Welcome to episode 44 of the BCF ORG podcast the business of business, I’m Brian Fisher. This podcast series focuses on the various subjects and topics to help you run a successful profitable business. There approximately 10 to 15 minutes long so you can listen while commuting. Hopefully you’ll find one or two takeaways to implement per episode. Today our guest is Catherine Tindall. Catherine Tindall is a CPA a strategic tax planner and partner with Dominion Enterprise services the concierge tax advisory practice located in New Hampshire they specialize in advanced tax reduction who proactively work with clients to reduce what they pay in tax while supporting their greater wealth building and life goals. Her goal for every client is to provide a return on investment in the first year usually $15,000 even up to over $100,000 in tax savings depending on their situation with our focus on automation, Catherine and her team set themselves apart by utilizing technology wherever possible to streamline their advisory services and offer those services to anyone no matter where they’re located. She’s especially passionate about providing tools to support entrepreneurs and small business owners in navigating the changing tax landscape as well as helping them reduce their overall tax burden through proactive strategies and advisory. I’m excited to talk to an expert that can help us not only stay informed but also provide some insight into how we can reduce our overall tax burden. Let’s welcome Catherine Tindall! Catherine welcome to the BCF ORG podcast the business of business.

2:03 [Catherine Tindall]

Thank you so much for having me Brian! It’s a pleasure to be here.

2:06 [Brian Fisher]

Thank you, Catherine! I’m always interested in people’s stories but what’s your background and what inspired you to become a partner with Dominion Enterprise Services?

2:15 [Catherine Tindall]

So my story kind of goes back to the way my parents actually were both CPA’s with their own tax practice and through some kicking and screaming I ended up taking an accounting course and since you can tell that I’m a CPA from the title of this. You know that’s kind of how I ended up how I ended up in the industry in general but specifically with Dominion I always had the intention of having my own practice after I was working with other CPA firms because there were a lot of things that I found were difficult about working with other firms in the way that they did their services and the way that they did their client relationships so a lot of the thought that went into what I wanted to do with dominion was around kind of fixing those problems areas and really being able to provide a lot more value to clients than what I was seeing going on in some of the other firms I was working with so that’s a little of of my journey. 

3:08 [Brian Fisher]

Well what are the benefits of tax planning and how business owners can save on taxes by proactively working with their tax professional?

3:16 [Catherine Tindall]

 I’d say the top things that I see it’s really having that proactive mindset and talking while keeping in regular contact with your tax professional during the year because a lot of what is available for opportunities in the tax code. You actually have to change your behaviors or change how you were operating during the year in order to get the benefits of them. So if your relationship is really just you submitting paperwork at the end of the year to your tax professional there’s not really a lot that they can do in the way of planning to actually reduce how much you’re paying because it really it’s based on how how you were acting during the year so I think that’s my my top tip and then my second is really make sure that you’re getting yourself and your business assessed for if you could be eligible for tax credits there are a lot of really beneficial tax credit programs out there including like the research and development tax credit, the employee retention tax credit they can be easily six figure tax credits that I just see a lot of businesses miss out on because they’ve never really been assessed for those.

4:13  [Brian Fisher]

 I couldn’t agree with you more about meeting with your CPA on a regular basis. It’s not uncommon for me to reach out to our CPA a couple three times a year and just kind of talk about stuff and then when we get together we and we just went last Thursday but when we’re together the paperwork part kind of goes potty Bing bada boom ‘cause we’re already here already set up on stuff. Well how can you help your clients navigate the changing tax landscape with what’s coming down the pipeline? 

4:40 [Catherine Tindall]

So there was a lot of scare recently with some big tax changes that were proposed by the Biden administration for the most part those have taken a backseat but I think the big thing to watch out for for people who have businesses is it a lot of these proposals are things that were brewing back under the Obama administration. So a lot of things like capital gains increases end just different changes that have been proposed or things that will probably continue to keep rearing their ugly heads and I think for a lot of business owners that probably the scariest ones can be around you know when you’re going to exit out of your business and going to sell some of those things can start to pivot and changes so I think it’s good for anybody who’s got kind of a serious operation going on that’s something to check in with your CPA about regularly you know if they weren’t keeping you updated when a lot of this almost came to pass. It might be worth reassessing that relationship because a lot of these can be very expensive changes if you don’t kind of cut them off at the pass and know what’s coming on the landscape when it comes to tax reform.

5:40  [Brian Fisher] 

We’re speaking with Catherine Tindall,  CPA and partner with Dominion Enterprise Services. Catherine, would you please expand on your entrepreneurial journey as a woman business owner? 

5:51  [Catherine Tindall]

Yeah so I think for me a big piece of why I really wanted to have my own practice was around having some of the you know having more control over like the work life balance that goes on and it was the same for me and then also for a lot of the staff people in my firm that was a lot of the draw of why we started working together and I found in my industry that was just really a lot of burnout happening with just different staff members and a lot of people leaving the profession and so a lot of what we tried to do with Dominion and we are doing is really changing the way we have relationships clients to serve them better but also by doing that we’ve changed the relationship for the people who work in the firm with their work life balance and we’ve able been able to achieve a lot and a lot of this revolves around things like really embracing technology, embracing the remote working environment and so we’ve been able to pivot to being a completely virtual CPA firm working with clients all over the country but really being able to focus on what our best and highest ability is which is tax credit work and tax planning work for business owners.

6:59 [Brian Fisher]

Have you found that having a mission driven company benefits more than just the owners?

7:05 [Catherine Tindall]

I found that it kind of ties in with that previous answer that really what I wanted to achieve with this firm and the way that we structure the relationships was really if what the company does providing real value to the clients with the knowledge that we have through tax planning work and the tax credit work but then also the same for staff and that we’ve really pivoted our site instead of OK can we serve everybody can we do everything for everyone versus what are we best at? Where are we going to be the highest impact? And really focusing on that so that we can reduce the overall workload for our staff.  It’s made it just so much better for the clients because it’s always how can we make things better for them and also with the staff because it’s how can we make things better for the staff so I’ve found that kind of having that be our focus point with how we do things in the firm has made a real difference.

7:59 [Brian Fisher]

We’ve just kind of gone through COVID we’re kind of on the backside of it, it appears but are the COVID tax credits still available? Or has that ship sailed?

8:08 [Catherine Tindall]

Yeah so a lot of people were familiar with the payroll protection program loans so that program is over very popular program but something that my firm is currently doing a lot of work with and we’re actually doing these for other CPA firms is it’s called the employee retention tax credit to specialty tax credit that’s just available from 2020 to 2021 those are the tax years involved. We have up to three years to claim them so these claims will start expiring in 2023 but basically what the credit is, it reimburses employers for the hardships experienced during the pandemic by being a payroll tax credit towards the wages paid during eligible quarters for their clients and what this kind of means and lay layman’s terms and just to give you some context for the figures I’ve been seeing these credits range you know if you have employed say 10 employees and you can qualify for two quarters it’s easily a 6 figure tax credit. Which is a refund of payroll taxes paid at this point so it’s a check in the mail back from the IRS. So it’s well worth getting assessed specifically for this credit it’s called the employee retention tax credit and we really recommend to working with a licensed tax professional on these just because there are interactions in the credit calculations with things like if you receive PPP funds or if you have related parties and there’s a bunch of other kind of complex tax code rules related to filing the credits but I’d say for anybody that has over five employees it’s worth getting assessed for this particular tax credit because it can be so valuable.

9:41 [Brian Fisher]

We’re speaking with Catherine Tindall, CPA and partner with Dominion Enterprise Services but Catherine, is there anything I’ve not asked that you’d like to add?

9:50 [Catherine Tindall]

I think we’ve pretty much covered the gambit of things. I think we’ve gotten through some good pieces of advice for business owners and and things that they should be considering like the tax credit work or tax planning work you know I always say to people if you’re spending half of your year working for the government pay a 50% tax rate between your federal and state income taxes, it’s worth spending some time to figure out if you could be reducing that. So that’s the main thrust of what my firm does for our clients. It’s really taking a look to see if we can get that percentage lower and get that number lower.

10:26 [Brian Fisher]

How can people get in contact with you Catherine?

10:30 [Catherine Tindall]

Yeah if you want to visit our website I’m sure it’ll be posted in the show notes but our website is Dominiones.com or you can connect with me on LinkedIn I’m pretty active on there as well, always happy to have a conversation around taxes and in ways that you might be able to save more or take advantage of some of the credit programs that are out there they can be very powerful.

10:53 [Brian Fisher]

Well thank you very much for joining us today Catherine!

10:56 [Catherine Tindall]

Yeah thanks for having me Brian! It was a pleasure to always enjoy getting to talk through the work that we do and how we’re able to find and save clients.

11:07 [Brian Fisher]

My sincere thanks to Catherine for being our guest. Managing the performance of your company is one of the most important things you do as a leader. This podcast is on over 20 directories. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcast and feel free to share this podcast with people who you think may benefit from a strong rating of these podcasts would be appreciated. If you’d like to reach out to me with any questions, comments, ideas or potentially be a guest by Catherine please go to bcforrg.com. There’s a red contact us button in the middle of the homepage Lincoln symbols on the upper right click on that if you’d like to see my profile. All the podcasts are available by clicking on the website podcast page in the reference bar, these podcasts will be released the first and third Tuesday each month. In our next episode 45 our guest will be Patty Aubrey, president of the Canfield training group and past president of chicken soup for the soul. In business running a successful profitable business is the ultimate scorecard you were never done and can always be better. It tends to be more fun and work last rating at times but can be very rewarding. From BCF or G Corp I’m Brian Fisher wishing you the best, thanks!