Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. The accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Ksuz executive MBA program. Without them, we wouldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the show, we have Chris Edwards, who is a partner in Bennett Thrasher’s tax practice. Welcome.

Chris Edwards: Hey, Lee, happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Bennett Thrasher. How you serving folks?

Chris Edwards: Sure. Yeah. So as you said, I’m a tax partner and Bennett Thrasher’s tax practice and I lead our commercial tax group. What my group focuses on Lee is really just all any and all operating business entities. And we support them from not only the tax compliance perspective, but also on the tax consulting side as well. Um, so yeah, it’s outside of commercial. Our tax group is made up of real estate, high net worth individuals. And we also have a specialty tax group, which focuses on, uh, credits and incentives, international tax consulting, state and local tax consulting and transaction advisory.

Lee Kantor: So are there any specific types of businesses that you support?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, my, my main focus really is with technology companies, uh, distribution companies and professional service companies.

Lee Kantor: Now talk to me about a business person or the leader of an organization is thinking about changing CPAs. What are some of the do’s and don’ts and some of the trade offs maybe they make when they are making a move like that? What should you be looking for in a CPA firm? What type of experiences or expertise should they have?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I think first you you want to work with somebody that understands your industry, sort of the ins and outs and not just the just the tech side of it all, but just how your business operates. And then secondly, I, you know, I like to say you really want to work with somebody that is sort of planning ahead for you, not just checking in once a year, you know, letting you know how your year went. We’ll file your tax return based on that and see you again next year. You really want somebody that’s with you throughout the year. Understanding your business and sort of planning for the future.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that kind of a yellow flag if you’re working with an organization currently, and they’re not being proactive about getting together and really making an effort to be proactive. Is that kind of a situation where you’re like, maybe you should start shopping at that point?

Chris Edwards: I think so. Yeah, I think it’s really hard to plan if you don’t sort of have an understanding of what’s going on in real time with your clients. And so, yeah, a yellow flag is probably a good way to say it.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it comes to this year’s tax planning, is there anything, um, that we should be paying attention to as we move into the 2026 year?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, I think everybody’s probably heard of the one big beautiful bill, which is still such a mouthful to say. But yeah, that’s probably on everybody’s mind right now. And provisions in that bill affect not only 2025, but obviously, um, planning for the future as well. So that’s, that’s probably um, or CPAs are most busy right now.

Lee Kantor: So when that bill comes out or a bill like it, um, what does that, how does your team handle that? Like are somebody on the team kind of going through it with a fine tooth comb looking for opportunities? Like how do you kind of handle when a big piece of legislation like that comes out as an organization? What do you do with that information?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of collaboration amongst the partner group. Um, like you said, digesting the bill, seeing where there’s opportunities, seeing where our clients might, um, you know, not be in, it might be disadvantaged from the bill and, and how do we plan for that? Uh, so yeah, it’s, it’s a very much a collaborative approach. We all put our heads together and brainstorm opportunities.

Lee Kantor: And then when you went through the bill, are there some things that you saw that you’re like, okay, business owners right now should be really jumping on these couple of things?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think probably the most, um, maybe if I could give a top three, uh, you know, a lot’s been said about the bonus depreciation rules becoming much more favorable. Uh, a lot of our technology companies are benefiting from the, um, the new research and development expensing rules. And I think everybody, all taxpayers that, that take on debt are highly leveraged or benefiting from the more flexible interest expense deduction rules. So those are probably sort of the most wide ranging provisions.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there anything for the folks who are, um, maybe in the professional services where they don’t have maybe factories or stuff, but they’re there, you know, um, their value is in intellectual property or more thinking stuff. Is there, is there some benefits for those folks?

Chris Edwards: There is. Yeah. And you know, some of the provisions in the bill, um, were already in existence, but they they made them permanent. So, for example, um, you know, taxpayers who are structured as either a partnership or an S corporation can, can benefit from, uh, what’s called the qualified business income deduction, which is a free, essentially free 20% deduction against your income. Um, and so now you’re kind of in a situation where, you know, it’s permanent, you can start planning long term for it. And, and that’s definitely one where professional service firms are benefiting from.

Lee Kantor: Now what? Take me through, uh, you mentioned being proactive. So say you have a client, um, and you’re being proactive and you schedule a meeting with them. What types of homework should they be prepared to bring you? Or what types of questions should they be prepared to ask you in order to get the most of that proactive, uh, conversation?

Chris Edwards: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I would probably say, Lea, that it’s maybe the other way around. It’s your CPA should be asking you the questions. Um, and so what we like to do as a firm when we, uh, you know, certainly when we bring on a new client, we, we have what we call a whiteboarding session, which is, um, just as an example, if it’s a new client for me, I would bring in some of my other partners who have different specialties and we all sort of get in the room together with the client or with the prospect to sort of understand their business and see where all we can add value. Um, you know, I stay in sort of the income tax compliance and consulting side, but I have partners that are in credits and incentives or international tax consulting. And, um, it really does take a sort of a broader team to serve, um, certainly our larger clients. So yeah, I guess to answer your question, I think the, the question should really be coming from the CPA to, to the client.

Lee Kantor: So, so some of those questions that you’re going to ask them. So you’re going to go through their past history with you and, um, you’re going to kind of have an understanding of what they’ve done in the past. And then you’re going to be kind of asking them questions to give you information so that you can maximize their tax savings, but also showing them some areas where maybe they can, um, benefit down the road, right? It’s not just a triage of a past situation.

Chris Edwards: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, step one is understanding the client and the business that they’re in and the structure that they have set up. Uh, and then it’s, it’s really about, um, making sure you understand where they’re trying to go. What’s their, what’s their two year plan? What’s their five year plan? Are they looking to sell the company or are they looking to take on debt or, you know, really all kinds of things can happen in the next, you know, 2 to 5 years and you want to make sure you’re understanding what where your client’s going.

Lee Kantor: Now, if a person or an organization is looking to exit, is there. What are some of the do’s and don’ts when it comes to preparing to exit?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of times we, we become engaged with clients who are thinking about selling their company and, you know, the 2 to 3 year horizon and, and, uh, you know, that’s, that’s really a time to, as I say, sort of set the table and make sure you’ve got things buttoned up. Um, making sure that you’re, um, you know, your tax accounting methods are in place and are correct. And, uh, because as soon as you go to sell, um, people who are listening who are sold the company know sort of the due diligence side, um, anything that you might have done wrong in the past is probably going to come to light during due diligence. And you just want to make sure you’ve, um, you’ve tried to remedy that as much as you can before you get to that, to that point. And so a lot of sort of what we do when a client comes to us and says, hey, I’m thinking about selling in a few years, we want to make sure we’ve got a good structure in place to, um, you know, transact in the most tax efficient manner. But also, um, as I said, sort of set the table to make sure that we’re going in eyes wide open to, you know, anything that might be questioned. And we try to remedy that on the front end.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates the importance of having a good, uh, tax partner is that you don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe, uh, share, um, in what state they were in when they came to you and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Chris Edwards: Yeah, sure. Um, you know, I think. A lot of times clients will come and, you know, their structure is just not really conducive to where they want to go. Um, maybe that’s something as simple as Converting to a C corporation to take advantage of certain tax provisions on on an ultimate sale, the C Corp stock. Um, sometimes it’s sort of consolidating companies where one company might be sort of generating taxable losses, where another one’s kicking off taxable income with sort of common ownership and just sort of restructuring that to make it more tax efficient and to be able to use the losses against the income. Um, it’s really a wide range of planning opportunities there.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what are some tax credits or deductions that businesses could be overlooking? Um, where they might be leaving some money on the table that you commonly see?

Chris Edwards: Yeah. You know, kind of an interesting one that that didn’t come out with the one big beautiful bill is this, um, which has been in existence. It’s the employer provided childcare credit. So you can think about it. Bennett Thrasher has a program where we subsidize employees childcare. Um, and you essentially the employer gets a credit for, for the payments it makes to the, to the employee or to the childcare provider. Um, that credit used to be the federal credit used to be 25%. And it has jumped up to now 40% with the one big, beautiful bill. Um, so it’s a great way to sort of, you know, take care of your employees while also sort of subsidizing it. But what’s really great about it is Georgia also offers a credit for this. And so when you combine the Georgia credit and the federal credit, um, it really kind of turns into a profit center because that the combined credit percentage is like 115%. And so you can actually, um, companies that are in Georgia and there’s a few other states that offer the same credit can actually profit from having this kind of program with their employees.

Lee Kantor: So that’s a great tip when it comes to, um, the, uh, credits or deductions, is there a tax planning tip that a business owner should be focusing in on this year? Is there something that you see that might be most beneficial right now?

Chris Edwards: Yeah, I think, um, you know, like I said, I think that the bonus depreciation rules, which jumped up to 100% are, um, you know, very popular and on top of everybody’s mind right now, you know, if you’re somebody, if you’re a company that invested heavily in equipment or machinery, then you’re definitely going to benefit from the, the 100% deduction. Um, but also if you’re a company that sort of, let’s say you acquired a warehouse and you built out the warehouse to, um, you know, to fit your needs, you can engage with a cost segregation specialist and do a cost seg study, which effectively kind of looks at your build out and tries to carve out as much cost as you possibly can into what qualifies for bonus depreciation. Um, sort of the default for, you know, for real estate and sort of structural components is, is a really long, uh, class life. But if you do a cost segregation study, you can sort of carve out what, what you can immediately expense for tax purposes. So we’ve seen a lot of that. Um, and yeah, another one for, especially for our technology companies, um, you know, we are now in a place where we can start expensing domestic research and development costs again. Um, and that’s, that’s great for the tech community. And, you know, there’s an election too where you can either expense, you know, if you still have some, some costs in prior years that you haven’t fully expensed, you can elect to like to just go ahead and expense those all in 2025. Um, so yeah, so those are things. So there’s some things that people should be keeping in mind this tax season and beyond.

Lee Kantor: So you mentioned some of the specialties, uh, in the areas you work in. Is there a size company that is an ideal client fit for Bennett Thrasher?

Chris Edwards: Um, it’s, it’s really a kind of a wide range. I mean, we, I think we sort of specialize in that middle market space. Um, but yeah, I mean, we work with companies. I just mentioned technology companies. Um, you know, a lot of times we’ll work with technology companies who are kind of in the early infancy of generating revenue. Um, and so their revenue could be $5 million. And we work with clients all the way up to $1 billion. Um, I would say that maybe our sweet spot is somewhere in that 50 million top line revenue to, you know, on up.

Lee Kantor: Right. So they’re already mature businesses. They might be technology firms, but they’re not startups or even recently funded startups.

Chris Edwards: Yeah. Generally. Yeah. More more mature businesses. That’s a good way to put it.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about Bennett Thrasher, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Chris Edwards: Uh, yeah, you can, uh, go to our website. You can email me directly. Um, see you on Edwards at btcpay dot net. Um, yeah, you can Google Bennett Thrasher and, and reach out to us there as well.

Lee Kantor: So the website is btcpay dot net.

Chris Edwards: Yeah. That’s correct.

Lee Kantor: Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Chris Edwards: Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.