Trust the Professionals

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” He made that statement in 1789 and it still rings true today. What has changed is just how complicated taxes are. It may seem to be impossible to keep up with the ever-changing tax code and its implications, and that’s why more than 4,000 businesses and business leaders from Fort Wayne and beyond turn to the experts at Baden Gage & Schroeder, LLC. 

“We are a full-service accounting firm,” explains Director Melissa Bradberry, CPA. “We do everything from accounting services to full-fledged audits and reviews, as well as tax compliance and tax consulting.”

Baden Gage & Schroeder may be one of the largest certified public accounting and business consulting firms in Indiana, with resources rivaling big-city firms, but the team’s small-town approach to building relationships is what sets them apart.  

“We have been around for four decades and we’ve taken businesses from generation to generation. We try to stay as proactive as we can with our clients so that they can make good business decisions,” says Bradberry. 

“All of our ownership and management is located in northeast Indiana, but our clients do business and, in some cases, have operations all over the world,” adds Director Tyler Engstrom, CPA. “I kind of think of us as the ‘best of both worlds.’ You’re paying fair fees based on this geographical market, but at the same time not sacrificing service or technical expertise, which is crucial in this current political and tax landscape.”

Engstrom says they’re keeping a close eye on potential changes that could be very impactful in the next two years. “There have been two different things we’ve been dealing with or thinking about. In late 2017, former President Trump introduced the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which had a lot of tax cuts in it for businesses and individuals, but to pay for those cuts, a lot of those provisions either expired or began to take place in 2022 to pay for those savings,” he says. “It’s been challenging to educate and plan with clients on that because the IRS hasn’t been quick to provide guidance, and legislation to provide relief against these changes has not made it into law yet. They’re kind of punitive provisions in a lot of ways. The second part is, many of those provisions are set to expire in totality in 2026.”

That can make it difficult to plan for the future, Bradberry stresses. “We’ve been dealing with what we call the big three: research and development, the business interest deduction, and what’s called bonus depreciation. There have been some limitations. A business used to be able to expense the majority of its capital expenditures, but now there is a reduction in the amount that can be expensed. We’ve been waiting on a bill for two years now. It goes back and forth between the House and the Senate trying to fix these three big provisions that are impacting when our clients’ tax returns can be filed, and impacting them from a cash flow perspective, too.”

Engstrom and Bradberry say the results of the 2024 election will play a big role in what happens moving forward. If those provisions passed during the Trump administration expire, they revert back to where they were in 2017. “If nothing happens, the top rate is going to increase from 37% to 39.6%. But one of the biggest provisions that could sunset at the end of 2025 is the qualified business entity deduction, which allows certain S-Corporation and partnership income to be taxed at roughly 29% instead of 37%. If Congress doesn’t act, then a lot of our clients will see a 10% tax increase starting in 2026.”

“We’ve got clients that have a whole team of their own internal accountants. We’ve got clients that don’t have any accountants and they do it themselves. It starts with talking to your tax professional often during the year, doing cash flow projections and making sure everyone’s on the same page as far as what’s going on in the business. You need to know how it affects your taxes and what’s coming down the pipeline for tax laws that affect you. As long as you’re staying in contact with your accountant, I don’t think it’s vital that you understand all the tax rules,” Engstrom says. 

The best approach to navigating the changes, say Bradberry and Engstrom, is to rely on tax professionals who are constantly looking out for your best interest. 

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