Hiring the Wrong Tax Expert Could Cost You Thousands

So, are CPAs really out here just filing your taxes without trying to save you money? Well… it depends.

In this reaction, Matt breaks down why choosing the right accountant matters way more than you think. If your CPA doesn’t know what cost segregation is, it’s probably because they don’t specialize in real estate—not because all CPAs are bad. The real lesson here? Hire professionals who specialize in YOUR industry.

Going with the cheapest or most convenient option might seem fine at first, but in the long run, it can cost you way more in missed tax savings. Let’s talk about why finding the right expert is crucial for business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs.

There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!

Video Transcript: 

Business Advice Video:

There’s two people that you want to invest in the best, and that’s your attorney and your tax CPA. When did you learn that? When I realized that CPA’s don’t give a crap about saving you money. And they just do your books or they just file your taxes, but they don’t care about saving you money. And so I remember calling my CPA and I’m like, is there anything we could do to get this down? Like this is my income. They’re like, Nope, you just got to pay the taxes. Like you make money, you got to pay the taxes. I was like, I’m not going to settle for that. And so I started researching the tax code and reading books and researching online just like I taught myself real estate. And that’s where I learned cost segregation and all the different depreciation and writing off expenses then I had to teach my CPA at the time what cost segregation is. They didn’t even know what it was. So I was like, all right, I need to find like the best account, you know, tax attorney out there. 

Matt’s Review:

OK, well, I mean, if you’re the professional that you’re paying for services from doesn’t know how to actually help you, then I feel like that’s kind of on you too to, you know, you didn’t make a good choice, you didn’t ask enough questions, you didn’t shop around. I’m sure there are some CPAs out there who do taxes and don’t know what cost segregation is. But probably because they’re not real estate specialists, right? Any CPA or tax person that routinely works on the books and the taxes for real estate investors, 100% knows what cost segregation is. So I would say this is more a lesson of choose providers who are specialists or experienced in the area that you in particular have your business or your money is involved in. And certainly don’t pick on price, right? Yes, you go to H&R Block, they very well may not be there to help you save on taxes, but that’s because that’s not really what they do. What they do is they help people who just have a regular W-2 job file a basic income tax return and stay out of trouble and get a fast refund. But if you’re a sophisticated investor or business owner or real estate investor, don’t go to H&R Block, don’t go to the cheapest provider you can find, because yes, absolutely that’s going to end up costing you a lot of money. We see the same thing all the time. One of our specialties is e-commerce. We have people come to us who went to the down the road CPA and local CPA in their town or whatever, didn’t know anything about e-commerce, and cost them a ton of money. But you should know, okay, if I’m in e-commerce, I’m making good money, I should go to an e-commerce specialist for my tax and bookkeeping. They’ll likely be able to help me a lot more and save me a lot more, even if they’re a little more expensive than the local people, the overall savings and value delivered is going to be huge. I mean, to me, that just seems like it would be common sense, but not everybody figures that out or learned it the first time around but hopefully you learn it sooner than later so you don’t keep making costly mistakes like this lady seems like she maybe made some mistakes in the beginning but figured it out after a while after she’s been in the game for a bit.