What more can I do?

[YTProphet]

Put this in the taxes thread, but it appears that one doesn't get much traffic so tossing it here. Wondering if there's anything I'm missing in terms of personal tax efficiency.

I've got a regular W2 where i make roughly $200k/year. I also have a side business that nets me anywhere between $20-50k/year and I have a few rental properties that have debt on them. They bring in roughly $4k/month gross (maybe $1500 net).

I max my 401k and HSA at work. I also created a solo 401k for my wife for my side business and max that too. Other than that my taxes are pretty vanilla. Any other ideas for tax efficiencies that I'm missing?

[cool7hand]

I suspect that you're not receiving responses because dialing in on taxes requires more detail, not less. Try a case study!

[SimpleCycle]

Do you do your own taxes or hire them out to a professional?

Your taxes are not actually that vanilla, with Schedule C income and rental property income.  Both probably allow some opportunities for optimization, but we'd need more detail to give reasonable recommendations.

With high W-2 income, you don't have a lot of options in that area.  Max the 401k, max an HSA if you have one or an FSA if you don't, do backdoor Roths for you and your spouse (doesn't save taxes now though), and make sure you are strategizing on potential itemized deductions.

[trollwithamustache]

There isn't much that can be done to shield W-2 income. And it sounds like via the self employed 401k you are shielding either  all or most of what you can.

I'd hire an accountant just to make sure everything is done right. You've got enough income and moving pieces to be audited.

[YTProphet]

Do you do your own taxes or hire them out to a professional?

Your taxes are not actually that vanilla, with Schedule C income and rental property income.  Both probably allow some opportunities for optimization, but we'd need more detail to give reasonable recommendations.

With high W-2 income, you don't have a lot of options in that area.  Max the 401k, max an HSA if you have one or an FSA if you don't, do backdoor Roths for you and your spouse (doesn't save taxes now though), and make sure you are strategizing on potential itemized deductions.

I have always done the taxes myself. I've had one or two big years in the past from the sale of real estate, but it was really just one or two transactions that drove that. Short term capital gains sucked (hindsight I should've done 1031).

This year I will start maxing my HSA, I will fully fund a 401k for my wife through the solo 401k for my small business, and I will fully fund my own at work. I'm also making 529 contributions for my kids. I haven't done a Roth or backdoor Roth since I was borderline on my income. I'm buying a few rentals which gives me some options later on (keep it for cash flow, 1031 into something bigger, etc). I just don't see any other ways to reduce my taxable income.