Trusted Tax Planning Experts

James is a CPA, IRS Enrolled Agent, and Tax Resolution Specialist at CanvaTax (canvatax.com), where he helps individuals and businesses resolve complex tax issues including IRS debt, back taxes, and penalty relief through programs like the IRS Fresh Start Initiative. With hands-on experience navigating IRS negotiations and tax compliance, James provides practical, results-driven guidance to clients facing financial uncertainty.

Jon is a Certified Financial Planner with 8 years of experience working with individuals and families from all walks of life. He has also completed the Certified Investment Management Analyst and Enrolled Agent designations, and specializes in tax strategies and portfolio management.

Mitchell Baldridge is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) at Baldridge Financial, where he helps individuals, business owners, and investors navigate complex tax strategies, financial planning, and wealth-building opportunities. With deep expertise in accounting and tax, US taxes, cost segregation, business strategy, and finance, Mitchell specializes in helping clients reduce their tax burden and optimize their financial outcomes. He is a trusted resource for journalists and media outlets seeking expert commentary on tax law, financial planning trends, real estate tax strategies, and small business finance.

Melissa Korber is an Enrolled Agent and the founder of Tax Leverage Group, a premier tax strategy and wealth optimization firm for high-performing entrepreneurs and wellness founders. As a Tax Strategist and Financial Architect, Melissa helps six- and seven-figure business owners cut taxes, increase profit, and design exit strategies that turn their businesses into lasting wealth vehicles. With over 25 years of experience in financial leadership, Melissa has managed and analyzed more than $36 billion in government and private sector funding. Before launching her firm, she served as a national financial manager within the U.S. Department of the Interior, where she led budgeting, forecasting, and strategic planning initiatives that shaped billion-dollar federal programs to include negotiating project approvals with White House teams. Her proprietary framework, the Triple Leverage Code, helps founders legally and strategically reduce their tax burden by up to 50% while compounding personal wealth and protecting their long-term freedom. Known for her clarity, precision, and ability to simplify complex financial concepts, Melissa has become a trusted voice in the growing field of advanced tax strategy for entrepreneurs. Today, Melissa works with business owners nationwide to align their business structure, cash flow, and investment strategy into one cohesive wealth plan. She is frequently sought for expert commentary on small business finance, tax efficiency, and exit planning. Signature Expertise: Advanced Tax Strategy & Entity Optimization Strategic Exit & Wealth Planning Profit Architecture & Forecasting High-Income Entrepreneur Tax Reduction Medical & Wellness Practice Structuring Mission Statement: To help founders keep more of what they earn, redirect money with strategic intention, and build businesses that reinforce their wealth, not drain it.

Steven J. Cashiola is a California-based Certified Public Accountant who advises individuals, small businesses, and real estate investors on advanced tax strategies and compliance with IRS regulations. His practice emphasizes planning with an eye toward minimizing risk and maximizing efficiency. With 25 years of financial experience, he has been exposed to various tax scenarios. This exposure fueled his curiosity and drive to research and implement the strategic tax support and planning that he eagerly shares with his clients.

Leo Marzen is a Managing Partner and Co-founder of Bridgewater Advisors with over 30 years of experience in complex wealth management. A triple-credentialed expert (CPA, CFA, CFP®) and Barron’s-ranked advisor, Leo bridges the gap between sophisticated financial theory and practical, tax-efficient execution. Inspired by an entrepreneurial upbringing in his family’s hardware store, Leo’s pragmatic approach focuses on utility and foresight. He is a sought-after expert for commentary on Tax-Efficient Innovation (Direct Indexing, Tax Loss Harvesting), Estate & Advanced Gift Planning (GRATs, Family Gifting), and Real Estate Optimization (1031 Exchanges, DSTs). Leo is dedicated to providing fiduciary-aligned perspectives on generational wealth transfer and integrated family tax planning, stripping away industry jargon to provide clear, actionable insights for high-net-worth families, individuals, and media outlets alike.

Bestax Chartered Accountants is an FTA Approved Tax Agency and a trusted provider of accounting, tax, auditing, transfer pricing, business setup, and corporate services in Dubai. With nearly a decade of combined experience and offices in both UAE and Canada, we help businesses make smarter financial decisions by calculating the best opportunities for long-term growth. We support startups, SMEs, and large enterprises to ensure their full compliance, and strengthen long-term stability. We are a leading tax consultancy firm in the UAE, offering expert support across VAT, corporate tax, and excise tax. Our team ensures clients remain compliant with evolving regulations while benefiting from strategic tax planning opportunities. Through proactive advisory, we help businesses reduce liabilities and make informed financial decisions. Beyond taxation, Bestax delivers comprehensive accounting and bookkeeping services, including financial statement preparation, payroll management, audit support, and day-to-day bookkeeping. Our commitment to accuracy, transparency, and timely reporting enables business owners to maintain financial clarity and drive sustainable growth. Our audit and assurance services help companies meet statutory obligations while strengthening internal controls, financial transparency, and operational efficiency. Bestax also specializes in global company formation, assisting entrepreneurs and investors in establishing businesses in the UAE, Panama, Cayman Islands, Seychelles, Canada, the USA, and beyond. From trade license issuance to visa processing, PRO services, and digital bank account opening, we manage the entire setup process. Our cross-border expertise enables us to support clients with multi-jurisdictional structuring and international compliance requirements. Additionally, we provide advanced services such as transfer pricing, empowering businesses with centralised and fully compliant financial operations. At Bestax, we are more than a service provider we are a long-term partner committed to delivering solutions that enhance efficiency, strengthen compliance, and support sustainable growth in the competitive global market all under one roof.

CFP® (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™) and Enrolled Agent serving Chinese American families across the United States. I write about retirement planning, tax strategy, estate planning, and cross-border financial planning — topics that most financial planning content ignores for the Chinese American community. Author of《在美国，重新理解财富》 (Rethinking Wealth in America) — a 29-chapter financial planning guide for Chinese American families. www.austinfp.us

Ralph Trigg is a California-based certified estate advisor with over 30 years of experience in retirement planning, estate planning, and inheritance for individuals and families. His work focuses on helping clients make informed financial decisions by understanding risk, market behavior, and long-term planning principles. He frequently provides commentary on investor psychology, financial literacy, and navigating market volatility.

After 30 years inside the IRS, I retired under the Elon-Musk deal and opened my own tax and bookkeeping business. I see tax strategy and tax compliance from a lens of experience and work tirelessly to protect my clients and help them grow their business.

Matthew Barnard is the Founder of Maplewood Wealth, a flat-fee financial planning firm, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Bringing his passion for education out of the lecture hall, Matthew specializes in demystifying complex tax strategies and equity compensation (RSUs, ISOs) for tech executives and high-earning professionals. Navigating chronic health realities within his own family, Matthew champions an "anti-hustle" approach to wealth management. He helps modern, dual-income parents untangle the 'alphabet soup' of personal finance so they can optimize their wealth, buy back their time, and protect their energy for what matters most.

I have a passion in Maltese economic and legal ecosystem, with over a decade of experience navigating citizenship, residency, and tax legislation. As the founder of FreeMalta.com and MaltaInsider.com, I’ve pioneered the "Infrastructure of Truth" concept - replacing outdated governmental and institutional data with high-velocity, real-time benchmarks. My expertise covers Maltese Citizenship by Merit, MPRP residency frameworks, and cross-sector salary, cost of living benchmarking. I recently overhauled outdated Maltese legislative data on global platforms (including Wikipedia) to ensure transparency for international investors and expats. I provide data-backed insights for journalists looking for the ground truth on Malta’s evolving regulatory landscape.

James A. Kraehenbuehl is an experienced business attorney, tax lawyer, and executive who has represented hundreds of clients, from individuals with simple tax preparation to global companies with complex legal issues. He started his own firm, Mid-Atlantic Law and Tax, so that he may partner with clients to help them grow and achieve their goals by addressing the annual need for tax preparation, assisting clients in mitigating and managing legal risk, and using financial data to help clients manage and improve their businesses. James’ experiences and the foundation of his family’s accounting business, which has prepared taxes for clients and advised clients on tax issues for over forty years, have enabled him to become this strategic and valuable partner. As a tax attorney, he has worked with clients to prepare simple to complex returns as well as resolve various inquiry letters or tax audits from the IRS and state equivalents. Moreover, in his prior experience as general counsel and executive for a U.S. defense prime contractor, Fincantieri Marine Group, James has directly managed and assisted his clients manage the wide variety of legal risks that businesses face. This includes issues such as managing contracting risk through negotiation and building good templates, investigating and resolving personnel-related risks, managing corporate structures and formalities, as well as managing environmental issues identified in industrial manufacturing settings. James started practicing law at Boies Schiller and Flexner LLP, a nationally known and respected litigation firm. Here, he represented a variety of individuals and major corporations in matters before regulatory agencies and litigated commercial and governmental disputes before a variety of state and federal courts. Prior to the law firm, James served as a law clerk to Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with Honors and of the Order of the Coif. While there, he served as Managing Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and won the school’s moot court competition.

Burak Genc is an Enrolled Agent and the founder of Arc & Ledger Accounting, a U.S.-based tax and accounting firm serving individuals and small business owners. He specializes in individual and small business tax compliance, IRS notices, and practical tax strategy for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and first-generation business owners. Burak works closely with clients navigating Schedule C businesses, single-member LLCs, and multi-state considerations, with a particular focus on California tax issues. Known for translating complex tax rules into clear, actionable guidance, he helps clients stay compliant while making informed financial decisions. In addition to tax preparation, Burak advises clients on year-round tax planning, business structure considerations, and responding to IRS correspondence. He frequently educates business owners on common tax mistakes, misconceptions, and best practices.

Jere Salmisto is the founder of CalcFi, a free personal-finance calculator platform where every formula traces to a primary public source — IRS publications, Federal Reserve series, Treasury tables, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CFPB, and HUD. He also runs Autonomatica, a studio building quantitative-automation systems, backtesting pipelines and rule-based decision tools. Before CalcFi he was CEO at Topair Nordic (industrial sales and operations) and led B2B commercial execution across multiple companies. That operator background shapes how he writes about finance: numbers must reproduce by hand, sources are cited on the page, and tools are free forever. Available for commentary on consumer finance, paycheck/tax/mortgage math, retirement planning, systematic trading logic, finance-tool usability, and anything business and motivation-related. Independent researcher (ORCID 0009-0000-0916-8684). Curator of CalcFi Open Data — 34 free CC-BY-4.0 financial and macro time series mirrored daily from FRED, BLS, BEA, US Treasury, FDIC, EIA, World Bank, and CoinGecko. Archived with permanent DOIs at Figshare (10.6084/m9.figshare.32332290), Zenodo (CERN-backed), OSF, Kaggle, and Mendeley Data. A methodology paper on k-anonymized calculator-run aggregates is currently under SSRN review. Finnish/Estonian founder commenting on published IRS, CFPB, Fed, and BLS primary sources. Not a licensed US CPA or tax attorney.

JM Eberhardt is the Founder and Managing Advisor at King Legacy Group, a financial advisory and insurance firm based in Nashville, TN. He specializes in tax strategy, retirement planning, estate planning, and wealth building for business owners and high-income professionals. King Legacy Group's proprietary LivingLEGACY™ framework helps clients grow their money, protect it from loss, and reduce taxes simultaneously. JM has helped clients across the country implement advanced planning strategies including indexed universal life, executive bonus arrangements, fixed index annuities, and ICHRA healthcare solutions.

Will Lane is a seasoned financial expert with over 20 years of experience across the financial sectors of banking, investments and insurance. He leads educational workshops across the country focused on helping Black families build, protect, and pass down generational wealth. Specializing in retirement planning, estate planning strategies and life insurance, Will is known for his ability to make complex financial concepts practical, relatable, and easy to understand. His work centers on empowering families with the knowledge needed to move from short-term financial planning to long-term financial security. Will has been featured in national publications such as Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and American Business Stars, where he shares insights on the importance of financial literacy, legacy planning, and closing the racial wealth gap. A key aspect of his approach is helping individuals identify and overcome self-sabotaging financial patterns so they can make confident decisions about protecting their families, preparing for retirement, and leaving a lasting legacy. Through his education-first approach and no-nonsense delivery, Will has become a trusted voice for podcasts, panels, and publications focused on financial education, wealth building, and economic empowerment within the Black community.

Jason Parr is the President of The Sales Tax People, a sales tax compliance firm and part of the Amplēo family of companies. He has spent more than 30 years helping businesses navigate sales tax complexity, working his way up from staff assistant to president. His expertise spans sales tax compliance, nexus studies and risk assessments, audit defense, M&A due diligence, and tax recovery services. Jason is a trusted voice for CFOs, controllers, CPAs, and business owners trying to manage state and local tax (SALT) obligations with confidence. He holds a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington.