Reporters, Journalists, Podcasters, Bloggers, and Freelancers:

Looking for an Expert Perspective or Quote?

We can help…

If you need a knowledgeable CPA or financial and tax planning professional to interview for an article, podcast, blog post, radio program, or TV show, we can help. Our founders — Laura Stees, CPA, and Marni Walker, CPA — are media savvy in a wide range of tax and finance topics, as well as challenges and opportunities related to women entrepreneurship and legacy planning. They are available and eager to speak on the following topics (use our Media Registry form below):

  • Auditing for fraud
  • Business formation and business entity selection
  • California’s state-administered retirement plan — CalSavers
  • Communicating with the California Franchise Tax Board
  • Hiring your kids to reduce taxes
  • Making sense of employer-sponsored retirement plan options
  • Negotiating with the IRS
  • PPP Loan Forgiveness
  • Proposed changes to the tax code
  • Understanding estates and trusts
  • Women entrepreneurship

From working “on” rather than “in” a business and protecting a small business against theft, embezzlement, and fraud; to using shifting, timing, code, and product-related strategies to lower a tax burden, Laura Stees and Marni Walker can help inform your story, round out your podcast, or serve as your on-the-record source.

Pro Tip: Check out the SWC blog for a sample of Laura’s and Marni’s thoughts and insights on a wide variety of tax planning and financial strategy topics, and feel free to use attributed snippets from those posts in your writing. (Please attribute quotations to “Laura Stees and Marni Walker at SWC.cpa.”)

Article, Podcast, and Blog Posts Ideas

If you need help with — or inspiration for — a podcast, article, or blog post, please contact Mallory Serzen, using the Get Started link at the bottom of this page. Or feel to use our firm as a primary source for any of the following ideas for articles or podcasts:

Topic: Women Entrepreneurship

Actionable Growth Strategies of Women Entrepreneurs

Recommended lede for your story: Women routinely encounter barriers throughout their lifetime and especially when they’re thinking about, launching, growing, and attempting to sell a business. For women at each stage of a business’s development, there are unique limitations set upon them — each representing a real threat to business success. But those barriers to growth encountered by women entrepreneurs don’t have to be so daunting or even determine the trajectory of one’s success.

Laura Stees, CPA and Marni Walker, CPA can address the little-known and proven strategies for overcoming many of the obstacles and barriers women entrepreneurs regularly face.

Taxes

Tax Planning versus Tax Preparation

Recommended lede for your story: Knowing the difference between tax preparation and tax planning can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. And while most of us are intimately familiar with tax preparation (think H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt), these are organizations that look backwards and focus on compliance and reporting. Successful people focus on tax planning — a year-round approach that’s focused on looking forward by using timing, shifting, code, and product to reduce tax liability and increase net worth. As the adage goes, “Failing to plan is planning to fail,” and this is especially true when you are trying to reduce your tax burden legally and plan for the future.

Laura Stees, CPA and Marni Walker, CPA have spent their entire careers transitioning tax payers into tax planners.

Business Finances

The 12 Ways to Legally Reduce a Business Tax Burden

Recommended lede for your story: If you’re like most small-business owners, you launched your business with a great idea for a product or service and a passion for delivering it to consumers, clients, or other businesses. You were probably unaware at the time of having to face the burden of managing your business, especially the complex financials, and especially those related to taxes. Like other business owners, you most likely started out not even knowing what you didn’t know, and that is perfectly understandable. One way we can help without it costing you any more than your time is to provide free guidance and insight. As part of that focus, we’re offering guidance on the 12 ways to reduce your tax burden legally.

Laura Stees, CPA and Marni Walker, CPA can offer rich details on the 12 ways to legally reduce a business’s tax burden.

Fraud

Protecting Your Business Against Theft, Embezzlement, and Fraud

Recommended lede for your story: Today’s headlines are filled with stories about small-business fraud, and a vast majority of these stories are about small-businesses committing fraud against the government. Most recently, reporting has focused on fraud involving the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provided ample opportunity for con artists and dishonest small-business owners to defraud the government — and we, the taxpayers — of millions of dollars. What you hear much less about are the far more common crimes against small businesses, many committed by trusted employees.

Laura Stees, CPA and Marni Walker, CPA are available to offer proven strategies for protecting a business against theft, embezzlement, and fraud.

Media Registry

At SWC, we stand ready to assist journalists, podcasters, bloggers, and freelancers throughout the year. That means we’re open to working with you to facilitate your article, podcast, or backgrounder. Please use the form below to request to be placed on the SWC Media Distribution list.

Terms & Conditions(Required)