IAM1428 – Attorney and CPA Helps Businesses with State Tax Problems

Karen Tenenbaum has been a tax attorney for 39 years with an LL.M. in tax and is also a CPA. She founded Tenenbaum Law, P.C., in Melville, NY, 25 years ago. The firm helps individuals and businesses facing IRS and New York State tax problems. Karen is a frequent speaker on IRS and NYS tax issues for numerous professional organizations, including the NYS Society of CPAs, the NCCPAP Accounting and Tax Symposium, AAA-CPA, the New York State Society of Enrolled Agents, and more. Presently, she serves as the Chair of the Suffolk County Bar Association Tax Law Committee and the Vice Chair of the NYS Society of CPAs Relations with IRS Committee. Her firm has successfully helped many individuals and businesses resolve their tax problems.

• CEO Story: Karen has so much experience in state tax. During the pandemic, the IRS has slacked off their collections, but recently there have been a lot of updates happening and they are trying to be more aggressive on how they collect taxes, especially those who owe them. And so individuals and business owners need to be aware of it, Karen is there to help them to get their way through it.
• Business Service: IRS and New York State tax problems.
• Secret Sauce: Understanding the human aspect of the business – sympathetic and empathetic to the client.
• CEO Hack: Know your numbers – KPI Key performance indicators, money, and matrix. Then make your decisions based on that.
• CEO Nugget: Everyone has their own strength, and build an amazing team in the company.
• CEO Defined: Working on your business seeing the big picture view. Making an impact in the community.

Website: www.litaxattorney.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karentenenbaumtaxattorney ,

Tenenbaum Law

Instagram: tenenbaum_law

Facebook: KJTPC

Twitter: TenenbaumLaw

Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE

Transcription

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today! 

Please Note: Our team is using the AI CEO Hacks: Exemplary AI and Otter.ai to support our podcast transcription. While we know it's improving there may be some inaccuracies, but we are updating and improving them. Please contact us if you notice any issues, you can also test out Exemplary AI here.  

00:24 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast. I have a very special guest back on the show today. I have Karen Tannenbaum of Tannenbaum Law PC. Karen, is super excited to have you back on the show.

01:02 – Karen Tenenbaum

Thanks so much for having me. We had such a great conversation. I'm really looking forward to this one as well.

01:07 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. We had a great episode. Karen was actually on episode number 110 of our podcast and we had a great little intro call where we talked about all the things that are updating and changing in our lives. So super excited to have you back on Karen. And, before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Karen so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Karen is a tax attorney for 39 years with an LLM in Tax and is also a CPA. She founded Tana Bomb Law PC in Melville, New York 25 years ago and the firm helps individuals and businesses facing IRS in New York State tax problems.

Karen is a frequent speaker on IRS in New York State tax issues for numerous professional organizations including the NYS Society of CPAs, the NCC PAP Accounting and Tax Symposium, the AAA CPA, the New York State Society of Enrolled Agents, and many, many more. Presently, she serves as a Chair of the Suffolk County Bar Association Tax Law and the Vice Chair of the NYS Society of CPAs in relation to the IRS Committee. Her firm has successfully helped many individuals and businesses resolve their tax problems. Karen, excited to have you on the show again. It's affiliate soup over here. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[restrict paid=”true”]

02:21 – Karen Tenenbaum

Thank you so much for that amazing introduction. Wow.

02:24- Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. It's A lot easier to read it than I imagined it was to do it. So excited to have you back on the show. So what I want to do is hear a little bit more about what you've been working on, what I like to call your CEO story, but just get an update for all the awesome things that you've been doing.

02:37 – Karen Tenenbaum

So, as you mentioned, I'm Tenenbaum, Karen Tenenbaum, Tenenbaum Law. We're in Millville, New York. We handle IRS and New York State tax problems. And I have to say, you asked me recently, what is new? Well, because of the pandemic, so many things have happened and it really sparked a lot of conversation. I would say that the government has gotten more aggressive with tax problems and now we're here to help. So many people don't even realize that there are alternatives. A lot of times they may have. They owe money or they're being audited, whether it be because they moved their location during the pandemic, so many people changed their residency, they claim they're living somewhere else.

New York State says, well, maybe not so much. We're not so sure that that really has happened. They sent out over 100, 150,000 notices to a lot of people saying maybe there should be an adjustment or maybe we notice there's a change in the pattern, in your pattern of filing, and we think that maybe you owe a little more money to New York State. They've also gotten more aggressive in their collection. They're now showing up again at restaurants saying, if you don't pay the taxes you owe, we're going to padlock the place. This is a little scary. In the last two years, there have so many IRS tax relief initiatives. Don't worry, file a little late, and if you need help with the payments, we're going to help you.

Now all of a sudden, everybody's back knocking on your door saying, you owe us money. Pay up now. People might not even realize there's an offering, compromise, alternative, there's installment agreement alternative, or maybe a currently not collectible alternative. And so you might have to get a representative or do it yourself and deal with it. A lot of people didn't even open envelopes, and now they're realizing that it's time to focus on the reality that they owe the money and they may even be personally liable. Sometimes people are selling their business because they weren't doing so well during the pandemic. And to get out of all these problems, they're going to sell the business. But if you have a tax problem you might have to do a bulk sale filing with New York State. They may say, before you get paid, we get paid. And so all these things are making people's heads spin. And so we're here to help and help you navigate the path through everything.

04:58 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you sharing that and obviously, the work that you do. And as you said, sometimes it's hard enough to be managing and running a business on top of doing it during a pandemic and then trying to figure out all the things that have changed or evolved. As we know, a lot of our businesses and organizations ourselves personally have changed. But just those taxes, I guess, laws, the information, things to know about and things to do, it's probably even harder to kind of manage that. So that's why I love that you obviously devoted your excellence, experience, and expertise to be able to help these organizations be able to do that.

05:31 – Karen Tenenbaum

Yeah, we're here to help. That's what I always say. And I always say you could call me at 631465, 5000, or look at my website, litaxattorney.com, or email us at tax helpline, tax attorney.com and we'll talk to you. We'll talk you through it.

05:48- Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that, you know, being able to kind of create that avenue for people to be able to have those conversations. So I know you touched a little bit on how you work with your clients. Could you take us through, like, somebody picks up the phone, gives you a phone call shoots you an email, or visits your website? What happens from there? Like, how do you? What are the different ways by which you can help serve your clients?

06:05 – Karen Tenenbaum

Right. So you call our house. Our office is going to be my house. You call our office. We actually do give you personalized attention and a lot of great services. You get somebody on the phone. All we do is this. We're a boutique niche law firm and all we handle are IRS and New York State tax problems. So you're going to get someone on the phone who's empathetic, sympathetic, who's been speaking to people for years. The person who does our intake has been with us for over 20 years. And she knows, she's heard all the stories and she's sympathetic to everything that you're telling her. She understands the emotional aspect that goes along with this.

This is not just a financial crisis that you're in. If you owe money, it affects your marriage, it affects your relationship, it affects your sleep, it affects your job, and your career. If they're taking money out of your bank account or your wages, they're going to your employer and telling them that you have a tax problem. How about this? We represented somebody who's a doctor who normally goes with friends and family on a family vacation. In January to Anguilla, he was embarrassed to tell his friends that he owed more than $55,000 to the IRS and they took away his passport.

We have another guy who has an international business. And how do you tell your clients now that the world is opening up and you can get back on a plane and fly internationally, that I can't get on that plane because I owe more than $55,000 to the IRS and they took away my passport? And New York State will take away your driver's license if you owe 10,000 or more. And that adds up quickly. So people don't even realize the consequences of not opening those envelopes or some of their actions of not paying. They think it'll go away, but it doesn't go away.

07:43 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And obviously sorry to hear that. But again, it just shows the impact that you all and your team have and just being able to kind of find, and have these conversations that help make people aware. But I think really like, you hammered home the idea of really understanding the different opportunities that you have and different ways that you can kind of handle that it doesn't have to be just one way and really kind of letting people know about different avenues they can take to kind of resolve some of these things that they're going through.

08:10 – Karen Tenenbaum

And you ask what happens. So you call, you get a lovely person on the phone and then they connect you to my legal team. They'll give you a 15-minute free, just consultation again, discussing what your issues are, and what the possible solutions are. And then you have the opportunity of either doing it on your own or getting help.

08:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And that's too huge to be able to have a phone or an email to be able to reach out to when you're not sure exactly what to do and to kind of take those steps according to their situation. And so would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce, the thing you feel kind of sets you or the organization apart and makes it unique? Is it that understanding of the human aspect? Obviously, I know that you know, obviously the X's and no's and all the things related to the law and things like that, but I think so many people kind of gloss over that human aspect of understanding that it's not just a business issue, it's not just a tax, it's A kind of a human issue, things that you might be going through that could affect so many different aspects. Do you think that awareness is what you feel kind of sets you apart, that makes you unique?

09:10 – Karen Tenenbaum

Absolutely. So again, this is all we do and this is all we've been doing for many, many years. As you mentioned, it was my firm's 25th anniversary already. And so the team is really geared up. They have connections to the federal government and connections to the state government. They understand the stresses that go along with some of these issues. They understand the solutions, the possible solutions, all the alternatives, and they lay it out for you very clearly. Also, because we're lawyers, we have an attorney-client privilege. Most people first go to their accountant when they have these kinds of issues. We get a lot of referrals from those accountants when they no longer handle it or when they realize that they don't have that same privilege. So God forbid there's a criminal aspect to this. If you tell your accountant what's going on, they might have to testify against you and we don't have to.

10:01 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:13 – Karen Tenenbaum

So first of all, I want to tell you about some of the resources that I use to get to this. Well, you know, but I'll do the hack and then we'll do that after. So the hack is to know your numbers. So here I am a CPA, I'm a numbers person. I think everyone needs to know their key performance indicators, the KPIs, their money, and their metrics, and make decisions based on that. So we get a dashboard created every single week and it has every single thing that we think is important. And it's pretty thick at this point. And we compare it period to period, year to year, and so we know everything.

And I think you can't just look at your top revenue line. You have to look at your bottom net profit line. So I had one year where I was only focusing on the top. We did very well. We're a seven-figure law firm and we were just looking at the top. We had high positions, high-paying positions everywhere. And then that year I looked at the bottom and I said, wait a minute, what about me? Everyone else was getting paid well. And so now I've learned you really have to have a combination of things and watch your expenses and make sure that you have some net profit percentage and dollar amount that allows you to live your life.

11:23 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. And I think so many times you hear your numbers are able to really tell the story of the business. So what about a CEO nugget? So this is a little bit more of a. Of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:41 – Karen Tenenbaum

Okay. I would say that everyone has a strength. You can have it all. You just can't do it all yourself. Everyone has a strength, put together an amazing team that you can rely on to handle all aspects of your business. And so I always say I have an administrative team, a marketing team, a legal team, and a financial team. Together we were very strong and we were able to serve the community and help them.

12:08 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. I got kind of visuals of like, you know, the Power Rangers or Captain Planet and where you combine all these powers together and that's when you really truly, you know, go to another level. So I think so, so many times we can. You know, I always say being a CEO, entrepreneur, business owner, you have that balance beam where you have the ego to believe that you can make an impact and do something different. But you can't let that ego take hold of you and not allow people to use their powers, their zone of geniuses, their secret sauces to make things happen. So I love that CEO nugget because we can sometimes lose sight and let our ego get in the way.

12:43 – Karen Tenenbaum

And I really think that you want to play to everyone's strengths so that they can be successful. People want to be successful. And so that's. That's. That's part of it.

12:50 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Be successful and also want to be appreciated. And I think that's one of those human things that I love that you've been able to kind of execute on. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote CEOs on this show. So, Karen, What does being a CEO mean to you?

13:07 – Karen Tenenbaum

That's a very good question. Being a CEO is working on your business, not just in your business, seeing it from the big picture view and as you said, making an impact on the community, figuring out what unique qualities you do have that allow you to succeed in this world and allow others to succeed in this world and feel loved and appreciated.

13:32 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love how that ties Right into the nugget that we talked about. And I really think that it's quote-unquote, next-level thinking because once you, I've always heard like you become, you know, very, you become a master. Especially you hear that a lot in sports when you're able to understand like what you're supposed to do. But the next level is when you're also able to understand what everybody else is going to do and why they're doing certain things. And you're able to kind of help support them in the way that they need so that they can win and succeed. And I really love that perspective because it really takes, it gets you into the lighthouse and you can start to really see things from that vantage point.

14:06 – Karen Tenenbaum

And how you can impact, and have an impact on other people in the world. Years ago, I started a nonprofit organization that is open to old school districts on Long Island. Teaching kids about money. And you realize then the impact that you can have on these amazing kids. They're 11 years old and they say, wow, I was in fifth grade, that was the best trip I ever went on. Even better at the time than the circus or the Don Juan restaurant. And I thought, wow, I had that impact on 11-year-old kids. There's no better feeling.

14:38 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it just goes to really sharing your gifts, sharing your talent, sharing your knowledge with others. Sometimes we can minimize the gifts and talents that we have, but we sometimes forget that just by sharing that creating that opportunity, not only does it help out us, it helps out those people and then it creates that domino effect where you start to help out generation after generation after generation.

15:02- Karen Tenenbaum

I'm writing your quote down. I like that. Sharing your gifts and your talents.

15:05 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. I love it. Well, perfect. Karen, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate you coming back on the show even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak. Just see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

15:23 – Karen Tenenbaum

So anytime you have a question about the IRS or New York State, anyone can call me at 631-465-5000. Anyone can go to our website at litaxattorney.com you can email us at tax helpline, tax attorney.com and I'm Karen Tenenbaum of Tenenbaum Law. We're here to help you.

15:43 – Gresham Harkless

Thank you for being so helpful, Karen. To make it even easier we'll have the links and information in the show notes. But I love, love love the work that you do is so necessary sometimes. Again, you could feel isolated when you don't know where or who, or what to turn to. So I love that you've been able to kind of be that resource in so many different ways. So thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenome.

16:01 – Karen Tenenbaum

Thank you so much for having me on your show. And by the way, they can go to wolvesothevolt.com if they want to learn about how to teach kids about money as well.

16:08 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. We'll definitely have that link in the show notes as well too. And we're going to have you back on the show to talk even more about that too. So looking forward to the next time and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

16:16 – Karen Tenenbaum

Take care.

16:17 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]