Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NB studios original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education even better than I was the last time. Baby

Music 0:35
we back and we back and we back and we back and we back. You, hey, hey, hey, hey, we back.

Julian Rosado 0:48
Hey, Julian, good morning. How are you? I'm amazing. How are you? Lakers are five, game five, game winning streak. I know we close to LA. I know you. La fan. I know that

Leaha Crawford 1:02
I am a sixer fan. I keep telling you, I keep telling you, I am Philly.

Julian Rosado 1:08
I see the purple and gold you wearing low

Leaha Crawford 1:14
I forgot you. I'm switched up on me. You are not watching football, right? You are watching basketball.

Julian Rosado 1:18
Yeah, for the time being, picked back up on week 10. No, I'm sorry. Week 12, I'll pick back

Leaha Crawford 1:26
up. All right, so it's almost Thanksgiving. Can you

Julian Rosado 1:28
believe that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Halloween just passed. Halloween

Leaha Crawford 1:31
just passed. Almost Thanksgiving. Nevada. Day was amazing. Did you see, um, did you watch, like, all the it was so cute in my neighborhood. Just all of just a good Halloween, you know, kids out, enjoying themselves, joking. Families out. It was actually good. Yeah, all right, so what's the what you got going on?

Julian Rosado 1:54
So this week, I have a few meetings, but I am going to meet with a client. He's a really, really good friend of mine. Name is Matt Jones. He's a linebacker for the Raiders. He was on IR for a little bit, so I'm so happy he's coming back out. So wishing him big, big luck. So he's for the man, I forget who the Raiders play this week.

Leaha Crawford 2:27
See, because you're not watching football. Man, I know you're not watching football. I mean, because you're not watching you're not watching football. Well, I guess what I got coming up though, I am teaching a tax class. Oh yeah, I am teaching a tax class, so I am looking forward to it. So we are. I thought it was just just interesting, because living here for as long as I have and doing returns, I would get just people asking me what I teach them how to do what we do. And I would always send them, you know, to other places so that they could get the, you know, just get the basic skill, you know, but the basic skills to prepare a good tax return, because it's not, for me, it's been a way of life, because I've been doing taxes now for about 30 years, when I think about it, yeah, since 19 Yeah, 1995

Julian Rosado 3:17
94 so you definitely seen that evolution.

Leaha Crawford 3:19
So I see, yeah, I've seen a lot. I've seen when we were when I learned how to do tax returns, right? I learned one with paper and pen. So I we had to go to the IRS, get the forms, go down to the IRS office. They had a little area in the front. You had to go pick up the forms, and you had to read the instructions, because you had to know what, where to put, what, number, where. And then I even

Julian Rosado 3:39
become more complicated. Now I don't believe that it's more efficient.

Leaha Crawford 3:43
I don't think that it's more complicated. I think it's way more efficient, because I can tell you, when I was in my I was working for a small Bookkeeping Tax Service in college, and I was taking a tax class, and one of the things that they do is they give you a tax return to do as part of your final right take home, you get to just to give you all the information, and you got to prepare a return. So I had tax software at the time in 1995 right? My gosh. And I went to the office, and my boss is like, I was like, Can you help me? He was like, No, you sit here and figure it out. And I sat there, and I went line by. It took me about three hours, line by line to enter all the information in to spit out the tax return. So when I turn in my tax return as my assignment, my professor is looking at me like, Miss Crawford, how did you I was like, got tax software, right? And that started my love attacks, actually, because when I sat down, it was like, putting a puzzle together. Yeah, right. It was, you know, just little things like making sure the information was correct, understanding itemized deductions. I think the example had a Schedule C at the time a small business, and just a whole bunch of other things, some dividends and different things like that. So I had to, we, you know, you had to know what. Forms to use to put the stuff on. And, you know, we did. And I remember my classmates when they, all of them, were turning in their hand written returns, and I'm like, Nope, I got this right, just being resourceful. But I just thought it was good this year to try something different to people that wanted to learn how to do returns, to be able to come in and basically work with them on how we do it, because we do teach you the things you need to know, the things you need to have. Because there are certain things you have to have with the state of Nevada and with the IRS in order to prepare. But then there are certain little things, certain due diligence, things that you also need to do when you're preparing return, preparing to return. Number one person has to have ID for us. For me, in my office, don't have ID, you'll be shocked, or IDs are expired, or different things like that, but you need to have a valid ID when you come into the office. So we'll go over different things that you need to have when you're claiming dependents and different stuff like that, and show you what it means to do your due diligence, because the IRS does amazing webinar.

Julian Rosado 6:03
Costco card won't work. No,

Leaha Crawford 6:05
no, no,

Julian Rosado 6:07
that doesn't work. It is valid, though,

Leaha Crawford 6:10
at Costco, but just being able to work with people and to ask the question, so it's twofold. So it is the class is geared for the individual that wants to learn how to do taxes, for someone that really wants to learn more about their tax return because they have questions that are unanswered, and also for the entrepreneur that wants to learn more about their return and what you know, how they file and what they file.

Julian Rosado 6:35
So who is this directly made for?

Leaha Crawford 6:39
Well, it's made for all three. It's made for all three. So the way the course is geared, we won't get into the business returns, but we will really delve into the personal returns compliance and different things like that. Okay, so

Julian Rosado 6:51
no, I mean, like, it's for the people who are in startups or doesn't matter.

Leaha Crawford 6:56
Okay. Doesn't matter. Okay, it doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, even though you have different levels of experience, sometimes the questions are basic, and it might you don't never, you never know when you're questioning who can benefit someone else. But doing it in a group setting, where we can talk about the returns we answer your questions don't have to be personal, and we can, you know, help you if you want to start a business doing taxes. We can help you do that and tell you the things that you need to have. To have in place. So just set up properly. Set up, right? And if you want, I mean, because we do, I do very well with compliance and making sure that everything that you need is audit ready and audit proof. So look here, we're not putting a number here unless we can back it up with data. Got it with data and stuff that will stand but it is six weeks, so six classes, and we're laying it out. I haven't gotten it online yet, but we're laying it out, and we are working to make sure that we are giving people good information and that they can feel confident when they go out there and do a return. When you're talking to a client, or it's like, say, a business owner, you just want to learn more about your know how to your business return and the five the time. Sometimes, as accountants, we don't really spend the time with our clients. I know I do. My clients basically do returns as well as that. You know they do well. I mean, I remember during covid, when they needed different information for the returns, my clients that need my help because they understood their returns, but they also like to have someone that they can bounce and stuff ideas off of, so that, yeah, you know when you're going through different things, but the contact Information is 702-382-5737, again, 702-382-5737, I think it's going to gonna be a good time now, because we're looking at doing it in small increments, because we know it can be overwhelming, the amount of information that you have to comprehend or learn, but we want to break it down into small chunks and ask, you know, let you ask questions along the way. Yeah, yeah, no. So I'm excited about it.

Julian Rosado 9:03
Sounds good. Sounds good? Yeah, you won't come. Yeah, I told you I'll be there for the, probably the first three classes. First three I'll be there. Yeah? Because I'm a learner, I have to learn through multiple multiple times, multiple times. Well, we are going to do

Leaha Crawford 9:19
it because we're doing it in the morning. Failure, okay? And that's and that works. Well, see the thing about return, that's why we have the compliance piece, so that if you if it's something that you're not comfortable with, or you have questions about, or something you're not sure, I don't know if I put this in the right place, we can go back in and and make sure you know, and just help you and walk you through it. So basically, help people to ensure that they're putting out good returns.

Julian Rosado 9:49
Okay, yeah. So even for people that want to be become CPAs, right? No,

Leaha Crawford 9:54
not for them this, no, because this, this class is not geared towards that, because wanting to become. A certified public accountant, and what you have to know and what you have to do this is, this is not that that's a whole different ballgame. Okay, this is a lot simpler, a lot easier, but I can tell you, is my tax knowledge made that part of the exam easier. Okay, yeah, that was my that was probably my easiest part was the regulation part, okay, of taking the exam, and because I have the accounting background, when I'm doing the business returns and different things like that, I see things that people don't Okay. Because, I mean, that's what I do. I'm not just being a CPA, okay, but I want to be able to help people that really want to learn and really want to do it in and just, you know, just take your time. Let's take this thing apart. Let's put it back together. Let's make it make sense. Let's make it simple ways so that you can make sure that you don't get caught up doing something that you don't, you know, that you don't

Julian Rosado 10:51
need to do. So how about people that I would say, Okay, well, I'm just going to enter my my data into chat or to to an AI form and have it, you know? Well, the thing about it is, what will be the benefit of between, okay, I actually know what to actually look for. Like, do you know what I mean? Not

Leaha Crawford 11:10
necessarily. Okay. So two things, because we actually did that this year, we with a friend. I wasn't he, I wasn't a paid preparer, and we entered his information, some questions that we had. We didn't do the whole return, but we entered some information in to chat to see if what we were thinking was right with the IRS code, so that way I didn't have to go find the code and all that others, yeah, and the thing about chat is some of the stuff they told us wasn't necessarily as accurate, and when I asked it again, you know, well, that's not the right code. Can you go back in and check again? And it did, and it didn't spit out the right but I didn't, if I didn't know to look further, they wouldn't have given me the right information.

Julian Rosado 11:57
So you can be a certified

Leaha Crawford 11:58
Well, no, not, not necessarily. You just have to. It's like, with anything, I'm going I believe you, but I'm gonna verify it. Yeah, right. So when they, when, when we and it was some other information that we put in, and it was how we asked the question, was it accurate the way we asked the question? And when we looked at it, I was like, Okay, so that's right, but that's not so even though we were putting it in chat, we still had to have the knowledge of what we were trying.

Julian Rosado 12:25
Yeah, you least have to be you have to have some knowledge before, because you have to know what you're actually looking for

Leaha Crawford 12:31
Well, and that's and that's the beauty in anything. And then having someone like, for me is also probably like a mentorship for the people that I'm working with, because being able to answer their questions, because no question, to me, is a dumb question. The fact that you didn't ask it probably is not the best thing. But I want to encourage the people around me that are working with us to be able to ask the questions and make sure that we're putting out a good product over and over again, and we're not. You know you're not coming in. Well, what I love about our office is every client's a VIP. So whether you have one w2 you treat it like a VIP. Or if you have 500 w2 G's, you're still a VIP.

Julian Rosado 13:11
You know, I've seen it. You just know everybody. Bar like, how do you know this person? You know this person, you know this person. We take to treat everybody like, Hey, how you doing? How you doing? Like Jesus Christ? And

Leaha Crawford 13:23
it's not just me, it's the staff too. And what it does is because we appreciate the people that believed in us and trusted us to do their stuff, because we're big on confidentiality and making sure that you're the only one in the office when you're there, and having hard conversations, because you notice I have tissue on my desk too. There's been a lot of tears shed in my office.

Julian Rosado 13:43
Well, I thought was just for my runny nose. No, no, no, that too for my sin.

Leaha Crawford 13:48
No. It is a very because we deal with people that sometimes have back tax issues and number when they come in here, they may be embarrassed, they may, I mean, they just have all these emotions, Oh, yeah. And now I'm like, let it go, just dump it here, because I'm gonna release it out this office. But just dump it here. Get it off of you. And let's really dig into how you got here. Develop a plan to get you to where you're somewhere else. And want to do that even with, I mean, and we do whatever with all of our clients, like a lot of our clients, come in some, well, some of our long standing clients, when they came into the office, they might have had one job, and now some of one of them multiple houses, just doing different things. But it was year over year of him really planning, doing reviewing, planning, doing, reviewing, and us sitting down. And, okay, so what worked, what didn't work? You know that you have a tax liability if you do this. You know, if somebody forgives this, you're gonna get it to 90 9c and you want to pay the debt on it. And he bust out laughing. He was like, but they forgave this amount of money. I'll pay that for that. I mean, so does it make sense? So just being able to. Have those conversations in a place where you know it's not leaving office, you can be vulnerable. But also to teach our to teach people that you know sometimes you got to be like a vault. I can't tell you what everybody tells me, but what I can say is, when you're going through something, I've seen it, and I know if you do the work, you will get through it. So I'm excited, but the class starts next week on Wednesday, and the contact information is 702-382-5737, again, 702-382-5737, you are listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosado, and we are talking about the tax class that I have coming up that I am so excited about because, you know, it's been years of me thinking about this really, because I really couldn't, I really didn't know if what I did was duplicatable or if it was even worth being duplicated, right? So, self worth, right? And now that I've worked done it for about 30 years. I'm like, you wanna know what? Let's try it. Let's see. Let's see if this works. Let's see if people are interested and just doing things a different

Julian Rosado 16:08
way. Yeah, I think that the amazing thing I see when I come to your office is the relationship you have all your clients. I'm like, Bro, that's That's amazing. I mean, just everybody treats you like you know, we know you for years, like you grew up together as kids. Yeah. I mean, it's yes, and it's so

Leaha Crawford 16:27
funny, because when they come in, and it's interesting, because they normally just see us once or twice a year, but when they come in, we just giggle and laugh and catch up and and for some of them, it's a relief. We've had clients that have left us and then have come back. And it was like, you know, it's just different people do tax returns. You just do it differently. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, you feel the love, because it's all in I love what I do, you know, even to the point where, no, my daughter's, well, your cousin, my daughter, she's a tax attorney. Oh, really, yeah, she's a tax attorney. And I, now I thought about it this morning, I was like, Dave, I love tax so much that I gave birth to a tax attorney, right?

Julian Rosado 17:04
How do you capture that? Like when a client comes in, how do you build that? You know, I'm sure they have a wall up. You know, for a while I gave these on my taxes. Let's do this. Let's do this. Then how do you knock down that, that wall?

Leaha Crawford 17:17
I don't. They do. I don't, and it's through. It is through being open, listening, just smiling, and sometimes it's the initial contact. So in our office, when Brenda will contact you, and just the initial engagement and being able to laugh and talk to them and follow up, follow through, and knowing that when they come into the office, this time is their time. It's not me and somebody, you know, it's not a whole bunch of people running through it's not me on my cell phone or trying to answer emails. I am focused on them, yeah, and talking to them and listening, because they do most of the talking. I might ask a few questions, and I get them to talking, and next thing I know is stuff just coming. They feel this relief. Then I know it smells good in the office, so when you come in, it's a pleasant smell. So your cards start to come down. And one of the things I always say is, if you you have to tell me everything, give me everything. And we did this 30 years ago when we used to send a letter out back in DC. Look here, don't make the decision if this goes on your return or not. Give us all the information and let us see what goes on a return and how we report it. Okay, okay, yeah, does that make sense? Yeah. All right, so you're listening to Leah Crawford. This is Julian mazato, and we are on growth and grace. And I am now experiencing my things I talk about. I am experiencing some growth, so I am looking forward just to sharing my experiences over six weeks and pouring into some people that want to be poured into. They want to learn know how to do this a little bit different. So it's like I said, it's for a little bit of everyone. Yeah. Okay, so contact information is 702-382-5737 again, Seven, zero, so funny. 3825737, y'all, y'all don't know what it's like to live. You mean, just in the sarcasm, it's the sarcasm. For me, it is the sarcasm, but you have some also amazing news. Gabby got she's going, Oh

Julian Rosado 19:24
yeah, she's going to Tokyo. Yeah, congratulations. Doesn't know I have a baby sister, and she got into Stanford. And so I didn't know that only two kids, two, well, two teenagers, basically, when Nevada were accepted into Stanford, and she was one of she was one of them. She just wanted to, she was one of them, yeah, yeah. And so now she got accepted to a program to where she's going to Tokyo for six months. Six months, yeah, no, it's like, it's for three months. And then three months she got off her. Job. So, yeah, so, yeah,

Leaha Crawford 20:03
I'm excited for her. Yeah, that's huge. Because she's, I mean, different culture. She has to learn to speak Japanese. No, she,

Julian Rosado 20:09
she already does, okay, yeah, yeah, she's, she's been dreaming about this ever since, like, freshman year, yeah, okay, freshman year, high school, yeah,

Leaha Crawford 20:19
oh, wow. So that's okay, yeah, watch your dream come to fruition. Yeah, yeah, all right. So what you got going on

Julian Rosado 20:26
this weekend? Yeah, I'm going to, you want to come to the Raiders game tomorrow. Okay, no, no, it's, it's the following, yeah, okay, I'll

Leaha Crawford 20:36
go to the Raiders Matt comes back. Okay, so I'll go to the Raiders game with you. That should be interesting. Yeah, you know, I've never been to a Raiders game. No, don't. Don't say that. I haven't. I've never deleted that off there. No, don't delete that off the air. I have no, sure that's not no, because I went, No, I went to the H No, I

Leaha Crawford 20:55
went to the HD. Just lost five fathers, right? No, I haven't. And, well, full disclaimer, I've been in a PhD program, CPA exam, so I study on Sundays. I watch football, but I study on Sundays because that's the day that I really can get it in. And really, you know, with the CPA exam, I was studying, and it was hard because I was answering probably 150

Julian Rosado 21:15
questions a day, yeah, but they still have, like, I'm pretty sure they played Monday games here, but

Leaha Crawford 21:20
Monday night, I'm gonna go to bed, Go and sleep. But no, no, honestly, every no when you're taking when you're taking those standardized exams, and I took them at an older age, and it was a little bit more difficult for me because a lot of things I had forgotten, especially a lot of the concepts, and I spent a lot. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't go anywhere. I stayed I was I was in the house, and now in the PhD program, same thing. But when I went to the HBCU classic, somebody was trying to send me tickets, and they were like, you don't hit a

Julian Rosado 21:53
Raiders app. And I was like, sweet, have you been to an ace game? I mean, sorry, an ACES game? Yeah, I've

Leaha Crawford 21:57
been to aces game. Oh, okay, I've been to an ACES game. And actually, because aces were playing before I went, before I started

Julian Rosado 22:04
everything. Have you been to a UFC fight? No, gosh, no, I haven't. Have you been to a boxing event?

Leaha Crawford 22:11
What I know? I know he said, he said, Now, he said, Now you look. He looking at me with all these judgment eyes, with all these judgment eyes.

Julian Rosado 22:17
Have you been to Cirque? Soleil,

Leaha Crawford 22:21
well, my daughter was a dancer, so a lot of her friends are dancers. So prior to I have been so the Cirque shows, I have been to those. Yes, I do, you know, all right, so you are, but I volunteer a lot. Have you ever volunteered at a homeless shelter?

Julian Rosado 22:35
No, right. Okay, so I don't want to have to think about it, yeah,

Leaha Crawford 22:39
right, right. Have you ever, I mean, he said, y'all should see him judging me, because I'm not going to all these, all these events, all these events. I'm volunteering, raising children. That's what I'm doing.

Julian Rosado 22:49
Well, it is like volunteering almost, you know, you're helping out the locals, helping

Leaha Crawford 22:53
out the local. Yeah. Is that what it is? Yeah. All right. Well, like, like, I say if it's, if it's something that you're thinking about, and you would like to get more information, especially about the text. If you know someone that you may think may be interested in just learning a new skill, learning how to do something, you can contact us. 702-382-5737, again, 702-382-5737, I want to tell you, this year has been amazing. We've had Western alliance bank on several times. I love those guys, yeah, Keith and Lamont,

Julian Rosado 23:26
yeah, talking a really good bank. It's just really, really the

Leaha Crawford 23:30
new logo. Did you see the logo? Yeah, I love it. I love it. Then we've had the Salvation Army on several times about the services that they provided. It was yesterday. You missed it? No, was it? Yes, it was, it was yesterday. Yeah, I'm sorry, but that was the kettle kickoff. So the cattle kickoff was huge. So if you see, you know, support the Salvation Army, when the wonderful work that they do here in Southern Nevada, because, you know, that's right, we got to work out, you going out there with Michelle? Remember, you supposed to be an alpha? She spoke about, well, we, they haven't done that yet. I can talk to Michelle. Oh, we can go ahead and we can get that schedule. Okay, so, yeah, we can sell y'all where Julian's going to be. So you can see him standing out there in his I'm

Julian Rosado 24:12
aware a suit and elf, probably elf ears and a hat.

Leaha Crawford 24:18
So you going to be an elf in a suit? Yeah, okay, yeah. The irony in that. Okay, got it elf in the suit. Okay, I love it. I love it. But we've had some amazing, just amazing people on this year, David talking about the juice and the fire has or which we're going to bring him back on because it's almost a holiday time so we can get safe. Oh,

Julian Rosado 24:38
yeah, deal with no idea how much fire hazards we had, you know, going on here in Vegas.

Leaha Crawford 24:45
Well, not only that, though. I mean, if you want to listen to past episodes, we are on transistor, and you can contact the office, and we can send you the link. It is the growth and grace with Lee and Julian. And you can look at all of our listen to all of our past. Episodes, and if there was information that you missed, some information you want to get, you want to learn more about, it's there. And even my last show, let's talk with Lee and Ronda. Could be some information that you wanted to hear, that you might have missed, that you want to know. All the stuff is on transistor. So we're gonna figure it out, and then we're gonna work on Julian's gonna work on the Facebook page and the Instagram page so we can start building the followers and start having conversations off air about topics that you may be interested in.

Julian Rosado 25:30
Sounds good? All right, yeah.

Leaha Crawford 25:31
All right. Well, like I said, the tax boutique tax class we are starting next week for more information, contact 702-382-5737 again, 702-382-5737, well, I am going to end the show early this week, because I want to get out here. I have women coming to my house. I want to say hello to the lovely, lovely girlfriends of the Las Vegas chapter who's coming to your house. The girlfriends, the girlfriends. It's another social organization. The girlfriends we're they're coming to my house today. Are you part of that is See, and that's why I don't go out. I I do a lot, I do a lot of volunteer work,

Julian Rosado 26:11
except the sports,

Leaha Crawford 26:12
except the sports, except the sports. But those girlfriends, we are going to have a good time today. Good time.

Julian Rosado 26:19
I can't come. I guess it's the girlfriend,

Leaha Crawford 26:23
but when we have our open event for girlfriends and boyfriends, I'll let you know when you are more than welcome to attend. All right. So that ends our show for today and until next week. Next week also, I will be on Eric James. Is the grind? Yeah? Eric's gonna interview me, really? Yeah, Eric and I have been friends for a very, very long time. I am so looking forward to Eric interviewing he, well, he is Eric, no, Eric and I were a part of Urban League young professionals together. We've been as he's my insurance agent. We've been friends. I mean, he's in my insurance age for about 10 years. 10 plus years, 10, well, Dave is 15, about 15 years Yeah, she is so I'll get to come on his radio show and hear y'all hear me on the grind, the grind. All right. Well, you've been listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford, this is Julian Rosado, and we will talk to you next week. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai