How to Pay Nearly Zero in Taxes as a Personal Brand | Grant Newell | EP 79

Speaker 1 What is up, the Entrepreneur DNA family?

Speaker 1 If you are a personal brand, if you're a hard-charging entrepreneur and you want to understand how to keep more of the money you're already making, this episode is going to be for you.

Speaker 1 I have a good friend, the founder of Abundant X tax planning and accounting firm. My man Grant Newell is here.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be in the sunny state.
That's right. That's right.

Speaker 1 So I'm a hard-charging entrepreneur. I am a brand.

Speaker 1 I want to keep more of the money I'm making. I want to make sure I don't have to pay as much taxes as the common folk out there that might have to.
Talk to me about what's on the horizon.

Speaker 1 Trump's in office. There's some things that are getting shaken up.
Talk to me about what's on the horizon for us. Yeah.
So probably the one that will be most exciting to entrepreneurs like yourself is

Speaker 1 in that big long tax plan that he laid out, the beautiful tax plan, there is one example. Which I read like a sentence of.
Yeah. there's I mean, hundreds and hundreds of pages in it.

Speaker 1 Do you have to read the whole thing? No, I have

Speaker 1 people on the team that I've sectioned it off. Yeah, okay, you read the deduction.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's too many. Um, and so I had each person tackle a section, but one exclusion was left out that a lot of people aren't talking about,

Speaker 1 and it is the entertainment deduction. It's okay, not

Speaker 1 it's set to expire at the end of this year, and it was not in there to extend. Meaning, if you go golfing with a client or a potential investor or whatever,

Speaker 1 currently you can't write that off. Right.
You got to pay for it on your own dime. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now you can go and write that off. If it gets excluded.
So I'm being cautious about saying this on camera because we don't know where it's going to land.

Speaker 1 So you have to be able to, you know, make sure you protect your downside here.

Speaker 1 But right now, I go and take you to golf. I can write that off.
currently you can't i cannot right currently you cannot write that off but because it is excluded it's not mentioned in there

Speaker 1 that you know non-deduction would come back

Speaker 1 so you can write off you know if it's you know 500

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 uh you know a green okay write that all off now wow you know what about dinners and that kind of stuff that is no yeah so that is that is currently at 50%.

Speaker 1 Right. It would go to 100%.
Wow. So we're talking about 100% tax write-off.
Correct. Okay.

Speaker 1 So if I took you to golf, I don't even get 50% tax write-off. Because it's an entertainment.
Now, meals, you'll get 50%.

Speaker 1 Because I think I remember my accountant telling me this. That was going away with someone's bill.

Speaker 1 It used to be. I could go do that.
Right. It used to be.
And with the previous administration, it went down to 50%.

Speaker 1 And it's it's set to go to zero, but

Speaker 1 it's not mentioned in there.

Speaker 1 So it would come back.

Speaker 1 And so that's one of those things that I tell people. I'm like, okay, it's not there yet, but we're getting there.

Speaker 1 And that's one of the ones, you know, like,

Speaker 1 you know, let's say you wanted to take somebody to the heat game here in Miami. You couldn't write that off previously.
But now. Are people misinformed?

Speaker 1 I believe a lot of people think that that's a tax write-off.

Speaker 1 let's say this some people probably are taking that as a tax write-off but if you were to get audited they would say that is not a tax write-off that would be an add back okay so what with adbacks you add back that expense plus what the tax was plus interest not not however many years it's been so not a great idea so

Speaker 1 and again just because i try to inquire through my accountant um

Speaker 1 but i got to be honest talking to accountants is not the easiest thing world.

Speaker 1 Because you guys are so overly knowledgeable that you go into a wormhole and I go, oh, bro, I just needed a simple like yes or no question.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 when did that go away? Because I remember when I, now I'm 44, I've been an entrepreneur literally since I graduated college. There was a time meals and entertainment and entertainment

Speaker 1 was a write-off, right? Golfing was absolutely a write-off. Who took that away?

Speaker 1 To be honest, I cannot tell you who exactly. Because it was within the last two different

Speaker 1 yeah it's it's been recent because you you previously could write those things off but now even like with the vehicle you know the vehicle went from a hundred percent to eighty percent to sixty percent this year next year would be 40 20 so on all the way down to zero but that you know trump's talking about bringing that back as well 100 vehicle deduction because car sales are down to be you know to be honest he's like people aren't buying as many cars as to where hey at the end of the year, I get a big tax write-off for buying a big SUV.

Speaker 1 6,000 pounds. Yeah.
And so. So where is that at right now? If I go buy, which I did just go buy a big Range Rover that fits the

Speaker 1 bill. Right.
So what tax percentage am I at with that? So you can write off 60% of that. No kidding.
Yeah. So you can't write off all of it like you previously could.
Sure.

Speaker 1 But you can get 60%, which is. you know, not terrible.
It's going to be terrible when it's Europe. Yeah.
That's what Trump is looking at. He's like, nobody's going to be buying these big vehicles

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 why buy them? Right. You know, it's like, I'm not going to get to write them off.

Speaker 1 So, you know, you're having to eat that entire expense. And over 6,000 pounds is usually over six figures in expenses.

Speaker 1 And let me ask you a common, and I don't know, I'll let you tell me if it's a misconception.

Speaker 1 I go around and round my account about this.

Speaker 1 You go get a car. Yep.
Any car. I don't care, but make an expensive one.
Right.

Speaker 1 Can you write off, if you put it in the company's name?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Can you write off 100% of that payment? Is that 100%? If it's leased,

Speaker 1 that's the big key. So if it is leased, you can write off the full expense of that lease.
Every month. Every single month.
You can write off the lease, the gas, the maintenance.

Speaker 1 All that can get written off if it's a lease. Why would anyone buy a car?

Speaker 1 Well, because you can't, obviously obviously you're not going to get the accelerated depreciation on a lease. Right.

Speaker 1 But if you buy the car, like I said previously, when it was 100% write-off, if you financed a $100,000 vehicle, you could write off $100,000. And let's say you put $0 down.

Speaker 1 You got $0 down. Well, there's $100,000 write-off, but you didn't have to pay any money for it.
Right. So you now got $100,000 tax-free.
Now it's not 100% anymore. Right.
Now it's not 100% anymore.

Speaker 1 So it's not not as advantageous, which is why leases are up and car sales are down.

Speaker 1 So, you know, leases right now, I would say, are the best, best option because you can lease a luxury vehicle for advertising, marketing, whatever.

Speaker 1 I tell people, at least have, you know, a license plate cover that has your business on it. Don't just say, oh, this is my business vehicle, but it's a Ferrari.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, okay, nobody knows that it's a business vehicle. Right.
So, at least when the IRS shows up, say, well, here's the business right here. I tell people, at least do that.

Speaker 1 I usually have my clients do license plate and license cover, something related to your business. So you can say, Yeah, it's recognizable.
Yeah. My business.

Speaker 1 So, and I hate to hound on this because I go back and forth because I want all the tax write-offs.

Speaker 1 I buy this, let's just say it was back to 100%.

Speaker 1 Let's say it moves back there.

Speaker 1 I buy this new Range Rover and it's $150,000. Yep.

Speaker 1 My payments are two grand. Right.

Speaker 1 Out of that two grand that I pay,

Speaker 1 does the car have to be in the business name? No.

Speaker 1 But I can get 100% tax write off of that two grand a month, so 24 grand a year. Yeah, if it is a business vehicle, yeah.
Business vehicle.

Speaker 1 So what you, if you take the 100% deduction, you can't write that off, those payments

Speaker 1 because you've already taken the full payments that's right off right now so and then if you sell the the car in year two then technically just like real estate they're gonna say well dude you took a a five-year depreciation schedule you threw it into one year and now you're selling it right then they basically want to claw back yeah yeah so that's the hard part about it is uh which is why i say leasing is absolutely fantastic because If your payment is two grand a month, you write off two grand a month and you never have to pay for that vehicle.

Speaker 1 You sell it or you return it and get a new, you know, a new one. Some people like to do them every year.
Yeah. All right, return it, get the new one.
All right, that's the same payment.

Speaker 1 Never have to crave for it.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I say kind of pick, pick one or the other.

Speaker 1 If you're going to take the accelerated depreciation, like if you have a big tax bill, obviously writing off two grand a month is not really going to

Speaker 1 for you.

Speaker 1 So, you know, that's where I say, okay, buying the car is more advantageous.

Speaker 1 It all depends on where your situation's at. What is the whole thing about gas and insurance and mileage? Like,

Speaker 1 yeah, I say, but for entrepreneurs and people making over six figures, the mileage deduction is not going to make sense. Right.

Speaker 1 The actual method, which is where you write off gas, insurance, all that sort of stuff, is going to make more sense. Right.
Right. Right.

Speaker 1 It's always, I always want more. And he's like, you can't get more than what you got.
So,

Speaker 1 all right. So let's talk about kind of the science of what you do because I am a personal brand.
This is actually why you're on my podcast is somewhere in your ecosystem. You found me.

Speaker 1 You're like, I'd love to be on this.

Speaker 1 You have an incredible tax and accounting firm, right? Abundant X.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about what you do for us. You know, what's your ideal client look like? Why is it important to have a team like yours on staff? I obviously have told you about my bookkeeper.

Speaker 1 I have two bookkeepers. I have an accountant.
Like I'm trying in every way to find the way around it. I want to make all the money and keep it all.
Right.

Speaker 1 So, talk to us about your clients, what you can help them with, that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So, really, our ideal client is a personal brand that has multiple businesses.

Speaker 1 So, we say, you know, we work with personal brands and serial entrepreneurs, people that, you know, wake up in the morning and you got a new idea that you're like, I want to try this out.

Speaker 1 And I say, rather than paying the IRS, you know, six figures in a tax bill, use that money to go make your idea a reality.

Speaker 1 And so we help people realize their dream businesses that they're thinking of

Speaker 1 typically through, you know, a lot of our clients will have a cash cow business that will fund these other side projects that sometimes turn into failures,

Speaker 1 big deals, and failures. Yeah.
I mean, we've had both. You know, we had one client exit for

Speaker 1 several million, million dollars on a side project that he had no idea. He was like, yeah, I just did this in my free time.
And we made it a business. He made a big sale.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, we help people figure out, okay, how can I do this and not have to pay the IRS? Yeah. And that's, that's, it's exciting because

Speaker 1 you get to see the excitement on our clients' faces when I'm like, yeah, okay, we can do that. I was excited when we first had our first phone call.
Now you're getting me really excited.

Speaker 1 So for example, I started a business 60 days ago. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Super excited about, super passionate about it. I love it.
It is about personal branding, content creation, and driving revenue through your personal brand. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'd love to make an intro to the mastermind, right? So some mastermind base.

Speaker 1 How would you advise me? And so this is for all you listening and watching. So you get real tactical knowledge, right?

Speaker 1 So how it went is I created the idea, put it together with gum and super glue,

Speaker 1 and it immediately became profitable. Yeah.
Out of the gate. In the first 30 days, profitable.

Speaker 1 What would you advise me? New business, literally already have the entity up, ish driving. What would you advise? Yeah.
So with event-driven businesses,

Speaker 1 those are a lot of fun because

Speaker 1 as I say, you get to travel to places that,

Speaker 1 you know, maybe you would have traveled personally, not been able to ride off because there was no business related expense to it. Right.
But now you can. So like

Speaker 1 one of the things that we like to do with event businesses is we say, pick a place that you're like, I would go here if, you know, there was no other reason, but just to enjoy the beauty of the place.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, you know, you can scout it out. for your event.
You don't even have to have the event there. You know, you can

Speaker 1 go there and be like, ah, this might not be a great place for an event. But you go there, you write about, okay, this is the landscape.
This, you know, this would be where we would host the event.

Speaker 1 You know, you write up a pager two synopsis on what you thought about the place and if it would qualify for an event. And now, whether you choose to go there for an event or not, you can write it off.

Speaker 1 How much of it can you write off? 100% of it. You write

Speaker 1 come back from Turks and Caicos. Yeah.
I have an event coming up this week. I throw together a two-pager.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is what the hotel was like. This is what the conference rooms looked like.
This is the cost of the rooms, maybe a little more pricey than probably what they get forward.

Speaker 1 This might not be the location. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That whole trip is now a tax write-off because I run an event-based business. Yeah.
Because you're scouting it out for the event. Obviously.

Speaker 1 You know, so it's like if you travel somewhere to look at a piece of property that you're looking to purchase

Speaker 1 and you,

Speaker 1 you know, obviously you have to pay to get there.

Speaker 1 And so that would be a write-off. You know, you go there, you look at the property.
Maybe it's something you want to invest in, maybe it's not, but that whole trip is a write-off.

Speaker 1 Same thing for an event. You're going, you're looking, is this a viable place for me to host an event? How much does the event place cost? How much does a room cost?

Speaker 1 You know, could I, you know, a lot of people with events, they'll, you know, say, hey, we'll give you a XYZ room for price. You mark it up a little bit from what they do.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, you write out that one or two page synopsis of it.

Speaker 1 Now that trips a write-off. Whether or not you go there or not, I mean, as long as it's a viable place, if it's like, you know, in the middle of the Sahara Desert, you know,

Speaker 1 the IRS might have a little harder. Well, listen,

Speaker 1 what my accountant has always advised me, he was like, listen, I work for you. You pay me.
Right.

Speaker 1 You say jump, I say how high. Right.
Now I'm going to tell you there's a ceiling above me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So here's where the ceiling is. Yep.
But I'm going to jump. Right.
So he's like, listen, at the end of the day, what it comes down to is you being audited. Right.

Speaker 1 And you are going to either play with fire or not. Right.
And if you play with too much fire, then it starts to signal huge red flags.

Speaker 1 So he's like, there's always this gray area that you're going to be able to walk because I run multiple businesses, one being in real estate.

Speaker 1 So it gives me a lot of flexibility because of cost seg, travel, buying properties out of state things of that nature right um the others the education space and the event-based businesses so i do have a lot of those benefits right would you encourage all of

Speaker 1 i you know i literally just created a business out of no nothing basically saying everyone should have a personal brand like grant newell has a personal brand right yes your firm is abundant x right right

Speaker 1 um but you have a personal brand everyone should for what for nothing less than what we're talking about right Create opportunity to make income and then keep it and have tax write-offs along the way.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Um,

Speaker 1 do you agree? Do you think everyone, to some extent, and I understand, like, listen, you are probably one of the least sexiest type of business because people hate taxes, right?

Speaker 1 So people don't like talking about it, they want to deal with it, just like me. I'm like, right, talking to my accountant today, but you still have a brand.
You're still here promoting the brand.

Speaker 1 Right. Shouldn't everyone? Yeah.
Well, and I mean, I also do not like taxes, which is why I started an accounting firm because I was like, I don't want to have to pay the taxes. Right.

Speaker 1 So how do I figure out how to do it? Um, and that's what got me into it was I saw my tax bill, even when I was making, you know, 35 grand as a lifeguard. I was like, why am I paying so much in taxes?

Speaker 1 I hardly make anything, you know? And so I was like, I got to figure out how to do this.

Speaker 1 So, but then I realized, okay, with personal brands and serial entrepreneurs, there's, I mean, basically, as I say, the world is your oyster. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 on Sean's podcast, I talked about

Speaker 1 the Kardashians laid out the blueprint of personal brands. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because every time they went to Louis Vuitton, they went down Rodeo Drive and shopped, everything of that was a write-off. Their house in Beverly Hills was a write-off.

Speaker 1 Every time they bought a car, it was a write-off because they had a personal brand. Right.
And

Speaker 1 if they don't go shop on Rodeo Drive, how many people are going to watch them? Right. Probably not very many.
That's right. And so that's the beauty of it.
Um,

Speaker 1 that I tell people is personal brands are the best thing for you because you basically are opening your entire living expenses to tax write-offs.

Speaker 1 Like, for example, um, we had somebody that wanted to write off their personal home. They wanted to build a custom home, very expensive, not not a, you know, not a small expense.

Speaker 1 So they were like, how do we write this off? And

Speaker 1 most accountants would tell you you can't. Right.
You can't write off your personal home. But

Speaker 1 our philosophy is, I'm never going to tell you no. I'm going to figure out how to get there.
You know, it's like driving somewhere.

Speaker 1 If the road is closed, there's usually more than one way to get to your destination point.

Speaker 1 And so that's what I tell people is, let's figure out how to do this. So in this case,

Speaker 1 they were an influencer and I said, okay, let's call, you know, four or five custom home builders where you're going to build and say, hey, I would like to document the process of you building the home, therefore promoting your business.

Speaker 1 Would you do that in return for an affiliate code that you would pay me commissions on?

Speaker 1 And found a couple and kind of sorted through them and figured out the best one. So they documented the whole process, you know, like, hey, they're building the foundation, you know, all this stuff.

Speaker 1 People love it. You know, they love to see the whole process of people building homes and stuff.

Speaker 1 So they followed the whole thing and all of that became an expense that we can now write off because it is now ordinary and necessary, which is the IRS's two requirements.

Speaker 1 We have documented proof that we're, you know, showing it,

Speaker 1 promoting the affiliate code. And now we can write off that entire custom home because it was promoted and it is a way for them to get paid.

Speaker 1 So that's, that's the two requirements is ordinary and necessary for you to get paid. So what, what do you have to do in order to get paid? It's like a trainer.
Promote or sell something. Right.

Speaker 1 So like nobody's going to go be trained by somebody who doesn't work out at the gym. Right.
So it's like, I can't sell a custom home. Say, hey, buy this custom home if I don't build one.

Speaker 1 So you build one, you document the whole process. And now that home is a business expense on your personal brand.
Wow. So that is great.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. There's just so many utilities for this.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 First of all, let's make sure now you probably got everyone's interest. Where can everyone go? Where do you want to put them?

Speaker 1 Whether it's just social media or website, where should everyone find you to talk to you about all this? Yeah. So you can find me on all the social medias at Grant G Newell.

Speaker 1 You can also go directly to our website, abundantx.com.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we, like I said, that's, that's our specialty is, and like you said, personal brands, if they don't have a personal brand, you can't do that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You can't, you know, you can't do a lot. I mean, this is, this is an interesting subject.
What is the first thing,

Speaker 1 what creates a personal brand in the IRS's eyes? Like, what are the things that says, do I even have a personal brand? I don't know. I flip homes just where I come from.
I'm a home flipper, right?

Speaker 1 So, in a general sense, what creates a personal brand for the irs say you're a valid personal brand we'll treat you with the same tax laws as you know someone maybe more notable so everybody has a personal brand some are just

Speaker 1 more well positioned than others okay so you know you think about it like when you introduce yourself to somebody they're going to create you know, a perception of you, which in my mind is a personal brand.

Speaker 1 If they see you on social media, they have that. You have a more well-positioned personal brand than if you didn't have a presence.

Speaker 1 And so that's where I say everybody has a personal brand. Some are just more well-known and valuable than others.

Speaker 1 And the way that we make it legitimate in the IRS's mind is we create an LLC under your name. So like Justin Colby LLC.
Right. Okay.
And so we create that.

Speaker 1 Usually we'll have a holding company that will hold that.

Speaker 1 And so anything that is personal personal brand related Justin Colby LLC goes into any affiliate commissions anything like that like like I was saying with the custom home build those affiliate commissions went to that person's personal brand LLC

Speaker 1 and so

Speaker 1 now in order for them to get paid under that LLC under that business in the IRS's eyes they had to go do that yeah and so

Speaker 1 That asset got to be the personal home that they live in got to be on that LLC. Yeah.
So it has, you know, an asset that,

Speaker 1 you know, if you needed to go get lending and that sort of stuff, it can all be under the business, which is really nice. Um,

Speaker 1 so that home is under so-and-so's LLC. Yep.
Yeah. And then you can go get lending as a company, not a personal on.
Yep. Wow.
Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a cool maneuver

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 Like we said, if you don't have a personal brand, you can't do those things. So for those people today, what do they need to do today? Is it just simply put out content to just get started?

Speaker 1 What are the maybe one, two, three, four, five pieces of advice for someone that's like, Justin, I've been watching you and listening to you forever.

Speaker 1 Okay, I need to get this going or I'm not doing it right. Like, what are maybe the first, you know, checklists of things that you would tell someone to go get done today? Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 Gary Vee probably said it the best. Just document what you're doing.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because at that point, like the irs um you know your accountant said you know you go into murky waters or all this um i always tell my clients there's no murky waters if you have documentation to back it up that's right the irs lays out in their you know

Speaker 1 all their irs codes they tell you what documentation you need to have in order to not be in those murky waters that's right so if you have all those documentations

Speaker 1 there's no murky water yeah it's black and white they come in and they look at it I've been through a couple of audits where they asked for XYZ paperwork. Okay, here you go.
Okay, we're good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, a lot of people talk about these long, drawn out audits. That's usually if you don't have the documentation, things aren't organized.
Isn't that our nature?

Speaker 1 The entrepreneur, the visionary, the go and get started and put it together with scotch tape and gum. And, you know, it's kind of our nature to not be.
I mean, that's where we come in. That's right.

Speaker 1 So that's where, like, I always tell people, I'm like, we come in to give you time and money because we're going to save you money on taxes and we're going to give you back your time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you don't have to worry about, you know, all this stuff. You can go wake up in the morning and say, hey, I want to start this business.
Okay. Here's what we need to do.

Speaker 1 And a lot of the time, we'll prepare all the documents, work with attorneys, whatever, and get the documents. We just say, Justin, fill out this part, sign here.
Done. Yep.
Now it's done.

Speaker 1 And you're like, I'm not bogged down by all this extra stuff. No, it's straightforward.

Speaker 1 We do, we handle all the back work, which is a lot of people really like and enjoy, especially, you know, personal brands, because they're like,

Speaker 1 um, they want to spend time with their family. They want to do their business and then be done with it.
Yeah. And that's really where.

Speaker 1 Now it's interesting. So I have a ton of LLCs.

Speaker 1 So how do you kind of work with all that? Do you almost just charge by the LLC or by the tax return or how do you kind of go about that route? No, so we typically will charge based on like workload.

Speaker 1 So if you have an LLC that doesn't really do anything, there's no point in us charging for it. You know, to me, like I'm a very fair person.

Speaker 1 Like I said, I'm an entrepreneur myself. So I'm like, how would I

Speaker 1 buy my accounting firm? Right.

Speaker 1 I sign on with my own accounting firm. And if the answer is no, then we don't.
we don't do it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I have a lot of LLCs that are there for one reason or another, but they don't produce anything. Right.
So all you have to do is just file to say it's going. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But there's no real work. There's no income and expenses and PLs.
It's just there. Yeah.
And so, I mean, if it's a long, like,

Speaker 1 you know, like a trust or something like that, we'll typically do a one-time filing fee. We don't charge ongoing payments for that sort of stuff.
But,

Speaker 1 you know, I mean, that's typically, like I said, if I wouldn't buy for myself, then I don't, I don't do it. Is there a

Speaker 1 starter kit? Like, here are the, for, for the per for the person that you would want as a client, right? Here are some things that if you're going to get a hold of grant,

Speaker 1 have some semblance of organization for us so we can help you versus just saying,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 jumping on a call with you, right? Like, is there a starter kit that they should put together?

Speaker 1 Whether it's just the entity docs, whether it's the personal tax returns, whatever, so that you can maybe talk to someone more educatedly at what they're doing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, really, I say the biggest thing is have some sort of goal or vision that you're, that you're wanting to do.

Speaker 1 Don't start something if you don't have a purpose for it. Like you said, you know, you might have an LLC, but it's just for one single purpose, not super active, but at least has a purpose.

Speaker 1 So figure out, does my business have a purpose? And if it doesn't, we would dissolve it. But if it does, then we'll keep using it.

Speaker 1 But, you know, have a purpose and, you know, gather your previous stuff so we can see what has done previously, which

Speaker 1 a lot of people, if they come to us, it obviously hasn't been working previously. So we'll know, okay, well, most of us don't do anything until it's like almost too late.

Speaker 1 I remember for a vast amount of years, I just went out and said, okay, I'll deal with it later. Yeah.
Right. I'm just going to deal with this later.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And it's a pain in the butt to do it that way because then you got to go back and deal with it. Right.
But I want to help people understand, like, this is really important

Speaker 1 for nothing else than keeping more money you're already making. Right.
If you don't actually do it, like tax planning is really important.

Speaker 1 I mean, even the one simple tip that you just even said to me that I'm like, I literally just went on vacation. I literally have an event.
I went to that vacation, not for vacation.

Speaker 1 It was a business trip. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And a lot of it is, you know, especially I tell people like, if you have like, let's say a spouse that's not working and you're not paying them anything, which to me is crazy.

Speaker 1 I don't understand why people don't do that. But you put your family on on the business.
Now your whole family is traveling on a business trip for the event.

Speaker 1 And now you can write off that whole thing. You know, your kids travel, all of this, you know, your wife, all of it can be written off with, like, for example, I just had my son.

Speaker 1 He's just turned a little over a year. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I said, okay, I want to be able to pay my son, but.

Speaker 1 He's an infant. Like, what can he do?

Speaker 1 So I have a book that's about to come out called Genetics of Wealth. Nice.
And I made his footprint from his birth as the logo on the back of the book.

Speaker 1 And I am paying my son a licensing for

Speaker 1 my book.

Speaker 1 So he doesn't, you know, I don't run into child labor laws, anything like that. But now my son, I have a legitimate business expense.
So I get that as an expense.

Speaker 1 Plus, he gets paid tax-free anything under $15,000. I great? So, you know, things like that to where you can layer in these things as entrepreneurs that if I'm just a W-2 worker, I don't get those.

Speaker 1 Oh, there's just so many benefits. It's insane.
So we talked about cars. We talked about meals.
Meals are 50% still? Yep. I take you to dinner.
It's 50% tax right off.

Speaker 1 Basically what they're saying is if you and me go to dinner,

Speaker 1 it's your business. So you get 50% of it.
You know, there's two of us. So they split it in half and say, okay, you can write off your expense, but you can't write off my expense.

Speaker 1 Now, what if I took 10 people to dinner?

Speaker 1 Now, that's different. You still only get 50% of that meal expense.
But if, let's say, it's 10 of your employees and it's, you know, everybody needs to be there. It's a business meeting.

Speaker 1 You're going over, you know, like, let's say your upcoming event. You take all the people who are working at your event

Speaker 1 to dinner and you're talking about, okay, we're going to do X, Y, Z, people need to be there at this time, here's what we're going to go over.

Speaker 1 That now can be 100% written off

Speaker 1 because it is an employee meeting or a contractor, whichever one you're doing. That all can be written off because mandatory for everybody to be there and it's for business purposes.

Speaker 1 What if it was for prospect new clients? So I'll use fake examples, but something.

Speaker 1 I take out 10 of my best prospects for new clients. Like let's just say I'm interviewing accountants and tax planners.
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I get 10 of you guys and I say, great, we're going to go to dinner. I want to chat with you guys.
I want to have business conversations. I want to find out more.

Speaker 1 Is that a 50% or is that a 100%?

Speaker 1 So that is a 50%. Okay.
And I'll tell you where you can make it 100%.

Speaker 1 Let's say you have

Speaker 1 people that you want to be in your mastermind. Okay.

Speaker 1 And you're prospecting for the mastermind, people to actually.

Speaker 1 So, the real differentiating point here is people paying you versus you paying them. Yeah.
So, these are people that are going to be paying you. Sure.
So, that now can be used as a marketing expense.

Speaker 1 So, you're enticing people that may not have talked to you if you had just said, Hey, let me get on a call with you. But you're like, Hey, let me take you out to this nice steakhouse.

Speaker 1 They're like, Okay, I'll do that. It's more enticing.
So it's now a marketing expense to draw them in. That's what, you know, marketing is used to draw people in.

Speaker 1 So now that is used as a marketing expense. And that would be 100% tax write-off.
So funny, I'm doing that Thursday night. I'm taking five of the prospects to dinner.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And that dinner will be now very expensive.

Speaker 1 But it'll be 100% tax write-off. Right.
You know,

Speaker 1 I say nice steakhouse. It can be any place.
But that's, like I said, the differentiating point is you paying them versus them paying you. So back to a personal brand.

Speaker 1 So like, again, I come from the real estate space and I've ventured into different, and I'm into tech now and I'm into, obviously, branding and content creation is the mastermind. But

Speaker 1 I used to run in a real estate space, I used to run these little, what we would call like a meetup. Right.
15 to 30 people in a room once a month. I'd rent a little conference room.

Speaker 1 I mean, they weren't very expensive. Let's call it five grand total, total, right? Right, right.

Speaker 1 That would technically be a write-off. Yeah.
Right. Because I'm prospecting to find people to pay me for coaching or bring me deals or whatever it may be.
Right. And that's the write-off.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's not a reason as I'm sitting here talking. There's no, I don't care what industry you're in.

Speaker 1 You need to have your own entrepreneurship journey. Create the L.
So now let's talk about some of the tactical structures as we're wrapping up.

Speaker 1 Cause I know everyone's like, well, do I just create an LLC or is it an S-Corp or C-Corp? And I know some of these answers, but I'll let you kind of answer them.

Speaker 1 Let's remove what vertical is in, whether it's cupcakes or hair or realistic. Who cares? What do you usually advise for something simple to have the best tax planning scenario? Simple.

Speaker 1 Again, there's a lot of, it's complexity. Yeah, obviously that's why you guys get your diplomas and license, but

Speaker 1 talk to us about the simple way of kind of like, if someone someone wants to get started, or maybe they're already going and they're maybe not structured right and they're questioning whether they're structured right.

Speaker 1 What's your advice? Yeah. So I say, you know, there's a lot of talk about S corporations and,

Speaker 1 you know, that is kind of the fad, I would say, of it, which there are a lot of benefits, but if you make under $75,000, S corporation is probably not right for you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you're not really saving that 15% or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 Right. So once you get over that 75,000, what we usually do is we'll create an S corporation that is the holding company or the management company for all of the companies underneath it.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, we'll do single member LLCs that are 100% owned by that S corporation. So if you have tons of different businesses underneath it.

Speaker 1 They, you know, all pay a 10% management fee to the S corporation. You take your salary out of the S corporation and those other ones just run on their own.

Speaker 1 Yeah, um, that's typically, I would say, probably our most common structuring. Um,

Speaker 1 we honestly use all the

Speaker 1 you know

Speaker 1 single-member LLCs, S corporation, C corporation, 501c3s, you know, it just depends on what the person's doing. At the end of the day, I think, I think,

Speaker 1 I think every one of my companies is set up in the S corporation model just because the revenue is high enough that the extra 15% on employment tax is worth it.

Speaker 1 And I run pretty traditional businesses, right? Whether it's coaching, mastermind,

Speaker 1 the real estate business,

Speaker 1 all pretty traditional. So I have not yet done anything with the C Corp.

Speaker 1 I guess my accountant hasn't seen any business I'm starting that that would make more sense.

Speaker 1 But I think there's options. Here's what I would tell everyone.
If you're listening to this still,

Speaker 1 taxes can be sexy because it can actually help you keep more of the money you're making so i want you to get a hold of grant again go to what's your instagram at grant g newell at grant g newell what website can they go to and can they fill out a form or apply for a call so they could ask you guys more questions yeah so we have a contact page on our uh website abundantx.com abundantx.com abundantx.com

Speaker 1 form fill it out get on a call with you guys learn a little bit more about what they're doing and how they're doing it I'm with you.

Speaker 1 I'll probably start to involve you in more of the mastermind because I think people just also don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 1 I'm helping them make money and create the brand to go do that, create credibility, influence, and authority, and income.

Speaker 1 But then they probably don't know this side. And, or if they do have an accountant, they may not be that well-versed.
This is your vertical.

Speaker 1 You do tax planning and accounting, personal brands, entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1 You are looking at all ways through the law to say, here's how you can flow through the river and miss the rock, so to speak, right? Exactly. I love that.
Guys, this guy is a guy you need to know.

Speaker 1 If you're here, if you're a part of the entrepreneur DNA family, get with Grant, get with his team, abundantx.com. I appreciate you coming on.
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 And if this has been noteworthy, if you think a couple people might need some of this advice, please share with those two people, and we'll see you on the next episode. Peace.