Your Paycheck Decoded: Read Any Pay Stub and Master Your Taxes in One Hour

Kevin Cornell is a certified public accountant and financial educator with over fifteen years of experience helping individuals understand the intersection of their paychecks, taxes, and long-term financial planning. He earned his Master of Accounting from the University of Illinois and began his career at a major public accounting firm in Chicago, where he specialized in individual taxation and consulted with clients on payroll structuring, withholding optimization, and tax-efficient compensation strategies.

After a decade in public practice, Kevin transitioned to financial education full-time, driven by a conviction that most Americans receive little to no formal instruction in personal finance and that the resulting knowledge gap costs them thousands of dollars over their working lives. He has taught personal finance courses at community colleges, delivered workshops for corporate human resources departments, and developed curriculum materials used by financial literacy nonprofits across the Midwest. His writing has appeared in personal finance publications and his practical approach to tax education has made him a sought-after speaker at industry conferences and employee education events.

Kevin lives in Naperville, Illinois with his wife and two children. When he is not untangling tax code provisions or explaining the nuances of W-4 forms, he can usually be found coaching youth soccer, attempting ambitious barbecue recipes with varying degrees of success, or hiking the forest preserves of DuPage County. He firmly believes that nobody should need an accounting degree to understand their own paycheck, and he wrote this book to prove it.