Married physicians, S corporation

Mark and Mat, you guys are legends. Thanks for looking at our situation.

My wife and I are physicians in southern California. We opened an S corp primarily for my wife’s work. We have a 2-year-old baby.

Her:
Independent contract physician with multiple hospitals and also work from home.
Drives her personal car exclusively for work (have a family car for personal stuff)
Estimated yearly salary: 350k.

Me:
W2 worker, 240k/year, full benefits (medical/dental/401k/malpractice insurance)
Have ability to do independent contract work on weekends if I so choose.

Other info:
combined med school loans ~ 400k
Renting home: 4k/month
Savings: 80K cash; Roth IRA: 200k; Brokerage: 90K.

Our life goals:

  1. Maximize free time while in our income earning years
  2. Own rentals or other cash flow business
  3. Retire as early as financially possible
  4. Employ my daughter as early as possible

Questions:

  1. If you were us, how would you set yourself up (guessing it’s The Trifecta?)
  2. Is there any benefit for me being a W2d employee of the S-corp? If I do my own contract work under the name of our S-corp, do I NEED to be a W2’d employee? If I do no contract work, is there any benefit to still being an employee?

Many thanks to both of you.

I WANTED to answer this on the show…but quickly realized this is a BIG question and lots of. planning issues that need to be considered AND it would consume the whole show. PLEASE PLEASE set up a consultation with one of our tax lawyers. You would LOVE it!! They will answer these questions AND MORE! 435-586-9366. www.kkoslawyers.com. Thanks. Mark and Mat