0:00

Today on episode number 922, we're talking about

0:04

everybody's favorite subject, taxes. Yeah.

0:07

Yeah. And I realize this is a global show, and

0:11

taxes where you live may be different from taxes where I live.

0:14

But I'm bringing in an expert. He's been a tax accountant his entire

0:18

life. And who knows? You might actually be able to have

0:21

fun podcasting and lower your taxes at the same

0:25

time. Hit it, ladies. Podcasting Since 2,005. I am your award

0:37

winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson, thanking you

0:41

so much for tuning in. If you're new to the show, this is why I

0:44

help you plan, launch, grow, and if you want to

0:48

monetize your podcast. My website,

0:51

school of podcasting.com. If you throw a slash listener on the end

0:55

of that URL, that'll save you 20% on either a

0:59

monthly or yearly subscription and of course that comes with

1:03

the 30 day money back guarantee. Now, I realize

1:07

taxes are not really everybody's favorite subject, but I am gonna

1:10

also talk about some tools and some strategies to

1:14

actually help you save money. So it's all kind of

1:18

money related today. And when you make money

1:21

with your podcast or save money not doing a podcast,

1:25

I don't know about you. I like money. It tends

1:29

to, make my life a little less stressful.

1:32

So, also, this show is using podcasting 2.0

1:37

chapters. So if for some reason you're like, yeah, I see where there are

1:41

other things here, I'm just gonna skip to the resources, you can

1:44

do that. Now if you don't see chapters in your app, something like,

1:48

let's say, Apple Podcasts, well, you can get a new podcast app

1:52

at, podcasting2.org slash

1:56

apps. I'll have a link to that out in the show notes, but I

1:59

am lucky enough to have a just

2:03

absolutely kick butt group of people at the School of

2:06

Podcasting. We got comedy writers. We got psychologists. We got a couple of retired

2:10

pastors. We have university professors. We have a

2:14

ton of really awesome people, and one of them is Ralph

2:18

Estep junior. Also, by the way, Ralph was on the

2:21

podcast review show. So if you've never heard that show, you can

2:25

hear myself and radio veteran Aria Kaye Johnson go

2:29

over Ralph's show with a fine tooth comb, and I'll put a link to that

2:33

out at school of podcasting.com/922. And while you can have unlimited 1 on 1

2:41

coaching with me, we also do group coaching. One of those is

2:45

called lunch with Dave. It's every Friday. And we were all

2:48

kinda throwing out different ideas and questions. And then we got on the subject of

2:52

taxes, and Ralph started doing what he does, which is sharing his

2:56

knowledge of running a small business if you're an entrepreneur,

3:00

saving you money, making sure you're legal, things like that. And I

3:03

thought, Ralph would be a good guy to come on because that's a subject I

3:07

don't think we've ever really talked about on this particular show. So

3:10

with that, here's my talk with Ralph from the Ask Ralph

3:14

podcasting. You can find that at askralphpodcast.com.

3:20

Alright. Well, joining me via

3:23

Podcasting, one of my favorite students at the School of Podcasting

3:26

because when I see Ralph look. As a teacher, the one thing you want is

3:30

a willing student. And when Ralph shows up, I'm like, cool. We got questions

3:34

coming in. They're good questions. And you can check out his show at ask

3:37

ralphpodcast.com. He's been really working in finance

3:41

since he was about 6 because his parents worked in finance, so he's just

3:45

been basically, living and breathing. You you just love numbers,

3:49

you know, your whole life. So, Ralph, thanks for coming on the show. Oh, yeah.

3:52

You're welcome. And, I always bring questions. But tonight, I'm bringing in answers,

3:56

Dave. Doggone it. We're switching the tables. I got the questions.

4:00

And when most of the kids are playing with Legos, I was playing with tens

4:03

forties and pencils and calculators. I had a lot of Oh, yeah.

4:06

Calculators. Adding machine tapes, it go. I used to enjoy

4:10

that when I was a kid. Well, let's start off because what we wanna talk

4:14

about being that it's March in the United States. If you're not in the United

4:18

States, we're gonna be talking about taxes and realize that and even if

4:21

you're in the United States, different states have different taxes. So as always,

4:25

Ralph is a, you know, a tax consultant, but he's not your tax consultant, at

4:29

least not yet. And so you always wanna double check with,

4:33

what's going on in your area. But some of this is kinda universal, at least

4:36

in theory, and then you just need to go and check on the, the details

4:40

of that. So I think, I guess, the first thing we have to figure out

4:43

is when we're talking about taxes, it's

4:47

why are you doing your podcasting. Right? Yeah. I think you have to start

4:51

with the end in mind. And what I mean by that is if you're going

4:54

into the podcast, hey, this is gonna be a fun hobby. Great.

4:58

Then keep track of things, but don't really pay that much attention to it. It's

5:01

not a big deal. If you're not planning on this becoming something that you're gonna

5:05

monetize and look to make money on. Now if you're planning to make money, if

5:08

that's the goal of this, then I think you set it up differently. Then you

5:11

start to look at, you know, do I set up an entity from the story,

5:15

whether that be an LLC or an s corp? Do I start

5:19

to get more, you know, regimented in my accounting practices?

5:23

Yeah. Do you start, scanning and taking pictures of receipts and all that

5:26

other fun filled stuff? Well, even if it's gonna be a hobby, Dave, I think

5:30

that's probably a good plan. And here's why I say that. Even if it's a

5:33

hobby, if someone sends you money, if someone gives you something for doing

5:37

their show or for being on your show, you're gonna get potentially a

5:41

10.99, especially now with these electronic payment platforms, the

5:44

Venmo's, the Cash Apps, all that. They issue these 10.99

5:48

k forms. And basically, the IRS gets a copy of that and they're gonna send

5:52

it, you know, here, Dave Jackson, you had this fun time plan podcaster last

5:55

year. Here's $900 that was sent over to you. You need to report

5:59

that. Well, if you're not expecting that, number 1, that's a

6:03

problem. So number 2, you wanna make sure that you're keeping track of every little

6:06

expense that goes into your podcast. Now, I say hobby

6:09

because the IRS rules basically say if this is not a for

6:13

profit motive, then it's a hobby. Well, what does that mean? That means

6:17

that when you go to file your tax return, they're not gonna let you drive

6:20

it negative. In other words, you're not gonna be able to show a loss. If

6:23

it's a hobby, you can write off so in that example, we had $900 worth

6:26

of income coming in. Well, if you had $900 worth of expenses, you

6:30

have net tax effect of nothing, But they're not gonna let you drive it negative.

6:34

Awesome. And then is there a I've heard I think it's $600

6:37

that if you make over a certain amount of money, then you have to claim

6:41

it? Or is there a threshold at all? Or So,

6:45

technically, if you make a dollar you're supposed to claim unless you

6:48

wanna pull an Al Capone and end up in jail. That's tax evasion. That's what

6:51

they put you in jail for. But from a practical standpoint, what you're talking

6:55

about is the 10.99 limit is $600. So if you

6:59

pay someone to do services for you that's not incorporated, they're

7:03

not a corporation, then technically, once you reach that $600

7:06

threshold, you're supposed to send them a 10.99, I e, the

7:10

IRS now knows I paid Dave Jackson $600.

7:14

So Dave Jackson better put that on his tax return. But that there

7:17

really is no rule per se if you have income. I mean, Dave, it's funny

7:21

like this, but think about this. Let's say you decide to have a garage sale

7:24

out in front of your house. Technically, the IRS would say you

7:28

better report that income. Now, nobody on earth is going to do

7:32

that because nobody's reporting it, but that's the technical answer to keep you

7:35

out of tax evasion. So just here's a fun

7:39

question. Since you're a member of the School of Podcasting, can you

7:42

claim that on your taxes as an expense?

7:46

Absolutely. Because the argument there is okay. So let's talk about what is routine

7:50

and customary is what the IRS says are business expenses, if they

7:53

would expect this to be routine and customary. Well, if I'm a member of the

7:57

school of podcasting, I'm doing that because I'm trying to perfect

8:01

my trade. I'm trying to make more money. Right? One of the things you talk

8:04

about in your pod on on your school of podcasting is, you know, grow your

8:08

show, plan your show, you know, perfect your show. I I apologize. I don't know

8:11

exactly the the things you say. And then monetize. Right? So the plan is

8:15

you're building this you're building this foundation. Right? So those

8:19

expenses are definitely deductible. Absolutely. No question about it. Yeah. Because I've

8:23

actually started hiring a coach for a couple different things, and I was like, I'm

8:26

pretty sure I can write this off if this is giving me skills

8:30

to to grow my business. And so what

8:34

about you know, can a podcaster come up with a budget? Is that

8:37

the plan here so that you can figure out what you're making and then, you

8:41

know, what you're spending? Just track all of that? I think you

8:45

have to do a reality check. You know, I wrote a book last summer called

8:49

Mastering Your Finances. In the first chapter that talks about and this is for individuals

8:52

or businesses. You have to have a budget, and what gets measured

8:56

gets done. So if you're going into podcasting, whether you're going into it from the

9:00

standpoint of a hobby or for profit, I think you need to start thinking

9:03

about benchmarks. You know, how much are you gonna allocate of your

9:07

resources to use for this? So absolutely, I think it's imperative

9:11

that you do a budget. Why? Number 1, so you can figure out where your

9:15

resources are gonna go. Number 2, measure how your

9:18

performance is. You know, a lot of people say, well, I don't know how things

9:21

are going. Well, if you're not measuring it, you certainly don't know how things are

9:24

going. So I think it's very important to budget. Yeah. Absolutely.

9:29

Do you have any preferences on when

9:32

it comes to tracking these things? I know I u I've used Fiverr has

9:36

a a tool for small business people. I

9:40

use, one called Wave that's actually free that uses,

9:43

makes it easy just to track income and expense. Do you have any favorite tools

9:47

that you typically recommend? Well, to be honest with you, most of my clients use

9:50

QuickBooks online, and they have about 12 different versions

9:54

starting off of what they call the simple start, which is maybe $10 a month.

9:57

The thing I really like about that is it has a thing called bank feeds,

10:01

and what that basically means is you can connect your credit card to do it.

10:04

You can connect your bank account to it. The reason I like that is it

10:07

feeds those transactions in so you're not missing anything. The truth

10:11

is, Dave, depending upon the monetization of the sophistication

10:15

of what you want, a spreadsheet's fine too. Like, I have some

10:18

clients that have Manila envelopes with a month on them.

10:22

If that works for you, that works for me. That doesn't really matter. The key

10:25

is this, you wanna prepare yourself for a potential audit. Yeah. If the, you know,

10:29

get the knock knock at the door, hi, I'm I'm Joe. I'm here from the

10:32

IRS, They're gonna wanna see receipts. They're gonna wanna see what

10:36

happened. Who struck John as they say. Right? So how you do it, I don't

10:40

really care to be blunt, but do it. If you find a tool that works

10:43

well for you, some people love Excel. I don't particularly like Excel, but

10:47

you can use Excel. I have clients that use QuickBooks Online, Excel. There's

10:51

Xero is another one. I did a podcast about the different

10:54

platforms that are out there, but it it really doesn't matter per se. It's what

10:58

works best for your particular situation. And then how

11:01

long do you have to hold on to those receipts before you can kinda

11:05

go, yeah, I think uncle Sam is not gonna come knocking about, you know,

11:09

1997? So that's a complicated question. And

11:13

let me answer it this way. Generally, the IRS says there's a 7 year

11:17

statute of limitations. Now, here's the funny part of that

11:20

answer. If you wanna go back and ask for money back, they only let you

11:24

go back 3 years. So there's sort of a double edged sword to

11:28

that. Now, here's the deal. Generally, it's 7 years, but

11:31

if the IRS can prove that you substantially understated

11:35

income or substantially overstated expenses, they can go back as far as

11:38

they want. So my answer for is this, at least

11:42

keep 10 years worth of receipts. At the end of 10 years, if

11:46

the IRS hasn't knocked at your door, if, you know, you don't have federal indictments

11:50

against you, if they're not coming to get you, I'm one to think you're probably

11:54

fine. Okay. That's good to hear. I know we

11:57

talked, you know, we brought up the monetization word, and there are all sorts of

12:01

different ways of of making money. But one of the things that I know

12:04

you brought up is there are other ways, especially if somebody's looking to start their

12:08

podcast and maybe they wanna do a video thing and there's they wanna get

12:12

a nice camera along with a nice microphone and some lights and things like that.

12:16

And you brought up some other ways that podcasters might think about making

12:19

money, and those are things like grants and all the crowdfunding

12:23

platforms and things like that. Talk a little bit about grants. That's something I'd never

12:27

thought of. Yeah. So let's say that you're doing a local podcast, and you

12:31

might be able to go to the local municipality or the local town or local

12:34

city and say, listen. You know, I'm thinking about doing something that's gonna benefit

12:38

the community. You know, would you offer me any kind of community grant to get

12:42

this started? I've not personally ever done those in the podcasting space,

12:46

but there's a ton of money out there, Dave, that these towns and municipalities

12:50

and state governments and county governments have that they're trying to promote

12:54

business. They're trying to promote tourism. So you might be able to to lock into

12:58

one of those. I I think it's something to consider. Yeah. Absolutely.

13:02

And then the other thing, I and this was my hot

13:06

button this morning because somebody wanted me to, be a

13:09

guest on their show, and it was only gonna cost me $500.

13:13

And I was like so I emailed them, and I said, are you disclosing

13:17

this on your podcast? Because there's the FTC in the

13:21

US, and I forget what it's called in Canada, but I found a PDF

13:24

from some Canadian folks. And they basically say the same thing that,

13:28

yeah, you have to disclose that. How does that work with

13:32

with taxes as well? Well, if you're receiving

13:36

money for somebody, you know, appearing on your show,

13:39

then my view, that's income for you. Yeah. If you marketing to be on someone's

13:43

show, I think that's a legitimate expense. You know, one could make the argument, hey.

13:47

I wanna grow the Ask Ralph podcast. Let's use this as an example, and

13:50

the only way I'm gonna do that is if I can go appear on other

13:53

people's shows. Yeah. What kind of David's tech buying advertising space, isn't

13:57

it? So in my view, that's a deduction, but it's also income to the

14:01

person who is the host. What I found out

14:05

is, like, in this case, Ralph did not I'm not paying Ralph. He's not paying

14:08

me. And but if if Ralph was, I would have to

14:12

disclose that at the beginning of the show. And that's why if you ever listen

14:15

on whatever Sunday morning at, 11 AM, and it's the

14:19

doctor Rob show on 6:50 AM. And they start off with the

14:23

following is a paid promotion by doctor Rob and Associates, and

14:26

then then they have the doctor Rob show because that's basically a a

14:30

paid promotion, and that has to be disclosed if you wanna stay,

14:34

you know, friends of the FTC in America and whatever they call it in

14:37

Canada. And I'm sure your country has some sort of thing because

14:41

I know a lot of influencers. Kim got in trouble for

14:45

just, you know, holding up a product and talking about it and not

14:48

disclosing that, oh, by the way, I got this for free, and I'm getting paid

14:52

to talk about it and things like that. So you have to be transparent. And

14:55

I think you nailed it. I think that in all business interactions,

14:59

transparency is truly the best choice. Always. In just a

15:02

few minutes, I'll be sharing some tools and strategies

15:06

I've used, even if you're not podcasting, to save some money.

15:12

How does, a podcaster when you hear the word financial

15:15

planning, right, everybody always talks about that, I need to hire a financial planner

15:19

and things like that. How does that tie in with a podcast? So let's

15:23

say, for example, this podcast becomes a true moneymaker for you. I'll use you as

15:27

an example. Right? Your school of podcasting is your I don't know if

15:30

it's your main job, but let's just say it's a job. Right? Well, if you

15:34

wanna put away for retirement in that, there are options for you, and you can

15:37

set up a 401 k plan for your for your quote podcasting business

15:41

story a SEP IRA or others if you're not covered by something

15:44

in your main job. So I think that financial

15:48

planning is a very important part of side gigs in general. You know, if you're

15:52

if you're able to make extra money and you can put some of that money

15:56

away for another day, you know, some sort of rainy day fund, I think a

15:59

lot of people over over, you know, miss that in the gig economy.

16:03

They don't think about, you know because the gig economy, you can make 20 or

16:06

$30,000 a year in extra income. Well, if you've got an

16:09

opportunity, if you structure it correctly to put that away and not pay

16:13

tax on that in the current year, then I I think it's a great idea

16:16

to do that. So I think that's the financial planning part of that. Yeah. I

16:19

know a lot of people when they get extra money, they suddenly also

16:23

find extra ways to spend that stuff. And that's the

16:26

promise. Then you find yourself later with no retirement

16:30

plan, and you're going, oh, yeah. Maybe maybe I shouldn't have bought that, you

16:34

know, boat or whatever. Yeah. And

16:38

and that comes down to a decision. I talk about this on my podcast all

16:40

the time. It comes down to a decision of needs versus wants. We all

16:44

want a lot of stuff. You know, I would love to have some cool stuff.

16:47

Right? You too, Dave. But the truth of the matter is when we take it

16:50

back a step and and say, what do I really need? That's

16:54

a whole different discussion than the once. You know, and that's

16:58

why we story. I said, you know, what is your goal in the

17:01

podcast? If your goal is for it to be a hobby, then you could have

17:05

the opinion of, okay. Cool. For every dollar I make net profit, I'm gonna buy

17:09

more cool gear. That sounds great because that's your goal. Your

17:12

goal is this this isn't going to be a moneymaker. This isn't gonna be a

17:16

a second income generation for you. But if your goal is

17:20

about making money, then you gotta start looking at benchmarks. You know, look at a

17:23

profit and loss statement every month. Is your podcast making money? If you

17:27

know, one of the funniest things I found in my business, and not just about

17:30

podcasting, I have some clients that go into business for themselves, and

17:33

they'll come into me after the first year, and I'll say, oh, Ralph. I had

17:36

a really rough year. I made $20,000 net profit. I said, oh, okay. Well, that's

17:40

not terrible for a 1st year in business. I said, but how many hours did

17:43

you put in? They said about 4000 hours. I said, so you make $5

17:47

an hour. Was it worth it? Yeah. No. But seriously, but think about that because

17:50

a lot of people, you can get stuck on stupid as I call it. And

17:54

it's a passion thing. It's emotions. And sometimes with finance, you gotta separate your

17:58

passion and emotions, and that's the reality check. You know, if

18:01

you're doing this podcast with the goal of making money, then you gotta have a

18:05

reality check and say, am I actually making money? Is this

18:09

growing to the point where monetization makes any sense, or am I just

18:12

continuing to throw hard earned money that I'm earning somewhere else after

18:16

this podcast? And I'm not trying to discourage people by any stretch, but

18:20

have a reality check. Yeah. That's I use the, there's a free

18:23

website, toggl. It's t oggl. And I

18:27

from time to time, we'll just record everything I do in terms of time just

18:30

to see how much time am I spending on this, how much time am I

18:33

spending on that. So that's when I realized that I was spending a huge amount

18:37

of time trying to get people to hire me as a consultant. And that's when

18:40

I was like, well, this is stupid. This is my, quote, big ticket item. But

18:44

by the time I spent 10 hours getting somebody to hire me for an hour,

18:48

I was like, I'm making minimum wage. So that was the end of that for

18:51

I still do consulting. I just don't chase people. If you wanna if you want

18:55

me for a consultant, come on down, but, I'm not gonna go answer 5 free

18:58

questions for you and, you know, do a meet and greet and all that other

19:02

fun stuff. So Yeah. And I'm a and I'm a graduate of the Dale

19:06

Carnegie training system. And one of the things we talked about there is

19:09

in any business, track your time. Look, I've been in accounting

19:13

practice forever, but I still keep track of every minute of my

19:17

day. You know, I spent 30 minutes working on my podcast. I spent

19:20

an hour working on such and such as bookkeeping. I think everybody

19:24

would could do that because then you can look back with objectives objectiveness and

19:28

say, okay. Look. I'm putting 30 hours in a week on my podcast.

19:32

It's not making me any money. Yeah. Does this make sense to do this? Now

19:35

that's hard. That's hard work because you have to admit to yourself, this is not

19:39

going as I expected. Yeah. Or if you track your whole day,

19:43

like, I know for a while, I would have my phone go off every hour,

19:46

then I would just write down what I was doing. And that's where you find

19:49

out that, wow, I'm spending a lot of time watching, you know,

19:52

Seinfeld reruns, yet and yet I don't have enough time to promote my show.

19:56

Like, well, if you quit watching Seinfeld reruns and, granted, you gotta save

19:59

some time to give your brain a break, but sometimes we have a lot more

20:02

free time than we we think we do. But I will

20:06

challenge you on this, and this is where I think there's value there. If you

20:10

use that as an opportunity to see what other people are doing to grow their

20:13

podcast or grow their business, and that's the way I look at it. If I'm

20:16

gonna invest 30 minutes in Facebook or 30 minutes on on

20:20

YouTube Shorts, I'm gonna see what are people doing. Like, what can I do to

20:23

make that mark the same? So it's not a total loss, but I agree with

20:27

you. It's real easy to get lost in that stuff. Yeah. The, the last thing

20:30

we should probably talk about, we talked about, you know, it might be a hobby.

20:34

It might not be. But what if all of a sudden it actually starts to

20:37

make a little bit of money? What are the benefits? We always hear people talk

20:40

about forming an LLC. So when should I do that, and then what are

20:44

the benefits? Okay. So I'm gonna go back to the beginning again. What is your

20:48

plan at the beginning? If your plan at the beginning is this is going to

20:51

be a money making operation that I say meet with somebody like myself from the

20:54

beginning. Create that LLC or subchapter s corporation. You

20:58

know, I said this in a podcast I recorded to distribute today.

21:01

It's okay to spend money if you're gonna save money. It makes sense

21:05

to hire people that understand things that you'd understand. Listen.

21:09

If I didn't know anything about podcasting, I would hire Dave. Dave's gonna teach me

21:13

about podcasting. If you don't know anything about accounting and taxes, hire

21:16

me. Yeah. Maybe you'll pay a consultation fee. But if I can

21:20

save you 1,000 of dollars, if I can help you to protect your

21:24

liability, and I'm not an attorney so I'm not gonna give legal advice, but the

21:27

one of the benefits to setting up an LLC or an s corp is it

21:31

segregates you and the business. They're 2 separate distinct entities.

21:35

So that's that's thing number 1 that's great. Thing number 2 is there are

21:38

beneficial tax structures by creating artificial

21:42

entities like an s corp. Here's a real simple example. Let's say

21:46

that your podcast made you a $100,000 last year,

21:49

net profit. That's fantastic. Right? It's amazing. Well, that's

21:53

fantastic. But here's the deal. If you don't structure that

21:56

well, then guess what you're gonna have? You're gonna pay federal tax on that.

22:00

You're gonna pay state tax on that depending upon where you live, and you're gonna

22:03

pay this little sneaky thing called self employment tax. Mhmm. That's a

22:06

social security Medicare, and guess what? When you work for somebody else, you pay half,

22:10

they pay half. But when you work for yourself, that $100,000

22:14

you just made, that's 15.8% additional tax.

22:18

Ouch. That's $15,800. But what if I told you

22:22

by creating an s corporation or a potentially 2

22:25

member LLC, I can cut that number in half? Yeah. That That's

22:29

huge. That pays for that, hour of consulting real quick. Exactly. But see,

22:33

people are so adverse to spending money that they don't

22:37

think about you know, you have to spend money to make money. That's a

22:40

truism. You get what you pay for. If you're gonna go out to Google and

22:44

search, let me figure out the best ways to save on my taxes, you're gonna

22:47

get about what you put into it. Nothing. Yeah. So to answer

22:51

your question, yeah, I think there I think it makes sense to enlist a team

22:55

of people, and I'll take this outside the podcasting realm. Let's say I have a

22:58

client that comes in, they're gonna start a plumbing operation. They sit down with me,

23:02

I show them how to create this in the right way. I say to them,

23:05

it's all about building a foundation. You know, have a good attorney, have a

23:09

good accountant, have a good insurance people. For example, we talked about this on

23:13

the school of the the ASDA podcasting show a few weeks ago. How many people

23:17

think about insurance for their podcast? That's huge.

23:21

I mean, maybe it's expensive, but what's it worth to lose everything you

23:25

have? Right. What's it worth to put all of your effort into your

23:29

daytime job, and then you do this podcast on the side that's starting to make

23:32

you money, and someone sues you for libel, or someone sues

23:36

you for using an unlicensed piece of, music or something

23:40

like that. So, Dave, the answer to your question big picture is

23:43

understand where you're trying to go, And if you're trying to make this a professional

23:47

thing, then set it up like a professional thing from the beginning. It's not gonna

23:51

cost you a mint to do it. I work with clients all over the world.

23:55

Zoom has opened up the doors that if you wanna get in touch with me,

23:58

we can get in front of a Zoom camera, and I can show you how

24:01

to save 1,000 of dollars if that's what you're looking to do. That's it. And

24:05

you can do that at ask ralphpodcast.com. Click on the

24:08

store and schedule your time with Ralph. He definitely knows what he's

24:12

talking about. And Allow me to interject one more thing. Oh, sure.

24:15

Absolutely. A couple of day or maybe a week or so ago during one of

24:19

our calls for the school podcasting, someone used the term, well, what if somebody

24:23

wants to donate money to me? And I just wanna bring this up because

24:27

I think a lot of people get lost in what that really looks like. And,

24:29

Dave, if this isn't something you wanna talk about, I totally understand. But I think

24:32

it's a valuable thing. There if you are collecting

24:35

monetization, and you're expecting that the person giving you

24:39

that donation is going to take a tax deduction for that, then you need to

24:42

set up a nonprofit. So be very careful what word you

24:46

use. So if you've got a podcast page and you're saying, hey, I

24:49

would really like donations, be careful using that

24:53

word. Now you can use the word sponsor. You can use the word

24:57

send me a cup of coffee. You can use the word, you know, send me

25:00

some shit what is that? The shitigos or something we talked about that day? Satoshis.

25:04

Satoshis, whatever it is. I'm story. I'm not I'm not cool with that. But if

25:08

you're going to use the word donation, be careful. Yeah. Because the

25:11

IRS is on the lookout for that, and if you don't have what's called a

25:15

501c3, then you can get yourself into a world of

25:18

trouble because people might be taking And when I go

25:22

there, it says make a donation.

25:26

Well, what's the expectation? And when I go there, it says make a

25:30

donation. Well, what's the expectation? Mhmm. The expectation is that's

25:34

tax deductible. Now, I will be honest with you. The person making that donation has

25:37

a responsibility to check and see is that a truly a

25:41

donation. But anyway, I just think that's something that people need to understand is there's

25:44

no such thing as a donation. I have so many clients who say, oh, I

25:47

gave the GoFundMe. What they don't realize is GoFundMe is not tax deductible. What if

25:51

I call them awesome supporters? I think awesome supporters is fine.

25:55

Okay. I'm one of your awesome supporters. I appreciate that. But I just think

25:58

that a lot of people can get you have to be careful with the word

26:01

you use. Yeah. Are there any other things in terms of

26:05

deductions that podcasters might be like, they didn't know I

26:08

could deduct that? I think there's a great deal of things. And I I think

26:12

you have to look at it from the standpoint of, is this expense related to

26:15

my podcast? Dues and subscriptions, you know, if you belong to Libsyn,

26:19

for example, you pay a monthly fee for that. I use Auphonic to

26:23

refine my podcast. I pay a fee for that. That's deductible. Any

26:26

equipment that I buy. Hey. Let me take you let me tell you this one.

26:30

Maybe your Internet service is deductible because you have to use it. You and I

26:34

are having a communication through the Internet right now. So guess what? That's a

26:37

that's a reasonable cost of doing business. How about your cell phone? You know, do

26:41

you talk to people on your cell phone about your business? Insurance,

26:45

you know, utility expense. You know, if you've got a particular part of your

26:49

office or your home that's used exclusively, I'll be careful what I say here, the

26:53

IRS is exclusively used for business, then you might be entitled to a home office

26:56

deduction. So, you know, I always say this since I like I said, I grew

27:00

up in this. I started doing taxes when I was 6 years old. If you

27:03

could convince your grandmother that it's a legitimate tax deduction,

27:07

then I think it's fair to put it on the return because nobody lies to

27:10

grandma. Right? Right, Dave? You shouldn't, you know, Doug.

27:14

Well, okay. Fair enough. We live in a different time, but let's just say when

27:17

I was a kid, you know, she beat the tar out of you if you

27:20

if you lied to grandma. But anyway, so as long as you can

27:23

make some justification to where this is a you know, here's another one. How about

27:27

travel? Yeah. You know, if you go to Podfest or if you go to one

27:30

of these places that has, you know, these podcast conventions, for example,

27:34

absolutely. Your airfare are there, your meals and entertainment while you're

27:38

there, You know, maybe you have temporary Internet service. You know, all those things are

27:41

transportation, travel. You know, they're really the sky's the limit. I always tell

27:45

people this. If you're going to do it, use a business

27:49

credit card, use a business check, use a business account from the start.

27:52

That way, at some point, maybe you sit down with somebody like me and say,

27:56

you know what, Dave? You're you're pushing it. That trip to Hawaii was a bit

27:59

much, my friend. But if you don't take that deduction from the front

28:03

end, I'm never gonna know about it. Right. So I think that you just have

28:06

to be reasonable. You know, we used the word transparent a little while ago. Be

28:09

transparent. Be reasonable. If you can prove it to your grandmother, then that

28:13

IRS agent's probably gonna be pretty easy to prove, but you gotta have receipts. A

28:17

lot of people think, well, I'll just give them my bank statement. That doesn't work.

28:20

Or I'll just give them my credit card statement. Guess what? That doesn't work. Oh,

28:23

I pay for everything on PayPal. I'm just gonna show them my PayPal statement. That

28:26

doesn't work. They want receipt evidence. They want you to give because here's the

28:30

deal. Let's say you go to Staples. Right? I think Staples is still around. I

28:33

do everything through Amazon or one of the online sites. But you go to Staples

28:36

today, how does the IRS know that that's a business expense when you went yesterday

28:40

to buy coffee for your home? Right. So that's why they wanna see that

28:44

receipt. I know I've went down into weeds, so I apologize. But this is what

28:47

I do. No. Now well, that brings up a question. So I will get,

28:51

in some cases, I can go in and get a PDF of a receipt. But

28:54

in some cases and it kinda drives me nuts. I the only kind of

28:58

receipt I'm gonna get is an email that says, you paid such and

29:02

such $15 for the month. And so I will print that into

29:06

a PDF and store that as a receipt. Does that count as a

29:10

receipt, or do I need an actual, like, PDF from the company?

29:14

No. Absolutely. I think that's fine. Because I think you would have 2 pieces to

29:18

that thing. In other words, you'd have an email that says, hey. You did business

29:21

for $15 with this person, and you'd also have the you'd

29:24

also have the checking account that it came out of or the credit card that

29:27

it came out. Absolutely. You know, the thing is what you don't wanna have is

29:31

little handwritten notes that say Mhmm. You know, I was in Miami for the Pod

29:35

Festival, and, I paid this guy $500 to

29:38

shine my shoes before I went on to speak at the Podcasting Hall of

29:42

Fame. And, you know, the IRS says to you, oh, that's really cool, mister Jackson.

29:45

But first of all, I don't know if you pay somebody $500 to shine your

29:48

shoes, number 1. And number 2, I don't really think, you know, on the

29:52

outside of a hoagie wrapper is a is a receipt. So if you

29:56

story. If you got an email and you could prove I think you're fine, Dave,

29:59

but but have something. Like, you would be shocked how many clients come into me

30:03

after they've got that letter from the IRS that says, you know, hey, mister Jones.

30:06

You've been selected for the audit lottery, so now you need to prove your expenses.

30:09

And they say to me, I don't have any receipts. I didn't realize I

30:13

needed receipts. So, yeah. I mean, I I I tell clients all the

30:17

time is have the receipt evidence. I hope you never use it. I hope you

30:20

never need it. Absolutely. Well, if you need more information,

30:24

check out his podcast. You can find it at askralphpodcast.com. He

30:28

provides great information for both individuals and for

30:31

businesses. And if you wanna hire Ralph, you can, do that there as

30:35

well. Askralphpodcast.com. Just click on the store button.

30:40

Hey. This is future Dave. And if you decide to hire Ralph

30:44

over at askralphpodcast.com, Ralph was nice enough to make a coupon

30:47

code. Use s o p 50 when you check out to

30:51

save on your consultation. And, he'll be

30:55

happy to help you out. As he mentioned, he's on Zoom, so he can help

30:58

you out wherever you are. So, Ralph, thanks so much for your time, buddy.

31:02

Oh, you're welcome, Dave. And I encourage, every podcaster to, you know,

31:06

take it seriously. You know, it can be a real it can be a great

31:09

thing for you, but just do it right. Set the right foundation and set yourself

31:12

up for success from the beginning. The school of podcasting.

31:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought I would share

31:21

some tools I have used in the

31:25

early days, much like Ralph talked about. I used an Excel

31:28

sheet because I taught Microsoft Excel for decades.

31:32

Then I moved to FreshBooks. And at that

31:36

time, I had the school of podcasting, but I was also doing

31:40

consulting. And I hate programs that charge you by the number

31:43

of clients. I was like, what?

31:47

So that was the end of FreshBooks. I moved to what is

31:51

now Fiverr Workspace. Used to be called Andco.

31:55

And this was a great product. There's a lot of stuff in it that I

31:59

never used, like proposals and contracts and things like

32:02

that. I was just basically doing consulting, and

32:06

I would, you know, have somebody schedule it. It worked

32:10

great. And then this is why I'm not a fan

32:14

of seasons. One of the features that they have

32:18

is it will pull your expenses, and we'll talk about

32:22

expenses and bank accounts here in a second, into the tool.

32:25

So I just went in, and it even got smart enough to where it'd be

32:29

like, oh, that's from Libsyn. That's, you know,

32:32

categorized as this and this and that. So it was really cool. And then it

32:36

just quit working. Like, I could log in, but I had to start

32:39

manually tracking all my expenses. And I was like,

32:43

hey, guys. Like, this is broken. They're like, yeah. We are

32:47

aware. We're working on it. And then another month went by, and I was

32:50

like, hey. Like, you know, I'm paying you $18

32:54

a month. Like, are you gonna, like, work

32:58

anytime soon? Yeah. You know? So after 3 months, I

33:02

said, hey. Last chance because I am starting

33:06

to look at other things, and I really liked their tool. It had a built

33:09

in timer. And I have a few podcasting that I edit

33:13

for, and I edit by the minute. I do not charge

33:17

you x amount of money per episode. If you hand me a crappy piece of

33:21

audio that takes longer, I'm gonna get paid more to edit that. But

33:24

if you listen to my advice and you give me a decent

33:28

set of audio, I will edit that out and it costs you in some

33:32

cases less than $20. And so I really like that

33:35

tool. And, yeah, they didn't fix it, and I

33:39

ended up moving to a free tool. Now if you're new

33:43

to the show, I'm not a big fan of free stuff because it's a

33:47

horrible business model. But I went to wave

33:51

is the name of it. Waveapps.com. I have links to all this stuff,

33:55

and it's free. Now they do have a a pro plan if you wanna

33:58

look more polished and save more time and conquer your,

34:03

cash flow. You know, you can,

34:07

you get a discount on accepting payments.

34:13

Wait. Hold on a second. Yeah. That's right. It's future Dave again. I just stopped,

34:22

and I found out that the free tool I was using

34:25

yeah. As I said, free is not a business plan. And in January, they

34:29

announced that they are adding more charges.

34:33

Like, I didn't realize I was paying 60¢ per transaction,

34:37

all sorts of other things. And so I'm about 75%

34:41

sure even though they had a service that kinda broke there for a

34:44

while, I might be going back to Fiverr Workspace. Base. One of the things I

34:48

loved about them is if somebody sent me let's say my

34:51

Captivate bill came in and I've got their attached PDF, I could

34:55

just forward that to a certain email address. It would go

34:59

into my workspace account. I could

35:02

go in and say this is an expense. So I might actually be moving

35:06

back. I'm contacting them because I also see on the wave

35:10

one that unless you're paying for them,

35:14

they don't auto import. So and they're almost apples to oranges.

35:18

Fiverr's Workspace is, I think, $2 more, but they don't

35:21

charge per transaction. They just have the typical 2.9 credit

35:25

card thing. So that's always fun. So those are

35:29

2 tools that I use. And, of course, there's QuickBooks. Ralph mentioned QuickBooks.

35:33

As I look at their website, it's $30 a month,

35:37

and they have a bunch of stuff. Like, I don't need payroll. It's just

35:41

me. Yay. Yay. Yeah. This is a simple strategy.

35:45

I cut back all my streaming services to 1. Like,

35:48

right now, I'm on Netflix. And when I really have to

35:52

struggle to find something to watch, I will cancel Netflix, and I will go

35:56

to Hulu. And then I will cancel Hulu and go to HBO.

36:00

This way, I am not wasting my time paying for

36:03

stuff that I may be watching one show. And this

36:07

is one easy way to pay for your media hosting by not

36:10

giving streaming services an extra $50 a month.

36:14

Originally, I thought I would have fear of missing out. But aside

36:17

from the Super Bowl, rarely do I go to some place where everybody's

36:21

talking about that thing that was on last night. So it's

36:25

saving me money, and I'm not wasting my time going, is there

36:29

anything on this? I can't I don't wanna watch that again. Yeah.

36:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now this next part kinda doesn't really

36:37

apply to podcasting, but it does. But you can do this in your

36:40

personal life. To make a long story short, I had one bank with

36:44

3 bank accounts, personal checking, personal savings,

36:47

and then the school of podcasting. And it made it very easy to

36:51

transfer money from one to the other. But, also, you had to always make

36:55

sure that you're not paying

36:58

for personal things. It was just it made things you had to pay

37:02

attention. So about probably a year ago,

37:07

I because I was watching a commercial and I looked at them before,

37:11

I opened up a SoFi account, and that's a bank

37:14

here. And they have all sorts of fun little services

37:18

for your money. So I set up a School of Podcasting

37:22

checking account, which I never use, a School of Podcasting

37:26

savings account where I throw in any extra money. And then I hate credit

37:29

cards. This is the guy that's been through bankruptcy. But I set

37:33

up a School of Podcasting credit card,

37:37

which I then pay all my bills through and religiously

37:41

pay off at the end of the month. And what I didn't realize is I

37:44

was earning points on that, and those points can be used for

37:47

money. And I thought they were kidding, But after a year, I got

37:51

close to well, let's just say it was a 3 figure a

37:55

mid 3 figure payout. And I was like, well, surely they don't mean that

37:58

much money. And I clicked the button and checked my account, and there it was.

38:02

So what it does, what this did for me is if

38:06

you wanna have, like, a rainy day account for anything, personal

38:10

or business, set up a separate bank

38:13

so that it's just out of sight, out of mind. And I am,

38:17

pretty happy with the way I'm saving money over there. They also have

38:21

a tool called Roundup where I can say, let's say I buy

38:25

something for a dollar 90. It will take the extra

38:29

10¢ and put it into a savings account. There

38:32

is another tool that's not business related. It's meant for

38:36

more rainy day saving, investing,

38:40

checking kind of thing called Acorns, and

38:43

I just started using it because that's its whole little jam. Now that's

38:47

$3 a month, but they have checking accounts that

38:50

earn interest where my current bank, there's no

38:54

fees. So I'm paying $3 for Acorns.

38:57

But my current bank, it's free, but I'm

39:01

not earning any interest. And I was like, I have to do some math on

39:04

that. And I am a fan of, well, let's see what

39:08

happens. I get a little nervous around money. I don't know about you, but I

39:12

like my money, and I like to keep it. But I'm really happy

39:16

with the SoFi thing and just I don't know that it's so much the bank

39:19

as I separated the 2. Same thing when I first started the

39:23

school of podcasting, I used a great plugin

39:27

to have your, courses and such on

39:30

WordPress. So when I made something on my website, I had to go,

39:34

wait. Is this for the public or is this for the

39:38

people that paid? And then I had a drip thing where it would drip out

39:41

courses and things like that? Long story short, again,

39:45

I separated my courses. I'm now using a thing called

39:49

Zendler. I might be moving that to heartbeat, but that's a

39:52

whole other discussion. But the bottom line is my web my website is my

39:56

website. Everything there is public, and my courses are

40:00

all over there. And I realize as much as we all want a Kajabi everything

40:04

and have everything in one place, you know, I have found in my

40:08

travels that when you get one of those, it does everything

40:11

for you. Meh. It does everything

40:15

meh for you. Like, there's one thing it does and the rest is kinda like,

40:18

it's not bad. I mean, Zendler kinda does that, and I just use it for

40:22

courses. So the thing I wanted to pass along is if you're trying to save

40:25

money, then create a bank account that you can't

40:29

see and just have some money put into that. And so

40:33

for me, I like SoFi, and I just started playing

40:36

with Acorns. Links will be in the show

40:40

description, and I believe they have some sort of referral program where

40:43

I get a free squirrel t shirt or something like

40:47

that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

40:51

couldn't let this episode go by. The big news this week was Apple

40:55

now has transcript if you update to their latest

40:58

iOS 17.4. And

41:02

this is pretty neat. If you actually look at it, it's they kind of,

41:07

it looks like lyrics on Spotify or lyrics on Apple

41:10

Music. You kinda watch the words light up as they go along. Now that is

41:14

a transcript they made. And if you do nothing,

41:18

they will use that, and all your Apple people will be

41:21

happy. But there are other apps like

41:25

True Fans. True Fans is a web

41:28

app, and it does, like, everything. It

41:32

doesn't do my favorite, which is smart playlist. And,

41:36

but it's it's coming up the list of of favorite apps. Another

41:39

one is Podcast Guru. I really like Podcast

41:43

Guru. Both those have they work on any phone and they have a

41:46

web interface. That's pretty cool. Fountain, Podverse, these are other ones.

41:50

You can find these if you go to podcasting2.org/apps.

41:57

So there are other apps and that's why if you're using

42:00

something like Cast Magic, you can upload

42:04

an SRT file or a VTT file.

42:08

And those if you look at those, they're just gibberish. And

42:11

but if you put them into an app, these apps use all that

42:15

monetization, and that's how it displays the text on a field. Now if

42:18

you are using PodPage, PodPage may see

42:22

that in the code and import some of that gibberish as the transcript

42:26

where you would have to copy and paste over that to, you know, make it

42:30

readable for people. But just know that there are other apps

42:34

that are doing this. And the great thing about these other apps like Podcast Guru,

42:38

which right now I like. There's a new app because I was

42:41

trying to find one for Android, and I really like the app,

42:45

Podurama. However, it doesn't do

42:49

hardly any podcasting 2.0 stuff. It does everything else I want it to,

42:53

but all the streaming Satoshi things that Ralph mentioned doesn't do

42:57

that. And I want an app that's going to be ready for the future, and

43:00

Podcast Guru does. It doesn't do the smart playlist thing,

43:04

but they're working on it. And if that smart playlist comes out and

43:08

it's good, that's gonna be the app for me to recommend

43:12

because that in that point, it'll pretty much do everything. But I

43:15

wanted to give you from a tech support, I've heard this,

43:19

that let's say you publish your episode and it shows up.

43:23

You go to your phone, you go to Apple Podcasting, click play, and there's no

43:26

transcript. Realize Apple is making the transcript.

43:31

So it may take up to 24 hours. So if your episode

43:34

is there and you're like, I don't see anything, that's what's going on.

43:38

Now if you want to upload your own

43:42

transcript, you can do that. And this is why I

43:45

always say maintain control of your show in Apple

43:49

Podcasts. You can log in to podcasting with an s, podcastconnect.apple.com.

43:55

Click on your show and go to availability and say, hey,

44:00

Display Apple's transcript or the one that

44:03

I upload. And so if you do that,

44:07

if you've uploaded 1, it will use that. If you haven't uploaded

44:11

1, it will use Apple's. And in theory, if you've

44:15

uploaded it, it should be available immediately.

44:18

And so, again, there are different media hosts that

44:22

are doing that already. I know Blueberry,

44:26

Buzzsprout, Captivate, and Libsyn just added it this

44:29

week. Also with, Libsyn, if you if you're not

44:33

familiar with me. I am the head of [email protected].

44:38

Use the coupon code s o p free to get a free month. But when

44:41

you upload a file now to get your quick links, it's in the drop

44:45

down list in the upper left hand corner. We updated our interface that a

44:49

little bit, which will be a little more it's a little more user friendly that

44:52

way. So I just wanted to that's the the new big thing

44:56

about transcripts. They are very pretty in Apple. I looked at mine this

45:00

morning, and I was like, that's kinda cool. And this may be one of those

45:03

things that we all kinda go, woah.

45:07

I'm not deaf, so, like, big deal. But we may find

45:11

that there are other people that just put

45:15

it this way. If you're listening to the Ozzy Osbourne podcast, it

45:18

kinda helps sometimes to have some closed captioning going on

45:22

to figure out exactly what the heck is Ozzy saying. Yay.

45:26

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. I'm always experimenting, and I got some new stuff.

45:30

If you go to school of podcasting.com/ giveaway, I'm giving

45:34

away 30 minutes of 1 on 1 consulting. That's because I'm

45:37

playing with a tool called Gleam. Also,

45:41

I've made a kind of evergreen survey.

45:45

If you go to schoolofpodcasting.com/thoughts, this works really

45:48

well on a phone, by the way. I am, playing with this tool, and it'll

45:52

also be in the show notes. And it's just asking for your opinion

45:56

on this episode. So this is episode number 922

46:00

of The School of Podcasting. And then I'm

46:03

working on some deep dives into YouTube

46:06

podcasting. This is where you upload

46:09

your file to YouTube or, in this case, upload an audio file to

46:13

YouTube. Because I was kinda like, oh, look at that. I had one that's got,

46:17

like, 5 figure or 5 figure views.

46:20

And then I looked at how far people listened. So I'm digging in to

46:24

that. And if you want to be connected with the show, it's

46:28

free. You can go to school of podcasting.com/follow,

46:31

and the minute an episode is available, well, it'll come right

46:35

down to your phone. Thanks so much for listening. If

46:39

you'd like to start your podcast, grow your podcast, or

46:43

monetize, come visit me. It's school of podcasting.com/listener.

46:48

We'll save you on either a monthly or yearly subscription. And,

46:51

again, that comes worry free with a 30 day money back

46:55

guarantee. If after 29 days, you're like, Dave, don't think this is

46:59

for me. I will give you your money back. Check it out

47:02

again. Podcasting. And until next week, take care. God bless. Class is

47:11

dismissed. And I'm starting to look at other things. Other things? What was

47:27

that? Wow. Suddenly, I'm 13 again.

47:32

Wait. Hold on. Is is the wait. The free no.

47:35

It's okay. I've said it before. Free plans

47:39

are horrible, and this is, like, exhibit k

47:43

at this point of businesses that can't really survive