Madison Hall's Blog

Hello everyone, welcome back! Can you believe February (and March, lol whoops) has already come and gone? It felt like just yesterday that I posted January and here we are. I think this blog is going to be very interesting too many people as it fits right in with this time of year. The topic I chose conforms mostly with the readers of my age as this process is fairly new and our jobs are constantly changing (for some); however, I believe it is very informative to anyone of any age. This month I will be interviewing someone who is as close to my family as he is to taxes! I personally find this task extremely difficult and I am so very thankful for this guy to be able to answer any questions that I have while going through the process. Keep reading February as we dive into really understanding the ins and outs of a well-qualified and experienced CPA.

In the late months of 2022 I was attending a class where the topic was about business to business connections, or B2B. We were throwing out ideas on how to connect and network with different businesses and I mentioned my idea about how I was going to start this B2B blog. I had to really think wisely as to who I was going to interview and write about each month that would not only be interesting to my readers, but also informative. I only had two ideas at the time that popped into mind, and out of the two, CPA was the first to call my name. Not only did I find this topic extremely interesting for myself, but when I brought up the idea in my real estate class it turned heads. With realtors being a 1099 roll everyone loved the idea on having a blog about how to do taxes, or in this case, a better understanding of what a CPA does and if they are worth a call. Not many people will need a CPA as something like TurboTax or H&R Block will do. But if you own a business, have a complicated tax roll, or just want to understand more, this blog is perfect for you!

In my world, I know so many people who work in the accounting/taxing industry!! My mom who works as a director in payroll and tax within a large real estate company. She typically helps me with my taxes, but her job is more specific to her employees and making sure all payroll within the company is taxed and paid correctly before pay day. My two friends, Abbey Voigt and Mandi Trostle (and a few others—shout out to all my AOF friends), who I watched continue down the accounting path since high school. They actually took the CPA exam directly after college and I betcha can agree on almost everything mentioned in this blog; however, they chose to go the AUD, or auditing, route after their exam. They have extreme knowledge about taxes and its process,  and even help my friends when we have questions about the whole ordeal; but the person I interviewed for this blog chose to go the REG or Regulations route after the CPA and works specifically with taxes. Out of all the people I know, I thought he would be the best fit!

Doug Carpenter is my guy this month and he is a phenomenal CPA. I have known Doug since 2014, about just as long as he has been working inside the taxing industry. He grew up in Maryland, attending Atholton High in Howard County. Funny enough, he didn’t think much about accounting in high school…I mean who does? He knew he was really good at math and with numbers, but had absolutely no idea what he was going to do once he went to college. Doug attended Elon University in North Carolina where his path to becoming a CPA grew naturally. In his early years at Elon, Doug took a level 100 accounting class where he got a 105% that semester. He continued to take classes in accounting before declaring a major and kept naturally achieving good grades. “When it was time to declare a major I thought to myself, I am really good at accounting. It’s a great and steady career where I get to meet and network with a lot of people”, Doug mentions. Sure enough graduation came and you found Doug graduating Elon with a B.S in Accounting and a Minor in Business Administration. 

Directly after college Doug’s first job was in auditing. Unfortunately he realized the auditing branch was not for him so he left and became a long-term substitute teacher while studying for the CPA exam. Doug was telling me “once you get into the accounting world, most of the time you can only rise to a certain level if you have not taken the CPA exam”. With him being the competitive person he is, Doug challenged himself to pass the CPA exam so he could stay on track with pursuing more opportunities in the accounting world. The CPA exam has four branches: AUD— Auditing and Attestation, BEC— Business Environment and Concepts, FAR— Financial Accounting and Reporting, and REG— Regulations (Taxes). Once you pass one, you have 18 months to pass all four. If you talk to any CPA you know the process is extremely stressful, but 100% rewarding once you pass. Doug started as a Tax Associate after the exam and almost nine years later is still under the REG branch working with taxes. Doug says “the old joke is that if you hate tax you love audit and if you hate audit you love tax”, and Doug found his love for Tax!

Now, I know Doug isn’t technically an owner of his own business, but he is the Tax Manager for the Clearview Group in Owings Mills, MD. As CPA you are out there networking and connecting with businesses and people to get them to trust you and what you do. Once you put in the work of networking, you finally start gaining confidence within your clientele which then leads to word of mouth and constant return. There is just as much work, if not more, trying to attract clients into your circle to trust you, especially when you are out there competing with so many others in the same field. Exactly like a realtor, financial advisor, lender, etc. The lessons learned from failing while still getting up and trying again is what makes Doug such a great CPA now, and his story even better to share for my B2B blog. 

When Doug first started it was hard! Luckily for him, CPA’s weren’t expected to bring in work the first year or two, their only job was to learn and shadow. So Doug’s first few years were him shadowing other CPA’s within his company. Shadowing was great for him, but even after doing so for a year it took him just about that long to finally start asking questions that he understood. He started recognizing how things should work; and if they didn’t end correctly, to ask why. Once Doug understood the basics of his job, he was excited to start networking, the thing he has always been great at. “Networking and being an extrovert is natural for me” Doug says. “but it takes time to be outgoing and confident enough to talk about your job, or taxes”. This was a whole other thing Doug had to learn in his first few years before anything became muscle memory. “I didn’t know my a** from my elbow when I first started out, but the more you do, the more you learn”. After shadowing, sitting in meetings, and taking the time to learn about the ever changing life of taxes, Doug was able to put everything together. Now almost nine years later, Doug not only has many clients who are confident in him and his work, but he is able to confidently say that he can coach and teach all the newbies how this crazy tax world works.

Like I mentioned earlier, Doug is a Tax Manager at the Clearview Group. Clearview has specialty groups that cover Risk and IT Risk Advisory, Transaction Services, Assurance, Accounting and Finance, State and Local Tax Services (SALT), Income Tax Services (Where Doug’s group works), Workvia Implementation Services, Technology and Cybersecurity, and Public Company Readiness. Doug can say he has worked for five nationally recognized firms, both locally and regionally, however; he mentions how “Clearview is by far the best place to work”. When talking about busy seasons, Doug goes on to say “it’s very important to find a company to work for that understands the burnout and helps mitigate the stresses of busy season, and Clearview does just that!”. As I learn how much he loves the company, I eventually ask Doug why someone should use him. And this response right here specifically goes to show how much he loves his current position with Clearview: “Me and my members are on a team! I won’t speak for myself specifically, but I will say that the Clearview Team has some of the hardest working and smartest people that I have ever worked with in my profession. The expertise along with compassion for really caring about our clients and employees is why Clearview is my home”. To sum it up, Doug shared with me a direct quote from one of his clients and what they had to say about Doug and his group: “I am not worried about anything because we have the best advisors in the world, you make this process easy”. Clearview seems like not only a great place to work for, but a great place to work with if you are in need of a CPA.

I know I know, you're here to learn about what a CPA is and what Doug actually does. We’re getting there, I promise!!! CPA stands for Certified Public Accountant. Again, there are many different routes a CPA can go based on which branch they chose, but Doug specifically works in taxes. From that perspective, Doug is allowed to sign tax returns. This means he is able to sign off on the accuracy and completeness of someone’s filed taxes. Basically, when he told me this all I heard was: “you can do my taxes for me!?” To get a better understanding on my thoughts I asked Doug if he recommends someone to use a CPA for taxes? He said there are many reasons to use a CPA, but to narrow it down he provided me with these three points:

1. For a liability standpoint. If someone like myself uses a CPA for taxes, and I were to get audited by the IRS or receive a notice/penalty from the state, the CPA who I engaged with will represent me on all the tax matters. This mitigates the chances of my business or personal tax return to have commissions/errors. 
2. There are different tax planning strategies. Every individual, company, trusts, estates, etc. have their own special way of filing taxes that makes the process easy. My business taxes are completely different than someone who has an estate, for an example. So working with someone who knows which way is the best way to complete the taxes makes the process easier and less stressful for yourself. 
3. CPA’s are Coaches. Since I was an athlete, Doug was able to explain this to me in an analogy with sports. “Imagine if you show up to a game and one team has a coach and the other does not. The team with the coach was prepared beforehand with practice plans and film, as well as had a leader to call plays and strategize during the game. This team will 9/10 times compete better than a team that prepares and arrives to a game without a coach/leader at all”. If you take that analogy, CPA’s are like coaches who are there to help any individual or business plan the best tax strategies when filing, while still adhering to the rules and regulations that governs their business. 

In the grand scheme of things, if your taxes are pretty simple and straight forward there is no reason to hire a CPA… but if you have a few complicated rolls, it might not be a bad idea to reach out and see what’s best! I mean, Doug is out here trying to change the stereotype of CPA’s. He is a very outgoing and talkative person, to the point where when he tells someone that he is a CPA they gasp in shock because they wouldn’t expect him to be in this industry. Usually when you think of a CPA you think of quiet and shy—Doug is the complete opposite of that and he is most definitely great to work with! I'd say it's worth a call.

We all know the longer you do something the more you become curious as to what it would be like if you tried this, or jumped to this branch, etc. So just like I asked Steve in January, I had to ask Doug if he still loves his decision and what he does. I have a feeling almost everyone in these blogs will answer the exact same way because I wouldn’t be interviewing these specific people if they didn’t love what they do, but here is his response anyways: “There certainly are times where I, along with almost every other CPA, pretends to question their work in public accounting” Doug says, “It’s called busy season where in the tax world there are two seasons: mid January to April 15th and the end of July to October 15th. But once you learn how to schedule and manage your time efficiently, you receive maximum results which makes the busy seasons a little more bearable”. Doug absolutely loves what he does, and the fact he gets to be “a trusted advisor from a little brick and mortar local shop, all the way up to some pretty sweet fortunate companies/people; along with growing business, relationships, friendships, and connections with people” it’s the icing on the cake that brings Doug the most joy and he wouldn’t change a thing!

When Doug isn’t piles deep in taxes during busy season, you can find him actively participating in something outdoors, or spending time with his wife Amanda, and two kids, Aiden and Adeline. Both Doug and Amanda’s parents have beach houses, so Ocean City, MD is like their second home. If they aren’t traveling to the beach, you can find Doug helping out with every youth sports team possible. He is the Oakdale Youth Football Commissioner, the Head Coach for the Maryland Predators wrestling team, and a head coach for the LOUYAA Tribe lacrosse team. Doug is actively out there looking to help in any way that he can which makes his roll as a Tax Manager with the Clearview Group a perfect position!!

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To end this phenomenal interview I obviously wanted to provide some tips for all my readers who are looking to take some pointers away for tax purposes. His insight and knowledge was extremely beneficial for myself and I hope it is for you as well!

I touched on this a little bit in my earlier paragraphs but I found it interesting so I wanted to provide you with Doug’s full answer to my question: Is Doug better than a TurboTax? Here is what he had to say: “Honestly, for returns that are not complicated, I would recommend an online tax website. If someone only has a W-2 and some 1099 income sources, then H&R Block or TurboTax would actually make more sense for the individual. The main difference here is the complexity of return and preference of client”. I, speaking for myself,  personally had three 1099’s and two W-2s to file in my 2021 tax year. As lost as I was, with the help of Doug of course, TurboTax treated me pretty well. Do I wish I had Doug to complete my taxes for me.. yes!! But that’ll be for future Madi.

Lastly,  I went ahead and asked Doug to provide me with three tips for all my readers that have yet to file taxes. Here are the tips he gave me:

1. Don’t go with someone because they offer you the “best refund possible” — “Realistically the IRS already knows what you owe or how much of a refund you should receive back. The tax law is the tax law so there are only so many things that a CPA can do, but at the end of the day your tax is your tax”. 
2. Measure twice, cut once!!! — “If you are using a TurboTax type of software or something similar, check all of your information before submitting. The last thing you want to do is to have to amend your return before you forgot something”. (Based on personal experiences, the process of amending is grueling, so I second Doug!!!!)
3. AN EXTENSION IS AN EXTENSION TO FILE NOT AN EXTENSION TO PAY!! — “Meaning, people can extend their returns to October 15th; however, this extension is an extension to file. If you owe something for the 2022 tax year then you need to pay at the time given or there will be penalties and interest associated with your return”. 

All in all, I found this month’s content to be extremely informative and I hope you did to! Doug is a man of his words and certainly knows what he’s talking about when it comes to taxes, but more importantly, he understands how hard work pays off. He didn’t see much return in clientele his first few years. He was constantly stepping out of his comfort zone, learning and changing based on what the taxes brought him that year, and pushing through until he got to where he is today. He may not be for everyone, but the services he provides to all of his clients shows that he truly cares, and that he is there to help them find the best strategy possible when it comes to taxes. Just like myself and my clients; buying/selling a home is not easy. Truthfully speaking, everyone looking into real estate should have a professional on their side that leads them in the right direction. My job as an agent is to help find you the best strategies possible to be able to compete, negotiate, and stand out from the others looking to do exactly what you are doing, buying and selling. I, just like Doug, care about my clients and will do what it takes to set them up for the best experience when working with me!!

Thanks so much for checking in and reading my blog! I have so much fun interviewing and writing about these awesome people — I hope they are just as fun to read! As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to either of us. Doug Carpenter and Madi Hall are just a #HALLcallaway!! Catch ya at the end of March