Tried And Tested Tax And Retirement Strategies

 

You can read almost all there is being written about taxes and retirements, but you can always shortcut your way through your goals with a couple of handy strategies. In this episode, Dan Zitofsy and his co-host Logan Hassinger share the tax and retirement strategies they use in their daily business as entrepreneurs and real estate investors. Though not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisers, they still provide some insights that you need to be aware of, especially great opportunities at hand that you may be missing out on. Open your eyes to taking control of your destiny in the tax and financial space. Follow this episode as Dan and Logan help you create true wealth and prosperity for your family tax-free.

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Tried And Tested Tax And Retirement Strategies

Learn Under The Hood Strategies We Use As Entrepreneurs.

This is going to be an important show. We’re going to talk about some topics like tax strategies and what we do. We are not accountants. I’m going to put that up there upfront. Logan Hassinger and Dan Zitofsky are not accountants. We’re not attorneys. We’re not financial advisors. We’re going to share with you what we do under the cover in our business that’s helped us build either a tax–deferred or tax-free income from some of the strategies we use. These are all legal strategies. We both have accountants and attorneys on our teams. We’re pretty crazy. We go as far as reading the tax codes to see what’s going on and seeing how we can make it benefit our business and our investors. Welcome to the show, Logan. It’s great having you on here as co-host. What do you think about our topic?

There’s a lot of power in putting some of these strategies to work. I always think back to people ask me, “How do you know all this stuff?” I didn’t years ago. I knew nothing about any of these things that I was telling people that I’m using. To your point, we’re not trying to advise anybody. We’re not licensed in any way to be giving out financial advice or tax strategies. From workshops and other business owners, networking and trying to figure out, “What are you doing?” I take it back from my CPA and say, “What do you think? Let’s see what we can do.”

Isn’t that a breath of fresh air? Especially you go to social media or events. There’s always somebody talking about, “Do this life insurance policy.” A financial advisor is like, “Invest in this.” I don’t know when you’re going to be reading this but now everybody is a crypto expert online. They’re all going to affiliate relationships or multi-level marketing relationships. We’re telling you what we do. We’re not selling you anything. If there’s nothing I can tell you now, you cannot invest your money into a mutual fund with me that I manage. I’m not a life insurance agent. I’m just showing you exactly what I do in my business. Logan’s going to show you what he does in his business. Maybe you could start asking those questions. 

It’s unfortunate. I might piss a lot of people. I might piss your financial advisor, your accountants or even some attorneys off but I don’t care. I didn’t get to where I’m at by being nice to everybody. I’m going to be honest, no financial advisors can invest their way out of a paperback. I implore you to ask your financial advisor to show you what they’ve done in their own portfolio. Unfortunately, they can’t do anything. What they do is most of them are selling what their company tells them to sell or their banks. I’m not going to mention the banks or the investment firms. They have you sell in certain products. You can’t sell all the products. When they tell you can self-direct in real estate, you’re not self-directing in real estate. You can’t buy 1, 2, 3 main street with your IRA, 401(k), life insurance or anything like that.

The same thing on accountants. A lot of accountants, unfortunately, finished their accounting degree, even if they become CPA, they get lazy. They like the nice, easy tax returns, W-2 pay stubs tax returns. I start telling some of my students who are self-employed, “Have you set up a management company and pay your kids?” I always tell them, “Check with your accountant. Trust and verify what I tell you. You can Google and type in, ‘How much can I pay my kids under eighteen years old tax-free?’” There’s a certain way you have to do it. You can’t just give them money but you can do it. Once you know you can do it, you can follow a stream to do it. I get it all the time. They go to their accountant and they’re like, “My accountant says that I can’t do that. I shouldn’t do it. It’s risky.” I don’t know why it’s risky. It’s written into the tax code for a reason. Think about it.

We’ll talk about different strategies but think about paying your kids tax-free. Your kids can invest in multiple things. I’m not going to tell them what they can invest in. It could be real estate, notes, lending, gold or silver. There are so many things it could be. They could invest in stocks, forex, mutual funds, auctions. There are one million things they can invest in. You’re paying your kids tax-free for the work they’re doing for you. They’re learning life skills. With the money they make, they can pay for their college. They’re not taking on these heavy student loans. Even if they don’t go to college, they can turn around. Let’s say your kid goes out to the movies. You’re going to give your kid $20 to go to the movies. You’re being double taxed on that money. You’re now getting taxed on the money when it comes in. You’re essentially not saving any tax on the money when it goes out.

Imagine paying your kids $20 to shred all your papers. They work for two hours. You’re paying $10 an hour. “If you want to go to the movies, shred all my papers for two hours. Go clean all the weeds on the rental property. Here’s $20.” You’re going to give them $20 anyway. They now have money to go out to the movies that they earn. You’re not paying tax on that money because it’s an expense to you. It’s not truly payroll, but it’s an expense to you that goes out to your kids. There are ways to do it. We can talk a little about how to do it. If you’re an entrepreneur and you have your own business and your CPA or your accountant is not in tune with what you’re doing or says you can’t do stuff like this or has not given you some ideas to look at tax strategies, that’s where all wealth is made. It’s tax strategies. We can all make a ton of money but if we don’t save any of it, we’re not building any wealth. We’re paying 40%, 50% out in taxes. We’re working much harder to be partners with the government.

When I think about tax strategies, in the very early stages of my investing, I didn’t think twice about it. I’ll worry about that later. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I didn’t dig into what I probably should be doing. When the time came to pay the tax bill, it only took one year where I had to shell out a sizeable check. I was like, “I should have looked into some tax strategies.” That was a few years ago. Ever since that, we’ve done something every year to take advantage of how the tax code is written. There are no loopholes. We’re following a playbook that has been handed to us. It’s very lengthy. There’s a lot to it. We pay people to make sure they understand what’s going on. I didn’t think twice about it. Looking back, I’ve been able to save a whole lot of money and be able to reinvest. That’s the key piece. That compounded return of taking your dollars, putting it in, keeping it invested and then the dollars that you do end up owing tax on, how do you mitigate that and get it working for you again. The more cash you can have working for you in your sleep, the better. That’s been my strategy over the years.

That’s the reason the government put these strategies in place. They didn’t put it in place so Logan and Dan could take the money, sit on it and do nothing. They wanted the money so you recycle the economy so we can keep investing. When you invest in the economy, the economy keeps growing.

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Talking about how capitalism works.

We can get into a political conversation here. This could go on a deep end. You and I could do that for sure. I’m not going to do that but I do believe that it’s the smartest thing they do. It’s to get investors to have their money constantly used and then incentivize them to invest because as we invest and hire, we’re bringing in the cost of goods, employees, companies. Every asset that we buy, whether it’s a property or a note, I can’t tell you how many people we employ, how much money gets changed hands from doing that. That’s the reason that they do that. Not just so Dan and Logan can save money on taxes. They’re trying to change the tax code. If they do, it’s not in our favor. Unfortunately, what’s going to happen is Dan and Logan are probably going to stop selling off some stuff because it’s not going to make sense. We’re going to hold, sit back and do nothing.

It further accelerates the slowdown.

You bust your butt to do all this and turn it around to get hit with 40%, 50% taxes. That doesn’t make sense there. That’s what we’re looking at on that side. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. Some of the things we do that you might be able to do is practice using solo 401(k)s, self-directed IRAs, Coverdell accounts, HSA, life insurance accounts, life policies that I started doing. I wish I knew about them years ago. We’ll break each of them down a little bit.

Those indexed annuity life insurance policies, people are so quick to say, “That’s the most expensive plan you’re probably sold.” I will agree with most people. The plan is mostly sold to people that don’t understand. Knowing what I know about those policies, they are so powerful.

Can you imagine having one?

Yes. It’s amazing. We’re starting to employ it. We’ll probably be going to get it ramped up in January of 2022. We’re just getting things in order in 2021. That’s a strategy that will be taken on. It’s another stream of income years from now.

That’s how the Rockefellers built their wealth. I’m going to break it down simply. You got to think like the bank. How does the bank think? That’s how it is. We’re building our own banks. We’ll fund everything ourselves out of our own bank and our insurance policy. I’m not going to teach life insurance policies on this. I’m also not a life insurance agent. There are enough people out there. You got to get somebody you trust and learn about it. It took me a good year before I jumped in and did anything.

I was skeptical for many years. One of my good friends from college tried to sell me an index whole life policy right out of school. Looking back I’m like, “That was shady.” That was not the policy for me because I hadn’t yet exhausted 401(k)s, HSAs, IRAs, Roths. There were so many other things at your disposal that you need to max out first that are tax-advantaged, and then start looking at non-tax advantage plans to invest into your retirement. It’s another tool in the toolbox. I was gauging it on a short leash back then. Everybody’s situation is different. It’s the old attorney or CPAs coming back. It depends. People hate that. Using that policy depends on your situation.

 

I’m in a situation now where it’s great for me. It depends. If you’re a business owner what should you be doing? To me, if you’re a business owner and you don’t have a Solo 401(k), Health Savings Account and Coverdell set up for your kids, you’re out of your mind to not be doing those. That’s where your money should be going first. Solo 401(k), you should max that out. A company can do a 25% match. Let’s say you and your wife worked for your own company. You both could have a Solo 401(k).

The limits now are $110,000.

Per person, it’s $19,600.

It’s $19,600 or $19,500 plus the company’s contribution up to $56,000. You’re looking at $112,000 between you and your wife.

You also have to be careful. We aren’t going to throw $112,000. What we say is you got to look at your income. You don’t want to kick up your employment tax to pay just so you can do that. You need to get an accountant that can work with you. You have to make a salary that makes sense congruent to what your business is. You can’t say, “I’m making $5,000 a year. I’m making $1 million a year in my company.” Let’s say you’re making $50,000 a year. You put $19,600 in at $50,000 a year. Twenty-five percent of $15,000 is $12,500. Let’s make it $19,500 to make it easy, plus $12,500. You’re at $32,000 for you. If your wife’s making the same $50,000, she’s at $32,000. That’s $64,000 a year that you got to put in, that you’re not paying tax on that money upfront. When you take the money out, depending on how you do it, you’ll be paying tax later on.

At $60,000 something, you could turn around and invest that into real estate, notes or whatever you want to invest in. You can dump it all into crypto. You could put it into an auction play. You can do stock mutual funds, gold, silver. There are business syndications. You can be a limited partner and somebody’s multifamily syndication. Throw $50,000 in there. There’s so much you could do to grow that. That’s one avenue. If you’re a business owner, that’s a Solo 401(k). You could also do the Health Savings Account. You put money in the tax rate. The gains are tax-free as well. One of the best investments in the world is a Health Savings Account.

When you distribute them out to pay for medical expenses, they’re tax-free. That’s our plan. For years, we’ve been putting for our family, the limits now are $7,100. They’re always moving around. We’re up to $15,000, $20,000 in there. My investment is in the stock market with that account but eventually, when it gets to a balanced big enough, I’ll roll it over to a self-directed HSA custodian. I want that account to be self-funding. I don’t want to depend on Medicare, Medicaid and all the things down the road or ongoing medical expenses that everyday life has.

For us, we’ll build that account up to a $50,000 to $100,000 balance. Buy rental property or a note. Something that has re-occurring income in it for us, at least that’s the strategy we’re taking on. Have it a self-fulfilling health plan. For every time we spend $500 at the doctor’s office, I got $500 coming back in more from the investment that we hold in there. That balance continues to grow. It pays for itself versus paying for medical expenses. Maybe you hit the threshold for being 10% over your adjusted gross income. You get to deduct it from using itemized deductions versus standard. There’s a whole other way to go about it. I’m using the HSA to get that accomplished.

If you’re an individual, it’s $3,550. If you’re a couple, you could do $7,100. If you were self-employed. You have my own business and you’re paying your own medical insurance, I have a high deductible medical insurance. I pay about $600 a month for the family. It’s a $1,500 deductible which I can use my Health Savings Account to pay for the deductibles. The money that I pay comes out of my business. I worked so my business pays for my medical. Business dumps money to my HSA. It’s considered income. It becomes tax-deferred from there. You can see exactly what Logan does with his Health Savings Account. You can invest in it. You can build that thing up. You can take that and roll it into syndication.

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We’re talking about $60,000 something for Solo 401(k). We’d have another $7,100. We’re at almost $70,000. You could pay your kids under eighteen years old whether if you have 3 kids, 2 kids, 1 kid. Logan happens to have three daughters under eighteen years old. It’s $12,000 a year. Every year it changes. They add a couple of hundred dollars. Logan essentially can pay his kids another $36,000 total between the three kids out of his company. You don’t want to pay out of your S corp or your LLC. What you want to do is you want to set up a family management company, which is a sole proprietorship. It’d be like Hassinger Family Holdings. You go on based on your Social Security number, not your EIN. You do not pay out of your corporation. You do not do that.

There are ways to make sure this happens the correct way.

There’s a triangle. Your corporation pays your family holdings. Your family holdings pay your kids. You can’t just give them money for nothing. You have to document what they do. You can’t pay them $100 an hour to shred paper. Let me ask you this. With modeling, how much the models get paid? I know Kim Kardashian doesn’t get paid $10 an hour. You can decide you want to do modeling with your kids. I did that. I used to own a mortgage company. I had my kids throwing up $100 in the air. I used them for modeling but I also taught my kids a great lesson. My sons used to clean out all my rental properties. He went on to start a side business doing clean–outs. My daughter does all my marketing, advertising, paperwork, admin. She was valued way over the maximum. My youngest has done everything from design, shredding, filing, scanning, emails.

I put them to work. The cool thing about putting them to work is not only is this money tax-free, which I should say tax-deferred, eventually depending on what you use it for. It could be a tax rate. I teach them a great life lesson. That’s what I use it for. I’ve taught my kids great life lessons. My two older ones are doing great things with what they learned. My younger ones are already planning to do great things with what they learned. The cool thing is they invested their money in real estate deals as when they were younger. That money was able to take care of their college education.

I’m not here to push that you go to college and be like, “College is a waste.” That’s up to you. If you don’t want to use it for college, use it for something else. I’m telling you, my two older kids use that money so far and had no student debt while using that money. There are many benefits. We’re talking about people or entrepreneurs who own their business. That’s what we’re talking about. That’s what this is about. We haven’t even gone into self-directed IRAs. That’s where I’ve used this money. If you got anything to add there, let’s jump into self-directed IRAs and talk about people looking at it.

We’re getting there. My girls are 7, 5 and 9 months old. The seven-year-old will eventually start doing some modeling for the short-term rental stuff. I know that’s in the near future. We got the 7 and 5-year-old in there. I’m not comfortable paying the nine-month-old for being a model. She’ll sit on the sidelines. She might be in the photo but she won’t get paid. She’s free labor. I’ve seen you put it to work for years. I know other business owners that are doing the same thing. It’s a very powerful tool that if you don’t know, you just don’t know how to ask. You don’t know how the strategy works. The biggest thing that I want to get across with all these strategies is to plant that seed and to get somebody thinking about that next step, even if they’re not a business owner but want to be years from now. There are multiple strategies that you can start putting in place or at least have ready when you make that jump. Plant a seed and get your thinking. That’s what I want somebody to take away from this. Self-directed IRAs, that’s where I first got started before I had the company. I had some old corporate 401(k)s that I rolled over.

Before we go into this, talk about the roll-overs. A lot of people here have lost their job, left their job, retired. That’s the biggest question I get from potential investors, “I work for this company. How do I self-direct my IRA?” Talk a little bit about that.

To be honest, it’s a very simple process but until you’ve gone through it, it seems daunting. I’ve been with two companies prior. I had 401(k)s at both of those companies. I had left. I didn’t know about consolidating and rolling them over to a certain company. Once I got to my third company, I started contributing there. That’s where I was introduced to the self-directed IRA. I’m using this individual with a custodian and all the LLC stuff so that we can direct in the things that we want to invest in. Consolidate those two accounts from the two prior companies, roll them over to a custodian. It’s a very simple process. I went to both of those 401(k) companies and said, “I’m rolling the funds out.” There’s usually an online form that you fill out and submit. It can take anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks to get it processed and the funds change hands.

You roll them over to TD Ameritrade or Fidelity, one of the big brokerages. You’ve got a little bit more control over what you can invest in. Sitting at an old 401(k), you’ve got twenty mutual funds to pick from. Half of those are usually target date life funds, “I’m going to retire in 2050.” Every five years you’ve got another fund for that. You’ve got some small growth, large-cap, all different stuff in there that you can invest in. It’s usually 20 to 25 funds. The minute you consolidate, roll over it to a Fidelity or TD Ameritrade, you open it up to the entire stock market. If that’s your thing, stay with it and invest in other mutual funds or other things.

 

By keeping that old 401(k), there are also small fees that you’re absorbing, planned maintenance fees, third-party administration fees. There’s a lot of stuff in there. They’re not big dollars but things add up. By rolling it over to get them all together in one account, go from there and start being a little bit more self-directed about it. That self-directed IRA thing always cracks me up. To a brokerage house, self-directed means you get to pick whatever stock you want, but self-directed means you get to pick whatever investment vehicle you want. If it’s stocks, awesome. If it’s gold bullion, I’ll go do that. You kicked the door open to what you can self-direct versus what the brokerage count.

That’s where I got weird about them being a true fiduciary. They’re truly being a fiduciary to you, putting you in something that might or might not be the best investment vehicle for you. I’m not saying this about every financial advisor. One of my best friends is a financial advisor. I always got to be careful. He knows. He talks to me, “We’re not touching the returns that you’re pretty much doing.” I asked him, “If somebody comes in, let’s say they’re top-heavy in whatever. It could be stocks and mutual funds. You know that they shouldn’t be investing your money in other avenues. Are you allowed to tell them to do that?” He’s like, “We got to be careful. We can tell them to do it but we can’t do that for them.”

I said, “How many people do you tell that they should go and talk to somebody else, real estate, notes, private lending or syndications?” He says, “We don’t tell that.” You’re not truly a fiduciary. If you’re working for a bank or an investment house, you’re selling pretty much what they’re telling you to sell. For me, it doesn’t sit right. There are investors that have been with me. They invest a lot of money with us in our deal. They’re like, “What do you think? Is the market going to sink?” I always say, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Do your research. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m not a stockbroker. Try to pick some funds that you think work best for you. Talk to your financial advisor. You should probably put some eggs in that basket too. I never believe in putting all your eggs in one basket. You’re right about that. It’s very important.

People get confused with the difference between LLCs, S corps and C corps. I’ll break it real easy and then I’ll give it to you, Logan, to go a little deeper. LLCs are there to protect your assets. That’s what an LLC is for. People think that if they follow this LLC, there are tax write-offs. They’ll be able to do all these crazy things. Unfortunately, that’s not what LLC is for. I’m not telling you to go out there and set up an S corp or a C corp upfront. You have accountants, CPAs, attorneys. You want to talk to them. They’re the experts. They’re licensed. I’m not. I’m telling you what I do. LLC is good if you’re going to buy assets like houses, rentals, maybe notes. LLC is pretty easy to set up. It protects your assets if you do it the right way. I can tell you this. I can guarantee that almost everybody out there that has an LLC or even S corp does not do it the right way. I’m not an attorney.

I didn’t do it the right way when I set my stuff out two years later.

I have fears about almost everybody’s LLC and S corp. I’m not an attorney. If you got an attorney that has half a noodle on corporate law, they’re going to destroy your LLC and S corp. If God forbid somebody gets hurt on one of your properties and you think you’re protected by your LLC or S corp, I can almost guarantee you that you’re not doing it correctly. Here’s what it comes down to. You’re probably not spending the money. We’ll go back to this whole mindset thing. You’re not investing in yourself the right way. You’re trying to save a couple of dollars. I’m not going to mention companies where people are out there using to form their own LLCs, S corps and legal docs. It’s not just the legal documentation, it’s the fact that when you have any corporation, there’s a process.

You have to have corporate minutes. You cannot commingle funds. There are many things that people screw up. I’m telling you this upfront not to scare you but I want your light bulb to go off and talk to your attorney and accountants and say, “What am I not doing right?” There are companies out there to help you do this. You’re not going to be able to go and do it yourself for $199 and think you have all your legal docs done. It’s not the way it’s going to work. If you do that, you’re probably wasting your time. It’s not even doing anything because you’re probably not protecting yourself. How do I know this? It’s because I have the mastermind and a bunch of students. I’m at events. I speak to people. I was like, “What is your company minutes?” They’re borrowing money personally, giving it to the company, paying themselves back without corporate approval.

The simple fact of you can borrow money from your personal accountant into your business but that business now owes the personal interest on that money. We did that. I paid $5,000 interest on it to myself but it was still good.

You have to pay the interest and get corporate approval. Whoever owns the company, even if it’s you and your wife, you have to sit down and put in your minutes, “We agreed to pay ourselves back alone for purchasing furniture for one of our rentals.” It’s ways to do things the right way. Let’s talk about some of the income. We called them the active and passive. We’ve mentioned the active income. You could probably dive a little bit into that.

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On the active and passive stuff, I’ve got interest in limited partnerships through syndication in Phoenix, Arizona. I invest in those things. I have those through passive entities. I’ve got active income, the stuff we’re doing in Broken Bow, the short-term rental stuff. Any consulting income that I receive runs through my S corp. I’m generally flipping houses. That’s active income. That would be flown through an S corp. Your passive stuff is pretty easy. Your rental properties and anything that you’re passively investing in that you don’t have a say so. You’re trying to put a very fine corporate veil around so that you’re not touched if something were to come up.

For tax strategy-wise with my cabin rental stuff, I charged my cabin rental an asset management fee. I pull some of that income out of there into my S corp as active management so that I can help with the salaries and then also in turn with 401(k). There’s a reason behind all of this that comes together. They’re not isolated companies trying to figure out what this one’s doing and what this one may be doing. They’re all working together to fit a tax strategy. It’s my tax strategy. It’s not yours. Yours is different from mine. Anything that we’re saying is ideas to get people thinking about how can I get mine to have those types of synergies?

As your business grows or slows, whatever it might be, that could change. You have to stay on top of this. This is not a set it and forget it. Logan mentioned something where I don’t do. I have rentals inside my LLC and a short-term rental inside my LLC as well, but I don’t charge a management fee personally through my LLC, which is a great idea. It’s another way to move money over and pay your salaries out of your S corp. That’s the thing you got to think of. Maybe my accountant should have caught that and said, “Why aren’t we doing this? Maybe we should be doing this.” In a way, it’s one way, half dozen the other because it’s not a huge deal but these are great strategies that you can use.

You can start maneuvering that money into other deals. Why leave the money in your LLC where it’s not getting any tax benefits out of that LLC? You can maneuver that money into your S corp, and then the S corp, you can invest that money into 401(k)s and stuff like that. That’s awesome. We gave a ton of information. We got to spend two days in a seminar giving this information. I’ll have an accountant and an attorney with us so they can verify it. There’s so much more. We’re just giving basics when we talk about paying your kids and the $12,400. You can pay them more than that. There is a lower tax bracket. There are so many ways to pay more.

Let’s say you pay them $16,000 and they get $3,600 over the minimum. You pay tax on the $3,600. They’re at 10% and so it’s $360. There are many other ways you can do things. Logan and I want to open your eyes to what’s out there. We’re not able to teach this all to you because we can’t teach it all to you. We don’t know everybody’s situation. When I mentor somebody in my mastermind and I get a one-on-one, I go through the situation. I have friends that I sit down with. We have other friends that are doing business and have been doing it for years. They don’t want any personal names. They’re not getting any tax write-offs or anything on us. Now it’s getting real. I’m like, “You got to set something up.” Even if you set up a sole proprietorship at first, you got to start something. You got to roll it into S corp. Start thinking about long-term investment vehicles or retirement vehicles.

On the S corp, C corp, LLC, a CPA is going to help you figure out which way is the best way to go. For years, I had my business that wasn’t ready to go as an S corp. The threshold at the time when we did the test was $45,000. It’s net income, not gross. After you take out all of your expenses, we were consistently doing better than the $45,000. He said, “It’s time to convert your S corp.” We could retroactively change it for the prior year. We did different things. You’re not going solo. For somebody who’s coming out of traditional W-2 income or if you’re still in it, it doesn’t matter. You’re able to go on TurboTax and you’re like, “Why would I ever pay a CPA?” I had that same thought years ago. Why would I ever pay a CPA? TurboTax walks me through 100% of it. They do but they don’t. They don’t know these other strategies that are going on because it’s not for that. TurboTax is for the 95% of the workforce that has married, filing jointly, filing separately, all the questions you’ve gone through, you answer and you’re done in 30 minutes with your taxes. I’m still ongoing. We filed an extension because we’re still working on it.

Most of the time you will be. You’re going to be working on this. You have multiple investments. You have syndications where you’re a limited partner. You’re waiting for the K-1s on that or 1099s. It’s okay to file extensions. It’s not the best thing. They don’t have to get your K-1. You can’t have your taxes on time if your K-1s aren’t even there. Here’s the thing with TurboTax and this online. I used to do that. I was submitting it because it was easy. The fact is you want to be able to sit with a CPA or an accountant that says, “You’re doing this but if you start thinking about this, maybe we could save on here.”

TurboTax is allowing you to put in what you put in instead of for a pure basic. There’s nothing that comes out and says, “You’re doing a side business. You’re making t-shirts and selling them. Have you ever thought about starting a business?” In that business, you can write off losses up to three years where it’s not a hobby. Maybe you start buying real estate rentals. You know that your real estate rentals with the depreciation, you can show a loss for a certain amount of years, even though you make income because you’re depreciating. You have a bunch of properties. Do you know if you’ve got a multifamily property or commercial building, you do an accelerated depreciation in year one? If your accountant is not doing that, you want to start looking around for an accountant that fits wherever it is.

 

If you’re an Amazon store, if you do one of those stores, you want an accountant that’s familiar with that. If you’re doing short-term rentals, you want accountants who are familiar with that. I know you have loyalty with your accountant and your attorney, but it’s okay that you outgrew them. A good accountant should say the same thing. “Logan, I love everything you do and you grow in the great lens. I’m not the best fit for what you’re doing now.” The person who used to do my personal tax returns doesn’t do my tax returns anymore. They can’t handle all the businesses and properties I have. I said to them, “If this is not for you, let me know because I don’t want to put something on you that you’re not comfortable with or don’t know how to do.” We both get ourselves into some hot water because something’s not followed correctly, then I have an audit. I have to pay a penalty.

Unfortunately, the accountant is never responsible for the penalties or late fees. They put these tax returns together. We don’t know what the heck they’re putting together. It’s a shame. It’s like a foreign language when I look at the tax returns. I don’t know what they’re putting together. I tell them everything I’m doing, they put them together, we sign off on them. If there’s a penalty or interest that comes back to us. This whole thing, we can sum it up and say take control of your business, your retirement and live in prosperity.

That’s what this show is all about. Everything falls into one of those two verticals. It’s living in prosperity and living in passive income. A lot of this is going to help you live in passive income. If this is not one of the best shows on business that I’ve heard, done or been interviewed on, I don’t know what it is. We’ve done some great shows on beliefs. Go back, read this again, write notes. Make sure you ask your accountant or attorney. If they say no, trust and verify what I’m telling you. Go to Google. Type in, “How much can I pay my minor under eighteen years old tax-free? How much is the HSA? How much can I put into a self-directed IRA? How much can I put into a Coverdell account?”

Look up all those things. There’s a ton of information out there. If your accountant is saying, “You can’t do that,” and you’re self-employed or even if you’re not self-employed, if you can’t do things like IRAs and stuff like that or life insurance policies, then you might need to look at a different accountant or a different attorney. Your financial advisor, it’s the same thing. Trust and verify everything we tell you but challenge them. Don’t just take what they say with a grain of salt. I love when people trust and verify me. I want people to question me. People make me proof up things. I’m not 100%. I could be wrong on some things. I’m very careful because what Logan and I were telling you might not work for you because of your situation. At least you understand it. You can ask those questions and you research them.

Change your situation. You’re maybe in a position where your CPA is giving you advice or you’re willing to do X, Y, Z. We can do exactly what you brought to me but you need to change something so then you can be more focused on your business that next tear and take advantage on some of these strategies. There are even more strategies than we could talk about. These are some of the more powerful ones that we’re putting in place for us. My whole thing with this, I love sharing these topics. We’re just planting the seed and getting somebody thinking about how they can do it outside of what you see on a TV commercial. All you see is what comes over on TV, free online trading, this and that. There’s more to it. There’s more out there.

Do you have anything else? I think we gave so much. You’re drinking from a fire hose on the show. This is Logan’s idea. He’s like, “Let’s bring this up to people.” I’m like, “We’re going to crush them with information.” I hope they take it. We love doing this. The only way we can continue to do this is if you show the love so we can keep coming up there on the rankings. If you like what you read, give us those five-star reviews. It’s so important. Share this out. Share the link out on social media and with your friends. We ask that every one of you share it out with at least five people so you can live that true Passive to Prosperous mindset. You can share this information with your friends and family. There’s not one person who shouldn’t read this show. I’m pulling and share it out with at least five friends. I would love to see you share it out with 100–plus each because that means you want to help the world live that better life. Thanks so much for being on. We’ll see you next time. Take care.

Important Links:

• Logan Hassinger – LinkedIn
• TurboTax
• www.PassiveWealthAcademy.com/42K
• www.ZitofskyCapitalManagement.com

About Logan Hassinger  

From the beginning, Logan had a goal to work in real estate doing what he loves, and wanted to share the passion of real estate with others. Through the years, he has developed a solid foundation of real estate knowledge, the expertise necessary to navigate any transaction; and have the integrity to follow up on promises. Early on, as he began to develop the company and carve his niche in the vast world of real estate, he quickly realized that there is a distinct need for certain real estate services he originally did not foresee. After the 2007-2008 financial crisis, it become apparent that millions of homeowners were losing their homes. So he transitioned from owning rental properties in the Dallas/Fort Worth market to buying distressed mortgage notes with the intent of working with the homeowner to keep them in their home.

Completing in excess of 4 Million dollars in real estate transactions since 2013, Logan and Sage Notes, LLC is excited to be assisting homeowners experiencing financial hardship. We aspire to continue contributing to the continued goal of home ownership along with economic rejuvenation of the areas we serve and its neighborhoods.

As he began to pursue the Chartered Financial Analyst or CFA® designation, he realized that Real Estate was the path for him. They say we grow more from our failures than our successes, and this is a testament to that very saying. He failed the Level 1 exam and the rest is history. He began with a rental property 5 months later acquiring a distressed property and assisting the seller in their situation. Logan continued to add small multifamily properties to the portfolio and protecting his Lenders over the 3 years.

Logan loved the idea of being able to do what large financial institutions couldn’t provide. He was able to provide modification plans to distressed borrowers and keep them in their homes. The portfolio quickly grew to 60+ mortgages in less than a year working with Banks throughout the country.