053: Safeguarding Your Clients: Elite Tax Strategies and Audit Defense with Ben Golden

In this episode, I welcome Ben Golden, founder and CEO at Golden Tax Relief, to delve into the intricate world of tax resolution and planning.

This episode unveils Ben's comprehensive approach to navigating IRS challenges, emphasizing his dedication to client advocacy and his expertise in tax resolution.

Ben's Journey: From Tax Crisis to Tax Expert

Career Evolution: Originally focusing on tax resolution, Ben expanded into tax planning as a response to the slowdown of IRS operations during COVID-19. This expansion was driven by his desire to continuously support clients in managing their tax obligations efficiently.

Specialization in Tax Resolution: Ben discusses the pivotal experiences that shaped his career, including his own daunting encounter with the IRS. These experiences underscore his commitment to advocating for clients, often navigating complex, stressful situations to secure favorable outcomes.

Golden Tax Relief: Empowering Taxpayers

Client Advocacy Explained: Ben details his role in helping clients handle the IRS, providing insights into the emotional and financial toll these challenges can take and how he assists in transforming these situations.

Challenging the IRS: A standout moment is Ben’s recount of his personal battle with the IRS, illustrating his deep understanding of IRS procedures and his strategic acumen in defending his rights and those of his clients.

Elite Resource Team and Collaborative Tax Planning

Integrating Expertise: We discuss how Ben’s work aligns with the collaborative models within the Elite Resource Team, highlighting the synergy between advisors and CPAs in crafting proactive tax strategies.

Future of Tax Practice: The conversation also explores the impact of technological advancements like AI in tax practice, and Ben's proactive approach to integrating these tools to enhance service delivery.

Key Takeaways and Future Directions

The Importance of Proactive Planning: Ben emphasizes the necessity of proactive strategies in tax planning, advocating for early and informed action to prevent future tax crises.

Looking Ahead: As the landscape of tax services continues to evolve with technological advancements, Ben predicts increasing reliance on sophisticated tools and strategies to enhance the effectiveness of tax resolution and planning.

About our Guest:
Ben Golden, is founder and CEO at Golden Tax Relief.

You can learn more about his work at:
Website: https://www.goldentaxrelief.com/about

About Your Host:  Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.

Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. I'm your host, paul G McManus, and today I have a special guest, ben Golden. Ben is the founder and CEO at Golden Tax Relief, a company focused on both tax resolution and tax planning. Welcome to the show, ben.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 0:52

It's great to have you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It's great to have you. Thank you for taking the time, and I know. What created this opportunity is that both of us are going to be speaking at the upcoming Elite Resource Team event in San Diego in June. I'm excited to get a chance to know you in advance and have our audience get to know what you do. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what it is you do. Who is Ben Golden?

Speaker 2: 1:15

I'm just the average, normal everyday accountant, except my focus is twofold. Number one because of my background, I have a focus on tax resolution and when the IRS slowed down during COVID, I started doing planning in order to help, because the IRS has stopped forcing clients to pay for a little while.

Speaker 1: 1:41

That's funny in a very perverse way, right.

Speaker 2: 1:43

They're coming back. I'm telling you the IRS. We've all heard the stories of them hiring more people and having a lot more budget, but at the end of the day, because of, like I said, because of my background, I want to advocate for clients, for people, as much as I possibly can. And when you say advocate, what does that mean? We, the normal, average everyday taxpayer, client person, does not want to deal with the IRS. We all think that the most feared letters in the alphabet strung together are IRS right, I would rather deal with anyone else FBI, cia, nsa just not the IRS.

Speaker 2: 2:23

They're serious and they have teeth behind what they're going to do Exactly. The challenge is everybody, when you go to your mailbox and you see that letter, it's like, oh no, do I open it or do I just throw it in the back of the shelf?

Speaker 1: 2:36

I never received it.

Speaker 2: 2:37

That's not the best approach, paul. So you know we help people that have had things happen in their life to create challenges that stop them from either being able to file or being able to pay or something of that nature, or an audit. The goal, ultimately, is to be the person that is the go between the client and the IRS in order to really tell that client's story the proper way. I know the IRS's playbook. It's called the Internal Revenue Manual. I know how to either get on offense or get on defense, or how we should strategize for that client. That way we can get the best outcome for them.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Can you give us some examples of typical situations, if there is such a thing that prompt someone reaching out to you?

Speaker 2: 3:34

thing that prompt someone reaching out to you? Absolutely. I had a gentleman. His wife got cancer and she passed away. She was the one that did everything with the finances in the house and he just literally would go to work every day and come home and be with his daughters and that was it. He financially shut down. He mentally just checked out for a little while and so he started getting letters from the IRS hey, you haven't filed. He comes to checked out for a little while. And so he started getting letters from the IRS hey, you haven't filed. He comes to us and he's a broken person. Because that happened to him, what we wanted to do is get him back on track. We filed his tax returns. We get him into a payment plan, so therefore life can start moving in a better direction for him.

Speaker 2: 4:11

It's stories like that breaks my heart for people, because it's a good person where things just happen in their life. Life happens right. Had another person that was doing really well in their construction company had an automobile accident and then became disabled and it made them to. They didn't want to focus on anything else. They got into a gambling addiction because of it, gambled all of their money away, did not pay tax on any of it and, at the end of the day, now the family is in a bad situation.

Speaker 1: 4:45

He's had a double whammy.

Speaker 2: 4:46

All I just say that life happens and so that's typically a story that happens. We've had a lot of stories of people that have been stealing a lot of retirement funds and things of that nature as well. I mean, there are thieves out there. They take all the money out of retirement the person oh, we're going to help you invest into Bitcoin and ultimately they take all of their money. But challenges like that that I want to come in and advocate for the client the best of my ability, because I've been on their side of the table before.

Speaker 1: 5:16

You were sharing with me before we clicked record, but I want to ask you about it. So, just as your backstory and what led you to do what you do, you had said something along the lines that you had been yourself bullied by the IRS. I'd love to know a little bit more about that backstory and what led you to do what you do today.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Absolutely. I bought my first accounting firm and when you're a brand new entrepreneur, you want to help everybody and anybody. One of my clients was in the logging industry and he asked me. He said, Ben, can you just sign these paychecks for me? That way I'm in the woods, the guys can just come by your office and get their payroll checks and it won't be a problem. I said, yeah, no problem. I ultimately became a signatory authority on his checking account. I signed maybe three checks in two years or something like that. Something really small. Anyway, he stopped paying his taxes because he paid for other things like labor, and he had a fire for one of his pieces of equipment that insurance didn't pay off in full.

Speaker 2: 6:18

So he didn't pay his taxes. And then the IRS ultimately came back and said Ben, you have to pay his taxes. They said, ben, you have to pay $171,000 of your client's taxes. And I was like I don't have that kind of money. And then the IRS agent said this Are you ready, paul? Ben, I've looked at your retirement accounts. I've looked at what property you own. I've looked into which accounts you have a signatory authority on and how much money is in them.

Speaker 2: 6:45

I know the equity you have in your automobiles and your home. Ben, you have to liquidate everything and pay the bill that you owe. And I said I don't owe it. And she said, yes, you do. And then she said I'm going to give you 24 hours to give me a decision and if you don't give me a decision, I'm coming after you. Wow, Paul, what I did was I went home that night I had really young children, so we ate supper, put the kids down in bed.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Before you continue, I'm just trying to think for a second. That's a traumatic situation and before you tell us what happened, I'm just thinking what would I do in that situation? One I would be pissed off, like you know there's no end.

Speaker 2: 7:27

I wasn't upset. I felt like I was being treated unfairly. Yeah, and I was really upset. And I felt like I was being treated unfairly. Yeah, and I was really upset and I was scared. Because I have two children. I just bought this new company. Haven't been married that long. I've been married four or five years. And how is the wife going to react? How, what are we going to do, Paul? I chose at that point not to tell my wife because she would not have had any control over the situation and all she would have done is worry. So that night I told my wife. I was like babe, I got to go back up to work. I got some research, I got to do. And she's like okay, what time are you going to be home? I said, don't expect me home tonight.

Speaker 2: 8:00

I went to the office at about two in the morning. But when I took my master's, I had a class on policy and procedure of the IRS, and so I had a book that had all the policies and procedures of the IRS in it. One of the other classes was tax research. So I'm doing my research, I'm going through. At two o'clock in the morning I found it.

Speaker 2: 8:17

It's called a 4180, 4180 interview, and the agent did not do this on me. She said that I was a responsible party, even though she didn't give me the interview, and she said I was responsible for the client's taxes. If she would have done the interview, she would have known that I had a contract that said I have signatory authority only and I do not make any decisions as to who to pay. It was called a Scribner contract, much like a scribe the old day scribes. So that's what it was. It was a signature only contract and I did it for his convenience.

Speaker 2: 8:54

And so she did not do this 4180 interview on me, and because she didn't, she assumed that I was a responsible party. And because she assumed I was a responsible party, that's why she looked into me. Now. She didn't have the authority to pull my credit. She didn't have the authority to pull my DMV. She didn't have the authority to look to see all the things that I owned and look up court records and all that kind of stuff as to what I owned and what I didn't. She didn't have the authority. She had the power but she didn't have the authority, just to jump in a second.

Speaker 1: 9:26

I'm sure you're about to say this, but just the burning question in my mind is OK. So you found a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm just curious what kind of power do they have? Do they back down? Do they say?

Speaker 2: 9:42

you're right, sir, or is it?

Speaker 1: 9:43

like it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2: 9:43

You're going to do this anyways, paul, I think this is a great question because I structured my next actions based off of your question. My question was she overreached? What is the next step going to be? So I went above her head and I said when I called her the next day, I said Miss ma'am, hey, I need to get your manager's information. Why do you need that? Because I don't have it for the file. Okay, I didn't tell her, I knew anything. Now was not the time to confront. She gave me the manager's name and number and then she said okay, mr Golden, what have you decided? And I said I've decided to make a decision later. She's, I'm going to come after you. And I said we'll see Hung up with her.

Speaker 2: 10:26

That was back in the days when we could actually call somebody, right, call the manager. The manager answered I don't know how these people answered on that phone call, but I think it was just the way. It was the way it happened, right? So the manager answered the phone. I was like listen, I'm dealing with so-and-so person, a revenue officer. I need your manager's information. Going up the chain. So I said I need the territory manager's information.

Speaker 2: 10:49

She said why, I said because I need it and she goes. What's going on? I said I'm not talking to you and she said okay, here it is Called the territory manager and I knew that if I went above her head one level there would be no sweeping under the rug, because that means there's collusion between all three. You can keep something between two people, but it's really difficult to keep something between three people, so I called the territory manager.

Speaker 2: 11:14

I talked to him and I said this is what I want to do. I want to talk to TIGDA, and TIGDA is the police division of the IRS for the revenue officers.

Speaker 2: 11:24

And I said I want to file that report and I also want to file a report with you saying that she abused her power, authority and discretion. And so at the end of the story you can imagine it played out. It took a little while for it to play out, but at the end of the story she was given 30 days off without paying. She was told that she could never work on a case with me ever again. If I was on the case she would have to send it somewhere else. And we ultimately had a good outcome for the client. I was not responsible, they took me off immediately. We had a good outcome for the client. I was not responsible, they took me off immediately. We had a good outcome for the client. I was scared in that process. If I didn't know about the 4180, if I didn't know to go above the manager's head, where would I be? I probably would have had to pay something or I would have had to find a tax attorney.

Speaker 1: 12:13

That's incredible. I'm just curious what gave you the insight or the thought to not just go above her head which I understand from what you're saying but what gave you the inclination to go that far ahead? I?

Speaker 2: 12:24

said before, it's because two people can hold a rope and it can stay up, but three people. Somebody is going to drop something somewhere. I knew that there had to be more than just the manager involved, ultimately, because I think that they could have kept it contained between the two of them, and I didn't want that to happen.

Speaker 1: 12:40

The question I have is that in this case, it sounds like they were clearly in the wrong and you were able to clear your name for lack of a better word Right. In many of the clients that you work with, I'm guessing that it's a slightly different situation, in the sense that maybe they didn't file, they didn't pay and they're probably in the wrong, and now it's a matter of how do you make things right.

Speaker 2: 13:00

When we deal with the IRS, there's two questions that we ask. Number one do I owe it? The question of do I owe it is usually an audit. Okay, I'm being audited and I don't think I owe this money. Or the IRS changed my tax return. I don't think I owe this money. The other question is can I pay it? Okay, which means I know I owe it, but I can't afford to pay them all the money that they owe right now. So we have an approach for either one, and it also depends on where you are in the process. If you owe $200,000, it's a lot different than owing $2 million and the rules are different for each. If you owe $20,000, the rules are different for you.

Speaker 2: 13:41

I know when somebody starts talking to me based off the letters that they've received. I know where they are in the system because of my experience, and I know what the IRS is going to do as their next step. So it depends on where they are. As to what we do, sometimes we use a statute of limitations. Sometimes we want to have a very small payment every month. Sometimes we say IRS, I can't pay any of this, I want to negotiate it and instead of paying $372,000, I want to pay $1,200, which I got a client to do.

Speaker 2: 14:16

It really depends on the situation as to the approach that we take. But here's the beauty Ready Strategy goes in at the first call. Do we want to play offense? Do we want to play defense? That's what comes with experience, that's what comes with knowledge, that's what comes with the fact that I can talk to other colleagues and things like that to find out exactly. You know, if I don't know, if I haven't been in this situation, or if I want to protect something that's special, how do I do that? That's really the goal. That's where the strategy comes into play.

Speaker 1: 14:49

Switching gears slightly and in the context of elite resource team and advisors and the CPAs that are members of the organization, they have a model which is it's a collaborative model between, typically, an advisor and a CPA. They create a proactive planning team and then they have their virtual family office of different experts that they call in as appropriate. Where do you fit in that ecosystem?

Speaker 2: 15:15

We have two services ultimately. One is tax resolution, meaning helping someone with a tax problem, and the second is tax planning itself.

Speaker 2: 15:22

Okay, our unique take on planning is that we look through the window of resolution meaning every strategy we put in place is going to be based off of code, regulation or case law. Number one. Number two when I put a plan together, it too is customized and it's based off of strategy and goals. You have to know where you want to go before you decide to take a plane, train or bus. A plane is going to get you there faster, but it's going to cost more money than a Greyhound bus. A Greyhound bus is still going to get you to the destination. It's going to cost a lot less money, it's going to take a lot longer and you're going to have a stinky person beside you. That way, from a planning standpoint, if we have, If we know the goals, then we can figure out how to get there in the fastest way. Point A to B, the fastest way is a straight line. Sometimes we can't take a straight line. Sometimes we have to put things in place before we can even start a plan.

Speaker 1: 16:23

I've worked with over the years many advisors oftentimes that do some form of advanced tax planning or talk about it, and of course, they collaborate with their CPAs and possibly a tax attorney and different people.

Speaker 1: 16:35

My part of that process, or my vantage point, has typically been more in the marketing and lead generation side, and so what I found interesting is that we can create communications that really get people's interest. Imagine eliminate your capital gains tax, reduce your income tax by this much, and, it seems, from a marketing stance, it draws people in, obviously. But what I've also found is that those larger cases tend not to close as consistently, and one of the biggest reasons is, I think, fear. Right, it sounds too good to be true, probably is. It's just is this really legal, et cetera. And so you may have already answered it. But just from that perspective, when you're working with, say, a proactive team and maybe their client, what kind of reassurance or comfort do you provide so that they're more likely to want to execute on X, y and Z strategy, knowing that they're doing the right thing for themselves and they're also protected long-term? Could you add anything to that?

Speaker 2: 17:38

Absolutely. I think that the client ultimately has the decision anyway they can. What my job is to do is to give them options, okay, and then to advise based off of probability, right? So sometimes I say these are four things that we could put in place. The probability of us being able to do this within this certain period is X. I have a 95% possibility that we can get this done within four months, type thing, and it's going to save you $25,000 at the end of the year. Or we can wait and do this one thing and it's going to save you the $25,000, but the timing we may have to wait, right, we always look at number one, the investigation and the goals. Number two, the path itself. And the implementation of that path is very important. I call it using the golden path. The first thing in the golden path is the investigation and the goal crystallization. The second item in the path is selecting the golden tools which tool, which strategy would help the best? And the third is embarking on that quest. Right? How do we go and start that implementation? How do we go and start that implementation? I think that our process. You have to have each one of those different items in the process in order for you to ultimately reach that end level.

Speaker 2: 19:02

This is my one strategy that I like to use. I don't do that. I look at what the client is doing, what their goal is, and then I customize based off of that. I say, okay, these are your six things you may want to do. If you don't do it, this is how much you're going to save. If you do all six, this is how much you're going to save. It really ultimately goes down to the client as to what they want to do. For example, I had one gentleman that loved real estate, so there was no way that I was going to get him to invest money into a retirement account, because he cared more about putting money into real estate than he did putting money into retirement. So it's also knowing your client and knowing what would be better for them as well, or putting the things in front of them that they would like to see better.

Speaker 1: 19:47

You know what I mean, yeah, definitely Having a big enough toolbox so that you can choose the appropriate tools based on their goals and desires.

Speaker 2: 19:55

You said it so much better than I did Paul.

Speaker 1: 19:58

Just a couple more questions while I have you.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1: 20:00

A lot of talk about AI, for example, artificial intelligence, and I know it's impacting what I do Personally. I love it, I'm embracing it, whether it's AI or other trends or changes in what you do, what do you see happening in the industry? Tell us a little bit more about the industry, how it's changing, how you keep up with it. What's top of mind for you?

Speaker 2: 20:20

Absolutely so. When I got into this, the internet wasn't around and we had to do all of our research and books, and the problem with that is we didn't have a lot of case law. Because we did not have a lot of the case law in front of us at all times, it gave us some disadvantages. Now, because we have more at our fingertips, the worry that we have is that information accurate? You can go to Uncle Chat GPT and say tell me about X and it'll tell you about X. The problem with asking it about tax court cases is it can give you a false positive right, and so what that means is In my words, it's just going to make something up.

Speaker 2: 21:00

That's right. So it'll say oh, top Gun talked about this court case over here or in the court case of a movie there is out there. It just pulls a case and just names a case and if you don't do your due diligence it could be a problem, right? I think AI is going to transform our industry. I think that the people using AI are going to just understand that it's just going to be the next step, and the people that choose not to use AI are going to get left.

Speaker 1: 21:30

I think it's really true, which is AI is not going to replace us, at least not yet, but a person using AI is going to replace a person not using it, and that's the thought.

Speaker 2: 21:41

Anything that you do, you have to make sure that you do your due diligence and it's the correct information going out, but it doesn't matter if it's a trend or a new way to look at a case or a new way to look at a law. It's very important that the strategies in a tax plan that are used are based off of code, regs or case law. At the end of the day, if you can't, or if your CPA cannot, ask questions about it and get a clear answer, then it's probably in your best interest to say next this has been fantastic.

Speaker 1: 22:13

I appreciate your time and, just as we're closing up, two more questions for you. The first one is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think is pertinent to this conversation?

Speaker 2: 22:21

Absolutely. From a planning standpoint, it's very hard to do a planning retroactively. What does that mean? That means that if you come to me in 24 and say I sold a business or I sold a house in 23, what do I do? The answer is you pay tax. That's the answer. Planning is proactive and it's for tomorrow. Planning is not for yesterday. Number one Number two planning typically has to be for business owners and it's harder to do with a high W-2 wage earner unless that high W-2 wage earner is willing to invest. Let me tell you what that means Oil and gas. You can invest money into oil and gas and it can help you save on taxes. Another investment is solar. You can invest in solar and get a tax credit. Remember, a credit is a dollar for dollar reduction of tax. A deduction is a dollar for dollar reduction of income and then the income is taxed at a rate. So credit is always better than a deduction.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Okay, so business owners are the ones we can do more for from a tax planning standpoint, strictly because the income is not named as a W-2 wage earner. The income is named, meaning you don't have a choice to manage that type of income as a business owner. You can.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Do you have some strategies for W-2 earners, or is it just we do?

Speaker 2: 23:50

but there again there typically has to be an investment, right? Okay, so an investment in real estate, an investment into solar, an investment into oil and gas commodities, those kinds of things, typically for a high W-2 wage earner. It has to be with an investment in order to reduce those taxes.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Okay and final question. So for someone listening to this, whether they're part of ERT or not, but they're a financial advisor or a CPA and they're interested in learning more about you or reaching out to you what's the best place for them to learn more or to?

Speaker 2: 24:25

reach out, absolutely. I would encourage them to go to our website, which is wwwgoldentaxreliefcom dot com.

Speaker 1: 24:36

I've enjoyed the conversation. I've found it interesting. You've made me laugh, which I always enjoy.

Speaker 2: 24:42

It's hard to make tax fun, I come with a thought pattern of hey look, life doesn't have to be boring, let's take the lemons and not only make lemonade, but let's use the rind for something else too. That's right. At the end of the day, a situation is not going to determine who you are as a person. Okay, from a resolution standpoint, great people have terrible things that happen to them every single day. From a tax planning standpoint, until you actually get yourself into a plan and plan for tomorrow, it'll never start. So today is when you should start, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Today is the day.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Just to add to that. So today's actually April 18th, we're three days past April 15th. So just out of curiosity, do people on April 18th typically and whether we add this or not, I don't know, but in your experience do you find that someone has just paid a lot of taxes and now they're like, ah, this is terrible, I need to start planning? Or do you find it's more of oh, it's done, I can't do anything?

Speaker 2: 25:48

What's your experience in terms of it's really according to how hard the wallet gets hit. Brother, yeah, okay, no, you have to. You have a couple ways to look at it. A lot of people, when they have to pay a lot of money at one time, they're like what can I do to never have to do this again? Exactly that is the best timing to meet with them, because they're motivated, they feel pain right now and they're ready to never have this happen again. On the other hand, there's the other thought that at least I had enough money to pay them.

Speaker 1: 26:18

No, I don't like that whatsoever. I like the previous thought. I'm in pain, I need resolution, I need to reach out to Ben Golden. That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 26:26

The beautiful thing is every time somebody pays quarterly taxes, every time somebody files that tax return, it's top of mind and business just gets in the way of everything else. These are things that a CPA should be proactive with their clients to say listen, this is something that we need to start looking at, because if we don't, you can't buy a vehicle every single year. You should not go into debt in order to reduce your taxes. That's not really tax planning, in my opinion, but I think that now, today is the perfect day and so, even though today is just after the 15th, if you never start, you'll never start saving.

Speaker 1: 27:07

yeah, you know, I mean I do and just as a practical level, let's say, someone's listening, they're like they just got hit with a big tax bill. It's okay, I'm gonna start planning. It could be today, but is there like a point in time that there's like almost a cut off where it's too late, or is it like between now and September? I don't know.

Speaker 2: 27:25

Think of it like this right here, paul, we've already gone through three and a half months of income for a business owner. That three and a half months of income is gone. You can't do very much planning for that income because it's already made. When you get until August, september, october. Now eight, nine, 10 months are gone. It becomes very difficult to do planning because you can only plan starting today to offset taxes moving forward. Typically a plan is not retroactive. Now there are certain things that you can do in October, november, december that are going to help mitigate some of those taxes from the prior months. But it's very difficult to do planning retroactively.

Speaker 1: 28:09

All right, you had to beam me over the head a couple times, but I think I got it. Today is the day, not tomorrow, not September. Today, that's exactly right, at least whenever this podcast episode drops.

Speaker 2: 28:19

Exactly right. Sylvester Stallone said in one of the Rockies there is no tomorrow, right.

Speaker 1: 28:25

So there you go.

Speaker 2: 28:26

It's today.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Again, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it and I look forward to meeting you in person in June, a couple months from now, the pleasure was mine.

Speaker 2: 28:35

Thank you so very much, thank you.