Melanie Cheshire on the Joy of Tax

Part of our Joy of Tax series, where we sit down with the CPAs of Gelt to talk about what makes this work matter.

Melanie Cheshire will tell you upfront: she's the accountant stereotype, and she's fine with it. "A lot of people say, I'm not your typical accountant, I'm really an extrovert, I'm really cool, I promise. I really am the introverted accountant stereotype," she laughs. (She loves music too, for the record.)

What she's never been shy about is why the work pulled her in. "I've always been a rules person. I like following rules, I like knowing the rules," she says. A tax law class in college sealed it. "I loved the whole rules aspect of it. It just stuck with me."

But the part she actually loves isn't following the rules. It's understanding them well enough to bend them in a client's favor. "It's about understanding the rules fully so that you can take advantage of them at times, and also not expose yourself at times." Thirteen years into her career in tax, that's still the draw.

Watch the clip below for the Joy of Tax in her own words, then read on.

When the adrenaline flows

Ask Melanie what gets her excited, and her answer is a little counterintuitive: tax reform.

"That's when there's a lot of benefit for accountants to show their worth," she says. The 2017 overhaul was the first big one of her career. "I thought it was really exciting to look at the actual tax law on the government website, the actual legalese, read it, and encapsulate what it means to my clients," she says, then pull out exactly which clients a given change would help or hurt.

The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill hit over the July 4th weekend, while she was on vacation. "You're seeing all these laws changing, and the messaging on Slack: did this pass, did that pass? That's when the adrenaline gets flowing. There's this R&D change, there's a Trump account, and you're just rushing to understand it fast. I love that part of the job."

The Gelt difference: ask the right question

What sets Gelt apart, in Melanie's view, is a refusal to take clients at their word.

"A taxpayer will say, I have no expenses, I have nothing. We hear it all the time," she says. "A regular accountant will be like, great, that's so much easier, here's your income, that's it. But at Gelt we're not going to just take that. Are you sure? Do you have a car that you use for work? Do you work out of a home, like a lot of people do now?"

"We ask the right questions. We're not just taking what they say and filing a return like that."

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Catching what others missed

Melanie works on the review side, which means a lot of her wins come from a second set of eyes on a return.

One client had capitalized a major improvement on a commercial property, spreading it out on their books over a long life. "I was like, wait a second, this qualifies for a shorter depreciation life," she says. Gelt filed a Form 3115, a change of accounting method, to accelerate the depreciation expense into the current year. The savings were substantial. "In the past their accountant just didn't think to ask the right questions to find out what the improvement was and whether it qualified."

The new law opened another door. There's now a Trump account that clients can elect to open on their tax return. "An accountant might not think to ask every single client," she says. "But here at Gelt, any client who has a kid born, we'll let them know you can opt in. We're not going to wait for them to tell us. We're going to ask if it's relevant."

Then there are the prior-year reviews. Gelt looks at a client's previous return before preparing the current one, and on a recent one Melanie spotted that a client wasn't taking the qualified business income deduction at all. "Their CPA just threw their whole business income into other income, didn't even properly report it, no expenses, no QBI." The easy path would have been to shrug it off as someone else's mistake. Instead, "we went right to the client and said, hey, this was missing on your prior return, we can amend this for you, and here's your tax savings."

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Form 3115, and how can it save money?
Form 3115 is how you request a change in accounting method with the IRS. In one case, a client had been depreciating a commercial property improvement over too long a life. Filing a 3115 let Gelt accelerate that depreciation (a larger deduction) into the current year, producing substantial savings.

Why does Gelt review prior-year returns?
Because mistakes from a previous preparer often carry real money. On a recent review, a client wasn't claiming the qualified business income deduction (a deduction of up to 20% on business income) at all. Catching it meant amending the prior return and recovering the savings, rather than letting it slide as someone else's error.

Want a second set of eyes on your return? Talk to a Gelt CPA.