Eminence and HR1 Tax Opportunities with Mark Gallegos

This week's episode of the Big 4 Transparency podcast is sponsored by Forwardly. Huge thank you to Forwardly for sponsoring the podcast, but also a huge thank you for what they do in terms of helping firms improve your operating margins. So if you are in firm operations, I would encourage you to take a look at how much your payment processing fees might be costing you currently. It may just be a couple percent here and there, but once your firm scales, we may be talking many tens or even maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars that are not going to your firm's bottom line and are not available for reinvestment in your firm. Forwardly helps you not only smooth all of these processes out with seamless AP and AR, but they also do so using ACH payments in an automated fashion, helping you save on payment processing fees. So make sure you check out forwardly.com for your business payment solutions. Hello and welcome to the Big 4 Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Mark Gallegos, partner at PortiBrown, quite a different vibe than the previous person we spoke with from PortiBrown, which was Wade Runge, which did end up being a huge episode for the podcast though, so that was a very popular one. So pressure's on, Mark. No problem at all. I know you'll be here to shine. We chatted a lot at Bridging the Gap, very charismatic, very well-liked presenter. I heard there was a packed room. I think it was maybe right before I was going up, so I unfortunately missed the presentation, but you did a presentation on the OBBBA or HR1, I believe you said it was, and a lot of the new opportunities that come from this bill for people in the tax world. So we're going to touch on that a little bit. But before we do, I want to talk a little bit about your role in the space. It seems like you're doing just a ton of eminence work for the firm, which when a lot of people talk about partner roles, there's business development, there's the subject matter expert, national tax office type role. And then this is something different that I haven't spoken to a lot of people about. So can you kind of walk us through how that role plays out for you? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I'm a tax guy since day one of public accounting, I've always been in tax. And I've taken tax and accounting to be like, I want to be an expert. I don't want to be just someone that just knows a bunch of stuff and then I just, I'm very surface level. So I like to dig into it. So over the years, I've just continued to dig into tax legislation, understanding complex topics and everything from international tax partnerships to M&A and figuring out how do we make all this complexity easy for us to understand. So one of the things that I get to do, and it's kind of, I feel like it's a privilege with Portie Brown is we don't, we're the size firm where we don't have like a devoted national tax office. But I would say when partners have questions or people in the firm have specific questions regarding their clients, they're coming to me to figure out, hey, what can we do or how do we do it? Beyond that, I do a lot with the AICPA to really understand what can we do to understand like tax legislation or regulations or whatever's happening in the moment, right? And so I sat on a committee, the Strategic Tax Reform Advisory Group, it's a strike force that really dug into the new HR1 bill through the development of it and still continuing now as we launch, like figuring out what all this means, right? Is that a group within the AICPA, sorry? Yes, exactly. Made up of volunteers just like myself from around the country. And so we kind of break down into the pieces of the legislation and go, okay, hey, here's what the bill says. And what does that mean from individuals, businesses, international, state and trust, planning for tax, planning for financial planning, all these things because people want to know. And so what is done is over the years is I've also had a passion for speaking, to go out there and present. I started doing it in my 20s, but just really, whether it's a small lunch and learn growing into, hey, take a stage at AICPA Engage Conference with hundreds of people in the room and really try to say, here's something I want to tell you about tax on a particular subject matter, but how do we make it interesting? How do we make it exciting? Make you, if you're leaning into your chair and go, you know what, I want to know more about that. Or at least my goal always, when I speak is to not just represent myself and Portie Brown, but it's to really have people lean in and go, there's something different about him. I want to talk to him sometime today or at this conference, at least have a chat. Because to me, I know I've done a good job is if people want to come up and have a conversation. If they want to ignore me, then I'm always like, did I offend them? Did I bore them? That's never the goal. With that being said, I get to go do a bunch of things between speaking, writing for the firm. We're part of an association of accounting firms called Prime Global. I do a lot with that. To have that front center facing outward thing, and I also do some teaching for Becker CPA. I do stuff with Stratford. I do different podcasts. The idea is, how do you take the expertise you sit there and learn in your free time and put it in a way that's maybe, if you're a tax lawyer, I can talk to you where you're at. But if you're someone that's just kind of like, hey, I dabble in tax, but I don't know a lot, but I got to know what these provisions are, I can talk to you at the 50,000 foot level and at least walk you through it in English. I think that is the ability that I have at least gotten to do over the years and gotten better at. Those were some of my favorite presentations. When I was at Deloitte working in tax, because again, I was sort of like, I'm not going to be the guy who's deep in the weeds in the research. I knew that pretty clearly, pretty early on, but I really valued understanding the functioning of these tax strategies and things like that and how they work behind the scenes, what the execution of them looks like, and then how that kind of translates into a benefit for the client base. Having the ability to present that, and this is a huge issue in academia. My partner, she's kind of in that world and the dissemination of information and doing that effectively is like one of the biggest challenges in academia. And I think part of that is you're a little bit of like a rare intersection of a Venn diagram, like with a very small middle where it's like you are deep, deep technical person, deep into the research. You really enjoy that, but then you are also like an excellent communicator and a good presenter and a good crowd presence, right? Which again, might not be a huge Venn diagram. So I think that that's a really, really cool thing that you're leaning into all the way. I wanted to ask on that note, how does that translate into being beneficial to the firm? Because obviously you're a partner, partner time is super valuable and Portie Brown seems to be very supportive of that. So what's kind of the strategy around there? Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. I spend, I have my own book of business and I have clients that I'm dealing with constantly. And then I'm also helping everyone else's clients. The tax department plays a key role in the firm of really being that support system for tax. I mean, a lot of partners, they're not tax people, right? So they're like, Hey, my client's got an issue. Let's call the tax department and I can call myself or one of my other partners and figure out what do we need to do? But beyond that to where Portie Brown has been highly supportive is, I love to write. I mean, that's where it all started is writing, write an article, whether it's internally, externally, learning to communicate that way and then speaking. And beyond that, you go out there and you're building brand for the firm, right? Obviously building brand for yourself, but at the same time, it's really the firm. You're out there speaking because what you do, your presence, how you act, how you communicate with people is going to be a reflection on the organization you're part of, right? Including yourself. And so going out there and really representing that is key. And whether I'm doing that on the national stage, traveling the country and doing conferences or big events, but also at local in Chicago, there's all kinds of organizations that are chambers or local communities that have different organizations for business. The Illinois CPA Society, all that plays a role so that I can go out and be an expert, right? But like you kind of mentioned before, I'm a tax geek. I mean, by nature, I love digging into tax code, tax regs, and just geeking out with other colleagues around the country that I consider friends to go like, hey, have you heard about this? Are we talking about this? And then to be able to take all that complexity and say, all right, now let's go out there and teach everyone what this is about, but make it fun, like make it fun so that it's not like an act, but like we're actually, there's a passion behind it because no matter what I'm doing, the fact that I, it's like anything, when you know you're supported by the place that you are a part of, it just makes it fun. Plus I'm bringing in business. You know, I go out and speak, people come to me and say, hey, my firm, we need some help in an M&A transaction. We need help with a partnership transaction. We don't have this expertise. Can you guys, I heard you speak on this. Is there something you can help or someone on your team? And that brings in a lot of revenue and work for us. Okay. So that's kind of how it translates. And then what's the, what's the balance between, you know, speaking at accounting conferences versus like industry specific conferences? Because I think you do some of both, correct? I do some of both. I would say I do more on the accounting side. It seems like, because that's, I do, I'd say my expertise usually lends to me speaking more so either on mergers and acquisitions, because there's, it doesn't seem like a lot of people are doing that or on tax legislation, whether it was tax cuts and jobs act from 2017, the new HR one, whatever it may be and whatever is down the road. That's just kind of where I spend my time. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And when you're, when you're kind of crafting these presentations, like what's, what's the sweet spot there? Because there's also, you know, you want to give it away. You want to like give out value and help people with that. But then at the same time, is there a little bit of a counterbalance of like, you know, we maybe won't get all the way into the weeds so that we kind of get the work or like how, how, you know, if someone's listening and they say, this sounds kind of like a cool role for me, like what's the sweet spot in those presentations and crafting those? Yeah. First, it always starts with like, okay, what is the, what am I speaking on and who's my audience? It's the first question you should always ask. Like if someone wants you to talk about something like, well, who is listening, right? You should know that. And if they, they got to tell you, and then from there you start to craft it. And I don't just go with the same old presentation, like I'm always redeveloping it and changing it constantly. Tinkering is what I do. And with that being said, um, I try to give them enough depending on the time that I'm supposed to speak. And I'm not afraid to give things away because it's not like this is magic sauce, right? Everyone has access to it. It's public knowledge. But with that being said, I, you know, the idea is I want to give you enough to feel like, all right, I want to have a conversation with Mark. I want to, I want to come up to you afterwards and say, Hey, can we have lunch? Can we meet for whatever? And, or after the conference, can we, can we exchange phone numbers? I love that. And again, for me, it's just like developing other relationships, other people to call and talk to. And if anything, just to have great friendships, you know, that's the important thing. Yeah. And then things kind of naturally come from that, right? So it's really, it is relationship building at the end of the day, which is really interesting. That's right. Um, and then this AICPA task force you mentioned, how does that work? Like, is it like an opt in from a bunch of firms who send, you know, their, their biggest tax brains over and then everyone who participated can then sort of leave with the outcomes of that and, and the tax plans of it, or are these then published somewhere for, for purchase on the AICPA site or what does that look like? So I mean, the AICPA is an advocacy group, right? That represents the CPAs of the country, enrolled agents, et cetera. And, and one of the things that's important is the, um, uh, the, we're all volunteers. So, you know, I volunteer on other committees with the AICPA over the years and I continue to do so. And the strike force is just, you know, a bunch of volunteers. And again, you know, people, a lot of times people for the strike forces get, uh, you know, appointed, um, based on, you know, you know, who are more like, Hey, you're an expert in a particular area and you'd be great to kind of be aligned with certain people to come together and kind of have a working group that actually can kind of work together and have the knowledge base to dig deep into whatever we're trying to do. And then we're basically producing materials, analyzing things, and coming up with responses on behalf of the AICPA so that they can package it together and put it out there for its members. So, Oh, so like the AICPA can take on, you know, take on a position regarding maybe like a gray area or like a nuance kind of tax strategy. Or maybe they need to go to back to Congress and say, Hey, you know, Hey, uh, 174, you guys allowed expensing, but we need some more clarity on this. Can we go to treasury? I mean, all the letter writing that you see coming out of the AICPA to really help. Hey, cause there's a lot of tax practitioners that are sitting there and small CPA firms, sole practitioners that are like, I don't know, Hey Mark, this is great. You're talking about this, but how does this affect me? Because guess what? I'm up to my eyeballs and tax returns on extension and I don't have time to follow it. So I need some guidance. And that's where the AICPA can advocate for those people, try to get the right answers and help them. So their life is a little easier. That's cool. They go to Congress and like, we'll seek clarification because I, you know, I don't know if there's an equivalency in Canada, but I remember like when, when this whole, you know, the crypto bill or, you know, all the crypto tax stuff was coming out, it was very, very gray. And I was kind of working on that team a lot at Deloitte. And we had like, you know, a couple of poor lawyers who were like, uh, you know, my interpretation of this is X, Y, and Z. And then Deloitte had to sort of be like, I, I guess that might be the position we take now, but like there was never, you know, there was never that level of certainty. And it, it felt very siloed where a lot of firms were maybe sort of independently trying to figure that out and, or like submit requests to the CRA or IRS equivalent, which would maybe get answered, maybe not 6, 12, 18 months down the line when it's already like so far too late. Right. And you had to take a position one way or another by then. So it's actually really cool that the AICPA does that. They do a great job with it. And I think, you know, in this tax bill that just passed this HR 1, um, one of the things that was important was that there were things that on the salt cap, there were positions on pass serenity tax, there were positions on 174 that, you know, you, you heard various members of Congress that were talking about, Hey, here's what we want. But then when it came to the negotiating table, are they going to get there or not? You know, we had the house put out their first version of the bill and then, and then eventually they pass it. And then they went to the Senate, they put out their first version of the bill and Senate put out their amended version of the bill. And then that's what became the signed bill. Right. So you have all the three different versions that came out. The AICPA through the advocacy helped kind of say, Hey, this is really what our members would like to see in these provisions, because this is what their clients are saying. Right. That is huge because, you know, just because the tax bill comes out, doesn't mean always along the way that everything is always great. And even if it is great for the client, there's questions that come up like, Hey, how are we going to do this on a tax return? How's this mechanically going to work? When are we going to get guidance on certain rules? Like, you know, just throw something out there. Like in the tax bill, there's this new thing on a deduction on no tax on tips, no tax on overtime pay. And that's all like, Oh, Hey, great. That's great. And here's the basic rules. Throw it out there. And then you sit there and go, well, which particular people does this apply to? How is this going to apply? Are we going to do certain things with reporting from an employer for overtime pay and stuff like that? All those things that like the accountant hat goes on and you start to go mechanically between now and April 15th of next year, how is this going to roll out? Right. This is the stuff that isn't in the bill, but needs treasury and the US treasury and the IRS to give us guidance. So we, the AICPA provides a role to say, Hey, let's get some help there, people. We need to move the needle to help our members so they can get their work done better. Yeah. And absolutely crucial because you know, there's some guy on Tik Tok going no tax on tip. Here's how I'm restructuring my business. I have a $1 invoice and a mandatory tip of $400,000 on this engagement, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, there's some guy on Tik Tok talking about that, right? I'm sure there's stuff I see out there, good and bad on various sites. And again, you know, some people are very good and they use the platforms to really help and then others that, you know, come up with some strategies that I would say maybe they need to reel in a little bit, but needless to say, it's everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things. You're a fine speaker, very politically correct way of handling that. I like that. So back into your own journey a little bit here. So it seems like kind of in 08, you made a pivot from some of the largest firms into more like regional practices. And then from your career from that point on was all, to my understanding, kind of more regional type practices. I'm curious what that decision was based on and how that has kind of influenced your career. Because to me, again, if I'm you, I'm probably going, I'm probably a national tax office kind of guy. But I think what you're doing now is probably cooler on a dissemination of information thing for your, you know, unique level of skills and your unique overlap area of skills. So what was that decision based on to kind of switch to the more regional firms? Yeah. I mean, I spent many years at RSM and Gladrey and pretty large firm and the fifth largest firm at that time, pretty large firm still. And I enjoyed it. The people I worked with, they were friends. I mean, I could tell you every day I went to work, I really loved the people I got to work with. And I would have stayed on that path and maybe made partner down the road there and all that. But I, you know, life hits us hard at times and I went through a relationship falling apart and that whole concept, personal stuff. And I decided that it was time to try to shore up the personal side of my life, that I had to pivot and do something different from a career standpoint to kind of make myself more available. And so I went on a journey that from a personal standpoint created me to get stronger. I went on a journey from a professional life that kind of now took me out of my comfort zone and sent me down, you know, going to smaller meant, you know, maybe not as stable, maybe, you know, a little bit more unbalanced at times. And so you had to really start to rebuild both sides. And so I had to learn a lot about who I was along the way and figure out what are those next steps are going to look like. And so it took me down this journey and that journey eventually landed me in a firm called Borhart Spellmeyer in the same office I'm in now. And it was a firm maybe of 25 to 30 people. And the partners that started it were former Grant Thornton people and they had really good size middle market clients, had a great audit practice, had a great tax practice. And I joined and it was, it felt like I was back at McGladrey again, where I had amazing people I'm working with on a daily basis, where I really enjoyed them, became friends. And I, you know, your life is feeling good from that side. And then eventually in 2016, December 1st, 2016, we merged into Portie Brown. And Portie Brown is a decent sized firm here in Chicago and has continued to grow. And I knew when that day came, I also had very high respect for Portie Brown. And I was excited about it and I still am. And so what it's done, the journey from being big to kind of going through, you know, hey, trying to figure things out, not just at the professional level, but at your personal level, your emotional level, your spiritual level, every bit of who you are. It just created me to be more dialed in about everything I'm doing now. And so, you know, I would say it's not the ideal path for someone through all the various, you know, emotions that come along the way with it. But it has by, if you take the steps and you really work into who you are and what you're doing, then, you know, you know, everything that all the steps you're taking are going to fulfill and it creates that passion. And I think there's one thing that I have more than anything else, and that is passion for what I get to do. The relationships I have in my life, the people I get to talk to or text or go to a conference to, the work I get to do, the clients, it's all because I have this passion that I've developed that this is what I want to do. And so I'm having fun every day. I don't even view it as work. I'm just like, hey, today I get to talk to you and I'm like, this is exciting, you know? Yeah. Well, and I think that shines through a lot and in just the presence that you bring to everything. Like, you were a blast at the conference and we could tell, like, it's just very apparent that this is like your zone of genius and this is like what you like doing and this is like, so it is really nice to see someone who's very deeply satisfied by what they're doing. And I think that's kind of infectious for people. So I think that's super important. Yeah. And I talk to people all the time that, hey, public accounting is not my thing or, man, I was there and I had to leave because, and everyone's got their war stories or their, you know, you know, things that have happened to them along the way. And you know, sometimes I listen to people and I'm like, I am so sorry because like it, you know, I know that there's times where people don't get treated well along the way. And I, that is something that has always bothered me. And you know, and again, I wish people didn't have to deal with that. I mean, life is already hard enough to have to go to work every day and then become an expert, take the CPA exam and whatever else you're doing and go sell business. That's a lot of work. We're just talking about work. We're not talking about anything else going on in your life. Right. And, and when people have, well, this is what happened to me or this is how I got treated. I'm just like, wow, that's, that's terrible. And the one thing I do love about Portie Brown and being a partner here is that we treat people, I'm not saying nothing's ever perfect, but we do all go out of our way to make sure that that's not how we're treating our people, whether it's me to another partner or down all the way down to admin and intern, you know, like everyone's going to get treated with the highest level of respect because guess what? That's the only way we get to do the fun things we get to do is because everyone's working towards the same goal. Yeah. Yeah. No, I absolutely love that. And what do you think is different in your life now as a partner versus had you stayed on that kind of top 10 firm track? Like, you know, do you ever look back and say like, oh, wow, I think I'm, I'm way more satisfied than I may have been or, you know, how, how do you think that change in direction has kind of impacted your life and, and, you know, career? Yeah, I, I, I rarely look backwards on anything in my life, I mean, and reflect on it more than how do I learn from it? Right. And when I was there, I remember when I put my notice in and I told that I was leaving and people are like, wait, why, why are you leaving? Like, and again, and even I, in that moment, I was like, what am I doing? Right. But it was the right decision at the time for me and what I needed to do. And you know, when I think about it is, yeah, I, I'm sure I would have been happy. Right. Just because I'm a very glass half full kind of guy. But what it did is it sent me on a path of trying to figure out a lot of things that I didn't know. There were a lot, there were a lot of more pain and struggles and, and just figuring life out that was about to hit me over the next number of years that I had no idea. And I would say that I am a better man because of it now, I'm a better partner, I'm a better employee, I'm a better, I'm just a better work, coworker with whoever I'm working with. Because life experiences teach you no matter what, how do you treat other people with the highest level of respect? And the fact that you've been through some different things when you're working with, especially younger people, and they haven't been through any of this yet. You have a, at least in my, there's more empathy towards, Hey, I, I'm not going to tell you I know what you're feeling because I don't know what you're feeling. But the reality is I've kind of been in similar situations to kind of help you through this situation. And I think that's maybe sometimes it's just having the ears to listen versus just yap all day. Yeah. I love that. However, I am going to get you to yap a little bit about something. So let's get into the, to the, you know, the tax content for the, for the tax nerds who've been, who've been patiently waiting. What are some of the kind of key highlights of opportunities coming from HR1 that you have presented on, or maybe that you haven't presented on yet, either way. What are some of the biggest things that, you know, a tax practitioner listening to now, should know about, should identify as big opportunities here. I always say when I'm out talking about it, obviously, I'll tell you, hey, here are the provisions that are in the individual tax, the business, international. Here's the things that state and gift what we want to talk about, right? And then from there, it's like, what really is important, no matter what the rules are, it's tax planning. And tax planning, I do a lot of it in the fall, but I mean, tax planning is all year. I mean, it's talking to clients and saying, hey, Dom, here's your tax situation. Here's what's changing. And knowing the law to go, here's what we should be thinking about. And so when I talk to people now, we're starting to think about, from what's come out, we know what the rules are for 2025, right? So when you're, here we are now in August of 25, and you're thinking about, hey, I know a lot of people are like, hey, Merck, but I'm still finishing up clients, extended business and individual returns, right? And I get it. But with that being said, we've got to get on the planning mechanism. And the only thing that's so great about the bill being signed on July 4th is that it's given us some time to digest it and really start to put together some plans so that this isn't happening. Because I can tell you, I have spent a lot of holiday seasons and New Year's Eves digging into what's happening in tax law and what are we prognosticating on versus knowing what's happening. But when I think about it, tax bracket management, from an individual standpoint, we know what the tax brackets are going to be. Understanding that, not just to say, hey, you're in the 37% tax bracket, but how do we utilize planning to make sure we maximize it? Maybe you're a retired individual and you got X amount of dollars you're going to make every year, and you could accelerate some income. Maybe it's a traditional little Roth conversion or something like that. How do we eat up the tax brackets by doing some planning in that situation? Thinking about the salt cap that got raised to the state and local tax cap to $40,000. Can people now be able to utilize that more effectively in addition to some of this acceleration of income? How does that help certain people, right? We had campaign promises I mentioned before, the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime pay. We had the new senior deduction for those 65 and older, you get $6,000. That's a planning item, charitable to be able to take maybe some additional planning on that side of things. There's even this new thing with the car loan interest to be able to deduct if you buy a car manufactured in America and be able to deduct up to $10,000 of the interest expense. All this stuff, we don't know all the rules on, like I said, but to start to plan with our clients that maybe this affects or doesn't. And then you're thinking estate and gift. I'm talking about raising the lifetime exclusion of 15 million starting next year in 26. That's planning. And I know I get this question all the time. So now it's 15 million, maybe someone's married. We got 30 million between my spouse and I. We don't have to worry about estate planning. And the answer is, well, maybe not, but maybe you should still do trust in estate planning. I always recommend that no matter what, even if your income is below the threshold, because you need a basic will, you need a basic trust set up just to run your life properly. And then on the business side, you're looking at all kinds of things like the expansion of your bonus depreciation back to 100%. 179 increased to 2.5 million. The planning there for my business clients is huge. 174, we're in the Midwest here in Chicago. So we have a lot of clients in manufacturing and they do a lot of R&D type work. And so they have the 174 costs that had to be capitalized starting in 2022. They're all excited when I'm calling saying, hey, guess what? We get to start in 2025, get to start expensing that again. So we don't have to capitalize. And on top of that, we get to do something with the old stuff for 22, 23, and 24 and get to write that off. Whether we're going to go back in a man or go forward, we're still waiting on guidance. But all these things create huge boosts to my business clients. And so the planning side of it, just to answer your question is, I get this front row seat to call everyone up and say, hey, I'm sending an email and here's some things that would affect you. Let's get a meeting. Let's take a few minutes on the phone. And we'll have multiple touch points between now and December to really go over a lot of this stuff. And we normally do this stuff, but this is even just a bigger way to really show value. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, political leanings aside for anyone, like this should be a relatively exciting time for tax practitioners where, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a whole new set of rules out. There's a lot more new things you can do. You know, I remember when I was in tax, there were some big changes and there was always like this looming thing about a change to the capital gains inclusion rate where, you know, there's so much planning to do there to like crystallize gains ahead of time. And, and, you know, maybe you could, you could artificially like realize some gains to, to avoid the risk of that happening and that being captured and things like that. And I find this is where, you know, tax firms who become so compliance heavy and like don't make the space for themselves to get into that planning work. Well, you know, whatever we call it, like you're so burned it burdened down by $200 an hour work that you don't have time for the $800 an hour work or the value billing, maybe even $2,000 an hour work or whatever it is. Right. So I think it's like a very important thing for people to kind of make space for this and not be so deeply overburdened that you can't even think about that. And, you know, even, even just as a finance person, I've been in both seats. I've been in one role where I was so overwhelmed with just everything that like, I didn't even have a second to think. And then I had another role where I actually had room to breathe. I had room to think, and that translated into some actually pretty massive financial wins for the companies because I was able to go out and look for these opportunities that I was able to then implement for the business. Right. And I think we need to, to think about our client base in the same way where you actually, you need to give yourself room to breathe, um, to be able to do these things. A hundred percent. And, and, you know, one of the sitting on committees with the AICPA and volunteering there, um, with the state society and, and really going out and speaking, I get, you know, the front row seat to kind of talk to, you know, people in the big four, people in large regional firms, but also a lot of people in small firms, right. In various parts of the country or sole practitioners. And so, uh, my, my door's always open. You want to call me, you want to email me, feel free to, but I, I understand that they're like, Hey, that's great, Mark. You get to do all this tax planning. It sounds amazing, but here's the problem. I'm still working like crazy right now. I'm working weekends to get to the September 15th deadline. And then I got the September 30th extension for my trust clients. And then I've got to the October 15th to get my individual tax clients. And I can tell you, Mark, I'm going to be working all the way until that October 15th. And then what ends up happening is they bill all this stuff out. And then they basically stare at a wall from October 15th to November 15th, because the entire year has left them in a state of being like a zombie burned out. And I get it. I get it. And I'm not faulting you for that. And you're just like, I need a break. I need a moment to just sit here. And, and then next thing you know, it's, you know, it's the holidays and yeah, I'll do some planning, but I'm getting ready for tax season. We got to get the organizers out and engagement letter, all that stuff. And they're kind of, maybe they're, they're not a big firm and they're doing it all themselves, right? So it's a lot. But I will say with all that being said, you need to figure out how do you pivot and say, this is a great opportunity, right? To take all this content and guess what? You don't have to be the expert in the area. There's plenty of stuff out there that's being put out there. Understand the things that affect your clients, go out there and talk to them. Especially when you're talking to them now say, Hey, this stuff may affect you for next year. We should set up a follow-up meeting to go over this. And I can tell you, you can bill for that because you're adding value. Hey, here's what your tax return would look like based on the old rules. Here's what it'll look like based on the new rules. It's going to save you this, or, or here's what we can do to save more money, right? That's key. And you will always have a long-term client because your clients view you as, Hey, Mark's got my back. He's looking for everything. And at the end of the day, that's important, right? Yeah. And that trickles back even further. Like I view things a lot from compensation and firm structure lens from what I do. But basically a lot of that can trickle back to, you know, if you want to have managers and senior managers and people maybe below the partner level who are motivated to do these things, like it can't be that the reward for doing exceptional work is more work where you're on the like billable hour model and you're not considering right. The value and the realization and all of these things, you can't, you can't just run a firm based off of like, who's hammering those hours. Because then again, the incentive is away from going out and like actually consuming and half the, half the homework's done for them by, you know, maybe that AICPA task force. But if you don't even have the bandwidth to go do that, and you're like, well, I'm not going to take the time to read this to then sell work that I'm not going to be rewarded for in any kind of way, even though it might be way higher margin work, I'm just going to keep hammering billable hours. Right. So I think that's like a really unfortunate thing for a lot of, you know, it tends to be maybe more some of the smaller practices that are, that are kind of stuck in that. But I think that's a really important conversation to have. For sure. And one of the things I think that's an excellent point is that in public accounting, the age old saying is, Hey, if you're really good as a staff person, you get rewarded by getting promoted and getting more work. So the top performers have always just gotten more work, more work, and the, Hey, I can carry it. I can do it. And before you know it, there's going to be a time in your life where you're going to go, I can't carry this weight anymore. I don't care who you are and how good you are. You may be the brightest mind, the best worker in the world. At some point, you're going to go, I can't keep going forward because I've got all these other things going on too. Maybe as you've got a family, maybe you have children, maybe you just have a social calendar that you're not able to get to. No matter what it is, you're going to have that moment where you're going to go, all right, I need to balance. And this is where, and again, like I said, Portie Brown, we've done a great job. Nothing's perfect, but it's the idea of working smarter, not harder. Let's not burn people out. And I always say when I'm talking to other people, we're kind of like a teaching hospital to some level in the sense of we go out, we don't really offshore anything at the moment. So we bring in a lot. We hired 20 brand new staff out of college this year. And we have these, every year we have a new group coming in. We have interns, but we have a new group coming in. And we have people in our firm that not only want to service the clients, but they want to make sure that these young people know the right tools, the right ways, the right process and procedures to say, Hey, if I'm working on a 1040 for one of Mark's clients, how do we do this the Portie Brown way versus, Hey, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it Mark's way, but I'm going to do another person's way. No, no, no. It's just one way we do things. So everyone just learns the one way. And then guess what? If you find out, even if you're like six months in, you're like, Hey, why are we doing it this way? I want to hear that feedback because let's tinker with it and make it better. Because that's the only way we all get better. Mark, I think a lot of people could learn a lot of things. I hope there's time for some introspection on the way some firms might be operating, even personal introspection on, where am I at in that journey? Am I headed towards imbalance and that may cause some issues down the line. So you've shared a lot of value as you do with people, both on the technical side and the non-technical side. So thank you so much. I'm going to make sure I link your LinkedIn profile so people can go check you out, get in touch. Please do get in touch. I've been around Mark. He doesn't bite. He's a great guy. So I'll do that. And you've sold me on Bordy Brown. If anyone's looking for roles, stay posted on that for sure. And yeah, thank you so much for taking the time, Mark. Yeah. Thanks, Tom, for having me. I appreciate it. And again, please reach out to me. I'm always happy to chat and whatever it looks like.