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A lot of people treat writing off expenses like it’s a financial life hack. The logic goes: if you can write it off, then it’s basically free, right? Not quite, according to personal finance expert Dave Ramsey.

Lauren from Toronto called into “The Ramsey Show” recently to ask a question plenty of business owners wrestle with: should you buy or lease a car if you can write off the lease as a business expense? Her husband thought leasing was the smarter move. Lauren wasn’t so sure.

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“I’m trying to decide whether to buy or lease a car,” Lauren said. “My husband leases his car. I currently own mine, so I’m used to not having monthly car payments. My husband thinks I should lease because we can write it off through our business. I would prefer to buy.”

Ramsey came out swinging.

“Your husband’s so wrong. It’s unbelievable how wrong he is,” he said. “He’s not just a little bit wrong, he’s like really wrong.”

Ramsey broke it down: in Canada, Lauren and her husband pay about 45% in taxes. If they write off a 10,000 Canadian dollars ($7,100) lease payment, they reduce their taxable income by CA$10,000. But the savings only amount to CA$4,500 in taxes.

“You’ve traded a dollar for 45 cents,” he said. “That’s a bad trade.”

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Ramsey added, “Wise people do not spend money on their business and trade a dollar for 45 cents and call it sophisticated.”

Even the argument that leasing keeps the car under warranty didn’t hold water. Ramsey pointed out that new cars lose 60% to 70% of their value in the first four years.

“This is just dumb, dumb, dumb,” he said. “It’s rationalization cuz he likes the car. Don’t do it.”

According to Ramsey, the idea of writing off a lease is usually just rationalizing a desire to have a nicer car. “He just wanted to buy the car, and he tried to figure out some way to posture and act like it’s smart,” Ramsey said of Lauren’s husband. “By the time you get through doing the math, you look not only not smart, you look just plain dumb.”

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Lauren admitted she simply didn’t like the idea of taking on debt for something that felt unnecessary. Ramsey praised her instincts. “You didn’t even know the math,” he told her. “You just had a bad feeling about it.”