Back when I first got into this business, I had a lot of questions about taxes… and one person I could trust was my mentor’s son.
He and I talked a LOT over the course of a few years.
And I learned a lot.
One time, he was telling me about some of the best tax deductions you could get as a business owner.
But one of them wasn’t even directly connected to owning a business.
Children.
“My little tax write-offs,” he would joke.
The child tax credit is one of the most interesting ways to sneak tax dollars (you’ve previously paid) back into your pocket.
Combine it with itemized business deductions, head of household… and it’s a nice (little) Easter egg from the IRS.
But of course HAVING children is a big commitment.
It’s something me and the Mrs. are talking a lot about now.
Whether we should have them and how many… etc and so forth.
Anywho, one of the most popular ideas floating around out there is you can’t ever plan for a baby but that somehow it will all work out.
It’s true that most people figure out how to make things work after the fact.
It’s also true they pay a terrible price for it.
Their health…
But also their finances.
It’s one reason a lot of people don’t save a lot of money.
So we decided to hunt down this book I heard about long time ago: “A Baby? … Maybe.”
Was written in (I think) 1980.
Out of print now. Wife and I nabbed the last one at $30. The only other copy we found was well over $500.
A rare gem, indeed.
Anyway, premise of the book is that not only is it possible to plan for a baby but it’s a really good idea to do it… and to think deeply about all the implications of giving birth to little tax write-offs.
… instead of thinking superficially about the issue.
The same kind of book exists in the finance industry: “The Economics of Life Insurance.”
Don’t let the name fool you. It’s a book about the value of adopting insurance principles in your life (as well as how life insurance really works and how deeply it’s integrated into the financial system).
It’s old. Impossibly old. From the 1920s…
And for deep-thinkers only.
Thus disqualifying most of humanity from reading it.
And, like the baby book, it’s out of print.
One of the reasons people never hear about books like these anymore is because society doesn’t put a premium on REAL education. On deep thinking. On critical thinking. On introspection. On long-term planning.
… even if that planning can save a person thousands n thousand n maybe millions of dineros in taxes over their lifetime while SIMULTANEOUSLY increasing their happiness 10-fold.
Nope.
It’s all about Lady Gaga’s latest hit and what the Kardashians are doing.
Anyway, just something to think about as you are giving 1/4 of your annual salary to the gubbment this year.