Brent Oberlink sits down with Tyler McBroom, a CPA whose firm works with business owners on keeping more of what they make. The conversation is useful precisely because it does not stay on write-offs, which is where most contractor tax talk starts and stops.
What follows is what was said on the episode. None of it is advice for your situation, and every point here is one to take to your own accountant, since the right answer depends on your entity, your state and your numbers.
The December equipment mistake
The clearest correction in the episode is about Section 179, which lets you accelerate depreciation into the year of purchase instead of spreading it over five or seven years. McBroom is in favor of it, and then names the mistake he sees every December.
Owners decide they need to go buy equipment to save taxes. His arithmetic: spend a hundred thousand in a thirty five percent bracket and you save about thirty five thousand. You also spent a hundred thousand.
The filter he gives is one question. Did the business need this regardless of the tax situation? If yes, buy it and close before year end to take the deduction this year. If no, buying it to avoid tax is spending a dollar to save thirty five cents.
Two mistakes that cost more than any write-off saves
The first is not keeping books. Between federal tax, state tax and self employment tax for anyone not set up as an S corporation, he puts the effective cost of a missed deduction as high as fifty cents on the dollar. Miss ten thousand in expenses you actually paid and you may be writing a check for five thousand you did not owe.
The second is only seeing your accountant at filing time. His line for that is the one to remember: at filing, an accountant is being a historian. They are recording what already happened. The planning that changes the bill has to happen while the year is still running, which is why he pushes for at minimum a fourth quarter meeting to project the rest of the year.
His broader framing is that there are effectively two tax codes, one for employees where the return has one correct answer, and one for business owners where planning actually exists.
The trap nobody warns you about
The most valuable few minutes are about not over-optimizing. If you are scaling with debt, buying equipment on finance, or building a real estate portfolio, your lender is reading the same return you just minimized.
As he puts it, you can be tax planned into the poorhouse, showing so little on paper that you cannot qualify for financing at all. The goal is to land where you qualify for what you need while paying no more than you owe.
Selling is the other case. If you are a couple of years from an exit and your business is valued on a multiple of earnings, a ten thousand dollar deduction that saves three thousand in tax can take fifty thousand off the valuation at a five times multiple. His guidance is to minimize aggressively while scaling, then ease off as an exit approaches.
Common items he raises
Three come up near the end, all with the same caveat that they depend on your circumstances. Electing S corporation status once profit is meaningful. Renting your home to your business for legitimate business use under the rules that allow it. Putting your children on payroll for real work at a defensible wage.
Every one of those has conditions attached, and the episode says so. They are conversations to have with a CPA who knows your books, not moves to copy from a podcast.
The habit underneath all of it
The through line matches what Brent preaches elsewhere: know your numbers. McBroom's version favors a small number of KPIs that are real levers, starting with gross profit margin and net profit margin, checked often enough to act on.
Taxes are downstream of that. If nobody knows the numbers during the year, there is nothing to plan with when it counts.
Listen to the full episode, or find The Better Contractor Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.