Barn Talk - The IRS Owes You Thousands: For Work You're Already Doing

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Welcome to Barn Talk! In this episode, hosts Sawyer and Tork welcome Brian Hula, a Nebraska native with deep roots in agriculture and a knack for helping businesses save money through smart tax strategy. Brian Hula grew up on a farm working in the hog industry and eventually made his way into the world of sales and insurance, but it’s his expertise in R&D tax credits that brings him to the barn today. From his no-nonsense Midwest background to his hands-on experience across farming, estate planning, and insurance, Brian Hula pulls back the curtain on a topic that could directly put dollars back in your pocket: research and development tax credits. The conversation is packed with stories from the farm, lessons from the business world, and practical steps farmers and small business owners can take to make sure they're not leaving money on the table. Whether you're looking to better understand how these credits work, want insight into the difference between tax deductions and tax credits, or just need a push to re-evaluate your approach to taxes and estate planning, this episode has something for you. So grab a cup of coffee and get ready to learn to take advantage of overlooked opportunities that can help your business thrive. JOIN THE BARN TALK NEWSLETTER & GET LIVE EVENT ACCESS: We're on a mission to get 10,000 subscribers, and once we do, we're hosting a live event at the barn! Sign up to get exclusive access to tickets and details.👇🏻 Help us get there: https://www.joinbarntalk.com SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk   ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS   ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4   ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS    00:00 "Barn Talk Newsletter & Live Event" 07:46 Trusts, Taxes, and Estate Plans 15:01 Tax Filing Deadlines Explained 20:15 "Credit for Sleepless Innovation" 25:26 "Innovators and Industry Growth" 31:42 "Deep Dive Into Business Insights" 36:03 Upload Financial Documents Promptly 41:44 Fee Breakdown for Compliance Services 44:24 "IRS Credit Options Overview" 51:02 "Impact of a Good CPA" 57:08 "Family, Work, and Forage Journey" 59:47 Disillusioned with Corporate System 01:07:32 "Empowering Others for Success" 01:11:04 "Education and Skilled Labor Trends" 01:15:33 Social Media Fuels Hopelessness 01:24:03 Estate Planning for Aging Farmers 01:26:23 "Teamwork and Key Partnerships" ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com.

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in names. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn? Stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be another great Barn Talk guest episode. We've had a hell of a lot of great guests come to the barn to have some awesome conversations with us recently, and today is going to be no different.

This guy, I think, is going to bring a lot of value to a lot of small businesses and farmers. But before we get into it, you guys know the drill. If you get any value from the show, all that we ask is you share it out with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more that this show grows. And we found the best way to grow a podcast is through word of mouth. And it's kind of a ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. And there's a lot of ways you can get value. If you learn something, if you're related to us on something, if you laugh,

just share it. Another thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk is leave a review on Spotify or Apple. The more you guys do that, the more credible you make our show, which in turns allows us to make more episodes, climb higher on the charts on Apple and Spotify, and get more guests to come to the barn to have great conversations with us. And we also just love hearing your guys' overall thoughts on the show. So we appreciate any of you that leave reviews. It takes five seconds and it really helps us out tremendously. on and growing the show and growing our impact and what we do here at barn talk last thing you can do

to help us here help us out here at barn talk we really want to get to the point where we can do a live event here at the farm at the barn so our target to allow that to happen is we're launching a newsletter we're launching a barn talk newsletter that we're going to bottle the greatness that we have here and put it into a newsletter to send out weekly and to get actually to get actually to the live event tickets, sign up for that newsletter. Our goal is to get to 10,000 newsletter subscribers and then we're going to do a live event. And that's the only place that we're going to sell the tickets. That's the only place we're going to plug the tickets.

And if you want discounted tickets, be one of the first 10,000 subscribers to that newsletter. And so you can go to join barntalk.com to sign up today. And you'll be receiving a weekly newsletter that we think is pretty good. And it's free. It's free. We're not trying to fleece you for anything. It's just our thoughts on what's going on because sometimes we have guests. And so we don't do like a hot topics every week.

And this will be like getting a hot topics, whatever we're thinking to you every week. Yeah. And the thing about it is we're never, we're not going to make it like a pretty much a one-off from the podcast. It's going to be its own separate thing. You know, we want it to make it live on its own and be. its own separate thing. So, yeah, that's the last thing you can help us out. That's the last thing you can do to help us out here at Barn Talk. So, how are you today? I'm doing good. I'm, you look spry. Yeah, well, I got up early. I read a little bit, took a shower, so I don't smell

too bad. Shoured and shaved? Yep, I'm getting a haircut today, so spring is upon us. I've, I've surrendered to the weather. It'll be what it'll be because it was beautiful. Two days ago, yesterday it was like we were living in London. By Monday, it's going to be 26. I don't know. It just is what it is. Springs is really being a tease this year. Fickle. Being a tease.

Yep, for sure. But it'll be here. Our guest today, I think you're going to really, I think you're going to get a lot out of this because you're going to kind of learn with us. I've heard other people talk about this. I really don't know anything about it.

and he is a Nebraska native coming to us, so give him some grace. He's been in sales. He grew up on a farm out there, so he's got some cred. Worked with hogs growing up. We'll get into the whole story. But the big reason we got him on here is he specializes in R&D tax credits. And he've all heard a lot about that. and we wanted to learn more and we thought this would be a great way to get a tutorial on that.

So we're all going to learn together and try to save you some money. Yeah, hopefully save all of us some money because Lord knows we need it with fertilizer prices the way they are. So without any further ado, let's get into it. Well, shit, boys, we're live. So Brian Hula, welcome to Barn Talk. Well, thanks for having me, guys. Yeah. From Crescent, Nebraska, I guess where do you want me to start?

I can start anywhere you want. Tork, I know we talked about kind of my upbringing and the fact that we're all kind of from the same cloth from the beginning. I grew up in a hog confinement. My parents, when they graduated from University of Nebraska, first job they had, it was a brand new facility. And that's when those facilities were brand new. You know, that there was a state of the art.

You know, now today, you think working the hog industry isn't one of the glamorous things. Well, back then, that was glamour, right? Yeah, so about what time period would have that had been? So that had been 78 going to the 79 time frame. And then, you know, we kind of talked about, you know, back then child labor, what was that? Yeah. I don't know such thing. You know, my mom always, her favorite story is, you know,

send me down the pit to swim and get the baby pigs that get down the pit when it slap breaks or something like that. Or no, you guys got to remember, you know. all the PETA people out there. This was 40 years ago. This wasn't two years ago, you know, because this had been over 40 years ago, but I had a tricycle, and I would take the chains that you'd hang the heat lamps with.

I'd tie that to the back of my tricycle, and mom would throw the dead baby pigs of stillborns out into the alleyway, and I dragged, I'd wrap around the back leg, and I'd drag it out to the door. We threw them out. So, yeah, it was like, you just did it all, right? Yeah.

Well, it's a good thing that you told me that. story up front because that's the only reason that we let you on. Oh, that's okay. That's good. We're like, okay, well, this guy's got some hog experience. So I said, he's, he's all right. He is from Nebraska, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and let him come out here. Well, yeah, but I went to his college in Missouri. So, okay. So I'm well around. And then actually right out of college, I worked for a tumble works. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Yeah. So I worked, well, I shouldn't say I worked in the Hay factory. I was a marketing rep for the Hay factory. That's a story in itself. Well, let's go. First of all, how do people, how do people find you?

So a number of different ways. I'm on all the social media stuff. The easiest way is probably to go to, obviously, my internet site, www.a2Z benefits.net, not dot com, dot net, but it's just a letter A, the number two, and Z benefits.net. We're there. LinkedIn would be Brian Hula. There. same way for Instagram. I do have a Facebook page A to Z benefits on X, A to Z benefits as well. So so there and yeah, we truly are. Tork, as we were just talking, you know, you guys want me to talk about R&D tax credits, but I do major life and health. I do supplemental. You guys just last week with David were talking about estate plans. We do estate plans as well. And we've charged you about a fraction of the cost of what it does to go through. a lawyer and the other thing we do on that side of things is one we make sure that all of your

stuff is actually all of your assets are actually put in the trust because that's the worst thing you guys were talking about lawyers are terrible about this they'll create the trust but then it's in their i hate to say it's their best interest and i don't want to bag on lawyers here but to not put anything in it because then guess what it still goes through probate because if it's not in the trust it goes through probate and that's what we're trying to avoid go to the five and seven year deal you guys were talking about, you know, about, you know, protecting your, your mom and all that kind of stuff. And that's, that's what we do is make sure that, you know, we get this done soon enough that so you have that runway to be able to protect it, keep away from the nursing homes.

And we go a step farther than that. Some of the worst cases I've seen out there of what the problem is, it's, yes, you want the trust for that side. But the other thing we do is medical directives that so you make sure that you have the point person in charge that so you don't have the daughter and son having a screaming match in the hospital hallway about are we pulling the plug on dad or mom or not or you know and it gets all spelled out and they're exactly who's the point person and what mom and dad's directives are okay that's good yeah so we go into death about all that. And then on the kids aside, you know, if you got young kids that are, you know, elementary high school or whatever, even college age kids, you know, well, is Jim Bob really

capable of handling $350,000 or is it going to be gone in six months? Well, we can take and we can separate out and be like, okay, obviously you've got your trustee that's, that's in charge of Jim Bob to some extent, but you can say a third, third at 18 years old, a third at 26. I mean, you decide wherever ages you want. And then you can have it split out even that so, yep, they got, Susie's got $20,000 for a wedding that can come out of it, you know, you know, or where a dollar figure you want to come up with, you know, or college fund, things like that, all these different things to buy a car.

You know, you basically, the whole reason you do this trust is so you can control your business from the grave. Look at that, Sawyer. I could be a thorn in your ass for decades after I'm gone. Yeah, I hope that's not the way it goes. You're already a big enough. You're already a big enough Thorne. I've done a pretty good job.

You got nothing. You got nothing when you're 18. You got nothing with you're 21. You're 26. We still got nothing. But it's coming. It's coming. I'm still these days.

I'm making on it. We're going to get it. We're going to get it. For dear life. How did, so you, you got in contact with Brian because of Blake, right? Blake Albers. Well, he reached out to me. and I think he just said that you knew Blake,

and I think that was the benefit of the doubt. And so we get a lot of people that, you know, reach out to us. And you never know. Sawyer's question to me was he's like, is this guy, is he going to be able to talk? Is he, because if he's not interesting, if we have to coax it all out of him, I think he passed that test.

I think you passed that test 100%. That's like about two and a half minutes. Yeah. And I've just been like this my whole life, you know. And that's the thing I'll also say about, you know, raising your kids, growing up, my daughters both have started giving speeches when they're six years old. I started giving speeches when I was six year old, six years old, that being out in the public, not scared to go out and use your voice. And honestly, I think that's 90%, 95% of the problem with the world today of these generations coming up that we're talking about. and why it's hard for them to work, hard for them to get jobs,

hard for them to be social and public and be useful to society is exactly that. We're not, well, COVID killed it for one. Yeah. And there's another number of things COVID killed that we're going to get into today, I'm sure, even farther down the line here. But one of the biggest ones is in school anymore, you're taught to sit down, shut up and listen, right? And that's, to me, that's a worst thing you can do to them.

So, no, even though I'm divorced and so I know you're going through some stuff right now, but anyway, we co-parent very well on that side of it about making sure that the kids are involved, they're active, they're using their voice, they're giving speeches, they're learning, they're doing the same activities we did when we were younger to make sure that when they grow up, they can take care of us. Yeah, right. Exactly right. Let's start with the basics.

What's the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction? And why is the distinction so important? Okay, so the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit when we're talking about this deal that Trump just came out with is, so a tax deduction is like you go out and you go to your CPA, your compliance CPA and he says, Torque, you got a problem here, buddy. You're going to have to write a check for $50,000 to the IRS this year.

and you go, oh, bullshit, I ain't doing that. What can I do? Well, your compliance CPA, 90% of them. I'm not going to say all of them, but 90% of them. And God bless them, what they do is great and we need them, but they're number crunchers. That's what they do. And their main deal is to put the numbers you give them in the right categories. That's their job.

Okay. So they're going to say, go buy a new pickup. Go buy a new tractor, whatever, you know. Well, on that, so you only get to all you're doing there, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. If you need a new pickup, sure, go do it. I'm not saying not to. But what you're doing there is you're just reducing your claimable income, right? So if you made $250,000, you just made your claimable income go down to $200,000. You're still paying tax.

You know, you're going to pay less, but you're still going to pay tax. It's not a one-for-one ratio. Right. Okay. On a true tax deduction, and that's what. one of the things that Trump made in this new bill for these R&D tax credits that we're about to talk about is that he truly made it a one-to-one tax reduction. So if you got a fifth, again, you go to your compliance CPA and he says, TORC, you got a $50,000 tax liability,

and you get a $50,000 tax credit, boom, it's wiped out. It goes to zero. There are a good thing about these tax credits that we're talking about is you can actually carry them forward for up to 20 years. This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms.

But I've got Tellus Online Security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season. Plan started just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity. theft conditions apply years so if you don't need them so we're going to go one we're going to go back to 22 okay so we're going to do 22 23 24 and 25 now there's some some things in here you got to

know and this is why we had to get on this onto here i'm only so big a voice right and and thank you for bringing me on because this gets it out to so many more people so much faster that we can actually get this done in a timely period. One is to be able to claim 22, 23, and 24, all your paper has to be done and turned into IRS by July 4th, Independence Day. Okay. Two, even harder is if you've already filed your 2025 taxes, like if they're filed and done, we need to be able to claim 22, you've got to have your stuff done for 22 anyway by April 15th. Okay. So guys out there, if you're listening and you want to do this, you got to get on top of it, get with us, and we'll help you get it done quickly. But to go back to 22, 23, and 24, if you have not filed 25s, file an extension. And I also want to say right now before we get all of us in trouble, this is not tax advice. Just like, just like Torque, when you say this is not, when you market update, this is not marketing advice.

This is just what we know where we're at and what's going on, okay? we should actually just modify our disclaimer and just say none of this is advice for anything. Yeah. There is. Go ahead. Okay. So I should back up and go clear back. These tax credits aren't new. Right. They go clear back to 1981. Reagan put these things into the place in the 80s. Okay. So that's where it started. But back then, just like you guys have now, you had to have a film crew, you had to have lab coats, you had to have all this. documentation. And the big businesses, the ones over a certain threshold still have to do that. So like Walmart, Amazon, the big, big ones, they still have to do it that way. They got to have the big ones. Okay. But they made it Obama. Obama actually made it easier.

In 2015, they made what's called a simplified credit. Okay. So he made it semi easier to get. and then Trump with the big new beautiful bill in July made it ultra simple. Okay. And I'm actually going to read this statement that so, because this is actually part of the tax code. It says, in the last four years, has your business developed or improved products, processes, software, formulas, or techniques through a system of trial and error, designed to eliminate technical uncertainty. Okay.

The big two key words that Trump put in there that makes every business, and ag is at the top of the list, is or improve. Two words, two words added to the tax code. Yep. Or improve. That just opened up everyone,

because every single day you're trying to improve your business, right? What other business out there every single day is trying to improve their business. All of them, right? And so you guys mind if I give a few examples of different businesses here that we're looking at that you just think like, nope, we're just doing our business. This is just part of how we make ourselves better, right? Yeah. So ag every day. So farmers, every year, you're using different chemicals. You're using different varieties. You're going,

well, David's going from tearing up everything, making it black, to do a no-till, right? Which, I mean, there's guys been doing no-till for years. But what seeding rate are you putting down on your rye? Are you changing your seating rate on your rye that's so you have maximum foliage? When do you do the burn down? Are you going to cut it and bail it? So you have more product to sell and then burn it down? Are you going to plant your beans earlier or later?

Same thing for your corn? You know, every year with the environment, we're changing what we're doing every single year from that standpoint. So you're constantly changing that, right? And improving. You're always improving. Exactly, because you're always trying to get more yield at less cost. That's what we're after.

You know, torque we talked about. I mean, you guys are a slam dunk. You know where you're at on your extractor. I mean, that's a no-brainer rubber stamp boom going to happen, right? But you're one of the exceptions to rule of going way outside the box of what's going on there. I'm trying to speak here today to the everyday Joe that thinks, oh, that's just part of me doing my business. This is just what we've done for 50 years. And we're just trying, we're just trying to make a profit, right? Like, and Sawyer, even you shutting down your,

your business, you can go back to 22, even stuff that didn't survive or didn't make the cut or things that never even came to fruition, you get credit for that. I tell people, and the thing is you're not going to get credit for the actual seat itself or your extractor itself. What you're going to get credit for,

I tell everybody, all those nights at midnight where you're laying in bed, can't sleep because you're thinking through, how am I going to make this happen? You're finally getting paid for all those hours of laying there in bed, not being able come up with things. So some other examples here. So ag on that side, obviously,

it's a no-brainer. Recent one I've done, concrete company and making concrete since the Romans, right? Like what's new about concrete? But no, you come up with new formulations. It's like, okay, what's the humidity going to be today? Is there a snowstorm coming? You know, is it going to be 95 degrees? You know, how thick do we need to make it? What are we going to to be putting on this pad you know are we parking you know a 90,000 pound loaded semi on on it or is it going to be for a park for kids to play basketball you know again what time a year what what's underneath for dirt you know do we got a sand layer we went straight on you know so all those things are variables that you're working with every single day where we at in the country as far as freestlaw

you know um I'm actually getting to go down to speak to the Paving Association in Arizona, 110 contractors here in two weeks to have this exact conversation. But that's all, you know, you always see these strips on the highway where it's like, hey, this is a test strip for state of whatever, Nebraska. And every 150 yards, well, this one's working pretty good. That one's not working worth of shit, you know, but that's all R&D, you know. Hey, thanks for sticking with us. Here's something that people don't always think about. One out of every three acres of corn that we plant in this country is planted for exports. So when trade policy goes sideways, it hits us directly.

I've watched markets move on a tweet. I've watched bases just blow up over trade disputes. It matters and it matters a lot. The Iowa Corn Checkoff invests in the U.S. Grain Council and the U.S. Beat Export Federation. And those folks are out there every single day building relationships and opening up markets in countries that want what we grow. And in 2023, corn exports alone accounted for $13 billion. That's not nothing.

That's real money coming back to Iowa farms. Your corn checkoff dollar is working for you whether you know it or not. To see how it's paying off for you and to get involved, go to Iowa corn.org. Now, let's get back to it. So, just as like an example, so if the farmer decides they're going to put different row cleaners on their planner, you don't get any credit for buying that row cleaner. But the time that you went, called eight people, talked to five different neighbors, went to two farm shows and saw all the different varieties to make that decision,

that's what you're getting a credit for. Exactly. Or the one place where materials can come in is like if you're trying to weld some stuff together and you end up scrapping it, you know, and it's not the final product. If it's products you're using in the process. Yes, but you're exactly right, Torque. That's exactly how it works is all that time and energy. And then even the testing time, that's the biggest thing we're finding is people aren't giving

themselves enough credit for the time or their labor force that they have going into it. Because, okay, so you built the widget or whatever it is. But then you got all this testing time. You got all this training time. The other thing you get paid for is certification testing. So if you got a trucking company, obviously all these guys got to go do their DOT physicals. They got to do their certifications. All that stuff counts.

All the times they take, like you said, go to your chemical training or you sit in a half-day deal to be a commercial applicator or even to apply for yourself. All that time you sit in those classes, that counts. And yes, your travel time to go to shows, all those different things on the ag side count. So, and this has been available since, in the form it is now, since July of last year. Correct. But to some degree, clear back to when did Obama change it or make it simple? In 2015, he made a simplified credit. Like I said, the things Trump did to it to make it really appealing to everybody right now is, again, that one-to-one tax reduction.

to the ability to go back and do basically four years at the same time to be able to do 22 through 25 at the same time. And then the other big thing that you're going to get out of this if you're applying for it is once you've got three years established, the IRS is going to give you a little stamp or a little label that says you're an innovator. Okay? Look at that, Sawyer.

You guys are going to be innovators. So yeah, and then once you got the innovator status, I know we keep talking about farming because I mean, That's what we all know the most. And most of your listeners also are, I mean, there's so many other industries we can get into here. But once you become an innovator, it's just like your repair bill as a farmer or rancher, you know, if you have established that you're $100,000 every year repair bill and then as you grow, okay, and next year it's $150,000. And three years later, it's $200,000. The IRS don't blink an eye.

They're just like, oh, yep, this is just part of barn talk. It's the increase of how they do business. You know, you guys keep buying new and better equipment. It's just like it's part of our business and growing. Well, once you got the Indivator label, when it goes to R&D tax credit side of things, they see, okay, well, you got $50,000 this year, you got $75 to next, then $125,000,

and it just keeps growing every year after that. Wow. That's kind of crazy. We have a quote on here, or a point on here, it's like, what's the catch? It sounds like it's almost too good to, be true, like, what's the documentation process look like? Is it a nightwear, nightmare on paperwork side?

You know, for people that might be like, man, this all sounds great, but like... Well, I'm going to, I'm going to our own horn here a little bit on this side of it. It could be a nightmare. It really could. But we've developed a process and that's why you use our system.

In Nebraska, right now, in my area of Nebraska, anyway, I should say, I only know of two groups they're doing it. us and one other one. Because if I hear somebody else, I did run into somebody, another farmer two days ago that has been doing this. I go, let me guess you're using XYZ company.

He goes, yeah, how'd you know? I go, because they're the only ones or other ones around that I even have heard about doing this. Okay. So we charge about 10% less than everybody else on the market doing this. Okay. And then on top of that, the other thing I didn't tell you is what Trump made happen. Well, this isn't a Trump thing. This is just an IRS thing is going back to 22.

You're going to get 8% interest compounded daily going clear back to 22 to the time that you get your credits. Wow. Yeah. So we've got figured out that your bill to us for processing all this stuff equals out to be what your interest is. and so you can't the a tax credit they the IRS can't charge you tax on the credit but they will charge you tax on the interest well but then when the interest is basically the cost of the bill well then when you pay us in 2025 2026 whatever you know you've got the deduction well then that that that that that bill is a right off for you as a cost of doing business so then you just it just apples and oranges it just washed out even right Right. So that worked out good on that side of things.

So, sir, you may have to ask your question. I know I got off tractor a little bit. All good. I just, you know, for anybody that's listening, it might be like, oh, this all sounds great, but it almost sounds too good to be true. Okay. What are the nightmares? What are the things, you know, what do you got to do? What do you got to do? Okay. So, well, so one of the nightmares for our side anyway is in true Trump fashion, he made this, boys, shit or get off the pot because this thing ain't last and he's like i'm giving you an opportunity here i'm giving you opportunity to better your businesses you're not going to be able to wait until all your neighbors and all your buddies got their money and then get to do it to monkey see monkey do thing yeah it's either you're going to be an innovator you're going on top this you're going to

take advantage of this or it's going to go to pass you by the wayside and you're getting you're staying off the train and you're not you're not you're not you're not you're not on board with being an American and improving your business. That's part of it. Okay. And then as far as using us, what we do that make it a lot easier. So the first, I'll just take you through the steps of how we do it. Kind of the compliance side and how that all works because that'll make more sense to you.

So the first thing we do is going to a business, be like, hey, yeah, we see that we feel like you, XYZ business, qualify for this. make sure we take a look at. First thing that you're going to get told or I get told all the time is, well, let me check with my CPA first. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate lunch.

The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. Okay. Again, going back to compliance CPAs and forensic CPAs, we've got forensic CPAs that find all this stuff. Your compliance CPA, Torque, this would be like, if you go to ask your compliance EPA about this, it'd be like if you're going to your dentist to ask them about your eyes. Yep. It's not their scope. It's not, it's not their venue. It's not, it's not what they do. Okay. So the first thing we do is fail out of questionnaire. The first three pages are your basic normal stuff, name of business,

EIN numbers, jazz like that. How long you've been in business? S corp, C corp, all that jazz. Okay. Then the final page is 18 questions about things that you may have done to improve, promote, changing your business. Okay. And they're, there anywhere from software updates, cybersecurity, landscaping, underground, electrical, improving wire lines, improving environment.

There's just a whole list. Anything you've done to improve your business. Basically, if you can answer yes to four or five of those questions, it's worth going forward and to the next step of the process. So then we do a interview and we've got eight people

that are trained to do these Zoom calls where basically we create what's called QRAs or qualified research activities. So before you even get on a Zoom call, we've been in the background gone. Obviously, we got your web address and your SIC code and everything there. And we've done a deep dive into your business,

just like you deep dived into my business before I came on to your podcast about, well, that we really want this guy on here or not. So it's the same thing. thing we do a deep dive into your business about the information that you provide as to okay this is a qualified research activity that uh you guys have done as far as being able to these are areas we think you qualify okay got the list down it's like okay torque we see that you're putting in this extractor uh for poo and you're trying to get the water out of the poo and we see you're

going to, you know, put it on your fields and you're going to make sure it's put on at the proper rate and you're going to have the nutrient level so you know how to variable rate it across all of your acres and all this stuff, right? And so basically we'll sit here, just like we're sitting here having a conversation now, we'll ask you, okay, so what have you done? How are you doing this? What are some things you're working on? And it's all gets recorded by what we call fireflies all AI right it's all this AI stuff that we're talking about this is where eye comes in really good so over the course of 45 minutes in this conversation we have fireflies is recording us within seven minutes or less after that call gets over with we email you back

all of your qualified research activities it's all documented in a pretty little bow for you to know what it is so we send you that email and then we got another email that's got a spreadsheet on it that has two tabs per year, 22, 23, 24, 25. And on one set, you put what, all you got to do is copy and paste. You copy the QRAs, your qualified research activities over just the headlines of it because we have it all documented farther below that. So you don't got to put all the information there. You just copy the headline, put it over in the spreadsheet,

paste it, and then you got to put down your labor, you know, who all was involved. So this is the art, this is the other thing Trump did to make it much more easier for everybody to apply it for. Included contract labor. Before it all had to be W2 employees. And this is where you do get in a little bit of a snag with farmers. And so I might limit some people here. You do have to, if the ones that aren't going to be able to qualify for this, unfortunately, which is really sad, is father, son, no W2 wages. They are. all they both get paid by selling cows selling hogs selling grain whatever it is and they don't have contract labor either yeah they're not getting a 1099 yeah yeah they don't even have 1099s if they

if they do all the stuff themselves yeah and they're paid out paid out of the commodities there's no no no there isn't unfortunately you know and chances are they're probably not paying a lot in taxes either though because you know because there's you're getting blood out of a turner but that point in time because there's nothing to recoup either. So it's kind of like goes both ways. But I feel bad for those guys because, yeah, they probably do a crap ton of these type of activities. Right.

But there's not a paper trail to go. But yeah, adding the contract labor was a huge, huge help to a lot of these businesses. Because, yeah, they're like, I talked to a lot. And they're like, we just don't have any W2 employees. I go, well, you did this project over here. You built a new building. you hired contract labor to put it up, right? Oh, yeah, we paid a lot in contract labor yet. Or maybe they custom harvest. So David custom harvest for you guys, right? You do pay a fair

bill to that for the custom hire side. Well, that labor there can be counted as well, whereas in a normal situation before, that wasn't available. Yeah. Anything David does is R&D. Yes, 100%. And I'm not, and I'm not bullshit in anybody about that. I mean, it's like every time that you talk to him, it's like, oh, we're going to try this or we're going to change this. So, yeah. He's got all the get to go fast. Everybody needs somebody like that. He's all got all the get to go fast.

So everybody puts the, they put their labor into the spreadsheet. Yep. So you got the spreadsheet. Put the labor in. Put the headline in. What's after that? So after that, well, and obviously you got to upload your PNLs, your profit loss. You got to upload your actual labor and contracts and your tax returns for those years.

You know, because we want to make sure you're not just coming up with numbers of what you paid people. You got to have the actual documentation of what is. And so then once you got that all uploaded, the faster you upload that, the faster we can get back to you. I mean, this is all at the speed of what you can do. And really, doing those spreadsheets should not take you more than one to two hours. If you're spending more than two hours doing that, you're doing something wrong. You better call me because you're putting way too much thought in this. And the other problem people do, they don't give themselves enough credit.

We're terrible about ourselves, not giving ourselves enough credit for what we do, what we think about, how much time we put into these things. And people really need to make sure that they put as much time as far as their labor of their employees as they can towards it. Because you're constantly testing, right? You're never done. To me, you could put down at 95% of time you're testing. like he and my folks his farm, oh my good Lord,

I don't even know how I get into this, but I mean, that'll talk about buying a new truck for 10 years before he actually did it. I own four new trucks before he went and bought one. You know, so it's the same thing, you know, across the board, you know, most business owners, they think about things for a lot longer.

They're deciphering and things like that before anything ever actually goes into place. And business owners pretty much universally, they they don't value their time. No, not at all. And farmers, more so than anybody, so many things,

if you ask a farmer what something costs, that they built themselves, but it didn't cost me anything. No. Even though they spent a month in the shop building whatever that is, if it was all built out of their labor, oh, it didn't cost them anything.

I had some scrap, I had some scrap milling around, and I got a welder. It's like guys that hauled, grain to the river and they could haul it to the elevator but the river is 20 cents more than what you could get at the elevator and it's their truck and it's their time and they go oh I can't afford it because it doesn't cost me anything to halt the river except all of your all of your upkeep all your tires all your fuel and your time but your time you

don't value in anything. You own the truck. That doesn't, you don't value that. I mean, farmers are notorious about misvaluing in their time. Yeah, your five hours sending they're in line. Don't, don't cost you nothing, does it? Yeah, exactly. That's crazy to me. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm X, I'm X dollars an hour. I don't give, I don't care if I'm sleeping or doing something else. I'm like, I'm, my time is worth this much an hour just because I should be doing something else, right? Exactly. Right. And when you get into stuff like we're doing, you start thinking about that in a whole different light. Yeah. So, So sort of to get back to your question there.

So we get everything uploaded. It's going to take us about a week to 10 days to muddle through it, strip it all apart, put it back together. It's going to actually go through through. This is how much compliance we do on our backside. We actually work at making it so you don't qualify then do, which sounds backwards as hell, right? Like you're like, like, you guys are in the business of getting us

this money, shouldn't you be trying to qualify us instead of disqualify? No, our job is to make sure that you don't get audited and make sure that you're all compliant and we're going to get you as much as we possibly can. But so what it does then is once we got all tore apart and put back together and figured out, you know, how much we can get back per year for you. So then it first goes to the forensic CPAs. So we got a bunch of those guys that look into it, be like, yep, pass the sniff test. This is good. It's what it is.

Then, actually, we've got two of these guys, but one of them actually works on Capitol Hill. Okay? His name's Mark, and he's a forensic CPA. I'm sorry. Mark's a tax attorney. He's on Capitol Hill most days of the week. So when they see our letterhead come across IRS,

again, blood out of a turnip, don't screw with these guys because they know what they're doing. and they're going to go through right compliance and it's not worth our effort. Because IRS is out to make money. They're a business just like everybody else, right? If it's going to lose the money by setting an agent out to go look into a business,

they're not going to do it. Okay? So they look at it and then it goes back to the compliance CPAs that we have and make sure it passes all of their tests as well. Once it gets through all three of those stages, and these are not inside people. These are all outside firms that we hire pay money to to look at. Because if you do it internally, you know, again, it's going to be more of the trying to, you know, make it qualified than disqualify.

So these guys are trying to disqualify it. So it gets through all that. They're basically just checking your work. Yep. Yep. Checking your homework. That's what amounts to. Checking your homework.

That's exactly what amounts to. Anyway, get all your numbers back. get you on another Zoom call like torque here's what we can get for you here's each year you can see it's increasing each year and this will continue into the future and it'll continue to increase in the future

so at that point basically we charge of our fee we charge a third a third and 34% so we are charged 33% up front when you say yes we want to work with you you want to work with us you already know what you're going to get back then the other 33%

is after we give you all your actual paperwork documentation, 70 pages of notes that says, this is how you're compliant and everything, and tells your compliant CPA how to, what lines on the tax code to put it into. Okay. So that's the other misconception when I first start working with people

that don't know us or know me. They're like, oh, well, I'm happy with my CPA. No, man, I'm not here. we're not here to take your CPA. We have compliance CPAs, but we're not here to file your taxes. I'm not taking your guy away from now. If you're looking for somebody,

I can give you some advice, I can suggest somebody to you. It's not even within this group, but that is not what we're about. We're about strictly in our lane, again, the dentist versus the eye doctor person, this is our lane, this is what we do, and we're not trying to take your compliance CPA.

So then your CPA file, the revised the revised returns and your returns going forward for you. Yours does. We'll advise them like so we even go in

and we'll start what the funny part that happens is so we get connected with a CPA a compliant CPA that has all these businesses in their

in their book of business we do the first one they see how we do this and how good the paperwork is and the working trail. You know you're walking I call it walking.

papers basically and walking papers in a good way instead of a pink slip but um they see that and then they're like oh i've got five other people here that i think would you be willing to take a look at them absolutely yeah well and it is it's just runs downhill same thing with the EP docs with the with the state planning yep it's the same thing because you work with the family and then they you know oh, well, I need to call brother Jim to see if he'll take care of the kids if something happens to me. Well, Jim's like, oh, crap, I probably should do mine. I don't even have a will, let alone have a trust, who you're working with. Well, I'm working with Brian.

Okay. So do yours and then it's just a trickle-down effect. So you got that third, third. What was the last third? So 34%. 34, yeah. Yeah. So that's after you get all your credits.

After you got all your credits once the IRS gives you. and that and that's another thing that you have options you got that's the other thing they gave you a bunch of options on this about how you want to do it so 22 23 24 you could take the cash if you want um you could again you could carry it all forward if you got a liability in 25 and you want to carry it forward and not have to pay any taxes in 25 you can carry it all forward and wipe out your 25 and then if you still have some left over carry it you know hold it in a holding tank for up to 20 years. Yeah. So these good, yeah, you can carry it forward for up to 20 years and or you could like take a partial of it. Say like, okay, you know, yes, you've already paid two thirds of your bill.

But, you know, before you even got this money, but if you're like, okay, well, I just want replenish my bank account. Well, you could say, okay, I want X number of dollars in a refund, you know, or choose one of the years that gets really close to that number. Take that year in a refund and then carry the rest forward. Like you got to. options are about about what you want to do. Yeah. When we were, when we were thinking about this and looking it up, the best number I could find was a lot of people say that less than 10% of eligible farmers and businesses are claiming the R&D tax credits. I mean, that's like,

that's probably like billions of dollars that are left on the table. Why do you think that number so low. Do you think that's an accurate number? I would say that's a very, very accurate number for, well, one, I'm glad you brought that up to work because I was going to bring it up. Forbes actually put out an article last fall that said yes, exactly, 70 to 80 percent of businesses that qualify for this will not even apply. Won't even apply, won't even entertain it, okay? And why I think that is is twofold. One, the IRS, does a horrible job of advertising anything. Absolutely horrible.

If you go to their website, it's so far behind. It's acrylic, right? Well, and we'll go, we can go into this about Musk, you know, when he was doing the Doge thing, and I hear from business owners every single day, individuals,

we can file our taxes online, we can do it through turbotax or ourselves or however we want to do it in 15 minutes. right. If you're a W-2 employee and that's all you do, you can file your tax in 15 minutes online. If you're a business owner, there's not an online way. It's impossible. If you need to question something, it's an email back and forth. It's a call. I mean, they don't let you do nothing. There's nothing modern about it. The system was built in the 70s and 80s and they haven't upgraded. And that's what Elon wanted to do was upgraded. So business could actually be efficient about doing it, but they

refuse to fix the system. Yeah. So that is part of it is the IRS not, you know, wanting to fix that part of it about making things easy for people to do from that standpoint. We make it easy for you to do it. It's just they don't advertise it for one. Two, goes back to what I kind of mentioned earlier. Everybody has so much faith in their compliance CPA that they have. They're like, well, my guy's been a really good job, but keeping my taxes down pretty low for last 20 years, you know. And the worst, I just had a guy yesterday. He's like, gosh, my guy's, my guy's 90 and he's done me a really good job.

He goes, I wonder how, man, I'm going to have to go through to find another one. I went through that. I went through about three of them before because the one I grew up with with my parents was, I thought was pretty darn good, was pretty lenient or, you know, flexible. Work to gray, right? I mean, there's gray in everything you do that just worked, work the right area. And then I went through about three of them pretty fast, like, you ain't doing near what should be able to do. What's interesting on that subject is, so my account, I was the same way, the accountant that I had, he passed away in motorcycle accident.

And so I had to find an accountant. And I called several people that I respect and said, hey, who do you use for an accountant? and I probably talked to six, seven, eight people. I can't remember exactly. And every single one of them basically gave me the same answer. They told me who they were working with. And they said, yeah, he's pretty good. And then at the end of the conversation, they said,

if you find a good one, let me know, because, yeah, I'd like to know if there's a better guy out there. Yep. It's like, I think we're all that way. I think we're all, like you really don't know. You really don't know how good or bad you have it. It's kind of like a lawyer when you hire a lawyer. Yep.

Is that how do you know? Well, you don't really know until you get in a situation that's really, really bad. Right. And that's a horrible time to find out, oh, this guy's not very good. And that's kind of how accountants are. It is. Hey, real quick, we just launched the Barn Talk newsletter and I want you guys to be a part of it. We're setting a goal.

10,000 subscribers. And when we get there, we're going to do a live event right here at the barn. Our farm, our people, our crowd. Everyone on the newsletter gets first access to tickets and exclusive deals. So if you want to be in on that, go to join barn talk.com and sign up today. Now, let's get back to it. And lawyers, it is. Now, I will give a little inside advice from, because I'm all over the U.S., right?

Like, I focused mostly in Nebraska. You know, I got a lot of businesses in Nebraska, but I got businesses in New Mexico. Arizona. If you look on our map, like we're all over the place. But as I go from town to town before I got had a bunch of agents under me when it was just me being A to Z benefits myself, right, I could go into a town and start having conversations with with different business owners and look at the success of their business. And within about an hour and a half of being in that town, I could tell you who the good CPAs in that town were and who were the ones they're dragging their business down. It was it's it's it's that blaringly evident it's it's insane.

I was like you got to be kidding me like like this is how in at first and now now I just know it because I've seen it for so long but at first I was like a good and bad CPA has that big of an influence on how successful your business is or isn't and that's scary that's scary that that one person in your life. Makes it whether you're going to flourish and have something that you're building EBDA, building, you know, a bottom line and going forward or dragging you down because they're not allowing you to use the tools that have been out there for years that you should be using, you know, and everybody bags on Trump about not paying taxes.

He's just using the system that was given to him. He's just got a bunch of these forensic CPAs like we have. They have gone in and found all the right tools to be able to use. It's nothing illegal. It's just that you guys out here don't have the people there taking the effort to go forth and do the things that we're doing and utilizing the tools in the tool belt properly. Not only did Trump use the tax code to save a bunch of tax money, he also used the tax code to single-handedly crush Hillary in that debate.

because that's the greatest political debate line, I think. He's ever seen when she went after him on taxes, and he just turned it on a dime. I just used the code that you and all of your rich friends made. And everybody was just like, holy shit. Let's go back just a little bit. We're going to get into more tax stuff. But how did you get, so this is your business, right?

This is your firm. This is your what you do. Like, how did you get into this? So you worked at John Deere for 10 years as a salesman. You've been a salesman your whole life. How did you get into what you're doing today? Okay. So this may get windy and, you know, well, you guys have figured out I can talk.

So this might take a little bit to get clear, clear full circle to where we're at today. Yeah. So work for, yeah, John Deere corporate coming out of college, basically. And then I work for corporate only for like a year and a half, two years. I was, and this is what made me do the shift from corporate to the dealership side. I'm telling this only because it's a funny, kind of funny story about the Canadians. So that summer, well, one, we worked for John Deere. I got sent down to Florida to train dealers.

This was before I was a salesman. I got sent to Florida to train dealers and salesmen how to sell brand new John Deere Baylors. Now I had some older guys, you know, they were also doing the presentation. and stuff. But here I am brand new. I ran a Baylor before, but like literally they threw me a book that's this thick, an operator's manual, this thick. They're like, learn this in the next two weeks because in four weeks, you're going to be down in Florida

from November through April teaching dealers how to sell this. Yeah, that was a, that was a training. And then you had to go out back, do a walk around, you know, all the features benefits, value prompter boards. You guys, if I remember the value prompter boards, right? So back in the day.

So we did that. So, yeah, here I am 20 nothing years old in Florida, trying to teach a 45, 50-year-old how to sell a John Deer Baylor that's been running a John Deer Baylor since they were, you know, the same age as I am now, right? But then I got shipped over. After that got over, we started in the middle of Texas. I'll never forget to start in Paris, Texas. and just like you're talking about the week crews going north, right?

Basically with first cutting hay, we started in Texas and went north up to Canada. And we ended up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I'll never forget this was when it flipped for me. I walked in a dealer's office, had my white John your shirt on, and there was a customer there sitting, you know, just like I am across the table from the salesman. and I walk in and I kind of lean against the wall where I can see the front, the front screen at his computer.

And I'm sitting here seeing the customer at the same time. And granted the customer is, it's just a lawnmower, okay? But this wasn't like a L-120. This was like a $15,000, $20,000 lawnmower that this customer was trying to get a quote on. This salesman was sitting there playing solitaire on his computer. And that's, that, that was when it clicked for me.

You can't help somebody that won't help themselves. Like, if you, if you're not going to sit here and put effort towards helping your customer, I could be home every night, you know, I, we're obviously still in the show cattle today. Back then, I had, I was still, I was still young enough. I could show. I had people taking care of my cattle back home. I'm like, I could be home every night. making twice as much money as I am today because I think I was making like 36,000 back then,

which was pretty good money. Back in that day, that was pretty darn good money coming out of college. But I'm like, I could be home every night doing my own chores, doing my doing my thing, my own bed. And I'm here trying to help you and you don't even want to help yourself. Why am I doing this? So I put my resume out to the basically whole stay in Nebraska. Every dealership, you know, they saw those credentials are like, yeah, we want this guy,

you know. I also told myself, oh, mom and dad, I want to be close enough that something happens. I can come be there and fix it and help you. I do not want to live close enough where I got to do your chores every day for you. So you missed out on that one. You start, you live too close to home.

Yeah. You know, so that that was one of my things. I was like, I want to be close enough. If there's a problem, yes, I can be there.

But I, I'm not going to be because I saw my dad do that for his dad. and Ty think held him back for several years because every day we're there, you know, God bless it. I mean, I mean, it's what you do, you know, got to work besides dad every day, which is great. But it's one of those things after we got done at the hog confinement, here we were doing all this other stuff, you know. So from there, went to work, had a great 12 years there. but then it got bought out by a bigger company just like the John Deere Way, right? And I worked my way up to being the forage specialist for the whole state of Nebraska.

So my speciality, my love was hay and forage. My love was cow. My love is cows. I really could give two shits about grain farming. I don't. That's not my deal. And probably part of the reason why I'm not back home today because my mom and dad's deal, they're about 50-50 cows and row crop.

and my heart and soul is on my mom's side of the family with the cattle on the ranching side. So that's what that's where I am. And that's why the hay thing worked for me. If it had been planners or something like that, like you'd have never caught me doing that. But because it was, because it took care of my cows, I was like,

okay, I can do this, you know. So anyway, you know how things just happen, life and don't take for granted. or don't ever expect things to work out the way you think they're going to because they never do. Right.

There's always bumps in the road. Something always happens. There's always a glitch. There's always a hiccup, you know, and you got to figure out how to overcome it. Well, what happened was a combination of things. One was getting bought out by a bigger corporation where you can no longer go to the person in charge. The other bigger thing that happened, why I didn't end up getting that. chair in the corner office that I wanted was the KSIH dealer down the road was going out of business.

For one reason or another, I'm not going to get into that on here because I don't want to drag people through things. But funny part was the guy that was managing that, basically losing his job, was married to the sister of the guys that owned our company. Well, guess who needed a job? Yep. And guess who we can stick in that office that we know and trust is still, still's gotten our 10 years in him and is 10 to 15 years older than this kid that's been here for seven years. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch.

Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy. Via rail. Love the way. Boom, all of a sudden, here I am looking at another 10 years of just being a salesman rather than taking the management, taking the lead and doing what I really wanted to do.

But then Deere figured out their system, what they thought was great for everybody, wasn't working, all blew up, opened it up to every dealership again. Everybody could sell them again and service them, and it didn't matter. and so I was kind of out of it. And at that point, I was, I was fed up with corporate. I was fed up with the corporate world in general. I was just done with it. I'm like, you know what?

I'm stepping away. There had been a guy that had been after me for a couple years already at that point to get into insurance. And I just kept pulling it off, putting it off, putting it off. And I'm like, well, I'll take a look at it. You know, I'm like, I see enough insurance plans. I mean, I'm going to do it. And everything I've ever done.

in my life. I said that this is one thing I think for young people too. If you do not truly believe in your heart, it's the very best in the industry of whatever it is. I don't care if we're talking cars and we're talking buildings and we're talking insurance, you know, livestock. If seed, if you don't think it's the very best out there and asking your heart and soul, do not do it. Yeah. That that to me, and that's always been my standard. goal. When I looked at something, if I didn't think it was the best out there, I'm not going to promote it because I don't believe in it. So anyway, got involved. So combined insurance is the supplemental side that I work on. I'm a area coordinator for those guys now, which is part of

my A to Z umbrella. And so I got a number of people under me there. But that's how I cut my teeth in the insurance industry. And that started in 2019, 1819. that kind of going in and then coming forward, then it just kind of blossom from there, you know. Guy invited to a meeting out in Gary, Nebraska, and a guy by name of Alex Abian was putting it on. Okay. And this would have been end of 2020 going into 21, I believe.

I'd have to get, I'd have to go back and think about exactly when this meeting was. but somewhere in that that time frame and he sat here and he started talking about these ERTCs, employee retention tax credits. He's talking about a lot of our stuff too, talk about life insurance, IULs, index universal life insurance policies, which side note, I will say, is the very best insurance policy out there. I mean, I'll do term, I'll do whole life. But if you really want to build a bank and if you want a pension and you want a defined benefit plan for yourself, talk to us about iul's okay that's that tangent um but Alex was uh start out talking about life insurance iUL stuff like that but what really caught my attention ERTC employee retention tax credits okay so any of you

business owners that applied for these you know what they are is 26,000 dollars per W2 employee that you get back from the IRS you know for keeping your people employed during COVID okay they actually for my people that ever actually up being averaged out about $17,000 per person. I got companies today. They're still getting paid for that today. That's how slow the IRS is on this shit. Like, they're still getting paid today.

I digress. But Alex started talking about this and I was, you know, being a numbers guy in my head and not wanting to send any money to a small daycares anyway, keep as much of your pocket as possible. I'm like, okay, I can go to all these businesses that are already clients in mine and I can put all this money back in their pocket. I'm not taking money out of their pocket. I am putting money directly back into their pockets. What does that look like? When you're improving their bottom line instead of going and asking somebody for money and you're saying,

hey, I'm coming in here to actually improve your EBITA. I'm here to improve your bottom line, you know, and it's not going to cost you on taxes. They're going to listen. Yeah, that's a win. So I took that and I ran with it because it was a window. It was a short window. Just like these R&D tax credits, it's a short window to go back. I mean, yeah, we're going to be able to go forward, you know, into inevitability. But if you want to collect the most, you go go back. Well, that ERTC, so the same group now that I work with R&D,

they'd started doing R&D clear back in 2015. So they'd been doing R&D when Obama put that in a place. place. That was what they were specializing was the R&D tax credits. Well, you can't double dip. You couldn't do R&D tax credits and ERTC. The ERTC paid out a ton more than the R&D tax credits for that short period of time, but it was a finite window. It was a one-time slam-bam, out the door, get your money. Deal. So I put a lot of heart and soul and focus into that. And, and got a lot, a lot of money back for the business owners and state of Nebraska and other states too, but mostly obviously Nebraska, because that's where I focused at.

So I took that, ran with it, and so that's gotten me into so many doors. One of the quotes I like using from Depp of Clement Stone is small hinges swing big doors. Those small hinges is being able to bring that kind of value to the businesses is just opened up A to Z to a level I've never even dreamt about. Yeah. So, so then, so we got through the ERTC thing. You can't apply for them anymore. Sorry guys.

Too bad. Too sad. If you didn't get that, you missed a window. It's done. But then boom, we turned around. And now those same people that, uh, did all that are now doing back to doing the R&E tax threats because Trump made them so much better for everybody. And that kind of what brings it full circle as to where we are today.

Yeah. Holy cow. That's quite the run there you got. But I just wanted to give people context of how you've kind of got to where you are today. What is, what's one thing that keeps you up at night when you think about the future of small businesses and farming in America today? One thing that keeps me up at night is the labor force. You know, you guys talk about it on here all the time. It's a weekly conversation, right?

And it's a weekly conversation for a reason. That's what keeps me up at night is how can I help more people? You know, the biggest problem is nobody you ever feel, and I don't care who ever, everybody will say this about their business. Nobody wants to work as hard at your business as you do, right? 80%. Right.

And I mean, I don't have, I don't have any, I don't say, I say I don't have any employees. I don't. I mentor a lot of people. I've got I've got nine sales reps. I've got I've got nine agents under me that I get override on. But do I write them a paycheck every two weeks? They're building their own. They're building their own business. I tell them that I'm like you're under you're under my umbrella. You get to use you know, you get to use an A to Z benefits email address. You get to use my website for you know getting contacts and getting leads and stuff like that. But the harder you work, the more you're going to make. I'm not, there's no ceiling here for what you guys can make.

And it, and it drives me nuts. I'm like, how can you, how can you people not have the vision that, that, that I have? And I guess that's what, that's what keeps me up is I want to better everybody's life, whether it be a, a business owner, an individual. And it's like, how do you get through to these people who just don't believe that there's a better way, that, that, that, that, You know, put on their tinfoil hat and are like, like, oh, it's got to be a conspiracy. Like you say, it's too good to be true. You know, we got a whole other product that we haven't even talked about called Champ Plan that actually takes $573 per W2 employee per year saved in the employer's payroll tax,

keeping from going to Somali daycares again. Yeah. Increased in employees take home pay by $100 to $200 a month. gives them health benefits out of their tax savings. So you're basically giving the employee your raise. You're improving the bottom line of the business. You're giving them a free health plan, not free, but zero costs to employee or the employer.

I mean, the money comes from somewhere, which I can get into details of that. But everybody's like, what's the catch? There's no catch. You just got to implement it, guys. Yeah. And that's what keeps me up is the everybody just wanted to do the status quo. And like we don't like, do you really want to improve your business or don't you?

Yeah. Do you feel, do you think we're still, part of that is we're still feeling the repercussions of COVID? We are. Absolutely. I saw the other day, and I have no idea, I guess I can't say this 100%, but somebody said that up until COVID, if you took any poll among Americans, the numbers would always fluctuate,

but you would have a poll number where a majority of Americans were optimistic about the future or their level of happiness. And that had been that way for as long as people had been doing general polls about whatever. And then COVID and post-COVID, that flipped, and it has never come back to being more people optimistic than pessimistic about the future. And I just thought, that was kind of crazy to me. But then you start just the way, just the way young people, I feel like young people are less aggressive when it comes to their future or about starting businesses or taking risks.

It's like that whole event made people gun shy. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? So two, three things about that. One, I blame our school systems. Going back to why I opened with 45 minutes ago or whatever that was, is taught to sit down, shut up and don't ask. questions, right? We're going to feed you what you're going to know, right? You need to listen, not think outside the box. You know, you guys talk all the time about how electricians, plumbers, all these people in the labor force, they're going to be able to, within the next five, seven years, name their own price. And you're 100% right on that because the ones that are going to be aggressive and go out and actually do that are absolutely going to kill the world, you know, especially. And that's the other side is and why we try to put defined benefit plans

and pensions into place with business owners, plumbers, electricians, because how long do the really good guy stick around in your business? You get a guy really, really good. He works up the ladder. He becomes a journeyman and is like running, running the crew. and he looks across at the boss that's sitting the corner office putting all the quotes together and he's like well shit i should be doing that why am i not why am i still working for for joe when i could you know start start my own business and you know capitalize on it you know so the the good good ones and so that's one way to to keep those guys your key man you know keep them involved in business and and make it really hard for them to leave you uh from a business owner's

standpoint. Another thing that I think really is a, is a reasoning we're seeing this. I don't know if I'd say COVID has a fair amount to do with it is the rich get richer, right? The division keeps getting wider and wider and wider. You know, the ones that have the businesses, the, the who is and who isn't is just getting unless you're i don't know if i say lucky because any i still believe by stand by the belief that anybody can do anything they set their mind to but if you don't have parents that were aggressive if you don't have you know if you don't have a support system in the background they're encouraging you to do that again when i go back to my kids encourage them to do stuff like that and if your parents were ones and nothing again

against them, but just went to a factory and worked an eight to five or whatever job, came home and that's what our life was and are just used to that. Yeah. Well, how do you get out of that rut? It goes back to the inner city thing about, you know, if there's not two parents involved, what is the likelihood? You know, you get back to likelihoods of things. The other thing I've seen, the big thing I've seen since COVID,

and this I'm going to call business owners on this one too this isn't just you know Joe public this is this is business owners too the lack of accountability and doing what you say you're going to do I live every single day by I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do we said we're going to be here at 930 this morning you know we we talked about different times back and forth but we said hey this is what time we're going to be here show up on time if you got to be here if you got to be here I think Zoom has destroyed that too. Everybody thinks just because it's a Zoom meeting, it's easy to reschedule.

No, and our schedules, we're three weeks booked out. And I have people all the time like the morning of, they're like, oh, I need to reschedule. And I get things happen once in a while. But before COVID, I wouldn't say it never happened. Yeah.

But it was very, very, very rare. It was a handshake and it's, yeah, we're doing this now. Like, we're meeting at this time, you know, or paperwork is due, you know, get your stuff done. And to me, today, you can talk to your blue in the face about telling people, there's a deadline. We got to get this done. And they just don't think it's important. Yeah. Yeah.

I think another thing about your comment about young people and just, I don't know if they're gunshot. I feel like also, like you talked about at Division, I just think there's a lot of, I think if your social media feed is full of doom and gloom and full of negativity and full of everything wrong in the world and how you're getting screwed and that's what you're filled with every single day, it's hard to feel optimistic about wanting to go out and you believe in the system of capitalism.

And, you know, all that to say, like, I think there's just a certain amount of people that they don't have hope. You know, they just don't have hope for whatever reason. Could be parents, could be where they grew up, could be their social media feed because it tells you what you want to see. And when all you see is that, it's hard for people to really want to go get it, you know, and believe in the system. You know what I mean? Yeah. Your mayor of New York did not get elected by accident.

Exactly. 100%. But on the flip side, I still. do think we underestimate how many young people out there are going out and finding tools and finding resources to try to get ahead. I mean, I think there's more financial, good financial information out there to how to grow your wealth than ever before. There's people giving out free game on how to start. I mean, what we have today, I say that we say this all the time. I mean, I didn't go to college, we started this whole social media thing all through YouTube trial and error and just

figuring it out as we go and leveraging the tools of the internet and social media to figure it out. I mean, there's a lot of young people, I think, out there that are willing to take a risk and shoot their shot because there's enough people. If your feet is full of that stuff, I think you're really optimistic. And you're really knowing and wanting to know how to. make your life better and grow your wealth and build a future. But I don't know, I don't know what the percentage is. I don't know if it's 50-50. I don't know if it leans more towards people feel less hope than feeling like there is hope. I don't know what that is. But, well, back to where

we started though, when you're talking about your kids, if you are a young person and you have communication skills and you know where to go find information, you are absolutely going to crush whatever you decide you want to do. Because that to me is the thing that impresses me. I'm sure that when I was a kid to my people older than me, it wasn't impressive when a young person looked you in the eye when they shook your hand because it was expected. But if I run into a young person today and I'm talking to them and they can sit there and have a conversation and look me in the eye, I'm impressed because I don't see that very often. Yeah.

If they can put their shoulders back, head up, look you in the eye and not be twilling and kicking rocks on the ground and actually look at you in the face. Engage. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I got one dollar is going to be an equine vet. the other one wants to be an animal chiropractor shit i got made i shouldn't have vet villas forever right yeah you're you're they'll be fine as long as they

use all of those hours billable and don't and don't partake for themselves that's the secret yeah yeah no but so are you you made so many excellent points there and you're right the algorithms if if you're on the wrong algorithms i And I think, yeah, you get down that path, you get down that rabbit hole or that black hole and it's all negative, negative, negative, that thing's nuts. Yeah. So on the flip side, you know, I ask you what, what worries you about small business in America today?

What, what are you optimistic about? What, what do you think? I'm optimistic about a bunch of stuff you said, actually. One, you know, and this doesn't necessarily have to do a small business, but as far as young people being successful, Like if you want to get into stocks and things like that, like there are so many more opportunities now than there ever were to be able to learn and teach yourself how to trade rather than using an investment guide necessarily. It's going to take a percentage of what you're going to make.

Right. So there's that side of it. But then the other side that I look at on there is, you know, your investments, you start talking. about 401ks, IRAs, you know, all this stuff and how to bring that forward and how to plan that out for a runway. You know, and when it comes to small business, there's so many grants out there. Now, it again goes back to applying yourself, knowing the right places to go to look for those opportunities to grow your business and build your business. And you're right, I don't,

I don't know what the percentages are either. And there's probably far more, you know, kids out there that are going to be ultra successful than what we try to give credit for. But it's probably no different than it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. I mean, we always say the it's always the 80, 20 or the 90-10 rule, right? You got the 80, 20 percent are going to be ultra-successful or somewhat successful. 80% are going to be the worker bees, right? And then you're going to have that 10% of that

that are going to be the upper echelon. They're truly going to go out and change the world, you know. And I don't know if I'm on that border between the 20 or the 10, but I'd like to think you were somewhere on that side of the fence anyway. Yeah, I mean, I use it too many times. I use the pig analogy because I'm a hog farmer. And people, it just, it drives me crazy when people try to, they believe in this idea that you can manufacture outcomes. And you can't, you can't.

Because the hog business is a perfect example of that, you know, when I get 2,400 head of pigs, those pigs are all the same genetics. They're all farrowed within five days of each other. They are the best, they truly are the best genetics that you can get. They are all fed the same diet. They're put at optimal temperature, everything to give them the best, fastest growing life they can. And guess what?

10% of them never even make it to market. And 10% of them outgrow all the rest. They're bigger than all the rest, ready to go, and they're all the same. and then the rest of them are somewhere in between. And believe me, every vet and feed guide nutritionists, they're trying to figure out how to make them all cookie cutter, and they can't do it. And people are the same way.

For whatever reason, no matter what government program there is, well, and no matter who's in charge, because if you have people making policy that they think they're going to tax the shit out of everybody and they're going to redistribute that wealth, guess what? There's 10% out there that they will figure out a way, no matter what you do,

they will figure out a way to prosper even under that. And then if you go the other way, no matter how much money you give the bottom, there's just a certain amount of people that don't have any drive, don't have any desire to build their own destiny, and nothing you can do, nothing you can do is going to save those people.

And I don't know why it is, but it is what it is. Sorry, that was a bit of a rant there. No, it's true, though. It's just human nature. It's just nature, I think, of any species. This is pretty slick. I think that Brian is one of the first guests that we've had that has already set the hook to get himself invited back for another episode

because he's managed to talk long enough about one subject that we can't really afford to start another one, so I think we're going to have to do it again. But I'd say I think everybody in our listeners would be very interested in talking at length about estate planning and just exactly what you're talking about because it's within the ag world, within the farm world, it's huge.

And that problem is only growing every day because we've got such a group of farmers that are, are aging out and all these decisions are going to have to be made and how do we how do we care for the parents and how do we keep the farmland intact to be able to get it to another generation so you don't want to get me started about probate yeah i'm sure i'm sure yeah well we'll have to do it we'll have to do it another time but i want to i want to ask you one one one one question that we're kind of trying to add into a into all of our episodes and we have guests on. It's called the golden shovel. It's our segment we want to do. We want to ask you,

is there anybody out there, any brand person, a thing that you use every day that you want to give your flowers to and kind of give a shout out to whatever it is, company person thing you use every day that you think is pretty awesome that people should know about. Can I give two? You can give two. We'll give you two golden shovels. So my two golden shovels, one, is going to go to lifetime navigators. Okay. So when we're talking about R&D, we're talking about estate plans,

when we're talking about IULs, they do bookkeeping services. I mean, a big portion, 90% of my A to Z part is those guys. And the guy specifically, Jeff Moulman, I got to know him when I talked about Alex, A, Alex was the key. Was it was a guy,

that like brought me into the fold. Jeff is a guy work with in, day in, day out. We're on yesterday alone. We were on five Zoom meetings together yesterday with clients. Yeah. He did nine yesterday. I was on five of them. Does that tell you how close to two of us work together on doing this?

So Lifetime Navigators, that crew, their business that they put together second to none. I mean, absolutely. I wouldn't be where I am today without them. And then the other one I'm going to a shout out to is combined insurance because they're the ones that got me started on this path. If it wasn't for that group and who I work with there, I still, I do, I mean, I just got a promotion with them in February. So I guess I better, you know, deal.

So that really helped build my team. It's growing my team. It's a place where agents to start. Like if you're, if we're hiring by the way, if you're, but if you want to like get started like there's no way you're going to be able to have the bandwidth to do all the stuff that I'm doing right now like you got to start somewhere and grow into it I didn't do all this over it it wasn't like I said oh yep here's the business and boom we're doing all of it tomorrow you know it was little little pieces along the way and now it looks like oh man you guys have

been you know doing all this for years but uh yeah combined insurance the supplemental side there there by far. And the reason you probably even know who they are. Have you even heard of combined insurance before? We have. I haven't. So we're a direct comparative of AFLAC. Third cheaper, a better payouts. But they've been around since 1922. All right. But the reason

you don't hear about them is because we don't waste all our money with a duck on TV you know, with a bunch of advertising. It's kneecap to kneecap, person to person and just referral based. And so that that's why you don't you know. And that's how

that's how our business is built too right like until i reached out to you torque and it was like hey i want come talk to you guys you didn't hear about it is he benefits you don't you don't see my face on a bunch of billboards anywhere i don't here's another thing i don't have a brick and mortar building i mean i've got i've got my house i've got my truck my truck is my like when you were selling buildings your truck was your office right 100% keep the overhead down put the value back to the back to the back to the businesses that that's what we're we're structured around is is bringing as much value as possible. Yep. That's awesome. Well, Brian, we really appreciate you coming on, man. I think people got a lot of value. I think R&D credit should be on everybody's radar after listening to this

episode. And we just appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure. One more time. How do people, how do people get a hold of you? So easiest way, well, first or foremost, I guess I should get my phone number 402, 920, 3164. Again, 402, 9203164. Brian at a to Z benefits.net is my email address. www. www.a to z benefits.net is my web address. And if you see one of my agents that's closer you,

if you're down in Arizona and want to work with Luke, or if you're in the Grand Island area and want to work with Justin or Don or one of those or up in Norfolk, want to work with Trace or out west. We got people all over the place. So you can reach out with one of those guys off our website as well. We also have a careers page there. LinkedIn is going to be Brian Hula on there.

Instagram is also Brian Hula, Facebook, either personal or AZ benefits on there. also Hula Hurford's. We didn't even get to my cattle side of things. I mean, I got, I got a whole other business that we didn't even talk about because we had so much to talk about here. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I still own a ranch and have a bull sale and stuff like that. So we do all these things.

And then X, X, I guess, about both accounts there too, is either private as Brian Hula or agency benefits. So, no, Brian, yeah, again, like I said, it's pleasure to have you on, man. Thanks, thanks for all the value. If you guys got any value, share the show. Leave a review on Spotify or Apple. We love you guys. We appreciate you.

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