Tyler D Harris, CPA

Senior Tax Accountant

I help business owners save millions in taxes using advanced tax strategies.

I moved to Hawaii with my wife and three kids for better work/life balance.

Tax Supervisor

Tyler D. Harris, CPA, CMA

A client copied me on an email with a lender this week.

Immediately, I reached out to the client to tell him to hit the brakes. A small change could save him $25k per year in taxes.

He's refinancing his home down from a 7.72% rate to a 5.75% rate.

At face value, it's a huge win.

But here's how he can make it even better. 

Currently, only the interest related to the first $750k of home acquisition interest is tax deductible.

With a mortgage balance of about $1,750,000, only about 43% of his mortgage interest is tax-deductible.

He is planning on pulling $150k of equity for home repairs, meaning his new loan amount will be $1.9 million at 5.75%. Overall, his rate drops quite a bit, but only 39% of his interest will be tax deductible.

He happens to have a decent amount of liquidity right now, so my suggestion is this:

1. Pay the original mortgage down to $750,000.
2. Wait about a month
3. Refinance at $1,900,000
4. Use $750,000 to pay off the original balance
5. Use the remaining $1,150,000 to invest into either his company or his portfolio.

At the end of the month, he's in the same financial position except for his taxes will drop.

Now he will be able to deduct all of the home interest and the rest of the interest will be deductible against his investment income.

This results in about $25k of annual tax savings (37% Fed and 11% HI), and the tax savings reduces his effective interest rate from 6.13% down to 2.99%.

Check out the math below and let me know if you have any questions.

Tyler Harris CPA

I help entrepreneurs worth $40M-$400M save $1M+ in tax.

No alternative text description for this image

I'm looking for a CPA or EA in NYC for one of my client's best employees. 

Hoping to keep her fees less than $1k. Here's a quick rundown of her situation:

$200-$300k of wages as follows:

One W-2 through May 2025. She received 6 months severance when her company was acquired. She did contract work for a few months before starting at my client's company. 

Currently single. Engaged to be married in 2026.

I need someone who can handle a (likely) simple Schedule C as well as a couple of W-2's.

That's about it, from what I know.

Please tag someone in the comments or reach out if interested.

There is a lot of fear around stripping profits from a C-Corp.

"The IRS wants you to pay a dividend"

"You shouldn't avoid double-tax"

These are the claims, but they are based on old facts.

Before 2017, corporate tax rates were 35%. This meant if you pulled a dividend from the company at the highest brackets, your combined Federal tax rate was was about 50.47%.

If you paid yourself a big salary you would pay about 43.4%.

If you paid an S-Corp management company the rate was as low as 39.6%, but probably closer to 43%.

This meant the IRS was losing at least 7% when people avoided double tax!

Now? 

The rates are a lot closer:

Double tax: 39.8%
Wages: 40.8%
S-Corp: 37%-40.8%

There's barely a difference!

So don't believe the hype. 

C-Corps aren't terrible.

They are about as tax-efficient as any other structure.

But please, consult a professional to make sure you choose the right structure for your company.

I'm currently on the phone with the IRS resolving a $13,722 error that would have cost 5 minutes of attention.

In January 2025, Los Angeles County had some serious wildfires. A large portion of Pacific Palisades burned to the ground - entire neighborhoods.

As a result, both the IRS and the CA FTB extended disaster relief via payment postponement for all Q4 2024 estimates, 2024 balances, and Q1, Q2, and Q3 2025 estimated tax payments.

This means that the $13,722 underpayment below should have been waived, but the tax preparer (not us) failed to apply disaster relief to the taxpayer's account.

Instead, they calculated an underpayment penalty and had the client voluntarily pay it.

I've been busy resolving issues like this over the past couple of months.

We applied this disaster relief to all of our clients since our office is in Los Angeles County for their 2024 tax returns. 

Our clients will also get this relief for their 2025 tax returns. For some of them, I've seen over $100k of interest savings just by avoiding these penalties and delaying their payments.

If you weren't aware of this previously, check your tax returns and make sure you have disaster relief applied to your account if you were entitled to it.

PFLI LLC - Premium Finance Life Insurance

Premium Finance Life Insurance provides wealth holders and their advisory teams with best in class options for their life insurance portfolios. Our team has earned the confidence of high net-worth families, individuals, and businesses around the country and helped place over $1.5B of protection.

President

City of Newport Beach

Finance Committee

Balanced Strategies, LLC

Balanced Strategies approach is planning-driven and collaborative.  They think well-beyond a life insurance sale to identify opportunities for planning that maximizes client outcomes.  An engagement with Balanced Strategies typically drives a more substantial and tailored solution. Advisors benefit from their involvement at the onset and discovery phase and they bring planning insights from business succession and estate planning strategies successfully implemented by $50M to $1B+ families and corporations.  Their unique experience and industry perspective affords collaborative advisors a powerhouse partner to help find, open and close their biggest opportunities.
 
Balanced Strategies delivers their services with the mindset of economists, not salesmen.  The economics of life insurance, and in many instances financed life insurance, are often more efficient than other asset types that may be evaluated to fund planning and liquidity needs.  Their team members are highly-skilled in preparing and presenting economic analysis that clients and their key advisors find easy to understand and evaluate.  This approach enhances confidence and trust in advisors’ client engagements.
 
Through comprehensive analysis , evaluation and design, Balanced Strategies builds product and lending solutions custom to each client, carefully evaluating each element and focusing on every way possible to de-risk the client’s situation.  There is no “one-size-fits-all” life insurance carrier or lender. Clients have unique needs and deserve a custom solution.  Balanced Strategies implements sustainable solutions and are committed to managing transactions in partnership with advisors for the long haul. Balanced Strategies is your trusted partner for large and complex case opportunities.

Senior Consultant

The Elite OC

The Elite OC, a nonprofit business league that empowers leading young professionals to positively impact the local community and grow professionally, has grown organically to be the largest young professionals group in Orange County.  Focused on quality programming for leading, charity-minded individuals, Elite OC has hosted over 100 events to date benefitting a variety of local Orange County-based charities.  Instead of charging for events, Elite OC asks attendees to bring a donation for the chosen monthly charity, which has resulted in donations of over $135,000 and 23,000+ life-enhancing items given to 95 local charities since inception.  Items such as books, school supplies, instruments, hygiene kits, and canned food have benefitted recipients from low-income families to veterans and homeless.

Succession Capital Alliance

Helped advisors complete 175 cases resulting in over $1.5B of death benefit, $45M FYC, and $300M of financed premiums.

Vice President

Private Client Group - Northwestern Mutual

Director of Operations

Fifth Third Private Bank

Fifth Third Private Bank gives high net-worth individuals and families access to sophisticated financial solutions–solutions that can help simplify your finances so you can focus on your goals.

Fifth Third Private Bank is able to leverage the vast resources of a top financial institution to give you the highest level of service and a broad array of solutions. In fact, Fifth Third has been helping to manage the assets of those with significant wealth for over 100 years.

High Net Worth Insurance Specialist

Northwestern Mutual

I help successful professionals, families, and bussinesses prepare for the future. My approach and practice is balanced between wealth accumulation and risk management. It includes creating "big picture" financial plans, preparing for retirement, estate planning and wealth transfer, funding children's education, and insulating your assets from premature death, disability, or a long term care need.

I take special interest in the tax implications of particular strategies, technical analysis, and behavioral finance.

Financial Advisor

University of Cincinnati

Intimate knowledge of experimental combustion research: Facility design, experimental test matrix optimization, technical operation. Thesis research on after burner screech tone identification and characterization. 

Strategic research and implementation consulting.  Performed new product feasibility study for bio-pharmaceutical company. Identified and surveyed potential customers and competitors for market analysis. Personally presented this information to the CEO and VP of Marketing.

Long history of strong extracurricular involvement. President of both the MBA and Aerospace Engineering Graduate Student Associations. Student representative on College of Business Academic and Ethics Committee. Sat on College of Business Alumni Board of Governors. Worked on the Constitution and Bylaws committee for the general university graduate student association. President and Treasurer of the Collegiate Aircraft Design Team.

Research Associate

Cornerstone Research Group

Experienced research engineer with a focus on smart material integration into adaptive composite systems for the Aviation, Defense, and Space industry. History of funded research from DoD, NASA, and AFRL SBIR contracts. Program management experience with private and public sector funding agents.

John Reed helps advisors and strategic partners implement and maintain advanced wealth/business protection and transfer strategies for their most valued customers. He has helped insurance advisors with over 200 Premium Finance cases resulting in +$2.5B of coverage, +$460M of financed premiums, and +$56M FYC. He currently serves on the Finance Committee for the city of Newport Beach, CA, is the past-president of The Elite OC: Young Professionals Giving Back, and is a graduate of University of Cincinnati where he studied Aerospace Engineering and MBA. He is an avid reader, competitive sailor, space nerd, and international traveler.

The sailing photo in the banner was taken at Diamond Point Lighthouse Buoy after spending nearly 14 days at sea, crossing the Pacific Ocean from Long Beach, CA as part of the 2019 Transpac Race!

taplio

The Battle

Tyler D. Harris, CPA, CMA

🚀 John Reed Jr. 🚀

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTyler D. Harris, CPA, CMA's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Tyler D. Harris, CPA, CMA

🚀 John Reed Jr. 🚀

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tyler D. Harris, CPA, CMA's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTyler D. Harris, CPA, CMA's LinkedIn Performance