Hi Bob!

Summer is usually full of lazy days and slow news weeks. That’s not the case in the sweltering 2024, though. For once, that “Breaking News” alert that crawls across the bottom of your cable news feed really means something. Millions of Americans across the political spectrum are learning just why the ancient Chinese considered it a curse to live in interesting times. I’m not even going to bother summarizing what’s happened so far, simply because in the time between when I write these words and you read them, there will be more.

As usual, though, those news feeds include reports of celebrity passings. Surely, there are people who have seen that Richard Simmons is dead, realized that Keith Richards is still alive, and rethought their commitment to exercise and a healthy diet. But comedian Bob Newhart’s death last week at age 94 hit many Boomers especially hard.

And did you know that he was an accountant before he launched his career in comedy?

Newhart was born in Chicago in 1929. He graduated from Loyola University with a degree in business management before getting drafted and serving here in the States as a clerk during the Korean War. From there, he went to United States Gypsum to work as an accountant. And if he had succeeded, we might never have heard of him! Sadly, his motto, “That‘s close enough," didn't work for his employers. Nor did his habit of balancing petty cash out of his own pocket.

Two years later, Newhart released his first album, “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.” It became the first comedy album to hit #1 on the Billboard chart, and the only accounting Newhart worried about after that was his own.

But let’s take a look at that motto of his: “That’s close enough.” Was it really so disqualifying?

Years ago, Money magazine used to run an annual exercise exposing how complicated taxes can be. They would give a set of client files to 50 different accountants and ask them to prepare a 1040 for that client. Every year, they would get back 50 different results. And none of those results matched the numbers Money’s own accountant calculated.

Of course, all of those accountants worked in good faith to show off their skills to Money’s readers. None of them had any reason to do less than their best work or dismiss it as “close enough.” So why did they come up with 50 different answers? And what broader lessons does that leave for us?

The main lesson, of course, is that if 50 different trained professionals can come up with 50 different bottom-line tax bills, there’s something wrong with our system. And what would have happened if the IRS had taken a closer look at those numbers? Do you think that 50 different auditors would have done any better? Probably not! The taxpayers submitting those returns may have had to pony up some extra money, or some might have even gotten a refund. None would have been charged with fraud or any other sort of offense. And in the end, they would have been . . . (say it with me) close enough.

The irony here is that the real action happens long before an accountant sits down to prepare a tax return. The real action happens with the planning—or lack thereof. What business entity or entities do you have? How are you drawing cash out of the business? Are you maximizing deductible benefits and taking advantage of the right retirement savings vehicle? (Don’t assume a traditional qualified plan is always the best option!) That’s where our planning service comes in—so that no matter how much you actually pay, it’s less.