Becoming a Constant Learner

Today, our guest is Tom Gorczynski. Tom is a nationally recognized speaker, educator and writer on all things federal tax. He is an Enrolled Agent, a Certified Tax Planner and National Tax Practice Institute Fellow. I’m going to keep this list going—a Certified Tax Resolution Specialist, and what I find very interesting, has been admitted to the Bar of the United States Tax Court as a non attorney, Tom practices in Phoenix, Arizona, and he focuses on implementing advanced tax reduction strategies and representing taxpayers with complex tax problems before the IRS in the United States Tax Court. Tom, welcome to The Unique CPA.

Hi, Randy, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Oh, I’m looking forward to this discussion today. We’ve been together at some conferences in the past, but the most recent time was San Diego, just this past October, right? 

Yeah, we were both at the annual meeting for the American Institute of Certified Tax Planners, I’m pretty involved with them. I’m a Certified Tax Planner myself. And I know you do a lot of partnering with us on various tax credit issues. So it was a really great event.

It was a great event. It was nice to be out and about again. I actually got out for a while. But at that event, you and I had talked in the past. But at that event, you actually emceed a panel where a bunch of us who had done presentations for the event sat on a panel at the end, and during this emceeing, you were asking various questions about taxes and all the topics and I was completely impressed with the knowledge. So I thought, hey, I need to talk to Tom further and see where all this knowledge comes from and what he does with it. So today, I thought that’s what we do, get an idea. I’ve done some research, obviously, on you and get an idea of what it is you do. But why don’t you give us a couple minute rundown of what it is your practice is, because it’s not a typical tax practice.

No, and my career trajectory in the tax world is definitely not the norm. But it’s an example of how you can make a career in this industry work really for you in the way you want. I started out really basic, H&R Block. That’s how I got started in tax, I actually had a different career before tax in higher education. Once I learned I liked tax, I left that career full time. And I started working in tax. My initial couple of years in tax was done actually at tax controversy law firms. So working with attorneys and other Enrolled Agents and CPAs, trying to help people with some really severe tax issues, usually self inflicted, but sometimes, not always. And then at that time, I started my own business doing returns. 

Once I decided I didn’t want to work for others anymore. I took my practice full time. I passed the exam to represent people in the United States Tax Court as a non attorney. And once that happened, I started doing some speaking, and then the education piece of my business really took off. And frankly, that’s what I do a lot now, is the education. But I do maintain a tax practice. I have a small number of tax clients that I service every tax season. I do some planning work here and there as the opportunities open up. I do a lot of work, occasionally representing taxpayers, both in tax court and with the IRS and also helping other tax professionals help their clients with their tax matters. So I really have a kind of a diverse portfolio at this point.

Yeah, it’s so cool to see what you’re doing because I—people have listened to the show before and know that, I would assume know, that I’m very big on building a niche, and you have a unique niche and your niche is kind of broken into a few different areas. Really, it’s the way I look at it. I mean, you don’t have to have just one niche. You have a niche of education. Obviously that’s important to you and there’s a few different ways that you have the newsletter—Tom Talks Taxes, is that it?

Tomtalkstaxes.com. It’s a substack newsletter, it is free to anybody who wants to join.

Alright. Alright. And I’ve been looking at Tom Talks Taxes, so I appreciate that. So you’ve got the newsletter that says education, then you do a bunch of, you know, webinars and speaking at events and all that. So you’ve got that education niche. You’ve got the IRS representation niche, the tax part, which I’m going to want to expand on that as well. And then probably the mentoring niche that you have this inner circle—I would call that probably mentoring, maybe you call it something else, mentoring a good form? And your inner circle is where you interact with other tax preparers. So maybe we’ll expand on those areas is, when you look at those three, and if I miss one, let me know. But if we look at those three areas, does one of those hold a bigger passion for you than the others?

It’s tough to say. I mean, the education piece, you know, I never intended it initially to become the biggest piece of what I do, but it has become that because it’s just where I think my skill set lies naturally, and a lot of people value the information I’m able to distill for them. So at this point, you know, writing classes, teaching, helping others help their clients, that’s kind of where my passion is now. 

I still though, of course, love working with taxpayers one on one, especially when it comes to helping them resolve IRS issues or helping them save tax long term. When you have a robust education business or practice like I do, I can only help a certain amount of taxpayers. And so I’m one that doesn’t believe in working 60 hours a week, I’m more of a, let’s work a normal schedule. And so I put boundaries on my practice. I never will let it grow past a certain length or a certain size, because I’m just not able to help people to that extent, with everything else I have going on. I’m really big into setting boundaries appropriately so that you can have life in addition to your work.

Right, no I think that’s big as well. With that education, you’re obviously, I think, is the feeling I get talking to you and listening to you is, you’re always on top of what are the most current issues, and coming out from the IRS, coming out from Congress, coming out with tax law, coming out with legislation. Research with a 40 hour work week, which you know, I try to work less than that. Actually, I’ve been working quite a bit this year with a 40 hour work week. I mean, do you dedicate certain times of the day where you’re researching—how do you schedule that? And obviously, to back up a second, this is The Unique CPA. And CPA’s generic—CPAs, tax preparers, in general. You know, our whole goal is to help CPAs, help tax preparers with education. So your research is a big help. Let’s talk about that. Do you segregate a certain part of the day or just as things come out? Or how do you handle research in general?

Yeah, you know, I try and spend at least a half an hour to an hour each day reading up on things, keeping tabs on what’s going on. Of course, if something major is happening, I may devote an entire half of a day or a day doing that research on that topic, especially if I’m doing a class on that. But for the typical tax professional in practice, you know—one of the first EAs that was a mentor of mine when I got into the field said was, he spent every day, at least half an hour, reading up on tax law changes, tax law news, to keep abreast of what was going on in the profession and keeping up to date. And I totally agree with that. I think for us to be the best that we can be for our clients, we need to set aside a time every day or at least every other day, just keeping in touch with what’s going on and furthering our education. We can’t just rely on, you know, once a year, doing a six to eight hour update class and calling it a day. I think this profession calls us to being constant learners, especially with everything that’s been going on with new guidance from the IRS, new laws from Congress, it has to be something that’s done on a continual basis.

Yep. And then once you get that knowledge, then let’s go into those ways that you support other tax preparers with that knowledge you have, and it may be, you know, what are some of those ways?

Yeah, so I have my Tom Talks Taxes newsletter, tomtalkstaxes.com. I usually publish an edition at least weekly. And that’s basically a newsletter that covers federal tax topics. It’s directed to tax professionals. Also, I list any kind of events I’m doing. So if people are interested in knowing about any of those, those are always included as well. But it’s just a general education newsletter. I really enjoy doing it. I also have a weekly group, a mastermind group, which is the Inner Circle with Tom, and you can—innercirclewithtom.com. And that’s where I meet with small groups of tax professionals on a weekly basis to help build their practice, help answer technical challenges or questions, or we just have discussions about what’s going on in their practices or in the field. And they get mentorship and support. And so those are the main ways that I actually am helping taxpayers. I also have a webinar company, Compass Tax Educators, where we do extensive online education all year long for anybody who’s looking for it.

The thing with me is, I mean, so you have a niche of tax education. With me, I have a niche of especially tech. So my niche is a lot smaller, I can dig deeper into things. That’s where I’m thinking you must have to spend, I mean, you’re looking at all tax topics, right?

Well, the one thing I learned early on: if I don’t know something, I need to be honest and upfront about that, and don’t give advice on it until I’ve researched it. So for you know, if someone asked me a secure tax credit question, or I’m not going to teach on that topic, unless I’m well versed in it. So the key is just to know your boundaries, and to know your limits and to stay in that lane. I mean, we all can grow in our knowledge and experience. But that’s more, in my opinion, of a proactive thing that we need to do. I feel a lot of times tax professionals will have clients with, you know, kind of weird situations, and they try and fumble their way through figuring it out for the client to help them out. But sometimes it may be an area we’re just not familiar with, and sometimes a referral out even makes sense. 

You know, cryptocurrency is a perfect example of that. If I had a client, a potential come to me with very sophisticated cryptocurrency transactions. I know about cryptocurrency, but not to that extent. But I have people in my network that I know and trust, who are crypto experts, right, and I can refer them out that way. And so I think one of the benefits of the tax communities, we all have our niche, and sometimes a client’s better with a colleague, who has that niche, versus someone like me, who might have a general knowledge of the topic, but hasn’t delved deeply into it.

And you and I think exactly alike. I am completely on board with you. I talk about that as well. It’s like, as tax preparers in general, we just have to know what exists. We have to do some research, but we can’t know everything. I mean, I can’t, I’m not gonna be, I don’t even know what the rules are or if this even exists anymore, obviously, but the LIFO expert, I’m just not gonna be. Or I’m not gonna be, you know, an expert on partnership taxations. But I know there’s things there. And so knowing who is that expert and having that ability to outsource that or refer that out to someone else. I agree completely. And I love when I hear people say that. So we’re on the same wavelength there.

Well, you know, I think ultimately, we have to be aware that we have to look in the client’s best interest. And so sometimes that means we have to refer the client out. If we don’t have the knowledge or capability to help the client, we’re actually hurting them by keeping them on just to keep the revenue. I really do believe when you put out that you refer clients that need help out, then people might refer people to you when they need your help. So I think it really is a win-win. 

All right, and then let’s talk about that. And that last—well maybe it’s the last—the last step in how you’re supporting the tax preparer. And that’s IRS representation, whether it’s, I’m assuming in an audit, in an appeals, or even in tax court. So give me a little background on how you support the tax preparer through that, and maybe an example. Yeah, I’d love to hear about tax court at some point, too.

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, since I passed the exam and got admitted to the Bar of Tax Court in ‘15, you know, I’ve handled probably dozens of cases at this point. Some of them relatively small, some of them larger, knock on wood, no trials yet. I’ve gotten favorable settlements in almost—in actually all of them at this point. But, you know, I love representing people in tax court, because, first of all, you know, obviously, most people don’t want to go to or have to pay for an attorney to represent them, because that could be an expensive proposition for a controversy that’s not that large. I’m not saying I don’t get paid well to do it, but it’s not going to be the same as an hourly billed attorney. 

The type of cases I handle kind of are all over the map. And usually my tax court cases, I would say, 50% find me through various mediums and directly engage with me. And probably the other half are referrals from tax pros, who, you know, don’t practice in tax court, but their client needs help. I’ve done quite a few cases recently on the foreign earned income exclusion. It’s been an area of IRS scrutiny. I find it challenging sometimes that the position the IRS takes in litigation in that, but ultimately, you know, good facts do win out. 

I had an interesting self-directed IRA case where an IRA held timber in Costa Rica. That was a very interesting case as well, myself and the IRS attorney both were like, we don’t know what to do with this. You want to split it down the middle with no penalties? I’m like, my client’s okay with that, sounds good to go. And we just settled it on that basis, because it was a very strange fact pattern, let’s put it that way. But you see a lot of really interesting things. The tax court, I find, is actually much more efficient to get a resolution for many taxpayers than administrative IRS these days, because of just how backlogged and how there’s so many staffing challenges at the service.

Yeah, I actually have a feeling that they may just pass it on to that next level. Yeah, the administrative level just because of that. So yeah, no, the IRS is very understaffed at this point. And with everything that’s gone on the last two years, it’s just pushed them so far behind. It’s, I don’t envy them at all. They have a hard job to do. 

So before we wrap up with a couple of final things, anything I missed on that whole—I mean, that we know, you can support the tax preparer, and you know, in tax court or in audits or any, you know, significant issues that come up on a tax return, your Inner Circle’s out there, your education, anything I missed?

No, I think you hit it. You know, I think the key is just, my goal is to make myself available so that other tax professionals can get the support they need. And so if there’s something I can do to help, I’m always willing to consider it.

Okay, then we’ll come back to that in a minute. One thing I like to do at the end of these because we get into the weeds on taxes and, and other things is, you know, you’re not just the tax research expert. What does Tom like to do when he’s not having taxes on the brain? Do you have a passion outside of work?

One of the things I’ve been doing actually, since the pandemic started, is I’ve been getting more into wine and wine collecting, something I’d never done before. But you know, pandemic, alcohol. So I’ve been getting more into kind of understanding wine, trying different varieties, collecting some bottles. I’m trying this whole aging thing. I, it’s interesting. So it’s kind of a new hobby I’ve been doing. 

I also do a lot of travel, not just for work, but also for fun as well. And so like when the pandemic hit last March, or right, two Marches ago, I wasn’t home. I was in Hawaii when everything went down. And you know, one of the nice things about post pandemic life is I’ve been trying to get out more and use this opportunity to travel. Because when you can’t travel, you then recognize, hey, wait a minute, I actually, this is something I want to do. And so I’ve been trying to proactively schedule more trips and seeing more of the world. I recently just drove from my parents’ house in New Jersey back to Arizona, where I live, from Christmas, just so I could stop and see people I know along the way. Had a really fun time.

Glad to hear that. Now I know what Tom likes outside of—and I’m guessing you like research too. I can just tell that for sure. And I know you have a passion for that. So let’s let’s wrap this up with, if anybody does want to reach out to you, they just have questions. They want to pick your brain, they want to get involved in the inner circle, they need representation. They want to see your webinars. I can go on and on. How would people get ahold of Tom?

If they go to my website, which is www.gorczynski.tax. There’s basically links to everything that we discussed there. There’s also an ability to book a consultation with me if you need to discuss anything, whether it’s a client issue, or whether you want to talk about referring work out, or whatever you need to discuss, there are booking links there.

All right, well, that’s awesome. I appreciate that. It’s, I assume those links will be in the show notes, I guess, as the host of this, and then we’re about 60 shows in now. I should really know that. But I’m very fortunate I have a good team that helps me out on this. And I’m sure they have that. So all those links should be in the show notes. So Tom, I really appreciate you being here. And it’s great to see you, even if it’s over Zoom.

Yeah. And thank you, Randy. I really appreciate the opportunity.