April 23, 2025 • 13 mins
On the Tuesday April 15, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Extra Large Podcast, Tax attorney Steve Moskowitz joins Jack & Joe with some outstanding advice about benefits available to you regarding your annual tax return.
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But first let's talk taxes with Steven Moscowitz, the founder
and tax attorney at moscow AT's LLP, long time a
friend of the Armstrong and Getty Show and advisor on
matters tax as well. Stephen, how are.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You doing great? My favorite day of the year.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, not mine.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, you're the only one, but so we're You're always
brimming with interesting tax talk. You love your job as
much as anybody in America. So what's the top of
mind for you today to communicate to the good folks?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You know, there's so much If you haven't done your
tax return by now, don't be like in the movies,
work until midnight to get it out. Go on extension now,
the extension and extension of time to file, not an
extension of time to pay. But if you can't pay
your taxes, don't make the mistake of not final return
file it. Pay what you can and then you can
(00:51):
do a monthly payment plan. And you know, I know
in the movies the irs is portrayed as monsters. They're not,
you know, like any large group, always a bad apple,
and there's always somebody great, but most of them are
just doing their job. If you're reasonable with them, they'll
be reasonable for you. You can work something out. You
don't have to be afraid of it. You can work
something out. That's what we do for people. But the
(01:15):
bottom line is these problems are fixable. And I've seen
over the years so many people. They go into hiding,
they do these horrible things. They punish themselves, way worse
than the government ever would, and there's no need for that.
On the other hand, there's so many tax benefits. If
you're a do it yourself or there's a lot of
good things to read, you might also want to consider
(01:37):
talking to somebody. There's so many advantages, especially if you're
in business. You take a look at the fortune five
hundred and that's one of the things that originally motivated
me to becometacts attorney because you know, as a CPA
first and I watched these giant corporations making billions of
dollars and legally paying a little or no taxes, and
(01:58):
how can that be? Our tax law is based on
two things. One getting money from us. We all know
about that one, but the other one. In a democracy,
the government can't order us to do things, but they
want us to do things because it's good for the economy.
So how they get to do it They pay us.
(02:18):
And that's the secret of all these tax deductions. There's
all kinds of tax incentives. We see simple ones like
buying a house you get a tax deduction for mortgage
interest in real estate taxes. You set up a pension
for yourself, you get a tax deduction for that. There's
so many benefits where if you have depreciation on machinery
(02:43):
or buildings, there's ways to accelerate that and get way
more get these huge deductions. Another thing, to me, the
most beautiful words in the English language are a positive
cash flow with a tax laws.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Isn't it rot.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
In your life? I mean, it brings it dear to
the eye. It's so emotional to me. And the bottom
line is there's so much there where you can you
can benefit. And I mean there's benefits for everybody. It's
not just for its people, it's for everything. If you're
on the lower end of the income scale, the government
(03:25):
gives you all kinds of benefits for you, for your kids,
family members. If you're on the other end, there's ways
that you can deduct your yachts and everything in between.
The tax law has something for everybody. In it. It's
worth it knowing it's studying or going as somebody does.
There's just so much there, and yet so many people
(03:45):
treat it with despair and it's horrible. It's not you
have to take a look at all the good things
that they're they're there, you just have to know about it.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
So we talk a lot about You've talked a lot
about how the complexity of the tax code. I mean,
if if we're starting the tax code today, nobody would
want to end up with what we currently have, even
though it's so hard to change. But like when you
started many years ago, how many pages or rules were
there compared to today?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
All you know, I remember when I was in grad school.
The professor actually went over that and he took it
even back further where he basically showed us with his hands.
He said, when he started in tax basically the tax
law was and he opened his fingers to show us.
Now he said today this is back when I was
in school. He opened his arms. He said, that's not
(04:35):
wide enough. And what happens is it's not just the law,
it's the interpretations. A lot of what we do is
we argue over what did the legislators in their infinite
wisdom provide for us. And oftentimes the judges can't agree,
and so many times will do a settlement because both
sides say, well, we don't really know what they meant.
(04:56):
So rather than have the judges a side, let's make
a deal. And again you see judges disagreeing. You say,
appeals judges disagreeing with trial judges. It's almost like nobody knows.
It's a grand mystery, one of the mysteries of life.
And going through this a cent it really is. I
know how excited I get about tax law, but it
(05:16):
really is the mysteries of life. And in real life,
it's not a black and white mathematical one boss one
equals too, that's the right answer. It's like going into
the museum and looking at the paintings and say, what's
the most beautiful painting here. It's a matter of interpretation.
And there's so much of the tax faw like that
(05:37):
what the legislators mean. And when you argue tax law,
that's one of other things too. You try to throw
what did they mean? And you negotiate about it to
try and figure out what they mean. That's something that
people don't realize about tax law. But that's part of
the beauty of or at least the way the system works.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So Stephen. In real life, the topic I've probably heard
the most from people being confused about is if they're
working remotely, part time or full time. They've got a
home office. I've got a home studio. Can you deduct
the equipment you buy? The chair you're sitting on? What
are the pros and cons of the.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Your Wi Fi because you're using it at home?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, you may be able to, and what you have
to watch out for the most common is the home office.
People say, can I deduct the home office now? In
order to deduct it? The way you do it is
you say, okay, if you use a portion of your
home exclusively for business, you can deduct it. And even
if you're at a studio apartment that's one room, how
(06:38):
can you do that? The taskboard has ruled, is we
use a portion of that room exclusively for business. You
can do it, but you have to watch out. There's
a downside to doing it. And the downside to doing
is it converts that portion of your home from your
principal residence, which has all kinds of tax benefits, into
business property, which doesn't. So if you sell the house,
(07:02):
then all of a sudden you learn about things you
have to give back, like depreciation, recapture and other things.
So if you're thinking about deducting home office, you can
do it if you qualify, but you may not want to.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Then I never thought about the end when you go
to sell your house and that that's not a house,
that's an officer selling.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And here's the everything that goes with that exactly. So
the bottom line is it's kind of like medicine. This
is a good medicine, but as a side effect which
may or may not affect you. So we talk about that.
And the bottom line is another thing that's really good
for evil is if you're an independent contractor, you set
up your own business and then you take pension deductions retirement,
(07:46):
and there's so many benefits. You have big task deduction.
And one of the things with retirement, like we're here
at is it's a POL fifteen and you say, well, these
are all good things for next year, but there's some
things you can still do. Suppose you put your return
on extension today. There's many different types of pensions, most
(08:07):
but not all of them provide for an exceptional tax
plane because most things with tax plane you have to
write the check by December thirty first twenty four, deduct
to twenty four. Not with most of the pension planets, you
have up to the time filing the return plus extension,
which means suppose you put your return on extension today,
that gives you half the year to set up the
(08:28):
tension in twenty twenty five, fund it in twenty twenty five,
and then you can elect to deduct it from your
twenty four taxes. So the bottom line, think about you
earned money last year, you have another six months half
a year to earn money, put it away for yourself,
and take a deduction for last year twenty four. I
(08:49):
mean for me, this is just fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So that would be like a small business person and
had a really great twenty twenty four and is getting
hammered with taxes. It can in effect shield some of
that income from tax by putting it in a pension
plan like retroactively.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Ah. And when somebody gives you something nice, what do
you say, thank you? Well, lawyer says more, I want more.
And what happens is with the really great year you
talked about with the pension plans. If you had a
fantastic year. One of the things you can do they're
so flexible, is you can make multiple plan year contributions
(09:31):
in one calendar year and get a much much bigger
deduction for that year. So suppose you are a salesman
or something else. You have big sales, you need a
lot of money. What you want to do is you
want to get Look, say that was twenty four he said,
I'm looking at these taxes. I hate all these taxes.
(09:52):
So you set up the pension plans. And by the way,
you can have multiple pension plans in the same year.
You set up multiple pension plans, and then you make
multiple plane near contributions in one calendar year. You get
that can'tic deduction against that fantastic year. And it's one
of the ways you don't pay taxes on it. See,
this stuff really lives.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Done it, and then you end up taking it out
years down the road when you're paying it a much
lower rate. Theoretically, all right, we've got to like two
more minutes, Stephen, anything else you want to squeeze in
before we let.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You go, Yes, before you send your taxes in. You
really want to learn as much as you can, either
on your own from reading or going to somebody that
does this, because most people cheat on their taxes. They
cheat themselves by not taking everything to which they're entitled.
(10:46):
And you know, there's just so much to the tax law.
I know it's really complex, but there's so many benefits
for you. So the bottom line is, like so many
other things in life, you get out of it what
you put into it. Learn about it, or go to
somebody that does this for a living, and you can
really benefit. You See, there's so much difference in people's taxes.
(11:08):
And again my example is the Fortune five hundred. Look
at all the money they make. Look at how little,
little or nothing pay in taxes. That's not just for
the Fortune five hundred. That's for everybody that knows about it.
It's there for you. It's alive, it's legal, and that's
what I do for a living. And no kidding, this
stuff fascinates me and it's so great to be able
(11:30):
to legally do this.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Stephen moscowitz moscowit is ll P. Longtime Front of the show, Steven,
always a pleasure to talk to you. It's always interesting
if you want to talk to Stephen one triple a
tax deal, one triple a tax deal. Stephen, thanks for
the time, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Thanks so much. I have a great time, as always.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Got it now.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Obviously he gets paid to do taxes, so you know
you would have an incentive to convince you to have
a guy. But I don't doubt that that's true, absolutely true,
that the majority of people done their taxes. The cheating
is you cheat yourself by not taking.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Advantage of everything. Yeah, and this is again this is
not a commercial in any way. But and it depends
on your financial circumstances, where you are in your life,
and one hundred other things, so you know, it's entirely
up to you. But our experience Jack and me as
individuals and as business partners has been you spend hundreds
and save thousands by consulting professionals. And maybe your situation
(12:25):
is you'd spend thousands and save tens of thousands. You know,
again depending on your life circumstance. But that's been our experience.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
One of my main takeaways from Noan Steven, and I
think he brought this up at a lunch we were
at with him one time, is the idea of and
it's changed the way I think about things. But like
would your I mean a basic question of would you
rather get would you rather have be received fifty thousand
dollars or eighty thousand dollars? Obviously I'd rather receive the
eighty thousand dollars. What are the tax implications? How's the
(12:53):
fifty thousand coming to you? How's the eighty thousand coming?
Is it coming through income? Did your grandma live it
to you? You know? Is it a prime you want?
Because there are different tax implications for all these different things,
you might be better off with the fifty thousand than
the eighty thousand. If it was a gift, then if
it was income, blah blah blah, And you always have
to look at that.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
End of it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
It should not be that dizzy thing.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
But it is right. I hope you enjoyed that I did.
I always get something out of it. More on the way,
stay here, armstrong, Ngetty
But first let's talk taxes with Steven Moscowitz, the founder
and tax attorney at moscow AT's LLP, long time a
friend of the Armstrong and Getty Show and advisor on
matters tax as well. Stephen, how are.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You doing great? My favorite day of the year.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, not mine.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, you're the only one, but so we're You're always
brimming with interesting tax talk. You love your job as
much as anybody in America. So what's the top of
mind for you today to communicate to the good folks?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You know, there's so much If you haven't done your
tax return by now, don't be like in the movies,
work until midnight to get it out. Go on extension now,
the extension and extension of time to file, not an
extension of time to pay. But if you can't pay
your taxes, don't make the mistake of not final return
file it. Pay what you can and then you can
(00:51):
do a monthly payment plan. And you know, I know
in the movies the irs is portrayed as monsters. They're not,
you know, like any large group, always a bad apple,
and there's always somebody great, but most of them are
just doing their job. If you're reasonable with them, they'll
be reasonable for you. You can work something out. You
don't have to be afraid of it. You can work
something out. That's what we do for people. But the
(01:15):
bottom line is these problems are fixable. And I've seen
over the years so many people. They go into hiding,
they do these horrible things. They punish themselves, way worse
than the government ever would, and there's no need for that.
On the other hand, there's so many tax benefits. If
you're a do it yourself or there's a lot of
good things to read, you might also want to consider
(01:37):
talking to somebody. There's so many advantages, especially if you're
in business. You take a look at the fortune five
hundred and that's one of the things that originally motivated
me to becometacts attorney because you know, as a CPA
first and I watched these giant corporations making billions of
dollars and legally paying a little or no taxes, and
(01:58):
how can that be? Our tax law is based on
two things. One getting money from us. We all know
about that one, but the other one. In a democracy,
the government can't order us to do things, but they
want us to do things because it's good for the economy.
So how they get to do it They pay us.
(02:18):
And that's the secret of all these tax deductions. There's
all kinds of tax incentives. We see simple ones like
buying a house you get a tax deduction for mortgage
interest in real estate taxes. You set up a pension
for yourself, you get a tax deduction for that. There's
so many benefits where if you have depreciation on machinery
(02:43):
or buildings, there's ways to accelerate that and get way
more get these huge deductions. Another thing, to me, the
most beautiful words in the English language are a positive
cash flow with a tax laws.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Isn't it rot.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
In your life? I mean, it brings it dear to
the eye. It's so emotional to me. And the bottom
line is there's so much there where you can you
can benefit. And I mean there's benefits for everybody. It's
not just for its people, it's for everything. If you're
on the lower end of the income scale, the government
(03:25):
gives you all kinds of benefits for you, for your kids,
family members. If you're on the other end, there's ways
that you can deduct your yachts and everything in between.
The tax law has something for everybody. In it. It's
worth it knowing it's studying or going as somebody does.
There's just so much there, and yet so many people
(03:45):
treat it with despair and it's horrible. It's not you
have to take a look at all the good things
that they're they're there, you just have to know about it.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
So we talk a lot about You've talked a lot
about how the complexity of the tax code. I mean,
if if we're starting the tax code today, nobody would
want to end up with what we currently have, even
though it's so hard to change. But like when you
started many years ago, how many pages or rules were
there compared to today?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
All you know, I remember when I was in grad school.
The professor actually went over that and he took it
even back further where he basically showed us with his hands.
He said, when he started in tax basically the tax
law was and he opened his fingers to show us.
Now he said today this is back when I was
in school. He opened his arms. He said, that's not
(04:35):
wide enough. And what happens is it's not just the law,
it's the interpretations. A lot of what we do is
we argue over what did the legislators in their infinite
wisdom provide for us. And oftentimes the judges can't agree,
and so many times will do a settlement because both
sides say, well, we don't really know what they meant.
(04:56):
So rather than have the judges a side, let's make
a deal. And again you see judges disagreeing. You say,
appeals judges disagreeing with trial judges. It's almost like nobody knows.
It's a grand mystery, one of the mysteries of life.
And going through this a cent it really is. I
know how excited I get about tax law, but it
(05:16):
really is the mysteries of life. And in real life,
it's not a black and white mathematical one boss one
equals too, that's the right answer. It's like going into
the museum and looking at the paintings and say, what's
the most beautiful painting here. It's a matter of interpretation.
And there's so much of the tax faw like that
(05:37):
what the legislators mean. And when you argue tax law,
that's one of other things too. You try to throw
what did they mean? And you negotiate about it to
try and figure out what they mean. That's something that
people don't realize about tax law. But that's part of
the beauty of or at least the way the system works.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So Stephen. In real life, the topic I've probably heard
the most from people being confused about is if they're
working remotely, part time or full time. They've got a
home office. I've got a home studio. Can you deduct
the equipment you buy? The chair you're sitting on? What
are the pros and cons of the.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Your Wi Fi because you're using it at home?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, you may be able to, and what you have
to watch out for the most common is the home office.
People say, can I deduct the home office now? In
order to deduct it? The way you do it is
you say, okay, if you use a portion of your
home exclusively for business, you can deduct it. And even
if you're at a studio apartment that's one room, how
(06:38):
can you do that? The taskboard has ruled, is we
use a portion of that room exclusively for business. You
can do it, but you have to watch out. There's
a downside to doing it. And the downside to doing
is it converts that portion of your home from your
principal residence, which has all kinds of tax benefits, into
business property, which doesn't. So if you sell the house,
(07:02):
then all of a sudden you learn about things you
have to give back, like depreciation, recapture and other things.
So if you're thinking about deducting home office, you can
do it if you qualify, but you may not want to.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Then I never thought about the end when you go
to sell your house and that that's not a house,
that's an officer selling.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And here's the everything that goes with that exactly. So
the bottom line is it's kind of like medicine. This
is a good medicine, but as a side effect which
may or may not affect you. So we talk about that.
And the bottom line is another thing that's really good
for evil is if you're an independent contractor, you set
up your own business and then you take pension deductions retirement,
(07:46):
and there's so many benefits. You have big task deduction.
And one of the things with retirement, like we're here
at is it's a POL fifteen and you say, well, these
are all good things for next year, but there's some
things you can still do. Suppose you put your return
on extension today. There's many different types of pensions, most
(08:07):
but not all of them provide for an exceptional tax
plane because most things with tax plane you have to
write the check by December thirty first twenty four, deduct
to twenty four. Not with most of the pension planets, you
have up to the time filing the return plus extension,
which means suppose you put your return on extension today,
that gives you half the year to set up the
(08:28):
tension in twenty twenty five, fund it in twenty twenty five,
and then you can elect to deduct it from your
twenty four taxes. So the bottom line, think about you
earned money last year, you have another six months half
a year to earn money, put it away for yourself,
and take a deduction for last year twenty four. I
(08:49):
mean for me, this is just fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So that would be like a small business person and
had a really great twenty twenty four and is getting
hammered with taxes. It can in effect shield some of
that income from tax by putting it in a pension
plan like retroactively.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Ah. And when somebody gives you something nice, what do
you say, thank you? Well, lawyer says more, I want more.
And what happens is with the really great year you
talked about with the pension plans. If you had a
fantastic year. One of the things you can do they're
so flexible, is you can make multiple plan year contributions
(09:31):
in one calendar year and get a much much bigger
deduction for that year. So suppose you are a salesman
or something else. You have big sales, you need a
lot of money. What you want to do is you
want to get Look, say that was twenty four he said,
I'm looking at these taxes. I hate all these taxes.
(09:52):
So you set up the pension plans. And by the way,
you can have multiple pension plans in the same year.
You set up multiple pension plans, and then you make
multiple plane near contributions in one calendar year. You get
that can'tic deduction against that fantastic year. And it's one
of the ways you don't pay taxes on it. See,
this stuff really lives.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Done it, and then you end up taking it out
years down the road when you're paying it a much
lower rate. Theoretically, all right, we've got to like two
more minutes, Stephen, anything else you want to squeeze in
before we let.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You go, Yes, before you send your taxes in. You
really want to learn as much as you can, either
on your own from reading or going to somebody that
does this, because most people cheat on their taxes. They
cheat themselves by not taking everything to which they're entitled.
(10:46):
And you know, there's just so much to the tax law.
I know it's really complex, but there's so many benefits
for you. So the bottom line is, like so many
other things in life, you get out of it what
you put into it. Learn about it, or go to
somebody that does this for a living, and you can
really benefit. You See, there's so much difference in people's taxes.
(11:08):
And again my example is the Fortune five hundred. Look
at all the money they make. Look at how little,
little or nothing pay in taxes. That's not just for
the Fortune five hundred. That's for everybody that knows about it.
It's there for you. It's alive, it's legal, and that's
what I do for a living. And no kidding, this
stuff fascinates me and it's so great to be able
(11:30):
to legally do this.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Stephen moscowitz moscowit is ll P. Longtime Front of the show, Steven,
always a pleasure to talk to you. It's always interesting
if you want to talk to Stephen one triple a
tax deal, one triple a tax deal. Stephen, thanks for
the time, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Thanks so much. I have a great time, as always.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Got it now.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Obviously he gets paid to do taxes, so you know
you would have an incentive to convince you to have
a guy. But I don't doubt that that's true, absolutely true,
that the majority of people done their taxes. The cheating
is you cheat yourself by not taking.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Advantage of everything. Yeah, and this is again this is
not a commercial in any way. But and it depends
on your financial circumstances, where you are in your life,
and one hundred other things, so you know, it's entirely
up to you. But our experience Jack and me as
individuals and as business partners has been you spend hundreds
and save thousands by consulting professionals. And maybe your situation
(12:25):
is you'd spend thousands and save tens of thousands. You know,
again depending on your life circumstance. But that's been our experience.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
One of my main takeaways from Noan Steven, and I
think he brought this up at a lunch we were
at with him one time, is the idea of and
it's changed the way I think about things. But like
would your I mean a basic question of would you
rather get would you rather have be received fifty thousand
dollars or eighty thousand dollars? Obviously I'd rather receive the
eighty thousand dollars. What are the tax implications? How's the
(12:53):
fifty thousand coming to you? How's the eighty thousand coming?
Is it coming through income? Did your grandma live it
to you? You know? Is it a prime you want?
Because there are different tax implications for all these different things,
you might be better off with the fifty thousand than
the eighty thousand. If it was a gift, then if
it was income, blah blah blah, And you always have
to look at that.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
End of it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
It should not be that dizzy thing.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
But it is right. I hope you enjoyed that I did.
I always get something out of it. More on the way,
stay here, armstrong, Ngetty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!