Courtney Epps on Financial Wellness—OFF THE CUFF
This week we go Off the Cuff with international speaker, author, and accountant Courtney Epps.
Achieving financial wellness is a goal that many people strive towards. Yet, achieving it in light of the pandemic environment seems harder than ever. With many of us reeling from recent events, the need for sage financial advice has never been greater. Few people are as well equipped to provide it as Courtney Epps.
Courtney’s recent book, More Relaxing, Less Taxing helps small business owners develop a game plan for the myriad of financial and business challenges they face. Courtney describes herself as a motivational tax strategist. Her passion is helping people to understand and comprehend the tax code.
“It only matters how much you keep, not what you make. Therefore you must do everything you can to legally, morally, and ethically combat the taxes and expenses of your business, or you will be giving away your business.”
Courtney Epps, OTB Tax
Watch the Video Interview on YouTube
Courtney Epps Interview Key Points
In this interview, Courtney discusses the lack of basic financial knowledge in the community and how this is preventing people from getting money that is rightfully theirs. She talks about the ramifications of this, suggesting that more people would become business owners if they were clued in to how the tax system really works.
Courtney also reveals the two tax systems that operate in the United States. In her view, there is one that was created to steal your wealth away, and another that was created to provide you with wealth. She then lays out a first step towards financial freedom.
How Courtney Saves Businesses Money
Courtney and her team operate a full service accounting firm in Greenville, South Carolina. However, they are able to work with Americans everywhere, from Puerto Rico to Hawaii and every place in between. Her whole focus is to help free up money for her clients. She uses tax strategy to help people find money they didn’t know they had. She also helps businesses to make sure that they are structured properly for maximum income retention.
Two years ago, Courtney developed a concept called social giving. For every dollar that OTB Tax generates, they provide a serving of whole food nutrition to children in need all across the world. So far, they have been able to provide 1.9 million meals to children all over the planet. In addition, OTB Tax is involved in Operation Underground Railroad to help free children from sex trafficking.
Find Courtney Epps Online
Watch the Video Interview on YouTube
- There you go.
- So, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. Courtney is a great accountant.
- Wow, I’m excited to be here. I tend to be like a fire hose. So I want you to understand we can help you handle all of this stuff.
- How would you describe what you do for a living?
- I like to tell people I’m a motivational tax strategist. I love helping people understand and comprehend tax code. I just like to free up money for people. So that’s what I’m really focused on it’s not about preparing tax returns, it’s not about doing bookkeeping, it’s more along the lines of where can we find money that you didn’t even know existed? I’ll tell you sadly enough there’s some statistics that really hit me hard on this is that 46% of Americans before the pandemic didn’t have an extra $400 to their name. 69% of Americans didn’t have an extra thousand bucks to their name. You will pay more in taxes, the average American than you will on food, housing, clothing, and transportation combined.
- I didn’t know that statistic. I don’t think a lot of people know that statistics exactly.
- Absurd. It is the greatest, it is the number one expense that you have across the board is taxes. Most W-2 employees, they have no say so on how much money comes out of their check. The only thing they can do is work more hours. As a business owner, I teach people that they need to find some sort of home-based business. I don’t really care what that is, I just care that they find one so that they can move into the second tax system that was literally created for wealth, which is the business owner tax system.
- Well, that’s amazing insight for sure.
- I love picking up the phone and calling a client and saying, “Hey, we found you five grand” that they didn’t know that they had. “Hey, we just amended your tax return “and we’re going back three years and we got you $110,000.” And we just did that recently with a client.
- Personal finance is not really a required subject in high schools and even really in college. So due to this lack of basic financial education it tends to leave so many people clueless about how to manage their money and I know that lack of knowledge has really negatively impacted people during these times. How would the world be different if more people learned about economics at a earlier age?
- Well, more people would be business owners I can tell you that much. Sadly in America the whole purpose of school and education is to get you to go get a good job so that the government continues to make more money off of you. And so when you understand there are two tax systems in our country. There’s one that was created for W-2 employees, and that was created to steal your wealth away. I’m not knocking in any way a W-2 employee but you have to understand that is the tax system that you are in. And so as a business owner, that’s the second tax system. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Amazon, It doesn’t matter if you’re a small mom-and-pop, it doesn’t matter if you’re a hundred million dollar company, it doesn’t matter if you are a startup working as a home-based business. They all have the same tax laws. And so when you understand that that system was created to provide you wealth and the reason why is because that is the system that actually generates the economy. They’re the ones pushing money through the economy constantly. They’re the ones hiring employees and so then the employees, somebody has to pay the taxes so it trickles down to the employees. And so when you understand that, the first step to financial freedom is to find a business and start sharing that with people. If it’s nothing more than the guarantee of saving money in taxes.
- How do people find you online and if they wanna get in contact with you, or reach out to you?
- I’m just gonna give you a number that you can text. It’ll give you a couple things. It’s gonna give you a link to book a tax strategy session if you wanna book one. It’s gonna also give you a deduction spreadsheet there so you can actually see what all you can write off by having a home-based business. And the other thing it’s gonna give you is a free book download, it’s my book, so it’ll give you those three things. If you text tax T-A-X to 855-949-1829.
- Got you, perfect, text tax.
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