The Legal Tax Moves That Help Rich People Get Richer | Mark J. Kohler

This is hard hitting. People that don't make a lot of money don't want to look in the mirror and own that, whether it's lack of determination, laziness, or just knowledge. They'd rather blame or put this wealthy person in a box and say, oh, they're unethical and bad, rather than look in the mirror and go, you know what? I could learn a few things. Maybe I'm not going to watch TV every night for three hours and I'm going to learn how to digitally market online. Or this weekend, I'm going to drive Uber for seven to eight hours and take that money and go buy a rental property next year. Can we get off our ass and do something rather than blame the rich for being determined? You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always talking about how to get right and what's working now. I can tell you about what the future is. I can tell you about the past is, but we want to tell you how to get ahead now. We're going deep today in business. We're dealing with a one percenter. I'm telling you. We got both a rare breed and we got the main street coming right to you. It is Mark J. Kohler. He is a tax attorney. He is the main street tax attorney. And he's going to tell us today how to get it all right. You got to put more money in your pocket, baby. That's what we're here to do. What's up, Mark? Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan. This is awesome. And love that your focus is on this. So important. We want to give actionable advice, ultimately. We have a lot of people on, and our focus is how to get ahead in all things. Small business is the fabric of the U.S. We can talk the high end. We can talk the low. That is what drives America is small business. How the hell did you get to 1%? Lawyer and a tax guy all in one. I was always an entrepreneur. I was the kid with the lemonade stand, had a small business in high school and hiring my brother's friends and screwing things up. And I mean, it was Tom Sawyer painting white fences, whatever it was, but I just loved entrepreneurship. And when I went on to school, I went into business and then I thought, hey, this accounting thing, no offense to anyone out there, marketing class, Finance is tough, sure, but I don't want to work for Wall Street. I'm going to go accounting because I can stand out there. If I can just get a C in accounting, I'll hire all the other A accountants. Sure enough, I stood out in the accounting group as the party planner. It was super fun. And then I had this teacher who was a lawyer and an accountant. And I was like, holy crap, this guy can take over the world. So you had all the benefits of understanding the numbers sitting at the table in business. And then I could freaking file a lawsuit, fight the IRS, do whatever. I want to be that guy. So I went on to law school, kept a found out of 100 lawyers, one of them has any tax background, and I freaking said, I'm going to Main Street, screw Wall Street, and here I am. You know how many times I've asked a question of my accountant? You'd have to consult your lawyer on that. I like to push the limit. I can admit it. It doesn't take long to figure that out about me, but I want to do it. it legally. I want to get all I get out of it. The moment you said that, I have heard that a thousand times. Consult your lawyer. Taxes are law. It's tax law and understanding it. And only the big dogs or big companies have been able to afford tax dollars. So I've worked really hard over the last 25 years building a model based on volume and a boutique where we can help clients around the country and been doing that. But the important thing here is the number one cost in our lives are taxes. And People don't want to talk about it. It's too boring. It's too complex. What the hell do I do? Well, we're going to freaking demystify that. That's my whole career is to say it's not that hard. You're the captain of your ship. Quit looking for an accountant to do it all for you. You can freaking run the ship here. Hire the first mate and you can control your destiny. What's the most common thing you deal with, Mark, working with Main Street, working with small businesses? What are some of those key things that you're always tackling or working with clients on? Since COVID, we've had the great formation. We're pushing up to almost 45% of working Americans have a side hustle. And that's a small business. That's a gateway drug. It's not a burden. We should look at it as an opportunity to use those funds to get out of debt, build wealth, create assets. And one in five Americans own a rental property in some form or fashion. If I've got a rental property and a little small business, people, you're not quitting your day job. Let's just tap into that. And so a common, common theme in what we do every day is meet with that community, those people that are the backbone of this country that are starving for simple answers to get their kids on payroll, save some taxes right off their auto. And I love that bread and butter stuff. There's no mystery. It's not like there's this secret thing like, Mark, how do I save tax? It's just doing the basics and knowing it, understanding it, owning it. And there's no sexy secret there except that you really can build wealth that you maybe never imagined with just those simple base hits. It's not about getting rich quick. It's not getting rich slow. I want to get rich slow. Adding them on and saving the most with that extra time. If you're going to moonlight over and above the daytime job, it's keeping as much of that as possible, correct? Oh, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that W-2 day job, work corporate America. That's cool. It was great. Let's go do your taxes. Bend over. I can't do anything. You're screwed. But if you've got that small business, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Now that little 1099 some of you are getting, that's a golden ticket. Now I'm writing off home office, auto, dining, computers, electronics, your cell phone, family members. I'm funding a Roth IRA. You can set up your own damn 401k. Now we're going to take all that money and start deploying it. And we're going to be efficient. We're going to be lean and mean. You can pay $1. 30% less in taxes on that money than your day job. Your day job, you're screwed. Let's go get this other money that's a lot cheaper to get. Everybody wants to talk about making money. Why don't we talk about saving money? It's easier to save money than make money. Yeah, that's true. It's not always easy to make it. For the average small business guy, and even the WTU, because we have people that listen to our show that are small business owners, and that maybe are WTU thinking going small business, what's the least you could truly get away with legally, doing it the right way? What kind of tax brackets should the average small business guy be in? There's seven tax brackets out there, and the highest being 37 and a half. No one pays in total 37 and a half percent in federal taxes. because it's graduated. When we have brackets, that's our bracket on the next dollar after a certain limit. Once everybody kind of gets that, that this is a graduated bracket, that's point number one. Then what we want to look at is what is your effective tax rate? After we take all the killer write-offs we can think of, lots of options, what's that effective rate? And for some people, it could be zero. For others, it could be 35%. Now, it is generally true, the more money you make, the more tax rate you're going to pay, a larger percentage of your income in taxes. For example, why Trump was such an anomaly, and he really wasn't, it's just the Wall Street Journal wanted to point this out, is that he is a real estate professional. I've got his tax return here on my laptop. I got Joe Biden's and his from 2016. He was a real estate professional. Now, you talk about it here on your show all the time. If you want to invest in short-term rentals, long-term rentals, do real estate and deploy money in real estate, it's not for everybody, but we have depreciation strategies and investment strategies that can offset my income over here. Trump had so much in depreciation from his hotels and in real estate investments, he was able to wipe out his income from the apprentice and his retail. effective rate at the end of the day was very low. Now someone else who just works a day job has no write-offs makes 500 grand a year at Verizon as a VP. Okay. You're going to be paying 30% or more in effective rate because you're not using the strategies in the best way. We're talking about, Hey, don't hate the player. Just hate the game. If you don't like the Trump paid 6%, don't be pissed at Trump. Yeah, exactly. Just learn the rules. And so when you understand the rules, okay, I could invest in oil and gas. I can invest in a little solar. Oh, I'm going to build a Roth IRA. Peter Thiel's got a $5 billion Roth. It's a tax-free ATM. Oh, I'm going to invest in my health savings account and never pay tax on healthcare again. And these little tools that are out there are amazing and they're not complicated. There's a last point. Rich people geek out on tax strategies. If you want to be rich, start geeking out on some of the stuff and it'll blow your mind because this is where the rich get richer. Here's what I don't like. And it's why I really love your energy and your passion on this because it's so real and raw and true. The rich geek out on it and everyone else almost criminalizes write-offs. You'll be talking to someone unethical. And why the hell does that proliferate? This is hard hitting. People that don't make a lot of money. don't want to look in the mirror and own that, whether it's lack of determination, laziness, or just knowledge. They'd rather blame or put this wealthy person in a box and say, oh, they're unethical and bad rather than look in the mirror and go, you know what? I could learn a few things. Maybe I'm not going to watch TV every night for three hours and I'm going to learn how to digitally market online. Or I'm going to this weekend, I'm going to drive Uber for seven to eight hours and take that money and go buy a rental property next year. Can we get off our ass and do something rather than blame the rich for being determined? I tend to do that. You went right where I wanted you to go because it's the truth. The truth hurts sometimes. I talk about these things and I know that a lawyer is going to tell me what's legal, what's not legal is cheating the system and using the system. Yes, dude. You just hit the word I wanted to say. I got to dive in here because this is exactly the word you say. The tax code, this is so important. You want to get theoretical. The tax code is built to motivate people to do things. Get married, pay less tax. A married couple will pay less tax than a single or married filing separate. Go put handicap access in your business, get a tax credit. Go buy a solar water heater or efficient water heater at Home Depot, get a tax credit. Go buy an electric vehicle, get a tax rate. Go buy real estate and help others have affordable housing, take depreciation. Go do this, go do that. The tax code, all you're doing is using it to help America get better and we'll give you a tax break. You get a tax break for doing good things to help the economy. And that's the mind shift. The rich are figuring out, hold on, I can make money doing this, save tax and make Main Street America better. Holy shit, sign me up. It's not what we've been conditioned by media or whatever else, which is win for me, lose for the government, breaking law, pushing the limit. No, like you said, it's set up because people smarter than me knew that we needed actions to make this country run. Everything that you named, Mark, actually drives an action that keeps the economy and everything else moving, doesn't it? Yeah, there's another classic one right now. It's the oil and gas tax credit, and there's depletion credits and all this. If you want to go drop at any income level, you don't have to be materially participating. You don't have to quit your day job. There's funds you can invest in for oil and gas royalties, depletion, exploration, and invest $100,000 and probably get a $90,000 tax write-off. Make cash flow and resell it for $150,000 four years from now. The government needs drillers to go get natural gas and oil in the United States on U.S. cell oil, and we'll give you a tax credit. And all of a sudden, your effective tax rate goes from 25% down to 10%. You're making money. You're helping America be self-reliant on natural resources, and everybody wins. And you're the bad guy because you found this kick-ass tax strategy, you know? That's right. I'm not crazy. The proliferation of the wealthy getting ahead, that's a real thing. And that drives me crazy. You're a lion. You're not a sheep. You're a lion. That's it. I love it. I'm going to ask you two questions, small business owners. One thing they should stop doing the most. Stop thinking you're going to find an accountant to do all of this for you. stop thinking that, oh yeah, as soon as I find that accountant, I don't have to worry about this anymore. I'm going to find that perfect account that speaks Mark Kohler. You're not going to find someone that's going to care as much about your finances and future than you. Now you need a good accountant. They're your first mate. But where are you steering the ship? Are you do understand what strategies they're doing? Are you understanding what structure you are and why? You don't have to know how to do an effing tax return, people. You need to know what numbers are on it and how to read it. A rich person knows their tax returns. So you just start doing what rich people do. It's super easy. And they work with their advisor. They don't have an account that just plugs all that crap in and you pick it up two months later. They have meetings with their accountant throughout the year, at least quarterly and going, Hey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to start that. I'm going to sell this. And you're there's it's synergistic. So stop thinking you're going to hire someone to take all of this off your plate. You're taking the number one thing you should be doing and thinking you're going to delegate it. It doesn't work. You need to be the CEO of your tax team that you start building today. And so your accountant is on the team, but you're the CFO or CEO of the team. And you have to think about it that way, because just like your own business, I'm on five companies now. I've gone down this road. I try to delegate the business away. Doesn't work. Good luck. Yeah, right. You know, you get in trouble. Yeah. Got all the scars. I've done it too. You cannot delegate in the taxes. You need to be the CEO of your own tax team. And it might be a two person team, three person team, but that's what I just heard you say. And I think we try to delegate the taxes away. And you lead right into my second point. And it's so easy. People, this mind shift change. Number one, you're not going to delegate away this tax and legal topic, although you're going to build a team. So I love the way you said that, CEO of that team. What you are going to do, that's a little different though, is I need you to treat your side hustle, your business, like a business. We've got to start knowing there's a set of books. There's a methodology here. I've got to put in tax deposits. I've got to be engaged in the process. So many people that have a side hustle, they get this mysterious 1099 from selling something on, got a 1099 from Etsy or eBay or whatever. They're getting a little 1099 for side hustle somewhere and they see it as a burden. No, no, no, no. That's a business. Treat it like that. Treat your rental property like a business. When you start to treat your operation like a business, it now starts to work for you. And the profit from it can be redeployed into assets that work for you while you're asleep. And that money can be used to expand and scale. If you don't treat your business like a business, it does you no good. It's just a noose around your neck. The opportunities for the write-offs and other things, there's just things that the account is not going to know. They're not in your business every day. They don't know how this was used or that was used, and a receipt's not going to tell them that. You have to be involved. All of you, at the very least, should have a spreadsheet where you track all of your expenses. Number two, use a credit card or debit card exclusively for your business. If you've got an Amex, use it for business. Use your Visa for personal. Try to start separating your accounting. If you're using QuickBooks Online or some of the easy software platforms, great. But just start tracking your expenses. You don't know if they're a write-off or not, but if you don't track them, you can't meet with your accountant at the end of the process and carve out the ones that will really work for you. Bad bookkeeping loses money. So start with some decent bookkeeping. Stop delegating. Start documenting. Ooh, dude, dude. I got to write that down now. I got to write that down. Stop delegating. Start documenting. You know, that's good. The interplay. Can you hear me now? This is what I do. Just write things. I like it. What else should we be doing, Mark? A lot of people, obviously documenting, taking control. What are things we need to start doing? Here's the number one thing I've been talking about this last year and a half. It's just really evolved to something very special. And this is for you too, Ryan. Everyone listening should be doing this. And that is integrating your family into this business. So let's assume you're stopped delegating. You're starting tracking. You're treating your business like a business. Understand your card table moment. When was that moment when I had that great idea? Every big business started out as a small business. And there's no such thing as a small business, as big ideas. And you've got this idea and you want to make it big and you've got this dream. That little nucleus, share it with your family. And how to do that is called the family board. I want you to have a family board and a family office. You don't have to be a billionaire to have a family office. Your family office is that third bedroom down the hall with a couch in it. That's your family office. Let's start writing off a retreat with our family at least once a year. We could be writing off dining as we go out as a family and talk about business. We can be paying for our kids' cell phones, whether at college or even in high school. Our kids are going to be helping with the business in social media or stuffing envelopes or cleaning rental properties. This is family. I mean, do we have to watch The Godfather for crying out loud, people? Treat your business like family. And have a family board and a family meeting. It makes your LLC or corporation more legit because you're having annual board meetings. All of you know you should be. And you're writing off crap your accountant doesn't even talk about. It was so funny, right? At Christmas, my kids love it. All my kids are over 18 now. They come down to the Christmas tree. They go to their Christmas stocking. We still try to do that. It's fun. And they go in there and there's their 1099 for the year. It's just adorable. They love it. They get their 1099 for the year for all the money I gave them during the year because I'm taking a tax write-off. They're in a lower bracket. They can pay tax at a lower bracket. They're building their lives. You want money from me? You're getting a 1099 because you're on my board. I love that. I love that. Mark J. Kohler. He is Main Street's tax lawyer, tax advisor, and lawyer in one. I don't want that to get confused. You got to know that before you leave this episode. Mark, I love that. I'm going to start giving my kids. I got four boys all under the age of 15. Think about this. Your kids don't pay taxes this year on the first 14 grand and change, 15 grand change. The numbers just changed for inflation. Your kids could earn $14,000 a year at working at McDonald's and pay zero tax. No one in America pays tax on their first standard deduction of around 14 grand, let's say. So you got four kids that could work anywhere under 14 grand. Why aren't they working for you? You can pay your children under age 18. You don't have to give them a W-2. There's no FICA, there's no FUDA, there's no workers comp. It's outside labor and the right line item. I teach all that. We talk about it on our shows. It's in my books, blah, blah, blah. But your four kids, if depending on their age and what they're doing in the business, let's say we're paying them five to 10 grand. Four kids average of seven. That's four times seven. We're at 28 grand. We just got a $28,000 tax write-off. So you're going to be paying for school, lunch, school, clothes, soccer, football, all that. You're not paying for it anymore, Ryan. They pay for it. You're transferring money from your company into their bank account and they pay for school, lunch, and sports. Now you just got a tax write-off for that. And you can even double down and form an IRA for each one of them. So now each of them have a Roth IRA of $7,000 a pop if you want. And now that can come out for college tax-free. So I've got my Roth IRA going. My kids are on the payroll. We're having board meetings as a family. And I'm taking my four kids out and I'm teaching them about business. They're selling books at my table. They're at the event checking people in. They're ushering people at the event. My kids learned that my life is business and my passion is going to be their passion if they want it to be. That's how succession happens. So many business owners think they're just going to plop a business on their kids when they're 28 years old and they're going to get it. They're not. They're not. And so you've got this incredible tax deduction right now while your kids are under age 18, the board meeting for better asset protection, more tax write-offs, you're building wealth in their IRAs for them in college, and you're teaching them about your business. There's so many birds you're knocking out with one stone, I can't even count them all. I'm doing about one fifth of what you just said. Notes taken. And I'm not the only one. I mean, I'm doing it. They know DaddyWorks. They're integrated. They come. I make it clear. They do things. They're doing a lot of what you said, but I'm not following it the way you're describing. Ryan Offord needs more collar on. I'll offer these two of us. Ryan, you're awesome. And I just want to say this for everybody. I know our time is almost up here. Yeah. But what could happen? I want to warn everybody. Ryan could get off this podcast and go, I got to call my accountant. So he picks up his cell phone, calls his accountant and go, hey, what the hell, Tom? Why am I not putting my kids on the payroll of my Schedule C? I got an S-Corp over here. I got a 1065 and an LLC over here. Why are my kids not on my payroll? Well, Ryan, you can't do that. Well, because it's high risk and because I'm all right. You know what? Nine times out of 10, he's not going to jump on the bandwagon with you because it wasn't his idea. Oh God. And so he's going to be offended that you brought him a tax strategy. This is the problem with me trying to educate accountants because they are so scared that they're going to go, oh my gosh, I should have told Ryan that. That's what's going on in his head, but he can't say that. So now he's going to poo poo Mark Kohler, which is BS. I've got more credentials and more writings behind me than any other accountant in the country on this. And I'll stand behind it. And I teach other accounts this. They just got to own it. Go to their clients and go, you know what? I got to be a better advisor for you. We're going to put the kids on payroll in 2025. Let's do it. And Ryan's going to go, great. You're not going to be mad at him. You're going to say, thanks for pulling your head out of your butt. Let's go. People, when you go to talk to your accountant, if they're going to poo-poo good strategy and make you feel like a child, which they can do, you say, hi, you're fired. I'm going to go Mark Kohler's network of Main Street tax pros around the country, interview one of those because they had to take. 900 quiz questions, watch 75 videos, be in a training with Mark every day and speak Mark Kohler so I can get a consistent effing answer between my lawyer and accountant. That's where you go and you fire your dumb ass accountant. I think I'd approach my accountant with, why are you doing this? I like to come with sugar, not the salt. You know, like, hey, baby, you know. So I'm going to go to him gently. You know, there you go. Say, go get certified with Mark Kohler. He'll bring your clients. You know what? Duolingo is not Spanish. It's not French. We need Mark Kohler on the Duolingo. The newest language to learn. Thank you, man. I love it. Let me ask you one thing as we close out, Mark, because there's these fine lines between law and finance and tax and all that. And I know you're not a financial advisor, but something tells me a lot of these things are all tied together. Where do you fall on the crypto bus? Wow, then you throw out crypto. Okay, I'll answer both those questions. First of all, I am a financial advisor. Everybody, your accountant should be a financial advisor. I'm not an investment advisor. I don't tell you what to buy and sell. That's an investment advisor. So Ryan, the way I like to say, yeah, I give damn great financial advice. Get out of debt, save more, get organized, and quit effing around on the weekends. That's great financial advice. There's no license for a financial advisor. There's a license for an investment advisor. which I am not. I'm not going to tell you what to buy or sell. So there's the distinct, and I think people should be asking their accountant for financial advice. Holy shit. Tell me what, I've done 10,000 consults. You kind of alluded to that at the beginning. You're saying, Mark, in 10,000 consults, what have you learned? I can share that financial wisdom. There's not a problem there. Anyway, crypto, freaking love it. I've got some XRP that's kicking ass right now. I'll tell you that. Yeah, me too. I saw that today. It's up like 10%. I bought it like 60 cents like four months ago. So we've hosted now in the last four years, three national crypto tax summits. For two days, I teach all the strategies for crypto mining, the metaverse, staking, all the different strategies inside an IRA with crypto. And we have crypto IRAs at our directed IRA company. All of Mike XRP is in a Roth IRA. Tax-free. We just love crypto, but I'm not telling everybody, don't go buy crypto if you don't know it. I don't understand it. You're not making a specific And that's why I didn't ask because I wanted you to, you know, we both like XRP, obviously. However, we're not saying go buy XRP. I'm asking you for exactly how you answered, which is more how the tax world and setting it up properly and all that sort of thing, which you kind of nailed. It's obviously that could be a whole show in itself. Maybe that'll be part B. One of my trainings for our accountants in our program, they have a whole module on crypto so that they understand how it's taxed, how to transact with it, how to take crypto in your business. The IRS has task force on crypto, the blockchain people. It's public. There's prosecutions now, more and more of people trying not to pay taxes on their crypto transactions. Don't go there. And by the way, everybody, there's no such thing as a crypto tax. There's freaking crypto like the dollar. That's what it is. If you make money, you're going to pay tax. Deal with it. So I teach a lot on that. We got a lot of podcasts on it too. Mark, what fuels you? There's this abundance of energy, obviously, neither one of us are sheep. You're obviously not watching Netflix reruns. I always like when I see successful people, I end up asking this question. I've asked Grant Cardone. I've asked a lot of people and everybody has a different spin on it. But what fuels you? What drives success for you? It's the Rockstar Recovery Lemonade. It's hydration and energy boost all in one. Zero carbs, zero sugar. I love this. By the way, Rockstar sent me a whole box. I mean, they're loving me. Exponent is the official sponsor of Right About Now. And they have no artificial flavors, no artificial industry, plant-based adaptogens. I like that. I'll send you a case of this. I love it. I love it. I love it. Yes. Well, what fuels me is there's something deep inside of me. I just love the American dream. I love people being able to be independent and take control of their own destiny. And if I can be a part of that magic and helping them find their one thing. And I love that from City Slickers with Billy Crystal when he went out and moved cattle and he's like, and Curly told him that there's just one thing. And he's like, well, what's the one thing? What's that one thing for you? building a future and wealth. I hate to tell everybody, I'm sorry, we don't live in caves anymore. We've got to make it a priority. It's a huge issue with the quality of life and our relationships. And if I can find out that one thing I love to do, that passion, and I can help you take that to the next level and build it and make it self-sustaining and you can leave a legacy with your family. I just love that. And so that's what I'm all about and helping people find their American dream and then live it. The devil's in the details. Mark, you're on it. Hey, Mark, Everybody, easiest place in the world, markjkohler.com. Mark, J as in jolly, Kohler, K-O-H-L-E-R.com. And if you're a tax advisor out there or want to be a tax advisor, I'll equip you right now, holy crap, to go out and make money. The industry needs you. The tax industry is on fire, Ryan. It's just really ugly right now. And people need good tax advisors. So we're out there. Business owners, my podcast is there. Our law firm, you can get a consult with one of our lawyers right now to help build your plan. Very affordable. We'd love to be a boutique for the small business owner across America. Rectodirate. Anyway, all the resources are at markjkohler.com, workshops, the social media. I'm just honored to be here, Brian. Thanks so much for having me. Hey, Mark. My pleasure, man. We'll do it again if you're up for it. And we'll have show links to all of Mark's stuff. Mark J. Kohler, we need more Mark. We appreciate you, brother. Thank you, man. Hey, guys, you're going to find us. Ryan is right.com. You'll find highlight clips, links to Mark's stuff. Of course, social media is where we're growing. That's where we're blowing up and check us out on YouTube. Got to watch this episode. Mark looks so good. We'll let him forgive the rock star, but we'll get him on the exponent. We'll get him switched. But we appreciate Mark for bringing it from Main Street to your home. We got you next time. Any time right here on Right About Now. Here's the truth. Information doesn't change your life. Execution does. So don't just listen to this episode and move on. Take the idea. Make the call. Launch the thing. Fix the problem. Build what you keep talking about building. For more, follow Ryan Alford on Instagram, at Ryan Alford. And watch or listen to every episode at ryanisright.com. This is Right About Now. Now quit waiting. Go win.