Mark J. Kohler
Appearances
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
It's not about getting rich quick. It's not getting rich slow. I want to get rich slow.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Okay, stop is first.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Yep, yep. From an accountant. Stop thinking. Okay, here it is. It's a mindset thing. It's going to be easy. I got a few others, but 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 accountant that speaks Mark Kohler.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And by the way, I got a network of a thousand accounts around the country and growing that speak Mark Kohler. But 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?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Are you understanding what structure you are and why you don't have to know how to do an effing tax return people, but you need to know what numbers are on it and how to read it. A rich person knows their tax return. So you just start doing what rich people do. It's super easy. And they work with their advisor.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 it's synergistic. So stop thinking you're going to hire someone to take all of this off your plate.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
You're taking the number one thing you should be doing and thinking you're going to delegate it. It doesn't work.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Yep. I love it. And you lead right into my second point, and it's so easy, people, this mind shift change. So 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,
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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, you know, they got a 1099 from... Etsy or eBay or whatever. They're getting a little 10 a.m.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
for side hustle somewhere and they see it as a burden. 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, you're 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
But if you don't treat your business like a business, it does you no good. It's just a noose around your neck.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Well, that's what the ladies say, you know, spotted white leopard. Well, I was always an entrepreneur. I was the kid with the lemonade stand. I 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
No, totally. And you said this at the very beginning of your show. You want to give actionable items. Okay, let me give you some actionable. 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
So start with some decent bookkeeping. Next to actionable, get a podcast or some good blogs that you like or video that you follow on YouTube of tax tips. I've got a 30 Ultimate Tax Guide this, and I have a podcast where every week we talk about different tax tips and all that. If you don't like Mark Kohler, it's fine, but you've got to have someone.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
that you're following say, okay, can I write off? What am I doing right now with healthcare? January 15th, that was a big day. That's the last day to enroll for healthcare for 2025 and get a health savings account. What am I doing by April 15th? Am I putting together college savings for my kids in an ESA? What is an ESA?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Well, you know, kind of you tell me the difference between a Roth and an IRA. So start getting educated on these things and just start kind of learning. And it's going to be hard. It's not going to be sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's just like, oh, my gosh, but you're going to be the coolest person at the next dinner party. You're like, oh, check out what I learned.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
You know, everybody's like, what? You know, I mean, it's just cool stuff.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. Just 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Understand your card table moment. When was that moment? When I had that great idea, every small, 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, that little nucleus, share it with your family. And how to do that is called the family board.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
It makes your LLC or corporation more legit because you're having annual board meetings like all of you know you should be. And you're writing off crap your accountant doesn't even talk about. All of my kids, it was so funny, right? At Christmas, my kids love it. They come down to the Christmas tree. All my kids are over 18 now. They come down to the Christmas tree.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And then I thought, hey, this accounting thing – No offense to anyone out there. I mean, marketing class, finance is tough, sure. But I don't want to work for Wall Street. So marketing, man, 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 the 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?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
You're getting a 1099 because you're on my board.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Think about this. Your kids don't pay taxes this year on the first $14,000 and change, $15,000 and change. The numbers just changed for inflation. So 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 $14,000, let's say. So you've got four kids that could work anywhere and earn $14,000.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 FUTA. There's no workers' comp. And 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
But your four kids, depending on their age and what they're doing in the business, let's say we're paying them $5,000 to $10,000. Four kids average of seven. Four times seven, we're at 28 grand. We just got a $28,000 tax write-off. So you're gonna be paying for school lunch, school clothes, soccer, football, all that. You're not paying for it anymore, Ryan. They pay for it.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 seven grand 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 learn 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And so 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And I just want to say this for everybody. I know our time is almost up here, 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 accountants 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
You're going to say, thanks for pulling your head out of your butt. Let's go. And so 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, bye, you're fired.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Go get certified with Mark Kohler.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Where did you throw out crypto? Okay.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
First of all, I am a financial advisor. Everybody, your accountant should be a financial advisor, but I'm not, but listen, 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And so I was like, I want to be that guy. So I went on to law school, come to find 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
You're saying in 10,000 consults, what have you learned? And I can share that financial wisdom. That's not a, I'm not, there's not a problem there. Anyway, crypto freaking love it. I got some XRP that's kicking ass right now. I'll tell you that.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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, uh, uh, 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. And so we just love crypto.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
But I'm not telling everybody, don't go buy crypto if you don't know it.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Yeah. 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. It's the blockchain people. It's public. There's prosecutions now. More and more people trying not to pay taxes on their crypto transactions. Don't go there.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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've got a lot of podcasts on it, too.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Well, it's the Rockstar Recovery Lemonade. It's hydration and energy boost all in one. Zero carbs, zero sugar. I love this. And by the way, Rockstar sent me a whole box.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
I love it. Well, what fuels me is I just – I just – 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 –
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And I love that from City Slickers with Billy Crystal when he went out to move cattle and Curly told him there's just one thing. And he's like, well, what's the one thing? What's that one thing for you? And 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Well, everybody, easiest place in the world, MarkJCohler.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 as 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. It's very affordable. We'd love to be a boutique for the small business owner across America. Directed IRA. Anyway, all the resources are at MarkJCuller.com. Workshops, the social media. I'm just honored to be here. Honored to be here, Brian.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Thanks so much for having me.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Thank you, man.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Isn't it true? Yeah, it's maddening. And the hard thing is taxes are law. I mean, it's tax law, you know, and understanding it. And only the big dogs or big companies have been able to afford tax lawyers. 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. We've been doing that.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. And 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Hire the first mate and you can control your destiny.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Well, great question. And what's interesting is since COVID, we've had the great formation. We're pushing up to almost 45% of working Americans have a side hustle. And people, 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And one in five Americans own a rental property in some form or fashion. So 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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, but you know, whatever it is. And I love that bread and butter stuff. And so it's just, there's no mystery.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
It's not like there's this secret thing like, Mark, how do I save tax? It's just, it's just doing the basics and knowing it, understanding it, owning it. And, and that's, so there's no sexy secret there, except that, You really can build a 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Oh, yeah. See, you give me a day, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that W-2 day job, work corporate America. That's cool. It's great. Let's go do your taxes. Bend over. I can't do anything. I mean, you're screwed. But if you've got that small business, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Now that little 1099 some of you are getting, that's like, that's a golden ticket.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. And that, I can, you can pay... 30% less in taxes on that money than your day job.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Well, very, very perceptive question. And I'm going to try to answer this simply. So everybody, there's seven tax brackets out there and the highest being 37 and a half. Okay, cool. No one pays in total 37.5% in federal taxes because it's graduated. So when we have brackets, that's our bracket on the next dollar after a certain limit.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
So once everybody kind of gets that, that this is a graduated bracket, that's point number one. So then what we want to look at is what is your effective tax rate? So like after we take all the killer write-offs we can think of, lots of options, right? What's that effective rate? And for some people, it could be zero. For others, it could be 35%.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. But then we've got strategies and tools. 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
I got Joe Biden's and his from 2016. He was a real estate professional. Now, you talk about 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. So his 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Okay, you're going to be paying 30% or more in effective rate because you're not using the strategies correctly. to your, in the best way. And I'd like, before we started the show too, you were talking about, hey, don't hate the player. Just hate the game. You know, if you don't like that Trump paid 6%, don't be pissed at Trump. Just learn the rules.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
And so when you understand the rules, you're like, 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan. This is awesome. And I love that your focus is on this.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Rich people, okay, here's the 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
I think, okay, I'm good. 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.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
I could freaking, 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. I mean, can we get off our ass and do something rather than blame the rich for being determined?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
You just hit the word I wanted to say. I got to dive in here because this is exactly the word you said. The tax code, people, everybody, this is so, so important. You want to get theoretical. The tax code is built
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 this whatever or efficient water heater at home depot get a tax credit go buy an electric vehicle get a tax right go buy real estate and help
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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?
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
Holy shit, sign me up.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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 be Quit your day job. There's funds you can invest in for oil and gas royalties, depletion, exploration.
Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Small Business Tax Tips To grow & Keep Wealth in 2025 with Mark J. Kohler
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. soil, 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-dependent.