Pro Tax Planning Tips For Physicians

You max out your 401(k). You do the backdoor Roth. Then April comes and the federal bill still has six figures in it. At some point a colleague mentions a cash balance plan and says something like "I put $250,000 in mine last year." So you search for the cash balance plan contribution limits, and every page shows you a tidy table by age with no explanation of where the numbers come from. Here is what those tables leave out. The IRS doesn't set a fixed dollar contribution limit for a cash...

Your 401(k) deferrals are maxed and the backdoor Roth IRA is done for the year, yet there is still 1099 income sitting in the practice account with no obvious tax advantaged place to put it. For a lot of self employed physicians, the next move is the mega backdoor Roth inside a solo 401(k). It can move tens of thousands of dollars a year into Roth money, far more than an IRA allows. It also only works if your plan document is set up for it, and it has tax rules that trip up smart people. This...

Most physicians find whoever does their taxes the same way they find a dentist: a colleague mentions a name in the lounge, and that's that. Sometimes it works out. Often it's fine for a few years, until you pick up a 1099 contract, open a practice, or form an S corporation, and your return outgrows your preparer's process. If you're figuring out how to find a good CPA, look for four things: A credential that lets them represent you before the IRS Regular work with physicians, so your income...

If your QuickBooks file only gets real attention in March, you know the drill. Your tax team asks for a clean P&L, you find $38,000 sitting in "Uncategorized Expense," and your weekend disappears into bank statements. It doesn't have to go that way. QuickBooks for medical practice bookkeeping works fine once the file matches your tax return and you close it every month. Nail those two things and your tax team gets to spend its time planning with you instead of chasing receipts. In This Blog...

Maybe you went fully 1099 this year, or you picked up locum shifts on top of a hospital job. You opened a solo 401(k) because a colleague said it was the best account for self-employed physicians. Then you looked up the limit, saw $72,000, and assumed that was your number. It probably isn't. Your real limit turns on your income and your entity type, and a hospital plan can quietly eat into it. Below are the 2026 solo 401(k) contribution limits and the math for your income type, plus the trap...

You closed on a duplex in July, handed the paperwork to your preparer, and the return came back with a depreciation number that looks like it was pulled from a hat. It was not. It came from three inputs: what the building cost, how many years the IRS says it lasts, and which month you started renting it. Here is the short answer to how to calculate depreciation on rental property. Take your purchase price, subtract the value of the land, and divide what is left by 27.5 years for a residential...