According to a recent Bloomberg politics article, Donald Trump says ‘I Want to Put H&R Block Out of Business’ via MSNBC. I find that a very interesting comment that Donald Trump made, and I think he made that comment in relation to the complexity of a the tax code. I have to agree: today’s current tax code is very, very complex and needs simplification.

As an example, in order to effectively handle strategic tax planning in my practice, I’ve had to: (1) master tax law, (2) master the internal revenue manual; (3) master tax accounting; and (4) master tax preparation. I’ve been in business more than 20 years and it has taken me an extremely long time to get to the level of education that I have in order to help out individuals, investors and business owners via effective strategic tax planning. Really: the tax game is very, very complex. Unless you navigate the tax maze with someone, like me; who knows the tax code; who has all 4 corners of strategic tax planning covered; and can help you navigate those 80,000+ pages of the tax code, you’re going to be overtaxed. That’s just how it works.

Relative to the tax code, I think a lot of what Donald Trump covers makes sense. One of his points is that he believes there should be 4 tax brackets of 1%, 5%, 10%, and 15%. The first $30,000 a person makes, he or she should simply pay 1% in income tax; and then his tax strategy layers it. If a person makes over a million, he or she is going to pay 15% income tax. I think it’s a very interesting methodology that he has come up with, but Donald Trump has stated that this will save 6.1 billion hours a year of people’s time trying to figure out the tax code.

For most Americans, it’s tough to imagine Donald Trump’s vision right now because our government doesn’t have enough money to do currently, what’s necessary. We’re talking about budget cuts all across the board by the Federal Government. I see this dynamic when dealing with Internal Revenue Service every single day. Even if American’s drop down to a flat tax, based on gross income; who’s going to be the tax collector? We’re not going to fully eradicate the Internal Revenue Service though. Someone has to be there to actually collect the tax and administer even that rule.

With Donald Trump’s proposed tax strategy, I think his challenges are still going to be: all the different policy makers; all the political action groups; everybody who does not want to go against the flat tax; and all the people who have some skin in the tax game. I think you’re going to see oil companies who have big incentives on the table not want to go for this. Let’s also include people who are in the real estate market with vested interest.

Donald Trump himself is in real estate, so part of what he’s built into this, which we haven’t even got into yet, is talking about lowering capital gains tax on the side of real estate. This is dealing with big players, big decision makers, and there’s a lot to this. I think that there is going to have to be a lot of detail and specifics laid out.

I think what’s really, really important here, and the big elephant in the room, is Donald Trump is talking about lowering income tax, because he acknowledges just how much time and money is spent on this one little aspect of our lives that people don’t pay that much attention to.

In closing I say, in general, it does make sense to simplify the tax code. I don’t think Donald Trump’s tax strategy is going to be the ultimate answer, however, because there are still some areas of his tax strategy that need to really be vetted out- but I think it’s a good start. I think his offer definitely is going to be a great conversation to be had in, and for, future tax discussions. I think at the end of the day, Donald Trump is going to need a lot of Karla Dennises to really vet this tax strategy out. This is really going to require some real brain power to get this entire thing factored out and executed by our government.

Regardless of how taxes are handled in the future, everybody needs to pay attention to their strategic tax planning today. Taxes are going to be here for a very long time.

Bottom line: you need to start strategically planning your taxes today. You need to start thinking about what you need to do, today, as an individual. Taxes are going to come home. Taxes are going to knock on your door. They are in your house and taxes are coming out of your paycheck- they’re coming out of your bank account. That’s why I offer my free 30-minute consultations, so you can discover for yourself what makes our proprietary strategic tax planning service here at Karla Dennis and Associates, Inc.™ work for our clients- and accelerate their wealth building results.