Hidden Money Podcast

This week we go unscripted, with three recent tax stories that caught our attention.First, the fine print on "no tax on overtime": why only the premium part of time-and-a-half pay qualifies for the new deduction, and what that means for a $300 overtime check. Then Kevin tells the story of a new client with a 2,000-square-foot basement full of bourbon, and how one question turned a hobby into a business worth documenting. We finish with a Wall Street Journal story about a man with Florida paperwork whose estate is fighting Connecticut over more than $13 million in estate tax, and why states are getting more aggressive with people who move away.Dig a little deeper:1. $300 of overtime, $100 deductible. Earn $20 an hour, work a 50-hour week and get time and a half for the last 10 hours, and you've made $300 in overtime. Only the $10-an-hour premium counts toward the new overtime deduction, so $100 qualifies and the other $200 is taxed like the rest of your paycheck. The deduction is capped at $12,500 ($25,000 for joint filers), phases out above $150,000 of income ($300,000 joint), and Social Security and Medicare still apply.2. A basement full of bourbon can be a business. A new client had thousands of bottles in a finished 2,000-square-foot basement. He wrote paid reviews of bottles people sent him, bought inventory and sold bottles. "You do not have a hobby, you have a business," Kevin told him. Hobby expenses generally aren't deductible, but a business run like a business is treated differently, so step one is an inventory of the bottles, the revenue and how he sells.3. A $100 client gift is a $25 deduction. Send 20 clients a $100 gift and only $25 of each is deductible as a business gift. The other $75 per client gets added back. Personal gifts follow a different rule entirely, with a $19,000 annual exclusion per recipient.4. Florida paperwork didn't settle a $13 million question. Jack Anderson had a Florida driver's license, voter registration and declaration of domicile. Connecticut still assessed his estate more than $13 million in estate tax, pointing to his three condos there, and a trial court found he spent about five and a half months a year in Connecticut versus three and a half in Florida. The case is headed back for a new trial. If you plan to retire somewhere with no income tax, where you spend your time matters as much as your paperwork.Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ep-33-the-variety-hour&utm_content=show-notes#contact-1Chapters[00:00] Going unscripted: the 10 PM tax article[02:43] "No tax on overtime": what the IRS guidance actually allows[05:30] The math: $300 of overtime, $100 deductible[07:34] Kevin's client and the 2,000-square-foot bourbon basement[10:05] "You don't have a hobby, you have a business"[12:27] Client gifts: the $25 rule vs. the $19,000 exclusion[14:03] Connecticut's $13.2 million estate tax claim[16:30] States chasing people who leave, and retiring to a no-income-tax state[18:40] Gulf Shores, South Padre and a SpaceX retirement plan

We started investing in oil and gas three years ago because our clients needed bigger deductions, and we kept watching deals deliver the write-off but never pay back the investment. This conversation covers what we changed.On this week's episode we welcome Cotton Graham, founder and president of G2 Petroleum and Newport Operating, and Joe Stroffolino of G2 Petroleum to walk through the Revo Oil & Gas Growth Fund 2026 LP, our fund of funds investing alongside the G2 TX-26 Energy Fund in North Texas.Deductions That Have to Pay Out:1. $200,000 of stock vs. $200,000 in a well.2. How $100,000 becomes a $91,000 deduction. Of every $100,000 invested, roughly $70,000 to $75,000 pays for the drilling itself: the crews, the fuel and the rig time. That’s deductible in year one. When G2 buys a well that’s already pumping, part of the price also covers the pump jacks, tanks and pipe already on site, and that equipment can be written off in year one too. Together, that’s how the fund targets about $91,000 in deductions on $100,000.3. Old wells still hold oil nobody bothered to pump. Picture a well drilled decades ago. In its first 2,000 feet it passed through 7 to 10 layers of rock that hold oil, but the original operator pumped the best one and moved on. The big companies wanted 50 to 100 barrels a day from a well. With its own rigs and low costs, G2 can go back in, open the layers that were skipped and make 5 to 10 barrels a day pay.4. Owning the rigs keeps the oil flowing. Three years ago, a wet Texas spring turned the fields to mud. The other Texas operators in our first fund, which relied on hired drilling crews, fell about nine months behind waiting for contractors to get to them. G2 owns its rigs and has a crew of about 25 in the field every day, so it went straight back to its own wells. Every day a good well sits idle is money lost.Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ep-32-revo-oil-gas-growth-fund-2026-lp-in-partnership-with-g2-tx-26-energy-fund&utm_content=show-notes#contact-1Connect With Us• Website: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revotaxpayer/• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revotaxpayer/• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revo-taxpayer-advocacy• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenMoneyPodcastChapters[00:00] Why a deduction isn't a win unless it pays out[04:06] Meet Cotton Graham and Joe Stroffolino of G2 Petroleum[09:40] Buying production first, then stepping out 300 feet[11:35] Behind-the-pipe pay: the oil early operators left behind[17:19] Buying the equipment: bonus depreciation on top of IDCs[23:26] Why owning the rigs matters: the rainy spring[35:06] General partner liability and GP insurance[38:47] The tax math on a $200,000 investment[41:12] Royalties, operating costs and the 90/10 split[52:40] Q&A: material participation, AMT, recapture and exitInvestment in the Revo Oil & Gas Growth Fund 2026 LP is limited to accredited investors and is offered only through the fund's offering documents. Deduction targets and distributions are not guaranteed. This content is for educational purposes and does not constitute tax or legal advice. Always consult a qualified tax professional for your situation.

If you've had a gnawing feeling that your tax professional prepares your return but doesn't plan ahead to make you money, this episode is for you.This week, we unpack what happens when a comfortable CPA relationship stops being a strategic one: a founder two weeks from signing a $25 million roll-up whose firm never mentioned Section 1202, a $5 million earner researching the Augusta rule with an AI chatbot at night, and two clients with the same breakout year and very different tax bills. The conversations that never happened:1. A founder was two weeks from rolling roughly $25 million of businesses into one new company. His CPA firm of 20 years first told him it would be a taxable sale. He found the Section 351 route himself with an AI chatbot, and nobody had raised Section 1202, the qualified small business stock rule that, if the structure qualifies, could keep potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of his future gain tax-free.2. A financial advisor earning about $5 million a year, headed for a $2 million-plus tax bill, was asking an AI chatbot about the Augusta rule to shelter $15,000 to $30,000. Small strategies like that snowball over 10 to 15 years, but the first conversation should be about the big moves, and the client shouldn't be the one doing the research.3. Two long-term clients who had been earning $1 million to $2 million a year both broke out in the same year, to well over $5 million of taxable income. One was too busy to meet. The other called in March, again in the summer, and again in October, when a railroad took the $2 million property he'd just bought, by eminent domain, for $6 million. Kevin estimates the tax at around $3.5 million with no planning. Because we'd been talking all year, we're tracking closer to a 3% effective rate.4. By Mike's estimate, about 95% of the people who prepare tax returns are preparers, not strategists. If you're the one bringing ideas to your CPA every year, or no ideas are coming at all, that gnawing feeling is worth trusting.Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=s4e31-i-dont-believe-my-cpa-anymore&utm_content=show-notes#contact-1Connect With Us• Website: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revotaxpayer/• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revotaxpayer/• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revo-taxpayer-advocacy• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenMoneyPodcastChapters[00:00] "I Don't Believe My CPA Anymore"[01:00] Preparers vs. Strategists: It's Not the CPA's Fault[01:42] A $25 Million Roll-Up and a 20-Year CPA Relationship[04:31] "Did Your CPAs Ever Talk to You About 1202?"[06:29] The CPA's Reply: Does That Sound Like a Partnership?[10:00] A $5 Million Earner, an AI Chatbot and the Augusta Rule[13:03] Why Tax Planning Is a Two-Way Street[14:30] Two Clients, One Breakout Year and an Eminent Domain Surprise[19:21] What Proactive Planning Costs, and What It Saves[20:37] Preparer or Strategist? Trust Your Gut

On this week's episode: most people assume Microsoft's 2.44% tax rate means the game is rigged for billionaires, and never ask what the tax code has already built in for anyone willing to invest the same way.What the tax code already rewards:1. Corporations pay a flat 21% tax rate — that's the rule. Microsoft backed into 2.44%, which means roughly $85 billion of its $101 billion in profit was offset by deductions and credits written directly into the tax code, available to any business that invests the way Microsoft does.2. Buy $100,000 of office equipment and you write it off a little at a time over several years. Put that same $100,000 into qualifying AI data center property — or a rental property using the same bonus depreciation rules — and it's largely 100% deductible this year, against income you're already earning.3. R&D tax credits aren't a deduction that lowers your taxable income — they're a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the tax you actually owe. Every dollar of W-2 wages paid to build genuinely new technology counts the same way for a five-person business as it does for Microsoft.4. Most taxpayers don't lose out because the tax code is stacked against them — they lose out because they have a tax preparer instead of a tax strategist. The fix isn't a bigger tax bill, it's proactive planning before the year closes: we have clients landing at 0% and 2% effective tax rates using this exact playbook.Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=s4e30-get-tax-strategies-like-microsoft&utm_content=show-notes#contact-1Connect With Us• Website: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revotaxpayer/• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revotaxpayer/• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revo-taxpayer-advocacy• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenMoneyPodcastChapters[00:00] Why "the rich don't pay their fair share" misses the real story[01:11] Microsoft reported $101B in profits and paid 2.44% in tax[02:46] The math: backing into $85B in deductions[03:19] These aren't loopholes — they're intentional tax incentives[03:39] Inside the strategy: AI data centers and 100% deductible property[05:12] R&D tax credits: a dollar-for-dollar reduction, not just a deduction[06:54] You don't have to be a corporation to use this playbook[10:01] Real clients getting to 0% tax — and how[11:01] A retired client's capital gains deferral through a rural opportunity zone[12:53] Tax preparer vs. tax strategist — the gap that costs people millions[13:44] These opportunities exist for every taxpayer, not just billionaires

For every job Goodwill posts, 54 people apply. Now, with the Refresh app, every one of them leaves with job leads, benefits and local resources, and that connection stays in place long after a program or a job ends.We had the privilege of sitting down with Logan Sugarman (Founder and CEO of Refresh), and two Goodwill leaders, Michelle Roberts (President & CEO, Marion Goodwill) and Adrian Gessen (SVP Organizational Development, Goodwill Northeast Texas), who are putting the Refresh app in the hands of the people they serve. What We Cover in the EpisodeThe app sprawl problem. The average corporation runs 200 to 300 apps, tools and channels, and typical HR tools see 10 to 15 percent usage. Refresh sits above all of it and delivers the right resource to the right person.Tearing down Goodwill's digital wall. With 54 applicants for every opening, most people used to hear "we'll call you." Now everyone who applies gets the Refresh app, and one IT applicant called within 48 hours to say thank you after landing a job in Dallas.A housing program nobody knew existed. The Goodwill team used Refresh to find a brand-new rent-assistance program that kept a man over 55 from homelessness.No more benefits cliff. Leaving a program or a job used to cut people off. With Refresh, the relationship, the resources and the community stay.Scale that's already real. More than 1.6 million licenses are distributed, roughly two new Goodwill territories come on every month, and Catholic Charities, YMCAs and food banks are asking to join.Get in TouchReach out to us to hear more about the opportunity to partner with Refresh and Goodwill: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=s4e29-tax-play-employee-benefits-app&utm_content=show-notes.Interested in Refresh for your organization? Book a demo at https://www.refreshplatform.com. Know a charity that could benefit? Refresh has more licenses coming next year.Connect With UsWebsite: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revotaxpayer/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revotaxpayer/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revo-taxpayer-advocacyYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenMoneyPodcastChapters[00:00] Introduction: meet the team behind Refresh and Goodwill's rollout[00:58] Logan Sugarman: 200 to 300 apps and 10 to 15 percent usage[03:33] What Refresh actually does: sits above it all and delivers it[04:45] The Google Home analogy: "15 apps to walk into my house"[06:40] How the HR role got reduced to admin[08:37] The 401(k) match our own team didn't know about[09:34] Michelle Roberts: "If I could have all of these things in one place"[11:19] Goodwill is so much more than a donation drop-off[12:41] Adrian Gessen: the digital wall and 54 applicants for every job[14:15] The IT applicant who called within 48 hours to say thanks[14:43] A warm off-boarding, and no more benefits cliff[16:11] Learning from Catholic Charities, the YMCA and the Salvation Army[18:03] Resource guides that were outdated the day they were published[19:42] One question, a ladder of resources[21:02] Mimetic drive, repurposed for good[23:06] "I would like to thank me": gratitude and community in the app[24:36] Covered vs. uncovered employees, and who gets left out[27:53] A helper bot, not a DOS prompt[29:16] The church rent program nobody knew existed[31:34] Why one case manager, or one book, can't keep up[32:33] Case managers, financial coaches and legal advice on demand[32:56] 1.6 million licenses and a queue forming[35:04] Armed forces, first responders and the wider charitable space[37:28] How Refresh serves nonprofits and corporations alike[41:54] Where to learn more about Refresh[42:49] When people don't know help exists[45:57] The compounding effect: 14 questions, and data that serves back[47:43] Caseworker compassion fatigue, and what changes[49:39] The rollout: about two Goodwill territories a month[50:40] The 14 social determinants of wellbeing[52:01] Closing thoughts: "We are so much more than a store"Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes and does not constitute tax or legal advice. Always consult a qualified tax professional for your situation.