From Tariffs to Triumph:
How Advisors Help Clients Win

Harsh: Hello and welcome to CPA Talk series by Datamatics, the podcast where finance meets global foresight. I’m your host, Harsh Vardhan, and today we are tackling a topic that’s as complex as it is crucial, helping clients navigate tariffs, taxes and geopolitical tensions, and how CPAs can lead to the global disruptions. And joining me today, we have not one, not two, but three esteemed guests from WebsterRogers LLP, a leading CPA firm based out of South Carolina. And I’m thrilled to welcome David Zaiken, Tim Sinclair, and Adam Johnson to the show.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. Let’s start by introducing each one of yourself. Without me picking up the titles, it’s best that you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about yourself, your role in the WebsterRogers, and what global disruption mean to you day in and day out. Thank you.

Tim: Great. Thank you. Thank you, Harsh. Thanks for having us. We really appreciate it. I guess I’ll, I’ll kick us off with introduction. So my name’s Tim Sinclair. I’m actually over from growth. So I lead our business development and marketing initiatives and also am heavily involved in the consulting work that we’re doing, getting out in front of clients, helping them and prospects, helping them navigate a lot of these tax and tariff challenges.

One of the unique things that we’ve been doing, which I think gives us a unique perspective here, is we’ve had about 15 executive roundtable sessions across the country, where we’ve hosted CEOs, CFOs, supply chain leaders and senior tax managers, basically to talk about exactly what we’re going to talk about today with tariffs, how it’s impacting their business, how it’s integrating with tax. And so we’ve done several of these things, which we’re really excited to share some of the information we have. Adam, maybe turn it over to you.

Adam: So I’m Adam Johnson. I’m a tax partner in our Myrtle Beach office on the coast of South Carolina here. Pretty much a traditional federal tax guy. So focused on middle market clients doing tax compliance, but more importantly, tax advisory work as we navigate changing legislation and foreign policy.

David: I’m David. I’m a senior director of international tax and tax efficient supply chain. And I’ve been involved in this particular field of consulting for over 50 years. And what all this means to me is this is an epic time. We are not going to see anything quite like this again for a while, a combination of constantly migrating tariffs, a big, beautiful, brand new tax bill that’s coming through with possibly others, and the unbelievable other opportunities or financial costs that this particular current environment generates and how we navigate them. So, it’s an epic time. We haven’t seen something like this in this form for 30 to 40 years. And so, we are in truly uncharted territory.

Harsh: Thank you so much, Tim, Adam and David. And I’m sure it will be a great, insightful session for our listeners with tons of expertise and experience that you carry in this crucial topic. How would you describe the current global economic environment and what are the most important shifts Accountants should be paying attention to.

Tim: Yeah, it’s always good to start with big picture. Thank you for the question. David, you want to chime in on this one first?

David: Well, we picked it up in the introduction. I mean, what accountants need to look for, accountants are really good at identifying cost. And so if you follow that theme through, these tariffs cost somebody money, whether it’s our client, whether it’s our customer. So to evaluate what the cost of the tariff is by country, by product, by SKU, then begins the process of saying, oh my, we had one client that when they did this computation, they were generating negative net income, and you can’t survive. So that’s the core topic here is that, we, being accountants, have a particular niche in identifying what this particularly costs. And then from then you can develop strategic thinking as to how to identify the opportunity. And then we have to cost that out too.

Adam: Yeah, I think it’s typical for accountants to start by staying in their lane and talk about taxes and insurance work or bookkeeping, bu, in this environment more than ever before, we’re really tasked with being a trusted business advisor. And so, you know, the first thing I’m asking about in any client meeting is supply chain issues and how they’re interacting with the global economy and the foreign policy changes. And so the market’s demanding a stronger trusted business advisor presence, and I think CPAs have an opportunity to fill that role for middle market business owners.

Harsh: Right. Great. Thanks for the insight, David and Adam. And I can completely reckon with your thoughts with the changing tariffs. I think things are changing every day, even every hour for all the countries and the CPAs and accounting firms dealing with clients internationally. It’s become much more important to be abreast of what changes are and how to embrace them. Let’s move to the next question that we have today – with the increasing complexity of the global tax regime, how should the accounting professional be advising the client differently? I mean, let’s say, let’s do a comparison in ’25, how they should be advising the client vis-a-vis they were doing five years ago in 2020.

Tim: David, obviously you bring a lot of experience. You know, you’ve been advising tax clients on international issues for not only five years, but a little bit longer than that. So how do you see it being different right now versus even five years ago?

David: Thank you for putting the zero behind the five. I think this is really a core question. And I’m going to borrow a very old saying. And the old saying is, failure to plan is planning to fail. So if we sit here assuming that Mr. Trump is going to get rid of these tariffs, Mr. Trump really didn’t mean to repeal the de minimis ruling tariffs. And we waited it out. Well, guess what? August 7th came. These tariffs are very real and they’re not going anywhere. So that’s a difference right there, is that the cost of your supply chain just changed. Then you have to move on saying, well, what should I do? Well, it isn’t always that easy to pass the cost on to the customer.

If you’re selling to Walmart, Walmart will say, this is not my problem. So then you go to your supplier. Many of our clients are now considering onshoring assembly, bringing things here. And that’s where the big, beautiful tax bill comes along that gives you some added deductions to help you along the way and do that. So the change in thinking is, that there’s an increased cost stimulant running through the system that Mr. Trump is not going to take away. If nothing else, he’ll probably increase it if you’re coming from China or India or places like that. So being passive right now is probably not the right answer.

Tim: Adam, any other thoughts on how we should be advising our international clients differently now, how that looks different than it has in the past?

Adam: Yeah, I would really echo what David said. I think people conventionally want to take a wait and see approach. I think they’re reluctant to invest dollars, whether in professional fees or supply chain migration or research into these issues before we’re really sure what we got going on, another 90-day extension, another 90-day extension. I think that’s the biggest mistake you can make right now. I think you need to be agile and nimble, and I think you need to start to model and plan for all of the possibilities. But the idea of waiting around and seeing is going to have you fall behind your competitors.

David: Well, a good example, the call I had just before this call, it happened to be a beauty products company. They were relying on the de minimis rule. On August 29th, that de minimis rule goes away. So here’s a non-U.S. company selling beauty products to U.S. consumers. And they were talking, well, we’ll just have the consumer pay the tariff. And I said, seriously? You know, beauty is an impulse buy. They’re not going to want to fill out a tariff form and pay the tariff. That’s too much hassle. You have to change your thinking, and you need to become the importer and think about that. And maybe you should set up US distribution. So to your point, Adam, it’s an opportunity to kind of look at your supply chain from the inside out. And it’s a completely different thinking, these days.

Tim: Yeah, and I think one of the other kind of stepping back big here, and I think we’re all in agreement and saying in the past, we’ve been able to kind of get away with it’s business as usual, to some degree. And for international companies, it’s not business as usual anymore. Things are different things, the costs are higher, the way that we have to think about supply chain, the way that we have to think about these costs is different than it has in the past. So we can’t stick our head in the sand. And just think we’re just we’ve set up this good operation, it’s running fine. It’s been running smooth for the last five years. Things are different now. And we have to plan for that.

Harsh: Thank you so much for the insights, gentlemen. And while we are talking about the big picture, I think it’s time. Let’s talk about Trump’s one big, beautiful bill. Since it’s getting a lot of attention for its impact on tariff and tax policies. So what actually in the bill that accountants should care about? So that’s a big question. I think all our viewers, all our listeners, the CPAs would like to know from yourself.

Tim: Yeah, I think there’s a lot that they should care about, for sure. But I think the interrelatedness of these items is what’s key here, David, maybe you can chime in on what you think are the biggest parts and talk about how these are kind of all related.

David: It’s a little tricky. So to the big, beautiful bill, we didn’t get everything that Mr. Trump said he was going to give us, but we got a lot. We got 100% depreciation of bonus depreciation right off on equipment. We got 100% depreciation on buildings that are used for manufacturing, not for back office. We finally got back to expensing research and development, which was stupid in the 2017 legislation, but here it is.

And now we finally are getting back to a much more reasonable interest expense deduction so you say well like I had this other company that manufactured large pieces of refrigeration equipment and they imported a very expensive machine a $10 million machine from the EU, lo and behold 15% tariff they hadn’t counted on that, what do I do and we said well if the machine’s on its way, you can’t stop it. But let’s talk about what Mr. Trump is telling you to do. That machine, when you place it in service, it’s instantly deductible. You could borrow money from the machine and get more interest expense deductions. And if it’s coming into this particular state of South Carolina, the state may give you an incentive. So, and you might be able to get price increases or other things, but cash flow wise, you’re actually ahead. And I think that’s the integration piece.

Tim: I agree totally. To Adam, from your perspective, obviously you’re dealing with maybe a different set of clients in many cases. What do you see as sort of the top is that accounts seem to be thinking about when it comes to the one big, beautiful bill?

Adam: I think it’s easy to underscore the big, beautiful bill and say that we’ve extended what Trump passed in 2017, and that is, useful information, I think what it’s given us more than anything related to that is certainty. You know, 2025-26 has been looming for a while, the sunset of several provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And so we’ve got some permanency, at least for, I would assume, four years on some tax environment. And so, we can really plan much longer term than we have been the last several years between COVID and the expiration of tax law, don’t think we were sure what was going to happen with federal tax. And so I feel a little more strongly about that.

And then within the Big Beautiful Bill, I think there’s just behavioral nuance. Lots of things are in there that are expecting you to invest here domestically, whether R&D is able to be deducted only with US R&D, whether we can write off production property here in the United States, the incentive to onshore and to tighten up your supply chain is layered within that big, beautiful bill. And so easy to talk about the tax provisions, but I think it’s more interesting to talk about kind of the economic impact of those things.

Harsh: So while we’re talking about this big, beautiful bill, the CPAs and accounting firms and accountants will be busy throughout the year and they have so much in their plate with the advisory role that they have to play for the clients, advising them on the strategy, et cetera. So I would like to pivot from this to topic of offshoring, right?

So what do you think that accountants or the CPAs across U.S., will they be looking for offshoring more with this bill coming in since they need more support from the resources side and they need more time for the advisory role. Your views on that gentleman.

Tim: Yeah, Adam, why don’t, you know, we, you obviously use outsourcing to a degree. So maybe share a little bit about what your thoughts are, how this is all going to interplay.

Adam: I mean, I think, as I said a little bit earlier, the market is demanding a trusted business advisor role. And so the need for US CPA firms to free up your best advisors to be speaking directly with clients, not sitting behind a desk, signing tax returns, and then accelerating the careers of younger people to move them up into similar positions. The need to kind of rebalance your org chart is critical.

And so resources have been strapped for several years in the accounting space, and outsourcing, and the interplay with outsourcing, is a crucial component to bring up your trusted business advisors and being able to deal with that without deploying your strongest advisors to sit behind a computer all day is a crucial component of that. And so, the firm that better frees up their advisors and becomes client-facing by using things like outsourcing is going to be the firm that beats out its competition. Because sitting behind a desk is not what the firm of the future looks like.

Harsh: Yeah, of course. And this is, I think, where we are heading towards, rather than being outsourcing vendors, companies are looking to partner with outsourcing or an offshoring partner where they create their own global team. And so that they can shoulder some of their workloads and free up other managers to give more client advisory role and do the more backup work. Thank you so much for that insight, Adam. So let’s go to the next question. So What are some common blind spot businesses have when it comes to tariff planning? And how can accountants help set up their clients, avoid costly surprises? So what are your thoughts on that, how the clients can avoid these surprises?

Tim: David, do you want to maybe start and let Adam chime in around blind spots that we feel like our clients and middle market companies have related to these tariffs right now?

David: Well, I mean, to be quite frank, the biggest blind spot is they just assume these tariffs will never, would never have happened. And they did. And so now they’re all beginning to scurry around. And there’s some big companies that got caught blind too. Procter and Gamble in their earnings release took millions and millions of dollars of tariff charge. So the change in behavior for us accountants is to sit in front of our clients at least quarterly and talk about what’s happening. Supply chain is king, and cash is its twin sister, equally king. And through those discussions, you can identify process and strategic thinking related to the supply chain, coupled with whoever is helping all of us with international tax and combined thinking. So I think that’s the big blind spot is they didn’t really ever think this would happen, nor did many people think Mr. Trump would ever pull off the big, beautiful tax bill. And he did. And so here we are in late. Go ahead.

Adam: And I think the biggest blind spot is that these companies sometimes think they don’t have any control. And so the tax law’s changing and I think they’re just stuck with whatever happens, but there are strategies to pivot. There are proactive approaches you can take. And that depends if you’re a direct importer or an indirect person.

The other blind spot I think is you feel like you have even less control if you’re impacted by tariffs on an indirect basis. In other words, you’re not the one who directly imports the goods, but it affects your supply chain one or two tiers down the road. You do have options to speak with different wholesalers and to look at onshoring your supply chain. So those strategies need to take place. And sitting there like you don’t have any control is kind of the biggest blind spot I think these small middle market clients have.

Tim: Yeah, just to put a bow on that a little bit, I think, you know, to use an overturned phrase, our clients don’t know what they don’t know. They’ve never really had to focus maybe on these types of tariffs and understanding the strategies. And so us bringing them those strategies, helping them work through what are our options, that’s a big piece of this. And so As David said, it’s all about being proactive and to help them avoid these costs. It’s about us getting in front of them more often than we have, not being reactive, not waiting until December when they call us and say, ‘hey, it looks like I’m really getting hit here and squeezed’, we need to be reaching out to them and showing the value we can add.

Harsh: Right, right. So while we’re talking about the taxes and firms being proactive, client being proactive and preparing themselves for the change, the international tax, which traditionally used to be a niche, but now it feels like it is touching everyone, right? So how the firms can develop the right experience without having a full global tax team? You know, there’s firms in the U.S., they have centralized offices, but they have to deal with the clients internationally. So what are your thoughts on that? How can firms develop that expertise?

Tim: Yeah, I think I think we’re in a great position to talk about that because one, you know, David, he came on board towards the end of last year and has really done a good job of helping us build our international tax team. But prior to that, we really didn’t have a lot of resources, but we’re still serving international clients. So maybe Adam, talk first about kind of what your thoughts are around a firm without an international tax team. What’s the strategy to help them address these issues that are touching so many of our clients?

Adam: Well, certainly the answer is that you can’t just set it aside and say you don’t do that or you don’t address that with your clients. I think that that’s a very big miss in your service offerings. Now, are you gonna be the one who directly services these global tax issues for the client? No, not necessarily. And not every firm’s gonna be blessed to be able to hire someone like David. We’re fortunate to have someone in-house where we can do a good portion of this work in-house at WebsterRogers. But like any well-rounded trusted business advisor, you’re only really as good as your alliances and the other folks that you work with.

You need to build a strong professional network that can serve these additional issues clients may have. And the jack of all trades, master of none approach is really not what’s going to best suit the client. And ultimately, you’ll lose your client over time as they grow, if that’s your approach. And so developing that network of strong professionals to refer work to and just being kind of the point guard of the quarterback in the situation is a really good way, alternatively, from investing tons of money into trying to develop a global tax team.

Tim: Yeah, I think that’s definitely an approach that we have. And we still partner a lot with other firms when it comes to this international tax items that we don’t do in house. But obviously, we are focused on growing our internal team as much as we can. But it is it’s about the relationships, identifying the partnerships where there’s good reciprocal relationships, trust. David, you know, you’re here growing our international tax team, but any thoughts from your end on what smaller firms should be doing to, to service their international tax clients if they don’t have a David Zaken in house?

David: Well, I mean, the answer’s quite simple. I mean, we actually work with a lot of firms smaller or firms that may not have people like me running around, and we do things together. And so they can partner with us, they can partner with a much bigger firm, they can partner with a law firm. And I think Adam’s right. If we as accountants don’t have these base level tools to talk to our clients, then those clients will start to migrate to someplace that does. And so most of us are willing to work and partner with each other. And since I’ve been here, those types of partnerships have worked out well. We get some work and our alliance firms also get work.

Harsh: Right. I think leveraging the network and the alliance is definitely a solution to this. While we’re talking about the taxation, let’s talk about the global tax planning, which used to be a once a year conversation, I think. You’re the best people to talk about it, but what are the some ways accountants can be more proactive and real time in their guidance since it’s becoming more of a 12 months long conversations. So what’s your thoughts on that?

Tim: Yes, it’s great. I mean, we obviously are heavily involved in clients ongoing with this. David, do you ever feel like international global tax planning was a once a year conversation and it’s certainly not that now.

David: For me, it never was. Just right now, international has kind of gone crazy because of tariffs and what’s going on. But the point is, is that from a global perspective, either you have a US company that operates overseas or imports from overseas, or you have a foreign company that operates here. And the planning for each one of those is different. You know, so I think it behooves us accountants to get in front of our clients and start talking about this and begin to model out what the impact is and what the solutions are.

Tim: The proactive side to that. Adam, anything else to comment on ways for us to be more proactive on this front with clients?

Adam: I think from just a traditional CPA perspective, it used to be you had a good CPA if you got your returns done and you had a great CPA if they actually picked up the phone and talked to you. That is not what the middle market clients want anymore. And so I think firms need to be more strategic and more proactive and meet more frequently with their clients. You can’t be a victim to deadlines. You can’t be a victim to busy seasons. You strategically use things like outsourcing to help balance out that March and April season, that September-October season, to free up your people to be year-round advisors to the key clients.

The other alternative I think firms need to look at is how many lanes of the highway are you operating in with respect to the clients you serve. Those transactional clients may not be a fit for your firm anymore if you want to be a well-rounded, year-round, proactive tax advisor. I think CPA firms need to take a hard look in the mirror and be strategic.

Harsh: Definitely, yes. I think, Adam, you are spot on that. We need to free up the resources to do more client advisory role, to take up the more complex task rather than staying in the office and work on the laptop, more client advisories definitely which is needed in the changing environment. So for the firms looking to go beyond the compliance, you know, what does it take to position themselves as strategic advisors in international business today? And with the talent crunch in the market, what do you think is the best option to free up some of their time? Is it offshoring, onshoring, or to have some other pivoting that they want to do?

Adam: I think it’s a multi-layered conversation for sure. You know, we’re all, we’ve been told that AI is going to replace us for several years. And I think most of us in the industry say, come on, bring it on. You know, we could use the help and the support. So I think a balance between technological advances and then being creative with manpower, such as outsourcing, going to give us those opportunities to be more proactive and strategic advisors. I think more than anything, the pace at which we adapt will have to change.

CPAs in general, not exactly early adopters with the influx of technology and people who have seemingly been unwilling to use outsourcing, they will fall behind their peers and their competition in this current environment. And so I think it’s important to today’s day and age, this current generation of CPA uses those two tools to achieve those results.

Tim: David,you’ve done a good job of helping us position ourselves as a strategic advisor in the international in the international space, more so than we have before. Any thoughts from you about what it what it takes to position a firm as that?

David: Hire somebody like me, I guess, or partner with somebody like me. I think the best thing is to realize what we do know and what we don’t know. And if we don’t know the ins and outs of this international tax topic, to develop a friendly relationship with someone who you trust, that does.

Harsh: So one question that I love asking all my guests is make a prediction. So if you had to make a prediction, what’s one upcoming challenge in the international tax or trade policy you think will catch up off guard in next 12 to 18 months, or two years maybe?

Tim: All right, crystal ball time, guys. We get to make the prediction. David, what do you think, one upcoming change in international tax or trade policy that’ll catch people off guard?

David: I would suspect that there’ll be a tax law in this country to penalize offshore service centers. Because right now, things are outsourced to India, there’s no tariff on services, there’s no excise tax on services. And so either there might be a law to put a bit of excise tax, just like we did on the computer chips coming from China, to make it uneconomical to do that, or they’ll just take the current 50% tariff that’s in India and jack it up to 100 until they stop. I mean, so I think those types of one-off things that are meant to create jobs here to equalize the pay scales. I think we’re beginning to see the outer edges of that even now.

If you look back at the original draft of the 2017 tax law—the House version led by Chairman Brady and the Ways and Means Committee—it included a very unique approach. The idea was that if you imported goods into the U.S., your corporate tax rate would be higher because of a corporate excise tax. But if you exported, there would be no tax. Now, that version didn’t make it into the final law. Still, those kinds of ideas—punitive for imports and incentivizing exports—could resurface. And if there’s a Republican-controlled Congress after the midterms, I think it’s entirely possible that these types of provisions could be brought back for discussion.

Adam: I certainly have no idea, but I’m happy to make an attempt that I think Trump, being that he’s a second term president, not needing to run for a reelection, is going to do everything he can to accomplish his goals. I think his goals have a lot to do with American superiority with respect to economics and the US dollar and AI. And so we’re going to continue to see legislation that drives behavior to onshoring, to technology that removes regulation. And so I think as you prepare for the next four years, maybe not beyond four, but these next four years, you plan for an environment like that, you run your business that way, because there will be winners and losers from all this change, there’s been too much change for there not to be score being kept. And so that’ll happen in big companies and small companies. I think it’s important that you’re not just going to keep the status quo. And I think you’re going to react to what Trump’s pretty much showed you his hand. And so react to that and play that way.

Harsh: Okay. So while we come close to the time here, last question that we have for the young listeners for today’s podcast. What advice would you give to the next-gen CPAs who want to specialize in international tax or global advisory work? Words of wisdom from yourself, all three of you, for the next-gen CPAs that we have in mind.

Tim: Well, David, you’re the forever adjunct professor. You teach in colleges, you teach the upcoming CPAs. So what advice do you give them?

David: Enroll in my international tax class at the College of Charleston. For people just starting out, the environment is so different. When I started out, when I started out, I had to be a jack of all trades. You can’t be trade or a jack of anything right now. So if international tax is what young people want to do, then they need to make the extra effort to either take night classes, online study, get a master’s degree. And there’s so many fine universities in this country that teach this. And you can go to law school and get an LLM, a master’s of law. I mean, this type of specialization as we move into the AI age is going to be required to be competitive at that level. And I think these universities and schools are beginning to morph to that.

Tim: I think it’s for me to add before, and I’ll let Adam wrap up because he, I know he had probably perspective on this too. Me as I’ve as I’ve seen younger CPAs come in, and the differences in maybe what we experienced based on the partners and directors and managers they’re working with, I think that’s it’s really important to be working with a team and a firm that you feel like is giving you opportunities, is invested in your growth, is not trying to, you know, build you up, have you there for two or three years and then expect you to go away, you know, but thinking about your long term growth, mentorship, you know, has programs like that, that are teaching you and allowing you to grow in that area. I think I think the firm culture, culture is used a lot, but having a firm that really cares about the individual and the employee, I think that’s really important for you.

Adam: Well, well said, Tim and David. I definitely agree with both of y’all. I think the kind of fear mongering that the accounting was going away or shrinking or is a bad profession to go into due to technology is kind of misplaced. I think that accounting is going to become more of like a STEM profession where you’re going to need some significant technical expertise. And so you’re going to get that one of two ways. You’re going to get that. like David said, through more intense education. And you’re going to get that under the tutelage of other good leaders who have great experience. And so I think the decision about which firm do I go intern for, and which college do I enroll in, and what programs I take is very crucial. But there’s no better time to go into the profession. There’s a lot of opportunity. We’re becoming more and more valuable on a per-hour basis. And so I think it’s a great time to get in. I think international tax is a great avenue to go into. I just think that you need to make really good decisions when you’re a young man or woman with respect to who you work for, what colleges you go to, et cetera.

David: I also think the, I mean, I was with a lot of different accounting firms, clients, when I was in industry. I think the profession needs to morph. Once upon a time, accountants were the trusted business advisors of the world. That’s what we were. We may have worn a green iron shade and some funny things on our shirts. And then it morphed into bigger firms, and it morphed into very specialization. But I think, particularly in the middle market, they’re demanding trusted business advisors. So to be able to go with a team to cover international, federal, state, supply chain, that’s what the market is needing, as opposed to these completely unconnected tax concepts. And I think we’ve certainly felt that in our world, Adam and Tim. And I think that’s where the profession is heading. I think it’s headed forward back in time, for lack of a better word.

Harsh: I think great words of wisdom for our future CPAs and young listeners, and I’m sure all of them will listen to this answer and podcast on repeat to hear the insights that you have shared for them. But this has been an incredibly insightful conversation from tariffs to talent, and you’ve shown how CPAs are stepping up as global advisors and what future CPAs need to do to speed up their race to be the CPAs or the future leaders.

So thank you so much, David, Tim, and Adam, for sharing your time, expertise, and wisdom. And thank you so much, all our listeners, for tuning in to CPA Talk Series by Datamatics. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and share. Thank you so much, and have a good day ahead.