Southern Indiana Business March-April 2020 | Page 35

3
Jaison Ray
Tax preparer by day, public
speaker by invitation
From mid-January to mid-April,
Jaison Ray is up to here in taxes,
preparing returns for clients from
around the country. But deadlines are
deadlines, and once Tax Day is past,
he turns his attention to other streams
of income.
“You might say that I side hustle
full time,” said Ray, who guest lec-
tures at area universities and orga-
nizations on topics like finance and
effective communication. He also runs
a nonprofit that teaches essential life
skills to young men who are without a
solid male role model.
Ray, of Jeffersonville, has built
his career via untraditional paths
ever since a legal situation in college
left him with a felony record and no
chance of working anywhere that
required a background check. But
while many of those traditional doors
were closed for him, he did have a
degree in economics and a mind for
numbers.
“I had to get creative,” said Ray,
who spent several years of his life in
Europe as an Army brat. “Dad worked
for the IRS after the Army, he was a
revenue officer,’ Ray said. There was
always a tax code book in their house-
hold and he learned to do taxes on
paper during a freshman year civics
class. “The IRS didn’t court the fear
in my mind that it did most people.”
he said “It was how my dad bought
my bike.”
With that realization and the under-
standing that he’d never be able to
work for a Fortune 500, he studied
the tax code, gained experience and is
now a successful tax preparer for his
cousin’s company. Having a job that
lets him earn his primary income for
the year in just a few months gives
him the rest of the year to focus on
his side hustles — teaching effective
communication techniques to college
theater students and financial literacy
to both students and adults. “I speak
finance fluently, but I don’t like it,” he
said. “I use plain English to teach peo-
ple to handle finances on their own.”
Ray said that without a doubt, the
best thing about hustling is the time
freedom it affords. “By and large I
don’t get up, I wake up. Semantics
maybe, but you sleep a little sounder
when you know that when you wake
up it’s all right.”
“I speak finance fluently, but I don’t like it. I
use plain English to teach people to handle
finances on their own.”
— Jaison Ray
March / April 2020
35