Unlock Your Island Dreams: The Tax Savings Blueprint With Trevor McCandless

John Corcoran: 14:15 Yeah. These are the most important books. Trevor McCandless: 14:17 Yeah. And so that was such a freaking awesome business. Yeah. So I dove into that, you know, that’s why I was at that firm for four years. John Corcoran: 14:29 You’re working at a firm, you’re getting your master’s in tax at night. Yeah. And you’re starting this company. You must have been a busy guy. Trevor McCandless: 14:37 Man. That’s all that energy in their 20s, dude. John Corcoran: 14:41 Right? Trevor McCandless: 14:42 It’s relentless energy. Yeah. You know, but, yeah, we started making. We got up to 30,000 bucks a month, and that’s when I quit that firm. But it was, it was fascinating. Like, I would go with everything I was executing within that rental company. I was then, you know, talking to my professors and multi-state taxation and saying, listen, do I have nexus in Oklahoma because I just rented 30 sets of golf clubs here, and I’m diving into multi-state tax law for myself, you know what I mean? Even way more and way more depth than some of the clients I was working on. And so but yeah, that was great. John Corcoran: 15:21 Way to learn it. Great way to learn this stuff, right? Yeah. Trevor McCandless: 15:24 Yeah, dude, I had to let you know what I mean. Sales tax compliance. Income tax compliance. John Corcoran: 15:30 So at your peak, how many like I don’t know how many bags of clubs did you have and were they all deployed all around the country? Are you shipping them? How did you get these bags of clubs all over the place? Trevor McCandless: 15:42 There’s a lot of different models in every business, right? But like we were shipping them all from Atlanta. We had about 300 sets of golf clubs. When we’d have a bunch of different tournaments going on nationwide. There was a couple, there was another competitor but friend in Texas, so we would kind of work on deals together. You know, lots of lessons learned there and, you know, helping like I started with my brother lent me 5000 bucks. I didn’t have the money to, you know, get 300 sets of golf clubs. So, yeah, I remember the first big deal we had was Rolls Royce. They wanted 30 sets of golf clubs. I had two and I had 30 days. And I was like, yeah, we can do this deal. And then I was calling up all the golf courses saying, hey, can I borrow some of your golf clubs? Wow. Like no Calling the manufacturers, saying, hey, I got this big deal. They’re like, no. And I was just losing it. And so. John Corcoran: 16:39 I mean, that’s thousands and thousands. I don’t know how much. That’s thousands of dollars for clubs. Trevor McCandless: 16:44 Yeah yeah yeah yeah tons. And so you know, that’s when you start in any business, if you don’t necessarily have the resources internally, you might hire another CPA firm, another whoever it is. Golf company. Can we team up on a project while we’re trying to grow ourselves? And we can split revenues, all kinds of different ways of being resourceful when you don’t have the cash. Yeah. So with that, it was just reinvestment by more clubs until it was all profit. And I didn’t you know, I’m not a big debt guy. I hate debt, you know, I know there’s a place for it, you know, and specifically real estate tech, etc. but in small businesses, a lot of them you don’t need debt, you know. So anyway, so you grew. John Corcoran: 17:32 You grew carefully. So you started in 2006, I believe you said that you finished your tax degree master’s in 2008. You also go full time on that. And we also had kind of an economic downturn around that time period. How did that economic downturn affect the business? Trevor McCandless: 17:49 Yeah, I didn’t know what a recession was. And then, you know, when that downturn kind of was hitting, obviously corporate golf events got axed big time. So the boom market went to zero competitors calling me ones that had raised private equity. I’m looking at their balance sheets. Massive amounts of debt is like, I don’t want your company. John Corcoran: 18:14 They’re calling you because they wanted you to buy their company. Trevor McCandless: 18:17 Exactly. They wanted to just get, they wanted to exit, you know, and so and then you saw the, you know, lift up the skirt. What are you really made of? You’re just massively financed. Interesting time. John Corcoran: 18:31 But but you. Because you were careful about debt, were you okay or did you just go? No, you were fine. You were fine. Okay. Trevor McCandless: 18:40 But there was no revenue coming in the door. John Corcoran: 18:42 So she can only do it does. That’s a problem. Trevor McCandless: 18:45 I was totally fine in that I could just go get a job at a CPA firm again. And that was the really weird thing about quitting to entertain the venture. I part of my identity was to own a CPA firm. And so I had this battle going on about how I was going to kind of go with that, but I want to go all in on the golf thing. But so when that happened, the recession, I went and joined another CPA firm for two years, and that’s really where I then felt and gained the confidence of, I could take any tax project that was in my lane from A to Z, manage everything I needed to manage. And so that’s when I started my own firm two years after that. So I only worked at two firms and I was about 28, I guess, when I started my own firm. John Corcoran: 19:35 So actually, I think I was around that age, maybe 30, 31 when I started my law firm. And you sound similar to me in the sense that I felt a little bit of an insecurity when I was starting it. Because, you know, these days most people will work at a larger firm for a longer period of time, maybe 510 years before starting their own legal practice or accounting practice or whatever. Did you feel that when you were starting, like, maybe I’m a little young to be doing this or anything? Trevor McCandless: 20:06 Well, yeah. You know, so like there was a point where, you know, do you stay at that CPA firm, me and that the partners were not seeing eye to eye. There was no going forward. Right. And that is what helped me to say this. I’m giving it all a go on my own. If they were really cool and nice people, that would have been a lot tougher. But that was not the case. And so I thank God that that’s how it all rolled out that I just said launching. I’m going. Right. You know, because then, you know, if they were more amenable then it could have been like, you know, do I want to be a partner here? And next thing you know, five years later. John Corcoran: 20:51 Sometimes I think the worst thing that can happen to you is for everything to be just okay, you know, because it’s not enough to light a fire under you to quit that job, to start that new company, to take a risk, take a gamble, go. Go back to school. Everything’s just okay, you know? It’s sometimes a real blessing when you have a hole for a boss or a bad working condition, or you just hate the job because then it actually lights a fire under you to do something about. Trevor McCandless: 21:19 A real triggering event. Sometimes you need it. John Corcoran: 21:22 Yeah, yeah. So you start fusion CPR. And then there was a point at which you were simultaneously, I guess you’d started back up the golf club rental company, Fusion CPA. And you also had a hand knit 3D animal scarf business which came from somewhere. What was that idea? Trevor McCandless: 21:40 Yeah, and the 20s, man 20s was just unlimited energy. Yeah. Like, you know, I’m I’m very creative dude as well. Like, I’m in the middle of writing a book right now. And, you know, I like to bring things to life, bring ideas to life. And there’s this, like, my friend’s grandmother had knit this like, you know, again, I went to the University of Florida, and our mascot is the alligators. And so she had met this three dimensional alligator scarf. It was so cool. And I was like, I’m gonna have that mass produced and, you know, knit and everything. And then I was like, I’m gonna do it for every school, you know? in the college arena. So I did that, had some patents on these things and started to get collegiate licensing. But then that was another all these have good learning events or learning, you know, situations. And that’s when I realized it’s like if you don’t have nationwide distribution, you’re just and you’re trying to sell to mom and pops left and right, you it’s it’s you’re never going to make it. You know, you’re you’re you’re not going to get the profitability and the infrastructure you need. And I never got to that point. And then also the licensing people were calling me up and saying, hey, you came up with a new product. It’s not licensed. And I was like, what are you talking about? I’m licensed on this other product. And they’re like, and I’m like, well, how do I come out with new products? And the lawyers laughed at me, he’s like, yeah, it’s the chicken or the egg, right? I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s like, it’s like you’re laughing at me trying to grow a business. And I’m already licensed here. You know, it’s so I was like, screw this business. It’s, you know, let’s axe that one. And then over time, I also realized that if I am spread out in these different ventures, I’m actually doing a disservice to my clients at the core business, and I’m doing a disservice to the employees that are employed there. I’m doing better for everybody, including them and myself. If I’m wholly focused on one venture. And so shed each of those. And then and that was easy after a while because you start looking at profit margins. Right. And what for the time that you’re putting into something, where’s the biggest bang for the buck. The 8020 principle. And that was all the CPA firm. So it became an easier thing. But you know, in your 20s you got to entertain this stuff. John Corcoran: 24:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta try it out. Talk about your philosophy of strategic laziness, which is ironic given what we’ve talked about so far. You seem to not be lazy at all, but you have this idea, right? Trevor McCandless: 24:18 So that’s all about busting your butt earlier in your career so you can sit under the palm tree later. Right. You know, I’m by nature a lazy person. I love being lazy and chilling. But I’m not going to be able to do that and actually relax. And unless I’ve built something that can sustain itself, that allows me to react, to relax, you know, otherwise it’s just I’m still going. And so it’s kind of like, you know, I remember in relationships I was in, I was like, you know, why are you doing all this stuff? Are you working so hard? I was like, because I want to chill later. You know, I’ve got the energy now. I don’t have kids now. I’m not married. I’m going to put in the work now, you know. And now, with a three year old and a one year old man, I can’t imagine starting my own CPA firm right now. John Corcoran: 25:09 Oh, yeah. With kids. Trevor McCandless: 25:10 So hard, dude. Yeah. Like I did after five, 530. Right now it’s kid time and then I put them to bed at seven 7: 30. I’m exhausted. John Corcoran: 25:21 Yeah, tell me about it. Trevor McCandless: 25:22 And I’m up at 6: 30. You know, it’s so hard. John Corcoran: 25:26 How hard is it to run a company where you have so many changes in the market and tax strategy, and you have to keep abreast of all these things, and you have to worry about, oh, did you know, are we giving the client accurate advice? Is last year’s advice no longer good? We need to go back and tell all those clients. Like, how hard is it to run a company that just thinks over the last ten, 12 years, how many changes there have been? Trevor McCandless: 25:53 I think I mean, I think as accountants, tax professionals, you’re kind of wired for it. That’s just part of the game. That’s just what it is. You’re used to it. You’ve been trained in it in college and you’re just part of the expectation now when you’ve got a whole bunch of other things, you know, externally happening, it can be a lot, right? Like when Covid popped out, right. There’s the triple P coming out. Idol. You know, the government funding you’re trying to show how I can help my clients and get all kinds of tax law changes in there. That was a lot. That’s where like I in that May time frame June you could see like we were all crashing. Right. We had interpreted the triple P how we can get everybody that cash, how they can be compliant. Then it was like it was a mental health crisis. You know what I mean? Like I, I, a couple of our accountants, you know, you know, in tears, you know, I’m crashing too because you’re just running on adrenaline. John Corcoran: 26:57 And because your clients are freaking out. They’re all freaking out. Yeah. Trevor McCandless: 27:01 Yeah. And like, you know, our revenues come from our clients. We gotta help them be able to stay alive, stay afloat, you know? And so, you know, just like, you know, right now, there’s all kinds of, I think last night just the new tax proposals came out. That’s normal stuff. We’re ready for that. You know, it’s all the other things that can happen simultaneously, tariffs thrown wrenches and stuff. You know, that started to get there. But you know it seems like that hopefully will be you know not so not such a thing. John Corcoran: 27:35 But so in 2021 you made the decision that you would relocate to Puerto Rico. Yeah. Talk. Take us through that. What was that conversation like making that decision? Trevor McCandless: 27:48 Well, yeah. Like so pre-Covid I would regularly tell people I’d be an idiot to ever leave Atlanta because money grows on trees, right? And created such roots, you know, in Atlanta since being there since 2000. And then so during Covid, we went and into North Georgia and really were, you know, living at this kind of little vacation house to kind of get out of the city like a lot of people were doing. But we were in the middle of the woods, you know, and there got to a point. It’s like, I can’t live in the woods anymore, you know? And housing prices were super high everywhere in 2021, you know. And so we looked all up and down the East Coast. And then I remember Puerto Rico, right. We always had this attachment to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean from growing up and our parents and stuff. And so we’d come down here for vacations, but we kind of, you know, started to think about it a little bit more, you know, started looking at houses down here. And they were much more affordable than the East Coast. And it’s like, hey, let’s scratch the itch. And I had a very unique childhood living on a boat. That’s part of my identity. And I love the idea of our daughters being able to speak Spanglish and have a childhood that wasn’t in, you know, cul de sac Atlanta and, and have this part of their identity kind of grown up and kind of let that, you know, kind of take us where it is. And it’s pretty cool. Like, you know, my Spanish isn’t nearly as good as my toddler’s. John Corcoran: 29:21 Yeah. Trevor McCandless: 29:22 You rattle off anything in Spanish. Like, she’s got it, you know, and she can respond back. And so that’s super freaking cool. Yeah. To kind of see. And so yeah, we’re loving it, man. So yeah, my wife actually did private equity and stuff. They actually acquired a big company here in Puerto Rico as well. Like the same exact time we were moving. So she has an office to go into as well. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of all worked together. John Corcoran: 29:49 And how you said that, you know, previously you felt you’d be crazy to leave Atlanta because of your network there. So how did you avoid that handicapping you, or was there anything that you could do to try and preserve those relationships or maintain them from a distance? Trevor McCandless: 30:05 Great question. So a couple years actually, before Covid, we started to change our marketing and our targeting of our ideal clients nationwide, not just to Atlanta. So our customers were really coming in from everywhere. Because while Atlanta is chock full of our ideal target client, I was like, why are we only marketing to Atlanta? You know, SEO kind of stuff. And so with that, that helped enable, you know, us to feel more confident and just move anywhere outside of Atlanta, you know, anywhere, you know, like, you know, we were in Spain for three weeks after the tax deadline. We were doing some work from there. You know, you know, in this post Covid world where me and you were able to have a, you know, an interview on zoom, it’s fantastic. John Corcoran: 30:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It made me I mean, after Covid, it made a lot of that kind of stuff more, more popular or more possible. And if you could, in kind of a short, I’m sure you could talk for an hour about this, but The US government or Puerto Rican government has made it more tax advantageous to live in Puerto Rico. Can you explain why that is or how that works? Trevor McCandless: 31:18 Yeah, like lots of reasons why. Right. You know, any of these island countries, etc. you know, there’s a flight of talent, you know, and so to attract talent and money back to the island, the government of Puerto Rico has a grant that you can apply for. And essentially there’s a bunch of rules. You have to buy a home within two years, depending on revenue level. You have to employ people in Puerto Rico, etc. and then a whole bunch of different compliance pieces. But if you are granted the grant, then you’re eligible for a 4% tax rate by Puerto Rico for the income that you receive from US sources. So all of our clients are in the US. And so it just kind of works out for it’s called the Export Services grant. So it just works out for our kind of company that we can be eligible for that tax rate. John Corcoran: 32:17 And were you ever apprehensive about telling your clients that you moved to Puerto Rico, or was it were you open about that? Trevor McCandless: 32:24 No. I mean, it’s going to be stapled on our website. I did a video kind of announcing it to our client base. And I mean, this is kind of who I am. You know, I’m an entrepreneur, you know, so it wasn’t, you know, there wasn’t much doubt I was just going to do it. I mean, at the end of the day, the, the, the, the business, any kind of business is a vehicle for you to live your passions, you know, and live wherever you want, not necessarily to be beholden to what other people may think. Yeah. And so I kind of live by that. John Corcoran: 32:56 Yeah. I know that you posted something recently about you’ve changed your philosophy towards family run Businesses and when you had kids. It’s interesting because my attitude towards that has evolved a little bit as well. I used to say, I’m never employing my kid in my company now. I kind of like to see some of the benefits of bringing my kids in so that I can mentor them. I haven’t yet, but I might still. So talk a little bit about that. Trevor McCandless: 33:25 Yeah, we could talk for five hours just on that. Yeah. Well, like so in the Gulf Company, I had a girlfriend that I was living with at the time helped me out. And I would come home and ask where her time sheet was and I ruined that relationship. I was like, I learned that my default management style was that of a micromanager. And I have to protect myself, you know, from that. When you say, hey, what are your strengths and weaknesses? That’s a weakness of mine, right? So, you know, that’s one thing that kind of led me to say, hey, I don’t want to mix business and personal relationships with my family because of how I operate and I can. Sometimes I have a hard time turning it off. You know what I mean? If me and you were talking business, we could talk until midnight. You know what I mean? On the weekends. And I didn’t want to burn out my family from my entrepreneurial ways. I worked with my brother on a project at one time. It’s not like that. But I had that kind of rule, you know? But then when I had the kids, I said, listen, you know, this is a fake barrier, a fake wall, you know, that I’ve got going on here. I need to rethink how I’m operating there. And then I also looked at my client base. Every single one of our consulting clients are husband and wife operations. I just didn’t even realize it. It did like, it just didn’t slap me in the face. And a ton of our clients are working with parents, Siblings. ET cetera. And so I was like, I got to rethink how I am approaching the kind of family business dynamic. And I really want to understand how to do it successfully, you know. And so now it’s, it’s, you know, in this book writing journey on family businesses, whether it’s a generation, one, you know, wealth creator kind of family or, you know, an inheritor family, or maybe a Gen two, Gen three or Gen four, how are we doing it? How are people doing it successfully? You know, integrating or showing kids, their children, their family members, you know, what’s going on in the business without burning them out. You know, how does communication happen? I can tell you all my own family retreats, like me and my wife do a quarterly retreat or way better from ripping this Band-Aid off. John Corcoran: 35:56 You’re not asking your wife for her timesheet. Trevor McCandless: 35:58 Well, dude. Correct? Yes. Without going anywhere close to that. But it was funny. Like our our me and my wife’s little quarterly retreat that we just had, I had our agenda. It was 2.5 hours. We were in Spain, and had some inspirational music, you know, to start it off. It was fun. But they just get better and better because we look at, you know, what’s our vision aligned, you know, for the family. I do it with my business separate from our leadership team. But we also do it with the family too. It’s kind of phase two. We consult with our business clients to get them profitable and delegate, have the right team members, and then we move to the family agenda. And just getting a line on the vision for the family and the kids and where we want to live and what our values are. And then hopefully phase three is then bringing the kids into the picture too, right? Like, how do we want to expose them to the family business? How do we want to talk about wealth passing it down? How do we want to talk about budgeting, etc. without just passing down a trust fund blindly with no real communication of you know, what your vision is and your relationship with money is not. A lot of CPAs are having this kind of conversation, you know? But as I kind of said, you know, I get into things because I want to tackle this topic for me. Yeah. Personally. And then, you know, I like to share that with our clients as well. Who’s up for that? Not everybody’s up for that kind of conversation. It’s very hands-on. John Corcoran: 37:27 Right, right. Yeah. It’s interesting. You know, I grew up in a pretty affluent suburban community, and I feel like I was exposed to a lot of situations where there wasn’t great communication and wealth was not passed down in a good way. And the next generation, like the higher generation, the first generation, worked their butts off, and then the next generation was lazy. That is not strategically lazy, but just straight lazy. But I’d be curious to know, like, statistically. I mean, you always hear about like, kind of uplifting generations. So probably that’s more anecdotal. I imagine there’s probably more families that are teaching the next generation wealth building skills and business building skills, and maybe we just kind of see examples of where a next generation hasn’t taken those lessons to heart, and they kind of stand out in our mind, or at least in my mind. Trevor McCandless: 38:28 Yeah, I think there’s definitely stats there I don’t have absolutely memorized, but I think by the fourth generation of the wealth creator, 3% of the time the wealth is still being stewarded, shepherded and exists. And then the third generation is like 13% second generations, like 70%. I might have those a little bit off. But as time goes on, the communication dissipates. It’s not as good statistically. And I think that’s kind of, you know, that’s what I’m trying to address for my own family. And then and then, you know, try to trickle it down to our client base as well. John Corcoran: 39:08 Yeah. Well, that’s a cool mission. And I’m glad you’re working on that book. I’m excited to see it when it comes out. Well, Trevor, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you, connect with you, and, you know, maybe keep tabs on this book when it comes out? Trevor McCandless: 39:22 Yeah, 100% LinkedIn. Trevor McCandless two CS, two S’s. You can find me on LinkedIn, fusiontaxes.com is our website. It’s the there’s the spots to hit me or Twitter X or at Atlanta Texas. That’s another spot to hit me up. John Corcoran: 39:38 Excellent. Trevor thanks so much. Trevor McCandless: 39:40 All right brother. Outro: 39:43 Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.