Ryan Firth

CPA friends — this one almost cost a founder $2.4M in taxes. SaaS founder. C-Corp. 4+ years holding QSBS. $10M gain lined up for exit in 2 years. He was locked into the old $10M Section 1202 cap (pre-OBBBA stock — no $15M upgrade for him). Then he nearly nuked the entire exclusion. He was about to sign a massive server farm lease and pivot hard into “data hosting.” One problem: That move would’ve made his principal assets passive in the eyes of the IRS — killing the active trade or business requirement and disqualifying his QSBS entirely. 💥 $10M gain → fully taxable. Roughly $2.4M federal tax hit. Because we were in a continuous advisory relationship, we caught it early. We restructured the expansion, bullet-proofed the active business documentation, and kept his QSBS alive. Result: Client exited. $10M gain. $0 federal tax. Even without the new OBBBA goodies, we still saved him millions. Tax pros: This is why referrals to the right specialist matter. You bring the client relationship. We catch the landmines before they explode the QSBS. Who else has seen a client almost accidentally disqualify their QSBS with an innocent-sounding pivot? Drop your war stories below 📷Or DM if you have a founder client eyeing an exit — let’s keep their millions tax-free together. #QSBS #TaxTwitter