Hidden Money Podcast

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 ...

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 cred...

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, ...

On this week's episode: most people assume tax deductions come from spending money you don't want to spend, and never ask what the tax code has already built in for anyone willing to take on real risk.

The math nobody walks you through:
1. Every other investment keeps active and passive income in separate buckets — but a working interest in oil and gas gets treated as active, even when you're 100% passive. That's not a work...

On this week's episode: high earners often assume the more they make, the more they owe, and don't ask what the tax code already has built in for them.

Four things hiding in plain sight:

1. $50,000 into the right strategy can come back as a $250,000 deduction — a five-time return, backed by an independent valuation, not a guess.
2. If you clear $500,000 a year and skip tax strategy, your biggest expense isn't your mortgage. It's t...

On this week's episode: two people can have the exact same income and still land tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars apart at tax time — and the IRS will never tell you why.

Four things we unpack this week:
Two employees with identical stock option packages can land 31 points apart on their effective tax rate. One paid under 1%. The other paid over 32%. Same income, same year, same opportunity.
Sell "non-covered" st...

On this week's episode: owners focus on their personal return and never ask what could be done inside the business itself.

Four things we constantly see missed:
1. Your spouse already approves every big decision you make. They can be on the company 401(k) too — one business, two maxed-out retirements.
2. Twenty percent of your income, deductible, without spending a dollar. Most owners get a fraction of it and never find...

On this week's episode we turn it on the taxpayer. We look at the habits, assumptions, and easy shortcuts that quietly cost people money.

Along the way: a client who rated us three out of five over a strategy that saved her $150,000, a man paying $780,000 a year in tax who said "it is what it is," and a state tax cliff that cut a family's charitable deduction in half.

Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpa...

Why do so many CPAs never explore the gray areas the tax code explicitly allows, or understand what that conservatism costs their clients?

In this episode we show you why we do and how it gives you the advantage. Along the way we talk about a $3 million savings killed by the other side's accountants, a nursery depreciation question nobody had asked before, and a Florida eye surgeon who won an audit three levels of IRS "no" deep.

Get...

Revo, and our clients, thrive on partnership. Mike Pine and Kevin Schneider are back, this time to unpack what it actually means to be a tax planning partner instead of a vendor; including how they judge the partnerships they choose.

Then Vodyssey Founder and CEO, Shawn Moore, joins to talk about Revo and Vodyssey's newly formalized partnership, what Vodyssey does for short-term rental investors, and how material participation actu...

Kevin and Mike turn the mic on their own firm: the four values behind the Revo name, the staffing model built on excess capacity and a 50-hour ceiling, why half of revenue goes to the team, and the new Grapevine, Texas headquarters. If you’re a CPA who thinks outside the box, this episode is the job posting.

Careers page: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/careers?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ep-s...

Mike and Kevin sit down with Jake Jordan for a practical conversation about AI: what it actually is, how to use the tools you already own, and how to chain them into systems that work for you. Along the way they uncover the tax angle, R&D credits that help pay for AI adoption, and the cautions every taxpayer needs around accuracy and data security.

Get in touch: https://www.revotaxpayer.com/?utm_source=revo-taxpayer&utm_medi...

On this episode Mike and Kevin take a time machine back to their own early investing years and lay out, in specific dollar terms, everything they'd do differently, from the house Mike was too scared to buy to the oil and gas deal that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. Along the way they break down fixed vs. variable debt, tax-advantaged real estate, and why the tax code rewards people willing to take a calculated risk.

Get in touch: ...

In this episode Mike and Kevin walk through one of the most misunderstood lines in the tax code: business travel. Using real trips from their own year, a due diligence seminar in Cancún, a partner retreat in Colorado, and a scouting trip for a short-term rental in Maine, they break down exactly what makes travel ordinary and necessary, where the line is between managing a business and merely dreaming about one, and how much of your...

Most people hand their CPA a stack of documents once a year and call it done. But there are actually two separate conversations that should be happening, and most high earners are only having one of them.

In this episode of the Hidden Money Podcast, Mike Pine and Kevin Schneider use an Elon Musk clip as a jumping-off point to break down the real difference between tax preparation (filing what already happened) and tax planning (stra...

Most people assume a tax refund means their CPA did a good job. Mike and Kevin are here to tell you otherwise.

In this episode, they break down the real difference between a tax refund and genuine tax savings... and why getting money back in April might actually be a sign you’ve been overpaying all year.

They walk through the safe harbor strategy, share a real client example of $700K in income with a $10K tax bill, and make th...

Most people think tax savings are reserved for the ultra-wealthy. In this episode, Mike Pine and Kevin Schneider pull back the curtain on their biggest client wins from this filing season: real numbers, real strategies, and a clear picture of what proactive tax planning can do for high earners who are willing to be proactive and start before December.

If you want to save, like the taxpayers we mentioned in this episode, reach out to...

In the latest episode of the Hidden Money Podcast, Mike and Kevin walk through one of the most creatively structured deals of Mike's twenty-six-year tax career: a golf course acquisition where purchase price allocation under IRC 1060 produced extraordinary depreciation for investors, multiple investor classes were structured to accommodate different investor needs, and a neighboring hotel and marina were contributed into the deal t...

If you're a business owner, or a W-2 employee with a side hustle, the tax code has more working for you than you've been told.

In this episode of the Hidden Money Podcast, Mike Pine and Kevin Schneider walk through the real mechanics of turning what you already do into legal, proactive tax strategy. From fishing boats and Cybertrucks to paying your kids and funding their Roth IRAs, this is a masterclass for anyone serious about kee...