Protecting Your Family’s Finances: Ani Miller on Without Tabú

On her first visit to Without Tabú, Ani Miller talked about everything that has to do with protecting what you build: taxes, deductions, buying your home and planning for your family’s future.

What we talk about

• What you can deduct and how to prepare for tax season.
• Buying a home in the United States and the homestead benefit.
• The IRS IP PIN to protect your children from identity theft.
• Why you should start thinking about wills and trusts now.

The full conversation

In an episode of the podcast Without Tabú, produced by Los Hispanos Unidos Studios, its three hosts, Xavia, Karina and Valeria, “three mothers, three women and three friends” who talk without filters, welcomed Ani Miller, a Venezuelan finance expert, to chat about “anything you want”: taxes, which deductions are allowed and which are not, buying your first home, pets, protecting your children and planning for the future. Between laughs and stories from the office, Ani repeated an idea that runs through the whole conversation: the U.S. system works, and those who understand it and follow the rules can get ahead financially very quickly. Here is the full conversation, in order.

From Caracas to the United States: doing whatever it takes

The hosts asked her to tell how she got started. Ani explained that she was approaching almost ten years in the country. She is from Caracas, Venezuela, where she trained as a certified public accountant and spent a long time in banking, an experience that gave her a solid foundation in finance. In 2016 she decided to come to the United States and, like every immigrant, she started by doing whatever she had to do: her experience took a back seat, because she had to pay for the responsibilities you take on when you arrive in a new country.

I have always thought that the one who has to adapt is the person who is arriving. The country is not going to adapt to you.

She worked for every delivery app there is, “absolutely all of them,” and today she laughs when her clients tell her something about that world, because she can tell them how to do it: she did it too. From the start she understood that learning English would open other doors for her, including the possibility of working in her profession, and a year or two after arriving she started studying it.

One company for everything you need to live here

Ani described Ani Miller Services as a multiservice company that takes care of everything a person, not only an immigrant, needs to live in the United States. And she explained why she believes so strongly in guiding people along that path.

The American system is a system that is already built, that has been around for many years and that works. Whoever understands the system and manages to fit into it can get ahead financially very quickly.

According to Ani, it is a series of steps that are not that hard if you follow them with an expert at your side. Watching a YouTube video is not the same, because there they tell you the result, but not the process or the road that had to be traveled. Someone who has already been down that road, who has already fallen or already been scammed, has valuable experience, like parents when they warn their children they are going to fall: not because they know it all, but because they have already lived it.

The story of the IRS letter

Since they were in the middle of tax season, Ani told the story that gave rise to her tax service. When she arrived, everyone talked to her about refunds if she had children, but she did not really understand the system and, as an immigrant, she did not want to do anything that could hurt her legally. She was referred to a preparer who was almost an hour from where she lived, in Doral, and they did everything electronically.

About a month after the return was filed, in 2017, a letter from the IRS arrived. Ani scanned the letter, sent it to the preparer and wrote to her, but got no response. The letter gave her 30 days to respond and, between the time the mail takes and the days without an answer, the deadline kept getting shorter. She did not speak English and did not know what to do. After four days the assistant wrote to her: they were very busy with tax season and she would have to try to resolve it herself.

Ani, who came from a banking background where after-sale service is as important as the sale, could not believe it. Even so, she wanted to be flexible: she got in her car, drove an hour with her letter and went to the office fully hoping they would see her, even for two minutes, to tell her how to respond. She was told the preparer was busy. She waited for hours, with nobody going in or out, and she was never seen.

I paid her for the service, and now I’m telling her I got a letter and I have no idea what to do.

That night, while making deliveries, “the light bulb went on”: she could not depend on someone else to solve her problem, she had to learn how to do it. In the middle of the season it was hard to find a course, and she could not stop working for long either, but she found an institute online with a one-week intensive course. She brought the letter to the course, they explained what had happened and what she needed to do, and she went to the IRS in person to explain her case.

The cause was a simple typo: the preparer had transposed digits in her son’s Social Security number, and the resulting number matched someone else’s, so the IRS was reviewing the case as possible fraud. Ani explained a detail many people do not know: the copy of the return the taxpayer receives does not show information such as the children’s dates of birth, which only go to the IRS from the preparer’s system, so she had no way of seeing the mistake. She resolved it that same day, and since then, she said, she has never received another letter from the IRS.

Her first season as a preparer

She then started telling the story at her job, at Amazon. She told her coworkers she had already taken the course and that the following year she could help them, and they answered that she should not wait, that they had not done their taxes yet and that nobody was better for it than her, since she had already been to the IRS. It was February, and that year she prepared taxes for relatives, friends and coworkers, about 30 people in total. “All done right, everyone got paid,” she recalled. “Something good always comes out of something bad.”

Over time other situations came up with other procedures, and Ani summed up the origin of her office this way: every service she offers comes from experiences of things that happened to her while living in the United States. The hosts highlighted how practical it is to go to one place where everything is available.

The girlfriend’s sushi: which expenses aren’t deductible

The hosts asked for the craziest story she has had with a client, no names. Ani told the one about a client who said he had a girlfriend who loved sushi, that he had written down everything he spent every time they went out and that he wanted to know whether he could put it on his taxes. Ani’s answer, laughing, was that he had chosen that girlfriend and he had to pay for it: the IRS was not going to recognize that expense.

Ani took the opportunity to explain the general principle:

• The IRS recognizes expenses that are fully related to a business activity, whether you have a company or carry out that activity on a personal level.
• Personal expenses, like going out to eat for pleasure, are not deductible. Ani noted that in this country many people work so much and are in such a hurry that the “quick bite” to eat ends up adding up to a lot of money.
• What counts is the connection to the business. In response to a question from the hosts about digital content creators, she explained that if a person sells their image, certain expenses for maintaining that image may be related to their activity, just like the place where they film or the clothes they wear for work, while personal luxuries are not.

All income has to be reported

Ani told another funny story: some clients called her, very embarrassed, after they had signed their return, because they had forgotten to mention the income they received from a digital platform. Fortunately, she had not yet filed the taxes, and the form reporting those payments had also arrived for them in the mail. The lesson was clear.

Everything has to be reported. All income has to be reported.

And she added that the same applies to cryptocurrency apps: if you received income, it has to go on your return.

How to buy your first home: FHA or conventional

The hosts asked what role credit plays for someone who wants to buy their primary home. Ani explained that, if it is your first house, the ideal is to take advantage of the benefits that exist for first-time buyers.

The FHA loan

• It is a government-backed program that lets you buy with a 3.5% down payment.
• To qualify you need a minimum credit score, which at the time, as she explained, was 580.
• Its big advantage is the low down payment. Its big drawback, according to Ani, is mortgage insurance: when you buy with 3.5% down, you are charged a monthly insurance premium that, as she explained it, stays for the entire life of the loan. She gave the example of about 200 dollars a month that many people do not even know they are paying as part of their payment, and that over 30 years adds up to enough to buy “another little apartment” to invest in.

That is why Ani, who is now an investor and has bought several properties, does not have any loans of that type. But she clarified that it is not about ruling it out: if you have no way to come up with a larger down payment and the opportunity comes along, go in with 3.5%, because the property will appreciate and you will build wealth just by making your payment.

The conventional loan

The alternative she uses is the conventional loan, which in her case required a 5% down payment. It also carries mortgage insurance, but with an important difference: that insurance can be removed.

She illustrated it with her own story. In June 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when everyone was scared, she bought a house with 5% down. The builder paid her closing costs and the electric garage door, because hardly anyone was buying. “If we’re going to die, I’ll die with a house,” she joked. About a year later, the house had appreciated so much that she already had the equivalent of 20% of its value. Without refinancing, she called the bank, asked for a new appraisal of the property, an appraiser confirmed that the value had gone up more than 20% and they removed the mortgage insurance. In one year she got rid of those 200 dollars a month.

That’s why we need to find advisors who can guide us along the path of investing.

Can you deduct pet expenses?

One of the hosts asked, on behalf of all pet owners, whether the expenses for a dog or a cat can be deducted, especially for emotional support animals. Ani said it is a question she gets constantly at the office, and she explained the difference:

• Regular pets and emotional support animals: not deductible. Even if the animal helps a person who suffers from depression, its expenses cannot be put on your taxes. Ani compared it to airlines, which also do not treat an emotional support animal the same way as a service animal.
• Service animals: these are the ones that wear an identifying vest. As she explained, if the person has a disability documented with a medical report, for example a dog that guides someone who cannot see, the animal’s expenses, such as food and veterinary care, can be deducted because they are tied to that disability.

She also explained what the standard deduction is: an amount set by the government that is meant to cover the personal expenses of daily life, like food, and that is the reason expenses like the girlfriend’s sushi or the family pet are not deducted separately. To the sushi client, she joked, she recommended getting married so they could file jointly.

Who claims the children and the IRS protection PIN

The hosts brought up a very common rumor: that between separated parents, “whoever does their taxes and signs first is the one who gets the money for the kids.” Ani acknowledged that in practice this can happen, but said she does not like to leave things to chance, and she shared a free tool many people do not know about.

She shared that, as an IRS Authorized e-file Provider, she and her team start preparing returns on January 2, when many people are still celebrating, and that is why she knows there is always someone who gets ahead of the other parent. The solution she recommends is the IRS Identity Protection PIN:

• You can ask the IRS to assign your child or children a six-digit security PIN.
• That PIN changes every year.
• Once it is assigned, nobody can include that child on a return without the current PIN.
• If the parent who requested it were to pass away, the other parent can request it again.

Ani added that, although things sometimes take time, in the United States the rules are enforced: if someone claims a child they were not entitled to, the other parent can send the IRS a letter with all the evidence to correct it. And above all, she recommended keeping good communication with your ex for the well-being and mental health of the children.

It’s not enough to say “this is my child”

Ani explained that to claim a child as a dependent, loving them is not enough: you have to meet requirements and be able to prove them. Among them, she mentioned that the child must have lived with you for more than half of the tax year, except for what a divorce agreement establishes about which parent claims the child each year. When there is no divorce, for example if the parents never married, you have to prove that you live together, and the preparer has the responsibility to verify it, although they do not always do so. She told the case of a client whose son lives with her, while the father, who moved to another state and does not help her, claimed him; the office was in the process of proving to the IRS who the child really lives with.

Ani also shared that every year she attends the convention the IRS organizes for preparers: three full days of information, from morning to afternoon, where the IRS itself explains what it will review and which mistakes to avoid. Many preparers do not go because they already have lots of clients, and that is why, in her view, their clients frequently receive letters and audits.

All you have to do is follow the rules. Like this country: follow the rules and everything is fine.

Her final warning on this topic was for those who choose their preparer based on price alone, sometimes people who do not even have a license, forgetting that the return is the taxpayer’s own responsibility.

Putting the house in your children’s name, the homestead exemption and wills

Another question was whether it makes sense to put the house in a child’s name. Ani explained that transferring the property to a child can create capital gains tax consequences for them, and that there are other ways to protect your family, such as creating a trust and placing the property inside it.

She took the opportunity to mention another benefit many people do not know about: if the house is your primary residence, you can apply to the county for the homestead exemption, which reduces the amount on which property taxes are calculated. As she explained, the process is simple and the main requirement is living in the house.

The hosts talked about the concern many mothers have about what would happen to their children and their home if they were gone. Ani was clear about the importance of a will or a trust.

You have to make things clear, because here, things that aren’t in writing don’t exist.

She explained that in our countries, when the mother is gone, “the aunt takes over, the grandmother takes over,” but that in the United States, if you did not put in writing what would happen to your children, the decision is left in the hands of the authorities. That is why she considers it essential for mothers to establish who will take care of their children and who will manage their assets. She noted that a trust can include very specific instructions; she even had a client who put in writing that she did not want certain members of her family to come near. The hosts gave another example: leaving the children with their father, but putting a relative with financial knowledge in charge of managing their investments. Ani agreed: whoever manages a trust is not the owner and cannot do whatever they want, they have to follow what you left in writing.

Next, the hosts opened a long conversation about divorce, alimony and child support. Since these are legal matters that depend on each state and each case, that part is not covered in detail in this summary.

Where to find Ani, and her “taboo”

At the end, the hosts joked that Ani is not just a financial advisor but a “life” advisor, and asked how listeners can contact her. Ani said the firm can be found on all social media as Ani Miller Services, and that her office is in Cooper City, Florida, in a space of their own that they bought after having been in Doral.

To close, they asked what her biggest taboo is. Ani said she hardly has any, because she communicates a lot and says what she thinks, although she admitted with a smile that she is keeping something personal she is not ready to share yet.

The conversation leaves a practical, no-nonsense guide for the Latino community: report all your income, know which expenses are deductible and which are not, choose the loan for your first home carefully, protect your children with tools like the IRS PIN and a will or a trust, and, above all, rely on well-prepared professionals who have already traveled the road.

Video: Los Hispanos Unidos, Without Tabú podcast.

This article is an English translation of the original Spanish version. Quotes have been translated from Spanish. Leer en español.