The Joy of Tax: Every Story From the Series in One Place

Tax has a reputation problem. It's the thing you dread, the bill you brace for, the chore you outsource and forget. Our Joy of Tax series set out to challenge that, one conversation at a time. We sat down with the CPAs, EAs, and tax strategists of Gelt to talk about why they chose this work, what proactive tax planning actually looks like in practice, and the client wins that prove taxes can be something you look forward to. Here's the whole series in one place.

Where the series started

Before the interviews, there was an argument: the smartest business owners don't dread tax season. They plan for it, and the tax code rewards them for it. The Joy of Tax: Why the Smartest Business Owners Actually Look Forward to It makes the case, from S-corp elections and PTET payments to mid-year projections, and explains why proactive planning pays off both financially and psychologically. Every conversation that follows is that argument told through a person.

Julie Susskind, CPA: "If you hate your taxes, you can come to me"

Julie's favorite clients are the ones who hate taxes most, because that's where she can do the most good. In her interview, she draws the line between filing and planning ("filing is the floor") and shares the catch that mattered: a client with a short-term rental portfolio who wasn't claiming losses she was entitled to. Julie amended three years of federal and state returns and recovered upwards of $50,000.

Read Julie Susskind's full interview

Rachel Richards, CPA: The people over the math

Rachel almost went to fashion design school. Fourteen years into her CPA career, what she loves most isn't the numbers. It's breaking down the fear people carry around taxes. Her standout win: helping a first-time owner use their retirement plan to fund a franchise, then running the full playbook from books and payroll to paying their kids.

Read Rachel Richards' full interview

Tziona Simchi, CPA: The moment strategy clicks

Tziona lives for "the click," the moment a client finally sees how their strategy fits together. She's also willing to run conventional wisdom in reverse: instead of the standard low S-corp salary, she raised one client's salary to roughly $188,000 to max retirement contributions, the QBI deduction, and health insurance premiums, worth about $30,000 in tax savings every year. She also untangled a problem another client had carried since 2018 through multiple CPAs.

Read Tziona Simchi's full interview

Vishakha Davey, EA: Every return is a puzzle

Thirteen years in, tax still hasn't gotten boring for Vishakha. The laws change so much that "it's like a new job" every year. Multi-state returns are her favorite puzzle, and Gelt is the first firm in her career where the platform is built in-house, with the tax team shaping it as its most demanding users.

Read Vishakha Davey's full interview

Melanie Cheshire, CPA: A rules person on the review side

Melanie happily owns the introverted-accountant stereotype. She's a rules person, and tax reform is her adrenaline hit. Working on the review side, she catches what other accountants miss: a commercial property improvement depreciated over too long a life (fixed with Form 3115), and a prior CPA who buried business income in "other income" with no QBI deduction at all.

Read Melanie Cheshire's full interview

Liz Smith, CPA: The $500K second look

A former writer, Liz found that tax lets her see behind the scenes of countless businesses, and her creativity now goes into translating complex tax ideas into plain language. Her defining win: a client whose payroll had been recorded incorrectly for years by a family friend doing the books. Gelt revised the books, amended the returns, and recovered nearly $500,000.

Read Liz Smith's full interview

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Adam Bolitho: The lifetime tax bill

Adam left finance after watching advisors fight over fifty basis points while their clients paid tax at a 30-40% clip every year. His framework, the lifetime tax bill, plans across current income, retirement assets, and estate planning at once, where the stakes run into the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, over a career.

Read Adam Bolitho's full interview

Ashley Thomas, CPA: Closer to a lawyer than a mathematician

Ashley grew up in her father's CPA office, and ten years into her own career she'll tell you the software does most of the math. The real skill is knowing the law and moving fast. Case in point: setting up a client's LLC and S-corp election before a large Q4 deal closed, keeping the income out of self-employment tax. Her measure of a great CPA? Trust.

Read Ashley Thomas's full interview

Amy Trottier, CPA: Never the same thing twice

After 25+ years in tax, Amy's answer to why she stays is simple: it never repeats. She's also proof that good strategy means running the numbers rather than inheriting assumptions, like the client whose previous CPA had set them up as an S-corp when an LLC actually made more sense. S-corps work "probably eighty-five, ninety percent of the time," she says. It's the other cases that need a real advisor.

Read Amy Trottier's full interview

Jonathan Lietz-McEwen, EA: Relief, not dread

Jonathan's favorite word for what he delivers is relief. One client came in three or four years behind on filings, convinced they owed hundreds of thousands. Worked through properly, the years roughly broke even. He also sees the same story on repeat: a W-2 earner's side business takes off, a $30-40K surprise bill lands, and an S-corp switch saves around $20,000 and produces the light-bulb moment.

Read Jonathan Lietz-McEwen's full interview

What ties it all together

Ten people, ten different routes into tax: a would-be fashion designer, a former writer, a finance refugee, two second-generation accountants. But the same threads run through every conversation. The joy isn't in the math; it's in the people, the puzzle, and the plan. The wins come from proactive planning, not April heroics. The amended return, the mid-year salary rethink, the entity structure set up before the deal closes instead of after. And the difference between a good tax pro and a great one is timing: great ones get to you before you get to them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Joy of Tax series?
A series of interviews with Gelt's CPAs, EAs, and tax advisors about why they chose tax work, how they approach strategy, and the client outcomes that come from planning ahead. It began with an essay arguing that the smartest business owners actually look forward to tax season.

What's the difference between tax preparation and tax planning?
Tax preparation records the past: it reports what already happened so you stay compliant. Tax planning shapes the future: entity structure, salary levels, retirement contributions, and timing decisions made during the year, while they can still change the outcome. Nearly every story in this series is a planning story, not a filing story.

What makes a great CPA or tax strategist?
The pattern across ten interviews: proactivity (they reach out to you before you reach out to them), curiosity (they ask questions instead of taking "I have no expenses" at face value), and trust. Credentials matter, but timing and attention are what separate great from good.

When should a business owner start tax planning?
Before the income arrives, not after. The wins in this series (an S-corp set up ahead of a Q4 deal, a salary restructured mid-year, returns amended within the refund window) all depended on acting early. If you're only talking to your CPA in April, you're filing, not planning.

If your taxes feel more like dread than joy, schedule a call with the Gelt team.