Book Introduction

By Jason Watson, CPA
Posted Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Conversational Tone

This book is written in a conversational tone. If you like perfect prose and editorial exactness that you would expect in a book on brain surgery, then we will be disappointing. We make jokes, some of which are only funny to ourselves. We don’t have the best punctuation. We might even have a missing word or a misspelling. We are nerdy accountants who did everything possible to avoid English literature and writing classes. Yuck!.

Duplicate Content

You’ll see about 15 pages of duplicate content. We did this since everyone jumps into a book at different places, especially with our online Knowledge Base version. Time is all you have on earth to sell, and it cannot be inventoried nor is it refundable; just do a Bob Seger and turn the page if you’ve seen it before.

How Did We Get Here?

How can I avoid self-employment taxes? This simple question was the inspiration for creating an article describing the benefits of an S Corporation. That original article, which was about four pages long, quickly became a series of Knowledge Base articles on the WCG website. The articles touched on basic topics such as how to elect S Corp status, S Corp vs LLC, shareholder payroll, reasonable salary determination, retirement planning, health care, fringe benefits and liability protection.

Those broad topics demanded much more information, both horizontally by spanning into more related issues, and vertically by digging deeper into the granular yet riveting levels of the tax code. The articles were grouped and relabeled as the Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps which grew to 39 pages in its first edition. Sorry, all the good titles were taken (remember, the longer the title the less important the material is. Bible, Beowulf, Caddyshack… short and sweet). The Hunt for Red October is one exception, yet we digress.

Time marched on, and more information was added to the first edition such as expanded retirement planning concerns, health care options after the Affordable Care Act and business valuations including exit strategies. Boom, we now had our second edition at over 100 pages. At that point it was suggested by some clients and colleagues to convert the PDF into an eBook as well as paperback.

Specifically, we owe a ton of success to a woman named Cherie who writes faith-based books for children. After a consultation on her LLC being taxed as an S Corp, she said, “Hey, make these articles into a book.” All we could do is envision pallets of stale outdated books. Thanks to Amazon and their print on demand service, we can update as often as necessary. And of course, Thank you Cherie!

So here we are on our tenth iteration, or the 2023-2024 edition. Unlike Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and COVID and the three major pieces of tax law which was the basis for the Ninth edition, these changes are primarily focused on the little things. There are also several examples and little comments that come from the hundreds of consultations we do each year. Nothing tests your bad idea like the public, and people are full of wonderful stories and inquiring minds. All this leads to more fodder for the book!

Each week we receive several phone calls and emails from small business owners and other CPAs across the country who have read our Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps and praised the wealth of information. Regardless of your current situation, whether you are considering starting your own business or entertaining a contracting gig, or you are an experienced business owner, the contents of this book are for you.

While this book’s origins were based on reducing self-employment taxes through an S Corporation election, it has dramatically expanded to sound business advice from entity structures to operational considerations to business tax deductions and retirement planning.

This book is written with the general taxpayer in mind. Too many resources simply regurgitate complex tax code without explanation. While in some cases tax code and court opinions are duplicated verbatim because of precision of the words, this book strives to explain many technical concepts in layperson terms with some added humor and opinions. We believe you will find this book educational as well as amusing.

Enjoy! And please send us all comments, hang-ups and static. This book is as much yours as it is ours, except the tiny royalty part- that’s ours. Stop by and we’ll buy you a beer with the pennies.

WCG CPAs & Advisors
2393 Flying Horse Club Drive, Colorado Springs CO 80921

719-387-9800 office

support@wcginc.com