March 30, 2025 • 23 mins
Episode Summary: In this interview, Due Diligence Project founder Alex Sonkin speaks with CPA Josh Dixon about his journey from traditional tax preparation to high-value tax planning. Josh shares how he transformed his practice to focus on strategies that deliver significant tax savings to clients while improving his own work-life balance and revenue.
Key Topics Covered:
- Career Evolution: Josh's path from aspiring stockbroker to owning a CPA firm and discovering his passion for proactive tax planning
- Practice Transformation: How Josh transitioned from compliance-focused work to advisory services that deliver substantial client value
- Client Success Stories: Examples of tax savings achieved, including reducing a client's tax bill from $300,000 to approximately $40,000
- ROI Comparison: Why tax planning can deliver returns that outperform traditional investment management
- Due Diligence Approach: The importance of thoroughly vetting tax strategies through a community of experienced professionals
- Work-Life Balance: How focusing on higher-value services has improved Josh's quality of life while increasing revenue
- Implementation Tips: Josh's advice that CPAs only need to master a few high-impact strategies to transform their practice
Featured Quotes: "I enjoy being more of a partner with them rather than just somebody who fills out their forms. I enjoy working with my clients throughout the year and being able to make more of an impact in their lives." - Josh Dixon
"You save him $260,000 a year. Four years, that's over a million bucks. That's a million bucks. Whether you're Bill Gates or whether you're Joe Smith, a million bucks is a million bucks." - Alex Sonkin
Resources
This episode provides insights into how tax professionals can shift from compliance work to advisory services that deliver significant value to clients while improving their own practice profitability and work-life balance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Want to know how elite tax advisors win the due
diligence game to satisfy ultrahigh net worth clients who
expect the very best.
Welcome to the Due DiligenceProject podcast, where you get a
chance to learn from the eliteCPAs, virtual family office
professionals and taxspecialists who are doing just
that.
We'll uncover their insidersecrets on how they are
(00:25):
dominating their competition,vetting new ideas and
supercharging their duediligence process to deliver
extraordinary results.
Bringing his 25 plus years ofexperience with top tax
professionals across the country, please welcome your host, alex
Sunkin.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
All right, welcome to the Due Diligence Project
podcast.
Today, joining me is elite taxplanner Josh Dixon.
Welcome to the Due DiligenceProject podcast, josh.
Thank you, alex, glad to behere.
I'm so happy to be here today.
We are celebrating anotheramazing year.
You had what I believe is arecord-setting year.
(01:03):
Have you been able to calculatehow much total tax dollars you
were able to save your clientsover the last tax year, josh, or
is that something that you dolater on in the year in terms of
internal audit?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
No, I need to do that , but it's been such a whirlwind
lately experience that I'vejust been so busy I haven't
really had a chance to look upand figure that part out yet.
But we are starting tocalculate returns for clients
and we are starting to figureout what those numbers look like
.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Right, you brought a lot of value to clients, just
didn't even have time tocalculate the total number of
tens of millions of total taxsavings.
But did you always know youwanted to be a CPA?
Is that something that, and howearly in life did you realize
you wanted to be a CPA?
And if not, what did you wantto be early in life and why did
you become a CPA?
Let's start there.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, no, it's kind of a.
It's been a journey, for sure.
So I actually started outthinking that I wanted to be a
stockbroker and that.
But that job more or less haskind of been automated.
People don't really do thatanymore.
It's all kind of online now.
So early on in my life I had ateacher that told me oh, you're
going to be a CPA someday.
I thought no, that's not goingto happen, I'll never be a CPA.
(02:15):
And sure enough I went tocollege and I went to school for
finance and then I added onaccounting and coming out of
college I got an opportunity towork for a CPA firm in their tax
department.
I actually started to enjoy it.
I found it pretty interesting.
I decided to continue on withit, but I told myself I'd never
(02:36):
have my own firm.
And sure enough, I now have myown firm and I've had my own
firm since 2009.
So it's been quite a while now.
I started out with just a fewclients added on, added on,
doing mostly traditional CPAwork doing tax returns,
accounting, payroll, all thatkind of good stuff but always
(02:56):
leaned more into tax as thingsmoved along.
I didn't really know where thisjourney was going to go, but I
knew I didn't really want tojust do tax returns.
While I'm really good at thatand I enjoy that piece I wanted
to be able to do more for myclients.
So I started getting into taxresolution but that wasn't
really quite my niche.
So then I got into doing taxplanning and that's where I
(03:18):
really found something I reallyenjoy doing.
I enjoy interacting with theclients.
I enjoy being able to help themsave money on their taxes.
I enjoy being more of a partnerwith them rather than just
somebody who fills out theirforms.
I enjoy working with my clientsthroughout the year and being
able to make more of an impactin their lives.
So that's what kind of got meinto tax planning and why I've
(03:40):
kind of gone down that path.
And then this past year is whenI came across DVP and really
liked a lot of the things thatDDP had to offer.
I've got some other colleaguesand people that I've worked with
that also had great things tosay about DDP.
So I decided to join back inJuly of last year.
Didn't really know what thatwas going to entail or where
(04:02):
that was going to go, but it'sbeen great so far.
I've really enjoyed being apart of the group.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We're really excited to have you, josh.
Before we jump into your taxplanning and what makes you
unique because you are an elitetax planner the Due Diligence
Project is we're very proud toattract the top 1% of tax
professionals, elite CPAs withat least 10, 50,000 hours of
experience in audit and taxcourt, so we can have really a
(04:27):
meaningful discussion and helpCPAs process due diligence and
obviously every new CPA thatjoins is going to do their own
due diligence on all of our taxstrategies.
I want to talk to you moreabout that, but before we jump
in there, where did you go?
Where'd you grow up?
Where did you go to college?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, mostly in Colorado, from Lakewood outside
of Denver, grew up there, wentto school there, went to Metro
State University in downtownDenver and then in 2009, after
the financial crisis, ended uplosing my job, like a lot of
people, searched around for newopportunities, found one in
Dallas Dallas hadn't been asimpacted by the downturn in the
(05:05):
economy and then took a job downhere.
It's supposed to be temporary.
I keep having.
My whole life has been.
This is never going to happen.
I'm not going to do this.
I always said I'd never movedto Texas, I'd never lived here.
But here I am and I met my wifeand we've just been in Texas
ever since you mentioned a lotof stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I want to like now drill into some of the things
that you've shared before.
You know you talk about taxplanning versus tax preparation.
You are bringing incredible taxmitigation strategies to your
clients.
There are millions of otherCPAs out there that don't know
95, 99% of the tax strategy thatyou've learned that you've
(05:45):
completed due diligence on whatmakes you different from these
other CPAs.
What is it?
Is it they're allocating theirtime to activities that are not
focused on tax planning?
Can you give us maybe a sampleof reasons of how you've been
able to create time for yourselfand focus on maybe what your
clients really want, as opposedto what they're getting from
(06:07):
other CPAs?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I mean, it's been a.
That's been a big timecommitment and a big cost
commitment as well that I thinkmaybe a lot of other CPAs don't
want to, don't want to put inthe time and effort and don't
not to their, you know, not forany fault of their own other
than just they're busy and soit's difficult to try and work
in those extra hours or try andwork in that extra time to learn
(06:31):
and study these differentthings.
But that's what I've been doingthe last five or six years is
digging into differentopportunities, different types
of strategies, different ways wecan help our clients, and I
really look for the ones thatare going to be most impactful.
So there are things that we cando.
There are differentopportunities, strategies out
(06:53):
there that you can do forclients that will help them or
will not help them.
I always give people the exampleof you can go out and buy a G
wagon car but my car friendstell me that they're not very
good vehicles to begin with.
Why would you do that and whywould that be a strategy for you
?
I guess those things exist, butI prefer to take more of an
(07:14):
investment approach, or more ofa financial approach, if you
will, in that I look at what'sthe ROI and how impactful is
this strategy going to be.
We have a strategy that cansave somebody $100,000 versus
saving them $5,000.
That's going to be a lot moreimpactful.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And you're part of a number of other organizations
and associations of CPAs andother tax professionals out
there.
And how has the due diligenceproject been able to
differentiate itself and bringyou value in terms of shortening
your runway of completing duediligence and showing you new
strategies?
Or are there other services outthere that are similar, that do
(07:51):
the same thing?
Give us your feedback.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Not that I've seen the other groups that I've been
a part of.
It seems like a lot of peoplehave the same half dozen or 10
different things that you can do.
I feel like the DDP has a lotof unique opportunities that I
haven't really come acrossbefore.
So the other organizations havebeen valuable in terms of
education and learning aboutdifferent strategies and how to
(08:13):
evaluate options, but I feellike DDP has more to offer than
a lot of other organizations andso I've been glad to have found
this opportunity to be able tofind these different options to
be able to give my clients.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
And now that you look back in your career, you
mentioned a lot of words ROI.
Can you imagine if you were astockbroker?
You work with people in thatfinancial realm.
We work with people in everypart of the whole financial
industry and everyone is tryingto deliver ROI.
Well, you and I know that ourcommunity of elite CPAs the 0.01
percenters we're designingprograms for clients that have
(08:49):
phenomenal ROI.
Clients invest a dollar theyget a $9 deduction.
They invest a dollar, they geta $6 deduction.
They get their dollar back with50% interest.
These are ROIs that are almostunheard of.
Do you know of any stockbrokersthat have opportunities, that
have ROIs that can compete withwhat you're bringing to your
clients in terms of ROI, net ofcost, net of risk?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, certainly not.
It doesn't seem like there'stons of opportunities out there
in that world.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
There's a lot of risk out there.
You know, the people in dealingwith real estate right?
There's no guaranteed returnsin real estate.
There's no guaranteed returnsin the stock market.
Maybe some people think Bitcoin, if you hold it for four years,
gives you this idea of aguaranteed return.
Maybe that's the closest thingout there.
I don't know.
But the way we as a community oftax professionals minimize risk
(09:40):
is by showing strategies tohundreds and hundreds of
independent CPAs the largestindependent peer review
community and we're looking atthe same tax code as the IRS,
and our goal is to have moreelite tax professionals than the
IRS as a community looking atthe same set of laws going.
Is this defendable?
(10:02):
Is this something we're willingto sign in a tax return or not?
And if we show it to one or twoor 10 CPAs, that's good, but if
we show it to 600 CPAs who have50,000 hours of experience in
audit and tax court, that'sbetter.
That's gonna give us a higherlevel of confidence and then we
can actually extrapolate a realROI.
Where this strategy costs thismuch, it has this much tax
(10:26):
savings.
This is real money in your bankaccount.
It's very hard for astockbroker to create that.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I had a client one time that she did have a money
manager or whatever they'recalled now they're not really
stockbrokers anymore and I thinkthat for the year her account
basically ended up flat, but hestill ended up charging her like
$40,000 to manage her accountand I thought that's ridiculous.
They're not really getting anyvalue out of it.
If they're not really makingany money in this deal, why
(10:52):
would you pay someone for thatservice?
And so I never understood that.
I mean, there are, I'm surethere are people out there money
managers, stockbrokers that doa great job for their clients,
but no, I don't think they'reachieving these kinds of ROIs.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And that to me, like that's why our community, that's
why we're really only trying toattract elite CPAs, because the
answer you just gave us issomething that our audience,
really you know, our audience,the non-financial professional
audience of end users that youknow, the three people that
watch the Due Diligence Projectpodcast who are not CPAs out
there, you know can appreciatethe fact that our community is
(11:29):
really focused on deliveringvalue.
We're not here to babysit moneyand charge fees.
We're here to deliver value andvalue.
And ROI is really hard toscrape up and find and that's
the key is CPAs are not in thisfor the money.
A lot of CPAs come into theprofession because they're risk
averse.
They know it's extremelyvaluable.
(11:51):
Everyone needs this.
They're not coming in to becomemultimillionaires and a lot of
CPAs who are joining the DoDozers Project and coming into
this industry are becomingmulti-millionaires because
they're simply bringing tens ofmillions or hundreds of millions
of dollars of value to theirclients and they're just getting
compensated a small fraction ofthat value, and that small
fraction happens to be moremoney than they really were
(12:12):
thinking about ever making as aCPA, but they're just in a very
unique position to bring thisvalue to clients.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
That was something that you know as a CPA, as a tax
preparer, I was never able todo that Right.
When I was just preparingsomebody's tax return, I could
never demonstrate enough valueto really, you know, make it
worthwhile for the clients otherthan just we're going to help
you stay out of jail and part ofit.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I feel like the IRS has a goal of distracting CPAs
with deadlines, changingminuscule parts of the tax code
that are almost meaningless, butthe CPAs have to pay attention
to it.
So now they give you deadlinesevery two months, constantly
change the tax code, constantlyforcing you just to focus on
(13:01):
producing tax returns, financialstatements, and stripping you
of the time and availability toactually do the proactive tax
planning that your clients wantyou to do.
So let's talk about how you'vebeen able to carve out time and
confidence in order to findunique opportunities, complete
(13:22):
your due diligence on thoseopportunities and then bring
those opportunities to yourclients, because your
competition has the same 24hours a day that you do, but
they're not using that time tofind opportunities and bring
them to their clients, and youare.
Let's talk about how the duediligence project is maybe
shortening your runway for that.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, you know, as I got into doing more tax planning
, things like that, I startedfocusing more on you know what
clients can I work with that aregoing to be able to provide the
most value.
And then we went through aprocess where we moved some
clients along that maybe weren'ta good fit for our firm in
order to make room for the kindof clients that we do want to
(14:02):
work with.
And as we've gone through thisprocess, we've essentially freed
up our time without reallyhaving to sacrifice our income
or things like that I think somepeople are afraid of.
Well, if I start down this path, I'm going to lose clients and
I'm not going to have enoughincome to take care of my bills
and feed my family, which is allimportant.
The reality is that as you getmore into doing this kind of
(14:24):
work, that income comes back in,and so, as you're working with
more people providing more value, it's easier to charge more
appropriate fees for the kind ofwork that we're doing.
And then it doesn't require meto have, you know, a thousand
clients.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
It doesn't require me to be working 80 hours a week,
I can have, you know, kind of amore normal life.
So so tell me, give us anexample of some of these you
know, without giving away thestrategy or the exact numbers.
Give us an example of some ofyour high net worth clients that
came to you this last year witha tax bill of X and after the
work you did, they came out witha much better result.
Just big number, big picture,just so our audience can
(15:04):
appreciate the actual work, theresults of the work you're doing
.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, I have a client that you know, prior to talking
, prior to working with me, hewas at around probably about a
million dollars a year in incomeand I think this year I don't
know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't we're probably going
to get them down to, I think,around 300,000.
And I always tell people when Itake on new clients, I always
preface them with it sounds coolto say that we're going to get
(15:28):
you down to zero and while wemight be able to, while we there
could be those possibilities oropportunities it may not happen
every year or just depending onwhat opportunities the client
also wants to participate in andso we found a couple of
opportunities that he reallyliked, and actually I think it
was about maybe three differentopportunities that he really
liked that he got involved withand so we were able to get his
(15:50):
income down significantly.
His taxable income is going tobe probably more like $300,000
this year, maybe $250,000 afterdeductions for standard
deduction or itemized deductions, and then the tax bill is going
to be probably like $40,000versus he's been paying, I think
, $300,000.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I'll tell you what.
You start adding that up on ayearly basis, you're saving him
$260,000 a year.
Four years, that's over amillion bucks.
That's a million bucks.
Whether you're Bill Gates orwhether you're Joe Smith, a
million bucks is a million bucks.
Yeah for sure.
A million bucks over a 20 yearperiod.
Put a million dollars inBitcoin over 20 years and, my
(16:32):
goodness, what does that mean toyou?
Or you put a million bucks inBitcoin 10 years ago and we're
talking we can buy half ofEurope or something like that.
Right, this is exciting stuff,and has this made a difference
in your life and your family'slife, outside of the additional
revenue that you're generatingfrom the planning?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Like I mentioned, I have abetter work-life balance right,
so I have more time to beavailable to spend time with my
wife or go do activities.
I'm not necessarily chained tomy desk all the time like I was
before, when we were justcranking out tax returns.
So it's definitely a betterwork-life balance.
But then also one thing I tellmy clients a lot is that not
(17:15):
only am I recommending theseopportunities to them, but I'm
also participating in them, andso I often participate in a lot
of the opportunities and taxstrategies and things that I'm
doing, that I'm suggesting to myclients.
I'm also doing them myself, andthat way I'm also reaping the
benefits.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
To me that's the coolest thing.
We get really excited.
I get excited because I reallylove working with CPAs.
We built a community of taxgeeks.
We're really proud of that.
The world has been focused oncomputer geeks, with the Bill
Gates of the world and theZuckerbergs of the world and the
Elon Musks of the worldbuilding these trillion dollar
companies with all this leveragethat we didn't even understand
(17:53):
how much leverage there was intechnology 20 years ago, 30
years ago, when the internetcame out.
Now these guys are just runningthe whole planet and what we're
trying to do inside the duediligence project is look at a
different group of eliteprofessionals that are focused
on the tax side, not on thetechnology side, not on the
software side, but diving intothe most complex document in the
(18:15):
world, the tax code.
No one knows if it's 75,000pages, 750,000 pages, 7.5
million pages, how many pages isthere?
I'm not sure any CPA couldround it to the nearest 100,000,
to be honest with you, I wouldbet that they cannot.
But it's constantly changingand what we're trying to do
(18:36):
inside the Due Diligence Projectis attract as many Josh Dixons,
as many elite CPAs, as we can,to create as many data points so
that Josh and every other CPAin our community can have the
chance to complete their duediligence.
We share our notes with eachCPA on every strategy to shorten
their runway so that they cancomplete their due diligence and
(18:58):
tell us if we're right or wrong.
Or maybe we missed something,because if one or two CPAs miss
it, maybe it's them, but if 20or 30% of our CPAs miss
something, or maybe we missedsomething, because if one or two
CPAs miss it, maybe it's them,but if 20 or 30% of our CPAs
miss something, then maybe it'sour community.
And we're just like Amazon andNetflix.
We want to have as many datapoints as possible so we can
create our top 10 based on ROI,net of risk, net of cost, and
(19:20):
it's just like the S&P 500.
The S&P 500 was very different20 years ago than it is today,
but it's still the top 500.
Same thing with the duediligence project.
We have our top 20 strategies,top 10 strategies.
They were different 10 yearsago and 15 years ago.
So what's changing?
We're attracting new resources.
(19:42):
We're attracting new CPAs.
We show those strategies to ourtax professionals.
The tax code's changing, so therisk parameters on these
strategies are constantlychanging.
The changes in the marketplaceand continually have the
hierarchy of the highest ROIstrategy, net of cost, net of
(20:05):
risk, based on what the IRS isgiving us in terms of guidelines
, and I think that's really whatwe've created.
But it still takes people likeyou, josh, to make this work,
because unless you complete yourdue diligence, unless you make
those phone calls to yourclients, nothing's going to
happen.
Diligence Unless you make thosephone calls to your clients,
(20:25):
nothing's going to happen.
And I commend you for figuringout how to take your busy work.
Move it away, focus on whatyour clients need and want, and
it's not rocket science.
They want ideas and they wantyou plugged into the largest
independent peer reviewcommunity of tax professionals
in the world, which is whereyou're at and you've dedicated
yourself, and because of that,your clients are benefiting.
(20:47):
They're reducing their taxes,they're reducing their costs,
they're putting money that wasotherwise going to go to the
state and federal governmentback into their community,
creating more jobs, creatingmore benefit to the community.
And so I want to just thank youfor the work that you're doing
for the Due Diligence Projectand for your clients, but can
you leave us with one great ideaor something, one piece of
(21:09):
advice that's really made adifference in your life.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, no for sure.
And thank you, alex.
I really like the DDP, the DueDiligence Project, really like
being part of the group and thatthey have a broad range of
opportunities and options for usto be able to take to our
clients.
But the reality is that whilewe may have a dozen different
opportunities or options, wereally only need one or two or
(21:32):
three and you'll be able to wowyour clients easily.
And once they get wowed, thenthey're hooked right.
Then they want to stick withyou for life.
You're their best friend and Ihave a number of clients that
and these aren't necessarilymultimillion dollar clients
either.
I have clients that only make$300,000 a year but if we take
their tax bill from $50,000 downto $5,000, they're ecstatic and
(21:55):
they want to be a client forlife.
Feeling it's fun being a partof that energy when your clients
come back to you with thatexcitement and you can show them
what you've been able to do andhow you've been able to help
them.
But it's not really well.
I've done a lot of hours ofstudy and research and things
like that.
You know, ddp does definitelyhelp streamline that process to
(22:16):
where we can.
Like I said, we can just kindof grab onto like one or two
kind of main opportunities, beable to present those to our
clients, make a big impact onthem, and then that'll in turn
have a big impact in our ownlives, personally and
financially.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Well, I want to thank you for being part of the Do
Delicious Project.
I want to thank you for sharingyour wisdom with our community
and I know your clients are verygrateful to have you, and I
know your future clients aregoing to be very grateful to
have you as well.
Josh, we're grateful to haveyou.
Thank you for the work thatyou're doing and today we just
got a chance to feature JoshDixon and very humble guy.
(22:51):
He doesn't like to talk toomuch about himself but meanwhile
, very quietly, has deliveredmassive, significant,
life-changing value to manyclients.
Maybe they're not worthbillions of dollars, but a
million bucks is a million bucks.
Josh, thank you so much fortoday and looking forward to
another great year working withyou.
Thank you, alex.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
That's all for this episode of the Due Diligence
Project podcast.
Be sure to visit due diligenceprojectcom to access the
resources we have available forqualified CPAs and family office
leaders.
Our mission at the DueDiligence Project is to help you
deliver more significance andvalue to your very best clients,
while shifting your traditionalpractice into the firm of the
(23:35):
future.
Want to know how elite tax advisors win the due
diligence game to satisfy ultrahigh net worth clients who
expect the very best.
Welcome to the Due DiligenceProject podcast, where you get a
chance to learn from the eliteCPAs, virtual family office
professionals and taxspecialists who are doing just
that.
We'll uncover their insidersecrets on how they are
(00:25):
dominating their competition,vetting new ideas and
supercharging their duediligence process to deliver
extraordinary results.
Bringing his 25 plus years ofexperience with top tax
professionals across the country, please welcome your host, alex
Sunkin.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
All right, welcome to the Due Diligence Project
podcast.
Today, joining me is elite taxplanner Josh Dixon.
Welcome to the Due DiligenceProject podcast, josh.
Thank you, alex, glad to behere.
I'm so happy to be here today.
We are celebrating anotheramazing year.
You had what I believe is arecord-setting year.
(01:03):
Have you been able to calculatehow much total tax dollars you
were able to save your clientsover the last tax year, josh, or
is that something that you dolater on in the year in terms of
internal audit?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
No, I need to do that , but it's been such a whirlwind
lately experience that I'vejust been so busy I haven't
really had a chance to look upand figure that part out yet.
But we are starting tocalculate returns for clients
and we are starting to figureout what those numbers look like
.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Right, you brought a lot of value to clients, just
didn't even have time tocalculate the total number of
tens of millions of total taxsavings.
But did you always know youwanted to be a CPA?
Is that something that, and howearly in life did you realize
you wanted to be a CPA?
And if not, what did you wantto be early in life and why did
you become a CPA?
Let's start there.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, no, it's kind of a.
It's been a journey, for sure.
So I actually started outthinking that I wanted to be a
stockbroker and that.
But that job more or less haskind of been automated.
People don't really do thatanymore.
It's all kind of online now.
So early on in my life I had ateacher that told me oh, you're
going to be a CPA someday.
I thought no, that's not goingto happen, I'll never be a CPA.
(02:15):
And sure enough I went tocollege and I went to school for
finance and then I added onaccounting and coming out of
college I got an opportunity towork for a CPA firm in their tax
department.
I actually started to enjoy it.
I found it pretty interesting.
I decided to continue on withit, but I told myself I'd never
(02:36):
have my own firm.
And sure enough, I now have myown firm and I've had my own
firm since 2009.
So it's been quite a while now.
I started out with just a fewclients added on, added on,
doing mostly traditional CPAwork doing tax returns,
accounting, payroll, all thatkind of good stuff but always
(02:56):
leaned more into tax as thingsmoved along.
I didn't really know where thisjourney was going to go, but I
knew I didn't really want tojust do tax returns.
While I'm really good at thatand I enjoy that piece I wanted
to be able to do more for myclients.
So I started getting into taxresolution but that wasn't
really quite my niche.
So then I got into doing taxplanning and that's where I
(03:18):
really found something I reallyenjoy doing.
I enjoy interacting with theclients.
I enjoy being able to help themsave money on their taxes.
I enjoy being more of a partnerwith them rather than just
somebody who fills out theirforms.
I enjoy working with my clientsthroughout the year and being
able to make more of an impactin their lives.
So that's what kind of got meinto tax planning and why I've
(03:40):
kind of gone down that path.
And then this past year is whenI came across DVP and really
liked a lot of the things thatDDP had to offer.
I've got some other colleaguesand people that I've worked with
that also had great things tosay about DDP.
So I decided to join back inJuly of last year.
Didn't really know what thatwas going to entail or where
(04:02):
that was going to go, but it'sbeen great so far.
I've really enjoyed being apart of the group.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We're really excited to have you, josh.
Before we jump into your taxplanning and what makes you
unique because you are an elitetax planner the Due Diligence
Project is we're very proud toattract the top 1% of tax
professionals, elite CPAs withat least 10, 50,000 hours of
experience in audit and taxcourt, so we can have really a
(04:27):
meaningful discussion and helpCPAs process due diligence and
obviously every new CPA thatjoins is going to do their own
due diligence on all of our taxstrategies.
I want to talk to you moreabout that, but before we jump
in there, where did you go?
Where'd you grow up?
Where did you go to college?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, mostly in Colorado, from Lakewood outside
of Denver, grew up there, wentto school there, went to Metro
State University in downtownDenver and then in 2009, after
the financial crisis, ended uplosing my job, like a lot of
people, searched around for newopportunities, found one in
Dallas Dallas hadn't been asimpacted by the downturn in the
(05:05):
economy and then took a job downhere.
It's supposed to be temporary.
I keep having.
My whole life has been.
This is never going to happen.
I'm not going to do this.
I always said I'd never movedto Texas, I'd never lived here.
But here I am and I met my wifeand we've just been in Texas
ever since you mentioned a lotof stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I want to like now drill into some of the things
that you've shared before.
You know you talk about taxplanning versus tax preparation.
You are bringing incredible taxmitigation strategies to your
clients.
There are millions of otherCPAs out there that don't know
95, 99% of the tax strategy thatyou've learned that you've
(05:45):
completed due diligence on whatmakes you different from these
other CPAs.
What is it?
Is it they're allocating theirtime to activities that are not
focused on tax planning?
Can you give us maybe a sampleof reasons of how you've been
able to create time for yourselfand focus on maybe what your
clients really want, as opposedto what they're getting from
(06:07):
other CPAs?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I mean, it's been a.
That's been a big timecommitment and a big cost
commitment as well that I thinkmaybe a lot of other CPAs don't
want to, don't want to put inthe time and effort and don't
not to their, you know, not forany fault of their own other
than just they're busy and soit's difficult to try and work
in those extra hours or try andwork in that extra time to learn
(06:31):
and study these differentthings.
But that's what I've been doingthe last five or six years is
digging into differentopportunities, different types
of strategies, different ways wecan help our clients, and I
really look for the ones thatare going to be most impactful.
So there are things that we cando.
There are differentopportunities, strategies out
(06:53):
there that you can do forclients that will help them or
will not help them.
I always give people the exampleof you can go out and buy a G
wagon car but my car friendstell me that they're not very
good vehicles to begin with.
Why would you do that and whywould that be a strategy for you
?
I guess those things exist, butI prefer to take more of an
(07:14):
investment approach, or more ofa financial approach, if you
will, in that I look at what'sthe ROI and how impactful is
this strategy going to be.
We have a strategy that cansave somebody $100,000 versus
saving them $5,000.
That's going to be a lot moreimpactful.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And you're part of a number of other organizations
and associations of CPAs andother tax professionals out
there.
And how has the due diligenceproject been able to
differentiate itself and bringyou value in terms of shortening
your runway of completing duediligence and showing you new
strategies?
Or are there other services outthere that are similar, that do
(07:51):
the same thing?
Give us your feedback.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Not that I've seen the other groups that I've been
a part of.
It seems like a lot of peoplehave the same half dozen or 10
different things that you can do.
I feel like the DDP has a lotof unique opportunities that I
haven't really come acrossbefore.
So the other organizations havebeen valuable in terms of
education and learning aboutdifferent strategies and how to
(08:13):
evaluate options, but I feellike DDP has more to offer than
a lot of other organizations andso I've been glad to have found
this opportunity to be able tofind these different options to
be able to give my clients.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
And now that you look back in your career, you
mentioned a lot of words ROI.
Can you imagine if you were astockbroker?
You work with people in thatfinancial realm.
We work with people in everypart of the whole financial
industry and everyone is tryingto deliver ROI.
Well, you and I know that ourcommunity of elite CPAs the 0.01
percenters we're designingprograms for clients that have
(08:49):
phenomenal ROI.
Clients invest a dollar theyget a $9 deduction.
They invest a dollar, they geta $6 deduction.
They get their dollar back with50% interest.
These are ROIs that are almostunheard of.
Do you know of any stockbrokersthat have opportunities, that
have ROIs that can compete withwhat you're bringing to your
clients in terms of ROI, net ofcost, net of risk?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, certainly not.
It doesn't seem like there'stons of opportunities out there
in that world.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
There's a lot of risk out there.
You know, the people in dealingwith real estate right?
There's no guaranteed returnsin real estate.
There's no guaranteed returnsin the stock market.
Maybe some people think Bitcoin, if you hold it for four years,
gives you this idea of aguaranteed return.
Maybe that's the closest thingout there.
I don't know.
But the way we as a community oftax professionals minimize risk
(09:40):
is by showing strategies tohundreds and hundreds of
independent CPAs the largestindependent peer review
community and we're looking atthe same tax code as the IRS,
and our goal is to have moreelite tax professionals than the
IRS as a community looking atthe same set of laws going.
Is this defendable?
(10:02):
Is this something we're willingto sign in a tax return or not?
And if we show it to one or twoor 10 CPAs, that's good, but if
we show it to 600 CPAs who have50,000 hours of experience in
audit and tax court, that'sbetter.
That's gonna give us a higherlevel of confidence and then we
can actually extrapolate a realROI.
Where this strategy costs thismuch, it has this much tax
(10:26):
savings.
This is real money in your bankaccount.
It's very hard for astockbroker to create that.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I had a client one time that she did have a money
manager or whatever they'recalled now they're not really
stockbrokers anymore and I thinkthat for the year her account
basically ended up flat, but hestill ended up charging her like
$40,000 to manage her accountand I thought that's ridiculous.
They're not really getting anyvalue out of it.
If they're not really makingany money in this deal, why
(10:52):
would you pay someone for thatservice?
And so I never understood that.
I mean, there are, I'm surethere are people out there money
managers, stockbrokers that doa great job for their clients,
but no, I don't think they'reachieving these kinds of ROIs.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And that to me, like that's why our community, that's
why we're really only trying toattract elite CPAs, because the
answer you just gave us issomething that our audience,
really you know, our audience,the non-financial professional
audience of end users that youknow, the three people that
watch the Due Diligence Projectpodcast who are not CPAs out
there, you know can appreciatethe fact that our community is
(11:29):
really focused on deliveringvalue.
We're not here to babysit moneyand charge fees.
We're here to deliver value andvalue.
And ROI is really hard toscrape up and find and that's
the key is CPAs are not in thisfor the money.
A lot of CPAs come into theprofession because they're risk
averse.
They know it's extremelyvaluable.
(11:51):
Everyone needs this.
They're not coming in to becomemultimillionaires and a lot of
CPAs who are joining the DoDozers Project and coming into
this industry are becomingmulti-millionaires because
they're simply bringing tens ofmillions or hundreds of millions
of dollars of value to theirclients and they're just getting
compensated a small fraction ofthat value, and that small
fraction happens to be moremoney than they really were
(12:12):
thinking about ever making as aCPA, but they're just in a very
unique position to bring thisvalue to clients.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
That was something that you know as a CPA, as a tax
preparer, I was never able todo that Right.
When I was just preparingsomebody's tax return, I could
never demonstrate enough valueto really, you know, make it
worthwhile for the clients otherthan just we're going to help
you stay out of jail and part ofit.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I feel like the IRS has a goal of distracting CPAs
with deadlines, changingminuscule parts of the tax code
that are almost meaningless, butthe CPAs have to pay attention
to it.
So now they give you deadlinesevery two months, constantly
change the tax code, constantlyforcing you just to focus on
(13:01):
producing tax returns, financialstatements, and stripping you
of the time and availability toactually do the proactive tax
planning that your clients wantyou to do.
So let's talk about how you'vebeen able to carve out time and
confidence in order to findunique opportunities, complete
(13:22):
your due diligence on thoseopportunities and then bring
those opportunities to yourclients, because your
competition has the same 24hours a day that you do, but
they're not using that time tofind opportunities and bring
them to their clients, and youare.
Let's talk about how the duediligence project is maybe
shortening your runway for that.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, you know, as I got into doing more tax planning
, things like that, I startedfocusing more on you know what
clients can I work with that aregoing to be able to provide the
most value.
And then we went through aprocess where we moved some
clients along that maybe weren'ta good fit for our firm in
order to make room for the kindof clients that we do want to
(14:02):
work with.
And as we've gone through thisprocess, we've essentially freed
up our time without reallyhaving to sacrifice our income
or things like that I think somepeople are afraid of.
Well, if I start down this path, I'm going to lose clients and
I'm not going to have enoughincome to take care of my bills
and feed my family, which is allimportant.
The reality is that as you getmore into doing this kind of
(14:24):
work, that income comes back in,and so, as you're working with
more people providing more value, it's easier to charge more
appropriate fees for the kind ofwork that we're doing.
And then it doesn't require meto have, you know, a thousand
clients.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
It doesn't require me to be working 80 hours a week,
I can have, you know, kind of amore normal life.
So so tell me, give us anexample of some of these you
know, without giving away thestrategy or the exact numbers.
Give us an example of some ofyour high net worth clients that
came to you this last year witha tax bill of X and after the
work you did, they came out witha much better result.
Just big number, big picture,just so our audience can
(15:04):
appreciate the actual work, theresults of the work you're doing
.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, I have a client that you know, prior to talking
, prior to working with me, hewas at around probably about a
million dollars a year in incomeand I think this year I don't
know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't we're probably going
to get them down to, I think,around 300,000.
And I always tell people when Itake on new clients, I always
preface them with it sounds coolto say that we're going to get
(15:28):
you down to zero and while wemight be able to, while we there
could be those possibilities oropportunities it may not happen
every year or just depending onwhat opportunities the client
also wants to participate in andso we found a couple of
opportunities that he reallyliked, and actually I think it
was about maybe three differentopportunities that he really
liked that he got involved withand so we were able to get his
(15:50):
income down significantly.
His taxable income is going tobe probably more like $300,000
this year, maybe $250,000 afterdeductions for standard
deduction or itemized deductions, and then the tax bill is going
to be probably like $40,000versus he's been paying, I think
, $300,000.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I'll tell you what.
You start adding that up on ayearly basis, you're saving him
$260,000 a year.
Four years, that's over amillion bucks.
That's a million bucks.
Whether you're Bill Gates orwhether you're Joe Smith, a
million bucks is a million bucks.
Yeah for sure.
A million bucks over a 20 yearperiod.
Put a million dollars inBitcoin over 20 years and, my
(16:32):
goodness, what does that mean toyou?
Or you put a million bucks inBitcoin 10 years ago and we're
talking we can buy half ofEurope or something like that.
Right, this is exciting stuff,and has this made a difference
in your life and your family'slife, outside of the additional
revenue that you're generatingfrom the planning?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Like I mentioned, I have abetter work-life balance right,
so I have more time to beavailable to spend time with my
wife or go do activities.
I'm not necessarily chained tomy desk all the time like I was
before, when we were justcranking out tax returns.
So it's definitely a betterwork-life balance.
But then also one thing I tellmy clients a lot is that not
(17:15):
only am I recommending theseopportunities to them, but I'm
also participating in them, andso I often participate in a lot
of the opportunities and taxstrategies and things that I'm
doing, that I'm suggesting to myclients.
I'm also doing them myself, andthat way I'm also reaping the
benefits.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
To me that's the coolest thing.
We get really excited.
I get excited because I reallylove working with CPAs.
We built a community of taxgeeks.
We're really proud of that.
The world has been focused oncomputer geeks, with the Bill
Gates of the world and theZuckerbergs of the world and the
Elon Musks of the worldbuilding these trillion dollar
companies with all this leveragethat we didn't even understand
(17:53):
how much leverage there was intechnology 20 years ago, 30
years ago, when the internetcame out.
Now these guys are just runningthe whole planet and what we're
trying to do inside the duediligence project is look at a
different group of eliteprofessionals that are focused
on the tax side, not on thetechnology side, not on the
software side, but diving intothe most complex document in the
(18:15):
world, the tax code.
No one knows if it's 75,000pages, 750,000 pages, 7.5
million pages, how many pages isthere?
I'm not sure any CPA couldround it to the nearest 100,000,
to be honest with you, I wouldbet that they cannot.
But it's constantly changingand what we're trying to do
(18:36):
inside the Due Diligence Projectis attract as many Josh Dixons,
as many elite CPAs, as we can,to create as many data points so
that Josh and every other CPAin our community can have the
chance to complete their duediligence.
We share our notes with eachCPA on every strategy to shorten
their runway so that they cancomplete their due diligence and
(18:58):
tell us if we're right or wrong.
Or maybe we missed something,because if one or two CPAs miss
it, maybe it's them, but if 20or 30% of our CPAs miss
something, or maybe we missedsomething, because if one or two
CPAs miss it, maybe it's them,but if 20 or 30% of our CPAs
miss something, then maybe it'sour community.
And we're just like Amazon andNetflix.
We want to have as many datapoints as possible so we can
create our top 10 based on ROI,net of risk, net of cost, and
(19:20):
it's just like the S&P 500.
The S&P 500 was very different20 years ago than it is today,
but it's still the top 500.
Same thing with the duediligence project.
We have our top 20 strategies,top 10 strategies.
They were different 10 yearsago and 15 years ago.
So what's changing?
We're attracting new resources.
(19:42):
We're attracting new CPAs.
We show those strategies to ourtax professionals.
The tax code's changing, so therisk parameters on these
strategies are constantlychanging.
The changes in the marketplaceand continually have the
hierarchy of the highest ROIstrategy, net of cost, net of
(20:05):
risk, based on what the IRS isgiving us in terms of guidelines
, and I think that's really whatwe've created.
But it still takes people likeyou, josh, to make this work,
because unless you complete yourdue diligence, unless you make
those phone calls to yourclients, nothing's going to
happen.
Diligence Unless you make thosephone calls to your clients,
(20:25):
nothing's going to happen.
And I commend you for figuringout how to take your busy work.
Move it away, focus on whatyour clients need and want, and
it's not rocket science.
They want ideas and they wantyou plugged into the largest
independent peer reviewcommunity of tax professionals
in the world, which is whereyou're at and you've dedicated
yourself, and because of that,your clients are benefiting.
(20:47):
They're reducing their taxes,they're reducing their costs,
they're putting money that wasotherwise going to go to the
state and federal governmentback into their community,
creating more jobs, creatingmore benefit to the community.
And so I want to just thank youfor the work that you're doing
for the Due Diligence Projectand for your clients, but can
you leave us with one great ideaor something, one piece of
(21:09):
advice that's really made adifference in your life.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, no for sure.
And thank you, alex.
I really like the DDP, the DueDiligence Project, really like
being part of the group and thatthey have a broad range of
opportunities and options for usto be able to take to our
clients.
But the reality is that whilewe may have a dozen different
opportunities or options, wereally only need one or two or
(21:32):
three and you'll be able to wowyour clients easily.
And once they get wowed, thenthey're hooked right.
Then they want to stick withyou for life.
You're their best friend and Ihave a number of clients that
and these aren't necessarilymultimillion dollar clients
either.
I have clients that only make$300,000 a year but if we take
their tax bill from $50,000 downto $5,000, they're ecstatic and
(21:55):
they want to be a client forlife.
Feeling it's fun being a partof that energy when your clients
come back to you with thatexcitement and you can show them
what you've been able to do andhow you've been able to help
them.
But it's not really well.
I've done a lot of hours ofstudy and research and things
like that.
You know, ddp does definitelyhelp streamline that process to
(22:16):
where we can.
Like I said, we can just kindof grab onto like one or two
kind of main opportunities, beable to present those to our
clients, make a big impact onthem, and then that'll in turn
have a big impact in our ownlives, personally and
financially.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Well, I want to thank you for being part of the Do
Delicious Project.
I want to thank you for sharingyour wisdom with our community
and I know your clients are verygrateful to have you, and I
know your future clients aregoing to be very grateful to
have you as well.
Josh, we're grateful to haveyou.
Thank you for the work thatyou're doing and today we just
got a chance to feature JoshDixon and very humble guy.
(22:51):
He doesn't like to talk toomuch about himself but meanwhile
, very quietly, has deliveredmassive, significant,
life-changing value to manyclients.
Maybe they're not worthbillions of dollars, but a
million bucks is a million bucks.
Josh, thank you so much fortoday and looking forward to
another great year working withyou.
Thank you, alex.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
That's all for this episode of the Due Diligence
Project podcast.
Be sure to visit due diligenceprojectcom to access the
resources we have available forqualified CPAs and family office
leaders.
Our mission at the DueDiligence Project is to help you
deliver more significance andvalue to your very best clients,
while shifting your traditionalpractice into the firm of the
(23:35):
future.
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