Counselor Taxes Made Easy for the “I’m Not a Numbers Person”

Counselor taxes made easy may seem like an unachievable goal, but I’m living proof that it’s possible. No lie, when I started out twenty years ago I thought my accountant was going to fire me. Today I talk about what I’ve learned from people WAY smarter than I am about systems that can make tax time easier for ‘not numbers people’ people.

TCCBB #22 Taxes for “But I’m Not a Numbers Person!” People

What are the tax mistakes counselors make?

There are a lot of reasons you may feel like you’re not a numbers person. One of the most common reasons, especially during tax season, counselors tell themselves, “I’m just not a numbers person,” is because this takes new organizational skills.

If you’re a counselor and this is the first time you’ve owned your own practice, or if this is the first career you’ve ever had, then trying to organize yourself so that you are ready for April 15th, is a new skill. And like anything new, you’re going to struggle.

Likewise, if you are a 1099 contractor, or if you have several W2s, or if you are a practice owner, it gets complicated. Lots of us feel confident because we have this master’s degree and we’ve established ourselves as professionals so it takes us by surprise when we discover there is a skill that we are lacking.

And around this time of year, organizing taxes can definitely be one of those skills that we’re lacking.

Now add to that personal issues like: struggles with ADD/ADHD, family of origin and shame issues surrounding money and taxes, procrastination and burnout.

You are not alone! And best of all, there are solutions.

You don’t have to be great at everything

The older you get, the list of things you don’t have to be great at gets longer and longer and longer and I am so happy about that. Learning how to be great at taxes doesn’t have to be on your list. You can just learn how to be good at taxes.

80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule says that 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your effort. So if you’re spending 80 percent of your time trying to wade through your numbers, you can almost guarantee that that will not result in a huge gain. It’s like buying an office and then learning to build all of the doors by hand. Beautiful doors, but no financial gain.

Fix your money mindset

I took a Dave Ramsey course. Now, Dave Ramsey does not sponsor this podcast. He does a lot of stuff with money and teaching people how to manage money, and he has a course called “Financial Peace University.” It costs around $100 and it is wonderful. Some other great authors who can fix your mindset are:

• Dave Ramsey
• Ramit Sethi
• Jen Sincero
• Tim Ferris

Treat your issue

One of the biggest, deepest holes we can dig for ourselves is to just try it – try managing the money, try diving into the books – without treating our issue. Then if we fail, we’ll go back and take our medicine or do the meditation or employ the coping skill.

Think about what that means: you are going to put a “fail” on the books and hope it motivates you and makes you feel good about managing your money.

It doesn’t work that way.

Anytime you put a “fail” into your psyche, it’s not going to motivate you. Starting with a fail as a way of leading to motivation is inefficient.

As a recovering ‘not a numbers person’ person, I can tell you that counselor taxes CAN be made easy.  If you’re listening to me at the end of March and the first of April and you haven’t done what you need to do to prepare your taxes yet, there are still things you can do to get the job done. Whatever you do though, don’t give up.

You are too important to lose to not doing your taxes. You’ve got this Badass.

Blog post by Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D. Texas LPC/LMFT Supervisor