Taking Steps to Avoid Common Tax Mistakes

TRANSCRIPT

Announcer:
Coming up next on The Trucker CFO Podcast, you'll hear from Colton Lawrence, The Trucker CFO.  In this episode of the podcast, Colton will be discussing the most common mistakes the truckers encounter with taxes.  Here's a preview... 

Colton Lawrence:
As I talk with different independent contractors and owner-operators out across the country, the example I like to provide is one that centers around your health.  If you have a problem with your heart, you're going to go find a heart doctor, preferably, you're going to find the best heart doctor around. You're not going to go look for a general practitioner.  You're not going to go look for a podiatrist that works on feet.  You're gonna look for that heart doctor who really understands and can best help you to ensure that you can come out of it on the other end healthy and that you survive any issues that you might have.  The same thing pertains to taxes.  There are many big box tax preparation firms across the country, the ones that are standing out on the corners with their cardboard sign or have the wavy thing flapping in the air that have individuals that are going to start their tax training early in January. They're going to go through three or four weeks of training and by February of that year they're going to be preparing taxes.  Those individuals don't understand taxes very well, let alone trucker taxes, and unfortunately one of the common mistakes we see is truckers who take their tax preparation services to those types of individuals.  The point being is that with taxes every situation is different and tax law varies from industry to industry.  So for truckers, they want to make sure that they have a preparer who understands tax law and all of the different deductions that are available to them in their industry.

Announcer:
Welcome back to The Trucker CFO Podcast.  Thanks for connecting with us again here on PodWheels.  As we've shared with our listeners in previous episodes of this series, Trucker CFO is focused on exploring the business, accounting, and tax topics that matter most to truckers, particularly the men and women who moved the nation's economy as owner-operators, independent contractors, and professional drivers.  This podcast is also dedicated to the business needs of the fleet owners and small trucking businesses throughout the country.

PodWheels is proud to have the opportunity to partner with Trucker CFO in the development of this podcast series.  During its many years of service and working with owner-operators and independent contractors, Trucker CFO has become a trusted resource and a leader in the trucking industry for providing tax, accounting, and business advisory services for professional drivers.

As we mentioned at the top of the podcast, The Trucker CFO Colton Lawrence will be our featured guest.  In this episode of The Trucker CFO Podcast, Colton will be reviewing the most common tax mistakes that owner-operators, company drivers and fleet owners often make in preparing for the handling of their tax responsibilities.  Colton will be joined on the podcast by Greg Thompson, the Executive Producer of PodWheels.  Greg and Colton will be looking at these issues and discussing a number of real life relatable examples of situations and decisions that can lead to mistakes including some that can be very costly.  

As always Trucker CFO and PodWheels would like to remind our listeners to please keep in mind that every tax and business situation is unique.  In addition, the perspective shared on this podcast should not be considered as tax advice.  If you have questions regarding your specific tax situation, you should consult a qualified tax professional.  During the podcast we will be sharing information on how you can connect with Trucker CFO.  Now let's join the conversation with Colton Lawrence and Greg Thompson.  Colton connected to the PodWheels studios through Zoom audio.

Greg Thompson:
Hello again everybody, Greg Thompson from  PodWheels  back with you on The Trucker CFO Podcast.  I'm joined once again by The Trucker CFO Colton Lawrence and Colton in this podcast, we're going to be talking with you about some of the most common tax mistakes that owner-operators can make.  And as you and your team at Trucker CFO know, from your years of talking to truckers, these mistakes are ones that can be easily avoided with some awareness, some understanding, and going back to what we've discussed in some of our previous podcasts, some planning.

Colton Lawrence:
Definitely take some planning Greg and I'm excited to talk and discuss about these common mistakes.  I get the opportunity to talk about many of these on a weekly basis with drivers with various motor carriers.  And this is information that will be helpful to anybody listening to this podcast. 

Greg Thompson:
Absolutely.  And prior to our recording session, I ask you to put together a list of the most common mistakes that you hear about and see in your work with owner-operators.  So let's start with one that can happen a good bit with folks

who have made the transition from being a company driver to owner-operator. And that's the responsibility of paying self-employment tax and also dealing with estimated taxes.  And as you know, Colton, where it comes up quite a bit, is where a new owner-operator might not be having a good year, they don't make much money, so they might not think that they have to pay taxes, but there's a lot more to this as you get into this business.

Colton Lawrence:
Well, Greg a couple things are certain in life and that's death and taxes as the saying goes.  And if an owner-operator has self-employment income, they're going to have to pay some amount of tax on those self-employed earnings. And where a lot of owner-operators get caught off guard is the self employment tax.

Greg Thompson:
Let's talk about that for just a moment because that is an adjustment.  Self employment tax and we've referred to it in previous podcasts, but tell folks how that kind of breaks down again.

Colton Lawrence:
Well many drivers, especially new drivers that are coming into independent contractor or owner-operator relationships.  They are coming from an employee type position.  That may be as a company driver, it may be as an employee and some other industry, but in that type of environment, the individuals receive a paycheck and that paycheck has deductions for federal income tax.  It may have deductions for state income tax depending on where they live.  And it also has deductions for what is called FICA.  FICA is the way that we pay into Social Security and Medicare, when we are employed by another business.  When they become owner-operators or independent contractors, they may be receiving a settlement or some other form of pay from a different institution for the miles that they have driven.  Those pay statements will have deductions for a variety of different things, everything from fuel to the truck payments, insurance.  But one thing that they will not see a deduction for is anything related to taxes.  That is where many of these individuals get caught off guard because they don't have a deduction for taxes.  They may not understand how they have to pay those taxes or when they are due.  As we have discussed in many of our other podcasts, they need to have that knowledge and know when and how much to pay their estimated taxes.  The other thing they need to understand is self employment tax.  That is how, as a self employed individual, you pay into Social Security and Medicare.

Greg Thompson:
Well Colton, that's for sure.  And when we think about it, it gets back to having a plan, becoming familiar with knowing that you have to pay estimated taxes on a quarterly basis.  Knowing that schedule, and you have to account for the self-employment tax within your operating budget because you just can't go out there and run free and easy.  It sounds great, but at some point the IRS is gonna catch up with you.

Colton Lawrence:
The biggest piece of advice I can give drivers that are coming into a new independent contractor position or maybe somebody who has not paid their estimated taxes in years past, they need to set aside somewhere between 20% and 30% of their net pay to help them prepare for and ultimately pay their tax liability, both income tax and self employment tax.  And then in working with Trucker CFO, we can help them drill down to an estimate that is going to be much more closely tied to their actual earnings and will more closely approximate their actual tax liability that will be determined at the end of the year when we prepare their annual tax return.

Greg Thompson:
Well, again, it gets back to the fact that you're not a W-2 employee anymore. You're not a company driver, you are running a business and part of running a business is understanding those schedules, understanding that there is self employment tax, understanding that there is estimated tax.  There is a schedule, and you got to keep up with those things.  And you guys at Trucker CFO are really good about working with folks on setting up budgets, understanding schedules, and keeping everybody on a good path to make sure that you avoid this very common mistake.

Colton Lawrence:
That's right.  Individuals cannot just jump into an independent contractor position and expect to be successful.  They need to really prepare for and understand what those tax liabilities are going to be.  Understand the different taxes like self employment tax that are going to be applicable to them.  Make sure they have somebody who understands those liabilities, helping them out and preparing for those liabilities as they move forward.

Greg Thompson:
Well Colton, as we move down your list of six of the most common tax mistakes that are made by truckers, particularly those moving into owner-operator positions and running businesses.  Let's talk a little bit about W-2s because W-2s, particularly for those owner-operators who are starting out in that first year of business.  Transitioning over from a company driver. Making that transition from a W-2 to a 1099 and then if you have a spouse that has a W-2, it can create a lot of headaches that are unforeseen as you get into this.  Can you talk about that a little bit.

Colton Lawrence:
Yeah, we see drivers who are in the situation that you just described that may not be familiar with how taxes are filed on their self-employment income that will come to us, provide us their 1099.  And when we have a discussion about any other income such as W-2 income, they inform us that they've already filed a tax return on those earnings.  Unfortunately, as you mentioned, that causes a lot of additional work and expense as we work to correct that.  So just to set the record straight, you need to file a personal tax return on or around April 15th of each year.  That personal tax return is going to include all of your W-2 income, all of your business income, whether that be in the form of a Schedule C for earning such as sole proprietor income, single member LLC income, and other types of income.  It will also include K-1s that come from other pass through entities.  The point being you should never file your personal tax return until a professional has evaluated all income coming from both W-2 and other business sources.

Greg Thompson:
And as you lay that out, it makes a lot of sense particularly if you're making that transition to starting a business and being a 1099 having been on a W-2.  Or again, if you're filing jointly and you've got a W-2 and your spouse has that W-2.  There are a lot of complexity here that can really trip you up and really be costly to you down the line.  Right?

Colton Lawrence:
It definitely can cause some additional expense. In the situation where somebody files their personal return prior to a professional evaluating other aspects of their income.  In that case we will need to file an amended return to factor in the additional income and it will likely result in additional tax being owed.

Greg Thompson:
Can we talk generally for a moment about folks that have come to you in this situation and you're trying to weed through it and just the angst that's been created just because they didn't know, they didn't plan, they didn't seek out a professional who understood trucking.  Can you talk about walking through with that person what they're feeling?  The sense of anxiety that they have because I'm sure that when they come to you with this, it's already a mess and you've got to unravel it.

Colton Lawrence:
So many times, we may not understand that this is the situation until we start asking the necessary questions to prepare their taxes and we get an understanding that this individual had W-2 income, had previously filed the tax return.  Other times we may not find out until we actually try to e-file the tax return and it comes back rejected because the tax return was already filed using their Social Security number.  So all of this can just add to the stress of trying to get through your tax responsibilities during the year.  It can add time, it can add expense, it can result in penalties and other situations that you just don't want to deal with.  So that's why we're throwing this out there as a common mistake to avoid in an effort to try and help people understand that they need to file all business and personal income in one return and make sure a professional has discussed this with them prior to moving forward.

Greg Thompson:
Well Colton as you know, we dedicated one of our podcasts, the choice of business entity, and we even dedicated another podcast to the S-Corp election.  And I know that you and your team have seen some tax mistakes regarding C-Corp and S-Corp elections.  Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Colton Lawrence:
Absolutely.  Another one of the common mistakes that we see are individuals who jumped the gun in terms of making that S-Corp election or perhaps setting up a C-Corp.  And what we recommend is that individuals really get settled into their operation before making one of these elections.  We like to see at least 6 to 12 months of operational history before making some of these types of decisions for a person's business.  The reason being is these types of entities add additional administrative costs that really needs to have some history behind it so that we can properly evaluate if it's going to be cost beneficial in their situation.  Now, sometimes we are not able to wait and because of different requirements for motor carriers and the like, individuals need to make these decisions up front.  But to the extent possible we like to delay them and again get some of that history under their belt before making some of those decisions.

Greg Thompson:
And if we can because we have the other podcast on business entity choices and we do talk about S-Corp in another podcast, I want to take just a moment and review the progression in an ideal situation.  I realize that everybody's tax situation and you just referred to it.  Everybody has a unique situation.  They might be with a motor carrier, they might be on their own.  There's a lot of different variables.  But if we're in a situation where we've got some time in terms of finding out which one you want to go with, what is that process kind of look like?

Colton Lawrence:
We look at the life cycle of a trucker and establish what would be ideal.  I would suggest that first they spend some time in a company driver position.  This is going to allow them to get some experience driving the truck, understanding how that truck operates, understanding how the costs associated with that truck are going to impact them once they do become an independent contractor.  Take some time doing that.  Somewhere between six and 12 months would be ideal at a minimum and once they have that experience under their belt they can look for an independent contractor or owner-operator position and from there they may want to run as a sole proprietor or perhaps set up an LLC and learn how the different costs of that truck impact their profitability.  Find out how much money they're actually able to make.  Make sure that that's going to meet their individual needs and do that for a period of time before making the decision to jump into a C-Corp or an S-Corp.

Greg Thompson:
And as I'm hearing you lay all this out and thinking back to our previous podcast, it gets back to having a plan.  To sitting down with somebody like you at Trucker CFO.  In your role as a business advisor, you're able to work individually with somebody and walk exactly through what you're just talking about here and then there is a timing for a C-Corp and an S-corp election.  In an ideal situation and again these things are situationally dependent but it really comes back to having a plan.

Colton Lawrence:
It does come back to having a plan and some people listening to this may think well how do I jump into owning a truck and running a business without going to the deep end of the pool first.  And what I would recommend to them is that they come and talk to us because there are opportunities out there that will allow them to take this progression a little bit at a time and really kind of get their feet wet before jumping in.  Making decisions about purchasing a truck, making decisions about setting up an S-Corporation.  A lot of these things can be handled if planned correctly in a way that will allow them to set themselves up for success in the best way.

Announcer:
You're listening to The Trucker CFO Podcast on PodWheels.  In a moment, we'll get you back to our discussion with The Trucker CFO Colton Lawrence.  Right now, we'd like to take a moment to talk to you about Trucker CFO.  Through its many years of service and working with owner-operators and independent contractors, Trucker CFO has become a trusted resource and a leader in the trucking industry for providing tax, accounting, and business advisory for professional drivers.  In today's world, it's crucial to have a trusted resource at your side that has the ability to stay on top of the ever changing conditions within the trucking industry and within our nation's economy.  Now, more than ever before, you need a team of tax, accounting, and business advisory professionals who understand the complexities of the trucking industry.  The Trucker CFO team is ready to go to work for you.  There's a number of ways you can contact the team at Trucker CFO.  We invite you to visit the company's website at TruckerCFO.com.  From the home page, you can fill out the get started form which will send an email to a Trucker CFO representative.  If you would rather email Trucker CFO directly, you can reach out to the company through the following address info@truckercfo.com.  That's info@truckercfo.com.  You can also call Trucker CFO toll free at 1-800-533-4230 and hit option two for sales.  That toll free number once again Is 1-800-533-4230 and choose option two.

At Trucker CFO, we understand the importance of being able to go from the white lines of the highway to the bottom line of your business.  

Now as we rejoin The Trucker CFO Podcast, here's PodWheels Executive Producer Greg Thompson and The Trucker CFO Colton Lawrence.

Greg Thompson:
Hello again everybody and thanks for making The Trucker CFO Podcast part of your day.  I'm Greg Thompson from PodWheels joined once again by Colton Lawrence, The Trucker CFO.  And I want to get back to the list of common mistakes that you and your team hear from folks that are coming to you that you guys see and work with and one of those happens to be owner-operators that may go to one of those big box places, one of the strip mall places to do taxes.  Everybody's got a deal.  Everybody's got a placard waving but they might not understand trucking.  Trucking has so many nuances to it.  Can you talk about how that can impact people and what you guys see in that area?

Colton Lawrence:
As I talk with different independent contractors and owner-operators out across the country.  The example I like to provide is one that centers around your health.  If you have a problem with your heart, you're going to go find a heart doctor.  Preferably, you're going to find the best heart doctor around. You're not going to go look for a general practitioner, you're not going to go look for a podiatrist that works on feet.  You're going to look for that heart doctor who really understands and can best help you to ensure that you can come out of it on the other end healthy and that you survive any issues that you might have.  The same thing pertains to taxes.  There are many big box tax preparation firms across the country.  The ones that are standing out on the corners with their cardboard sign or have the wavy thing flapping in the air. That have individuals that are going to start their tax training early in January. They're going to go through three or four weeks of training and by February of that year, they're going to be preparing taxes.  Those individuals don't understand taxes very well, let alone trucker taxes.  And unfortunately one of the common mistakes we see is truckers who take their tax preparation services to those types of individuals.  The point being is that with taxes, every situation is different and tax law varies from industry to industry.  So for truckers, they want to make sure that they have a preparer who understands tax law and all of the different deductions that are available to them in their industry.

Greg Thompson:
Well Colton as you say that, one of the examples that comes to mind is per diem.  And as you know, there's been a lot of changes with per diem, particularly since the tax cuts became law in 2017 and moving forward.  So let's talk about per diem for a moment and where somebody's misunderstanding of even that section of the tax code pertaining to truckers can get people sideways a little bit.

Colton Lawrence:
Yeah.  Per diem is one of the very basic concepts that apply to owner-operators and independent contractors that we deal with on a daily basis, but it's a concept that can be very foreign to somebody who doesn't understand trucking taxes.  So for owner-operators, they are eligible to receive a per diem deduction for the amount of time that they spend away from home.  Couple of points I want to make here.  This amount changes from time to time and we at Trucker CFO are aware of those changes and are very knowledgeable as to how this per diem rate needs to be calculated.  We are very aware of the per diem rates and stay current on any changes that may happen.  The per diem deduction can result in a tax savings of many thousands of dollars.  And if you are married, it's going to be double the individual rate.  And so we recommend that you speak to us about your situation in order to know if you're going to qualify for the per diem deduction. One of the common mistakes we see with individuals who go to tax preparers who do not understand trucking taxes is that the tax preparer will take a mileage deduction for the amount of miles that the owner-operator has driven during the year and that is incorrect and will result in an audit flag that may cause additional issues down the road.

Greg Thompson:
As you and I talk about this, it seems pretty obvious.  But again, somebody that is at that big box place or in the strip mall or whatever you nailed it right on the head.  Deducting mileage for somebody that is in trucking, that's going to be one of those ones that the IRS went, well let's look at this and that just causes all kinds of pain.

Colton Lawrence:
The less pain you can avoid with taxes the better obviously.  We want to prepare your tax return in a way that is going to minimize your audit exposure and not result in you needing to file an amended return and obviously pay as little tax as possible.

Greg Thompson:
And I'm gonna throw you a curveball here.  I want to talk a moment about audits because one of the things that anyone who fills out a tax form themselves or they get somebody else to do it and they can say that they'll back you up and all that and they might.  But again they're not familiar with the industry.  So audits do happen.  But you guys at Trucker CFO, you guys are committed to walking with people through audit situations.  Can you talk about that for a moment?  Because audits are really a scary thing.

Colton Lawrence:
So as it pertains to audits, most audits are random in nature.  Basically the IRS has a big old hat with everybody's name in it and they just pick from that hat and you may be the unlucky one that gets drawn.  There are other reasons why audits can happen.  And we're gonna have a whole separate podcast where we discuss many of the things that can cause you to be audited.

Greg Thompson:
Well Colton, speaking of situations that can become tense maybe not as tense as an audit, but when you have a partner or you're lining up a partnership, things can become a little tense, particularly around tax time.  So talk to us a little bit about the common mistakes that you see when business income is split.  There are partners involved or there might be the people think they have partners.  There is a lot of stuff that happens in this area that I find very interesting and as we talk about this is definitely something to consider.

Colton Lawrence:
Absolutely.  When individuals start a business, it's a very exciting time. And relationships are established and built perhaps before going into business or even during their time running as a company driver.  There are a lot of different things that can happen that lead to individuals thinking, hey, let's go out and start a partnership.  And in and of itself, that is a very stressful situation because you have to deal with concepts such as how to split the income, what the ownership percentages are going to be.  One of the common mistakes that we see happen as individuals that go to a motor carrier thinking that they are a partnership, they have not yet set up any specific type of business entity with their state.  There's no partnership agreement in place that's going to govern how that relationship is going to work and come tax time, we will get a 1099 for one of the drivers, not both.  And we have a whole host of issues in how we split that income.  How that income is reported on tax returns.  Whether or not other 1099s need to be filed because there's not a partnership agreement in place.  So the advice here is that if you think or if you want to run as a partnership with somebody that you have a good relationship with, first and foremost make sure you are confident that that relationship can last and can make it through difficult situations.  Make sure that you can have those difficult conversations with one another so that you can make it through the ups and the downs of running a business.  But also make sure that you put the business entity in place and you have that partnership agreement, so that if you're unable to work through some of those issues, there is a legal document in place that will effectively make the decisions for you and be less likely to result in a fissure between the relationship.

Greg Thompson:
And again, I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but it gets back to planning.  Having a plan talking about this up front.  It's one thing to think about, hey it'd be great to go in this together and possibly even take the step of buying a truck and both becoming owner-operators and maybe you're just friends.  But you better be sure, and you better also have a really good detailed plan as you're talking about to know exactly how all of this is going to work, because I'm sure that again, going back to stressful situations.  Sorting these things out is not a lot of fun and it's something that you guys are trying to sort it out and I'm sure you feel for these folks as they're trying to look. Well, I thought I had this, but I don't and then they're looking at something that's very expensive.

Colton Lawrence:
It can become very expensive if they are trying to deal with these issues after the fact.  And as you mentioned, planning is key and in fact very critical, especially when you're looking at forming a partnership.

Greg Thompson:
Well, as we move into number six on the list, some of those situations that we just talked about related to partnerships can come up from folks that you talked to at the truck stop.  As I got into this industry a little over 20 years ago, and folks were talking about hours of service and different rules and regulations.  The safety directors would always tell me you got to watch out for those folks who they would call truck stop attorneys.  And of course they aren't attorneys but they are at the truck stop and they're talking.  And looking at your list here, the last item on your list, we're talking about truck stop accountants and I guarantee you there are very few if any of them have CPAs behind their names.  Talk to us about that and the confusion that can be created by giving advice that's not necessarily coming from a professional.

Colton Lawrence:
Well Greg, we saved the best for last when it comes to advice that I could give to owner-operators or independent contractors and that is that the individual you're talking to at the truck stop or on the CB radio or the chat room on Facebook.  And more than likely those individuals are not experts.  They're not CPAs.  They are not enrolled agents.  They've been listening to the quote unquote expert on the radio.  They've been interpreting that information and probably interpreting it incorrectly.  My advice to you is to not listen to those individuals.  Don't take them for experts.  And if you have questions, come to the experts at Trucker CFO and we will set you straight in terms of any questions that you might have.

Greg Thompson:
Colton when you think about it.  And you think about all the folks that have reached out to you over the years and have made these mistakes and others. And I'm sure that you've heard man, I wish I had called you guys about a year ago.  Again, it gets back to planning.  You guys are dedicated to helping people because you've been doing it for such a long time.  You've seen it in just about everything that comes down the road and the things that you haven't seen, you know how to research them.

Colton Lawrence:
Absolutely. We have seen a lot of very common mistakes that could have been avoided.  And with those mistakes, a lot of additional expense and a lot of headache that came with it that could have been avoided had they simply called us up front and many, many months earlier.

Greg Thompson:
Well folks, you heard the man, and I want to kind of do a little role play here in that I've gone through and I've made two or three of these mistakes that we've talked about and now I'm finally ready to reach out to you.  What is that first conversation gonna be like and how can you help me?

Colton Lawrence:
Well, first and foremost we've seen it all.  And so if you are in a situation where you've made some of these mistakes or perhaps others, please reach out to us.  We're happy to have that conversation.  We will answer your questions and probably ask you many more questions so that we can get a good idea of what your situation is.  Understand those mistakes that you've made and put a plan in place to help you avoid additional expense and other mistakes in the future.  So when you're ready, give us a call, reach out to us via email, go to the website and fill out our information request and we will be happy to begin those conversations to help get you on the path to success.

Announcer:
That’s Colton Lawrence, The Trucker CFO.  Everyone at PodWheels would like to thank you for listening to The Trucker CFO Podcast.  As we noted in the opening of the podcast, please keep in mind that every tax situation is unique and the perspective shared on this podcast should not be considered as tax advice.  If you have questions regarding your specific tax situation, you should consult a qualified tax professional.

Now before we close out the podcast, we'd like to talk to you about Trucker CFO.  Do you have a team of tax, accounting, and business advisory professionals who understand the complexities of the trucking industry?  There's a number of ways you can contact the team at Trucker CFO. Visit the company's website at TruckerCFO.com.  From the homepage you can fill out the get started form which will send an email to a Trucker CFO representative.  If you would rather email Trucker CFO directly, you can reach out to the company through the following address info@truckercfo.com. That's info@truckercfo.com.  You can also call Trucker CFO toll free at 1-800-533-4230 and hit option two for sales.  The toll free number once again 1-800-533-4230 and choose option two.

Once again thanks for connecting with us on PodWheels.  You can stay up to date on the latest from PodWheels by downloading the PodWheels app.  It's available in the Apple Store and on Google Play.  Just search PodWheels in either store and download the app.  Be on the lookout for the next edition of The Trucker CFO Podcast right here on PodWheels.

As always, Trucker CFO and PodWheels send our best wishes for your safe travels on our nation's highways and finally would like to remind you that in addition to staying safe, to take the necessary steps to also stay healthy, as you do the critical work of keeping the American supply chain moving.