Brent – 00:00:01:
Welcome to Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast where we explore the fascinating world of trucking and freight management. We dive deep into the freight industry and uncover why the trucking industry is more crucial to our country now than ever before. Stay tuned to uncover the driving forces behind successful trucking businesses and hear from the hardworking truckers and leaders who keep the world moving. Let’s hit the road. All right, well, welcome back, Freight Nation. Man, am I glad that you’ve joined me today because we’ve got one of those operational Freight Nation podcasts you’re going to really get a ton out of. I’ll tell you what, I just appreciate that you give us your time, your effort, your energy to listen along as we at Truckstop, and this is what Freight Nation is all about, as we at Truckstop and the two gentlemen joining me today, really it’s our heart’s endeavor to help you run your business better so you can be more profitable at it and you can enjoy it more and you can do more of that or you can take more time off and enjoy more of your life. That’s really important to what we do at Truckstop and why we do what we do at Truckstop, and you’ll also see from the two gentlemen joining me today, it’s really their heart too on why they do what they do, but this episode today is all about taxes. We’re getting close to the year end. We’re recording this in November, but we’re getting close to the year end, and what are those things that you need to operationally look at? But more than that, we’ve got to have a new administration come in, and how’s that going to affect? And then what are some of the things, the typical blocking and tackling you need to do in your business to prepare yourself to be able to have the best operation that you can have? And really, some of that just comes around getting the great advice. Boy, do we have two great people joining me today. You’ll probably notice a couple of the faces. If you’ve been watching Freight Nation in the past, they’ve been on before. These are two of my favorite people, two of my favorite friends in the industry. I’m telling you what, Freight Nation, both of them have diesel in their blood. They’ve been doing this for decades and decades, and they love what they do. What I mean by diesel in their blood is they’re from a trucking background, which is fantastic. So joining me today is my good friend, Todd Amen, the CEO of American Truck Business Services, also known as ATBS, Todd, thanks a lot for being on Freight Nation today.
Todd – 00:01:58:
Hey, Brent, is there anybody that’s not your friend? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that. You always do make me feel like I’m one of your best friends, and I appreciate that because I know that’s how you treat people. So I love being here with you. Thanks, man.
Brent – 00:02:09:
Well, thank you so much. I do mean it. I do mean it honestly. So thank you, brother. All right, so also joining me is one of my new friends. I just started a free show with a couple of years ago, who at Mid-America Truck Show, I saw him on the stage and I went, that guy’s got it. He knows what he’s doing. I said, I got to get to know this guy. As soon as he came up the stage, I said, I got to get to know you. So Mr. Adam Wingfield from Innovative Logistics is with us today. So Adam, thank you so much for joining us on Freight Nation and bringing your words today.
Adam – 00:02:34:
No, thank you for having me on here again, Brent. And that’s really a true story. I remember watching you stand at the bottom of the stage when I’m walking off and you was like, I’ve got to make sure I shake your hand. And that’s been years ago, but the friendship has been genuine and true ever since.
Brent – 00:02:47:
Yeah, man. Well, I love anybody that’s doing what we all three have a heart for, which is to help the owner-operator. And owner-operators mean the world to me. I’ve got a great personal story about an owner-operator that helped me in my life tremendously. And many of them helped me through different ups and downs. And so the idea that I can give back, that Adam can give back, that Todd can give back to owner-operators in a meaningful way is really what’s the driving reason behind our three companies. So for those of you on Freight Nation that don’t know Todd or don’t know Adam and their businesses, Todd, if you’ll give just a couple of minutes on your business so they can understand kind of what ATBS does. And then Adam, if you’ll jump in right when Todd finishes, give just a couple of minutes and then we’ll jump into some really great questions and get you some good feedback that you can take away Freight Nation to run your businesses. So, Todd, jump in there.
Todd – 00:03:26:
You bet, Brent. So ATBS has been around for 26 years. In our history, we’ve worked with over 150,000 owner-operators, which is kind of hard to believe. Our kind of annual clientele that we work with is about 20,000. A lot of people think of us as the accounting and tax company for owner-operators because at the end of the day, that’s what we do is your books and your taxes. Unfortunately, you live in America, you got to pay taxes, right? But the favorite thing for me that we get to do is we have a lot of people that are in the business and we have a ton of data because we do books and taxes, right? So we have so much information and we’re really good at taking that information and making use of it to help drivers figure out how they’re doing in their business. Are they as successful as they can be and are they paying the least amount of taxes as possible? And so really that’s what gets us excited every day is just to help drivers understand how they can perform better. In studies that are done among our partners, our drivers typically make about 40% more than the average driver out there. And so, yeah, that’s why I love coming to work, Brent.
Adam – 00:04:27:
Yeah, and I’ve had the opportunity of being in the industry for over 25 years. The concept of Innovative Logistics Group started back in 06 when I started out there on my own. And my true goal and passion was to support and help owner-operators such as myself to become better astute and much more wise in business when it comes down to operating a trucking company. Our focus is on operational efficiency and financial prudence. We ensure that we assist our clients with whether it be compliance solutions, whether it be one-on-one, mentorship, whether it be how to build, how to grow, how to sustain, or anything in between when it comes to small carriers. Our blood lifeline is the carriers that own less than 10 trucks. That is the true heart of what we do. We had the opportunity of serving over 77,000 carriers since its inception. So I really, really feel privileged that we had the ability to be able to have such an impact. And my goal at the end of the day is to leave the industry better than I found it. Because when I became an owner-operator and I was out there running back in the early 2000s, late 90s, when I really got into the mindset of wanting to do it, the resources that we have available, the podcast that we’re talking on right now, none of that stuff was out there, but there is some noise in the music. So I want to make sure that we’re providing factual information, good information, and exceptional information to help owner-operators become business owners first, and most importantly, be able to manage and operate their business with integrity and lower some of the failure rates we’re seeing.
Brent – 00:05:43:
Yeah, man. Well, fantastic. And that’s awesome. All right, so Freight Nation, I hope that you heard you have two experts on the podcast today that you can get free information from today, which is fantastic. You can also get this, and this is something my dad taught me. He said, son, make sure you have wise counsel in your life. Make sure who you’re listening to has wisdom, not just smarts, not just experience, but wisdom of experience and things. And so I want to start with the first question of this that kind of relates to wisdom, all right? Because wisdom is like, that’s what you need from somebody that can guide you, that can help you lead you on. So my first question is this, because I see this, I’ve been doing this for the same distance, same time frame that these guys have, maybe just a couple of years less, but multiple decades. And so I want to start with this. So the idea is that you want to seek wise counsel. You want to seek somebody who has business acumen in trucking. So tell me, what’s the major advantage for an owner-operator or a trucking operation who seeks the counsel of somebody who has business experience inside of trucking for their either business planning or taxes? And Todd, I’ll let you start with that one. What’s the major reason you want to do that?
Todd – 00:06:46:
You know, Brent, there’s a lot of smart people in the world, and there’s so much information with AI and all that. I can Google anything. I can get some really good information today. But at the end of the day, trucking is a really hard business. I mean, I grew up in it with my dad, and I learned it is as hard a business as it is to be successful in. And there’s nuances in trucking, everything from insurance. Insurance is expensive, but I can minimize that cost if I do some really good things. Taxes, there are very specific laws that relate to truck drivers and taxes. And, you know, so we get a lot of clients that have used the local CPA for years. And they’re very happy with them because they’re local. They know them. But they do the dentist. They do the Subway sandwich shop. They do the gas station. They do the truck driver. And there’s a bunch of nuanced, specific deductions as they relate to trucking that many of those preparers miss. Not because they’re not smart. It’s just because they have a broad practice. You know, we’re a rifle shot, not a shotgun. We know exactly where to target to help you in your business and save you money. So. It’s a huge piece of advice I think people need to listen to. Talk to someone that understands your business. Don’t talk to someone who, man, I don’t know. You guys know Dan Baker, probably. He’s one of my favorite people in this business. He’s been around forever. And he said, a consultant is someone that knows 101 ways to make love to a woman, but has never had sex. And so you want someone that doesn’t just read the books. You want someone that’s actually done this and can talk to you about your business.
Brent – 00:08:18:
Well, that’s a great segway. Adam responded to this too. So Adam, tell me about, Todd talked a little bit about tax opportunity and sort of the business consulting side because, you do this consulting thing as well for a living. So talk a little bit about why, what would be the wise counsel you’d give an owner operator or a small trucking company? Because you focus on the one to 10 on why you would want wise counsel that knows the industry that they serve.
Adam – 00:08:39:
Most importantly, Brent, you made a great comment in the beginning. You said there’s a lot of smart people in this world. We all know a lot of smart people in this world, but I wouldn’t go to a heart surgeon to get a haircut because those things don’t coincide, right? So you want to make sure that you get that true information. I truly believe too, also his benefits too, because when you think about an owner-operator, a small carrier, it’s a trust circle that’s built with intelligence. And when I’m talking about intelligence, I’m talking about direct intelligence to what I do. If I can relate to you to what I do, those conversations go a little bit differently than if I can’t. And you don’t have the understanding of. And so what that looks like is that I may have a question outside Todd, me and him may be talking taxes, but I might say, hey, Todd, man, have you ever had this happen to you in the past? And Todd will say, you know, as a matter of fact, we do. Well, you know, I just, what did you do in that situation? Now I’m building a different level of rapport and a level of appreciation. The thing about it is, is that YouTube University over the last four years has become just the go-to source of information. Anybody can start a podcast. Anybody can start a YouTube channel, but that doesn’t mean that that information is vetted and accurate. One of the reasons why a lot of people fail in this business when it comes on operators, number one, they compliance. Number two is lack of resources. And number three, they have financial issues. Well, those lack of resources sometimes are spurred from not just the lack, but misinformation, misguided, misdirected information. So when it comes down to this, man, this is a business. You want to make sure that if you don’t have the expertise level within it, that’s okay. That’s okay. It’s all right to punt. I haven’t seen a Super Bowl team that make, that won a ring that hasn’t punted before. So I always deflect to the person that’s a specialist in the business. Yeah, that way you have the best opportunities to succeed.
Brent – 00:10:14:
Right. Fantastic. Great responses to that. I always like to quote my dad. You’ll probably hear me say this a lot. My dad would always say, a wise king has many counsel. So, you know, seek as much counsel as owner-operators out there as you’re listening to this podcast. Just get as much counsel as you can. Counsel that really has experience in the things that, which in the arena that you work in. You know, if you’re a flatbedder, look for flatbed counsel. If you’re a dry van, if you’re refrigerated, same thing. Make sure you get people that can give you not just general feedback in the market, but specific feedback. I appreciate Adam that you’re bringing that. So I want to start with a really, really hot topic about, this relates to taxes. Okay. So, Freight Nation, I want to talk a little bit about the election and what happened, but I want to talk about the, from the standpoint of some of the things that maybe this administration will be going after or changing that might alter your business from a business structure standpoint or a tax standpoint. So Adam, you finished up on the first one. So I want to start with you on this question. If you look at a change in administration, and there’s no perfect administrations, by the way, it doesn’t matter whether we would have gotten the other one or gotten the one that we got. There’s no perfect administrations. There’s just different ideologies in them. So Adam, as you think about the new administration coming in, it’s going to probably have a little bit more conservative approach, a little bit more or less regulations approach things. What are some of the things that come to mind for you when you think about the way in which trucking structures its business or from a tax standpoint?
Adam – 00:11:28:
Well, I’ll say this, and you know, obviously we always want to keep politics out of discussion either way, just like you said, regardless of what direction that you voted. But when you look at the trucking industry alone, it typically leans to the right. So when you see that and you see the results of the election moving in that direction, then all of a sudden you feel a little bit more encouragement from the entire industry as a whole. I think we can all agree on that, that, you know, the industry feels like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We needed to get some things stimulated in order to proceed forward. One of the biggest things that we looked at as an opportunity to increase volumes was tariffs. And a lot of folks don’t really may not understand the difference between tariffs and taxes and why tariffs are the way they are and taxes are the way they are. But ultimately, if you really step back and look at it from just an objective lens and look at it from the lens of a scope of just being 100% neutrality, with the terrorist that the administration that is coming in is saying, hey, this is what we’re going to do. With that, that is causing a reflective action immediately by a lot of folks. So when you look at, I think it was American Eagle, or maybe I might be quoting the company wrong. It might not have been American Eagle, but it was a retailer a couple of weeks ago that when they saw that, they shut down 80% of their operations in China immediately and started looking for alternative places to source their product from so they can avoid tariffs. Now, when you look at overall, and I apologize, I’m going a little bit down the hill, but follow where I’m going. But if you look at the overall spending, the US spending on manufacturing up to 2020, we’re around an $80 billion mark annually rent. That’s skyrocketed after 2021. It’s over $180 billion in terms of overall US manufacturing. Guess what that means? US manufacturing. If we’re spending money building more US manufacturing, building more onshore, guess what that means? More dock doors are being built, more forklifts are needed, and obviously going to have to have more trucks in order to move up. And that’s going to create an opportunity for generating more freight down the road. Ultimately, just from a broad brush and just from a perspective of just what does that look like? What does that look like for trucking as a whole? And I’m sure that, you know, Todd’s going to lean in and bring a taxation perspective on it because he brought some good ideas in terms of what that could potentially look like just from a deduction standpoint. But what that also looks like is that we know that we’re at the end of one cycle and we’re proceeding into the next cycle. Now, what we feel is that once you go into that next cycle, okay, we’re looking at 16, 18, 19 months of opportunity for us to show growth, more revenue, higher factoring invoices, higher volume. That means it’s going to be opportunity for higher spending. We can go out and buy more assets. And whatever that depreciation can potentially look like. But ultimately, with a nonpartisan answer on this, I truly believe that just based on policy, if we just look at policy as a whole, we have the potential to be showcasing something different over the next couple of years.
Brent – 00:14:08:
Okay, so you’re talking about more optimism for the opportunity to grow.
Adam – 00:14:11:
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Brent – 00:14:13:
All right. So fantastic. Todd, what’s your point of view on the new administration, how it affects owner-operators and carriers in the market?
Todd – 00:14:18:
I could talk about this for a while, Brent, because I’m pretty excited because I’ve had a really rough three years. It’s sucked. I mean, let’s just be honest. The last three years have sucked and we’re ready for some good news. So the one thing that we can start with is election was two weeks ago. It was Tuesday, a week or two ago, Wednesday after the stock market was at 3%. That’s good. Everybody thinks that means Trump’s going to do good things. It’s going to help business, right? Truck stocks were up 10%. And so if that tells us one thing, you talked about wisdom earlier, the people that plays bets because they’re wise are betting that trucking is going to do three times better than the general economy just in that one day, the day after the election. So let’s figure out why that is. You know, Adam talked about it. But tariffs, I don’t need to go deeper into. The good news is we’ve already had this game. We’ve already seen it played, right? And so for four years, we know that as a business person, Donald Trump will spur our economy. A lot of things will go into that. But things are going to get better. I think the whole tariff conversation is going to make it better sooner rather than later. That’s good news. Freight’s going to get pulled forward. Let’s talk about the biggest cost an owner operator has, and that’s oil. Trump says, drill, baby, drill. So in a lot of ways, what that’s going to do is drive the price of oil down because we’re going to have more production. So my biggest cost is going to go down. I was just looking at some data. The average price under the Trump administration for four years for oil was $2.80. For diesel, it was $2.80. Under the Biden administration, it’s been $3.77. So we can make a good guess that maybe my number one cost is to go down by a third. A couple of other things that I think are a big deal, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was a big piece of spurning our economy. Trump cut taxes and dearly part of his administration. A lot of those things were set to expire in 2025. The fact that he’s back in office and the fact that he has Congress and House of Representatives and the Senate on his side means that those will probably get extended or maybe permanent. So one simple thing that relates to owner-operators, the qualified business income deduction. That was a huge change. That allowed us to take 20%% of our net income and deduct it as an expense, which saved the average owner-operator $4,000 to $6,000 in taxes. That was going away at the end of next year. That’s not going to go away. So the last thing I’ll say is independent contractors were under attack under the previous administration for one simple reason. Democrats, and I’m not being political, it’s just a fact of life. Democrats are beholden to unions and you can’t organize independent contractors. So you would rather everybody be an employee. And so there’s a lot of rules, Department of Labor rules and legislation under a Democratic administration to try and eliminate independent contractors. Trump did away with eight years of Obama independent contractor attack in his first 90 days. Same thing’s going to happen. So I wind all those things up together and man, am I excited for 2025. It’s going to be a good year for truckers and it’s going to get better from there on out.
Brent – 00:17:18:
Yeah. As I look at that, I agree with you. I like the idea of getting the noise out of the way. And a lot of regulations, some regulations that the FMCSA brings out are good for trucking. Some of them hinder the advancement of trucking. So I love that they get the noise out of the way. You gave me a number in there and I just did some quick math on this. And so here’s what I’ll say to you. So in the last three years, and this is for you Freight Nation, okay? Because Todd talked about inflation and inflation hurts all of us. So in the last three years, your $1 has decreased to 75% value of that dollar. So it’s worth, so that $1 is now worth 75 cents. And this is why I did this math because Todd said something about the cost of fuel, the cost of oil. And here’s why oil is important. I’m going to show you some math in a second. We are a petroleum-based economy in the United States. You can look at recessions based on the cost of oil in the United States. So many things are manufactured with petroleum inside of them. So my point to you is when fuel went from $2.80 to $3.77, and if you just do simple math and you go backwards, that’s a 26% difference. So if it goes backwards, you’re going to get back your inflationary loss in dollars. It’s not a one-for-one gain, but this is why mathematics works. This is why taxes are important. This is why looking at these things are important. So I’m so glad, Todd, that you brought that up when you talked about why was inflation so high? Certainly it was the money that our government gave every US citizens. That had an inflationary effect because of purchasing. The other thing was when we shut down oil production in the United States and went offshore with it, the cost went up, our cost went up. It’s a necessary increase. I just bring that to you, Freight Nation, for a little added information. I want to jump into something. So thank you so much for talking about that. I’m glad you both are optimistic. I hope that you, Freight Nation, for all you watchers and listeners out there, that you’re optimistic too because optimism drives so much success in whatever you’re going to do. So I talked a little bit about when we’re, as we’re recording this, so we’re in the middle of November, just to talk about when we’re recording this. So you, Freight Nation, know when we’re talking about this. So we’re going to talk, we’re going to get down into some of the operational things and the nitty gritty a little bit. So I’ve got the two experts here, so we’re going to talk about this. So we set the bar with why you want to have a professional to help you that knows your trucking operation, what’s going on with the government. So now let’s get into what they can do, Todd. And what they can do with their operations. I’ll start with the first question for you, Todd. This is for like strategic year-end deductions, things like that. So the question is, beyond the usual deductions that they get, like fuel and maintenance, what are some less obvious things, less obvious year-end deductions that an owner-operator should take in advance, not wait to the end of the year, but what should they take in advance to reduce their taxable income?
Todd – 00:19:49:
I’ll give you a couple of things, Brent. And we will probably get into, should I buy a new truck? Should I buy a new trailer? You know, and that kind of stuff. I’m going to set that aside. The most important thing you can do to save money on taxes is make sure you’re getting all the legal deductions you’re allowed. So think about things, I mean, fuel maintenance, truck payments, insurance, that’s natural. But think about things like sunglasses. You know, that’s a safety device because I have to be able to see out the window to drive. A guard dog. If I’ve got a dog in my truck, does it bark? Well, then that can be treated as a security device. And I can deduct dog food and bed bills. Home office. Do I use my home to do business? Does my wife? You know, how do I do that? Help me out and book loads. Maybe I can take a home office deduction. Cell phone. CSX. So the small things that ultimately add up to thousands. But I’m going to leave you, like, a really important thing to plan at year end that we can talk about for strategy is being taxed as an S-corp rather than just being a sole proprietor, which is what most owner-operators are taxed as. And I know we’ve got limited time, so I’m going to do this really quick. If I’m making over $70,000 a year and I set myself up to be taxed as an S-corp, I can pay myself a lower wage, a reasonable wage. So let’s say I pay myself $50,000. I can save myself 15% of my self-employment tax on that $20,000 differential. So I save myself $3,000 in taxes. So I leave you with that to say those are strategies that last all year that you need to think about and get that S-corp set up before the end of the year. That’s the kind of stuff you need to be thinking about right now.
Brent – 00:21:22:
Yeah, fantastic. That’s kind of a mind blower right there that you can actually just by the way in which you qualify or classify your business and register your business, you can actually offset expenses to maximize the return to you. So that’s what great advice, Todd. Thank you. So, Adam, as you think about that and you think about end of the year and these either new people to innovative that come to you, where do you see the same thing? What do you see from your end? What advice do you give them on the year end?
Adam – 00:21:45:
My biggest thing, too, is, you know, Brent, I’m big on just having education and investing in education to improve yourself as a business owner. And if you’re looking to grow, for instance, as a small carrier, say you want to go out there and you want to go to pitch to shippers and you want to learn the process of being able to quote. Well, maybe you take a sales course or something of that nature. Just remember that business related education, whether it be courses, certifications, seminars, anything that you participate in. If you’re traveling to these events, say the Mets, say you’re traveling to F3 or something of that nature, because. You’re doing it with the intention of improving the business and providing yourself with a different level of things. Just make sure that you’re including that on that process. But then also make it easy for yourself. Okay, don’t have the shoebox that’s in the back underneath the bunk. Make it easy for yourself. And if that means that you have a process in place, whether you are a single owner operator or you’re a large six scale small carrier, you need to have processes and systems in place. Right. So at the end of every month, you know, whether you work in retail, whether you work in restaurants, whatever, there’s a time that you have. You’re sitting down and you’re doing your P&Ls, you’re doing your projections and your P&Ls of the incoming month. As an owner operator, it shouldn’t be any different. You need to treat yourself like you’re an employee of the company as a C-level executive and perform those things. So even if you have, you know, QuickBooks, Chrome online, if you’re using QuickBooks and you use their application, they’ve got like instant program where it tracks the things that you do when you buy things and it categorizes. It’s important that you do that and you go through and you’re categorizing your deductions, just like Todd mentioned, because every dollar. Every $20 that you spend here, even your truck washes, when you go to wash your truck and spend $120, $130 on a truck wash to improve the brand presence, ensure you’re showing up for your customers. You do a repo washout just to make sure that you can pick up that load of potatoes behind those frozen chicken or that live chicken that you just picked up. These are the things that you’ve got to make sure that you’re doing it, that you treat it like a business. This is not a hustle. You treat every single step and stage just like a business. And you’re making sure that you have a process or a system that is friendly to you, that you’re not scratching your head at the end of every day and wondering if you missed anything. But you want to make sure you take the opportunity to that. But then I’m also going to just be selfish and defer back to our original question. And that’s making sure that you’re partnered with an expert, too, as well. So you have a team in place that you’ve got an expert at the end of the year that can sit down and go through these line items with you. You understand what those deductions may look like and how to be able to within that mold of those deductions and be very, very careful. And just if I just may add a quick follow up on that. Big ticket items like, you know, APUs and things like that, they can be good for tax benefits. But you got to make sure that from a long term perspective, it fits within your business plan. It fits within your model because, you know, APU, while it has its incremental advantages, over time, the original expense itself, it may be something that may hit you a little heavily. So just be cautious on that. I know that was a follow up that we’re going to probably kick the can down on the later part of the conversation. But I just wanted to just make sure we discuss that, too. I want
Brent – 00:24:43:
to hit on this, too, though, because I know, Adam, you’ve developed your own TMS for dispatchers in the markets. You develop technology that automates things. And Todd, I know that you guys have developed a really easy to use app that helps them categorize their expenses and stuff. Both of you just talk real briefly about because you said something. Adam, that hit me, which is, man, make it easy on yourself. Don’t waste time. Don’t waste time. The shoebox at the end of the year is probably not the best use of your time from a standpoint of like what you got to do to actually make it help you to get your tax structure at the end of the year. So, Todd, real quick, just on you guys developed that piece of technology to make it easier for owner-operators and easier for small carriers to be able to get their business done from sort of the blocking and tackling the paperwork. So talk a little bit about technology and the use of that to help. From a tax standpoint and a time standpoint.
Todd – 00:25:32:
Yeah, Brent. So I got to do I’ve done five orientation classes this week virtually because the lady that usually does them for us couldn’t do it this week. And so I’ve talked to 10 to 30 drivers. And my simple question is, how many of you became an owner operator and started your own business so you could sit in your bunk at night and sort receipts and put them in Excel spreadsheet or QuickBooks or go home and dump them on the table for your wife? And, you know, of course, nobody raises their hand and they all laugh. And, you know, that’s our philosophy, or app, appreciate you asking us. I’m not here to sell ATBS, but you download the ATBS. You take a picture. You don’t need to be a tax expert. Take a picture. If you go to Walmart and buy 200 things, send us a picture on the ATBS app of your Walmart receipt. We’re going to go through and figure out what’s tax deductible for you. You don’t have to say this was for the house. This was for the truck. We’ll figure it out and we’ll put it in a P&L format for you. I’m 100% what Adam said. If you do all that at the end of the year, then you had zero to manage your business with throughout the year. You need to have numbers every single month. I know. I. You’re performing and the ATBS app can’t make it any simpler. Take a picture. How hard is that? If you don’t have a phone, send it in the mail. We’ll do it via mail. Whatever it takes. Send us your receipt and we’ll figure it out for you.
Brent – 00:26:42:
Fantastic. So I had to talk about technology from a standpoint on how you’re used to that as well.
Adam – 00:26:46:
Yeah. So I’ll give a quick example. If we did a sample on operators and fleet owners, when it becomes around how many of them file on time and file late. I can promise you if it was a simple system to do that and all they have to do is click a button that we would never have if tax submission issues.
Brent – 00:27:00:
Now, wait a minute. Now you should tell people what OCR means.
Adam – 00:27:03:
We use a OCR technology as the world gets more and more advanced. It’s an occupational recognition type software. So, you know, just like Todd said, I’m sure that that’s what his developed offer as well, where you can scan it. The system reads it’s able to pull out the good stuff. Well, we’re in 2024. We don’t have to, you know, pull out a checkbook like in the old days and balance your checkbook anymore. Leverage the technology that’s available to us. And the great thing about that is that once you make technology has been in position, especially with us, and one thing as a trucking industry. And we can agree on this trucking is an antiquated industry. We do everything late, right? We just started doing the L&Ds and things like that. And it’s just because we’ve always been that way. We’re still signing bill of ladens for God’s sakes. But trucking has always been antiquated and I’m not sure what it takes to get us over that hump. But the more adaptation that we can use financially with technology, it’s going to make it so much simpler for us to use. So even with our system, we did the same thing. We made it so it’s just simple. Just upload a document, let the document do the work. You sit back and you focus on the things that you’re great at and then let the system do the things that it’s designed to do.
Brent – 00:28:03:
Yeah, fantastic. Freight Nation, I wanted to do this because it’s not about Todd’s technology. It’s not about Adam’s technology. It’s about using something that can maximize your hours for your ability to be able to drive. Don’t burden yourself with things you don’t need to burden yourself with, especially when it comes to tax organization. Look, and I’m self-professioned here. I hate taxes, too. I mean, I don’t like them either. All right. So let’s move into some more operational things. So using Section 179 deductions. So you guys are going to have to explain this. Because again, I’m not the tax professional. All right. So the Section 179 deduction lets truckers deduct the full cost of new equipment like trucks. How can owner-operators use this to their advantage, not just for tax savings, but to grow their business? All right. So Adam, jump in there real quick on the 179 deduction. Let’s educate the audience on that.
Adam – 00:28:45:
So 179, like you said, it allows you to be able to deduct the full cost of equipment, providing immediate relief, giving you that immediate hands-on relief. As an owner operator or a small fleet operator, you can take advantage of that. To reduce your taxable income, right? So you buy a, let’s say you buy a truck, 50,000, you know, you generate a 250,000 in a year of. Now, all of a sudden, instead of having a taxable income on a, let’s just say, let’s be cautious on a C-Corp, you know, maybe we’ll talk in that realm. And it’ll reduce the overall tax on a business or your profit and loss from that 250,000, 200,000. So being able to do that or what that can do, you know, just in an example, you know, a fuel efficient truck, you know, we talked about fuel just a few minutes ago. But in a fuel efficient truck, can cut operational costs as well. So, you know, hoping that bottom line when it comes to after-tax season, that you have a long-term residual improvement by me going from a manual, you know, W900 that I’m getting five miles a gallon on. And all of a sudden now I can upgrade to a T680 or T880 and get eight miles per gallon. Not only am I going to be able to benefit from it on a short-term perspective, I’m also going to have long-term valuation improvements on it because I go from five and a half miles a gallon to eight miles a gallon. And now I’m saving 2 and half miles of gallons. So instead of me buying, you know, 18,000 gallons per year, I’m down to buying 15 or 13,000 gallons per year in fuel. So using that, the deduction can give you an immediate lower of your overall taxable income, but it also can give you a long-term benefit just from a cut in operational costs. That’s my thought. And I know Todd probably got a different perspective, but that’s how I feel about the 179.
Brent – 00:30:19:
Todd, I want you to jump in on 179, but I also want you to talk about like with the 100% bonus depreciation, where would you suggest under-operators in buying equipment? Where does that work in the whole scheme things? From the end of the year, a tax standpoint and a business standpoint.
Todd – 00:30:32:
Adam already hit on it. So the first thing I’ll say is it has to make sense for your business. Don’t do it for the deduction because that never works out. It has to make business sense for you to do it. And so if it does make sense, I’m going to buy a new truck and I’m going to use a little bit different math than Adam. I’m going to use 60 grand because it’s easier for me to do the math. I can do two things. I can take Section 179 and I can deduct that all this year. You guys all hear those drivers that say, I never pay taxes. I’m an owner operator. I don’t have to pay taxes. If you live in America and you make money, you’re going to pay taxes. Sooner or later, you’re going to pay taxes. That’s the way it works. And so if I take that $60,000 deduction under Section 179 or under bonus depreciation all this year, I’m going to reduce my tax burden. That’s pretty awesome, right? But it just takes planning. That means I’m not going to have that deduction. Next oncoming years. So I have a choice. I can do it all this year, or I can take that 60 grand and a truck as a three-year asset for depreciation. I can take 20% grand each year for the next three years. That’s financial planning, right? That I just need to sit down and see what makes sense. Let’s just flip the tide and say that Trump didn’t win and the other party won and tax rates might go up over the next year because that was part of their platform. I’m going to raise tax rates. Well, then maybe I do want to buy that asset this year, but I want to take that deduction over the next three years because my tax rate is going to be higher for the next years after this. So that’s part of the whole equation, right? Section 179 is an incredible tool to offset tax, but you’re going to pay it sooner or later. So it takes good planning with a good partner.
Brent – 00:32:08:
Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. So thank you both for that, Ready at Plan, 179, and then just from a business planning standpoint. All right, so speaking of planning, Todd. All right. All right. So you’ve got some people are proactive about tax planning. Some people are last minute about tax planning. So probably me was more of the last minute, even though I have an accountant that handles my stuff and gives me good structure and I make my quarterly payments and stuff. However, it’s still not top of mind to me. So a little bit, a lot of truckers wait till tax season to start thinking about this stuff. And so, which is, I’m going to guess you’re probably going to have a certain opinion on that. What can they do now to get ahead of that? And then what is your recommendation to stay ahead of?
Todd – 00:32:43:
Man, your questions are so big, Brent. I have to get my mind around the soundbite. Now, I’ll be concise. Adam talked about it earlier. So this is more operational than tax. If I keep the Jack Daniels box full of receipts under my bunk and I deal with it at the end of the year, one, I’m going to be stressed out. Two, I’m going to miss some receipts because I’m going to lose them. And three, I can’t manage my business because I’m not keeping track of it throughout the year. So we already talked about it. If you do this throughout the year, another way that it can really help you is with estimated quarterly taxes. If I pay based on what I’m actually making, which is how ATBS does estimated quarterly taxes, most accounts will do what’s called safe harbor. If I owe 10 grand in taxes last year, they divide by four and tell me to pay $2,500 each quarter next year. For an owner operator, that can be the kiss of death because my business goes up and down. I should be paying my taxes based on what I actually earn. The first quarter is usually a hard quarter. I don’t make a ton of money. So if on April 15th, my CPA said, pay safe harbor, pay $2,500. But I made no money. I’m not going to pay it. I made no money. Next thing you know, I just give up on all estimated tax process and I get behind on taxes. And now I’m a tax criminal and the IRS is after me. So to your question, it’s already too late. It’s November 15th. If you haven’t kept track of your business, you are way behind. You’re going to take a week off at the end of the year to get all that crap together. It’s going to cost you revenue. Keep up with it every day, every month, and at the end of the year.
Brent – 00:34:05:
Right. Okay. Your advice is keep momentum going and make sure… I love your point about if you’re waiting at the end of the year to look at these costs to evaluate your operation, then you don’t know operationally what you’re spending each month and where you can cut and where you need to maybe invest some more. So Adam, I want to swap to about… So thank you for that. That’s a super important thing about being able to keep up with your business every single month because one month can educate you for the next month. Thank you for that response. So Adam, I want to swap to talking about balancing deductions with business growth. All right. So when owner-operators plan their year-end taxes, how do you advise them to balance maximizing deductions with making smart business decisions for really long-term growth? So what is your advice in that arena?
Adam – 00:34:48:
So Todd hit on it earlier when he said that, you know, make sure that it fits your business, you know, just because you don’t chase the deduction, you chase what makes sense. And, you know, when I look at, you know, obviously maximizing deductions is important. Okay, you must prioritize your expenses that contribute also to long term growth because this is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. You know, we don’t want to build it based on that. But when you invest in technology, say like TMS, for example, it can help your operations in turn from a taxation perspective. Perspective. So not only are you able to quote out a TMS, you’re able to send rate confirmations out of TMS, you’re able to book and do and handle that. But you also might be able to, like, you know, like Todd said, organize everything that you would typically have under your bunk mattress within your expenses, within that TMS system. So it’s going to make you a little bit more efficient and it’s going to give you that long term benefit. What I look at is like one of the things that we can say are just mistakes from behind that that can cost you in the long run is buy more equipment than you need, you know, which can lead to, you know, underutilized truck, underutilized. Trailer, you know, you got empty equipment standing. Maybe we want to purchase a truck when we really didn’t need one at that point. Now we’ve got a long term expense without a long term income on it. Now we’re putting ourselves in a bigger jeopardy than we could possibly potentially do so. So I always think that I’m always refer back to not going to your heart surgeon for a barber. Go down and make sure you partner with somebody that you can actually sit down. You know, the thing that corporations have the benefit of, Brent, is that corporations have the benefit of being accountable. To a board of directors with their decision making processes. Small businesses don’t. There is no accountability. I don’t have to listen to you, Brent. I don’t have to listen to you, Todd. I can do whatever I wanted to do. But you know the thing about it, when you look at the overall element of success within the industry, which hovers about 80 to 90% fail, if there was the accountability partner in place where you can go to an advisor every quarter and be able to sit down and talk about, hey, this is what I looked at financially. This is what some of my expenses and this is my business forecast planning. You would be surprised at how much further that can take you. You would be surprised that if you just complete a simple business plan, spend a weekend and just go over and create a real business plan to where those thoughts start manifesting in your mind and those seeds start planting on success long term, you will make better decisions just from the action that you do in terms of stepping back. So I know I say all of that to say the ultimately when it comes down to it, you still have to run a business. You have to run a business, but you also have to balance your approach when you’re running your business. I’m not going to run a business to make a decision to maximize deductions without it fitting in the vision that I have long term. It’s just not what I’m going to do.
Brent – 00:37:21:
Right. Fantastic. All right. So Todd, I want to thank you for that response, Adam. So Todd, I want to swap to areas in which maybe all of us have messed up, like when you’ve forgotten to pay your quarterly tax filings. So you talked about safe harbor earlier where you really need to understand. And if you’re not, so this is what goes back to the whole tracking your expenses every month. You don’t have to safe harbor this quarter. Then and you do it and you could kill your cash flow. But let’s talk about like the times in which maybe you should have, but you didn’t file your quarterly tax filing. And what’s your advice to an owner operator who habitually does that or has done it? And what would be your advice in catching up and riding the ship?
Todd – 00:38:01:
So let’s just do some simple math. If I owe $10,000 to the IRS and I don’t pay quarterly estimated taxes at today’s interest rate with the IRS, they’re going to charge me an $800 penalty. It’s 8%. So you hear a lot of drivers that say, I don’t pay quarterlies because I don’t have to, and I just deal with it at the end of the year. And that’s fine and true, but the IRS will charge you an interest penalty for not paying your quarterlies. And it might help people because they kind of resent this. To understand why I have to pay quarterly taxes, the simple fact is if I’m an employee of a company, the IRS put a system in place a long time ago that the company is required to take your federal income tax and your Medicare and social security out of your paycheck and remit it to the government because they don’t trust us as individuals to do that ourselves. In fact, they require that company to over-withhold, which is why you always get money back when you’re an employee. When I became an owner operator, that went away. There’s nobody to do withholdings for me. So that’s why I have to pay quarterly taxes because that employee has to pay it throughout the year. All the IRS is saying is we want your money throughout the year, just like the employees are. So don’t hold it against the IRS that they require quarterly taxes. They’re just trying to get their money. But don’t pay them more money than they need. Do it on a safe harbor. So let’s just say this has been a tough year and I needed a new set of tires. And so I just didn’t pay my quarterlies in January. I mean, in April and in June when they were due. So now it’s the back half of the year. If I owe 10 grand, I’m already five grand behind. If you can, make it up and pay $7,500 as quick as you can. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to pay the tax. Pay your quarterlies. I mean, if you don’t, you’re going to have to pay a penalty. I’d rather use that $800 worth of interest, which is not tax deductible because it’s a penalty to the IRS as opposed to interest on my truck. I’d rather use that 800 bucks for something else. Pay your quarterlies.
Brent – 00:39:49:
Well, that’s great advice. I know that what I’ve called my accountant and said, look, I missed my quarterly payment last month. He’s like, it’s going to cost you a few points on that. So don’t throw money away is what you’re saying, right, Todd? And by the way, is it common for operations to not pay their safe harbor quarterly for DMs?
Todd – 00:40:06:
When we get new clients, I would say over 70% don’t pay their quarterlies. And the reason they don’t is number one, because they don’t know the number or number two, because their prior CPA told them to pay safe harbor and the number didn’t match their cash flow. So get an accountant and get a system that tells you what your actual number should be based on what you’re actually earning. And it works. It’s just natural. Easy thing to do, save 20%% of what you get every week, what your net is, and put it in an account. That you’re not going to touch. And that’s ultimately what you’re going to pay in taxes and use that for your quarterlies.
Brent – 00:40:39:
Yeah, man. Great advice. Great advice. All right, Adam, let’s swap to per diem real quick. All right. So we ask a couple more questions and then we’ll wrap up this version of Freight Nation, the tax edition. So, all right. So let’s talk about per diem real quick. All right. So the per diem deduction can save owner-operators a lot of money, but many don’t track it that well. They just don’t try. You talked a little bit about this as well earlier, Todd, about the per diem and making sure you qualify for a per diem depending on your type of operation. So let’s hit it from both. Let’s talk about per diem, making sure that you can take it, making sure that you track it well. So Adam, what’s your advice when it comes to like the per diem and tracking and being able to maximize the deduction?
Adam – 00:41:15:
Man, it’s so much easier now in 2024 than it was in 2002 when we had paper logbooks versus electronic logbooks. You’re an ELD.
Brent – 00:41:22:
You’re saying there’s a benefit to ELDs?
Adam – 00:41:25:
Oh my God. I’m on record as saying there’s a benefit to ELDs. And that is a big benefit. In all honesty, I mean, you know, when you’re wanting to pull your ELD, you don’t have to go through a bunch of log pages and log books. You just go through a certain date range, print it out. You know, you can print out the days that you’re showing that you have drive time. You can print out the days that you’re off duty so you can be able to separate the two of them. Make sure that you understand too, and all jokes aside, be careful not to co-mingle because obviously you got to separate personal and business. You can’t, you know, say, hey, you know, I was out of town for a week in Cozumel and I can write off the per diem on it. So you just got to be very, very careful, but just making sure it’s easy, man. Just pull your ELD logs. You can pull your ELD log information out of there and be able to do that. So it’s a little easier now than it was back in the day.
Brent – 00:42:04:
Well, that is good. The easy button is always good for truckers. We certainly, they appreciate that. So Todd, you talked a little bit about your type of operation, making sure that you can get the per diem deduction in there. Kind of give a little bit of color on that because I think that’s important because if you’re just a standard, you know, drive-in, flatbed, refrigerated per diem and you’re away from home per diem. So let’s talk a little bit about that as compared to like some new interventions in the market, like hotshotters or expediters there, because this marketplace continues to change as purchasing habits change.
Todd – 00:42:30:
Yeah, you bet, Brent. So I get to do satellite radio quite a bit on different shows, and we can say the word per diem, and we can have all lines backed up with per diem questions for the rest of the show for the rest of the day. It is a ridiculously confusing topic. So just a couple things I’ll tell you. To take a per diem deduction, you have to be away from home overnight. The per diem deduction is simply so that you don’t have to keep track of your McDonald’s and your pizza receipts on the road. It’s your meals on the road. And so if I’m home every night, if I’m a hot shot or if an F350, then I probably can’t take a per diem deduction. And that’s really the differential. I have to be away from home. So one thing some drivers run into is they live in their house, right? And I don’t have a home. I can’t take a per diem deduction. I’m not away from home. Find a way to live with your sister or your mom or somebody else so that you have a tax home so you can take per diem. A couple more things on per diem. This is a great test right now for your CPA who’s doing your taxes. Ask them what the truck driver tax per diem deduction is. And they’re probably going to get the answer wrong. They may say $69, which is a good answer. That’s what it was for the first nine months of this year. They may say it’s something less than that and you can only deduct 50%. That’s what you and me can deduct for going to lunch together. If they say $80, they get it right. I’ll bet you at lunch, anybody on this call, that your CPA is probably going to get it wrong because it changed October 1st. It went from $69 to $80. And so I love what you said, Adam. It’s pretty easy for me to take my ELD and say I was on the road for 300 days last year times $69. That’s a $21,000 deduction. That’s awesome. That’s going to save me a lot of money in taxes. But the fact that it went up $80 October 1st, it gets more complicated. Now I can take $80 for those 60 days. So the one thing I’m going to tell you, again, I’m not here to sell ATBS, but on our app, we have a button. Push it and say I was away from home today and it will automatically take your per diem deduction for that day throughout the year. As Adam said, there’s a lot of technology that can do this. Per diem deduction is $25,000 a year for the average driver. It’s huge. It saves me $7,000 in taxes. Understand it and get it straight and make sure your CPA understands how it relates to truckers. Because this is the exact specific rule written for truckers only. Nobody else gets to do it, just truckers.
Brent – 00:44:47:
Right. Wow, man. I love it that when you’re on other programs and you’re talking about Perdia, the lines just light up because it can be confusing. So this is another reason why Freight Nation, that you want somebody that knows trucking to help you in your business advice and in your tax planning. Super important. So we’re going to close with this last question and it’s going to cover a couple of things. Let’s talk about economic changes and let’s talk about the big retirement word and planning for that. So let’s talk about just real quick, I want to get both of your opinions on the economy changes and how you adjust to those things with like fuel prices and freight rates and things like that, how you prepare or look at those things like that and prepare your business. And then let’s talk about retirement contributions and the tax benefits of those things. So Adam, I’ll start with you on those things, just kind of a broad topic, both things on economic changes and retirement and the tax benefits to that and kind of what’s your advice as you give to the carry on that?
Adam – 00:45:34:
No, I think that one of the things that I’ll lead off of what Todd dropped off with us was, you know, looking at the per diems change, I think that leads me into making sure that we stay updated on tax laws because, what you don’t spend, you keep. So if you’re not spending it, in my opinion, you’re earning it in one way or the other. So, you know, some temporary provisions may change, but planning now can just making sure that you understand what’s coming down the road. Got to diversify your income streams too. Yeah. And you see this on my social feeds all the time. Don’t be a one trick pony. I know I love Truckstop with all my heart, but you can’t build a business with your sole focus being load board, so.
Brent – 00:46:12:
Oh yeah, we give her the same advice. Build those with repeat customers. Absolutely.
Adam – 00:46:16:
Right. You’ve got to build that relationship with those one-on-ones that can really help improve your overall bottom line on that and just focus on cashflow management, man. You know, I think that ultimately you can retain more income yourself. What we’re talking about is just by deducting those things and understanding where you can deduct and then following those tax rules, like bonus, depreciations and things of that nature allows you to capitalize on benefits long-term. But I just think that when you go through your quarterly planning and I’m challenging everybody that’s listening to this call. I don’t care if you do it once a month or once a quarter, provide yourself a routine where you’re going to go through and you’re going to evaluate your business from a financial perspective. You’re going to consider your quarterly plan. You’re going to look forward to your plan for that next quarter financially and make sure that you have a solid, clear focus and clear lens on where you’re headed when you’re going down the road from an income perspective. It’s actually truly, truly being very, very astute and very, very, very accountable to your own business with our accountability that’s standing over you.
Brent – 00:47:12:
Yeah, man. All right. So on the retirement end, when you were talking about that, just touch on that for a little bit. Do you advise retirement as far as like planning for your careers?
Adam – 00:47:20:
Oh yeah. Because at some point, you know, the thing is in trucking is the most dangerous. I don’t, you know, I don’t care what the stats say today. This is me from experience, man. It’s one of the most dangerous jobs out there, man. You know, we’re running to your tongues are hanging out because you’re dead tired against the world, against deadlines. You got people that’s cutting you off all day long. Honestly, anything can happen, man. Back in 2004, I fell out of a trail and I shattered my wrist, man. And like at the end of the day, anything can happen out there. Could you imagine what you would do if that’s your whole income, your babies, your, the wives, the dogs, the house all rely upon your income? What would you do? And I think that we need as an industry to be okay with planning. We don’t plan. Let’s go, okay, let’s put some money to the side because as someday Brent, I want to get from behind the wheel of a truck and from a driver. I want to be able to travel. And do those things, but you can’t do that without an income. So I think that having contributions to a retirement plan is important because you can maximize on long-term benefits and it’s tax deductible.
Brent – 00:48:14:
All right. Fantastic. So Todd, wrap us up on your point of view on economic changes and adjusting to those, and then preparing for, you know, when you’re taking a little more easy in your life on retirement and the tax, what you kind of want to set up for tax advantage there too.
Todd – 00:48:27:
Yeah, Brent. So economic changes real quick. I’ll use two examples. At the height of COVID, the average driver had gone from running 108,000 miles to running 85,000 miles. And-
Brent – 00:48:37:
Talk to me when you gave me that information. I said, where’d you get that? You said, Brent, they do it all the time. You said, when the rates are high, they drive fewer miles. And so talk, man, keep going on that.
Todd – 00:48:47:
Yeah. So the operating model during COVID was to drive as fast as I legally could drive, maybe plus five, whatever you think you need to do, but get to that next load as quick as you can, because it’s paying a ton of money. I don’t care about fuel costs because fuel was three bucks and rates were crazy. So I ran less, but I made more money because I was taking high paying rates. And then when Russia invaded Ukraine, oil went, diesel went to five bucks a gallon and rates plummeted. My model just changed 180 degrees. Now I’m going to have to work harder because rates just went down. And the unfortunate part about working harder is I also have to drive slower because it cost me a ton more in diesel at five bucks. I mean, those are dramatic changes. It literally took 18 months for us talking about that every day with our clients to help them understand the magnitude of that. Today, they’re running more like 95,000 miles. So the miles are up and they’re driving slower because they have to save money on fuel. We’re about to enter another sea change. We’ve talked about it with the new administration. Rates are going to go up because demand for trucks are going to go up and oil is going to go down. So I got to use truckstop.com. If I’ve been hauling reefer or dry van, my guess is the flatbed business is going to get pretty good because drill, baby, drill means there’s going to be a lot of stuff moving to oil fields to drill with, right? So. If I made some money, heck, maybe I should buy a flatbed if I’m going to grow my business and I am going to add some more trucks. Maybe, as Adam said, diversify. Maybe I should be in the flatbed. So really what we’ve been talking about is pay attention. Things are going to change and you’re going to have to change how you operate. What you did for the last three years to survive is not how you’re going to thrive and make extra money during the next two years. You’re going to have to change. As far as retirement goes, hey, man, we all want to retire someday. Well, some people don’t, but I do. I guess you guys do. So if you do the compounding investment kind of thing, I put X amount, how am I going to have a million dollars to retire on by the time I get there? Something real simple. If you can do it, take 10% of every dollar you make and put it in a retirement account. It’s tax deductible. And so it saves me money on taxes and it’s going to grow with what it’s invested in. That’s to say the last couple of years have been really hard. And I don’t want to put money in a retirement account and put myself out of business, right? And so maybe I have to cut that back because I got to survive. Let’s make up for that when things get better. So retirement account is a great thing to do. Be disciplined. Put 10% of what you make in a retirement account. You’ll retire early.
Brent – 00:51:11:
Yeah. Fantastic advice. Well, gentlemen, here’s what I’m taking away from all this, which is number one, plan your business. Number two, be specific about knowing the numbers of your business. Keep specific information on your business. And then as Todd and Adam, you just both gave advice to the Freight Nation Watchers and Lendsters, which is know what’s coming at you. Know how things are going to change because there’s certain things that are going to change that you can’t, you have to adjust to. You have to adjust your business. You have to adjust your business. You have to adjust in order to maximize your return in them. And if you don’t, there’s just going to be punishment against you because you won’t have adjusted the right way. So man, guys, thank you. Todd, Adam, man, thank you so much for your investment into the under operator, the investment in the carrier and investment into Freight Nation today, man. Thank you so much for being on.
Todd – 00:51:56:
Hey, Brent. My pleasure. Adam, it’s really nice to meet you. I didn’t know you. So I’m glad we got this time together and thanks for getting out the word, Brent. God bless all the drivers. Keep doing what you’re doing, man.
Brent – 00:52:06:
Yeah. Well, thanks a lot. I’m glad I got a hook. New friends up too. So that means I’ve done my good duty for the day. So I Freight Nation, that’s a wrap. You heard from two of the best in the industry on how to plan and work your business and understand your taxes and understand how to run your operation. Please take this to heart. Please take this and put it in your business, man. Watching this costs you nothing, but what it can benefit you would be great. So man, so Freight Nation, thank you so much again for watching and listening today. We appreciate you. Don’t forget, as we like to say on Freight Nation, don’t forget to work hard, to be kind and to stay humble. We’ll catch you the next time, Freight Nation. On behalf of the Truck Stop team, thanks for listening to this episode of Freight Nation. To find out more about the show, head to truckstop.com/podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes. Until then, keep on trucking and exploring the open roads with Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast.
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