Wake Up to Wealth - Mastering Tax Strategies for Real Estate Investors

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

In episode 62 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham shares his personal experience of legally not paying any taxes and emphasizes the significance of leveraging the tax code to your advantage. Tune in for essential tips that could help you navigate the complexities of taxes and improve your business's financial health.   SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Brandon Brittingham Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/ Alec Cheplak Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheplak/ Facebook: http://facebook.com/alec.cheplak/ WEBSITES Brandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/home ========================== SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS: Accruity: https://accruity.com/

This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. All right, everybody, we are back with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And today, I'm with you guys by myself because this is extremely timely of something that I want to talk to you guys about. and today is the 16th of April, yesterday being April 15th, which was tax day. And I'm going to come in here and talk to you guys today because we have had a ton of episodes, Casey Quinn, my CFO, Jeff Hyatt, around taxes. And I feel like I shout this shit from the mountaintop and people don't listen.

So today, I'm going to talk a little bit about education around taxes. and by no means am I a tax expert, but I've been in the game long enough and I understand enough to explain to you guys and help you guys on this. So yesterday, I didn't pay the IRS a dollar. And legally, obviously. And the reason being is because years ago,

I got really educated on tax code, brought people in around me that understand it. My CFO, obviously, is one of them. You know, people that I can go to advice from, like Casey Quinn from McCruity who's been on the show, Jeff Hyatt, who's been on the show. And if you paid a ton of money in taxes yesterday and you're in real estate, that is a problem.

Because real estate allows us to do cost-segs and depreciation and not pay money in taxes. And here's what I want you to understand, is that when you use cost segregation and depreciation, it's essentially a paper loss for you investing in real estate. And the thing is, is if you make high active income, which so many of my friends do in the real estate business, what would you rather do? Write a huge check to the IRS or take that money and invest in the real estate that's going to do something to make you wealthy.

I still to this day don't understand why people will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS when there is another way. So one of the things, one of the excuses that I hear a lot of times from people in real estate is like, well, I run my business. I don't have time to learn this. I'm too busy doing all these other things, which look, I'm not going to take that away from you. I think it's a bullshit excuse. But okay, let's say that that is your excuse. Well, we have projects going on all the time. We got one live right now where a bunch of people are coming in and we're sharing the depreciation. where they don't have to learn about it, they don't have to get another skill, they don't have to do anything. They're just coming in on the project with us and we're passing the depreciation through to them. Now, I believe wholeheartedly,

you should go out and learn more about this and get on the asset side where you are getting a ton of depreciation on assets you own. But again, if this is not something you want to go out there and learn or do, it's something that you can partner with us on and do it. So if you're listening to the show

and you're in real estate, you no longer have an excuse, right? You've got multiple shows that we've done where we have taught you how to do this, brought people on who've talked about it, and then if you're like, ah, I don't want to do that. Cool, I got you. You can invest in projects with us. And above and beyond that, one thing I also want to talk about, that's a big deal, is all CPAs are not created equal.

First and foremost, if you're working with a CPA, and you are not having conversations around tax strategy, right? There's a big difference between someone taking all the information that you're giving them and just doing your taxes versus someone who is going to actually give you strategy on how not to pay taxes, how to defer taxes, how to eliminate your tax burden. Now, there's all kinds of tax code hacks, not just depreciation, that can help you legitimately save a lot of money when it comes to paying a taxes. And what I've heard the last few days is people getting such bad advice.

Now, again, I don't want to paint everybody with the same brush. There's a lot of good CPAs out there. But if you are not having tax strategy conversations with your CPA, maybe you need to have a different CPA. or if you're in real estate as an example and your CPA hasn't had a conversation with you about cost segregation and depreciation and how to leverage that, you might be with the wrong person. There's all kinds of different strategies that are out there. Look, you can't turn a blind eye to this if you want to run a business. You have to learn about money. Money has a language. You have to understand and learn the language of money. And if you look at any wealthy

people in this country or wealthy families, one of the biggest things that you have to think about is for most people out there that make really strong active income, 30 plus percent of your income is going to go to the IRS if you don't figure out how to use the tax code to your benefit. So if your CPA is not having conversations with you of, you know, we should structure the companies this way, we should do this, we should leverage depreciation, right? We should set up this type of retirement to hedge against tax, you know, wherever the case is, if you're not having those conversations, right, and there's no conversation around how you can mitigate or save money on taxes every year, and there's no strategy, then you might be with the wrong person.

The other thing, too, is, I want you to think about this. So many people use the expense of like, oh, I don't, or use the excuse of like, oh, I don't want to learn this. This is too much. You know, this is not what I do, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dude, I hear you, but if you don't get educated on this, this is 30% of your income. Minimal, right? And as you continue to grow, it's not just about what you make.

It's what you can keep, right? And then if what you can keep, you can invest, that's how you become wealthy. And in real estate specifically, we have a hack because we're the, only industry that can take active losses through cost, second depreciation, and put it against our income, meaning you could take a $200,000 depreciation loss. That's a paper loss. You didn't actually lose $200,000. You bought a piece of property. You did a cost segregation. You got bonus depreciation in the first year. And you can write that against your active income. No other industry out there does that. If you don't take advantage of this, I have no freaking

clue what the hell it is that you're doing because we are the only industry that's out there that allows this. You cannot let this be an excuse. You can't turn a blind eye to it. And if you don't have financial people in your corner having these conversations with you, you're having the wrong people around you. You can't turn a blind eye to this and you've got to get educated on this. Like I've already told you, if you don't want to figure all this shit out, call me, we got you. But What's so very, very important is if you wrote a big check to the IRS today or yesterday, I'm sorry, and you don't want to do it again next year or years after, you got to do something about it, right? You can't keep repeating the same behavior. Some people that I talked to yesterday,

I talked to them last year. And they're like, man, I wrote this huge ass check to the IRS. And I'm like, cool, we can solve that. Let's do something about it. And then they don't do anything about it. And again, this isn't like, oh, you know, it's another lead source. It's hiring another agent. It's hiring another employee. This is 30% of your income. Plus, if you're going to spend time on anything, think about how much time you spend on your business to, you know, hire an employee, get your margins better, you know, whatever it is. You spend all this time on saving margins, saving money, increasing profitability, and small increments, which over time leads to big shit. Don't get me wrong.

But you turn a blind eye and have no plan, no process, no strategy on one of the biggest leaks you got out there, and that's paying taxes. And the tax code is set up to reward investors, to reward real estate, to reward business owners. And the tax code is set up to help wealthy people stay wealthier. I mean, that's just the reality of what it is. When you really get to understand it and you do research and you become educated on it and you always hear, oh, man, this person made all this money and didn't pay any taxes or

that's because that's how the tax code is set up. Look, I didn't make the rules. Neither did you. But you can leverage it and play by the rules that the wealthy play by. But so many people out there do not take advantage of this and turn to blind eye to. it and then they give up 30% of your income. This today is a PSA for you to stop doing that. And even if you're not in real estate as your primary focus and you can't get depreciation the way that we can, there's still all kinds of strategies that are out there, different ways

you can set up your businesses, set up your companies where you can massively reduce your tax liability or completely wipe it out. And here's the thing. Again, if you don't have someone in your corner having these conversations with you. You got the wrong person doing your books or your taxes, whatever the case is. You need not just a CPA, but a tax strategist, especially if you're making really good money and you're going to continue to make really good money because there's things that you can do every single day, how you structure everything, right? So now all the deals we do, all the companies restructure, everything that we do is structured around trying not. to pay any taxes legally, obviously, or drastically eliminate what our liability is, because again,

if I can keep that 30 plus percent and I can go invest it, then that money is going to compound. We're just going to become wealthier and wealthier and wealthier. And that's just the name of the game. And if you look at anybody out there that is wealthy, a big part of their strategy is figuring out how not to pay taxes and using the tax code to their benefit. So no more excuses. If you're listening to this, this has got to be the year that you do something about it. If you're like, this is overwhelming, this is confusing.

You just need to reach out to me and I can put you in projects, put you in deals with us. Or if you feel like, man, I'm not getting the right advice. I'm not getting the right help. then I can help plug you into people that we trust that can actually give you tax strategy. But dude, it is so crazy to me the last two days, the people that have reached out to me and told me how large of a check they wrote to the IRS. And look, I'm not saying this as a flex, but I know I made more money than them. And I didn't pay any money in taxes yesterday because we're ahead of it and we plan and we've got a good tax plan and we got good tax strategy. and we get good advice from people who have good tax strategy, you know, that help us.

This is the name of the game. So today I just wanted to come on here. It's short and sweet. It's time sensitive because we just came off of tax day being yesterday. But again, if you're listening to this, you've got to do a couple things. You got to get with people who can help you make better decisions, right? If you need a referral, you need help on that. Talk to me.

You can't turn a blind eye to this anymore. You got to be responsible as a business owner and get better at this. You need to learn to use the tax code, especially if you're in real estate to your benefit because you can take 30 plus percent of your income back and go invest in projects. That's how I was able to scale to the massive real estate portfolio that I have. And then another thing is if you're just like, man, I just want to be in my lane and run my stuff. Cool, no problem. You can reach out to me and we can get you in projects that get you to,

appreciation. Listen, we call this show wake up to wealth for two reasons. I want you to wake up wealthy, but I also want you to wake up to the information out there that you've not been taught, you've not been trained on, you don't understand. So don't bullshit on this. And if you like to give up 30% of your income, I'll take free money from you any day of the week because that's what you're doing. You're giving up your money when you don't have to. Listen to what I'm saying. go back, listen to the episodes with Casey Quinn, listen to the episodes with Sarah, my CFO, with Jeff Hyatt. These are all masterclasses on taxes. If you need help, I got you. But don't let next April 15th be like this April 15th, especially if you wrote a big ass check. Stop playing the

game the wrong way, play the game the right way, the way the wealthy people do. That's why you're here listening to Wake Up to Wealth. That's why we call it a show. up to wealth. But if you don't do anything about it, it's your fault. Stop paying 30% of your income when you don't have to. As always, I appreciate the support. I appreciate the 120,000 plus downloads we're getting per episode, the 3.6 million downloads we've got. And y'all consistently making us one of the biggest shows in the United States on investing. And that's why I came on here today to give you the PSA, because you got to stop doing dumb shit. Appreciate y'all. All righty, this next segment is brought to you by my good friends at Accruity.

Now, if you run a business, most business owners neglect their back office and they don't even know where to go or who to trust when it comes to their financials or CPA or taxes. That's where Accruity comes in. You can trust them. They can give you advice and they understand the back office. Listen, you're not running a business correctly if you don't have a hold of this and it's really hard to trust people that are out there. and most CPAs frankly work for the IRS and don't work for you. That's not the case with Accruity. Check my good friends out at Accruity for any needs that you have when it comes to

helping with your back office, getting your book straight, getting your taxes correct, and they guide you and give you advice, which most firms don't. So check out my guys at Accruity. Tell them I sent you. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We're sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcast. This way of good updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please

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