Meet Nicole Green of Robert Hall & Associates

I was born to two amazing human beings. I had an amazing childhood. Probably one of the most blessed childhoods anybody has ever had. And I’m super thankful for that because I’ve never had to want for anything in my life. So, super thankful.

Then, I went to school. And the school has been a nice landing pad, I would say. That gives you a little bit of direction in life. And from school, I decided to travel. I lived abroad for about 10 years. I was in education and taught a lot while I was traveling. Taught when I got back from traveling. Taught before I left to travel. Because I believe in education. I think it’s really important that people continue to learn and grow. Myself included.

Part of the reason I like tax is because I’m constantly having to learn. Things are always changing as our political world changes. So it’s fun. And as a result, my clients get financial education. I’ve said this a million times. Financial literacy isn’t good in the United States and there is no real financial education. Nobody teaches you checks and balances, credits and debits unless you study to be an accountant or something. Where are you going to learn this from? You learn it from your mom or your dad or your grandfather or your grandmother. Or the neighbor or somebody that happens to tell you stuff. And nowadays, people are learning a lot about it on TikTok and YouTube. Which is very important. And there’s a lot of great information out there. So, I’m not saying TikTok or YouTube or any of that stuff is a bad thing. But there’s also a lot of scams. A lot of people are selling things. Misinformation. Or they’re selling correct information but it’s obvious information. For example, you don’t need to take a $10,000 course to learn how to open a business. You just don’t. I can tell you in five minutes how to open a business. Yes, you can make it all complicated. But there’s no need for that. And part of what I do at Robert Hall & Associates specifically is take people’s big ideas and tell them how to grow into that big ideas. Don’t start with the big idea. Let’s grow into the big idea. And you can change it throughout the process. People have hard-set views of the IRS or the states or entities or stuff in the tax world. They have really scary, extreme views of it. For instance, some believe once they open a business, they’re tied to this business forever. Or if they mess up, the IRS is going to take their house. Note…the IRS would never actually take your house. They would never, ever, ever take your house. They’ll clean your bank, but they’re never, ever going to take your house. Because they want you to have a house. It defeats everything. But people have these hard views of things. And so sometimes that stops them from taking action. And I just help bring it down to reality.

Going back to my story, I’ve been to all seven continents. Super proud of that. I worked in many, many different countries. I have a dog. Who I love.

I also strongly, believe that…my dad always said, you are at work for more than half of your life, and so you should enjoy it. So I strongly, believe in finding a job that you love. And I love tax. I love it. I’m honest about it. I find it fun every day. There are annoyances. It’s work. But I love it. It’s fun. And why specifically tax? It’s ever-changing. The fact that it’s not black and white is the fun part of it. There is a bunch of gray that you can decide how you want to live in, and one, for me to do my job well, I really do need to understand my clients, and so I need to understand what their goals are and stuff like that, and so that is nice to get to know my clients, and then for them to realize how much they can help.

People think of tax sometimes as a one-year type of thing, and that’s not the case, especially if you make decent money. It’s way more than that. You can quadruple your wealth because of your tax returns if you set up a plan. If you’re doing things correctly, you can quadruple your wealth. I also enjoy the fact that tax puts me at the tipping point of the financial market. I have to understand about all the million different retirement accounts. I have to understand all the different types of investments people do, wash sales, short-term, lost harvesting. While I might not be part of any mergers or acquisitions or anything like that, I have to understand it because it’s all going to come out in the tax return at the end of the day, and so I love that. It keeps me so smart.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s not easy to be a female in this industry. Especially when you’re dealing with people with a good amount of money. People will sometimes default to thinking I’m an assistant or think that I might not have information, so I have to prove myself with my knowledge. People will sometimes want to quiz me, which is a little insulting. So that’s a little difficult, but it’s part of life. But it’s also a good way for me to understand the type of client that I do want and the type of client I don’t want.

The type of clients that I like are open-minded. If you ever look at the whole tax code, it’s thousands and thousands of pages. I don’t want to be on pages 1 through 10. I know about page 2088, so that’s what I want to talk about with the client. I want to do some of that stuff. That’s the fun stuff. You can’t always apply everything to everyone, but when we can do these things that can change people’s lives, I can be a part of fostering their goals, I love that. I love helping people put a little bit of money away that’s going to give their kids six figures in 40 years. All they had to do was put a little money away today.

Knowing that I’m a part of helping their families long-term is amazing. It’s kind of like a doctor. I would imagine, where they know they can help somebody, and then they go off and live 20 years, and you’re like, yay, I helped do that. Especially with my clients, because I try to educate my clients, and I want you to be so educated that if you left me, you’re not going to be lost. You’re going to understand what’s happening on your tax returns. I don’t do magic. I say that all the time. I don’t do magic at all. I want my clients to be informed.

As you know, we’re big fans of Robert Hall & Associates. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
We file taxes, but that’s a small part of what we do. We help guide our clients and advise clients on ways they can use their tax returns to further their goals. Minimizing your tax liability is great, and obviously, everybody wants to pay less in tax, but it’s more so about using your tax return to further your goal and educate people. People who know what their tax liabilities are going to make better constructive decisions, avoid penalties, avoid interest, and they can use their tax return to benefit themselves rather than people who don’t know anything that is happening, and that surprise factor is huge.

That surprise factor is what gets most people, and knowing that you can affect your tax liability and knowing that your tax return is going to follow you for multiple years, i.e. when you try to buy a house…maybe you are more willing to pay a little bit more in tax when you know you can get a lower interest rate on your $4 million house. So, at the end of the day, looking at all of the components, and that’s one of the reasons why it takes time, but not that much time on the client’s part, it just takes a little bit of structure, a little bit of planning, and somebody like me.

Our tax code is wild- there are a lot of elements to it. Some of it is restrictive and limited to certain people/situations, so if you’re limited to something in one place, you need to be able to find something else that you can do in another place. And that’s why we have fun on the tax side because you might be a W-2 employee where you’re limited in leveraging tax strategies, but you can, for instance, buy a rental, which now opens up possibilities for you. You have to accept your tax over here, but I can talk to you about growing tax-free income. So now, your income has gone up 10%, but your tax has stayed the same. Now you’ve saved 10% of the tax. It’s the same- it’s just different ways that we have to go at it.

How do you think about luck?
I have been afforded opportunities to go get great amounts of education, and to try new things, because I have a safety net of my family. I didn’t choose my family; I was born into that family, and if I had been born into a different family, in a different country, or a different economic status, I know I wouldn’t have had all these opportunities. And so, I’m very, very thankful for this life. I feel it was God, because I’m religious, but I’m very thankful that I got what I have been given. All the blessings that I have, I try to take advantage of all of them. And thus, my career; I think my career is an example of me taking advantage of them.

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