Dashboard: Don’t Leave It to Your CPA

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard I'm Lauren Feldman I'm here with Gan marks to talk about issues we think business owners should be following this week welcome Jean hello Lauren great to speak with you great to have you here as always you've been writing and talking about issues that matter to business owners I want to start with a piece you wrote fairly recently about online reviews you kind of suggested that owners should be fighting back more which kind of runs in the face of conventional wisdom tell what what prompt did you write about this what are you thinking yeah you know what I I you know I wrote this piece uh for the guardian um mainly because it was a um there's been stories of some business owners getting bad reviews and and I link to a few of them in the piece um where they they're they're kind of fighting back you know there was like an owner of a daycare center uh in California who literally filed defamation lawsuits against customers who left bad reviews um I I found you know that doesn't sound like a good idea do you well we'll get to that we'll get to that there's the owner of a of a sushi restaurant in Colorado who she claps back at her unhappy customers there's a veterinarian and an owner of a gun range and an appliance repair store who also got into you know gave it back um there's a there's a guy who runs a construction business in Canada who won a he won a $90,000 defamation lawsuit um against somebody who posted a bad you know negative review and I'm like you know good for those guys you know like the the the common wisdom is always like you know you politely apologize and and post what what you're going to do to you know resolve the problem and you know you know listen these are people that are like passionate about their businesses you know and you know they get somebody that leaves you know you know an inflammatory review and they're basically like you know what [ __ ] you I run like a good business here and I'm gonna you know I'm I'm not going to just take it or I'm not going to you know you know say loo thanks for your feedback you know people can get pretty harsh online and it's not fair business owners work pretty damn hard in their companies and you know when people come back and leave unconstructive reviews um and make those kinds of things I don't know they just um you know I I think I think there's some occasion for a business owner to fight back and I appreciate the ones that did that well that kind of leads to my next question which is are you drawing a distinction between types of reviews I mean sometimes the businesses are just wrong and are you encouraging people to fight back even if they're if the customer has a good argument no no no not at all I mean I I mean if a customer has a legit argument or a legit Thing by all means you know I mean let's we're reasonable people here you can agree with that and say what you're doing and say yeah okay that was a good point but I I mentioned in the article that you know again this is in the guardian um Yelp reported they saw 161% spike in negative restaurant reviews um you know they removed over 15,000 bad user review all related to covid restrictions these are people that are like giving bad reviews for restaurants and businesses because they had very you know tight covid restrictions whatever they might be you know what I mean and they're just trying to survive in the most difficult circumstances yeah who the hell does that I mean these are small businesses they're they're trying to have a safe workplace for their employees and for their customers they're getting no guidance from the government they're trying to figure out what's best and like what you're you're going to go on line and then make some harsh review on them because they require you to wear a mask when you go in an order I mean you know it's just that's not fair it's just not a it's just not a cool thing to do and I'm glad when I see business owners say hey that's not cool you know and and you know we're trying our best here and don't don't [ __ ] On Us online it's not just not a fair thing to do I think other I think other customers and people that are on those sites appreciate that I know I do again I I feel like there's some distinctions to be drawn I mean you know the review Systems online it's there there's so many ways to game the system you don't know when people you know it can be coming from competitors there there're all sorts of a pro sorts of problems that that need to be addressed one way or another I while my heart is with you on you know long-suffering business owners having to deal with outrageous reviews I just wonder if it's in their interest to to file a defination suit yeah I mean if it's if it's that big a deal then the answer is yeah I mean I I don't know I mean I I don't it wouldn't if I was a customer of a restaurant that did that for a customer um I I it wouldn't stop me from attending the restaurant I'm like all right this guy probably a good reason to do that so good for him and you know and and let him do it I guess you know it's if he won it probably it's if the business owner want it suggests that it wasn't just a question of taste you know like I I didn't like the flavor on on the chicken um or something there there there has to be something beyond that for it to be a dispute worthy of a win in court I would think yeah I mean I I I don't know I mean I think that um um I don't know I mean like first of all I don't even know if customers know that there's a defamation lawsuit going on anyway it's not like it's that public knowledge you know what I mean well it's you know those things can attract attention and I think you you you don't want to do it unless you're comfortable with the idea that it could R end up on the front page of the newspaper um yeah and you know nobody nobody wants to be fighting with their customers obviously it's got to be pretty egregious right no nobody wants to be in that situation but for the people that do choose to do that um the business owners um you know like I said I I I I don't have an issue with that and that was the whole point of the of the um of the column was just to say Hey listen if you feel like you're in the right don't be afraid to you know to fight you know you know what's really weird cor like I I had Lauren the um like like my sites on Google and for like a couple years I got like I got like no reviews for my business I don't know cuz it's just a B2B business so we're not consumer facing but I had like three reviews or four reviews that had been on there for like a year or two and one of them was a terrible review like this client hates my guts um and we won't go into the reason why okay but he's not not a fan and he went and he left like this one star review and like [ __ ] over my business I can't tell you how many times I mean easily like five 10 times somewhere in that range prospective clients would bring up in a conversation like hey you know I saw this really bad review for your company and you know you know what was that all about you know what I mean like sure those oh absolutely look at that and I'm always like yeah I'm always like really I mean like it's like one guy who left a bad review there were four we have hundreds of clients and that's what you're focusing on people focus on that stuff well that's why one of the standard pieces of advice that uh is given is to encourage your happy customers to leave reviews as well right and you know what I did finally I heard it so much I got that kind of Fe and you know it wasn't it it never lost me any deals but it was just a question that got raised that I didn't really want to have to deal with so in the end what I did is I responded back to the person on you know on Google saying we have a difference of opinion here it is and let's just leave it at that and then I had somebody in my office reach out to like 50 of our customers and say can you please leave a Google review and sure enough we now have like a bunch of Google reviews that are all like festar and it just sort of buried his bad review which is good but the point of the story is that people look at these reviews you know I mean they really do and they can have an impact on your business and do you think somebody left an unfair review don't let it just sit there you know respond and and if you disagree go ahead go to you know fight with them I mean it's to me it shows that you care my you know social media Wars can get so nasty and I I just worry about somebody getting caught up in something like that can it can get out of hand very quickly but but if you're if somebody has really wronged you um you're absolutely right to suggest taking action let's move on next topic uh last week you wrote a column um with uh I'm sorry I'm moving to the wrong one too quickly wait a second here we are we just we just got a pretty healthy uh GDP report showing uh significant growth in the third quarter a lot of people were surprised that the economies seem to be doing as well as those numbers suggested you wrote that we should ignore those numbers why yeah well I'll tell you the reason why I um as you know like I I write on this stuff and I speak to a lot of Industry associations and um you know there's the government puts out a lot of numbers that the media loves to report on they love to report on uh and they have methodologies for doing their surveys and their estimates but you know that GD report that you just mentioned you know Lauren which was a good report it's going to be revised like they get revised like five or six times over the next couple three months um it might be revised up might be revised down we're really not going to know about it or report about it you can find out but the media doesn't cover that stuff the government itself does a lot of well they do it's just buried it's buried it doesn't get the real news it's just the initial release and often times the the movement isn't significant um it's it's it's usually correct directionally isn't it uh depends it really it really does depends and and a lot of the data that the government reports I mean they they do a lot of it's it's an estimate that's being done by the governments and again they're they're really polling and surveying a lot of customers you know and a lot of lot of companies to do this stuff and it is a um think about it I mean I know a lot of my clients a lot of business owners I mean they don't get really called by the government or if they do they don't have time to respond I don't know them all the methodology behind that so fine it might it might be fine it might be fine but I don't I don't put as much weight behind the government numbers as I do behind numbers that come from actual organizations from actual ual customers and I'll give you a few examples you know like you know yeah when it comes to payroll for example the Department of Labor will tell us like they told us back on Friday that the unemployment rate is you know it Rose a couple points but all these you know new jobs were created and that's fine I like to look at like the payroll companies you know like ADP and paychecks are the two biggest payroll companies in the country and both you know both companies every month report their payroll employment data and wage data as well well that is not an estimate it's not a survey it is coming directly from their customer database like real hard numbers so when ADP and paychecks tells me that jobs are being added at a significant level um I pay attention to that more than what the government is estimating or surveying because that's like real stuff going on I'll give you another example just two weeks ago uh the banks the the nation's biggest banks released earnings um you know you the this is off of their customer data you know so I I look at it and I say like you know those earnings themselves that were released by the banks are like Wells Fargo and JP Morgan both CEOs both said that consumer spending seems pretty strong their credit card spending is strong and they're not having any you know loan issues right now for loan defaults this is like Jamie Diamond who is not exactly an optimist about the economy you know even he he admitted that you know that that those numbers are you are doing you like pretty good so I look at that I look at you know I look at um associations that are deeply involved with their members like the national retail Federation I like to look at earnings from big companies like to me the best indicator of retail sales is what Walmart Target and Amazon are telling me as well as FedEx you know I mean those are real numbers they're not estimates and I think that those are the kinds of things that we should be should be getting more attention and we should be paying more attention to those those numbers raes you know the the you know the sort of the numbers that the government themselves uh comes out I'm not saying to ignore the government numbers but I would wait them less than what's coming from actual companies that have actual customers that they're working with do you feel the same way about uh sentiment surveys like consumer sentiment or small business confidence that kind of thing [ __ ] hate these surveys I really do and I get them sent to me you must get the same thing right every other week I get these surveys that are sent to me and it's always I mean the best one that's out there is the nfib so I'm not going to say anything bad they've been doing this survey for like 40 years and they are they are they are surveying their members their their member base but then you get a lot of Bozo surveys from companies that have their own agendas I don't even know what their methodology is you know we surveyed 300 small business owners and we conclude that 70% of small businesses are going to go bankrupt next year you know I literally get those kinds of surveys you know or business owners are not feeling optimistic about the future it is just it's such [ __ ] to me you know like I'm just sick of those service I never report on them because I think they're they're just a waste of time the only one that I like again is the nfi's survey is to me is is the most legitimate one so the answer is no I hate those they're all right last topic uh last week you wrote a column with suggestions for how business owners can minimize their taxes before the year runs out can you give us some examples yes and I'm glad glad that you asked because these are this is really important we're having this conversation in early November guys so you get some time to move so let me give you some this in the Philly inquire last week so you can check it out yourself obviously organize your files obviously meet with your accountant there's no you know you know that's common sense buy equipment now buy furniture and fixtures equip we're going to slow down certain industries certain businesses really struggling with cash find those guys buy some of their equipment if they're selling it you can buy it used you can buy it new put it into service by the end of the year you can get up to $1.1 million of deductions for those equipment this includes Autos as well so again you don't even have to pay for it Finance it and get it into service and then you can pay for it in 2023 if you defer your payments you still get the deduction this year as long as you put it into service right so that's number one number two pay out bonuses this year if you had a lot of companies you know you and I have talked about this Lauren about the recession I don't know most of my clients had pretty good years this year you know I mean they're concerned about 2023 but 2022 wasn't so bad so they're they're looking at tax bills this year and I keep telling them saying listen you know you can give it to the government or you can give it to your employees you know I mean we're all talking about retaining our employees and trying to you know attract new ones to our businesses so take a look at the bonuses that you pay before the end of the year and you know give more to your employees let them take advantage of it rather than you know and you'll show less profits can take a deduction for it and that's that's definitely helpful um optimize your retirement plans you could put away up to like 20,500 individually or up to 40,500 if you're you know both company match and your employee match assuming you're in compliance with the IRS rules and one more Lauren um everybody's had bad years with their stocks because the markets are down like 20% if you've got some losing stocks sell them this year sell them for a loss you can offset that loss against any capital gains that you have and an additional $3,000 of that loss can go against your ordinary income and you might be holding on to some stock that you're like oh I kind of like this stock and I think you know even though they've had a bad year it's going to go up in the future fine sell it wait 30 days to be in compliance and then buy it back again so that way you can get the tax benefit of doing that and then you can still hold on to the trust me when I tell you it ain't going to go up that much in the next 30 days uh so you know do those make those moves talk to your accountant now you know don't do this on December 31st I guess is the message you know you're that a rare breed Jean you're both a CPA and a business owner I'm C to to what extent do you think business owners can fully rely on their account to know what's up what's available to what extent should they be doing their own research look at you asking the great questions you know it is a great question I you know I love my profession there are some people that are CPAs that are really great and on top of their game and I recommend those guys when people ask because there are people out there really good there are some CPAs that just suck I mean they're just compli they're form fillers they're overloaded with tax returns that they fill out and they're they're really bad at doing proactive stuff with their clients and the clients think that they're they're fine because they're CPA is looking out for them when I'm telling you you know there's a chance your CPA is not looking after you so couple bits of advice okay I'm sure your accountant is a nice person and maybe they're a competent person they just might be a lousy salesperson or customer service person so it's your job as their client to pick up the phone and say to them get out here uh let me share you my year-to-date financials and let's talk about things I can be doing now to say my don't wait for your CPA to call you because you're going to be waiting a long time but but how do you know if they know what they're doing I mean I'm sure there are business owners who are sometimes tempted to take their results to multiple accountants and say what do you think and and and as you should because that happens to me all the time it happens to a lot of people in the profession it is not uncommon for a business owner to take their tax returns every few years to another account and say hey man here's my tax return take a look at it uh tell me what you can do can you do anything better good CPAs will do that without any without any charges and will come back to you with suggestions and recommendations and if they're good enough and you like what they're saying you might wind up switching accountants so you know there's no it's laziness to just use the same accountant every year um if you know to and to think that they know everything because they don't know everything so it's your job to push now final thing is is this you know Lauren like I'm out here writing stuff like that you know Kelly Herb At Forbes she writes stuff like this uh you know Barbara welman she's out there writing stuff like this there there are people out there in the media that really do report on latest tax stuff and you should find a couple people out there to follow and U you know check in with them once in a while read their stuff and you know keep up on it I mean it's not a big deal right it's only like 25% of your income you know yeah it might be worth like a couple hours of your time of year to stay up to date on new tax stuff so that you can bring it up to your C paa or a prospective CPA along those lines I was going to ask you you in your piece referred to uh tax payments as perhaps a business owner's I think you call it most significant expense it it's in most cases it's probably not their biggest expense what what did you mean by most significant well I mean I I group significant expenses you know your your payroll your you know your uh obviously direct cost of materials you know I mean you know different businesses have their expenses but I mean I don't know Lauren if you if you net a 100 Grand a year and you're giving away 25 Grand of it you know to the government you know for a business that size that's a pretty significant expense you know so you said most significant Jean yeah it's among the most significant it is it is it is I will accept that and I got new too it's not just federal taxes either you have to add on state taxes God forbid if you live in California I don't even know if you have any profits left after paying your taxes that's another podcast uh last question Jean are you working on anything we you can tell us about that we can look for this coming week uh this week actually is going to be very localized I'm going to be working on a piece about um uh you know starting up a business in New Jersey specifically for the inquire um I'm also going to be writing a piece for the hill like sort of um recapping the election uh that's happening tomorrow so we will uh you know on Thursday stay all right a piece just saying what what the election how that will impact small businesses um and then um finally I mean I'm I'm you know my my technology Roundup that I do every every week for Forbes I'll have you know good five tech stories that will impact small businesses that happen this week so we'll see what happens well as someone who's trying to build a business in New Jersey I will look forward to all of those stories yes yeah there's some unique things to know Lauren unique things I'm looking with Springsteen or Tony Soprano but other unique things Jean Marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times Forbes and entrepreneur you can also hear him on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor Jean hosts two small business podcast with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford thank you Jean thank you Lauren we'll talk to you next week always a pleasure have a great week everyone [Music]