known as the QBI deduction or the Section 199A deduction, is one of the most valuable tax breaks available to owners of pass-through businesses. It can allow a deduction of up to 20% of business income. But whether you actually receive the full 20%, a reduced amount, or nothing at all depends on your income and the type of business you run, and the rules changed in important ways for 2026. This guide explains how the QBI deduction work

Tax Wealth Consultant A dental practice is two businesses at once: a clinical operation and a small enterprise with equipment, payroll, and a tax return. Most owners are trained exhaustively in the first and left to figure out the second on their own. That gap is expensive. The difference between a practice that keeps its earnings and one that overpays is rarely clinical; it comes down to bookkeeping for dental practices and the tax planning that clean books make possible. T

Tax Wealth Consultant For a California law firm, the client trust account is the single most scrutinized part of the books. It sits at the intersection of two authorities that rarely coordinate but can each end a practice: the State Bar, which polices how you handle client money, and the IRS, which polices when you recognize your fees as income. Most IOLTA trust accounting mistakes are not acts of dishonesty. They are quiet bookkeeping errors that compound until someone noti

Tax Wealth Consultant For a law firm, the choice between cash and accrual accounting is not a technicality your bookkeeper settles quietly in the background. It is a decision that directly shapes when your firm reports income, when it deducts expenses, and ultimately how much tax it pays in a given year. Understanding cash vs. accrual accounting for law firms is one of the highest-leverage things a firm owner can do, because the right law firm accounting method can shift inc

Tax Wealth Consultant Real estate can be one of the most tax-advantaged investments available, but only if the numbers behind it are tracked correctly. For property investors, the difference between an average tax outcome and an excellent one is rarely a single clever move at filing time. It is the quiet, year-round discipline of good bookkeeping. Bookkeeping for real estate investors is not administrative busywork. It is the system that captures depreciation, protects your

David Chung, Tax Wealth Consultant Most business owners think about their tax bill once a year, in the weeks before a filing deadline. By then, the number is largely fixed. The real work of lowering your tax bill happens twelve months earlier, in the quiet, unglamorous discipline of bookkeeping. Clean books are not just an accounting formality. They are the foundation that makes every other financial decision possible, from buying new equipment to executing a serious tax stra