June 5, 2025 • 28 mins
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As a private optometry practice owner, one of the most essential yet misunderstood financial decisions is figuring out how much to pay yourself. In this episode, Evon Mendrin dives into seven critical factors to consider when setting your own compensation from your optometry practice—especially if you're taxed as an S Corporation.
Whether you're just getting started or running a thriving, established practice, this episode will help you balance tax strategy, financial planning, and long-term wealth-building with clarity and confidence.
You’ll learn:
- How income draws differ based on how your practice is taxed (sole proprietor, partnership, or S-corp)
- Why paying yourself “too little” can backfire with the IRS
- How your wage affects your Social Security benefits, QBI deduction, and retirement plan contributions
- The surprising ways your compensation impacts practice valuations and financial planning
- How to align your income with your lifestyle and financial goals
Resources Mentioned:
- Independent Strong Article: How to Pay Yourself – Key Factors for Setting Your Owner Compensation
- IRS Guidance on Reasonable Compensation for S Corps
Related Episodes:
- The Optometry Money Podcast Ep 51: An Optometrist’s Guide to the Qualified Business Income Deduction
- The Optometry Money Podcast Ep. 49: An Optometrist’s Guide to Business Entities
Stay Connected:
- Click here to Subscribe to the Eyes On The Money Newsletter for weekly financial insights tailored specifically to optometrists.
- Have Questions? CLICK HERE to schedule a short introductory call
The Optometry Money Podcast is dedicated to helping optometrists make better decisions around their money, careers, and practices. The show is hosted by Evon Mendrin, CFP®, CSLP®, owner of Optometry Wealth Advisors, a financial planning firm just for optometrists nationwide.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evon (00:04):
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to the OptometryMoney Podcast.
With we help and ODs all overthe country make better and
better decisions around theirmoney, their careers, and their
practices.
I am your host, Evon Mendrin,Certified Financial Planner,
practitioner, and owner ofOptometry Wealth Advisors, an
independent financial planningfirm just for optometrists
(00:25):
nationwide.
And thank you so much forlistening.
Really appreciate your time andyour attention today.
And today's episode.
We are gonna dive into thequestion of how much should you
pay yourself from your practice?
And a very common question Iget, especially from early stage
practice owners, so recentlycold started or recently
purchased within the last fiveyears or so.
(00:46):
A common question is.
How much should we pay ourself?
How much income should we takefrom the practice?
When should that change?
But that isn't a question onlyfor early stage practice owners.
This is a question that we needto think through with
established practice owners andkeeping an eye on how much
income they're drawing from thepractice and how much they're
paying theirself in wages, andwhen to make those adjustments.
(01:08):
And so into this episode, Iwanna talk about seven key
factors or seven keyconsiderations to balance as you
think about how much to payyourself from your practice,
specifically in terms of a wage,and this is for practices that
are taxed as an S corporation.
Most of what we'll talk abouttoday are going to pertain to
(01:29):
those practices that are taxedas this as corporations, because
you have that requirement to paywage, and so you have to decide
how much of your income shouldyou take and how much of that
income should be an actual wage.
But I think regardless of howyour practice entity is taxed, I
think you'll learn somethingabout these decisions today.
and this conversation today isjust, is going to be an
(01:51):
extension or a continuation ofmy article with Independent,
strong.
and that article was How to PayYourself: Key Factors For
Setting Your Owner Compensation.
So I'll throw a link to that inthe show notes.
Recommend reading that and someof the other articles we've done
there.
But I think the, the first placethat I think that makes sense to
start is just talking throughhow you as the owner, take
(02:13):
income from your practicedepending on the different type
of entity you have or reallydepending on how your entity is
taxed.
The first one is if you are, ifyou own a sole proprietorship,
meaning there is no actual.
legal entity separate fromyourself.
It's just you doing business assomething, or if you have an LLC
and that LLC is taxed as thesole proprietorship, there's
(02:36):
only one owner.
And, this is the default waysthat LLCs are going to be taxed
if there's one owner.
Unless you've chosen to dosomething else.
So if you have this type ofpractice entity, how do you pull
income from the practice?
Well, it really is just anowner's draw.
You're just taking dollars fromthe practice bank account and
transferring it to your personalhousehold bank account, or
(02:59):
you're writing a check toyourself.
It really is as simple as that.
I mean, that's, that'sessentially how that looks.
If you are a partnership or ifyou have a.
An LLC that is taxed as apartnership.
There's two or more owners, andit's taxed as a partnership.
It can come in two forms, numberone, it can look like a profit
distribution, so that's gonnalook.
(03:21):
Very much like it would look ina sole proprietorship.
You're moving dollars from yourpractice bank account over to
your personal one, or it couldshow up as guaranteed payments.
if you pull up profit and loss,you might see guaranteed
payments in there for eachpartner.
And this is a Form of a wagelike this, is the partnership's
(03:42):
version something similar towhat you'd see as a wage?
Basically, it allows thepartnership to send dollars to
an owner, regardless of what theactual profit of the business
is.
So if different partners areworking in different schedules
or, or, different amounts ofproduction, this might be a way
to sort of, distribute incomeamong different partners
(04:04):
depending on the production.
Now, if you see that on yourprofit and loss, if you see that
your, your practice is creatingguaranteed payments as, as part
of that income, I would talk toyour TA tax professional and ask
about how that impacts.
The QBI deduction and whether,you can distribute income in
different ways that are not soheavily leaning on guaranteed
(04:25):
payments.
Because only the actual profitof the partnership is eligible
for that QBI deduction, theguaranteed payments are not.
So something you'll just wannalook into and.
and your partnership agreementor your operating agreement's
going to be the rules aroundthat.
So that's something you'll wannakeep an eye on and, and review
as well.
But that's what a partnershiplooks like it's either gonna be
profit distributions, to thepartners, or it's gonna show up
(04:48):
as guaranteed payments on theprofit and loss.
either way it's going to bemoving dollars from the bank
account or the practice to thebank account of the owner.
S corporation is different.
if you've listened to my, to myepisode on how these different
entities work, I'll throw a linkto that in the show notes.
But an S corporation is a taxelection.
It's a, it's a way that yourbusiness chooses to be taxed.
(05:11):
the legal entity isn't an Scorporation.
the legal entity's either goingto be in LLC.
It's gonna be a, A corporationin certain states, and some
states I've seen a PA as well,but the legal entity's one
thing, and then your legalentity, the LLC, the corporation
can elect to be taxed as an Scorporation.
(05:31):
And so the S corporation is atax election and the way that
you draw income from an Scorporation is you take a wage,
a required wage.
And then you can distribute toyourself profit distributions,
similar to the other forms, youcan send dollars from the
practice bank account over toyour personal bank account.
(05:53):
And so number one, and so yourwages, you're gonna be on a
payroll just like everyone elsein your practice.
And then you can take owners'draws distributions in addition
to that.
And the S corporation is, Isespecially interesting and, and
most of our conversation todayis gonna be in light of those
practices that are taxed as Scorporations.
(06:14):
How much should you pay yourselfin wage?
How high should that be?
How low should that be?
When should that be increased?
And how much should you take asowners distributions and when
you think about the benefit ofchoosing to be taxed as an S
corporation.
The primary benefit from a taxperspective is saving employment
(06:36):
taxes, because when you aretaxed as a sole proprietor, all
of your net income fromself-employment is subject to
self-employment taxes.
So both halves of socialsecurity, and both halves of
Medicare.
However, when you are taxed asan S Corporation, only the wage
portion of your income issubject to employment, taxes,
(06:58):
social Security, and Medicare.
But the profit of the businessis not.
And so whatever the profit is,you save roughly 15.3% of those
employment taxes on that profit.
That's part of the benefit, andso very often we are thinking
about the wages of trying tobring that wage as low as
possible.
And in some conversations I'vehad over the years, we've seen
(07:21):
wages unreasonably low.
I mean sometimes around like$30,000 specifically to save
taxes, but as we'll ha as we'llgo through this conversation
that that can't be the case.
And what I want to talk throughtoday is what are the different
considerations you need to thinkthrough?
To figure out how much your wageshould be relative to those
profit distributions.
(07:42):
there is that he heavy incentiveto bring it down.
But as we'll see, there are alsosituations where you want to
increase your wage.
I.
there are other planningopportunities that are going to,
that are where we're going towant to increase that wage a
little bit more.
And so let's talk about sevenkey considerations you wanna
keep in mind for figuring outhow much wage to pay yourself in
(08:03):
the practice when your practiceis taxed as an S corporation.
the first one to think through,number one is cashflow.
Sustainability.
your practice has to be bringingin enough gross revenue.
Collected revenue in order topay for inventory, cost of goods
sold in order to pay for all theother operating expenses,
occupancy costs, non-OD staff,OD staff compensation.
(08:26):
If you have associate doctors,go through the list of operating
expenses, your, your practicehas to be creating enough cash
flow after those primaryexpenses to pay yourself a wage.
So the first thing that has tobe looked at is what is the cash
flow of the business.
This is more so important with acold start because in a cold
start, it may take two, threeyears before you really start to
(08:47):
see enough cash flow to providefor yourself a, a healthy wage.
So you really wanna keep an eyeon the cash flow, sustainability
of taking a wage and, and nottaking too much, too quickly.
But even in situations whereowners have, have purchase
practices, it may make sense tokeep that wage than we might
(09:08):
otherwise set it.
But those owners are oftenwondering, Hey, when does it
make sense to increase it?
Right?
So the first thing we just needto keep an eye on is what does
the cash flow of the practicelook like?
What can the cash flow support.
number two is the IRS reasonablewage requirements.
When you own a business that'staxed as an S corporation, the
(09:29):
IRS has a requirement, you havea requirement to pay yourself,
the owner, a reasonable wage,quote, unquote reasonable before
you start taking profitdistributions, the first thing
that has to be met is you have areasonable wage that is
compliant to yourself and, andwhat is reasonable, quote
unquote reasonable.
Well, there is no specific blackand white rule or formula to
(09:54):
figure out what is reasonable.
you'll see a lot of stuff outthere about, like, rules of
thumb, make sure that it's 50%of your profit or something like
that.
Well, there's nothing reallysupporting that.
But when you look at the IRSwebsite, and I'll, I'll add this
to the show notes, you're gonnasee that they provide a list of
factors.
some factors they consider todetermine like a reasonable
(10:14):
compensation are training andexperience, your duties and
responsibilities.
So what are you actually doingin the practice?
Are you only seeing patients?
Do you have management oradministrative responsibilities?
How often are you seeingpatients?
How much time are you actuallyspending in the clinic seeing
patients each week?
your time and effort devoted tothe business, your dividend
history, so your, your historyof distributions, payments to
(10:36):
non-shareholder employees,timing and matter of paying
bonuses to keep people.
What comparable businesses payfor similar services,
compensation agreements, the useof a formula to determine
compensation.
When you kind of boil it down,it really comes down to what
would you pay someone else, todo the work that you are doing
(10:56):
in the business as an employee?
And I've seen some consultantsand tax professionals really
actually like formulate it down.
Like, how much of your time areyou spending seeing patients as
a clinician?
How much of your time are youdoing administrative duties?
And you know, what would the,what would the wage be for each
of those broken down?
So.
Really, that's the way you'dwanna look at it, is what is a
(11:17):
reasonable wage for the, thework that you are doing based on
your experience, in thepractice.
And, and ultimately you wouldwanna just talk to your tax
professional to make sure it'scompliant.
There is no perfect amount.
It's, it's all a, a, a range,right?
So you have to figure out whatthat reasonable range is for
your area of the United States,and I would lean entirely on
(11:39):
your tax professional that makesure that that's compliant.
So number two is that reasonablerage requirements by the IRS.
And for those of you who arepaying yourself 30,000,$40,000,
that's unless you're workingless than part-time, that's not
reasonable.
So you wanna make sure you'renot gonna be falling into
trouble with the IRS.
(12:00):
number three, employment, taxesand compensation.
And this is the primary taxbenefit of choosing to be, taxed
as an S corporation, is thatonly your wages are subject to
employment taxes.
The profit is not, and hencethis incentive to keep your
wages on the lower end of thatreasonable range.
(12:22):
and in 2025, wages up to 176,100are subject to, social security
tax of 12.4%.
So that's both halves of it.
The employer and the employee,you are both.
Any wages above that are notsubject to, so, social security
taxes.
but all of your wages faceMedicare taxes, and that's a
(12:43):
total of 2.9%.
Again, half paid by you as theemployee, half as the business
owner.
So you do have to keep in mindthe potential tax savings by
maintaining a, reasonable, butpotentially relatively low wage.
As a part of your tax planning.
I would also look at things likefringe benefits.
(13:03):
For example, health insurancepaid through the practice.
HSA contributions, dentalinsurance paid through the
practice.
Those fringe benefits paidthrough your practice or through
your payroll as the owner haveto be added back to your pay
stub as a wage for income taxes.
So you're gonna see that addedback as income on your pay
stubs.
However, those fringe benefitsaren't subject to these
(13:26):
employment taxes.
So.
That's sort of a sneaky way toincrease your wage to something
that is reasonable withoutincreasing the amount of social
security and Medicare taxesyou're gonna be paying.
So tax planning aroundemployment taxes is definitely
something you need to keep inmind and work closely with your
um, Advisors on.
But the other side of thatthat's really important is your
(13:48):
social security benefit in thefuture.
because if you are lowering yourwages below that social security
wage base, that$176,000, ifyou're lowering your wage below
that, that means you are missingout on credited wages towards
your social security, benefit inthe future.
(14:08):
And, and so we kind of have tobalance that out.
We have to consider that.
However, when we, we also haveto think about the way that
Social Security calculates yourbenefit at full retirement age,
which right now is age 67 for,most of the people listening.
When you think about what, howsocial security calculates your
benefit.
Again, at your full retirementage, what they're gonna do is
(14:30):
they're gonna look at your pastearnings at the highest subset
of your, your past earningshistory, specifically your wages
or income that were subject toSocial security taxes, and
they're going to adjust pastyears of wages or earnings.
for inflation up to age 60.
So they're gonna sort ofequalize them for inflation, and
then they're gonna look at youraverage monthly wages based on
(14:54):
all these years of earningshistory.
And then when they calculateyour benefit, they're going to
replace a certain percentage ofthat average wage, but in tiers.
So, for example, they're gonnareplace 90%.
In, in 2025's dollars, they'regonna replace 90% of the first
$1,226 of monthly wage.
(15:18):
for the next chunk of yourmonthly wage up to about$7,300.
They're only gonna replace 32%of those dollars.
And then for the last bits ofyour monthly wage, over and
above roughly$7,300 a monththey're only gonna replace 15%.
So there's a sort of tieredpercentage of your monthly wage
(15:42):
that's gonna be replaced as partof your benefit.
As we know, social security ismeant to, is built to help lower
earning, retirees more.
And so we see this in theformula in 2025 dollars, Once
your annual wage gets to about$103,400, between that and
170,000 or so, your benefit'sonly gonna replace about 15% of
(16:05):
your income.
So hopefully that's not clear asmud, but the reason I point that
out is because, you know, onceyou get to that point, you're
really getting back a smallpercentage of your income and
social security benefit.
So if you have a healthy savingsrate, which is really important,
and a consistent habit ofsaving, then you may benefit
(16:25):
from keeping your wage belowthat social security wage limit
about 176,000 or so, and justinvesting the extra wages
yourself.
Your return on those dollars maybe higher.
Of course that's not guaranteed,but it may very well be higher
than just the 15% you're gonnaget back on that social security
(16:47):
benefit for those extra wages inthat 15% tier.
Now, that only works if you havea healthy savings rate and a
consistent habit throughout yourcareer of investing those wages.
However, too often and I, I'veseen this many times too often.
There just isn't enough savedfor retirement over the career
of the owner.
(17:07):
And the owner may have beenbetter off increasing wages and
just getting a higher socialsecurity benefit.
You have to know yourself alittle bit and, you know, can
you be disciplined about takingthose extra dollars and
investing it rather than justspending it and, and let it go
to waste.
So there's two sides to thatcoin.
Yes, you wanna save taxes onsocial security taxes and
(17:28):
Medicare taxes, but you alsowant to optimize your wages for
that social security benefit aswell.
Number four, the QBI deduction.
And this is what I, I talkedabout earlier with guaranteed
payments and partnerships.
with an S corporation, the QBIdeduction, that 20% deduction
that is currently happeningthrough 2025, and we expect that
(17:50):
through legislation to beextended into 2026.
Although we don't know for sure,only the profit of your business
is eligible for that deduction.
The wage portion of that is not,so the higher your wages, the
lower your profit, that meansthe lower that deduction's gonna
be.
The lower your wages, the higheryour profit, the higher that
(18:14):
deduction's potentially going tobe.
Of course, it all depends on themath of, of the situation there,
but so that deduction issomething you wanna keep in mind
as well of figuring out, okay,what is the optimal wage to have
based on the, the planningopportunity with that QBI
deduction.
Number five, personal financialstability.
Above all else.
Your practice should beproviding for your ideal
(18:36):
lifestyle.
I would consider that theprimary and main reason you own
the business, that you go towork every day is so that
business can provide for yourideal lifestyle, which includes
saving and investing for thefuture and for different goals
like college savings anddifferent things like that.
But it should support your ideallifestyle spending.
(18:56):
What do you wanna spend dollarson?
What are home updates you wannaplan for?
Who are the people or.
Institution, organizations youwanna give money to on a regular
basis?
So you wanna make sure that yourpractice is supporting it and
there's no simpler way to createa consistent, predictable income
from the business than settingyour wage at or around that
ideal lifestyle.
(19:18):
And this requires, of course,you understanding the numbers,
understanding, what you actuallywant your ideal lifestyle to
look like in dollars?
What, what do you wanna spend?
Ideally, who do you wanna giftto?
Ideally, what are some of theother goals you wanna set aside
dollars for each and everymonth?
What are the debts that you'repaying, on a month to month
basis?
And so, having clarity aroundwhat that ideal lifestyle is
(19:39):
gonna be should then inform yourwage as well, so that you can
set a wage that can give youpredictable, consistent income
to meet that lifestyle.
number six, retirement planmaximization.
This is one of the, one of theimportant factors that are going
to nudge you to increase yourwage.
(20:01):
Because your W2 wage is directlygoing to determine your
retirement plan contributionlimits.
So for example, if you're makingsalary deferrals as an employee,
whether it's to, 401k or simpleIRA, you have to have enough
wage in order to do that and tocover payroll and to cover your
lifestyle expenses.
(20:21):
So your, your salary has to behigh enough to, to meet your,
your retirement plan savingsgoal.
but importantly, 401k Profitsharing contributions are
directly impacted by the wagespaid in your practice and by the
wages you pay yourself.
401k profit sharingcontributions are limited as a
whole to 25% of W2 wages in yourpractice.
(20:46):
And your age and the wage thatyou pay yourself can directly
impact that amount of thecontribution from when you're
doing profit sharing that skewstowards your accounts Versus all
other employees, depending onthe, the calculation, the method
of, of your profit sharing.
if you're doing newcomparability for example,
(21:07):
that's gonna be very important.
And so sometimes for just toincrease that profit sharing
contribution to where it needsto be, sometimes increasing that
wage helps quite a bit andallows more of that contribution
to skew towards your accountversus all other employees.
this is something we saw with,tax projections over the last
year.
as we got towards the end of theyear.
(21:27):
We saw that there'sopportunities where clients are
phasing out of certaindeductions like the QBI
deduction or the child taxcredit and large, healthy profit
sharing contributions allowedthem to phase back in and
increasing their wage at the endof the year, before the end of
the year, allowed them to reallybenefit even when you account
(21:47):
for the additional socialsecurity taxes.
So that's something you wannakeep in mind as well.
And cash balance plan.
If you have a, an establishedpractice, if you're older and
you have really healthy cashflow in the practice, maybe you
have a cash balance plan orconsidering it, that's gonna be
directly impacted by your ageand your compensation history.
So for owners focusing onretirement, accumulation of
getting the most out of theseretirement plans.
(22:10):
You know, there's a temptationto lower your wage as much as
possible for those tax savings,but it's gonna directly impact
this.
This is something you have tobalance with those tax savings.
number seven, practice valuationand accurate accounting of
profit.
And, I say this because yourwage should reflect the true
(22:30):
replacement cost of yourclinical and management work
because someone needs to do thework.
Whether it's you seeing patientsor whether you hire someone
else, whether you bring in anassociate doctor your wage, the
cost of you doing that work is atrue expense to your business.
when you have artificially lowcompensation for yourself.
(22:54):
This could in inflate practiceprofitability, if you are
looking at your p and l eachmonth or each year, each quarter
in whatever cadence, you'relooking at that and you're
looking at how profitable yourbusiness is.
If your wage is too low, thatprofitability is too high.
It doesn't reflect the accurateprofitability of the practice,
it's gonna skew your ownbenchmarking, and it can skew
(23:15):
your decision making.
So just for benchmarking and KPIperspectives.
I like to make sure there's amarket based wage for the work
that you're doing.
And if you're doing valuations,then any valuation that's
happening for your practiceneeds to account for market
based compensation happening forthe work you're doing.
So adjustments would have to behappening as a part of that
valuation process.
(23:35):
So just for clean accounting andaccurate KPIs and decision
making on your part, I, I liketo see there to be a
market-based wage, in thepractice and.
So that's number seven.
Again, when we think aboutthese, these factors.
Number one, cashflowsustainability.
Number two, the IRS, reasonablewage requirements, number three.
(23:57):
Employment taxes for taxplanning purposes.
Number four, planning aroundthat QBI deduction.
Number five, your own personalfinancial stability.
Number six, retirement planmaximization is something that's
gonna nudge you to increase thatwage.
number seven, practicevaluation.
Just accurate accounting, of theprofit of your practice.
(24:17):
Those are seven keyconsiderations I think about as
you talk with your financialprofessionals, your financial
Advisors, your tax Advisors.
Those are different thingsyou're gonna wanna balance and
don't allow one to override allof the others entirely.
You wanna think about all thesethings sort of holistically
depending on your goals, right?
What are you, what are youplanning for?
(24:38):
What are the opportunities thatyou're seeing as you are wanting
to increase your savings rate asyou're wanting to?
as you're going through taxprojections and wanting to make
good tax planning decisions,what are the opportunities
available to you?
And you're looking at your owncash flow.
What are the opportunitiesavailable to you?
One thing that just popped in mymind as well and related to the
wage, related to employmenttaxes and compensation and that
(24:59):
there are also state and localbenefits.
For example, State disabilityinsurance or paid family leave
that are dependent on the wageyou're paying yourself as well.
So, you know, look at your stateand local benefits that you are
maybe missing out on or nottaking fully advantage of if
your wage is unreasonably low.
So keep that in mind as well,but hopefully this is helpful.
Again, if you are, if yourpractice is taxed differently,
(25:20):
for example, a partnership, someof these things you'll want to
think about like guaranteedpayments in relation to the QBI
deduction and.
What your operating orpartnership agreement allows you
to do, says you have to dothere.
but things like the profit andloss, for example, if you are,
if you're not taxed as an Scorp, the profit and loss is
kinda look different like yourowner distributions if you're,
(25:41):
if you're taxed as a soleproprietorship, well that's
gonna, that's not gonna show upon your P&L as wages, right?
You have to account for thatseparately when when looking at
your business and, and, lookingat the real true profitability
of business.
So, it's gonna look, some ofthese things are gonna look
differently depending on the wayyour business is taxed, but a
lot of these are primarily gonnabe around the S corporation.
(26:02):
What does it look like if yourpractice is in S corporation?
And so as you set your wage,hopefully this is helpful.
As you think about what are thedifferent considerations to
doing that, what should you bethinking about and balancing as
you are wondering if you shouldbe increasing that or if your
wage is too low relative to, tothe profit.
And and then the otherconsideration is.
(26:22):
How much and when should youtake distributions from the
practice?
and that's even anotherdiscussion of when you should be
able to take distributions fromthe practice and do other things
with that cash, because youdon't wanna leave too much cash
in the practice.
You wanna leave just enough cashto provide a healthy cash
buffer, a reasonable cash bufferfor the practice, to know that
(26:44):
your debt payments can be made.
You wanna know you're settingaside enough dollars for
Quarterly tax payments if you'remaking quarterly tax payments.
and then finally, once you'vekind of taken care of those
things, then you have a clearidea of how much cash is
available for distribution.
So that's another discussionthat relies heavily on what the
cash flow of the business lookslike.
But as you're thinking aboutyour own compensation, as you're
(27:05):
thinking about your own lifecircumstances, like.
Practice revenue growth orincreased profitability or
additions of a partner to thepractice or major personal
finance changes like you wannabuy a home or planning for a
college for kids.
if you are implementing a newretirement plan in the practice,
if you're expanding thebusiness, if there's changes in
laws, like tax laws are all influx right now.
(27:28):
all of those things are goodopportunities for you to review
this and see if changes need tobe made.
So talk with your financialadvisor, talk with your tax
professional, and if you don'thave one, if you are looking for
someone to, to look at thesenumbers with you to make good
decisions around all thesedifferent, sometimes competing
goals and, and priorities.
Reach out.
We'd love to have thatconversation with you.
We'd love to hear the financialquestions on your mind and talk
(27:51):
about how we help optometristssolve those and navigate those
decisions all over the country.
Check out the show notes.
I'll throw on link in there ifyou'd like to schedule a short
introductory call..
And appreciate your time.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
In the meantime, take care.
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to the OptometryMoney Podcast.
With we help and ODs all overthe country make better and
better decisions around theirmoney, their careers, and their
practices.
I am your host, Evon Mendrin,Certified Financial Planner,
practitioner, and owner ofOptometry Wealth Advisors, an
independent financial planningfirm just for optometrists
(00:25):
nationwide.
And thank you so much forlistening.
Really appreciate your time andyour attention today.
And today's episode.
We are gonna dive into thequestion of how much should you
pay yourself from your practice?
And a very common question Iget, especially from early stage
practice owners, so recentlycold started or recently
purchased within the last fiveyears or so.
(00:46):
A common question is.
How much should we pay ourself?
How much income should we takefrom the practice?
When should that change?
But that isn't a question onlyfor early stage practice owners.
This is a question that we needto think through with
established practice owners andkeeping an eye on how much
income they're drawing from thepractice and how much they're
paying theirself in wages, andwhen to make those adjustments.
(01:08):
And so into this episode, Iwanna talk about seven key
factors or seven keyconsiderations to balance as you
think about how much to payyourself from your practice,
specifically in terms of a wage,and this is for practices that
are taxed as an S corporation.
Most of what we'll talk abouttoday are going to pertain to
(01:29):
those practices that are taxedas this as corporations, because
you have that requirement to paywage, and so you have to decide
how much of your income shouldyou take and how much of that
income should be an actual wage.
But I think regardless of howyour practice entity is taxed, I
think you'll learn somethingabout these decisions today.
and this conversation today isjust, is going to be an
(01:51):
extension or a continuation ofmy article with Independent,
strong.
and that article was How to PayYourself: Key Factors For
Setting Your Owner Compensation.
So I'll throw a link to that inthe show notes.
Recommend reading that and someof the other articles we've done
there.
But I think the, the first placethat I think that makes sense to
start is just talking throughhow you as the owner, take
(02:13):
income from your practicedepending on the different type
of entity you have or reallydepending on how your entity is
taxed.
The first one is if you are, ifyou own a sole proprietorship,
meaning there is no actual.
legal entity separate fromyourself.
It's just you doing business assomething, or if you have an LLC
and that LLC is taxed as thesole proprietorship, there's
(02:36):
only one owner.
And, this is the default waysthat LLCs are going to be taxed
if there's one owner.
Unless you've chosen to dosomething else.
So if you have this type ofpractice entity, how do you pull
income from the practice?
Well, it really is just anowner's draw.
You're just taking dollars fromthe practice bank account and
transferring it to your personalhousehold bank account, or
(02:59):
you're writing a check toyourself.
It really is as simple as that.
I mean, that's, that'sessentially how that looks.
If you are a partnership or ifyou have a.
An LLC that is taxed as apartnership.
There's two or more owners, andit's taxed as a partnership.
It can come in two forms, numberone, it can look like a profit
distribution, so that's gonnalook.
(03:21):
Very much like it would look ina sole proprietorship.
You're moving dollars from yourpractice bank account over to
your personal one, or it couldshow up as guaranteed payments.
if you pull up profit and loss,you might see guaranteed
payments in there for eachpartner.
And this is a Form of a wagelike this, is the partnership's
(03:42):
version something similar towhat you'd see as a wage?
Basically, it allows thepartnership to send dollars to
an owner, regardless of what theactual profit of the business
is.
So if different partners areworking in different schedules
or, or, different amounts ofproduction, this might be a way
to sort of, distribute incomeamong different partners
(04:04):
depending on the production.
Now, if you see that on yourprofit and loss, if you see that
your, your practice is creatingguaranteed payments as, as part
of that income, I would talk toyour TA tax professional and ask
about how that impacts.
The QBI deduction and whether,you can distribute income in
different ways that are not soheavily leaning on guaranteed
(04:25):
payments.
Because only the actual profitof the partnership is eligible
for that QBI deduction, theguaranteed payments are not.
So something you'll just wannalook into and.
and your partnership agreementor your operating agreement's
going to be the rules aroundthat.
So that's something you'll wannakeep an eye on and, and review
as well.
But that's what a partnershiplooks like it's either gonna be
profit distributions, to thepartners, or it's gonna show up
(04:48):
as guaranteed payments on theprofit and loss.
either way it's going to bemoving dollars from the bank
account or the practice to thebank account of the owner.
S corporation is different.
if you've listened to my, to myepisode on how these different
entities work, I'll throw a linkto that in the show notes.
But an S corporation is a taxelection.
It's a, it's a way that yourbusiness chooses to be taxed.
(05:11):
the legal entity isn't an Scorporation.
the legal entity's either goingto be in LLC.
It's gonna be a, A corporationin certain states, and some
states I've seen a PA as well,but the legal entity's one
thing, and then your legalentity, the LLC, the corporation
can elect to be taxed as an Scorporation.
(05:31):
And so the S corporation is atax election and the way that
you draw income from an Scorporation is you take a wage,
a required wage.
And then you can distribute toyourself profit distributions,
similar to the other forms, youcan send dollars from the
practice bank account over toyour personal bank account.
(05:53):
And so number one, and so yourwages, you're gonna be on a
payroll just like everyone elsein your practice.
And then you can take owners'draws distributions in addition
to that.
And the S corporation is, Isespecially interesting and, and
most of our conversation todayis gonna be in light of those
practices that are taxed as Scorporations.
(06:14):
How much should you pay yourselfin wage?
How high should that be?
How low should that be?
When should that be increased?
And how much should you take asowners distributions and when
you think about the benefit ofchoosing to be taxed as an S
corporation.
The primary benefit from a taxperspective is saving employment
(06:36):
taxes, because when you aretaxed as a sole proprietor, all
of your net income fromself-employment is subject to
self-employment taxes.
So both halves of socialsecurity, and both halves of
Medicare.
However, when you are taxed asan S Corporation, only the wage
portion of your income issubject to employment, taxes,
(06:58):
social Security, and Medicare.
But the profit of the businessis not.
And so whatever the profit is,you save roughly 15.3% of those
employment taxes on that profit.
That's part of the benefit, andso very often we are thinking
about the wages of trying tobring that wage as low as
possible.
And in some conversations I'vehad over the years, we've seen
(07:21):
wages unreasonably low.
I mean sometimes around like$30,000 specifically to save
taxes, but as we'll ha as we'llgo through this conversation
that that can't be the case.
And what I want to talk throughtoday is what are the different
considerations you need to thinkthrough?
To figure out how much your wageshould be relative to those
profit distributions.
(07:42):
there is that he heavy incentiveto bring it down.
But as we'll see, there are alsosituations where you want to
increase your wage.
I.
there are other planningopportunities that are going to,
that are where we're going towant to increase that wage a
little bit more.
And so let's talk about sevenkey considerations you wanna
keep in mind for figuring outhow much wage to pay yourself in
(08:03):
the practice when your practiceis taxed as an S corporation.
the first one to think through,number one is cashflow.
Sustainability.
your practice has to be bringingin enough gross revenue.
Collected revenue in order topay for inventory, cost of goods
sold in order to pay for all theother operating expenses,
occupancy costs, non-OD staff,OD staff compensation.
(08:26):
If you have associate doctors,go through the list of operating
expenses, your, your practicehas to be creating enough cash
flow after those primaryexpenses to pay yourself a wage.
So the first thing that has tobe looked at is what is the cash
flow of the business.
This is more so important with acold start because in a cold
start, it may take two, threeyears before you really start to
(08:47):
see enough cash flow to providefor yourself a, a healthy wage.
So you really wanna keep an eyeon the cash flow, sustainability
of taking a wage and, and nottaking too much, too quickly.
But even in situations whereowners have, have purchase
practices, it may make sense tokeep that wage than we might
(09:08):
otherwise set it.
But those owners are oftenwondering, Hey, when does it
make sense to increase it?
Right?
So the first thing we just needto keep an eye on is what does
the cash flow of the practicelook like?
What can the cash flow support.
number two is the IRS reasonablewage requirements.
When you own a business that'staxed as an S corporation, the
(09:29):
IRS has a requirement, you havea requirement to pay yourself,
the owner, a reasonable wage,quote, unquote reasonable before
you start taking profitdistributions, the first thing
that has to be met is you have areasonable wage that is
compliant to yourself and, andwhat is reasonable, quote
unquote reasonable.
Well, there is no specific blackand white rule or formula to
(09:54):
figure out what is reasonable.
you'll see a lot of stuff outthere about, like, rules of
thumb, make sure that it's 50%of your profit or something like
that.
Well, there's nothing reallysupporting that.
But when you look at the IRSwebsite, and I'll, I'll add this
to the show notes, you're gonnasee that they provide a list of
factors.
some factors they consider todetermine like a reasonable
(10:14):
compensation are training andexperience, your duties and
responsibilities.
So what are you actually doingin the practice?
Are you only seeing patients?
Do you have management oradministrative responsibilities?
How often are you seeingpatients?
How much time are you actuallyspending in the clinic seeing
patients each week?
your time and effort devoted tothe business, your dividend
history, so your, your historyof distributions, payments to
(10:36):
non-shareholder employees,timing and matter of paying
bonuses to keep people.
What comparable businesses payfor similar services,
compensation agreements, the useof a formula to determine
compensation.
When you kind of boil it down,it really comes down to what
would you pay someone else, todo the work that you are doing
(10:56):
in the business as an employee?
And I've seen some consultantsand tax professionals really
actually like formulate it down.
Like, how much of your time areyou spending seeing patients as
a clinician?
How much of your time are youdoing administrative duties?
And you know, what would the,what would the wage be for each
of those broken down?
So.
Really, that's the way you'dwanna look at it, is what is a
(11:17):
reasonable wage for the, thework that you are doing based on
your experience, in thepractice.
And, and ultimately you wouldwanna just talk to your tax
professional to make sure it'scompliant.
There is no perfect amount.
It's, it's all a, a, a range,right?
So you have to figure out whatthat reasonable range is for
your area of the United States,and I would lean entirely on
(11:39):
your tax professional that makesure that that's compliant.
So number two is that reasonablerage requirements by the IRS.
And for those of you who arepaying yourself 30,000,$40,000,
that's unless you're workingless than part-time, that's not
reasonable.
So you wanna make sure you'renot gonna be falling into
trouble with the IRS.
(12:00):
number three, employment, taxesand compensation.
And this is the primary taxbenefit of choosing to be, taxed
as an S corporation, is thatonly your wages are subject to
employment taxes.
The profit is not, and hencethis incentive to keep your
wages on the lower end of thatreasonable range.
(12:22):
and in 2025, wages up to 176,100are subject to, social security
tax of 12.4%.
So that's both halves of it.
The employer and the employee,you are both.
Any wages above that are notsubject to, so, social security
taxes.
but all of your wages faceMedicare taxes, and that's a
(12:43):
total of 2.9%.
Again, half paid by you as theemployee, half as the business
owner.
So you do have to keep in mindthe potential tax savings by
maintaining a, reasonable, butpotentially relatively low wage.
As a part of your tax planning.
I would also look at things likefringe benefits.
(13:03):
For example, health insurancepaid through the practice.
HSA contributions, dentalinsurance paid through the
practice.
Those fringe benefits paidthrough your practice or through
your payroll as the owner haveto be added back to your pay
stub as a wage for income taxes.
So you're gonna see that addedback as income on your pay
stubs.
However, those fringe benefitsaren't subject to these
(13:26):
employment taxes.
So.
That's sort of a sneaky way toincrease your wage to something
that is reasonable withoutincreasing the amount of social
security and Medicare taxesyou're gonna be paying.
So tax planning aroundemployment taxes is definitely
something you need to keep inmind and work closely with your
um, Advisors on.
But the other side of thatthat's really important is your
(13:48):
social security benefit in thefuture.
because if you are lowering yourwages below that social security
wage base, that$176,000, ifyou're lowering your wage below
that, that means you are missingout on credited wages towards
your social security, benefit inthe future.
(14:08):
And, and so we kind of have tobalance that out.
We have to consider that.
However, when we, we also haveto think about the way that
Social Security calculates yourbenefit at full retirement age,
which right now is age 67 for,most of the people listening.
When you think about what, howsocial security calculates your
benefit.
Again, at your full retirementage, what they're gonna do is
(14:30):
they're gonna look at your pastearnings at the highest subset
of your, your past earningshistory, specifically your wages
or income that were subject toSocial security taxes, and
they're going to adjust pastyears of wages or earnings.
for inflation up to age 60.
So they're gonna sort ofequalize them for inflation, and
then they're gonna look at youraverage monthly wages based on
(14:54):
all these years of earningshistory.
And then when they calculateyour benefit, they're going to
replace a certain percentage ofthat average wage, but in tiers.
So, for example, they're gonnareplace 90%.
In, in 2025's dollars, they'regonna replace 90% of the first
$1,226 of monthly wage.
(15:18):
for the next chunk of yourmonthly wage up to about$7,300.
They're only gonna replace 32%of those dollars.
And then for the last bits ofyour monthly wage, over and
above roughly$7,300 a monththey're only gonna replace 15%.
So there's a sort of tieredpercentage of your monthly wage
(15:42):
that's gonna be replaced as partof your benefit.
As we know, social security ismeant to, is built to help lower
earning, retirees more.
And so we see this in theformula in 2025 dollars, Once
your annual wage gets to about$103,400, between that and
170,000 or so, your benefit'sonly gonna replace about 15% of
(16:05):
your income.
So hopefully that's not clear asmud, but the reason I point that
out is because, you know, onceyou get to that point, you're
really getting back a smallpercentage of your income and
social security benefit.
So if you have a healthy savingsrate, which is really important,
and a consistent habit ofsaving, then you may benefit
(16:25):
from keeping your wage belowthat social security wage limit
about 176,000 or so, and justinvesting the extra wages
yourself.
Your return on those dollars maybe higher.
Of course that's not guaranteed,but it may very well be higher
than just the 15% you're gonnaget back on that social security
(16:47):
benefit for those extra wages inthat 15% tier.
Now, that only works if you havea healthy savings rate and a
consistent habit throughout yourcareer of investing those wages.
However, too often and I, I'veseen this many times too often.
There just isn't enough savedfor retirement over the career
of the owner.
(17:07):
And the owner may have beenbetter off increasing wages and
just getting a higher socialsecurity benefit.
You have to know yourself alittle bit and, you know, can
you be disciplined about takingthose extra dollars and
investing it rather than justspending it and, and let it go
to waste.
So there's two sides to thatcoin.
Yes, you wanna save taxes onsocial security taxes and
(17:28):
Medicare taxes, but you alsowant to optimize your wages for
that social security benefit aswell.
Number four, the QBI deduction.
And this is what I, I talkedabout earlier with guaranteed
payments and partnerships.
with an S corporation, the QBIdeduction, that 20% deduction
that is currently happeningthrough 2025, and we expect that
(17:50):
through legislation to beextended into 2026.
Although we don't know for sure,only the profit of your business
is eligible for that deduction.
The wage portion of that is not,so the higher your wages, the
lower your profit, that meansthe lower that deduction's gonna
be.
The lower your wages, the higheryour profit, the higher that
(18:14):
deduction's potentially going tobe.
Of course, it all depends on themath of, of the situation there,
but so that deduction issomething you wanna keep in mind
as well of figuring out, okay,what is the optimal wage to have
based on the, the planningopportunity with that QBI
deduction.
Number five, personal financialstability.
Above all else.
Your practice should beproviding for your ideal
(18:36):
lifestyle.
I would consider that theprimary and main reason you own
the business, that you go towork every day is so that
business can provide for yourideal lifestyle, which includes
saving and investing for thefuture and for different goals
like college savings anddifferent things like that.
But it should support your ideallifestyle spending.
(18:56):
What do you wanna spend dollarson?
What are home updates you wannaplan for?
Who are the people or.
Institution, organizations youwanna give money to on a regular
basis?
So you wanna make sure that yourpractice is supporting it and
there's no simpler way to createa consistent, predictable income
from the business than settingyour wage at or around that
ideal lifestyle.
(19:18):
And this requires, of course,you understanding the numbers,
understanding, what you actuallywant your ideal lifestyle to
look like in dollars?
What, what do you wanna spend?
Ideally, who do you wanna giftto?
Ideally, what are some of theother goals you wanna set aside
dollars for each and everymonth?
What are the debts that you'repaying, on a month to month
basis?
And so, having clarity aroundwhat that ideal lifestyle is
(19:39):
gonna be should then inform yourwage as well, so that you can
set a wage that can give youpredictable, consistent income
to meet that lifestyle.
number six, retirement planmaximization.
This is one of the, one of theimportant factors that are going
to nudge you to increase yourwage.
(20:01):
Because your W2 wage is directlygoing to determine your
retirement plan contributionlimits.
So for example, if you're makingsalary deferrals as an employee,
whether it's to, 401k or simpleIRA, you have to have enough
wage in order to do that and tocover payroll and to cover your
lifestyle expenses.
(20:21):
So your, your salary has to behigh enough to, to meet your,
your retirement plan savingsgoal.
but importantly, 401k Profitsharing contributions are
directly impacted by the wagespaid in your practice and by the
wages you pay yourself.
401k profit sharingcontributions are limited as a
whole to 25% of W2 wages in yourpractice.
(20:46):
And your age and the wage thatyou pay yourself can directly
impact that amount of thecontribution from when you're
doing profit sharing that skewstowards your accounts Versus all
other employees, depending onthe, the calculation, the method
of, of your profit sharing.
if you're doing newcomparability for example,
(21:07):
that's gonna be very important.
And so sometimes for just toincrease that profit sharing
contribution to where it needsto be, sometimes increasing that
wage helps quite a bit andallows more of that contribution
to skew towards your accountversus all other employees.
this is something we saw with,tax projections over the last
year.
as we got towards the end of theyear.
(21:27):
We saw that there'sopportunities where clients are
phasing out of certaindeductions like the QBI
deduction or the child taxcredit and large, healthy profit
sharing contributions allowedthem to phase back in and
increasing their wage at the endof the year, before the end of
the year, allowed them to reallybenefit even when you account
(21:47):
for the additional socialsecurity taxes.
So that's something you wannakeep in mind as well.
And cash balance plan.
If you have a, an establishedpractice, if you're older and
you have really healthy cashflow in the practice, maybe you
have a cash balance plan orconsidering it, that's gonna be
directly impacted by your ageand your compensation history.
So for owners focusing onretirement, accumulation of
getting the most out of theseretirement plans.
(22:10):
You know, there's a temptationto lower your wage as much as
possible for those tax savings,but it's gonna directly impact
this.
This is something you have tobalance with those tax savings.
number seven, practice valuationand accurate accounting of
profit.
And, I say this because yourwage should reflect the true
(22:30):
replacement cost of yourclinical and management work
because someone needs to do thework.
Whether it's you seeing patientsor whether you hire someone
else, whether you bring in anassociate doctor your wage, the
cost of you doing that work is atrue expense to your business.
when you have artificially lowcompensation for yourself.
(22:54):
This could in inflate practiceprofitability, if you are
looking at your p and l eachmonth or each year, each quarter
in whatever cadence, you'relooking at that and you're
looking at how profitable yourbusiness is.
If your wage is too low, thatprofitability is too high.
It doesn't reflect the accurateprofitability of the practice,
it's gonna skew your ownbenchmarking, and it can skew
(23:15):
your decision making.
So just for benchmarking and KPIperspectives.
I like to make sure there's amarket based wage for the work
that you're doing.
And if you're doing valuations,then any valuation that's
happening for your practiceneeds to account for market
based compensation happening forthe work you're doing.
So adjustments would have to behappening as a part of that
valuation process.
(23:35):
So just for clean accounting andaccurate KPIs and decision
making on your part, I, I liketo see there to be a
market-based wage, in thepractice and.
So that's number seven.
Again, when we think aboutthese, these factors.
Number one, cashflowsustainability.
Number two, the IRS, reasonablewage requirements, number three.
(23:57):
Employment taxes for taxplanning purposes.
Number four, planning aroundthat QBI deduction.
Number five, your own personalfinancial stability.
Number six, retirement planmaximization is something that's
gonna nudge you to increase thatwage.
number seven, practicevaluation.
Just accurate accounting, of theprofit of your practice.
(24:17):
Those are seven keyconsiderations I think about as
you talk with your financialprofessionals, your financial
Advisors, your tax Advisors.
Those are different thingsyou're gonna wanna balance and
don't allow one to override allof the others entirely.
You wanna think about all thesethings sort of holistically
depending on your goals, right?
What are you, what are youplanning for?
(24:38):
What are the opportunities thatyou're seeing as you are wanting
to increase your savings rate asyou're wanting to?
as you're going through taxprojections and wanting to make
good tax planning decisions,what are the opportunities
available to you?
And you're looking at your owncash flow.
What are the opportunitiesavailable to you?
One thing that just popped in mymind as well and related to the
wage, related to employmenttaxes and compensation and that
(24:59):
there are also state and localbenefits.
For example, State disabilityinsurance or paid family leave
that are dependent on the wageyou're paying yourself as well.
So, you know, look at your stateand local benefits that you are
maybe missing out on or nottaking fully advantage of if
your wage is unreasonably low.
So keep that in mind as well,but hopefully this is helpful.
Again, if you are, if yourpractice is taxed differently,
(25:20):
for example, a partnership, someof these things you'll want to
think about like guaranteedpayments in relation to the QBI
deduction and.
What your operating orpartnership agreement allows you
to do, says you have to dothere.
but things like the profit andloss, for example, if you are,
if you're not taxed as an Scorp, the profit and loss is
kinda look different like yourowner distributions if you're,
(25:41):
if you're taxed as a soleproprietorship, well that's
gonna, that's not gonna show upon your P&L as wages, right?
You have to account for thatseparately when when looking at
your business and, and, lookingat the real true profitability
of business.
So, it's gonna look, some ofthese things are gonna look
differently depending on the wayyour business is taxed, but a
lot of these are primarily gonnabe around the S corporation.
(26:02):
What does it look like if yourpractice is in S corporation?
And so as you set your wage,hopefully this is helpful.
As you think about what are thedifferent considerations to
doing that, what should you bethinking about and balancing as
you are wondering if you shouldbe increasing that or if your
wage is too low relative to, tothe profit.
And and then the otherconsideration is.
(26:22):
How much and when should youtake distributions from the
practice?
and that's even anotherdiscussion of when you should be
able to take distributions fromthe practice and do other things
with that cash, because youdon't wanna leave too much cash
in the practice.
You wanna leave just enough cashto provide a healthy cash
buffer, a reasonable cash bufferfor the practice, to know that
(26:44):
your debt payments can be made.
You wanna know you're settingaside enough dollars for
Quarterly tax payments if you'remaking quarterly tax payments.
and then finally, once you'vekind of taken care of those
things, then you have a clearidea of how much cash is
available for distribution.
So that's another discussionthat relies heavily on what the
cash flow of the business lookslike.
But as you're thinking aboutyour own compensation, as you're
(27:05):
thinking about your own lifecircumstances, like.
Practice revenue growth orincreased profitability or
additions of a partner to thepractice or major personal
finance changes like you wannabuy a home or planning for a
college for kids.
if you are implementing a newretirement plan in the practice,
if you're expanding thebusiness, if there's changes in
laws, like tax laws are all influx right now.
(27:28):
all of those things are goodopportunities for you to review
this and see if changes need tobe made.
So talk with your financialadvisor, talk with your tax
professional, and if you don'thave one, if you are looking for
someone to, to look at thesenumbers with you to make good
decisions around all thesedifferent, sometimes competing
goals and, and priorities.
Reach out.
We'd love to have thatconversation with you.
We'd love to hear the financialquestions on your mind and talk
(27:51):
about how we help optometristssolve those and navigate those
decisions all over the country.
Check out the show notes.
I'll throw on link in there ifyou'd like to schedule a short
introductory call..
And appreciate your time.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
In the meantime, take care.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.