Podcasts about Internal Revenue Code

Understand IRC Chapter 14 rules, Sections 2701–2704, and key estate planning strategies to avoid tax pitfalls in family wealth transfers. The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, ACTEC, is a professional society of peer-elected trust and estate lawyers in the United States and around the globe. This series offers professionals best practice advice, insights, and commentary on subjects that affect the profession and clients. Learn more in this podcast.

A houseboat can be a home under the Internal Revenue Code and under Medicaid eligibility rules, but it has no protection under bankruptcy or Texas Medicaid Estate Recovery rules. The various treatment of houseboats under different laws are discussed.

Welcome to EO Radio Show - Your Nonprofit Legal Resource. I'm Cynthia Rowland, and today I'm joined by David Sacarelos, a principal at Baker Tilly. We do a deep dive into the penalties under the Internal Revenue Code sections that apply to insider transactions involving private foundations. Using a recently issued IRS Chief Counsel memorandum, we look at the circumstances of loans by a private foundation that led to significant penalties for indirect self-dealing and jeopardizing investments. Show Notes: Cynthia Rowland, Podcast Host, Partner, Farella Braun + Martel David M. Sacarelos, CPA, CGMA, Principal, Baker Tilly US, LLP Chief Counsel Memo 202504014 IRS Form 4720   EO Radio Show #117: REFRESH Nonprofit Basics: Insider Transactions and Nonprofits Farella YouTube podcast channel Clarifying Notes: (17:06) The $20,000 maximum first-tier tax imposed on foundation managers is not indexed for inflation. (20:59) Per Rev. Ruling 78-76, a private foundation trustee was determined to have participated in a self-dealing transaction both as a disqualified person and as a foundation manager. Consequently, he was found liable for both the tax imposed on self-dealing under IRC Sec. 4941(a) and the tax imposed on foundation managers under IRC Sec. 4941(a)(2). Depending on the facts and circumstances, it is possible to be taxed both as foundation manager and as a disqualified person. If you have suggestions for topics you would like us to discuss, please email us at eoradioshow@fbm.com. Additional episodes can be found at EORadioShowByFarella.com. DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be interpreted as, legal advice or opinion.

In this episode we pick up some more of what Prosperity Gospel is laying down and apply the sniff test. Our conduit into this sewer pit of blasphemy will be the wonderfully named, Creflo Dollar.There are celebrity cameo guest star appearances from West Georgia College, World Dome, Atlanta, Georgia, 501c Tax Exemption Code as per Title 26 under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, Michael Smith, Atlanta White Pages, Urban Dictionary, Empowered for Success, The True Source of your Prosperity and Grace for Financial Stewardship, PayPal, YouTube, Gulfstream G650, Mars, Law Based Prayer versus Grace Based Prayer, The Power of Supernatural Living, Prayer Into Communion, Johnny Cochran, Madison Square Gardens, The Great Misunderstanding, Old Testament, New Testament,   #666 #SketchComedy #Sketch #Comedy #Sketch Comedy #Atheist #Science #History #Atheism #Antitheist #ConspiracyTheory #Conspiracy #Conspiracies #Sceptical #Scepticism #Mythology #Religion #Devil #Satan #Satanism #Satanist #Skeptic #Debunk #Illuminati #Podcast #funny #sketch #skit #comedy #parody #satire #comedyshow #comedyskits #HeavyMetal #weird #leftist #SatanIsMySuperhero Send us a text

Deep cuts to the IRS workforce mean the agency might have to rely more heavily on technology to keep up taxpayer services and enforcement. The IRS is set to lose 20,000 workers after the Trump administration's second deferred resignation offer. That's in addition to thousands who have already left or are on administrative leave. Barry Johnson, former IRS chief data and analytics officer, oversaw the rollout of artificial intelligence at the agency before his retirement in January. When he left, he said the IRS was piloting an AI tool to help employees search the Internal Revenue Code. The agency also used AI to improve taxpayer services, such as with chatbots, and to make enforcement more efficient. But the workforce cuts could hinder that progress, Johnson said. "I'm especially concerned with proposed cuts in what we call the field staff, the folks who process tax returns and conduct audits," he said. "Because to the extent that we lose that subject matter expertise, our ability to train and validate AI applications will be diminished." In this episode of Talking Tax, Johnson talks to Bloomberg Tax reporter Erin Schilling about the challenges of relying on technology with a shrunken staff, how the research division uses taxpayer data while upholding confidentiality, and what it means for the agency when top executives leave. Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Dave McGuire, Co Owner of tax firm McGuire & Sponsel, joins the show to explain how to pay less taxes using a cost segregation study, savvy tax planning, and long term tax strategy. If you are seeking to keep more of your hard earned money and pay less taxes, this episode is for you. Dave McGuire has years of experience helping people implement tax saving strategies that may be unknown to many.Dave McGuire, co-founder of McGuire Sponsel, is a leading expert on cost segregation, fixed assets, and depreciation law. He has reviewed real estate portfolios ranging in size from six-figure acquisition costs to billions of dollars in value and has provided cost segregation services for companies in a wide variety of industries. While serving in consulting and management roles with the Big Four accounting firms, he acquired a thorough understanding of the Internal Revenue Code's depreciation provisions. McGuire is the primary resource for alliance firms in regards to how tax law affects depreciation and is also a trainer for Surgent CPE.McGuire earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Notre Dame with a concentration in structural design.MCSP Homepage: Click Here! Dave's leadership page: Click Here! Let's Talk Tax page: Click Here! ━━━━━━━  Enhance your real estate investing knowledge !Learn more at https://www.peoplescapitalgroup.com/-━━━━━━━  Website - https://www.peoplescapitalgroup.com/Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093318587146Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/real_estate_investments_nj/?hl=enTwitter- https://twitter.com/PCGrealestateLinkedin- https://www.linkedin.com/company/peoples-capital-groupYoutube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCeJh5UgrdBDOabr2YLbAHg------------This is not a solicitation for funds, tax advice, or legal advice. This is not intended to be, and must not be construed to be in any form or manner a solicitation of investment funds or a securities offering. Peoples Capital Group LLC is NOT a United States Securities Dealer or Broker nor U. S. Investment Adviser is a Consultant/service provider and makes no warranties or representations as to the listener or viewer. All due diligence is the responsibility of the investor.Support the show

Welcome to EO Radio Show – Your Nonprofit Legal Resource. I'm Cynthia Rowland, and this is episode 117 of EO Radio Show. This episode is a "refresh" of episode 32, recorded in March 2023. It covers the Internal Revenue Code sections pertinent to business transactions between a nonprofit and its insiders, such as directors, executives, substantial contributors, and entities controlled by them. In the original episode, I also covered a general overview of California laws and reporting requirements that apply when such insider transactions occur. This episode aims to give the listener a solid understanding of what constitutes a problematic insider transaction at a public charity or private foundation. We want listeners to understand the rules that apply to insider financial transactions so that nonprofit directors, trustees, and executives can carefully assess whether a proposed transaction is permissible before it happens and understand the penalties and other adverse consequences to the charitable organizations and their managers and insiders if the transaction is not allowed under the applicable laws. Resources: IRS Resources on Rebuttable Presumption for Compensation IRS Form 4720 and Instructions California Form RRF-1 and Instructions EO Radio Show EP 34: Nonprofit Basics: Best Practices for Approving Insider Compensation Decisions EO Radio Show EP: 33: Nonprofit Basics: Conflict of Interest Policies and Best Practices for Approving Insider Compensation EO Radio Show EP. 22: Loot and Private Foundation Rules - Part 2 EO Radio Show EP. 21: Loot and Private Foundation Rules – Part 1 EO Radio Show EP. 5: Nonprofit Basics: Navigating the Complex Rules That Describe A Public Charity If you have suggestions for topics you would like us to discuss, please email us at eoradioshow@fbm.com. Additional episodes can be found at EORadioShowByFarella.com. DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be interpreted as, legal advice or opinion.

Worried about the penalties of accessing your 401k or IRA funds? Most people don't realize there's a way to grow and compound your retirement savings in a secure, tax-advantaged account—while accessing cash value without penalties. In this episode of Private Banking Strategies Podcast, Vance Lowe and Seth Hicks, Esq., break down the powerful Internal Revenue Code 7702 and … Continue reading Avoid 401k & IRA Penalties: Unlock Tax-Free Growth with IRC 7702 | Episode 111 →

Marcia Wagner is the founder of The Wagner Law Group, one of the nation's largest and most highly regarded law firms specializing in ERISA, employee benefits, and executive compensation, and has practiced employee benefits law for over 38 years. Ms. Wagner is an authority on qualified and non-qualified plans, fiduciary issues, deferred compensation, and welfare benefit arrangements, with experience in plan design and drafting, compliance, tax planning, and consultation on all aspects of ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code. Ms. Wagner also serves as an expert witness in ERISA litigation. Ms. Wagner has recently been appointed to the Board of Directors for the American Benefits Council, as well as a Member to the Board of Governors of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. Ms. Wagner has written hundreds of articles and 27 books. She is a highly sought after lecturer, is widely quoted in financial journals and has been a guest on Fox, CNN, Bloomberg, and NBC.In this episode, Eric and Marcia Wagner discuss:Committing to continually enhancing servicesBest practices that benefit professionals must followAdopting investment policy statements and other governance documentsDoing things with integrity and excellenceKey Takeaways:Providers must continually enhance services to meet evolving industry standards, legal requirements, and client expectations. Benefit professionals should follow best practices, such as documenting processes, monitoring fees, evaluating service providers through RFPs and benchmarking, and thoroughly documenting meeting minutes to demonstrate prudent fiduciary processes.Investment policy statements, although not legally mandated, are considered fiduciary best practices for retirement plans and should be treated as plan documents if adopted.Believe in the industry's support for the middle class and social stability, maintaining humanity, generosity, flexibility, enthusiasm, pursuing excellence and integrity, and embracing the notion that everything will work out in the end.“Remember your humanity, and don't let the bastards get you down because you will encounter people who are good. Have a generous heart and just be as flexible as you can be. Be open to things that are new. Be enthusiastic. Try to do what you do with excellence and integrity.” - Marcia WagnerConnect with Marcia Wagner:Website: https://www.wagnerlawgroup.com/attorney/wagner-marcia-s/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marciawagner Connect with Eric Dyson: Website: https://90northllc.com/Phone: 940-248-4800Email: contact@90northllc.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/401kguy/ The information and content of this podcast is general in nature and is provided solely for educational and informational purposes. It is believed to be accurate and reliable as of the posting date but may be subject to change.It is not intended to provide a specific recommendation for any type of product or service discussed in this presentation or to provide any warranties, investment advice, financial advice, tax, plan design or legal advice (unless otherwise specifically indicated). Please consult your own independent advisor as to any investment, tax, or legal statements made.The specific facts and circumstances of all qualified plans can vary and the information contained in this podcast may or may not apply to your individual circumstances or to your plan or client plan-specific circumstances.

FAIRtax Power Radio welcomes an old friend back to the program and he brings a young person with him who is getting his first experience with the income tax.  Let's say he found his first encounter with the Internal Revenue Code a somewhat less than pleasant experience.

Retirement planning isn't just about saving - it's about strategy. Quick Tax TipWith Art WernerCPE TodayWith tax laws constantly evolving, finding the right balance between financial planning, tax reduction, and compliance with the Internal Revenue Code can feel like a moving target. Fortunately, powerful opportunities are available in 2025 to maximize your retirement savings while minimizing your tax burden.Click here for more Art WernerFor instance, contribution limits to 401(k)s have significantly increased. In 2025, you can contribute up to $23,500; if you're 50 or older, you can add an extra $7,000 in catch-up contributions. That's a major opportunity to secure your financial future while reducing your taxable income today.But should you contribute to a Roth 401(k), a traditional 401(k), or other savings account?

In this episode of the IC-DISC Show, I sit down with Brian Schwam to discuss how Interest Charge Domestic International Sales Corporations (IC-DISCs) can help businesses save on taxes. With over 35 years of experience, Brian shares how IC-DISC has evolved since 1972 and why it remains a valuable tool for U.S. exporters. He explains how businesses, particularly in the aerospace industry's Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) sector, can take advantage of this incentive to improve their financial position. We walk through a hypothetical example to illustrate how an exporting business could benefit from IC-DISC. Brian explains how companies involved in manufacturing, repairing, or trading parts can qualify and why many eligible businesses overlook this opportunity. We also discuss the annual MRO conference in Atlanta, where industry professionals gather to share insights and best practices. This event highlights the ongoing impact of IC-DISC within the aerospace sector and beyond. Despite the clear benefits, many businesses hesitate to implement IC-DISC due to a lack of awareness or expertise. Brian talks about how our firm partners with CPA firms to integrate IC-DISCs into existing tax processes, making it easier for businesses to take advantage of these savings. He also highlights the underutilization of IC-DISC and why more companies should consider it as part of their tax strategy. We wrap up by discussing the upcoming MRO America's Conference in Atlanta, where exporting aviation maintenance companies can connect and learn more about IC-DISC applications. Whether you're new to IC-DISC or looking to refine your approach, this conversation provides useful insights for businesses considering this tax-saving opportunity.     SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I discuss the intricacies and benefits of Interest Charge Domestic International Sales Corporations (IC-DISC) with tax attorney Brian Schwam, who has over 35 years of experience in the field. We explore the historical context of IC-DISC, including its origins in 1972 and the significant changes it underwent following international scrutiny and U.S. tax reforms, such as the 2003 Bush tax cuts and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Brian provides insights into how IC-DISC can serve as a valuable tax incentive for U.S. exporters, particularly those in the aerospace industry's Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) sector. Through a detailed hypothetical example, we illustrate how companies can leverage IC-DISC to maximize export profits, highlighting specific benefits for pass-through entities and closely held C corporations. We address common apprehensions businesses face regarding IC-DISC implementation and discuss how collaboration with CPA firms can facilitate a seamless integration into existing tax processes. Despite the clear benefits, IC-DISC remains underutilized, and we emphasize the potential missed opportunities for businesses not taking advantage of this tax-saving strategy. The episode also covers upcoming industry events, such as the annual MRO conference in Atlanta and the ICDISC Alliance Conference, which offer valuable networking and professional growth opportunities.   Contact Details LinkedIn - Brian Schwam (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-schwam-b6026a3/) LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About WTP Advisors GUEST Brian SchwamAbout Brian TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dave: Hey, brian, welcome to the podcast. Brian: Thanks, dave, good to be here. Dave: So where on planet Earth are you calling in from today? It's hard to tell by looking at your background. Brian: Outer space. I am in the sunny South Florida. Dave: Okay. Brian: Breezy, south Florida, okay. Dave: Now are you a native of Florida. Brian: I am not a native of Florida. I spent 50 years of my life in the upper Midwest in Wisconsin. Okay, I had to move to Sunbelt. Dave: Okay, Now were you educated in the Midwest then too. Brian: I was. I'm a proud alum of the University of Wisconsin, both for an undergraduate degree in accounting and also my JD from the law school Okay. Dave: So you've and I take it and I've known you a while, so I think that's been several decades ago that your career was started. Is that about right? Brian: Several would be a good good approximation. Yes, I've been at this for 38 years. I know it doesn't look like it, right, okay? Dave: And so, and how long have you been involved in ICDISC? Then Most of that time 38 years, oh, 38 years in ICDISC. Then most of that time, 38 years, oh, 38 years in the disc, wow, yeah. So how does that do you know? Do you have any way to quantify that? Like how many you know ICDISC returns you've, you know, signed or reviewed or prepared, or Boy, it's a big number, dave. Brian: It's probably five figures. Okay, probably, so you know, somewhere north of 10,000 for sure. Okay, over that time period. Dave: Well, and that is why I'm glad that you are one of the founding members of the IC Disc Alliance with me that when I had a chance to partner up with you and some of your team when we created the IC Disc Alliance, I was really excited because in my book I pretty much knew all the players in the IC Disc space and once the famous Neil Block retired after 50 years to me you were without peer in the IC Disc space. Brian: So I really enjoyed collaborating with you through the years here in the ICDISC space, so I really enjoyed collaborating with you through the years. Dave: Thank, you for that, Dave. I hope to be able to follow Neil into that 50-year stratosphere. Yeah, that's big shoes to follow. So let's just talk a bit about the ICDISC. What the heck is it? Why does everyone use that silly acronym? Brian: Because what it really stands for is a mouthful. Dave: Okay. Brian: Discharged Domestic International Sales Corporation and that is what the ICDISC stands for, short right ICDISC. And I don't know if we'll get into. I'll get into what the IC stands for and everything. But basically this is an export incentive that's been in the Internal Revenue Code since 1972. Okay, in various forms. Initially it was an export incentive that just about any company could use, that was exporting goods that were manufactured, produced, grown or extracted in the US. It came under some fire from our trading partners and in 1984, it was transformed into the ICDISC. It started out just as the DISC in 1972 for the Boston International Sales Corporation and it, like I said, came under scrutiny. Our trading partners said hey, you're a, you can't have an exemption from income because you're not. You know you tax things differently in your country. This flies in the face of the other incentives you give your taxpayers. So they changed it into the ICDIS, which made it into, instead of a permanent tax savings, at least on its face, into a temporary savings where, to the extent a taxpayer saved tax and deferred income from tax, they were required to pay an interest charge to the IRS on that deferred tax. Hence the IC. Dave: Okay, okay. Brian: That rate changes every year. It's based on the one-year average TBLO rate as of September 30th annually. And at the same time they instituted something called the Foreign Sales Corporation, which was widely used by thousands of companies, and that came under attack and eventually became the extraterritorial income exclusion which was immediately attacked and eventually, a couple of years later, it just went away. In the meantime, the disk floundered for quite a number of years. In fact, in the year 2000 there were only 787 disks in existence. Dave: Wow, it seems like a shockingly small number. Brian: Well, the tax laws weren't real conducive to benefiting from the disk at that time. Then, in 2003, the Bush tax cuts brought in the concept of qualified dividend income and it took the disk off of life support and really put it on robust territory for pass-through entities, because they could now, to the extent that they could qualify and we'll get into that, to the extent they could qualify and to the extent that they could benefit it provided a 20% rate benefit between ordinary income and qualified dividend income, so it was a significant savings. Now that's been whittled away over time, where it's been reduced here and there. Various tax law changes and probably the largest or the next biggest reduction came in in 2017 with the Trump tax bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced the rate on qualified income on non-qualified income. So it reduced the rate on S-corp income partnership income in an individual's tax return to a 29.6% level, and so now the spread between the qualified dividend rate and the ordinary rate just isn't as great as it used to be. It's approaching 6%. So where it used to be 20, then it went to 15, and now it's 6. But it's still a permanent savings for these past three entities and it's not something that they should ignore, because it can save significant taxes, depending upon the level of export activity. Dave: Okay, and now to be clear, depending on a company-specific fact pattern, that spread could be greater. Right For a pass-through. It could be as high as what like? Brian: 13% or so For a pass-through it could be as high as what like, 13% or so For a pass-through business. Dave: It could be as high as 13.2%, okay, but in general we see that it and it could even be somewhere between that, depending on. Brian: Anywhere in between 5.8 and 13.2. Dave: And our experience has been that most companies tend to gravitate more toward the lower end of the savings than the higher end. Brian: Yes. Dave: Yes, okay. Now what about for a C-Corp? Brian: C-Corp is a different animal. Okay, a C-Corp can't use an disc to pay deductible dividends to its owners if it's a closely held C corp. This is not something that a public company can benefit from. But if a closely held business C corp is paying dividends to its shareholders and would like to be able to deduct those payments, rather than not being able to deduct those payments, using an ICDIS can transform the dividend into a deductible dividend. Now, it doesn't save the shareholders any tax, because they're paying tax on the dividend regardless of where it comes from, but it would eliminate the corporate level tax on the C corporation, so that benefit could be as high as 21%. Dave: Okay. Brian: Okay, another manner in which certain C corporations use the disc is to fund bonuses for shareholders and key employees, and then that saves the shareholders 17% tax the difference between a tax on a wage and a tax on a dividend, qualified dividend. So that's a 17% savings for the shareholder. In that case the C-Corp doesn't save any tax. They're getting a deduction either way wages or commission to the disk. And now that I've mentioned the word commission, that's probably a good segue into how does a disk earn income? Yeah, and what is its income? So most discs are what we call commission discs. They earn a commission when a operating business that's related to that disc makes an export sale of qualified export property. So let's dig down into that first. What's qualified export property? Well, that's property that has been manufactured, produced, grown or extracted in the US. So if I'm manufacturing in Mexico or Canada or China and I'm simply selling what I've made in those other countries, you know the disc is not something that's going to benefit that type of a business. Dave: Okay. Brian: It is there to spur US manufacturing, create US jobs, right in line with the America First proposition that's headlining Washington in 2025. Dave: Okay. Brian: So it should be on safe ground, everything that's going on there. So if a company has property that's been manufactured, produced, grown or extracted in the US and they sell it for export outside the United States and not to a US possession, then that sale can potentially generate an ICDIS commission that would be paid to the ICDIS. And keep in mind this ICDISC is not an entity that the outside world sees or understands or knows about. It's simply an entity that does business, if you will, internally with the operating company, so customers don't know about it. It's really transparent to the world. It's just there to help US exporters save tax. Dave: Okay, it's just there to help US exporters save tax. Okay, and the logistics of it. Like say a company has just for simple math, let's say they have $10 million of export, of qualified export revenue, and the ICDIS commission that's calculated to say 10% of that. Brian: Okay. Dave: So 10% of that would be a million dollars, and so walk me through kind of the that's correct and it accrues the deduction, assuming it's not a cash basis taxpayer. Brian: It accrues that deduction at the end of the year, the DISC accrues the income at the end of the year and then by statute the DISC does not pay income tax. So now we've gotten a deduction on one side, we have non-taxable income on the other side and then when the disc pays a dividend to its owners, that becomes a qualified dividend and is taxed at a lower rate. Dave: Okay, so then, effectively, that million dollars gets reclassified from being taxed at ordinary dividend rates to qualified dividend rates. Brian: From ordinary income rates to qualified dividend rates. Dave: yes, Yep, thank you for that. And where that shows up for a pass-through is going to be on the individual shareholders, k-1, right. That box up near the top that shows ordinary taxable income would basically go down. Let's say there was one shareholder, that number goes down by a million dollars. And then there's a box further down on the K-1 for qualified dividend income and that's where the number's being shifted to right. Brian: Right. Assuming the disc is owned by the operating company, which most of the time it is in the pass-through business context, then the ordinary income gets reduced on the K-1 and the dividend income will increase on the K-1, not necessarily in the same year, but that will be the result over time. Dave: And then that tax savings then will show up on the individual shareholders. 1040, right, because their ordinary income line is a million dollars less. The qualified dividend income line is a million dollars more, and that's where that arbitrage. Brian: They pay less tax if they're getting a distribution from the company to cover their taxes, which is often the case, the company doesn't have to distribute as much cash, therefore increasing the working capital of the business. Dave: Okay, well, thank you. Thank you for that. Now, what I want to drill down into a little more today is looking at the aerospace industry, specifically what's called the MRO space in aerospace. Do you know what MRO stands for? Brian: I believe, I do, I believe maintenance, repair and overhaul. Dave: That's my understanding as well. Brian: That's a significant area in the aviation space. Dave: yes, Okay, and I believe that there's a big conference in Atlanta in April with like something like 17,000 expected attendees. Brian: Yeah, just a small gathering. Dave: A small gathering. Brian: For sure. Yes, that's my understanding as well. In fact, I'll be there. Dave: Yeah, I believe we'll both be there, yeah we'll both be there A few of our colleagues. Brian: Yeah, so it's a one a year significant gathering of companies that operate in this MRO space, supporting airlines and other aviation companies, and basically MRO is important because it keeps planes able to fly. Yeah, and we actually have a booth there. Dave: Yeah, and we actually have a booth there. 1818 BC and it makes it sound like it's a date from a long time ago. But yeah, we'll be there and this will be our first year in attendance or exhibiting. And this has come from, in recent years, I'd say, a big ramp up in the number of MRO companies who we are helping with their IC disk. Is that right? Brian: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, one of the sponsors of the conference was a company I was doing some work with and I asked them if he thought it would be a good idea for us to attend, and it was a resounding absolutely that he thought that we could meet a lot of companies that could benefit from this ICDISC similar to his company. Dave: Okay. What are the elements in the MRO space or the characteristics of the companies that make them a good fit for the ICDISC, because my understanding is it's probably only one out of a hundred of like all the registered corporations in the US are really a fit for the disc. Brian: Yeah, so it takes a specific fact pattern to really benefit. So the companies in the service side of the business so let's say they're carpet cleaners or something to that nature they're not going to be able to benefit from the disk. But let's say it's a repair center and airlines will ship in parts to the repair center because they've worn out and they need it. They need a replacement part so that they can fly this plane. So what happens is maybe the repair center takes their part and repairs it, but they previously repaired another part that's identical and then to the customer and that plane gets back in the air right away. So in that scenario, even though it's a different part that's going back out versus what was coming in, that type of activity qualifies as long as what they're doing qualifies as manufacturing and that repair is occurring in the US. Dave: Okay. Brian: Then that type of a company could definitely benefit Other companies. I don't want to use this term, but it's kind of like horse trading. Sometimes companies will buy a surplus of parts, knowing that eventually they're going to be used by somebody and they hang on to these parts, or they find them from somebody who says I don't want these parts anymore, I haven't been able to sell them. So they take a flyer, they take a risk and they buy these parts and they hang on to them and maybe they sell them at a significant profit and maybe they don't. But there's that space as well that can benefit from the disc, and there's some misconception out there that some of the companies that are similar to what I just described can't benefit from a disc, and so, for example, if parts are obtained outside the US, they stay outside the US. They stay outside the US and they're repaired, recertified and resold. Those aren't going to qualify for the ICBITS. But sometimes parts are acquired outside the US and they're brought into the US, they're repaired, put it back into inventory in the US and then sold for export, and that activity does qualify for the ICs, and so it's very important to know where this refurbishment or remanufacturing is taking place. Dave: Okay and yeah, and there's a US content piece to it, right, like if they buy a part from China and all they do is they just put a little lubricant on it and throw it in a box. Brian: that may not qualify and then they export it. The test is what's the customer's value when that part comes into the US. So if it's a burned out hot engine part, for example, yeah there's no value or very little value and it comes into the US, its customers value is close to zero. It gets repaired, it's going to easily meet the content test and it's easily going to be considered manufactured in the US. It's rare, I think, that we'll find that somebody will buy a new part from outside the US just to inventory it here for export. Dave: Okay, yeah, because there's that it's a 50% US content test, right which? Is also, I think confusing on the surface if you don't really dive down into the rules, right, I mean, the layperson may find it. Brian: How do you know what's 50% US content? Well, the cost of good, I mean. Think of it the other way. The foreign content can't be more than 50%. And the foreign content is the cost, the customs value when it was imported. So if I'm selling something for $100, I imported it for as much as $49.99. That's going to qualify as long as I did something, you know, remanufactured it once it got to the US and once it got to the plus, more often than not, I think the value of those things coming in because they're used and worn and damaged parts, they're going to have a low customs valuation where there'll be no problem meeting that content. Dave: Okay, I can see that. Well, I find and my listeners tell me they really like kind of case studies, little mini of case studies, little mini, you know, client case studies On an anonymous basis. Do you have an example or two of some of the types of companies we've worked with, just to give people a flavor of them and, again, you know, being anonymous to you know? What company it is, but just a sense of like the sense of the size of the company, what the benefit might have been. Brian: The size is sort of across the board, right. So some of them are someone on the smaller side. They might have export sales between $5 and $10 million, and then some of them might have export sales of $100 million. It all depends on the size of their business and the benefits are kind of all over the map. Because we don't just do a simple calculation of the benefits. And the reason we don't is because in this industry what we find is there's a lot of margin variability in the companies that are exporting, and then a transaction-by-transaction analysis of the disk commission is what makes the most sense. That allows us to benefit from the margin variability, allows them to benefit from a higher disk commission and obviously then they're going to save more tax. And in some cases the commission grows by 10x by using the T by T. Sometimes it's two or three x, sometimes it's. You know, I've seen you know where it would have been zero because there was an overall loss in the company, but we were able to get a significant discommission with a T by T approach. So it's hard to pinpoint an exact number, but generally speaking it's 15 to 20, you know the commission ends up being 15 to 20% of sales. And if you look at the statutes, one of the statutes says oh, the commission can be 4% of sales, and another implies that it could be anywhere from 4% to 10%, but we generally see in this industry at least 15% on average. It's significantly higher. Dave: Yeah, and I'd like to drill down into that because I tell, and based on my understanding, we may manage more IC disks than any other organization of the country. I mean we I think our number is somewhere north of 500 companies now that we're helping out, and when I'm having these conversations, you know. So I'm, as you know, I'm more focused on the sales side. You know, and you and your team are more focused kind of on the technical aspect of producing these returns, and what I tell people is that our real value isn't being able to produce an IC disk return. Our value is the incremental benefit that the transaction by transaction calculation yields. That the transaction by transaction calculation yields. Because you know just about any any cpa firm you know most of them their software includes the ic disk return. You know, if they just go do a four percent calculation, it's a, you know, reasonably straightforward calculation. But we find that you know they're capturing only a fraction of the total benefit. Brian: That's true, and while I've seen a good number of interesting looking disc returns, I tend to agree that if you follow the directions, anybody can probably prepare a disc return. We do that as well. That's not where we add the most value. Where we add the most value, adding the value comes in unlocking the highest commission possible so that the tax savings are as great as possible. Yeah, and a lot of businesses that are high margin I'm sorry, low margin high volume businesses. When you look at the disc, on its face it looks like oh, there's not much benefit here, we're only making 2% or 3% of sales on our bottom line. So our disc commission would be 2% or 3% of sales. But, like I said, with the transactional approach, if the commission approach is 15%, well now we've taken the company into a tax loss which could potentially save additional taxes for the owners over and above that 5.8%, because now we're offsetting that loss against other income wages, interest, et cetera and being taxed just on the qualified dividend income of the disc. And so you can't just look at the overall margin or overall profitability of the company and project what that, what it's going to look like, Because they vary all over the place. Dave: Based on this transactional approach, yeah, and I would like to talk a bit about. Oftentimes, when I'm talking to a company that's considering a disk, oftentimes they've never even heard of it. Their CPA firm may not have even mentioned the idea. And they'll say, and they'll ask me hey, does this mean my CPA, you know, screwed up by not telling me about it. In my response, you know I try to be generous and I explain it that, look, you know, in our experience only about one out of 100 companies are a candidate. And so let's just say you have a large local CPA firm and they have 100, you know midsize corporate clients. Statistically we find that only one of them, you know, would be a fit for the disk. And your experience may be a little different, you know, feel free to correct me. And so when you think about it from the CPA's perspective, if there's a special part of the tax code and they only have one client that benefits, it's a difficult economic dynamic for the CPA firm to invest in a whole team and expertise to serve one client, right? Isn't that like part of the challenge that the and I know you've worked at a number of large CPA firms Is my understanding correct? That's part of the problem is just their clientele. There aren't enough of them. That makes it worth doing yeah. Brian: Yeah, I think that's a fair characterization. I might phrase it a little bit differently. I mean, there are thousands of CPA firms and they're all excellent generalists. This is not an area where you can be a generalist. Cpa firms often outsource R&D, tax credit work, cost segregation work. This, to me, falls right in that same category. You don't want to dabble in this, and if you're not sure what you're doing, you can get you and your client in trouble. Have good intentions, but if you don't execute it properly, it can be more of a headache than it's worth. And so, like most people, I think people gravitate towards what they know and understand, and things that they don't know and understand can look and sound scary. Dave: Yeah. Brian: So it's like, oh my God, an IC disc. I've never heard of that. I'm not sure I can bring that to my client because I don't really know what I'm doing. Well, I wish I knew somebody I could call to him. He's not a competitor right who could help me through this and help my client through this, and so that's really one of the reasons why we exist, because, as you stated, you don't want it to be a competitor that you call, and so, because we are so hyper focused on what we do and we don't do the things that I'll call the cpa's generalists, that the generalists do, we're an excellent partner because we're not looking to take away anybody's tax return or any of the other type of work that the CPA might be doing for that client. We just want to play in our space. Dave: Yeah, sometimes I'm sorry. Sometimes you know clients or potential clients will say, yeah, but you know our CPA firm does. You know all of our work. It's a one-stop shop thing and I'm afraid having you do the disc return and then doing the corporate return yeah, but our CPA firm does all of our work, it's a one-stop shop thing and I'm afraid having you do the disc return and then doing the corporate return it's just going to be a nightmare for you all to coordinate your efforts. It just sounds like too much trouble. What would your response be to that? Brian: My response is I work with over 500 companies. Generally we do the disk work for those companies. The regular mainstream CPA does everything else. We coordinate our work with that CPA and it's never a problem. We say, look, we're going to need X number of days to turn this around, so please have a draft of the operating company return by a particular date, and then they work towards that date. They give us the return, we get data from the company and we turn the number around so they can finish their tax return and then we go ahead and finish the disc return and I would say 99.9% of the time it works like we're all part of the same thing. Dave: Yeah, because really the CPA they prepare that final draft corporate return. They then pull two numbers from the disk return that goes into the corporate return and then they're done, basically right. Brian: And they're done and they can go ahead and finish up their disk return, I mean their operating company return and their state returns and everything. And then we just have to get the disc return done. And sometimes you know they file their tax return in april and you know the disc returns aren't due till september. So one might say, oh, you could just sit on them until september. But you know, we try to get them done at the same time. Sure sure Everybody can rest easy. But I mean we think of ourselves as a bolt-on resource to that CPA firm while we're working with that and we work with probably 50 to 75 CPA firms around the country in that role- yeah. It works well. I mean, you can talk to any one of them about what it's like to work with us, and I'm sure you'd get a glowing recommendation for how we work with them and for their clients. Dave: Yeah, no, I'm with you. So, as we're nearing the end here, the other thing that people find interesting you'd mentioned in 2003, there were 700 IC disks under 1,000. Yeah, 787. And then, according, if my recollection is correct, the most recent IRS stats that updated that were published, I think, in 2010. And I believe in 2010, there were like 2000 disks. Brian: Yeah, something like 1926. Okay, To be exact, and that number I'm sure has grown dramatically since then. I would guess there's somewhere between eight and 10,000 disks out there now. Okay, yeah. Dave: Yeah, now what's interesting? This is what people find interesting. I believe there's about 50 million business organization, you know business entities in the country, and so let's just assume that's the number, 50 million. Brian: I mean it's tens of millions. Dave: I'm certain of that. For some reason, I think it's 50 million. Does that sound reasonable? Brian: It does so let's think it's 50 million, does that? Dave: sound reasonable. It does. So let's say it's 50 million and on your average, you know we find around one out of a hundred. You know, maybe one out of 200 companies are fit for the disc. So if we run through the math, you know one percent of 50 million, I believe, is 500, 000. You know approximate companies that we think would benefit from a disc. Yet most recent stats, there's only 2000, you know, and maybe it's 4,000, 6,000, you know. Even, let's say it's 10,000 that exists now. So if you divide 10,000 by 500,000, what is that? Like 2%, I think, of the projected eligible company actually have a disc yeah, and people can't. They always are surprised by that and I usually tell them it might. And tell me if your numbers are consistent. I say about 100. One out of 100 benefit or could benefit. The ones who could benefit 90 percent of them have never heard of the disc, maybe 95%, and the 5% of the 1% who have heard of it, even once they hear about it, they usually haven't implemented it. Brian: Right. Then there's a percent that have implemented it. They're not getting out of it what they can. Dave: Right right. Brian: So it's so. There's a lot of missed opportunities by taxpayers and everyone's always trying to save some taxes. It helps fun, you know. It might help hire another employee might help, you know, if the savings are moderate and it's 50, 6070, 1000 of tax savings that still could pay for an employee to come work at the company. Why do? Dave: you think that utilization is so low? I mean because it'd be shocking if only 2% of the companies who did research and development took advantage of the RMD tax credit. Brian: I think it's just not well known. I mean it's very esoteric, it's been in the tax code for ages and ages and it just doesn't you. You know, there were so many years where it just wasn't relevant when you think that it's not something people think about. And then if you know, if you're a small exporter and you're exporting a half a million dollars a year a million dollars a year unfortunately it probably doesn't benefit you to have a disc and so maybe someone will look at it whether that size and they're like, oh yeah, it doesn't benefit you to have a disk and so maybe someone will look at it whether that size and they're like, oh yeah, it doesn't work. And then they grow and they forget that it might work once they've grown. So once a company hits about three million of export sales really should look at it again, because that's where it starts to have economic relevance that's where it starts to have economic relevance. Dave: Do you think some of it could be that? I mean, in general, public companies don't use disks, right? Brian: They just simply don't. Dave: Okay, and so I've found that oftentimes small to mid-sized privately held companies receive a lot of their sophisticated business knowledge from their Fortune 500 suppliers or clients. You know they'll hear from them about something and you know, like the payroll protection program during COVID, you know I suspect some of those might have heard about that from you know some of their large customers. Maybe that's not a good example, but you know that could be another reason. Right, there's just a dearth of knowledge that the CPAs aren't focused on it because the economics don't make sense. The large sophisticated public suppliers and clients don't use it, so they don't hear about it from them. Right, it's not really in the news, it's just. It just kind of flies below the radar screen, doesn't it? Brian: It definitely does, and that's certainly a reason why it's not as utilized as it probably could be. Dave: Yeah, and it seems like you know most of our, you know virtually all of our clients come as a referral from either an existing client or an advisor who we've worked with other clients you know, like a CPA or attorney or banker. So yeah, it's just a yeah, even though you know the podcast is called the Icy Disc Show. I don't get the sense that I'm ever going to. You know, reach Joe Rogan's audience size. It just seems to kind of fly below the radar screen. Brian: Yeah, and the potential audience is probably a little smaller than Joe's. Dave: Probably Well. So the last thing, the other thing people tell me they're surprised about the first year of the disk return. When they set up a disk is to get everything done. And we tell them the disk return's ready and they say, super good, and e-file it for me, like the CPA does the corporate and personal returns. And what is our response when they tell us to go e-file it for them? Brian: The response is unfortunately, the IRS doesn't provide for e-filing of disk returns and we'll need to send you a paper return. You're going to need to sign it and file it with the IRS and the unfortunate thing there is gosh, I don't know what percent of the time, but it's a growing percentage of the time the IRS loses the return Right and then sends a notice saying, hey, we never filed or whatever. And some of these disk returns are quite large. The fact that they because when you do the transaction by transaction analysis, there's a lot of paper that gets produced and filed and it's shocking to me that the IRS would lose those what they do. Dave: So it's interesting what they do. So it's interesting. I like to say that not only does the ICDISC fly under the radar screen of most everything, it even, in some ways, it's almost like it flies under the radar screen of the IRS itself. Brian: Yeah, and they put some things in place with regard to the ICDISC in 1984 and have never changed it. For example, if you're in the situation where you have to pay interest on deferred tax, which often occurs. First of all, a lot of times taxpayers don't realize it and they don't do it. Secondly, if they do it. It's so antiquated that the instructions to the form where you calculate the interest it says please staple a check to this form and mail it in. I mean, who does that in 2020, right? Nobody. People, businesses prefer to do things electronically to avoid checks being stolen, fraudulent activity, so on and so forth. But here the IRS is saying staple a check to this form and mail it to Kansas City, missouri. Dave: Yeah, and I guess it kind of makes sense that you know if there's only a few thousand of these disks in existence. In the same way, you can't expect the CPA firms to make it a heavy focus, I suppose even the IRS. You know there's a hundred other tax incentives or a thousand other tax incentives that are more highly utilized that you know they maybe are spending their time on. Brian: Yeah, as I like to say, the people at the IRS that understood the disc were working there in the 70s and 80s, OK, and they're long retired. Yeah, and they're long retired. There's really not a lot of bodies at the IRS that understand the DISC and certainly when you're doing a transaction by transaction study and calculating the commission on each individual transaction, there's nobody there that understands that. Dave: Nobody Well, and it's kind of the same thing outside the IRS, right? Nobody Well, and it's kind of the same thing outside the IRS, right? I mean I have this joke that nobody makes partner at a big four firm being the IC disk expert. Oh, that's true, so it even especially nowadays. Yeah, and so it seems like like the average age of IC disks experts is about the same as the average age of the average Fortran computer language programmer. It just seems like you know new people are not coming into the disk and there's just a dearth of knowledge all around. Brian: Right, right. And I myself learned COBOL, which is a choice between Fortran and COBOL, when I was in business school, both equally non-usable. Dave: Is it part of that? Because since the disk came on in 1972, it seems like since 1973, people have been talking about the IC disk going away. So is that maybe part of it? People think, well, why should I learn something if it's going away? Brian: Maybe part of it. People think, well, why should I learn something if it's going away? There's always been a fear that it's either going to go away or that there's a technical correction coming that the disk dividend is not a qualified dividend. But the bottom line is politically, I just don't see that happening. Dave: It stands for too many things that are positive for the US Job creation export sales for too many things that are positive for the US Job creation, export sales, us companies being more competitive in the global market. Brian: So it doesn't really lend itself to be repealed. What can be repealed are some of the tax rates. Some of the tax rates can change and that can change the benefits of the disc. The concept of the disc itself and what it stands for really is very consistent with our country. Dave: Yeah, wow, I can't believe how the time has flown by, brian. Is there anything else that you want to mention about the IC disc or the MRO industry? Brian: No, I can't think of anything specifically other than I'm looking forward to being there and meeting many of the attendees and other exhibitors that are there and spending some time with you and our colleagues in Atlanta. Dave: Yeah, it will be fun. So it's the ICDISC Alliance. If you want to look us up on the website for the conference or stop by 1818BC. We also have a LinkedIn page for the ICDISC Alliance, and so I'd love to meet with any of you who are going to be at the conference. Awesome, well, thank you very much for your time, Brian. This has been really useful. Brian: You're welcome. You're very welcome. Special Guest: Brian Schwam.

In this episode of Voices of Otolaryngology, Rahul K. Shah, MD, MBA, AAO-HNS/F Executive Vice President and CEO, visits Annette M. Pham, MD, Chair of the AAO-HNS Otolaryngology Private Practice Section, at her practice, The Centers for Advanced ENT Care, in Rockville, Maryland. The two discuss an array of topics from the urgency of greater advocacy participation across the specialty; augmented versus artificial intelligence; the importance of understanding the economics of medicine, including payment and cost containment strategies, and why we should be talking about payment versus reimbursement; balancing life and being involved;  2025 OTO Forum; and more!  Helpful Resources: Attend the OTO Forum: https://www.entnet.org/events/aao-hns-f-oto-forum/  Get Involved with OPPS: https://www.entnet.org/get-involved/sections/otolaryngology-private-practice-section/ Note: Contributions to ENT PAC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Contributions are voluntary, and all members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery have the right to refuse to contribution without reprisal. Federal law prohibits ENT PAC from accepting contributions from foreign nationals. By law, if your contributions are made using a personal check or credit card, ENT PAC may use your contribution only to support candidates in federal elections. All corporate contributions to ENT PAC will be used for educational and administrative fees of ENT PAC, and other activities permissible under federal law. Federal law requires ENT PAC use its best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation, and the name of the employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 in a calendar year. ENT PAC is a program of the AAO-HNS which is exempt from federal income tax under section 501 (c) (6) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Does your nonprofit want to build power and amplify its impact by engaging in robocalling and texting campaigns? Would it surprise you to find out that while this type of advocacy can effectively boost your reach and put you in touch with thousands (even millions) of supporters, it also comes with rules related to opt-out requirements, mandatory disclaimers, prior consent, and more? On this episode, we'll introduce you to our new Robocalling guide and walk through several of the issues your nonprofit needs to think about before you pick up the phone or click send on a robocall or robotext campaign.     Attorneys for this Episode  Monika Graham  Melissa Marichal Zayas  Natalie Ossenfort    Robotext and Robocall Campaigns  Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Federal Election Commission (FEC) each regulate robocalls and robotexts  For example, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), enforced by the FCC, strictly limits when organizations can make robocalls and robotexts. Violations of TCPA can result in stiff fines, so know the rules before you launch your next campaign.  Keep in mind that many states also have their own rules on these communication methods.  Federal Restrictions on Robocalls / Robotexts  What are robocalls and robotexts? Calls or texts made with an autodialer or using an artificial or pre-recorded voice.   Under federal law (the TCPA), a nonprofit organization must obtain an individual's “prior express consent” to: (a) send a call or text to a cell phone using an autodialer, a prerecorded voice, or an artificial voice, or (b) to send more than three prerecorded or artificial voice calls to a landline in a 30-day period.  Express consent requires:  The person gave permission to be contacted at their cell phone number.  The call is within the scope of the consent given.  The person hasn't revoked their consent.  Prior express consent is not the only consideration you need to think about before engaging in robocall or robotext campaigns. Identification, opt-out, and disclaimer requirements are going to be relevant too.  For example, federal law requires that all pre-recorded voice telephone messages to cell phones or landlines must include a specific identification disclaimer. Disclaimer must:  Clearly state at the beginning of the message the official registered name of the organization initiating the call, and  The telephone number of the organization (not the number of the vendor who placed the call, a 900 number, or a number for which charges exceed normal local or long-distance transmission charges).  Disclaimers may also be required if a non 501(c)(3) organization expressly advocates for or against a federal candidate or solicits contributions in relation to a federal election --> triggering federal campaign finance law, which is enforced by the FEC.  This type of disclaimer should not apply to 501(c)(3)s which are prohibited by the Internal Revenue Code from supporting or opposing candidates for public office.  Likewise, the IRS may require a disclaimer if fundraising solicitations are made by non-501(c)(3)s reminding the potential donor that contributions are not tax deductible.    Remember: State Law Matters Too!  Many states restrict certain types of calls, like robocalls. When they do, they often apply to both cell phones and landlines.  In many instances, state laws are similar to the federal rules, but variations between state and federal law do exist, and some states restrict calls that would otherwise be allowed under federal law.  Consult with counsel before launching your campaign because common state law requirements include:  Notification or self-identification requirements  Time restrictions  Geographic limits  Permit requirements  Prohibitions on caller ID blockers  And more!  State law may also require lobbyist or campaign finance registration and reporting in some instances.    FAQ New Robocalling guide contains a handy FAQ, where you can find answers to common questions like:  What are the best ways to collect cell phone numbers for these types of campaigns?  Are landlines treated differently than cell phones?  What happens when a cell phone number is reassigned to someone other than the person who provided consent?    Resources  Robocalling Rules: Before You Pick Up the Phone, Hold That Call. What You Need to Know about Robocalls, Robotexts, and Autodialers 

The criminal landscape is evolving and nobody knows this better than the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) unit, who has been an international leader when it comes to combating crypto and cyber-related crimes. In this episode, we are lucky to have Jim Lee (Global Head of Capacity Building, Chainalysis), who previously spent almost 30 years in IRS-CI sit down with Jarod Koopman, a leading figure in government law enforcement and the Executive Director of Cyber and Forensic Services at IRS-CI Investigations. The duo discuss the evolving landscape of financial crimes and the crucial role of digital assets and cyber technology, while Jarod shares his extensive experience and how his career shifted towards cyber investigations as cryptocurrencies gained prominence. He explains how IRS-CI stays ahead of crime through an innovative approach to investigations and deep international partnerships and collaborations in law enforcement and highlights the need for authorities around the world to stay on top of emerging typologies and the use of cutting edge AI technology. Minute-by-minute episode breakdown 2 | Jarod's early days as a Federal agent working high stakes investigations 4 | The evolution of crime and cryptocurrency's impact on investigations  7 | Challenges in combating cybercrime and crypto-related offenses 11 | Global collaboration in combating crypto-related crimes 17 | International alignment in fighting tax crimes in crypto 22 | Unveiling the new IRS-CI's Advanced Collaboration and Data Center (“ACDC”) 28 | Understanding tax obligations for cryptocurrency gains in the US 32 | Government agencies face challenges amid budget cuts and hiring freezes 34 | Exploring AI and digital assets in financial fraud prevention  38 | Law enforcement's strategic approach to the Metaverse 40 | Emerging blockchain crimes and AI threats in Law Enforcement  Related resources Check out more resources provided by Chainalysis that perfectly complement this episode of the Public Key. Website: IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) serves the American public by investigating potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes Report: IRS-CI 2024 Annual Report  Article: Taxpayers need to report crypto, other digital asset transactions on their tax return Article: Former security engineer sentenced to three years in prison for hacking two decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges Blog: 2025 Crypto Crime Report Preview: $2.2 Billion Stolen from Crypto Platforms in 2024, but Hacked Volumes Stagnate Toward Year-End as DPRK Slows Activity Post-July Blog: Cryptocurrency in the War Zone: A Closer Look at Recent Events in Syria YouTube: Chainalysis YouTube page Twitter: Chainalysis Twitter: Building trust in blockchain Tik Tok: Building trust in #blockchains among people, businesses, and governments. Speakers on today's episode Jim (James) Lee * Host * (Global Head of Capacity Building, Chainalysis)  Jarod Koopman (Executive Director, Cyber and Forensic Services, IRS - Criminal Investigation) This website may contain links to third-party sites that are not under the control of Chainalysis, Inc. or its affiliates (collectively “Chainalysis”). Access to such information does not imply association with, endorsement of, approval of, or recommendation by Chainalysis of the site or its operators, and Chainalysis is not responsible for the products, services, or other content hosted therein. Our podcasts are for informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide legal, tax, financial, or investment advice. Listeners should consult their own advisors before making these types of decisions. Chainalysis has no responsibility or liability for any decision made or any other acts or omissions in connection with your use of this material. Chainalysis does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability or validity of the information in any particular podcast and will not be responsible for any claim attributable to errors, omissions, or other inaccuracies of any part of such material.  Unless stated otherwise, reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Chainalysis. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Chainalysis employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the views of the company.   

AAO-HNS/F President Troy D. Woodard, MD, joins AAO-HNS/F Executive Vice President and CEO Rahul K. Shah, MD, MBA, for this Voices of Otolaryngology episode, which was recorded during Dr. Woodard's visit to Academy headquarters on December 10, 2024. Dr. Woodard shares his personal journey to otolaryngology; insight into his practice at Cleveland Clinic; his philosophical approach to balance, inclusion, mentorship, and wellness; why the Academy plays an essential role in the success of our specialty; the process for the upcoming strategic plan update; and so much more! Helpful Resources: Scroll to the bottom of the BOG webpage to access the Legislative Affairs Toolkit and other resources: https://www.entnet.org/get-involved/board-of-governors/ Note: Contributions to ENT PAC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Contributions are voluntary, and all members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery have the right to refuse to contribution without reprisal. Federal law prohibits ENT PAC from accepting contributions from foreign nationals. By law, if your contributions are made using a personal check or credit card, ENT PAC may use your contribution only to support candidates in federal elections. All corporate contributions to ENT PAC will be used for educational and administrative fees of ENT PAC, and other activities permissible under federal law. Federal law requires ENT PAC use its best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation, and the name of the employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 in a calendar year. ENT PAC is a program of the AAO-HNS which is exempt from federal income tax under section 501 (c) (6) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Rahul K. Shah, MD, MBA, AAO-HNS/F Executive Vice President and CEO, is joined by Cristina M. Baldassari, MD, Board of Governors (BOG) Chair, Lance A. Manning, MD, AAO-HNS Advocacy Coordinator, Eileen M. Raynor, MD, BOG Legislative Affairs Committee Chair, and Matthew D. Scarlett, MD, ENT PAC Chair, to discuss the vital role that advocacy plays in the Academy to support members in their practice and patient care. The group also talks about the crucial need for more member involvement in strengthening the voice of otolaryngology and how individuals can get engaged and make a difference. Helpful Resources: BOG State Society Contacts Map: www.entnet.org/get-involved/board-of-governors/bog-state-society-contacts-map  Project 535 (AAO-HNS member login required): www.entnet.org/project-535 Note: Contributions to ENT PAC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Contributions are voluntary, and all members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery have the right to refuse to contribution without reprisal. Federal law prohibits ENT PAC from accepting contributions from foreign nationals. By law, if your contributions are made using a personal check or credit card, ENT PAC may use your contribution only to support candidates in federal elections. All corporate contributions to ENT PAC will be used for educational and administrative fees of ENT PAC, and other activities permissible under federal law. Federal law requires ENT PAC use its best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation, and the name of the employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 in a calendar year. ENT PAC is a program of the AAO-HNS which is exempt from federal income tax under section 501 (c) (6) of the Internal Revenue Code.

After you listen:Check out the 2024 tax rates and brackets.Learn more about donor-advised funds.Explore more tax-planning content.Mark Riepe breaks down important 2024 tax updates, covering changes to income tax brackets, standard deductions, and retirement contribution limits. He shares actionable year-end tax strategies to help you maximize savings, including tips on retirement account contributions, HSAs, and charitable donations. Plus, Mark provides key questions to ask yourself as you plan for the year ahead, ensuring you're making the most of every opportunity to reduce your tax liability and boost your financial efficiency. Follow Financial Decoder for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.Financial Decoder is an original podcast from Charles Schwab. For more on the series, visit schwab.com/FinancialDecoder. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts.Reach out to Mark on X @MarkRiepe with your thoughts on the show.Follow Financial Decoder  on Spotify to comment on episodes.Important DisclosuresThe information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered an individualized recommendation or personalized investment advice. The investment strategies mentioned here may not be suitable for everyone. Each investor needs to review an investment strategy for his or her own particular situation before making any investment decision.All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice in reaction to shifting market conditions. Data contained herein from third-party providers is obtained from what are considered reliable sources. However, its accuracy, completeness, or reliability cannot be guaranteed. Examples provided are for illustrative purposes only and not intended to be reflective of results you can expect to achieve. The information and content provided herein is general in nature and is for informational purposes only. It is not intended, and should not be construed, as a specific recommendation, individualized tax, legal, or investment advice. Tax laws are subject to change, either prospectively or retroactively. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, individuals should contact their own professional tax and investment advisors or other professionals (CPA, Financial Planner, Investment Manager) to help answer questions about specific situations or needs prior to taking any action based upon this information.All names and market data shown above are for illustrative purposes only and are not a recommendation, offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Supporting documentation for any claims or statistical information is available upon request.This general information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax, legal, or investment planning advice and is not intended to be construed as tax advice. This information cannot be used for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax law provisions. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, Schwab recommends consulting with a qualified tax professional, CPA, financial planner, or investment manager. The Schwab Center for Financial Research is a division of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.(1224-A62X)

Has the Supreme Court's opinion overturning the Chevron doctrine altered the landscape for the denial of tax deductions for marijuana businesses under Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code? Here to explore that question are corporate and tax attorney Douglas Charnas and Perry Salzhauer, co-chair of McGlinchey's Cannabis Industry group.

Similar to tax laws which require planning pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, planning is often required to maximize asset preservation of resources should a loved one needs long-term care for governmental assistance. This story shows an example of how issues are spotted and what can be done within the rules.

Overview of Tax Law and the US Tax System Main Themes: Importance of Tax Law: Tax law is crucial for funding government functions, influencing economic behavior, and ensuring compliance obligations for individuals and businesses. Sources of Tax Law: US tax law stems from the Constitution, statutes like the Internal Revenue Code, regulations from the IRS, and judicial precedents. Diversity of Tax Types: The US employs various tax types, including income, sales, property, estate, and gift taxes, each targeting different economic activities. Division of Tax Authorities: Tax authority is split between federal (IRS), state, and local levels, each administering their respective taxes. Principles Guiding Taxation: Key principles like progressive, regressive, and proportional taxation influence the fairness and impact of tax systems. Role of the IRS: The IRS plays a multifaceted role in tax collection, taxpayer assistance, enforcement of tax laws, and providing regulatory guidance. Most Important Ideas/Facts: Constitutional Basis: The Constitution grants Congress the power to levy taxes (Article I, Section 8) and allows for a federal income tax (16th Amendment). "The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to levy taxes." Internal Revenue Code (IRC): The IRC serves as the main statutory source for federal tax law, detailing rules for income, deductions, credits, etc. "The Internal Revenue Code (IRC) is the main statutory source that outlines the rules governing federal taxes." Types of Taxes: The lecture distinguishes between income tax (personal and corporate), sales tax, property tax, and estate/gift taxes. "There are several different types of taxes that individuals and businesses may be subject to." Progressive vs. Regressive: Understanding the difference between progressive taxation (higher earners pay a higher percentage) and regressive taxation (same rate for all, impacting lower earners more) is crucial for analyzing tax fairness. "The U.S. federal income tax system is progressive, meaning that higher levels of income are taxed at higher rates." "Sales tax is generally considered regressive because it imposes the same rate on all consumers, regardless of income level." Taxable vs. Exempt Income: Recognizing which income is subject to tax and which is exempt is essential for accurate tax calculation and planning. "Understanding what constitutes taxable and exempt income is crucial for effective tax planning and compliance." Key IRS Functions: The IRS not only collects taxes, but also assists taxpayers, enforces compliance through audits, and provides guidance on tax law interpretation. "The IRS plays a vital role not only in tax collection but also in providing guidance, ensuring compliance, and maintaining the overall integrity of the tax system." Case Study Insights: Individual Taxation: The example of John highlights the importance of Form 1040, understanding deductions and credits, and the potential impact of various income sources. Corporate Taxation: The case of XYZ Corporation illustrates the process of calculating net income, filing Form 1120, and the issue of double taxation on corporate profits and subsequent dividend distributions. Overall, this lecture provides a foundational understanding of tax law and the US tax system, emphasizing its complex structure, diverse elements, and the critical role of the IRS in ensuring its function. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/law-school/support

With only a small handful of weeks remaining until the general election, you may be wondering about how you or your nonprofit can get involved in voter assistance activities such as providing rides to the polls, registering voters, and helping voters vote by mail. Would you be surprised that these activities are often regulated by both state and federal law? On this episode, we'll discuss our Practical Guidance Voter Assistance resources series, created in partnership with Democracy Capacity Project, and explain some of the rules you should be thinking about in the final countdown to the big day.   Attorneys for this episode: Tim Mooney Natalie Ossenfort Victor Rivera   General Overview of Relevant Law ·      When engaging in any election-related activities there are several areas of law that your nonprofit should think about: o   Internal Revenue Code: explains the types of activities your nonprofit is allowed to engage in accordance with the tax code §  501(c)(3)s: Keep it nonpartisan. No support or opposition of candidates. Allowed to engage in campaigns for or against ballot initiatives, constitutional amendments, bond measures, city charter amendments. Just remember that this activity may count as lobbying at the federal level. §  501(c)(4)s; (c)(5)s, (c)(6)s: Partisan political activities as secondary activities of org §  PACs: Regulated by Section 527 of tax code. Partisan political work as focus, but different types of PACs may be restricted in terms of whether they can engage in coordinated vs. independent expenditures o   Other federal laws, including the Federal Election Campaign Act: always going to be relevant in elections with federal candidates on the ballot §  Provisional ballots available  even if they aren't under state election laws (i.e. can vote provisionally for POTUS if there's a dispute as to registration status and resolve that later) §  Accessible ballots required under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). §  Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) requires states to provide absentee ballots for military personnel, their families, and U.S. citizens overseas in federal elections. §  Voting Rights Act (VRA) ·      requires jurisdictions with significant populations of non-English-speaking citizens to provide bilingual election materials and assistance, ensuring all voters can understand and participate in the process. ·      allows observers from the Department of Justice or the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to monitor elections to ensure compliance with voting rights laws, especially in areas with a history of discrimination. o   State law: Often regulates §  Who, when, how you can register voters §  Who is eligible to vote-by-mail (and when) §  Line-warming activities designed to encourage voters to stay in line §  Rules for poll watchers §  Voter ID required in some states §  And more!   Practical Guidance Voter Assistance Series o   Focuses on state law, but also includes some federal law tips throughout o   (Questions answered include: o   How can our organization help people vote by mail? o   Can we help with a rides to the polls program? o   How can we help voters already at the polls? o   When might our work also trigger campaign finance laws? o   Can we advocate for a new polling place? o   Current states: o   Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin o   Texas line-warming example o   Reminder that many states don't have polling places (in traditional sense) since they've shifted focus to vote-by-mail. Resources: ·      Practical Guidance Voter Assistance Series: https://afj.org/bolder-advocacy/practical-guidance-nonprofit-voter-assistance-series/ ·      Rules of the Game: Guide to Election-Related Activities for 501(c)(3)s: https://afj.org/resource/the-rules-of-the-game-a-guide-to-election-related-activities-for-501c3-organizations/ ·      The Connection: https://afj.org/resource/the-connection-strategies-for-creating-and-operating-501c3s-501c4s-and-political-organizations/

What is income?  It sounds like a simple question, but when the Internal Revenue Code enters the picture, it gets really complicated really fast.In their weekly look at proposed changes to the tax code, the FAIRtax Guys have run across hundreds of bills that would exempt certain income from taxation or remove that exemption from other kinds of income.  With the FAIRtax, it's simple.  The FAIRtax applies to the retail purchase of all new goods and services.

Unless you have been in a coma or hiding in the Witness Protection Program, you probably are aware that there is an election coming up in a few weeks. It is our right as Americans to vote and participate in the political process. But nonprofit organizations like hospitals and health systems that are tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are prohibited from participating in political campaigns and may only have limited involvement in lobbying or attempting to influence public policy. HortySpringer partners Henry Casale and Dan Mulholland will review these rules and also discuss guidance from the IRS in terms of what your organization can and can't do this election season. Please join us for this important and timely podcast.

IRS Publication 17 is a comprehensive guide designed to help taxpayers fill out their income tax returns correctly.  In reality, it's 142 pages detailing why the income tax is a hopelessly complicated mess that needs to be thrown out and replaced with the FAIRtax.It's also Bob Scarborough's favorite reading material.  (Yeah, right).  Join the FAIRtax Guys as they delve into the latest version of Publication 17 and expose once again what a tangled mess the Internal Revenue Code really is.

Tom Wheelwright is back by popular demand, our most recurring guest in GRE show history. He's a CPA, an International Authority on Tax, and Best Selling Author of “Tax-Free Wealth” amongst many other titles. We focus on the potential unrealized capital gains tax, which would tax the increase in property value even before sale. Tom explains the implications of this proposal and the broader impact on tax policy.  We cover the Democrats' proposal for capital gains tax at ordinary income rates, capital gains on gifts, and capital gains when you die. The proposal for a billionaires tax, which would tax unrealized gains at $100 million, could potentially extend to lower net worth individuals over time. Real estate income can result in a negative tax rate, increasing cash flow after taxes. Learn about the benefits of working with a knowledgeable tax advisor. Resources: GetRichEducation.com/tax Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/519 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREmarketplace.com/Coach Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai      Keith Weinhold  00:01 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, this week we're talking about the value of the raw land that comes along with your property, the importance of an as built survey in real estate. Then it's tax topics with pro Tom wheelwright, the specter of an unrealized capital gains tax, higher capital gains tax rates, how gambling is taxed, and how to permanently reduce your overall tax burden. Today on get rich education,     00:33 since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests and key top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com   Corey Coates  01:18 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  01:34 Welcome to GRE from Essex County England to Essex, Massachusetts and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education before we talk taxes, let's talk about the land, the raw land, the lot that comes along with your property. Investors don't spend much time thinking about it. Yet the land is sometimes worth more than the home or structure that's on it, per the FHFA, land constitutes 32.2% of the value of the average US single family property in a metro area. Now the inexpensive land prices nationally, they are predominantly in what I'm classifying it as three US areas, the Midwest, the southeast and Appalachia well, where you have inexpensive land. Oh, that also happens to be where the cash flow for long term rentals resides. Land costs more by the water because people want water activities, water proximity and water view. So the lower costs are inland, and land also costs more by the water, because coasts and shorelines constrain development, sprawl that limits supply and a limited supply of buoys up prices. Consequently, the highest land values are mostly in the Northeast Corridor, from Boston to DC, Miami, coastal California and Honolulu. Yes, Manhattan values are flat out extortionate for raw land now, Seattle, Madison, Wisconsin and Boulder, Colorado. They are three places with really high land values as well. Seattle and Madison are on geographic isthmus. And isthmus is a narrow strip of land with water on both sides. It's interesting how Nashville's nascent population influx made its land values surge inside a cheap sea of southeastern US land values now costly land areas like these ones that I've been talking about on the coasts, they could work well for short term vacation rentals like Airbnb and VRBO, your classic waterfront and beachfront weekly rentals, but they do not work for long term rental cash flow. Texas Land values are sort of low to medium. Land near the Mississippi River and its major tributaries have low costs because rivers are efficient transportation networks, prohibitively high land costs. That's one reason, actually, why alternative building methods just really aren't as cost effective as some people think. I'm talking about things like 3d printed homes, prefabbed homes, tiny homes and shipping container homes, well, all of them have got to sit on land, just like conventionally build homes do. And there is a land cost. Talk to a tear down specialist, and they'll tell you that in some older homes, 100% of the total value is in the l and. And in practicality, it's actually even more lopsided than that. The structure can have negative value because demolition is not free. So for you to get an idea yourself, your property tax bill, it's going to show you your split. That's where you'll see the assessed values broken out for both your structure and the land. So the bottom line here is that cash flowing properties have low land values, typically 25% or less of the total property value. That's generally what you want to look for. And I swear the only thing that's more barren than raw land is the creative naming process for new developments. There is such a lack of creativity in these development names. I'm talking about names like Willow Creek Estates, stone bridge crossing, or what else do they name a new housing development? How about VISTA, view heights? They all have these idyllic sounding names that somehow just all sound like each other. Well, we're talking about raw land when you get in contract to buy a property, the seller side is expected to provide you with an as built, it often still comes in the form of an old fashioned piece of paper and as built survey, what it is is a plan view, a bird's eye or aerial view of your property. It's not a photograph, but a drawing, and it shows you the dimensions and the placement of structures on your property, and it includes things like fences and other features like easements. Now, lenders don't always require an as built before granting a loan, but it's a good idea to ask to see one before you wrap up your next deal. If you want to in your offer, you can even require that a recent as built be done by a surveying company. All right. Well, what exactly do you look for on an as built once you have one in hand, first see that the house or apartment building that you're buying is properly set back from the property lines to meet zoning requirements. If the six foot side setback is only five feet 10 inches, then you'll have to address that before you buy even if it's five feet 11 inches. Now it's possible that the jurisdiction that you're buying in will grant a letter of non conforming status, but if not, the structure is going to have to be adjusted. Another item to look for on an as built are encroachments. This is where part of a neighbor structure protrudes over the lot line and onto your property. And encroachment is really only acceptable if you're willing to grant the neighbor an easement in perpetuity for their encroachment onto your land. But why would you want to do that? The third thing that I want to mention that you should look for an as built is the existence of easements. An easement that just means that another party has a legal right to come over onto your land and use it. Yeah, and easements are actually quite common. It's not as threatening as it might sound. A common one is that as your as built would show, say, a five foot wide by 60 foot long easement. Is there that a utility company has access to. Well, that's something that makes sense. It's for the common good, but just be mindful that an easement cannot have a structure with a permanent foundation built on top of it, alright, because an electric company or a water company might have to excavate there. Most people think of easements on the raw land, but there are also aerial easements, for example, an overhead power line where the roof eaves are not allowed to intrude on that airspace. So to review what you learned so far today, the best cash flow properties typically have low land values, often about 25% or less of the tolerable property value. And an as built survey is an aerial view drawing of your property and its dimensions on an as built look to see that it meets zoning requirements like setbacks and look for encroachments and easements. It is resale properties where it's more important to look at as builts than it is for new construction properties.  As we're about to bring in tax pro Tom Wheelwright shortly, business owners and real estate investors really get so many of the best tax breaks in the US Code. But you've got to know. How to find them, or else work then with a CPA that does know how to find them, that really knows how to navigate their way around the tax code, people that make high salaries pay high taxes, as much as 50% you remember I did that episode a few months ago, high salaries don't create wealth. Taxes are one big reason why, say, for example, a chiropractor makes $1.2 million a year in salary. But if that chiropractor becomes an investor by buying and selling other Chiropractic Clinics or investing in real estate, their tax rate will drop by half or more, and that's because capital gains tax rates are about half of ordinary income tax rates. So see, you don't want to be a super earner. You want to earn enough money to invest and become a super owner, but tax policy could change Tom and I will discuss that first. Then we'll talk about reducing the amount of tax that you pay. Today is a new punishing unrealized capital gains tax coming that you will have to pay. What this means is that if you have a $500,000 home, and it rises in value to $550,000 well, you would have to pay tax on your $50,000 of profit, but you haven't sold your home. So this feels so wrong, because you haven't realized any profit at all. This is what unrealized capital gains tax is. And also, where are you going to get the cash to pay the tax on your 50k of profit just because your home rose in value yet you didn't realize it? I mean, might you have to sell your home in order to get the cash to pay the tax. And then what if you though could pay the tax on your unrealized capital gain so you do pay it, but then the following year, the home goes down in value. Well, would you get a refund then? So the unrealized capital gains tax proposal is a mess. Let's learn about it and more. This week's guest is a best selling author, CPA and an international authority on tax. He's brilliant because he actually makes taxes fun, easy and understandable. He's familiar to you because he's the most recurrent guest in show history. Welcome back to GRE Tom Wheelwright.   Tom Wheelwright  12:48 thanks always good to be on your show.   Keith Weinhold  12:50 Tom probably with more than 30 show appearances here now you are 6% of GRE episodes.   Tom Wheelwright  13:00 That's a little scary. But you know, taxes are your single biggest expense, so why not?   Keith Weinhold  13:05 It's appropriate. And yeah, I guess all these appearances are certainly an endorsement of how much you help our audience. It's also a reflection of how tax and legal are not my strong suit. So it really helps to have you here absolutely the all time, assists leader in GRE history then and Tyler. An awful lot of timely tax topics going on that are probably first and foremost in more people's news feeds than they usually are. As we're here during presidential campaign season, the one that it really seems to revolve around the most is this potential tax proposal on unrealized gains. I've been around long enough where I seem to see this proposal come up more often, but it never seems to go anywhere. So first, why don't you tell us what unrealized gains are?   Tom Wheelwright  13:51 it actually goes beyond that. Interestingly enough, what the Democrats are proposing is, first of all, they're proposing capital gains rates at ordinary income rates. So they're proposing doubling the capital gains rate. That's actually as important as anything else. The second thing is, they're proposing capital gains on gifts. So if you give it, if you give your business to your child, you have a capital gains ordinary income rates. They're proposing capital gains when you die. So not only an estate tax, but also a capital gains tax. So then you get taxed twice when you die. So about 80 to 90% of your estate goes to the government when you die. If you're a business owner, as an example, then they're proposing eliminating the 1031 exchange, which would mean that on a trade of real estate, you'd have a capital gains tax at ordinary income rates. Then they're talking about this unrealized capital gains so if you do nothing but build your business or your real estate, the increase in value is subject to capital gains taxes at ordinary income rates. Now you know their proposal is, we have this tax. Tax when you're over $100 million that is not seem to be in the news feeds right now, but that's what it is. They call it the billionaires tax, and they're calling it an alternative minimum tax on billionaires. But clearly, 100 million is not a billion. That's only a 10th of a billion. And the biggest issue, of course, is if you tax unrealized gains at 100 million, soon you're going to tax them at 10 million, then it's going to be 1 million. Because history. That's the history of our tax law. The history of our tax law. Remember, in 1913 when we passed the 16th Amendment, it was passed because it was only a tax on the rich, right? It would never have passed if it was going to be a tax on the average person. And yet it passed. Because great, we're okay taxing somebody else, as long as it's not our tax. We're okay taxing somebody else. That's pretty much what's going on with this unrealized gains tax is, oh, well, it's on somebody else and they have enough money. It's no big deal. Therefore, I'm okay with that, because why shouldn't they pay more tax? That is what this is about. The challenge is, is, as we saw with the income tax, eventually it will reach the average person, or at least the average entrepreneur, real estate investor. Because think also, let's say that you build your wealth in real estate, and then when you retire, you say, Well, look, I don't want to be doing active real estate anymore. I'm going to trade my single family homes or my apartment building. I'm going to trade for a Walgreens a triple net lease, well under their proposal, that would be taxed because, again, no 1031 exchanges over $500,000 so that means that if you accumulate your wealth through business or real estate, you pay a much higher tax rate than if you accumulate your wealth by investing in Wall Street through a 401k because if you invest in Wall Street through a 401K, you only have to pay tax as you pull that out, you're not going to be paying tax on the value. Now that's assuming that they don't tax the increase in value of your 401K, which is also obviously a possibility. Interesting enough people talk a lot about the constitutionality of this. The challenge with that is that we already have taxes unrealized gains. If you're a dealer in stocks, in securities you do mark to market, that is meaning that you're going to pay tax on unrealized gains. And so there is actually precedent for this, and that's the scary thing, is that they could point to that precedent and say, Well, wait a minute, it's just an income tax, it's not a wealth tax, that's what they're going to say. They're going to say it's an income tax, not a wealth tax, because it's on appreciation, and appreciation is income. That's how they're going to go down this road. Will it start at $100 million Absolutely, that's where it will start. Will it then drift down? Who knows? But likely that's the history of our tax system. Yeah. I mean, we've talked before about the phenomenon of the camel getting its nose under the tent. However, in this case, I didn't realize there's already precedent for unrealized gains, in a sense, as potentially, if this is approved for those with $100 million net worth, and in next it's 10 million net worth, $1 million net worth and so on, like you described there, when you talk about capital gains tax rates being stepped up so that they're at ordinary income tax rates. It's actually somewhat of an interesting philosophical discussion, in a way. It sort of makes sense that a person's gains from investment could or should be taxed at the same rate as one's income when they go to their day job. However, why don't we do that by lowering income taxes rather than doubling capital gains? Wait a minute, no, because it's a double tax. Let's say that you're a business owner. Why does your business increase in value? Well, because you're making income, but you're already being taxed on that income. It's called income tax. What we do in this country, which a lot of countries don't do, by the way, is we tax it a second time. We call that a capital gains tax or a dividends tax. We tax it twice now. Now we're going to have that second tax at the same rate of the original tax. So if you think about it, you're being taxed on the same income twice because it's your income that determines your value, so you're being taxed twice. It's really not the same. It's fine if you're invested in the stock market, and that's where your capital gains are. That's a hard one to argue too much, although it does take liquidity out of the market, because the problem with capital gains tax is being taxed over 28% it's about 28% is that you actually lower the contribution to the Treasury because there will be fewer capital gains. There will be so many fewer capital gains that you actually lose money. The Tax Foundation, taxfoundation.org, I'd refer people to, has done lots of studies on this, and it's very clear. Here that high capital gains rates actually reduce the amount of money that comes to the government. So this is purely political. This has nothing to do with let's generate more revenue, one of the challenges so you have to score this, right? So that means that you're scoring what's the revenue that's going to be produced? You have two types of scoring. One is called static scoring. The other is called dynamic scoring. Static scoring means that we're going to look at the capital gains we already have, and we're just going to, if we double the rate, we're going to double the revenue. So that's assuming that we're going to have the same number and amounts of capital gains as we add at the lower rates, right? Dynamic scoring means that we're going to take into account how people behave motivationally when you double the tax rate. Yeah. Well, let me give you an example. So I'm a business owner. My wealth is in my business primarily. Do you think, really, I'm going to sell that business and take the capital gains immediately and be done with it? But if I have a high capital gains rate, I'm going to sell this over 20 years. So I'm actually going to defer my capital gains as long as I can, because I don't want to pay those high capital gains rates. So that means less money to the government. That's what it means. So it actually reduces on a dynamic scoring if you look at truly how people behave and have behaved in the past. So this isn't a new thing, right? We've had high capital gains rates before. It's not like we don't know. It's not like we haven't seen this before. It's that, for whatever reason, politically, they've decided that, wait a minute, the rich are out of favor. We need to tax the rich more. That's a very popular line, and therefore this is a way to do that, even though it by all calculations that are dynamic, it would actually reduce the amount of funds that come to the Treasury.   Keith Weinhold  22:00 That does make sense about the double taxation. Case in point, with an apartment building, if you increase its noi, you have more income than pay tax that if you increase the noi, therefore you've increased the value of the building. Consequently, the capital gains tax that you might have to pay down the road Tom, maybe current capital gains tax are higher than I thought, is the 28% capital gains tax. Number You mentioned, current or proposed. What is that?   Tom Wheelwright  22:24 Well, right now we have a 24% capital gains tax, okay, we have 20% pure capital gains tax, plus we have a 3.8% net investment income tax. Doesn't apply right now if you're a real estate professional, but applies to everybody else under the Harris proposal formally adopted Biden's plan under the Harris proposal, then you would get a actually 39.6% rate, plus 5% net investment income tax, regardless of whether you're your real estate Professional. So that is 44.6% that's the 45% the 28% number I threw out is that's the number the Tax Foundation says is the maximum you can raise it to without losing revenue.   Keith Weinhold  23:11 That puts things into perspective, as real estate investors, for a long time, we've appreciated substantial tax shelters. What are they being the 1031, tax deferred exchange, like you mentioned, that's been around for more than 100 years. Does that have any realistic shot of being shot down? Of course, Trump shot down substantial parts of the 1031 outside of strict real estate investing.   Tom Wheelwright  23:32 He did, and he actually set the precedent for eliminating it. So by doing that, because he eliminated it on everything except real property, right? I mean, actually, and even before that, there was a time, and there's still ways you can do it with paper assets. But it's not a 1031 exchange. So 1031 exchange has it evolved. It's gotten it's shrunk. It keeps shrinking. Even three or four years ago, no realistic possibility of eliminating 1031 exchange. The challenge, of course, is it would have an impact on the liquidity of the market. However, big deals never do 1031 exchange. Ever you don't see big multifamily developments sold in 1031s. The only time you see that happen is when they've used the Delaware statutory trust. And then you've got some of the investors who use it. And some of them who don't, you can do that in the Delaware statutory trust, but the regular developers, I haven't seen a 1031 done by a syndicator in years. So could they eliminate? Yeah, they could.   Keith Weinhold  24:33 yeah, that would be concerning. Are there any other presidential hopeful proposals that have to do with taxes that are germane, and our audience should know about?   Tom Wheelwright  24:41 my heavens. So the Democrats want to raise taxes by $5 trillion they want those taxes to all be on investors. And the reason I say that is because typically, people who make less than $400,000 which is their threshold, are not major investors. Most of their money goes to spending. Money. If you're making under $400,000 you can easily spend $400,000 a year. Oh, yeah, okay, that's not that hard, especially in today's world. It's a transfer from high net worth individuals who invest their money in long term projects like real estate, like energy, like business, and it's going to be a transfer to people who spend the money and they're going to spend it, my prediction is that if the Democrats get their way, we enter into a long term period of stagflation, high unemployment and high inflation. Because if you transfer $5 trillion from people who aren't spending it in the first place to be able who do spend it. You've got $5 trillion of new money going into the marketplace. Now it could depress asset values. So that could be good for investors, okay? Because you don't have as much cash available to the I'll call it the investor class, to go into real estate. If that's the case, then you have $5 trillion less, right? I mean, it's not a huge portion of the market, but it's big enough. If you take $5 trillion out of investment capital, then that would put a downward pressure on asset prices, which would include real estate.   Keith Weinhold  25:29 we're talking about potential changes to the tax code. It's always a germane discussion, because taxes are the biggest expense in your life. We're talking with Tom wheelwright. We come back, we're going to talk about the real estate tax laws as they are now, for example, how your rent income is taxed differently than your job income, and also, what are taxes like on sports, gambling. You're listening to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold.   Keith Weinhold  26:45 hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group NMLS 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. Start Now while it's on your mind at Ridgelendinggroup.com that's Ridgelendinggroup.com   Keith Weinhold  27:16 you your bank is getting rich off of you. The national average bank account pays less than 1% on your savings. If your money isn't making 4% you're losing your hard earned cash to inflation. Let the liquidity fund help you put your money to work with minimum risk, your cash generates up to an 8% return with compound interest, year in and year out. Instead of earning less than 1% sitting in your bank account, the minimum investment is just 25k you keep getting paid until you decide you want your money back. Their decade plus track record proves they've always paid their investors 100% in full and on time. And I would know, because I'm an investor too. Earn 8% hundreds of others are. Text FAMILY  to 66866, learn more about Freedom Family investments Liquidity Fund on your journey to financial freedom through passive income. Text FAMILY to 66866.     Blair Singer  28:29 this is Rich Dad, sales advisor, Blair singer. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold. And above all, Don't Quit Your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  28:48 welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with tax pro Tom wheelwright. He's been talking to us about some of the proposals that presidential candidates have here in a campaign season, and whether these things become true or not. Sometimes it seems like just the fact that they're proposing. They're proposed, or if they get instituted at a small level years down the road, it can blow up into something bigger. So Tom tell us more about some of the proposals that are on the table.   Tom Wheelwright  29:12 So we talked about the democratic proposals, which also include things like a $6,000 tax credit for babies. It also includes an enhanced Child Tax Credit. Also includes some other there's lots of provisions in there, right? So it's a transfer. It's just a transfer of money from one group of people to another group of people. On the Republican side, we haven't talked about that now they want to extend the 2017 act. They've been very clear, that's what they want to do, which is an estimate $4 trillion so the other direction. So basically, you're talking about a $9 trillion swing between the two parties. We've never seen this before, ever in a presidential election. Now, that big of a difference, one major tax increase, one party proposing major. Tax increases, the other proposing major tax decreases in the same election. It's something that I'm glad people are paying attention to, because it's a little overdue in this election cycle. Because really, when you talk about policy, that's probably the biggest policy difference between the two parties.   Keith Weinhold  30:18 Now one thing we've learned over time from talking with you is these presidential wish lists, if you want to call them that. Well, these tax changes are things that require congressional approval, and we have a divided Congress currently. So what do you think the prospects are of really any of these things becoming new law?   Tom Wheelwright  30:36 First of all, remember, most of the 2017 act expires at the end of 2025 so something will have to be done next year. They don't have a choice, either that or is just expires, and then we're back to what we had. We have smaller standard deductions, we have alternative minimum tax again. We get a deduction for state income taxes, right? That comes back the one. We lose our 20% Small Business deduction, the only thing that stays permanent is the corporate income tax rate that was permanent in the original bill. So there is going to be something, you're right, if there is a divided Congress, and I say that if, because if one party sweeps, then, especially on the Democratic side, the Republicans don't seem to be as cohesive as the Democrats are on these things. And if the Democrats sweep, I would say, remember, we don't have Kyrsten Sinema, we don't have Joe Manchin from happening. And so would the Democrats sweep all these through, not all of them, but you're going to see a major tax increase for sure, on the Republican side, would you see the 2017 act extended? You'll probably see it, but you're right that otherwise, if it's a divided Congress, we're going to have something in between. We thought we would get a divided Congress in 2020 though, remember and we didn't. So I would not count on a divided Congress   Keith Weinhold  31:59 erstwhile 2017 Trump tax cuts in JOBS Act brought the highest marginal income tax bracket from 39.6% under Obama down to 37% as I remember it. Some thought Biden would take it back up to 39.6 but he hasn't and it's just stated 37 All right, so if Republicans stayed in power, presumably that 37% would go ahead and carry on. That's what we think about as our w2 income. Tom, why don't we talk about the taxes that actually exist today? I think a lot of real estate investors just don't understand the difference between how your w2 job income is taxed versus your taxes on real estate rent. Can you talk to us about that?   Tom Wheelwright  32:42 The reason it's confusing is because they're both considered ordinary income, right? The difference is, is that one is business income and one is non business income. Your wages are non business income. You don't get deductions against non business income, but you do get deductions against business income. So your rental income is considered business income for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code. What that means is you get deductions for taxes. You get deductions for interest, you get deductions for maintenance, you get deductions for depreciation. That's why, when you have your income from your rentals. Typically taxed much lower than your income from your salary, because you get no deductions against your salary like you do against the rentals.   Keith Weinhold  33:30 Maybe it would help to introduce an example here. I don't know if this will complicate things too much or not. If a real estate investor has, say, a single family rental property with $2,000 of rent, income, $1,000 mortgage, $800 in operating expenses. How is that tax that leaves them with $200 of cash flow?   Tom Wheelwright  33:50 You have $200 of cash flow, but then you probably have depreciation on top of that, which is a non cash deduction. And so let's say your depreciation is $500 that means you actually have a $300 loss that, in many cases, you can use to offset income from your w2 so you actually have a negative tax rate. In other words, you're making money from taxes. So actually, is that an increase to your cash flow? So it's a way to think of it is, I have $200 of cash flow from my tenant, if I have a $300 loss for tax purposes, let's say I'm in a 33% tax bracket. I have $100 of income from the government. So that means my cash flow is really after tax. Cash flow is $300 not $200 whereas if you have the same $200 of income from your wages. Let's say you have just the net, right? Let's start with the net. You have $200 well, you're going to be taxed. And let's say that again, your 33% tax rate, that means you're after tax, right, is going to be roughly $125,000 okay, under $30 so $130 we're. $300 so it's like twice as much. In fact, all of that difference is because of the tax law.   Keith Weinhold  35:06 Gosh, that was a great breakdown. I'm really glad that I introduced that example, $2,000 in rent, minus $1,000 for the mortgage, at $800 in operating expenses, again, leaving you with $200 in cash flow with that example. There's probably more going on here with taxes. Because, of course, with that $1,000 mortgage amount, some is going to be principal, some is going to be interest. In part of that interest can be tax deductible.   Tom Wheelwright  35:31 I'm assuming it's all interest, because if it were not, we'd have a higher taxable income. Remember, your principal payment is not deductible. So in your example, I was assuming that the $1,000 mortgage payment was all interest. If it was only $800 then you'd have $400 of income before depreciation. You don't have $100 loss, because, remember, your principal's not deductible, so therefore you have to add that back into your taxable income.   Keith Weinhold  35:58 Will you talk to us about how to apply depreciation to this income versus expenses. Example, is there anything else you can speak to when it comes to that $800 of operating expenses in this example, and those expenses include things like property insurance, property tax itself, maintenance repairs and utilities.   Tom Wheelwright  36:19 Right but also, for example, you might run your rental real estate business out of a home office in your home so you could have a home office deduction. You might have your use your car for the rental purposes, and then you get a deduction for your car. So there are additional expenses that aren't even in that $800 that you could pick up that would not otherwise you'd never get a deduction, and you're really not spending any more money. You're just using it for business, and therefore getting a business deduction. So it's really all about what do I get to deduct? Remember that if you own a home for yourself, you don't get to really deduct the taxes. You have a limit on how much you can deduct. So taxes are limited in deduction. Mortgage Interest may or may not be limited. Remember also that if you have a mortgage, you're limited to how much a $750,000 mortgage being deductible, whereas if you it's a rental property, it could be a seven and a half million dollar and mortgage, and you still get the deduction, so you're not limited like you are. On top of that, again, it's a business, so let's say that you put solar panels on your personal home, you'd get a 30% tax credit, but you'd get no depreciation deduction. If you put solar panels on your rental house, you get the same 30% tax credit, but now you also get a depreciation deduction of probably another 30 $40,000 in the first year. So there's always more deductions in a business setting than a personal setting.   Keith Weinhold  37:56 Well, real estate has been around a really long time. Often laugh when people talk about non conventional investments and put real estate investing in their real estate's about the most conventional investment that we can possibly think of. It's been around a long time. We think about a newer thing that people do with their money, but I sure don't call it investing. That's sports gambling, and it's something that you and I haven't talked about before. Here Tom in 2018 the Supreme Court opened the way for states to legalize sports gambling, and at last check, 38 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico have legalized at least some form of sports gambling. So now it's a more germane conversation for you and I to have than it was a few years ago. Can you tell us about sports gambling, taxes and how it's treated.   Tom Wheelwright  38:41 So remember, all income is taxable. So that includes gambling winnings. They are taxable. In fact, you'll get a 1099 just like you would if you rendered services, you'd get a 1099 or you have interest income, you get 1099 you get 1099 from gambling. What you actually have to show is that you actually have gambling losses. So you have to track those gambling losses to show the IRS that you got gambling losses. But your gambling losses can never be more than your gambling winnings. You never get to generate a tax loss on gambling. What that means is, is that if you win $10,000 during the year, and you can prove that you lost $8,000 during the year, you're going to be taxed on $2,000 but if you can't prove the 8000 you're going to be taxed on 10,000   Keith Weinhold  39:33 so you the gambler, have the burden of tracking this, and I guess tracking your losses. I'm not a gambler. How would one track their losses?   Tom Wheelwright  39:42 I would keep detail ledger. Personally, I probably have a separate bank account just for gambling. Gosh, I'm not a gambler either, so that's what I would do. I would have a bank account just for gambling, by the way. It's also a good way to budget your gambling so they, you know, get in trouble, right? So just set up a separate bank account. Don't put whatever money you say, I'm comfortable with this money, I'm going to gamble with this money put in that bank account, and then you have a ledger that shows the money that went in and the money you lost, the money you won, and don't do anything but gambling in that bank account.   Keith Weinhold  40:15 Hey, that separate account's a great way to hide it from your spouse, not that I'm suggesting. Not bad.   Tom Wheelwright  40:22 Interesting. You went there.   Keith Weinhold  40:23 I'm not a gambler at all. Can't even believe I was thinking that far ahead. What are the gambling tax rates like?   Tom Wheelwright  40:31 They're ordinary income tax rate. So gambling winnings are just ordinary income. They're the same as your wages. They don't have social security taxes their income, just like any other kind of income, nothing special. And this all applies to whether it's sports gambling or general gambling, like lotteries and sweepstakes?  Just remember, all incomes taxable unless the government says it isn't all income, okay? And then there's some types of income that are taxed at special rates, like capital gains, but gambling has no special rates. By the way, gold also has special rate for when you sell gold, it has its own tax rate. Gambling has no special tax rate, so it's just your ordinary income rates.   Keith Weinhold  41:11 To me, it seems like it's hard to break even with gambling over time, and then when you take the tax adjusted earnings that you get from it, you know, over the long term. I just don't think Harris and Bally's Casino is really incentivized to inform gamblers on how punitive this can be with ordinary income tax rates applied to gambling winnings.   Tom Wheelwright  41:30 No, but they will send you your 10909g I guarantee that, that's for sure.   Keith Weinhold  41:34 Well, Tom has helped business owners and real estate investors permanently reduce their taxes. He does it like virtually no one else in the world does by keeping it simple, by helping you find deductions that other CPAs can't do. You can learn more about how Tom and his team can actually help you. You can get a free consultation. You can do that at getricheducation.com/tax. And Tom tell us more about the importance of a business owner or a real estate investor or anybody else really being connected with the right kind of tax professional that can permanently reduce your taxes.   Tom Wheelwright  42:12 So remember that if you want to change your tax, you have to change your facts. It's that simple. What you have to do is you need to know what facts you need to change. That's where a good tax advisor comes in. Is what facts do you need to change in order to change your tax now good news is, wrote tax through wealth. So you got an idea of what that is, but the tax law is very detailed. You must dot your i's cross your t's, so to speak, so that you make sure that you meet all of the rules, such as documentation, for example, for your business expenses. When you do that, you're going to get a better tax result, especially if your tax advisor is also preparing your tax return. Because really, your tax return is just part just how you implement your tax strategy, right? That's how you do it. So we launched, just recently, a franchise of tax advisors, and now we actually have much, really good control, quality control with our tax advisors, and they use our software system. It's very important that you have somebody, if not us, find somebody who you know you can actually give tax free wealth too, and say what cares make sure that we're doing it this way. But if the easy button is really the getricheducation.com/tax.   Keith Weinhold  43:27 Tom Wheelwright,  It's been valuable as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show.   Tom Wheelwright  43:33 Thanks, Keith.   Keith Weinhold  43:40 Yeah, key insights from Tom as always, taxes are complicated. Tom's Network helps sort it out for you. We've already covered a lot of ground on this week's episode with raw land values as built, proposed tax plans and how to reduce your tax burden within the existing tax system. Tom and I talked, and he will be back yet again with us later this year for more tax wizardry. Now, just recently here, Kamala Harris proposed a smaller capital gains tax hike than Biden. She's starting to put sort of her own policy spin on things, breaking with the President on the size of a proposed increase on the capital gains tax rate that is a 28% top tax rate when investments are sold for those that make a million dollars plus. So that's more than the current 23.8% top rate, but less than the 39.6% rate that Biden had supported all income is taxable. Therefore it is axiomatic that the fastest way to increase your ROI is to work with a tax advisor that can find you all of the biggest deductions right away. You can read Tom's book Tax Free Wealth, get a good system of documentation going and get connected with Tom's team. At the end of an episode at times, I like to leave you with the most actionable resource on the topic that we covered. You can schedule a free call to see how Tom's team can help you out. At getricheducation.com/tax. That's getricheducation.com/tax. Until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Don't Quit Your Daydream. 45:33 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold  46:01 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.  

Labor unions were spawned when employers imposed oppressive working conditions on their workers.  The Internal Revenue Code has spawned a union of its own in the National Taxpayers Union.  The NTU keeps an eye on Congress and rates its members on how their votes affect the taxpayers' pockets.This week, the FAIRtax Guys examine the NTU scores for the 26 Congressional representatives who are current cosponsors of the FAIRtax bill.

For 18 years, the PIMCO has conducted its annual U.S. Defined Contribution Consulting Study. One of the longest-running studies of its kind, it aims to understand what retirement consultants are thinking, seeing, and planning to do next. The firm interviews some of the most influential DC-focused consultants in the country, including advisors at CAPTRUST. The respondents this year represent 15,000 U.S. retirement plans and almost $9 trillion in assets.   In this episode of Revamping Retirement, your hosts Matt Patrick and Peter Ruffel welcome PIMCO's Vidur Mehra and Joseph Szalay to find out what's trending, what's challenging, and what's new the world of defined contributions, from plan design to evaluating retirement income solutions. IMPORTANT NOTICEPlease note that this podcast contains the opinions of the managers as of the date recorded, and may not have been updated to reflect real time market developments. All opinions are subject to change without notice. PIMCO is not responsible for the information or views communicated by representatives of other companies. This material is not indicative of the past or future performance of any PIMCO product and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation by PIMCO of any particular security, strategy or investment product. PIMCO has distributed this material for informational purposes only. The 2024 PIMCO US Defined Contribution Consulting Study seeks to help consultants, advisors and plan sponsors understand the breadth of views and consulting services available within the defined contribution (DC) marketplace. The 2024 study captures data, trends and opinions from 28 consulting and advisory firms who serve over 15,379 clients with aggregate DC assets in excess of $7.94 trillion. All responses were collected from January 8, 2024 through February 26, 2024.   All investments contain risk and may lose value. Investing in the bond market is subject to risks, including market, interest rate, issuer, credit, inflation risk, and liquidity risk. The value of most bonds and bond strategies are impacted by changes in interest rates. Bonds and bond strategies with longer durations tend to be more sensitive and volatile than those with shorter durations; bond prices generally fall as interest rates rise, and low interest rate environments increase this risk. Reductions in bond counterparty capacity may contribute to decreased market liquidity and increased price volatility. Bond investments may be worth more or less than the original cost when redeemed. Commodities contain heightened risk, including market, political, regulatory and natural conditions, and may not be appropriate for all investors. Investing in foreign-denominated and/or -domiciled securities may involve heightened risk due to currency fluctuations, and economic and political risks, which may be enhanced in emerging markets. High yield, lower-rated securities involve greater risk than higher-rated securities; portfolios that invest in them may be subject to greater levels of credit and liquidity risk than portfolios that do not. Inflation-linked bonds (ILBs) issued by the various governments around the world are fixed-income securities whose principal value is periodically adjusted according to the rate of inflation. Repayment upon maturity of the original principal as adjusted for inflation is guaranteed by the government that issues them. Neither the current market value of inflation-indexed bonds nor the value a portfolio that invests in ILBs is guaranteed, and either or both may fluctuate. ILBs decline in value when real interest rates rise. In certain interest rate environments, such as when real interest rates are rising faster than nominal interest rates, ILBs may experience greater losses than other fixed income securities with similar durations. The value of real estate and portfolios that invest in real estate may fluctuate due to: losses from casualty or condemnation, changes in local and general economic conditions, supply and demand, interest rates, property tax rates, regulatory limitations on rents, zoning laws, and operating expenses. Stable value wrap contracts are subject to credit and management risk. Management risk is the risk that the investment techniques and risk analyses applied by an investment manager will not produce the desired results, and that certain policies or developments may affect the investment techniques available to the manager in connection with managing a strategy. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are ILBs issued by the U.S. government. Diversification does not ensure against loss.   Glide Path is the asset allocation within a Target Date Strategy (also known as a Lifecycle or Target Maturity strategy) that adjusts over time as the participant's age increases and their time horizon to retirement shortens. The basis of the Glide Path is to reduce the portfolio risk as the participant's time horizon decreases. Typically, younger participants with a longer time horizon to retirement have sufficient time to recover from market losses, their investment risk level is higher, and they are able to make larger contributions (depending on various factors such as salary, savings, account balance, etc.). Generally, older participants and eligible retirees have shorter time horizons to retirement and their investment risk level declines as preserving income wealth becomes more important. De-risking strategy is based on a function of plan funded status. As plan funded status improves, clients may be interested in reducing their plan funded status volatility by shifting out of risk assets and into liability-hedging fixed income.  Target Date Funds are designed to provide investors with a retirement solution tailored to the time when they expect to retire or plan to start withdrawing money (the "target date"). Target Date Funds will gradually shift their emphasis from more aggressive investments to more conservative ones based on their target dates. Target Date Funds invest in other funds and instruments based on a long-term asset allocation glide path, and performance is subject to underlying investment weightings, which will change over time. An investment in a Target Date Fund does not eliminate the need for an investor to determine whether a Fund is appropriate for his or her financial situation. An investment in a Fund is not guaranteed. Investors may experience losses, including losses near, at, or after the target date, and there is no guarantee that a Fund will provide adequate income at and through retirement. PIMCO does not provide legal or tax advice. Please consult your tax and/or legal counsel for specific tax or legal questions and concerns. The discussion herein is general in nature and is provided for informational purposes only. There is no guarantee as to its accuracy or completeness.  Any tax statements contained herein are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be relied upon or used for the purpose of avoiding penalties imposed by the Internal Revenue Service or state and local tax authorities. Individuals should consult their own legal and tax counsel as to matters discussed herein and before entering into any estate planning, trust, investment, retirement, or insurance arrangement. There is no guarantee that these investment strategies will work under all market conditions or are appropriate for all investors and each investor should evaluate their ability to invest for the long term, especially during periods of downturn in the market. All opinions, outlook and strategies are subject to change without notice. PIMCO as a general matter provides services to qualified institutions, financial intermediaries and institutional investors. Individual investors should contact their own financial professional to determine the most appropriate investment options for their financial situation. This material contains the current opinions of the manager and such opinions are subject to change without notice. This material has been distributed for informational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission. PIMCO is a trademark of Allianz Asset Management of America LLC in the United States and throughout the world. ©2024, PIMCO  Pacific Investment Management Company LLC, 650 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, CA 92660 | 800.387.4626 These materials are being provided on the express basis that they and any related communications (whether written or oral) will not cause Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (or any affiliate) (collectively, “PIMCO”) to become an investment advice fiduciary under ERISA or the Internal Revenue Code, as the recipients are fully aware that PIMCO (i) is not undertaking to provide impartial investment advice, make a recommendation regarding the acquisition, holding or disposal of an investment, act as an impartial adviser, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity, and (ii) has a financial interest in the offering and sale of one or more products and services, which may depend on a number of factors relating to PIMCO (and its affiliates') internal business objectives, and which has been disclosed to the recipient.  These materials are also being provided on PIMCO's understanding that the recipients they are directed to are all financially sophisticated, capable of evaluating investment risks independently, both in general and with regard to particular transactions and investment strategies.  If this is not the case, we ask that you inform us immediately.  You should consult your own separate advisors before making any investment decisions. These materials are also being provided on the express basis that they and any related communications will not cause PIMCO (or any affiliate) to become an investment advice fiduciary under ERISA or the Internal Revenue Code with respect to any recipient or any employee benefit plan or IRA because: (i) the recipients are all independent of PIMCO and its affiliates, and (ii) upon review of all relevant facts and circumstances, the recipients have concluded that they have no financial interest, ownership interest, or other relationship, agreement or understanding with PIMCO or any affiliate that would limit any fiduciary responsibility that any recipient may have with respect to any Plan on behalf of which this information may be utilized.  If this is not the case, or if there is any relationship with any recipient of which you are aware that would call into question the recipient's ability to independently fulfill its responsibilities to any such Plan, we ask that you let us know immediately.    The information provided herein is intended to be used solely by the recipient in considering the products or services described herein and may not be used for any other reason, personal or otherwise. CMR2024-0815-3786436  

ERISA attorney Allie Itami, Partner at Lathrop GPM in Minneapolis, joins the 401(k) Specialist Pod(k)ast to talk about the status of the Department of Labor's beleaguered fiduciary rule in light of recent stay rulings in Texas, and also chimes in on ERISA at 50 before addressing compliance challenges presented by annuities in 401(k) plans.And click here to check out a recent blog post from Itami about ERISA's 50th anniversary, which will be celebrated with a gala event in Washington D.C. on Sept. 12.Itami is a partner in Lathrop GPM's Business Transactions Group, specializing in employee benefits and is known for providing comprehensive counsel on fiduciary compliance under ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code.Key Insights:Annuity Challenges in 401(k) Plans: The inclusion of annuities in 401(k) plans remains challenging due to issues with fiduciary liability, stigmas associated with annuities (such as high fees and lockups), and a lack of comprehensive safe harbor protections under current regulations.Fiduciary Rule Delays: The Department of Labor's fiduciary rule, which was set to take effect in September 2023, has faced delays due to court rulings. Compliance on the original date is no longer a concern for service providers due to legal stays, and the likelihood of the rule being implemented soon is minimal.ERISA's Evolution: ERISA has adapted over its 50-year history, moving from employer-centered benefit plans like pensions to more individualized retirement options such as 401(k)s and IRAs, reflecting shifts in workplace benefits.

“Top hat plans” —non-qualified deferred compensation plans that can be exempt from most of the requirements of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or ERISA—can be a useful tool for employers looking to provide deferred compensation benefits to certain key employees. However, care must be taken to ensure compliance with the relevant requirements of ERISA and Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. Darren Goodman, Megan Monson, and  Jessica I. Kriegsfeld of Lowenstein's Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits Group discuss how to structure such plans to make them compliant. Speakers: Darren Goodman, Vice Chair, Executive Compensation and Employee BenefitsMegan Monson, Partner, Executive Compensation and Employee BenefitsJessica Kriegsfeld, Associate, Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits

With the Cannabis industry constantly changing, staying on top of the latest compliant inventory practices can feel untenable. Unfortunately, failing to remain compliant can lead to disastrous financial and legal repercussions for your client, your business, and your reputation. If you are struggling to navigate inventory compliance, you are not going to want to miss our latest podcast “Compliant Rock Solid Live Inventory Counts." Led by DOPE CFO Founder, Andrew Hunzicker, CPA, learn directly from Andrew as he shares his expert insights and strategies on maintaining accurate inventory compliance. During this podcast, you will learn:  Internal Revenue Code 471 and how to stay compliant Best practices, tools, and workpapers for successful inventory accounting Compliant inventory count practices and procedures RC 471-2 Lower of Cost or Market considerations along with tools and processes for cost accounting Legal and financial liabilities for mismanaged inventory And so much more… Whether you are looking for help understanding inventory compliance or searching for tools to effectively better manage inventory, this podcast will guide you through the intricacies of inventory compliance accounting. Don't let poor inventory accounting practices jeopardize your business! Tune in and equip yourself with compliant best practices to drive your business' growth in the Cannabis industry.

Nearly 75% of cannabis businesses operate at a loss, and many in the industry point to a feature of the Internal Revenue Code as the reason why. Cannabis companies are prohibited from deducting ordinary business expenses—like rent or payroll—from their federal taxes as long as marijuana remains under the most restrictive portion of the Controlled Substances Act. That could change if marijuana is moved from Schedule I to Schedule III of the act, as the Biden administration has proposed. But in the meantime, 22 states plus Washington, D.C., have allowed medical or recreational cannabis businesses to take some deductions on their state returns, by decoupling their tax codes from Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code, which imposes the federal ban. Pennsylvania was the most recent to make that change with a state budget adopted last month. In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporters Angélica Serrano-Román and Owen Racer talk about their recent look into how states are increasingly decoupling their tax from 280E at the state level. Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Scott welcomed Jay Rosencrance, RICP, WMCPin studio for a discussion on annuities and the history of Athene. Jay is the VP/Relationship Manager at Athene. Jay the VP/Relationship Manager for Athene covering accounts across the country. He has spent bulk of his 32 year career involved in retirement income planning. Prior to Athene, he worked at Genworth Financial as VP, Sports and Entertainment, where he worked on post career income planning for professional athletes. Before that, he was a Master Black Belt at GE Transportation Systems. He finds that wherever he has worked, he bring three key strengths to the table: strong interpersonal skills (team player), detail oriented with strong analytical and problem solving skills, and the ability to succeed through a strong work ethic. When not working, he loves to spend time with his wife of 32 years (Amy), and their 2 children (Sean - 25, and Erin - 22). He also enjoy running, and has completed 10 marathons.In the episode, you will learn the following:The Athene story – Innovative products, distribution channelsAthene's technological advancements, such as e-applications and index strategy presets, which streamline processes and benefit consumers.Planning strategies like partial Roth conversions, emphasizing tax benefits and the mechanics of recharacterizing traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs within Athene products.Athene Connect is a valuable resource for advisors, offering tools, webinars, and sales kits to enhance their practice and better serve clients.Connect with Scott on LinkedInConnect Jay with on LinkedInFor more on The Optimized Advisor Podcast click here  For more on Athene click hereFollow us on LinkedInFollow us on InstagramFollow us on Facebook  Disclosures:Guarantees provided by annuities are subject to the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company.Any information regarding taxation contained herein is based on our understanding of current tax law, which is subject to changeand differing interpretations. This information should not be relied on as tax, legal or financial advice and cannot be used by any taxpayer for the purposes of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code. We recommend that taxpayers consult with their tax or legal professionals for applicability to their personal circumstances. Under current tax law, the Internal Revenue Code already provides tax deferral to qualified money, so there is no additional tax benefit obtained by funding a qualified contract, such as an IRA, with an annuity; consider the other benefits provided by an annuity, such as lifetime income and a Death Benefit.Required Minimum Distribution as defined by Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(9). A diversified allocation does not ensure positive interest credits in any given year.  **This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@optimizedins.com Optimized Insurance Planning

26th June: Crypto & Coffee at 8

In the first half of 2024, though the markets are doing well, inflation is cooling, unemployment is near record lows, and the economy is strong, there continues to be an undercurrent of anxiety among investors. That's likely due to the sense that there are a lot of uncertainties out there, including the Fed's rate-cut timing, the looming election, potential tax changes, the nation's rising debt load, and more. On this episode, Daniel Stein, who manages three Charles Schwab branches, joins host Mike Townsend for a wide-ranging discussion about investor concerns and offers solid suggestions for navigating them. Dan also provides strategies for building a bond portfolio to capture today's strong rates while also planning for rate changes in the future, shares insights on where to look for potential opportunities spurred by the growing interest in artificial intelligence, and offers ideas for how investors can position themselves in anticipation of potential tax code changes in 2025.In his Washington update, Mike discusses bills moving through Congress to create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and to discourage the Fed from launching a central bank digital currency. He also provides an update on a setback for the SEC, which saw a new rule for hedge funds rejected by the courts.For more reading on one of the topics discussed on today's episode, see the Schwab Center for Financial Research's latest deep dive into the implications of large federal deficits and the growing national debt: "Deficits, Debt, and Markets: Myths vs. Realities."WashingtonWise is an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab. For more on the series, visit schwab.com/WashingtonWise.If you enjoy the show, please leave a ★★★★★ rating or review on Apple Podcasts Important DisclosuresThe policy analysis provided by the Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., does not constitute and should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any political party.The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered an individualized recommendation or personalized investment advice. All expressions of opinion are subject to changes without notice in reaction to shifting market, economic, and geopolitical conditions. Data herein is obtained from what are considered reliable sources; however, its accuracy, completeness, or reliability cannot be guaranteed. Supporting documentation for any claims or statistical information is available upon request.Examples provided are for illustrative purposes only and not intended to be reflective of results you can expect to achieve.Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.All names and market data shown above are for illustrative purposes only and are not a recommendation, offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Supporting documentation for any claims or statistical information is available upon request.The information and content provided herein is general in nature and is for informational purposes only. It is not intended, and should not be construed, as a specific recommendation, individualized tax, legal, or investment advice. Tax laws are subject to change, either prospectively or retroactively. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, individuals should contact their own professional tax and investment advisors or other professionals (CPA, Financial Planner, Investment Manager) to help answer questions about specific situations or needs prior to taking any action based upon this information.Digital currencies [such as bitcoin] are highly volatile and not backed by any central bank or government. Digital currencies lack many of the regulations and consumer protections that legal-tender currencies and regulated securities have. Due to the high level of risk, investors should view digital currencies as a purely speculative instrument.Diversification and asset allocation strategies do not ensure a profit and cannot protect against losses in a declining market.Performance may be affected by risks associated with non-diversification, including investments in specific countries or sectors. Additional risks may also include, but are not limited to, investments in foreign securities, especially emerging markets, real estate investment trusts (REITs), fixed income, small capitalization securities and commodities. Each individual investor should consider these risks carefully before investing in a particular security or strategy.Currency trading is speculative, volatile and not suitable for all investors.Money market funds are neither insured nor guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. Although the fund seeks to preserve the value of an investment at $1.00 per share, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.Roth IRA conversions require a 5-year holding period before earnings can be withdrawn tax free and subsequent conversions will require their own 5-year holding period. In addition, earnings distributions prior to age 59 1/2 are subject to an early withdrawal penalty.A bond ladder, depending on the types and amount of securities within the ladder, may not ensure adequate diversification of your investment portfolio. This potential lack of diversification may result in heightened volatility of the value of your portfolio.  As compared to other fixed income products and strategies, engaging in a bond ladder strategy may potentially result in future reinvestment at lower interest rates and may necessitate higher minimum investments to maintain cost-effectiveness. Evaluate whether a bond ladder and the securities held within it are consistent with your investment objective, risk tolerance and financial circumstances.Investors should consider, before investing, whether the investor's or designated beneficiary's home state offers any state tax or other state benefits such as financial aid, scholarship funds, and protection from creditors that are only available in such state's qualified tuition programInvestment Research for Schwab Investing Themes™ is provided by Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc. (“CSIM”). CSIM is an affiliate of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (“Schwab”). Both CSIM and Schwab are separate entities and subsidiaries of The Charles Schwab Corporation.Schwab Investing Themes is for informational purposes only; it is not intended to be investment advice (including fiduciary advice as defined under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act or the Internal Revenue Code) or a recommendation of any stock. Neither the tax-loss harvesting strategy, nor any discussion herein, is intended as tax advice and does not represent that any particular tax consequences will be obtained. Tax-loss harvesting involves certain risks including unintended tax implications. Investors should consult with their tax advisors and refer to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website at www.irs.gov about the consequences of tax-loss harvesting.Forecasts contained herein are for illustrative purposes only, may be based upon proprietary research and are developed through analysis of historical public data.Indexes are unmanaged, do not incur management fees, costs, and expenses and cannot be invested in directly. For more information on indexes, please see Schwab.com/IndexDefinitions.Past performance is no guarantee of future results and the opinions presented cannot be viewed as an indicator of future performance.The Schwab Center for Financial Research is a division of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Podcasts are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.Spotify and the Spotify logo are registered trademarks of Spotify AB.0624-7YJZ

Do you enjoy paying taxes to the government? Do you want to keep more of your profit or gain from the sale of assets? Do you know the Tax Code Section, that has been in existence for a little more than 100 years to help (at first) farmers to defer gains on the sale of assets? This week's guest on the Crushing Debt Podcast is Dave Foster, a nationwide qualified intermediary for 1031 exchanges. Dave has built his business around a model of education, teaching continuing education courses for Realtor associations throughout the country, as well as educational investor webinars for title companies, attorneys, and real estate brokerages.  Dave advocates for the strategic use of defering tax gains using section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code (the 1031 Exchange). Dave is an example of using the tax code to his advantage  over the years to position his investment portfolio to buy and live on a sailboat for 10 years raising his children. Dave didn't start with 1031 Exchanges, but learned the hard way when the government took 40% of the profits from one of his first sales in the form of taxes.  Shawn talks to Dave about some of the benefits of using Section 1031 as an investment strategy. You can contact Dave at Dave@The1031Investor.com or visit his website www.The1031Investor.com.  Let us know if you enjoy this episode and, if so, please share it with your friends! Please also visit our sponsor, Sam Cohen of Attorneys First Insurance for Attorneys and Title Companies looking to get a quote on Errors & Ommissions (malpractice) Insurance coverage. www.AttorneysFirst.com.  Or, you can support the show by visiting our new Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/crushingDebt  To contact George Curbelo, you can email him at GCFinancialCoach21@gmail.com, or follow his Tiktok channel - https://www.tiktok.com/@curbelofinancialcoach  To contact Shawn Yesner, you can email him at Shawn@Yesnerlaw.com or visit www.YesnerLaw.com. And we are always accepting donations to support Pancreatic Cancer education, detection and research by joining Shawn's PanCAN team, MY Legacy Striders: http://support.pancan.org/goto/MYLegacyStriders08  

Many founders, like Alyssa, worry that a 409a valuation is considered a true market-based assessment of a company's overall worth or potential. It is not. Heidi points out factors that influence a 409a valuation along with what is not reflected, namely, leadership, team quality, and disruptive potential.  More information: https://www.threshold.vc/podcast/the-case-of-the-409a-freak-out Further Reading: Carta provides a pretty comprehensive discussion of 409a's here: https://rb.gy/z4vsky While we all think of 409a's in the context of getting a valuation for common shares, it stems from The Internal Revenue Code, section 409a. A little ‘fun' (if you think of the Enron bankruptcy as fun) history here: https://www.equityeffect.com/blog/irc-409a-overview-409a-valuations-explained/

  One of the most important questions Delaware Statutory Trust real estate investors need to ask themselves is, “What is my long-term, exit strategy?” Most Delaware Statutory Trust (DST) investments are typically held for approximately 5-10 years (although it could be shorter or longer). After that, the DST investment will typically go “Full-Cycle”, a term used to describe a DST property that is purchased on behalf of investors and then after a period of time is sold on behalf of investors. While the two most common exit strategies for DST investors include cashing-out and paying taxes or continuing with another 1031 Exchange, a third optiion exists for investors in the form of a 721 UPREIT.  What is a 721 UPREIT Exchange? The term “UPREIT” is short for Umbrella Partnership Real Estate Investment Trust, which is an operating partnership subsidiary of a REIT that holds and operates real property. Section 721 of the Internal Revenue Code allows owners of real estate property to contribute, on a tax deferred basis, their physical property to a partnership, in exchange for interests in the partnership ( a 721 Transaction). This structure allows holders of real estate to exchange real property for economic interest in the REIT in the form of operating partnership units by contributing that property to the partnership in a 721 Transaction. The operating partnership units have economic rights that are identical to the rights of the shares of the REIT, and after a designated holding period can be, if the investor chooses to, converted into shares of the REIT (in a taxable transaction) for liquidity purposes. Investors seeking to defer capital gains taxes while increasing diversification in real estate should consider using a 721 Exchange to realize the several potentail benefits that are explained in this informative podcast episode by Kay Properties.  

I'm Amanda Hanquist, the Fit Financial, today we're diving into a topic that is crucial for any serious investor to know. The 1031 exchange, what is it, who is it for and what you need to know. This powerful tool allows you to defer capital gains taxes on the sale of investment property by shifting the taxable gains from one property to another. In this episode, we'll breakdown the fundamentals of the 1031 exchange, while giving you some less familiar strategies that you keep in your toolbelt. Whether you're new to this or a seasoned entrepreneur, the 1031 exchange is a strategy you need to know. Named after Section 1031 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, allows an investor to defer paying capital gains taxes on the sale of certain types of property if they reinvest the proceeds into a similar property. 1031 Exchange and Tax Deferral Who is it for, when to use it What does "like-kind" property mean How real estate agents could benefit Why Estate Planning is important Potential for portfolio diversification Different investment opportunities Thank you for listening to The Fit Financial. If you liked this episode, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. Find me on Instagram at the fit financial or if you'd like to know how you can work with us directly, Visit us at IG: Amanda @thefitfinancial_ IG: Shawn @shawnhanquist The fit financial is brought to you by Fit wealth advisors. Fit Wealth Advisors is an investment adviser registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply any level of skill or training. This presentation has been provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal or investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security or strategy. The investment strategy and themes discussed herein may be unsuitable for investors depending on their specific investment objectives and financial situation.

Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida has taken a significant step, advocating the House throw its weight behind a lawsuit Hunter Biden, the president's son, filed against the Internal Revenue Service. It was on Wednesday that Gaetz forwarded a key letter to the House Speaker Mike Johnson, imploring him to request the House Office of General Counsel to step in, in support of the IRS representatives who flagged certain irregularities linked to the examination of Biden. Biden's litigation was initiated back in September, and in it, he accused IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler of initiating a coordinated effort to tarnish his reputation and cause him personal distress. According to Biden, the pair had overstepped their bounds by revealing confidential taxpayer information, a move considered a legal violation. The first month of this year saw the Department of Justice taking action, with ABC News reporting that the department had sought the lawsuit's dismissal. Shapley's defense crew, on the other hand, countered with a stout refusal of any inappropriate leaks beyond the reasonable exceptions set out in the whistleblower laws. In the personalized letter addressed to Speaker Johnson, Gaetz strongly communicated the urgency for safeguarding these courageous whistleblowers. He referenced the House rules and relevant sections of the U.S. Code that make provisions for the House Office of General Counsel to wade into legal conflicts. Gaetz further amplified his request, seeking the speaker to instruct the House Office of General Counsel to make concerted efforts to get involved in the Biden versus IRS case. The aim was dual fold: to uphold the rights of the House and to ensure the rights of all American citizens to give protected information to Congress remain unviolated. Adding gravity to his communication, Gaetz attached to his letter both the original complaint filed by Biden, followed by the Department of Justice's partial motion seeking dismissal. He urged the House Office of General Counsel to thoroughly go through these materials for a better understanding of the case. In his letter, Gaetz observed that an adequate representation of the rights of the House to the Court by the Department of Justice was glaringly missing in the case at hand. He used this as a supporting point to emphasize the need for the active involvement of the House Office of General Counsel. Gaetz highlighted an example to illustrate his point, he argued that there is an extremely narrow interpretation of the Internal Revenue Code § 6103's whistleblower provisions in the complaint, an interpretation that the Department of Justice offers no contestation against. He further stressed on the House's explicit stake in the widest conceivable interpretation of the content that an individual can rightfully disclose to congressional committees. This assertion was the core of his communication and one that Gaetz hoped would galvanize Speaker Johnson to action. Hunter Biden's legal turmoil extends beyond this particular lawsuit. There are looming criminal charges in his horizon, spawned from an investigation helmed by special counsel David Weiss that was jolted into the public sphere by whistleblower testimonies last year. President Biden's eldest son is combatting indictments related to federal gun and tax charges, to which he responded with a resounding plea of not guilty. Whether these charges will stand or crumble remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: Hunter Biden finds himself under a microscope. Adding a more complex layer to an already intricate scenario, Biden was subjected to an off-the-record deposition with investigators from the House last month. This is part of an ongoing impeachment probe concerning his father, the sitting President, Joe Biden. The younger Biden, however, chose not to attend a publicly scheduled hearing the following week. As always, his actions, or in this case non-action, make for interesting debate among those assessing the political climate and speculating about the course it may take in the future. Real News Now Website Connect with Real News Now on Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealNewsNowApp/ X Twitter: https://twitter.com/realnewsapp Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realnews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realnewsnowapp Threads: https://www.threads.net/@realnews/ Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/realnewsnow Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@RealNews YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@realnewsnowapp End Wokeness: https://endthewokeness.com #realnewsnow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lauren Boebert won't compete in special election to replace Rep. Ken Buck | MO voters favor abortion rights | Kansas GOP's flat tax favors the wealthiest 20% | JB Pritzker wants to end prior authorizations in mental health | Texas right-wing billionaires get their way ELECTION 2024Missourians back initiative to restore abortion rights by small margin, new poll findsThe St. Louis University/YouGov poll found many undecided voters as ballot campaign gathers signatures. The poll also found strong support for repealing the sales tax on food and sports wageringBY: RUDI KELLER - MARCH 13, 2024 6:00 AMhttps://missouriindependent.com/2024/03/13/missourians-back-initiative-to-restore-abortion-rights-by-small-margin-new-poll-finds/In June of 2022 The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established federal constitutional protections for abortion. Under current Missouri law, abortions are only allowed to save the life of the mother or when “a delay will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” This has made abortion virtually inaccessible in the state.Now, a group called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom is collecting signatures to put abortion rights on the November ballot. They must gather at least 171,000 signatures from registered voters by early May.A new poll shows plurality of Missourians support restoring abortion rights as they existed under Roe v. Wade, but a large undecided group holds the key to victory. The St. Louis University/YouGov Poll conducted in February found that 44% of those surveyed would vote for abortion rights after hearing the ballot language, while 37% were opposed. Almost one-fifth of voters, 19%, said they were unsure how they would vote.71% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans support the proposal.If the measure makes the ballot, poll director Steven Rogers said there are enough undecided voters to sway the result. A sports wagering initiative campaign is also underway and the poll found 60% of those surveyed back legal betting on professional sports.That poll surveyed 900 likely Missouri voters between Feb. 14 and Feb. 26, with a 3.74% margin of error. Along with the major initiatives, the poll included questions tracking attitudes toward President Joe Biden, Congress, major Missouri political figures and the General Assembly.The poll also questioned voters about their choices for governor and their views on the biggest issues confronting the state as well as current legislative debates like school choice.37% of those surveyed said they approve of the job President Biden is doing, a rating similar to the findings in four previous surveys dating to July 2021. Gov. Mike Parson, who will leave office at the end of the year due to term limits, has an approval rating of 52%, among the highest ever found by the poll. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican seeking re-election this year, has an approval rating of 50%.The race to succeed Parson is wide open, at least for the August primaries. Without named candidates, the poll found 52% of those surveyed will vote for the Republican candidate for governor while 38% selected the Democrat.When those who said they would vote Republican were asked which candidate they preferred, “not sure” was selected by almost half of those polled. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft had the largest number of committed voters, with 28%, followed by Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe at 10% and state Sen. Bill Eigel at 8%.On the Democratic side, “not sure” was selected by 66% of respondents, with House Minority Leader Crystal Quade chosen by 21% and Springfield businessman Mike Hamra chosen by 4%.New Kansas flat tax proposal would mainly benefit state's top 20% of earnersBY: RACHEL MIPRO - MARCH 13, 2024 11:19 AMhttps://kansasreflector.com/2024/03/13/new-kansas-flat-tax-proposal-would-mainly-benefit-states-top-20-of-earners-analysis-shows/TOPEKA — A revamped flat tax plan touted by Kansas Senate lawmakers on Tuesday would cost the state nearly $650 million annually, give 40% of the benefits to the state's wealthiest 20%, and reap billionaire Charles Koch a half-million dollar windfall, according to independent analysis.During the Senate Committee on Assessment and Taxation hearing, Republican lawmakers claimed the bill, Senate Bill 539, would address Kansans' needs. Committee Chair Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican who requested the bill's introduction said, “It is a product of listening to people and trying to come up with the best solution,”The state currently uses a graduated income tax rate: 3.1% for income under $15,000, 5.25% for income between $15,000 and $30,000 and 5.7% for income above $30,000. Couples filing together have those income amounts doubled.SB 539 would change income tax rates over six years, starting with a universal income tax rate of 5.7% in 2024, and reduced by .05% each year until 2029, which would set the rate at 5.45%. Under current law, the standard state deduction for income taxes is set at $3,500 for single filers and $8,000 for married couples filing jointly. The bill would set the deduction at $4,000 for single filers in 2024 and increase the standard deduction for all taxpayers by the cost-of-living adjustment published in the Internal Revenue Code beginning in tax year 2025.However, researchers estimate the top 20% of earners – those with annual incomes of over $315,000 – would see nearly 40% of the benefits. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan research organization that favors a progressive tax system, estimated the plan would cost the state nearly $650 million annually once fully implemented.A Kansas household making less than $55,000 a year would see $237 in benefits. Billionaire Charles Koch would receive an estimated annual $485,000 in tax breaks under the proposal.The bill would also cut the standard tax rate for banks from the current 2.25% rate to 1.94% in tax year 2024, and down to 1.63% in 2025. For savings and loan associations, taxes would be reduced from the current 2.25% rate to 1.93% in 2024 and down to 1.61% in 2025. Other provisions include eliminating the state's 2% sales tax on groceries by July 1. Currently, the tax is set to end on Jan. 1, 2025.Earlier in the legislative session, a Republican-driven effort fast-tracked the 5.25% income tax plan that would have reduced tax collections by more than $300 million per year and primarily benefited the state's top earners. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the proposal in late January, characterizing it as “reckless.” Despite the GOP supermajority in the House and Senate, a veto override attempt failed in the House due to opposition among conservative and moderate Republicans who felt the proposal didn't do enough for the state's lower-income residents.Governor Kelly has said she will continue to veto “irresponsible flat tax proposals.”House panel opens hearings on Pritzker's health insurance reformsWednesday, March 13, 2024Bill seeks to reduce denials of coverage, improve provider networksBy PETER HANCOCKCapitol News Illinoisphancock@capitolnewsillinois.comhttps://capitolnewsillinois.com/NEWS/house-panel-opens-hearings-on-pritzkers-health-insurance-reformsSPRINGFIELD – A panel of Illinois lawmakers began hearing testimony Wednesday on Gov. JB Pritzker's proposals for sweeping changes in the state's health insurance industry. The changes, which Pritzker first unveiled in his State of the State address in February, would limit the ability of companies to deny claims or steer patients toward cheaper, and possibly less effective, treatments. They are contained in an amendment to House Bill 5395. They include banning prior authorization requirements for people to receive in-patient treatment at a psychiatric facility as well as all forms of so-called “step therapy” for prescription drug coverage. Step therapy refers to the practice of requiring a patient to try one or more cheaper, alternative medications before being allowed to access medications prescribed by their doctor.Other changes in the plan include requiring insurance companies to publicly post the types of treatments and therapies that do require prior authorization; requiring them to maintain accurate lists of the providers who are in their networks; and banning the sale in Illinois of short-term, limited duration insurance plans that don't meet the minimum standards under the federal Affordable Care Act.Emily Miller, a senior advisor in Pritzker's office, tried to assure the House Human Services Committee Wednesday that the administration was not waging war against the health insurance industry.“Insurance has a role to play, and I'm not here to demonize the insurance industry,” she said. “I am here, though, to say that it is time for consumers to have a say in how insurance companies are administering their health care plans. And we want to make sure that consumers are protected.”During the hearing, the committee heard personal stories from individual patients and their families, including some legislators, who spoke about their experiences having claims denied by their insurers. Among them was state Sen. Patrick Joyce, D-Essex, whose son was born with a rare heart malfunction that requires treatments for which he needs prior authorizations. He also had a daughter who died following a long battle with leukemia. He said, “We had her stay four days in the hospital because we couldn't get a nausea medication that we knew worked after chemo (round) two. We couldn't get it authorized in chemo (round) three. Very frustrating. Four days in the hospital, and I'm not sure how that saves somebody money.”Dr. Mary Dobbins, a pediatrician and psychologist who is a past president of the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, testified about what she called a “mental health crisis” among children and youth in the United States. She said the crisis has been “artificially magnified by the requirements that tie up our clinical time.”She said “I've had multiple patients who destabilized because medicine they'd been doing well on was now denied, and the parents couldn't afford to pay for it out of pocket. The appropriate level of care is commonly denied.”The committee took no action Wednesday, but Chair Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, said the committee plans to hold more discussions and could vote as early as next week to advance the bill to the full House.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.Amid white supremacist scandal, far-right billionaire powerbrokers see historic election gains in TexasAll told, 11 of the 28 House candidates supported by Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks won their primaries outright, and another eight are headed to runoffs this May.BY ROBERT DOWNENMARCH 8, 2024https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/08/tim-dunn-farris-wilks-defend-texas-liberty-election/West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks entered the 2024 primary election cycle wounded.Their political network was in the middle of a scandal over its ties to white supremacists. Republicans were calling on each other to reject the billionaires' campaign money. And their enemies believed they were vulnerable — one bad election day from losing their grip on the state.Instead, Dunn and Wilks emerged from Texas' primaries last Tuesday perhaps stronger than ever — vanquishing old political foes, positioning their allies for a November takeover of the state Legislature, and leaving little doubt as to who is winning a vicious civil war to control the state party.In race after race, more moderate conservative incumbents were trounced by candidates backed by Dunn and Wilks. Their political network made good on its vows for vengeance against House Republicans who voted to impeach their key state ally, Attorney General Ken Paxton, advancing more firebrands who campaigned against bipartisanship and backed anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Tuesday's election also paved the way for the likely passage of legislation that would allow taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools — a key policy goal for a movement that seeks to infuse more Christianity into public life.All told, 11 of the 28 House candidates supported by the two billionaires won their primaries outright, and another eight are headed to runoffs this May. And, in a sign of how much the state party has moved rightward, five of their candidates beat incumbents in rematches from 2022 or 2020 — with some House districts swinging by double-digits in their favor. Of the candidates they backed, they donated $75,000 or more to 11 of them — six who won, and four who went to runoffs.Among the triumphant on Tuesday was Mitch Little, aided by at least $153,000 in Dunn and Wilks cash, who defeated Rep. Kronda Thimesch in a campaign that focused on Little's defense of Paxton from impeachment charges in the Senate trial last summer. Three days before he won, Little appeared at an event in Denton County with Paxton and, among others, Steve Bannon, the political operative who helped rally the far right behind then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016.And another Dunn and Wilks candidate, David Covey, stunned the state by winning more votes than House Speaker Dade Phelan — the No. 1 target of the state's far-right in part because of his role in the Paxton impeachment and refusal to ban Democrats from House leadership positions. Phelan now faces a runoff from Covey and the prospect of being the first Texas Speaker since 1972 to lose his primary.This election cycle, the billionaires' targets also overlapped with Gov. Greg Abbott, who poured more than $6 million into his quest to rid the Texas House of Republicans who defied his calls for school voucher legislation last year. Meanwhile, Paxton barnstormed the state as he sought retribution against incumbents who supported his impeachment. And, perhaps most importantly, former President Donald Trump was active in many contests — following the lead of Paxton and his other ally, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and offering late endorsements that bolstered right-wing candidates.We can't wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas' breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.Here's how the special election to replace Ken Buck will work in ColoradoLauren Boebert indicates she will not compete in special electionBY: SARA WILSON - MARCH 13, 2024 5:01 PMhttps://coloradonewsline.com/2024/03/13/special-election-to-replace-ken-buck-colorado/Colorado voters in the 4th Congressional District will vote in two separate elections on June 25: the congressional primary for November's general election, as well as a special election to immediately replace Republican Rep. Ken Buck, who announced on Tuesday that he is resigning and leaving Congress nine months ahead of schedule.It could add confusion to the a competitive and crowded race in Colorado's Eastern Plains.Buck had already announced his intention to retire and not seek reelection this year, but he surprised the political world this week by announcing that he would leave Congress on March 22, versus sticking around until the end of his term.That sets off a seldom-used process to fill a congressional vacancy via special election that, according to a decision announced by Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday, will coincide with the June 25 congressional primary election. The winner of that special election will fill the remaining months of Buck's term, but would still need to win the party's nomination that day and then the general election in November to secure a full term in Congress.Each party will convene a special convention made up of party insiders to select one nominee for the special election. According to state statute, those special conventions need to happen within 20 days of the governor issuing a formal order for the special election, which hasn't technically happened yet.The 4th District leans more Republican than any in the state, so whoever wins the special Republican nomination will likely go on to win the special election, and whoever wins the Republican primary will likely go on to win the general election.That opens up a couple possibilities: The district will be represented by the same person from June 25 onward because they win both elections, or the winner of the special election will hand the seat off to the winner of the general election — almost certainly the winner of the Republican primary — early next year.The state Democratic Party said on Tuesday night that it will hold its special convention no later than April 1. The convention will include the district's central committee members and all the precinct organizers in the district. Ike McCorkle and John Padora have both signaled they will seek the Democratic special nomination.The state Republican Party has not yet made its special convention plans public and leaders did not reply to requests for comment Wednesday. That gathering will involve officers of the congressional district and the county chairmen in the district, according to party bylaws. The state party's assembly, where delegates will pick candidates to appear on the primary ballot, is already set for April 5 in Pueblo.Nine Republicans were vying for the Republican nomination in the district before Buck's early retirement announcement: current 3rd Congressional District Rep. Lauren Boebert, former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, state Reps. Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf, conservative radio host Deborah Flora, former state lawmaker Ted Harvey, businessman Chris Phelen, businessman Peter Yu and Justin Schreiber.Those candidates can all put themselves forward to be considered for the special election nomination.Sonnenberg, Flora and Harvey have all indicated they will pursue the nomination.“This new vacancy doesn't change my race, nor my commitment to proving to Republicans voters why I am the strongest conservative voice to serve them in Washington. I look forward to earning this nomination and getting to D.C. as soon as possible,” Sonnenberg wrote in a statement.Flora wrote in her own statement that the district can't afford a “placeholder” between Buck's retirement and the new term next year.Holtorf has not indicated if he will seek the special nomination, but he called Buck's decision a “selfish move” that will “potentially create bias during the election cycle” in a statement Tuesday.Boebert, however, will not seek the special nomination. If she wins the special election, she would have to resign her current position representing the 3rd District, setting off a vacancy process in that district.“I will not further imperil the already very slim House Republican majority by resigning my current seat and will continue to deliver on my constituents' priorities while also working hard to earn the votes of the people of Colorado's 4th District who have made clear they are hungry for a real conservative,” she said in a statement.She called Buck's announcement a “swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election.”With Buck's resignation, the GOP's majority in the U.S. House of Representatives will shrink to 218-213.The 4th District includes most of Douglas County and the Eastern Plains. @TheHeartlandPOD on Twitter and ThreadsCo-HostsAdam Sommer @Adam_Sommer85 (Twitter) @adam_sommer85 (Post)Rachel Parker @msraitchetp (Post) Sean Diller (no social)The Heartland Collective - Sign Up Today!JOIN PATREON FOR MORE - AND JOIN OUR SOCIAL NETWORK!“Change The Conversation”Outro Song: “The World Is On Fire” by American Aquarium http://www.americanaquarium.com/

Lauren Boebert won't compete in special election to replace Rep. Ken Buck | MO voters favor abortion rights | Kansas GOP's flat tax favors the wealthiest 20% | JB Pritzker wants to end prior authorizations in mental health | Texas right-wing billionaires get their way ELECTION 2024Missourians back initiative to restore abortion rights by small margin, new poll findsThe St. Louis University/YouGov poll found many undecided voters as ballot campaign gathers signatures. The poll also found strong support for repealing the sales tax on food and sports wageringBY: RUDI KELLER - MARCH 13, 2024 6:00 AMhttps://missouriindependent.com/2024/03/13/missourians-back-initiative-to-restore-abortion-rights-by-small-margin-new-poll-finds/In June of 2022 The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established federal constitutional protections for abortion. Under current Missouri law, abortions are only allowed to save the life of the mother or when “a delay will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” This has made abortion virtually inaccessible in the state.Now, a group called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom is collecting signatures to put abortion rights on the November ballot. They must gather at least 171,000 signatures from registered voters by early May.A new poll shows plurality of Missourians support restoring abortion rights as they existed under Roe v. Wade, but a large undecided group holds the key to victory. The St. Louis University/YouGov Poll conducted in February found that 44% of those surveyed would vote for abortion rights after hearing the ballot language, while 37% were opposed. Almost one-fifth of voters, 19%, said they were unsure how they would vote.71% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans support the proposal.If the measure makes the ballot, poll director Steven Rogers said there are enough undecided voters to sway the result. A sports wagering initiative campaign is also underway and the poll found 60% of those surveyed back legal betting on professional sports.That poll surveyed 900 likely Missouri voters between Feb. 14 and Feb. 26, with a 3.74% margin of error. Along with the major initiatives, the poll included questions tracking attitudes toward President Joe Biden, Congress, major Missouri political figures and the General Assembly.The poll also questioned voters about their choices for governor and their views on the biggest issues confronting the state as well as current legislative debates like school choice.37% of those surveyed said they approve of the job President Biden is doing, a rating similar to the findings in four previous surveys dating to July 2021. Gov. Mike Parson, who will leave office at the end of the year due to term limits, has an approval rating of 52%, among the highest ever found by the poll. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican seeking re-election this year, has an approval rating of 50%.The race to succeed Parson is wide open, at least for the August primaries. Without named candidates, the poll found 52% of those surveyed will vote for the Republican candidate for governor while 38% selected the Democrat.When those who said they would vote Republican were asked which candidate they preferred, “not sure” was selected by almost half of those polled. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft had the largest number of committed voters, with 28%, followed by Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe at 10% and state Sen. Bill Eigel at 8%.On the Democratic side, “not sure” was selected by 66% of respondents, with House Minority Leader Crystal Quade chosen by 21% and Springfield businessman Mike Hamra chosen by 4%.New Kansas flat tax proposal would mainly benefit state's top 20% of earnersBY: RACHEL MIPRO - MARCH 13, 2024 11:19 AMhttps://kansasreflector.com/2024/03/13/new-kansas-flat-tax-proposal-would-mainly-benefit-states-top-20-of-earners-analysis-shows/TOPEKA — A revamped flat tax plan touted by Kansas Senate lawmakers on Tuesday would cost the state nearly $650 million annually, give 40% of the benefits to the state's wealthiest 20%, and reap billionaire Charles Koch a half-million dollar windfall, according to independent analysis.During the Senate Committee on Assessment and Taxation hearing, Republican lawmakers claimed the bill, Senate Bill 539, would address Kansans' needs. Committee Chair Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican who requested the bill's introduction said, “It is a product of listening to people and trying to come up with the best solution,”The state currently uses a graduated income tax rate: 3.1% for income under $15,000, 5.25% for income between $15,000 and $30,000 and 5.7% for income above $30,000. Couples filing together have those income amounts doubled.SB 539 would change income tax rates over six years, starting with a universal income tax rate of 5.7% in 2024, and reduced by .05% each year until 2029, which would set the rate at 5.45%. Under current law, the standard state deduction for income taxes is set at $3,500 for single filers and $8,000 for married couples filing jointly. The bill would set the deduction at $4,000 for single filers in 2024 and increase the standard deduction for all taxpayers by the cost-of-living adjustment published in the Internal Revenue Code beginning in tax year 2025.However, researchers estimate the top 20% of earners – those with annual incomes of over $315,000 – would see nearly 40% of the benefits. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan research organization that favors a progressive tax system, estimated the plan would cost the state nearly $650 million annually once fully implemented.A Kansas household making less than $55,000 a year would see $237 in benefits. Billionaire Charles Koch would receive an estimated annual $485,000 in tax breaks under the proposal.The bill would also cut the standard tax rate for banks from the current 2.25% rate to 1.94% in tax year 2024, and down to 1.63% in 2025. For savings and loan associations, taxes would be reduced from the current 2.25% rate to 1.93% in 2024 and down to 1.61% in 2025. Other provisions include eliminating the state's 2% sales tax on groceries by July 1. Currently, the tax is set to end on Jan. 1, 2025.Earlier in the legislative session, a Republican-driven effort fast-tracked the 5.25% income tax plan that would have reduced tax collections by more than $300 million per year and primarily benefited the state's top earners. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the proposal in late January, characterizing it as “reckless.” Despite the GOP supermajority in the House and Senate, a veto override attempt failed in the House due to opposition among conservative and moderate Republicans who felt the proposal didn't do enough for the state's lower-income residents.Governor Kelly has said she will continue to veto “irresponsible flat tax proposals.”House panel opens hearings on Pritzker's health insurance reformsWednesday, March 13, 2024Bill seeks to reduce denials of coverage, improve provider networksBy PETER HANCOCKCapitol News Illinoisphancock@capitolnewsillinois.comhttps://capitolnewsillinois.com/NEWS/house-panel-opens-hearings-on-pritzkers-health-insurance-reformsSPRINGFIELD – A panel of Illinois lawmakers began hearing testimony Wednesday on Gov. JB Pritzker's proposals for sweeping changes in the state's health insurance industry. The changes, which Pritzker first unveiled in his State of the State address in February, would limit the ability of companies to deny claims or steer patients toward cheaper, and possibly less effective, treatments. They are contained in an amendment to House Bill 5395. They include banning prior authorization requirements for people to receive in-patient treatment at a psychiatric facility as well as all forms of so-called “step therapy” for prescription drug coverage. Step therapy refers to the practice of requiring a patient to try one or more cheaper, alternative medications before being allowed to access medications prescribed by their doctor.Other changes in the plan include requiring insurance companies to publicly post the types of treatments and therapies that do require prior authorization; requiring them to maintain accurate lists of the providers who are in their networks; and banning the sale in Illinois of short-term, limited duration insurance plans that don't meet the minimum standards under the federal Affordable Care Act.Emily Miller, a senior advisor in Pritzker's office, tried to assure the House Human Services Committee Wednesday that the administration was not waging war against the health insurance industry.“Insurance has a role to play, and I'm not here to demonize the insurance industry,” she said. “I am here, though, to say that it is time for consumers to have a say in how insurance companies are administering their health care plans. And we want to make sure that consumers are protected.”During the hearing, the committee heard personal stories from individual patients and their families, including some legislators, who spoke about their experiences having claims denied by their insurers. Among them was state Sen. Patrick Joyce, D-Essex, whose son was born with a rare heart malfunction that requires treatments for which he needs prior authorizations. He also had a daughter who died following a long battle with leukemia. He said, “We had her stay four days in the hospital because we couldn't get a nausea medication that we knew worked after chemo (round) two. We couldn't get it authorized in chemo (round) three. Very frustrating. Four days in the hospital, and I'm not sure how that saves somebody money.”Dr. Mary Dobbins, a pediatrician and psychologist who is a past president of the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, testified about what she called a “mental health crisis” among children and youth in the United States. She said the crisis has been “artificially magnified by the requirements that tie up our clinical time.”She said “I've had multiple patients who destabilized because medicine they'd been doing well on was now denied, and the parents couldn't afford to pay for it out of pocket. The appropriate level of care is commonly denied.”The committee took no action Wednesday, but Chair Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, said the committee plans to hold more discussions and could vote as early as next week to advance the bill to the full House.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.Amid white supremacist scandal, far-right billionaire powerbrokers see historic election gains in TexasAll told, 11 of the 28 House candidates supported by Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks won their primaries outright, and another eight are headed to runoffs this May.BY ROBERT DOWNENMARCH 8, 2024https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/08/tim-dunn-farris-wilks-defend-texas-liberty-election/West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks entered the 2024 primary election cycle wounded.Their political network was in the middle of a scandal over its ties to white supremacists. Republicans were calling on each other to reject the billionaires' campaign money. And their enemies believed they were vulnerable — one bad election day from losing their grip on the state.Instead, Dunn and Wilks emerged from Texas' primaries last Tuesday perhaps stronger than ever — vanquishing old political foes, positioning their allies for a November takeover of the state Legislature, and leaving little doubt as to who is winning a vicious civil war to control the state party.In race after race, more moderate conservative incumbents were trounced by candidates backed by Dunn and Wilks. Their political network made good on its vows for vengeance against House Republicans who voted to impeach their key state ally, Attorney General Ken Paxton, advancing more firebrands who campaigned against bipartisanship and backed anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Tuesday's election also paved the way for the likely passage of legislation that would allow taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools — a key policy goal for a movement that seeks to infuse more Christianity into public life.All told, 11 of the 28 House candidates supported by the two billionaires won their primaries outright, and another eight are headed to runoffs this May. And, in a sign of how much the state party has moved rightward, five of their candidates beat incumbents in rematches from 2022 or 2020 — with some House districts swinging by double-digits in their favor. Of the candidates they backed, they donated $75,000 or more to 11 of them — six who won, and four who went to runoffs.Among the triumphant on Tuesday was Mitch Little, aided by at least $153,000 in Dunn and Wilks cash, who defeated Rep. Kronda Thimesch in a campaign that focused on Little's defense of Paxton from impeachment charges in the Senate trial last summer. Three days before he won, Little appeared at an event in Denton County with Paxton and, among others, Steve Bannon, the political operative who helped rally the far right behind then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016.And another Dunn and Wilks candidate, David Covey, stunned the state by winning more votes than House Speaker Dade Phelan — the No. 1 target of the state's far-right in part because of his role in the Paxton impeachment and refusal to ban Democrats from House leadership positions. Phelan now faces a runoff from Covey and the prospect of being the first Texas Speaker since 1972 to lose his primary.This election cycle, the billionaires' targets also overlapped with Gov. Greg Abbott, who poured more than $6 million into his quest to rid the Texas House of Republicans who defied his calls for school voucher legislation last year. Meanwhile, Paxton barnstormed the state as he sought retribution against incumbents who supported his impeachment. And, perhaps most importantly, former President Donald Trump was active in many contests — following the lead of Paxton and his other ally, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and offering late endorsements that bolstered right-wing candidates.We can't wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas' breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.Here's how the special election to replace Ken Buck will work in ColoradoLauren Boebert indicates she will not compete in special electionBY: SARA WILSON - MARCH 13, 2024 5:01 PMhttps://coloradonewsline.com/2024/03/13/special-election-to-replace-ken-buck-colorado/Colorado voters in the 4th Congressional District will vote in two separate elections on June 25: the congressional primary for November's general election, as well as a special election to immediately replace Republican Rep. Ken Buck, who announced on Tuesday that he is resigning and leaving Congress nine months ahead of schedule.It could add confusion to the a competitive and crowded race in Colorado's Eastern Plains.Buck had already announced his intention to retire and not seek reelection this year, but he surprised the political world this week by announcing that he would leave Congress on March 22, versus sticking around until the end of his term.That sets off a seldom-used process to fill a congressional vacancy via special election that, according to a decision announced by Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday, will coincide with the June 25 congressional primary election. The winner of that special election will fill the remaining months of Buck's term, but would still need to win the party's nomination that day and then the general election in November to secure a full term in Congress.Each party will convene a special convention made up of party insiders to select one nominee for the special election. According to state statute, those special conventions need to happen within 20 days of the governor issuing a formal order for the special election, which hasn't technically happened yet.The 4th District leans more Republican than any in the state, so whoever wins the special Republican nomination will likely go on to win the special election, and whoever wins the Republican primary will likely go on to win the general election.That opens up a couple possibilities: The district will be represented by the same person from June 25 onward because they win both elections, or the winner of the special election will hand the seat off to the winner of the general election — almost certainly the winner of the Republican primary — early next year.The state Democratic Party said on Tuesday night that it will hold its special convention no later than April 1. The convention will include the district's central committee members and all the precinct organizers in the district. Ike McCorkle and John Padora have both signaled they will seek the Democratic special nomination.The state Republican Party has not yet made its special convention plans public and leaders did not reply to requests for comment Wednesday. That gathering will involve officers of the congressional district and the county chairmen in the district, according to party bylaws. The state party's assembly, where delegates will pick candidates to appear on the primary ballot, is already set for April 5 in Pueblo.Nine Republicans were vying for the Republican nomination in the district before Buck's early retirement announcement: current 3rd Congressional District Rep. Lauren Boebert, former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, state Reps. Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf, conservative radio host Deborah Flora, former state lawmaker Ted Harvey, businessman Chris Phelen, businessman Peter Yu and Justin Schreiber.Those candidates can all put themselves forward to be considered for the special election nomination.Sonnenberg, Flora and Harvey have all indicated they will pursue the nomination.“This new vacancy doesn't change my race, nor my commitment to proving to Republicans voters why I am the strongest conservative voice to serve them in Washington. I look forward to earning this nomination and getting to D.C. as soon as possible,” Sonnenberg wrote in a statement.Flora wrote in her own statement that the district can't afford a “placeholder” between Buck's retirement and the new term next year.Holtorf has not indicated if he will seek the special nomination, but he called Buck's decision a “selfish move” that will “potentially create bias during the election cycle” in a statement Tuesday.Boebert, however, will not seek the special nomination. If she wins the special election, she would have to resign her current position representing the 3rd District, setting off a vacancy process in that district.“I will not further imperil the already very slim House Republican majority by resigning my current seat and will continue to deliver on my constituents' priorities while also working hard to earn the votes of the people of Colorado's 4th District who have made clear they are hungry for a real conservative,” she said in a statement.She called Buck's announcement a “swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election.”With Buck's resignation, the GOP's majority in the U.S. House of Representatives will shrink to 218-213.The 4th District includes most of Douglas County and the Eastern Plains. @TheHeartlandPOD on Twitter and ThreadsCo-HostsAdam Sommer @Adam_Sommer85 (Twitter) @adam_sommer85 (Post)Rachel Parker @msraitchetp (Post) Sean Diller (no social)The Heartland Collective - Sign Up Today!JOIN PATREON FOR MORE - AND JOIN OUR SOCIAL NETWORK!“Change The Conversation”Outro Song: “The World Is On Fire” by American Aquarium http://www.americanaquarium.com/

Qualified terminable interest property (QTIP) trusts were created so that spouses could receive the benefit of the marital deduction while also setting aside resources for a surviving spouse and retaining control over what happens to the funds when the surviving spouse passes away. In this episode of the PFP Section podcast, Bob Keebler, CPA/PFS, and Paul Hood, JD, LLM, discuss the nuances of QTIPs, including: The confusion is caused by the separate Internal Revenue Code provisions on the estate and gift side. On the estate side, the rules are lax. And, on the gift side, they are rigid. How can a buy/sell agreement interfere with the efficacy of a QTIP trust and what to watch out for to make sure this doesn't happen. What do QTIP limits like fiduciary income to the surviving spouse mean from a family harmony, efficient trust and estate administration, and a fiduciary income accounting perspective. What's the bottom line as CPAs prepare gift tax returns that involve QTIPs in 2024. For more resources related to this episode: Send your relevant clients this Broadridge Alert to educate them on QTIP trusts. Use the Adviser's Guide to Financial & Estate Planning volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 as a reference for planning with QTIP trusts and much more. Get the basics of estate planning with our certificate program. This is one of 5 certificates that leads to attaining the PFS credential when experience and other requirements are met. Access Bob's decisions charts in the Proactive Planning Toolkit.  This episode is brought to you by the AICPA's Personal Financial Planning Section, the premier provider of information, tools, advocacy, and guidance for professionals who specialize in providing tax, estate, retirement, risk management and investment planning advice. Also, by the CPA/PFS credential program, which allows CPAs to demonstrate competence and confidence in providing these services to their clients. Visit us online to join our community, gain access to valuable member-only benefits or learn about our PFP certificate program. Subscribe to the PFP Podcast channel at Libsyn to find all the latest episodes or search “AICPA Personal Financial Planning” on your favorite podcast app.  

Congressman David Schweikert (R), representing Arizona's 1st District, on recent legislation he introduced to the Congress entitled 'The Family Growth and Investment Act' which would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, and the radicalization of young people through social media. Producer David Doll reports on his recent trip to Washington, D.C. and the gifts he brought Seth. More commentary on a recent segment from the Dennis Prager Show. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mr. Lavorgna started in the insurance business in 1976 and has been in the financial services industry for 45 years. He earned his Certified Financial Planning designation in 1984. He also has earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Juris Doctor (Litigation), Master of Laws in International Tax and Offshore Planning, and Master of Laws in Wealth Management and Private Banking. He has been in and associated with the investment industry since 1979. And is currently an Investment Advisor Representative of Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. fee-only Registered Investment Advisor and licensed insurance agent.He is also the Managing Member of Spencer Advisory Services, LLC, and a Certified Team Based Model Consultant.He has spent his career consulting with successful business owners and high-net-worth families.Learn More: https://spencervfo.com/Spencer Advisory Services, LLC and Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. does not offer tax, legal advice or investment advice directly. We strongly encourage you to seek advice from your own qualified tax and/or legal experts regarding the best options for your particular circumstances. Investment advisory services are offered through FWM www.forsythwms.com. Life, long-term disability, long-term care, or other non-variable insurance products are offered individually through licensed insurance producers. All non-investment advice is offered through Spencer Advisory Services, LLC. In compliance with Circular 230, any U.S. tax advice contained in the body of this email, including attachments, was not intended or written, to be used and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purposes of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax laws.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-lavorgna-founder-of-spencer-advisory-services-discussing-succession-legacy-planning

Mr. Lavorgna started in the insurance business in 1976 and has been in the financial services industry for 45 years. He earned his Certified Financial Planning designation in 1984. He also has earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Juris Doctor (Litigation), Master of Laws in International Tax and Offshore Planning, and Master of Laws in Wealth Management and Private Banking. He has been in and associated with the investment industry since 1979. And is currently an Investment Advisor Representative of Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. fee-only Registered Investment Advisor and licensed insurance agent.He is also the Managing Member of Spencer Advisory Services, LLC, and a Certified Team Based Model Consultant.He has spent his career consulting with successful business owners and high-net-worth families.Learn More: https://spencervfo.com/Spencer Advisory Services, LLC and Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. does not offer tax, legal advice or investment advice directly. We strongly encourage you to seek advice from your own qualified tax and/or legal experts regarding the best options for your particular circumstances. Investment advisory services are offered through FWM www.forsythwms.com. Life, long-term disability, long-term care, or other non-variable insurance products are offered individually through licensed insurance producers. All non-investment advice is offered through Spencer Advisory Services, LLC. In compliance with Circular 230, any U.S. tax advice contained in the body of this email, including attachments, was not intended or written, to be used and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purposes of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax laws.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-lavorgna-founder-of-spencer-advisory-services-discussing-succession-legacy-planning

Mr. Lavorgna started in the insurance business in 1976 and has been in the financial services industry for 45 years. He earned his Certified Financial Planning designation in 1984. He also has earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Juris Doctor (Litigation), Master of Laws in International Tax and Offshore Planning, and Master of Laws in Wealth Management and Private Banking. He has been in and associated with the investment industry since 1979. And is currently an Investment Advisor Representative of Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. fee-only Registered Investment Advisor and licensed insurance agent.He is also the Managing Member of Spencer Advisory Services, LLC, and a Certified Team Model Consultant.He has spent his career consulting with successful business owners and high-net-worth families.Learn More: https://spencervfo.com/Spencer Advisory Services, LLC and Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. does not offer tax, legal advice or investment advice directly. We strongly encourage you to seek advice from your own qualified tax and/or legal experts regarding the best options for your particular circumstances. Investment advisory services are offered through FWM www.forsythwms.com. Life, long-term disability, long-term care, or other non-variable insurance products are offered individually through licensed insurance producers. All non-investment advice is offered through Spencer Advisory Services, LLC. In compliance with Circular 230, any U.S. tax advice contained in the body of this email, including attachments, was not intended or written, to be used and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purposes of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax laws.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-lavorgna-founder-of-spencer-advisory-services-discussing-tax-mitigation-strategies-for-business-owners

Mr. Lavorgna started in the insurance business in 1976 and has been in the financial services industry for 45 years. He earned his Certified Financial Planning designation in 1984. He also has earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Juris Doctor (Litigation), Master of Laws in International Tax and Offshore Planning, and Master of Laws in Wealth Management and Private Banking. He has been in and associated with the investment industry since 1979. And is currently an Investment Advisor Representative of Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. fee-only Registered Investment Advisor and licensed insurance agent.He is also the Managing Member of Spencer Advisory Services, LLC, and a Certified Team Model Consultant.He has spent his career consulting with successful business owners and high-net-worth families.Learn More: https://spencervfo.com/Spencer Advisory Services, LLC and Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. does not offer tax, legal advice or investment advice directly. We strongly encourage you to seek advice from your own qualified tax and/or legal experts regarding the best options for your particular circumstances. Investment advisory services are offered through FWM www.forsythwms.com. Life, long-term disability, long-term care, or other non-variable insurance products are offered individually through licensed insurance producers. All non-investment advice is offered through Spencer Advisory Services, LLC. In compliance with Circular 230, any U.S. tax advice contained in the body of this email, including attachments, was not intended or written, to be used and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purposes of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax laws.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-lavorgna-founder-of-spencer-advisory-services-discussing-tax-mitigation-strategies-for-business-owners

Mr. Lavorgna started in the insurance business in 1976 and has been in the financial services industry for 45 years. He earned his Certified Financial Planning designation in 1984. He also has earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Juris Doctor (Litigation), Master of Laws in International Tax and Offshore Planning, and Master of Laws in Wealth Management and Private Banking. He has been in and associated with the investment industry since 1979. And is currently an Investment Advisor Representative of Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. fee-only Registered Investment Advisor and licensed insurance agent.He is also the Managing Member of Spencer Advisory Services, LLC, and a Certified Team Based Model Consultant.He has spent his career consulting with successful business owners and high-net-worth families.Learn More: https://spencervfo.com/Spencer Advisory Services, LLC and Forsyth Wealth Management, Inc. does not offer tax, legal advice or investment advice directly. We strongly encourage you to seek advice from your own qualified tax and/or legal experts regarding the best options for your particular circumstances. Investment advisory services are offered through FWM www.forsythwms.com. Life, long-term disability, long-term care, or other non-variable insurance products are offered individually through licensed insurance producers. All non-investment advice is offered through Spencer Advisory Services, LLC. In compliance with Circular 230, any U.S. tax advice contained in the body of this email, including attachments, was not intended or written, to be used and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purposes of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax laws.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-lavorgna-founder-of-spencer-advisory-services-discussing-his-virtual-family-office-team-based-model

Sean Mullaney is the FI Tax Guy (FI = Financial Independence). He's a financial planner and the president of Mullaney Financial and Tax Incorporated which offers fiduciary, fee-only, and advice-only financial planning. In this episode, Jesse dives deep on capital gains taxes, while Sean and Jesse dissect the Roth vs. Traditional debate, the efficacy of 529 Plans, and how to think about changes to the tax code coming in 2026.    Key Takeaways: What are capital gains? How to calculate capital gains, and the taxes on them. The NII tax explained.  10 ways to make the most of your capital gains. What is tax planning and how can you get started? How taking care of your financial future will also take care of your child's. Which accounts might be “shiny objects” and which ones will serve you well.  What change is coming to the Internal Revenue Code in 2026, and how to prepare.   Mentions: