A Blueprint For Zero Tax

TRANSCRIPT

Mike Pine: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Hidden Money Podcast. Where we are kicking off Season 2 today, Kevin. Season 2.

Kevin Schneider: Season 2, we made it. At least, through one season.

Mike Pine: Yes, so far. Maybe there'll be a Season 3, but we're going to do it a little differently What are we thinking, Kevin?

Kevin Schneider: We had such a good time with Season 1. Season 1 was a lot of guest interviews. We're trying to get a high level idea of some unique tax strategies out there in the marketplace, and then try to connect people who found those strategies interesting. Who do you go to, to implement it? So, we're trying to build that network here to where we can have the best experts in these particular fields, and bring them all together on one podcast. So, Season 1 was really fun having those interviews.

In Season 2, what we're looking at is getting a little bit more practical, a little bit more in the mud with things. So, giving some more boots on the ground advice, instead of just these theological discussions of tax code, which are great because I think you need that good foundation, but everyone who's probably [00:01:00] listening

go- how does this help me? How does it practically help me? So, we want to be able to get some listener feedback, listener questions. We can even feel those on air and we can go through your questions here, but also we'll go through some client testimonials. We're going to go through some real world client examples of these strategies, how they've impacted people's lives, and so, Season 2 is going to be really fun and we're looking forward to it.

Mike Pine: Yeah, I'm very excited about that.

Kevin Schneider: Mike, to kick off Season 2, I always love that you have a story to tell about our corrupt government. Now, not everything's corrupt, but from our vantage point, when you're looking at money, when you're dealing with money in the government, not a lot of people have a lot of, butterflies in their stomach of good, warm fuzzies.

So, the government, in the IRS treasury department, all came from something- all these decisions, being in 2023 this didn't just come up overnight. This was a long [00:02:00] process throughout our country's history. So, can you walk us through a little bit of what you see, because understanding the history, can understand a lot of why the tax code is what it is today.

Do you got any insights on that for us?

Mike Pine: Yeah, that's a good point. I think it was General Santayana said those who refuse to learn history are condemned to repeat it. So, I love history. I can't say I actually love the history of tax in our country, but I like where it's going. I like where we're helping people go with it.

Income tax in our country, the whole reason we have it is because we were deceived by our government.

We were deceived by Congress. Originally, in our constitution that was ratified in 1789, it explicitly stated that Congress, the government, had no right to levy in taxes on anyone's income. It was unconstitutional. Our founding forefathers thought that was a bad idea, so they wrote it in the Constitution.

It is not legal. You can't do it. Well, that didn't stop the government. I mean, when [00:03:00] does the government actually follow the laws that we have to follow? So, actually, during the Civil War, before there was a constitutional amendment, the government assessed an income tax. I think it was 3% on anything over $800, which $800 back in those days was serious money, So, it was only the richest people,

and they assessed it, got through the Civil War with it, and eventually, they tried to change some things, tried to increase it, and the Supreme Court said- Hey, you guys are forgetting the Constitution! Occasionally, our Supreme Court does that... and they said that the Constitution doesn't allow you to levy income tax.

You can't do it, even if you're calling it an excise tax. If it's based on income, you can't do it.

So, around 1909, Congress came together and said- We really need more money in the federal government. And don't get me wrong, I think we should have a well funded, but efficient and effective federal government,

but they said- Hey, we need to raise more money. Let's do a constitutional amendment and get it ratified by the states. It says we can levy taxes on income, but we're only going to levy it on the richest [00:04:00] people in the country- on the top 1%, and they're only going to pay 1% in tax, and that's how it was sold to the country.

The conservatives in those days said- That's never going to pass. We are not going to allow it to happen, but here's the best way to do it politically. Let's go ahead and push it out to the states for ratification, and it won't pass. You have to get three quarters of the states to ratify it. That's never going to happen.

Well, they were wrong. Conservatives were wrong plenty of times, and they were wrong then, and certainly, it passed. I think it was in 1913, the beginning of 1913, it got passed, and suddenly the government was allowed to levy taxes on people's income, but it was only 1%, and it was only for the really uber-wealthy people, that lasted all of about a few years.

Then, it got up to 4%, up to 5%- 5% of the public was paying tax.. 10%.. Fast forward to- actually not today yet, go back to the seventies, late seventies- we had taxes over 90% of people's income. Over 90%! Granted, it was for the more wealthier people, but 90%... [00:05:00] we were asking business owners or entrepreneurs, go start a business, work your tail off, take all the risk,

and if you happen to hit it out of the park, we want 90+% of what you're making, and that's going to go to our federal coffers. Thankfully, that's changed some. We had the Reagan 1986 code, which all of current taxes is based on, that came out and was passed in '86, and lowered taxes down to 39% for the uber-wealthy. We had a graduated income tax rate, and then today, we have taxes where they are. They're going to go up, they're going to go down.

So, that's the history- we were truly deceived, and generally, that's the case.

If you look at how most people pay their taxes, Kevin, most people have a job, they get a W2, they don't think they're paying taxes because the government forces employers to withhold their federal income tax from their paycheck.

So, they never see it, and it goes to the IRS, and then I used to watch these men in the street interviews, and they went around in big cities like [00:06:00] Chicago and New York, and interviewed people on tax day, 'Hey, how much money did you pay in taxes?' and almost every single respondent said, 'I didn't pay anything.

I got money back. I got a refund.' That's deceit. That is deception in the highest order. They paid a ton in taxes. They got some of it back because they overpaid or got overwithhold, and the government designs it that way. Most people don't think they're paying taxes. Who's going to care if you raise taxes on the 'rich'?

So, that's where we are today, and yes, I don't like tax. The fact that Government has lied to us over and over again, or deceived us over and over again, to get more and more money. Some of it is used for really good things; so much of it is wasted on pet projects of government politicians. Some it's wasted by giving kickbacks to other wealthy businesses,

and then in today's world, the people who pay the least taxes tend to be the really uber-wealthy people that can afford tens of millions of dollars a year to pay [00:07:00] attorneys- tax attorneys, and design all these incredible processes. And that's what you and I do at our firm, Kevin, as we look at the tax law. The tax court precedents have been created by usually big companies like Google (which we'll talk about later this season), who pay very little taxes because they spent tens of million, if not hundreds of millions of dollars- just like Facebook and Meta- hundreds of millions of dollars they've spent, to figure out ways out of paying taxes.

Well, we figure out how can we take those awesome, highly expensive tax strategies and apply them to the normal person, to you and me, and the normal people out there. It's going to be a fun season.

Kevin Schneider: Yeah, it's very rare that we get a billionaire client. I don't think I've ever had one, but it's cool to ride on the coattails of those who have paved the way So, the Googles and the Metas of the world, who pay more in attorneys fees than I'll ever see in my lifetime per year- we know what they're doing.

We know the tax strategies they're [00:08:00] implementing, and now their situation is always unique because they're in tech or they're publicly traded.

So, there's a little bit more differences in those companies to our individual clients, but the overall tax strategy is pretty much laid out. It could be there. It's all public information. The financials, everything on these publicly traded companies is out there. You can go pull (and we were just doing that before this podcast)-

What was the net income of Meta? How much tax did they pay on that net income? And it's shocking. It's shocking. Now, they're still paying billions of dollars in tax, but you've got to also see the billions of dollars that they're receiving in net income, well above that.

So, these strategies they're implementing, we're going to get into that later this season, but yeah, it's our passion, and we really want to take these examples and strategies and share them-

it's education.

Knowledge is power. That's why Mike starting off a little history lesson, I always love it, because it gives you a good foundation of [00:09:00] What's the purpose? What are we doing? Like you said, I like having a military in my country- love it. If we didn't have a good military in the United States of America, it would not feel the same, like the stuff happening in Russia, and all this kind of stuff.

You would be more edge on your seat, but I have confidence in our military. Now, not everyone may agree with that, but I do sleep well at night knowing that our borders are relatively going to be safe- not a lot of invasions happen here. We got good technology. We got good defense systems. That stuff needs to be paid for.

And that's a good and right thing to protect your country, and it's a good right thing for money to go there, but where you were going is- Where's the other money going, that's not being used wisely? And I'm not even saying all the military funding is going 100% efficient.

There's no way. There's no way, and there's way too much to unpack there, but money going to that branch is not being utilized to its best.

Now, you are in control of [00:10:00] your money.

You as a husband, as a father, as a mom, as a wife, as a single adult, whoever you are, you are in control of you.

You can't necessarily control what the government does. You can control how much money you pay in tax to them to allow them to steward on your behalf. So, the plan is going to be- How do we keep that money in your pocket? Then you invest, and do what you are passionate about, what you want to invest in, and you steward your money. You do your part, and that's going to grow the economy, and it is good for the country for you to save on tax, and move a small business forward, move the local economy forward that helps the country. So, that's what we're passionate about, and being in fall season right now, we're in August, and right now, a lot of CPAs are just in prep mode.

The deadline's coming up in September and October, all of our late filers, all of our extended clients, the deadline is coming, but these tend to be your more complex clients too, because they have to extend. They're in these other [00:11:00] investments. They got a lot of stuff going on, a lot of moving parts in their tax situation.

So, these are the taxpayers that, typically, are a little bit more complex, and you get to see some really cool things. I just came across a tax return- I think it was about two weeks ago, a client was making a really good size W2- $700,000 W2- bought a short term rental for $1.5 million,

and you can't make these numbers up, but

$1.5 million - she put 10% on it. She put $150,000 down on her first short term rental property on a $700,000 income.

Know what her refund was? $149,085. She almost got exactly, almost to a $1,000 short of her down payment- the government refunding her withholding on her rental property. Now, she has $150,000 in her pocket. The next [00:12:00] conversation that I had with her was - Now what? You got $150,000 back from the government, you got a rental property, you got your down payment back. Now, more than likely, that's not going to happen on property 2, they're going to require 20-25% down,

but, you're well on your way. So, now the question is, how do I bridge the gap? She wanted another property that size because she basically eliminated all of her income tax with one property. That's cash flowing, by the way, and going to grow in equity. So, now the question is, she had $150,000 in her pocket, but to get the same property, now she needs $300,000. It raised a problem.

Mike Pine: Yeah?

Kevin Schneider: So, brought in Stephanie Riley. Stephanie Riley, we had in Season 1, go check her out- smart as a whip. Love working with her. Because we looked at this client's situation, she had equity in her primary home, she had retirement accounts, brokerage accounts. She had inheritance money.

She had so many ways to pull funds from. So, what's the best answer? Do you take money out of your retirement account? No, [00:13:00] probably not. I have some clients where it could make sense depending on your situation, but more than likely, No. In her situation, it wouldn't work. So, we try to look under the hood and say, 'What's the best way to finance my next deal, given the current market with interest rates, given my current cash situation, given my current balances and my mutual funds and my brokerage account, do I want to liquidate any of this?'

So, that was a good hour, two hours of hard brainstorming that we had with Stephanie. We came up with the perfect solution, and it was just taking out a HELOC on her primary home. After all said and done, I think that was the first answer I thought of- that was the right one, and running the numbers and working through it with some other people in the industry, that ended up being, probably, the best way to access money for her next project.

And she's going to, likely, receive $150,000 next year, but she's now leveraging more debt. So, that's the kind of stuff that we're seeing, and real world- this is happening out there, and it gets me pumped up.[00:14:00]

Mike Pine: That is exciting. How can you not get pumped up?

So basically, this person who's going to pay a lot in tax, and again, you should pay every dollar you're legally obligated to pay, maybe not a penny more- that's between you and your own conscience, but... A person didn't have a rental property, didn't have anything except their normal IRAs and 401(k)s, and taxpayers,

and by working with you, working with someone who understands the law, and explains the Internal Revenue Code, and the case law and the regulations to the client, this person went and got a really nice cash-flowing business asset that's going to be growing in value, and continuing to cash-flow in the future, Lord willing.

The IRS basically paid for it- all, but $100, in this case, right?

Kevin Schneider: $1,000. Yeah. $149,000 refund, and she put $150,000 down. I was like- I almost got you there! I was so close.

Mike Pine: That's amazing. But let's talk about this philosophically for a second.

If I wanted to argue from the devil's advocacy's side, the IRS, [00:15:00] our country needs money. They got a big debt problem. They need money. If she would have paid that $150,000 in taxes and not gotten a refund, where would that money have gone?

Tell you about that for a second, but now, that she got it and did get the taxes back, where did it go? It went to buy an investment property. That's going to make her more independently wealthy. She's not going to need to be a dole on the government in the future. As a short term rental,

it's paying for maid service, cleaning service, landscaping service- that's giving people jobs. It's giving people a place to stay where they want to go. Granted, I doubt I can afford to stay in a $1.5 million Airbnb, but a lot of other people are. It is growing the economy. There are ways that the government can spend money and grow the economy, but they don't do it very often.

Occasionally, like we saw, like it or not, Roosevelt, in the '30s, he had some great programs that put people back to work, and it did stimulate the economy very slowly, and it, ultimately, took a world war to get us out of the depression, but it stimulated the economy. [00:16:00] With the military- that is stimulating the economy and giving us defense.

But where does most of the money go that the government collects? The government collects today twice as much as they collected about 10-15 years ago. Yet, we're not seeing twice as much benefit from what they're spending, and we're seeing a bigger deficit. They're going greater into debt, even though they're collecting twice as much more, than they were 10, 15 years ago.

So, philosophically again. I love this country. We should be good citizens of this country. God teaches us to be good stewards of anything we've been blessed with, and we've been blessed with citizenship and an amazing nation. We should be good stewards of this country. What is better for the economy?

What is better for our nation's security? Give money to government that's going to get spent inefficiently, disappear, most likely, or taking money and using it to grow the economy, like your client just did.

It's a no-brainer to me

Kevin Schneider: Oh, yeah, and then on top of that, I'm 39, I've [00:17:00] been hearing for 15 years Social Security's going away. I've been paying in that system since I was 15. Now, when I was 15, working at a concession stand at a city park, they weren't big chunks going into Social Security, but still I've been paying taxes for way more,

and even if I'd logged into my social security account, I'd be shocking odd if I can get that money that I've paid in Social Security tax. If I can get that back today, invest it, I could have so, so much more than just sitting on it, waiting for the government to cut my check when I'm 70, or whenever I decide to pull that Social Security trigger... if it's even there.

Mike Pine: That is a perfect example of the deception and the waste. So, the whole Social Security Act was supposed to take money and put it in a trust, so it would grow. Some of it was to pay current retirees, the new retirees, when the new system came out. The rest of it was supposed to be put in the Social Security Trust, and grow.

Where is it gone? There's nothing in [00:18:00] the Security Trust. The Treasury Department owes the Social Security Trust trillions of dollars. It's gone, and we've been told, 'We're going to pay this so you will never be poor when you retire. You're required to pay Social Security, but don't worry, we're going to cover you.'

Does anyone think, if you have your own means to retire, even reasonably... at least, not starve, in 20 years from now, are we going to see a Social Security check? How are they going to do it? Let's say, raise taxes more and hurt the economy more- just more deception. That's where we have the awesomest job out there.

Maybe not the awesomest, but it's a pretty darn awesome job.

Kevin Schneider: It's pretty awesome for us

Mike Pine: We get to level the playing field. Let's follow the law, but utilize the law- the same law that the big corporations are growing their businesses, growing the economy. Let's use those same laws for normal people to take advantage of it, and keep some of their money, and grow the economy. We're better stewards of our money than the government is of our money

Kevin Schneider: Every tax situation, you want to look at, because you [00:19:00] can save specifically on Social Security, Medicare tax. There's tax planning around that specific bubble, and there's tax planning around income tax. Most everyone just thinks- I'm paying income tax. Everyone's aware of income tax, my ordinary income tax table.

They also are taking out of your paychecks, your half of Social Security and Medicare, and your employer's paying half. There's ways to tax plan around that, and there's ways to tax, especially if you're self employed. If you are self employed, for every dollar you make, you're paying income tax and self employment tax, which is your Social Security FICA, your Medicare.

Tax plan around it. Quit paying it. There's no reason to, unless you want to pay into a system and be disappointed. They adjust it for inflation, I'm assuming. Inflation right now is, who knows, probably 15...

Mike Pine: They say it's only about 3 or 4%. The government would never deceive us, would they ever?

Kevin Schneider: If I go buy a loaf of bread, yeah, I'm sure it's [00:20:00] 3%

Mike Pine: oh

Kevin Schneider: to prior year, sure.

So, just saving on those things, it can make such a big difference in your life. It can make such a huge difference, and that's why as we go forward in Season 2, we're going to be looking at the strategy I laid out with my client there- we're going to lay that out before you.

We already have set the framework in prior podcasts, but we can go through the practicalities of the steps of doing it, and put the whole picture together, and just because you may not make $700,000 as a W2 and can afford a $1.5 million rental property, that doesn't matter. Just shave the numbers down.

The tax savings will get less because your tax bracket, inherently, is going to get less. Someone in the highest tax bracket is going to save more tax because they're paying more tax, so, they're going to save more for every dollar they spend, or every dollar tax break we create. They're going to save more in tax.

Whereas, if you're in the first two, three, four brackets, you can implement these strategies. We just got to look at the ROI on it because like Mike said earlier, Google's dishing out [00:21:00] millions in tax planning fees, tax attorneys, CPAs, because they know if they invest in that, they're going to save a multiple of what they would pay in tax.

And so, that's always the analysis you want to also look at, is when you go to a CPA and you're making, $100,000, $200,000 a year on a W2, that's a strong wage. You are killing it, compared to the national average, the world average- you're way above, but then, if you want to go buy a rental property and you're going to need an engineer, you might need an attorney.

You might need a CPA. There's going to be those costs that you need to put down in order to save the tax, and so, that's why if you're in those first few brackets, you want to manage the cost benefit, but at the end of the day, if you break even with the IRS, and you got into a rental property, I think you're still better off.

Even if you break even with your tax savings, and your CPA, and your engineer, let's say it costs $10,000 to implement a tax strategy, and it saves you $10,000 in tax, on [00:22:00] the surface, is it worth the headache? Is it worth all the education? Is it worth all of the documentation? Is it worth the risks, taking aggressive tax positions on your tax return?

Well, If you're getting into a rental property, and you're saving just as much tax as you were going to pay in attorney, CPA fees, I would say it is worth it. You're coming out ahead- you're getting a rental property, still saving taxes. Now, what I really love is, if we charge clients, $5,000, $7,000, $10,000 for a tax plan and a tax preparation engagement, if I save him $100,000 in tax, it's a no-brainer.

Mike Pine: Yeah.

Kevin Schneider: Now, where you need to consult with is- you might save $15,000 in tax, but it's going to be some work now. Everyone could have a different opinion on that, but I'm always saying, if you can get into in an investment and grow your wealth, save taxes, the only person that's losing is the IRS. That's the only one I win as a CPA. We win, you win [00:23:00] as a client, and then, who loses? The IRS, which makes everyone happy, I would think.

Mike Pine: I would argue the IRS isn't losing over time. Maybe they would argue, 'We're losing out right now, but by helping people build future sustainable wealth, they're going to pay more in taxes.' So, the IRS could take a person's $50,000 annual tax payment now, and that person never grows more, and pays $50,000 a year, or they could refund it, and that person could grow, and in five years, be paying %150,000 a year in tax.

Everyone's better off, including the IRS, in my opinion on that, but I doubt we'd find many IRS agents that would agree with that statement.

I pulled up this table when we first started this podcast- it's a story on americanprogress.org. Stories that these nineteen Fortune 100 companies paid next to nothing, or nothing at all in taxes in 2021.

I haven't fact checked this data detail, but I know it's relatively right, and [00:24:00] I suspect it's accurate. One of them, AT&T, for 2021, had $29.6 billion in net profit. Guess how much tax they pay, Kevin?

Kevin Schneider: On.. Oh gosh, I would assume, at least 10% would be fair.

Mike Pine: Yeah, I mean, we do have a 21% flat rate tax that we would assume people are paying.. But no! AT&T? They didn't pay anything in tax. As a matter of fact, they got a refund. They got $1.2 billion back, so they had a negative 4% tax rate that year. That's good tax planning that they're doing. If they can do it, why can't we? We're in a country where we're supposed to have equal protection under the law.

Let's utilize it. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to demonize AT&T, or Google, or Facebook. They create jobs. They create innovation. I think the world is a much better world today, thanks to Google. There's a lot of stuff we can do that we couldn't have done without Google. [00:25:00] They're not paying much in tax, but they're growing the economy,

and I'm just saying, let's all do the same thing. Let's grow the economy. Let's not leave it up to the government. Let's be good citizens, and grow our economy together.

Kevin Schneider: that leads into a little sneak peek at what we have coming up in a future episode, and Season 2 is we're going to have someone called Gregory Treat.

Mike Pine: And it will be a treat.

Kevin Schneider: He is a tax attorney who has a creative tax plan that got Mike and I excited, and there's these tax strategies that are being taken from the big corporations, that we're trying to implement to our lower client base, and so, that is going to be one to be on the lookout for. And you can go even as far you utilizing his tax plan, writing off a hobby, writing off personal expenses through your business, legitimately.

Mike Pine: Well, let me rephrase that language. You're not writing off a hobby- what you're doing, is using the precedence [00:26:00] already set to write off ordinary and necessary expenses for your business. They're ordinary and necessary- that's why you get to write them off. If it so happens it's something that you love to do, and other people might call a hobby, as long as you can truly prove and trace that this activity is ordinary and necessary for my business to grow, for my business to do its thing, then it becomes a deductible expense.

And again, that's where this guy Gregory Treat is pretty amazing, and how he's gone and looked at all these other case law, and the strategies that these huge corporations are using, and he says, 'Look, they have proven that's an ordinary, necessary expense, regardless what other people think, that's what the IRS agrees to. So, how can we utilize that for normal people?'

Kevin Schneider: Like, how would you like to write off your kid's tuition through your business?

Mike Pine: That would be cool.

Kevin Schneider: There's ways to do that.

Mike Pine: Maybe not for us, unless our kids are CPAs...

Kevin Schneider: My kids are going to be CPAs. [00:27:00] Absolutely! Even if they just happen to graduate with an Accounting degree, then transition into something else... I don't know.

Mike Pine: I'm trying to convince my kids to be golf professionals, and not be CPAs. That's my retirement plan.

Kevin Schneider: Golf is nice.

Mike Pine: I hate golf, but it seems like it's safe, and people make a lot of money- the good ones. So, we'll see.

Kevin Schneider: Being in accounting, and going through college and everything, you always envision partners always doing deals on golf courses and fancy restaurants, and stuff. I never had that experience.

I have been so busy, I have never had the chance to say I am golfing twice a week,

and I'm going to write it off because it's a business. I need it. It's business development, you know... That's a whole different deal, but I've just never had the opportunity to justify six hours a day, a week, to go golf, and I love it too. It's just, being in Texas too, I don't want to die.

Mike Pine: Yeah, although I've seen plenty of CPAs that are still doing that. I think he got hamstrung by [00:28:00] partnering up with a guy who hates golf, so..

Kevin Schneider: Yeah. you love golf, then... You're, kind of, the thorn in my side.

Mike Pine: Let's go do shooting.

Kevin Schneider: You need to have the same hobbies as me.

Mike Pine: We can do trap-shooting, man. You get to ride in a golf cart, except you're carrying a gun and you're shooting things. That's more fun for me. We should go trap-shooting together.

Kevin Schneider: I'll try that if you try golf.

Mike Pine: I can't. I've tried it once, I don't want to try it again, but... it's negotiable.

Kevin Schneider: Alright, deal.

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