Tax rules allow him to work for only three days of a 11-day trip and write off the airfare and a majority of other costs, he says. "People learn better when they are relaxed," he says. Often he opts for vacation destinations like Hawaii or Yellowstone Park. Stives chooses the locations for his seminars, most of which are sponsored by accounting groups. On this form goes all of his income and expenses from his consulting work-advising clients, preparing returns, helping write textbooks and conducting continuing-education seminars that CPAs need to maintain their licenses. The Schedule C form, used to report profit or loss from a business, is key to his strategy. Instead, he says, he uses the tax code's many quirks as the means through which he can live a fuller life. "My wife will tell you I got her on sale." "Sometimes my cheapness overcomes my love of tax savings," he says. Stives, 64 years old, says he's too miserly to focus solely on maximizing deductions-a practice he calls a "rookie's mistake." In 2010, for example, he spotted a bonanza in "bonus depreciation" for large SUVs used in a business, but didn't need another car. "We travel so much now for his business," she says. His wife of 40 years, Elizabeth Stives, agrees.
But overall, he says, "my quality of life is so much higher." One peeve: dealing with what he calls "airline nonsense"-long lines, rising fees and canceled flights. As a partner in the accounting firm, he had to fund such expenses himself.
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Stives and his wife, plus disability insurance. Among other things, the school adds to his 401(k) contribution and provides tax-free, discounted health plans for Mr. And he says he reaps another $40,000 a year in tax-free benefits from his college gig. Stives, is that while he earns less than 75% of his earlier pay, he takes home almost 90% as much. Stives calls this "the best of all worlds." In general, people who are employees and have side businesses are often in the best position to maximize the tax code's benefits, say experts. Step Two was the formation of Doug Stives LLC, the separate consulting business to which he attributes an impressive array of expenses. By accepting an offer to teach tax and accounting courses full-time at the Leon Hess Business School of Monmouth University in New Jersey, he was able to tap into a broad array of tax-free employee benefits not available to him at the firm. Stives had been a partner for 36 years at The Curchin Group, an accounting firm.
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