The Wealth Elevator Podcast: Real Estate, Taxes, Investing · Lane Kawaoka, PE

Tax Savings for 2026 with Tony Hong, CPA

·44 min·2 clips

On $2 million of income, Tony says roughly $150,000 can be left on the table.

1. The Wealth Elevator Podcast: Real Estate, Taxes, Investing focuses this episode on tax savings for 2026 with Tony Hong, CPA. 2. Tony Hong says he is a licensed CPA with 10 years of experience, and The CPA Dude serves clients across all 50 states with a team of 43. 3. The episode asks how tax planning, not tax filing, can save money for real estate investors, business owners, and high W-2 earners. 4. Tony compares tax planning to a house blueprint and a workout plan, then says TurboTax works only until a return gets more complex. 5. He names rentals, cost segregation, bonus depreciation, K-1s, home office reporting, and change-of-accounting-method issues as places where software falls short. 6. Tony estimates that a person with $2 million of gross income and $500,000 tied to real estate could leave about $150,000 on the table. 7. For a $1 million net worth example with $100,000 of equity, he says a $500,000 property could create about $150,000 of depreciation and roughly $50,000 of savings. 8. He says tax planning at his firm is a $4,000 plan that often finds at least $30,000 of savings, which he presents as an ROI-driven process. 9. Tony lists real estate, retirement, charity, business, and income shifting as the main tools in the tax planning toolbox. 10. He says he learned the application side through KPMG, YouTube, books, and practicing on his parents’ restaurant and real estate tax returns. 11. Tony says an LLC does not save money on taxes and only protects assets, which means the entity question depends on asset-protection goals. 12. He says self-employment tax is the “silent killer tax,” and gives a $100,000 example where an S corporation can save about $7,000. 13. Tony says C corporations are taxed at 21% and can start to outpace S corporations around $750,000 in net income. 14. He says passive syndication investors usually want an LLC holding company, and he introduces unreimbursed partner expenses, or UPE, as one possible deduction path. 15. He walks through travel examples, including pro-rating a plane ticket and hotel between business days and personal days, and says documentation decides whether the write-off survives audit. 16. Tony says 100% bonus depreciation, Section 179 up to $2.5 million, and a 72.5-cent mileage rate are important current-year rules. 17. He says 2026 charitable rules allow $1,000 above-the-line deductions for single filers and $2,000 for married couples filing jointly even without itemizing. 18. The format is a live Q&A with back-and-forth examples, and the tone is practical, technical, and conversational. 19. Listeners who own rentals, syndications, or a business will get the most value. 20. Listeners who want simple filing help without tax strategy may skip it.

As heard by us

Blunt tax strategy, not filing advice, for people who need cleaner business-purpose thinking.

This episode treats tax savings as a matter of judgment, not paperwork. Tony Hong, a licensed CPA, keeps circling back to a plain standard: if an expense would not pass the grandma test, it probably will not hold up.

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Why you'd press play

You want a blunt new-year tax reset for real estate, W-2, and business income.

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