← Digital Social Hour
Digital Social Hour
Maximize Crypto Gains with This Tax-Free Strategy | Mark Kohler DSH #1296
00:27:43
Ready to maximize your crypto gains while keeping Uncle Sam at bay? 💰🔥 In this episode of the Digital Social Hour, Sean Kelly sits down with tax and financial expert Mark J. Kohler to uncover the ultimate tax-free strategy for crypto investors:...
Loading summary
Transcript172 lines
- [00:00]
A
Billion now self directed money, business owners that we don't, we don't manage their money. That's why it's self directed. You tell us what you want to invest it in, we just are the portal for that as a trust company. But we have a crypto Roth product where you literally have an app on your phone with your, your Roth IRA and you're just trading crypto. It's. And it's Gemini platform. It is Great. So.
- [00:27]
B
All right, guys, got Mark here out here in Vegas. We're gonna talk taxes and crypto.
- [00:31]
A
Exciting, right?
- [00:32]
B
Yeah, let's do it. Sexy topic, I bet.
- [00:34]
A
Yeah, super sexy.
- [00:35]
B
Well, it is tax season.
- [00:36]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody comes to Vegas to talk about taxes and now just. Yeah, it's tax season and it's exciting time of the year.
- [00:46]
B
Every day this week, this month, you'll be working 14 hours a day.
- [00:48]
A
You know, it's interesting you say that if you're, and this is a little controversial point. Is it if you're busy during tax season, you're not a tax advisor. Really My busiest time and my tax advisors is December because you're trying to get all your strategies in before year end. You're planning, what do I need to pay? Do you know, what are my deposits? And la la la. But April 15, those are the people that, they're just doing the easy returns, knocking them out. 70% of our clients extend. You actually reduce your chances of an audit. So anyway, we're not as busy at this time. October 15th. Crazy.
- [01:21]
B
I didn't know extensions reduce the risk of audit. That's interesting.
- [01:24]
A
Yeah, it's. The IRS is kind of like first come, first serve. So the more, you know, when returns get filed, they're already assigning their audits in the regional offices. So by July, all their audit auditors have been assigned their projects. I'm filing my tax return in October, you know, so I'm like, you know, let all the other cows go through the cattle chute before I get there. You know, I love that.
- [01:43]
B
Yeah, that's a good point though. If you're, if you're freaking out in March, April, it's too late to incorporate strategies. Right?
- [01:48]
A
Yeah, it's. You're looking in the rearview mirror. And so what I've been trying to do is help accounts around the country. Let's look out the front windshield. You know, what can we do more proactively and strategize and so when you're doing tax advisor, you're busy all year long. You're not, you're like you're still going to report taxes, but we're going to spread that out. File extensions, send in deposit. Let's take our time, do it right.
- [02:09]
B
Yeah. Do you believe the accounting industry is broken right now?
- [02:13]
A
It is. And it's sad because on one hand you've got baby boomers are just walking away from practices. They're burned out. You know, accounting industry is a tough industry because they've made it tough in enrollments down in universities around the country and accounting programs. Kids see it as not the most, you know, lucrative or fun practice. And then business owners have made it hard too. They're like, you know what? I want to pay the least amount for my tax preparer. I don't want to sit down and talk about it. And so we have this broken system. So, so I've been on a mission. You know, the building's on fire, I'm running in. I want to like, say, hey, accountants, be an advisor, bring strategies to the table. And business owners, get to the table and captain your own ship. You're never going to find the accountant. That just does it all for you.
- [02:57]
B
Right.
- [02:57]
A
You got to be involved in the process. You don't have to do the return. But let's have a conversation. And, and it, it doesn't have to be boring or complex. Freaking A. Saving money is fun. You, you know those wealthy people, they love to talk about saving taxes. Right. They, they geek out on it because they know it's easier to save money than make money.
- [03:14]
B
Much easier.
- [03:15]
A
Yeah.
- [03:15]
B
Yeah. Because if you pay the regular tax, you know, 40% or whatever it is, plus state tax adds up over 50% if you're in Cali.
- [03:23]
A
Yeah. And you put in self employment tax in that. And, and, and there's nothing wrong finding a loophole using a strategy. The tax code's built to motivate us to do things, buy something important, take a tax write off, you know.
- [03:36]
B
So when I found out Trump paid zero in taxes, I knew I was doing something wrong.
- [03:41]
A
Yeah, he used. I still got his tax return on my laptop. I love, I've got Joe Biden's and Donald Trump's from 2016. But it, they were both using good strategies. Yeah, but Donald Trump used the real estate pro strategy perfectly.
- [03:55]
B
What did Biden use? I didn't hear about his tax return.
- [03:57]
A
Well, he was using an S corp for his book deal. So the year before he became president, he had a book deal and it was like 14 million or something. He ran it through his S corporation, took his salary the way he was supposed to probably saved 300 grand in self employment tax.
- [04:13]
B
Wow.
- [04:14]
A
And that was on, you know, page 22, the Wall Street Journal. But Trump not paying taxes. That was page one.
- [04:18]
B
That was everywhere.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah, it was, it was too bad. But they're both great strategies. Real estate professionals. Awesome. All the Realtors in the country, like, yeah, Trump's got a great strategy. We all are using and, and Biden was using the S Corp, so that's good.
- [04:31]
B
When you see Trump saying he wants to get rid of the irs, what goes through your mind?
- [04:37]
A
Several things. First, it's a negotiation tactic of Trump. Trump's awesome. He knows he'll throw something out kind of far out there, get everybody fired up. Oh, yeah. They either love it or hate it. And then you settle somewhere in the middle. Right. It's just like you want to go ask for that million dollars before you. But you know you're going to settle at 500, whatever the deal is. Right. And, and so he's going to say, let's get rid of taxes. We know we can't. We've got a X trillion dollar budget every year over the next 10 years. This tax, tax planning is proposing. He wants to get that through. So he's going to lob kind of the incendiary topics out there. But it's, it'd be nice. But tariffs aren't going to cover it. And Doge is going to save us some money, but not to the point. We're going to be able to cover Department of Defense and Social Security and all that. We're going to have. Taxes could be lower. I'd love them lower. And they will be.
- [05:26]
B
Yeah. I just want more transparency, I think.
- [05:29]
A
Oh, yeah. Isn't it fun, like seeing what Elon and Doge is doing? You're like, oh, my gosh. You know, and I just feel bad for the guy, too. The other day, he was on a, on a show and he, he was just like scared, like. Yeah. Elon was just like, I don't know if I wanted to see what I did because.
- [05:44]
B
Yeah. Well, he said on Rogan, if he exposed everything, he knew he would get killed.
- [05:48]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [05:48]
B
I mean, the corruption goes deep.
- [05:50]
A
It does. I mean, he is. He's got more death threats than Trump, I'm sure.
- [05:54]
B
I mean, there was just an attack here at Tesla Vegas. A bunch of them got exploded. He's calling it like a terrorist attack because, like, yeah, the guy just set them on fire. Wow.
- [06:02]
A
It's just too bad. And so, but I'm with you. Transparency is always Good in life with everything. Right. And, and with the tax code, the more we can learn about it and understand empowers us because so people, so many people are afraid of the, oh, we got to get rid of it and just know how it works. Just don't hate the game. Just learn the rules of the game.
- [06:21]
B
Right.
- [06:21]
A
And, and, and you. And that's what wealthy, successful people do is they spend time on it and they're like, it's not that bad. It's fun. You know, saving money is fun.
- [06:29]
B
Absolutely. BOI reporting is officially dead. Right.
- [06:32]
A
It's really that I tweeted that out yesterday and what a roller coaster ride.
- [06:35]
B
To up and down.
- [06:36]
A
It's crazy. Yeah. It's dead. And for those out there that still think you need to file this business owner information report on the FinCEN website, they haven't changed anything. But the Treasury Department has said we're not gonna enforce the penalty. And so that's what. If you're nervous out there, people just go to the Treasury Department side. It'll tell you they're not enforcing it. And we filed thousands of them for our clients in our law firm, but we've just made it voluntary now. If you wanted.
- [07:03]
B
Yeah. I mean, the penalty was so much, it scared people to file it. 500 a day for each LLC.
- [07:08]
A
Yeah. And I knew it. The Congress passed that Republicans and Democrats together three years ago. It was a great idea. But whenever the governments, you know, are they the best ones to do something like that? We needed transparency as to who owns all these LLCs around the country, because the criminals out there use the LLC and hide behind them. Money launderers and drug and human trafficking. And so it made sense, but it's a very burdensome law that I don't.
- [07:35]
B
Yeah. LLCs are great for hiding who, who's behind them. Right.
- [07:39]
A
Yeah. I was excited. I, I was telling my wife Patty today, I, I really wanted to start talking. Talking about privacy a little bit more. It's a chapter in my book.
- [07:46]
B
Yeah.
- [07:46]
A
Because, you know, you don't want your home address out there. But you've heard about these attacks that influencers are having placed these SWAT attacks.
- [07:56]
B
Yeah.
- [07:57]
A
And it makes you think, do I really want my home address out there? You know, and so we have, we have mail forwarding privacy strategies in our law firm. And it, it's important because it's just what people do.
- [08:08]
B
Got to put your house into trust. In fact, there was a Tesla site because Elon's under a lot of attack right now. There's a new Site that's out that basically doxed everyone that owns a Tesla.
- [08:18]
A
Oh, my God.
- [08:18]
B
So if you own a Tesla, your home address is on this site that you own one. Isn't that crazy?
- [08:23]
A
It's their terrorists. You know, if you want to win the argument, let's have a logical conversation. You don't have to go out and damage people's property or their lives.
- [08:31]
B
It's too bad they're trying to run Tesla to the ground right now.
- [08:35]
A
Well, it makes me want to go buy a Tesla.
- [08:37]
B
I have one address. It might be on that site, but since my house is in a trust, I don't. I don't know. I got to check, actually. But yeah, the privacy is important.
- [08:46]
A
It is. You know, and when you couple what I see, I teach asset protection as a lawyer, tax lawyer. I want to bring together tax planning, asset protection, wealth building. When you bring all three together, it's super powerful. Well, privacy is a part of asset protection, but I want to remind people, privacy is like the camouflage. And the asset protection is like the LLC per se. Nothing's going to be completely bulletproof. You got a big enough bullet, you know, whatever. But we can. But if you're going to go out into a war zone, don't you want both? You want the bulletproof vest and the camouflage. You can't rely on one or the other. You want both. And so privacy is that camouflage that I think a lot of people just discount. And they don't. They just put their stuff everywhere out there. And you got to be careful with that.
- [09:29]
B
Better safe than sorry.
- [09:30]
A
Yeah.
- [09:30]
B
How important is asset protection? Because I've seen a bad lawsuit wipe out people.
- [09:34]
A
Oh, it's. It can. It's terrible, and it's. And you want to blame the lawyers for going after people, but behind every lawsuit, there's a plaintiff or someone you know wanting to pay that lawyer. But it's. Asset protection is critical because if we're going to build wealth, we want to be able to protect it from a potential lawsuit. And if you got teenage drivers, even me, texting and driving. Not a good thing. You know, I want to make sure that if, heaven forbid, something happened, I. You want to have your assets in the right structure. And it doesn't have to be elaborate either. I don't need a whole litany of trusts or entities in Wyoming or Nevada or wherever. But the more you have, the more you would employ to protect those assets. But you don't want to go overboard either. There's a lot of scammers out there that just sell people with one rental property like 9 LLCs and it's like oh my gosh. Yeah.
- [10:30]
B
I see a ton of those videos like Infinite Banking. That never made sense to me. I know like Infinite Money Glitch.
- [10:36]
A
There's always a creative way of spinning something that's been sold forever and yeah, that's hard actually.
- [10:42]
B
Yeah. I just got life insurance. I guess that's a form of asset protection, right?
- [10:45]
A
It is life insurance. It's very interesting. I was doing a workshop a week or so ago on it and life insurance is. It can be used in so many different ways and properly. It's just making sure that you're buying it the right type of insurance at the right time in your life.
- [11:03]
B
Right.
- [11:03]
A
The sad part is, is there's life insurance agents that because it's commission based, they're motivated to. Everybody should have it and they sell policies to people that shouldn't be buying it. And then there's people out there that get apathetic and don't buy it at all. And they should be. And so. But there's, there's bad players in every industry and so I think people need to look at life insurance. I don't sell it but we help consult a lot of our clients on it. You want to look at it and make sure you get a second opinion from someone not selling it to you.
- [11:33]
B
Right.
- [11:33]
A
And so I'm proud of you. That's good.
- [11:34]
B
Yeah.
- [11:35]
A
Policy going.
- [11:35]
B
You're right though. There are a lot of MLMs in that space. It's kind of scary.
- [11:39]
A
Yeah.
- [11:39]
B
It's easy to fall for those.
- [11:41]
A
It is. And you know, MLM for those multi level marketing statement for people that don't know what that is. It's. It's a sales strategy for compensating. I get it. They don't want to pay for mainstream advertising so we're going to compensate our salesmen more.
- [11:54]
B
Right.
- [11:55]
A
But it's weird how it does attract kind of crazy products.
- [11:59]
B
Yeah. Well when money's the main incentive, they don't care what they're selling.
- [12:02]
A
Yeah.
- [12:03]
B
They'll sell whatever they want as long as they get paid.
- [12:05]
A
Yeah.
- [12:05]
B
So that's the downside of it.
- [12:07]
A
It is, yeah.
- [12:07]
B
You know, a lot of them end up being scammy products or whatever.
- [12:10]
A
Yep, yep.
- [12:12]
B
Crypto stuff. Let's talk that. Cuz the new administration is really pro crypto. They're saying they might waive some taxes.
- [12:18]
A
Well the crypto community says that hoping it's going to get right some traction and bless your heart, you might. I love Crypto. I love the crypto community, hold crypto taxation summits that are understandable and fun. But now there's nothing in Donald Trump's tax plan or in. We're right now in the House and Senate committees are working on the new tax legislation. Again, Trump will throw things out there like, oh, we're not going to tax this, we're not going to tax that to get the conversation started. But there's plenty of great tax strategies with crypto. But to think that there's a special crypto tax, not going to be any tax. Why sign me up? Why is something else not taxed?
- [13:01]
B
Yeah, I'll take no cap gains tax on crypto. Yeah.
- [13:04]
A
And I Now, the one that did have a little bit of traction was if you were a crypto based, a crypto token based in the United States, not in a foreign country. Trump's like, hey, let's give you a tax incentive. Well, he's doing that for manufacturers, he's doing that for anybody that wants to build in the usa. But to think the owner of the crypto. If I only. Then you got to be thinking, okay, where am I going to get this tax benefit? It's not going to be on all your tokens or all your strategies. And I love President Trump's approach to stimulating the economy, whatever the industry is in the US and so I think that was more of the play there.
- [13:40]
B
Hopefully that one gets through.
- [13:41]
A
Yeah.
- [13:41]
B
That's a total 180 from the previous administration stance on crypto. The SEC was going after every single crypto exchange in the U.S. yeah.
- [13:47]
A
And that SEC this week dropping the case on XRP.
- [13:50]
B
Yeah.
- [13:51]
A
I've been looking at my. See, I Love the Roth IRA and the Roth 401K for crypto. All my crypto is in a Roth. So whenever I sell or buy, no tax. And I just, I had a guy at a conference today come up to me and it was so, such a compliment. I'm so fortunate. And he had tears in his eyes and he was just like, mark, you've changed my life. He goes, I'm buying crypto now and I want to do it tax free. Help me out, tell me what to do. And I was just like, let's get your crypto Roth going. And do you have a small business? Let's do a solo 401k. We could throw that all in crypto. So then you're not going to pay that tax at all. Let's create that tax free atm. And anyway, so that's one of my favorite strategies.
- [14:28]
B
I didn't know there was a Roth crypto. Yes, I'm gonna look into that.
- [14:31]
A
Yeah. So our trust company directed ira, we have over two and a half billion now of self directed money of business owners that we don't, we don't manage their money. That's why it's self directed. You tell us what you want to invest it in, we just are the portal for that as a trust company. But we have a crypto Roth product where you literally have an app on your phone with your, with your Roth IRA and you're just trading crypto and it's a Gemini platform and it's great.
- [14:58]
B
So Gemini just did a big change right, with the Exodus. Did you see that?
- [15:02]
A
I did not.
- [15:03]
B
I think it came out last week. You can't buy on Gemini anymore. You have to buy on Exodus. They just partnered with them, I think some legal stuff. I don't know what happened exactly.
- [15:11]
A
Nice thing about Gemini is they've been definitely a leader. They're trying to be very, very careful, very reliable. It's hard with exchanges. I know the crypto community wants to get off exchanges, but they make the trading so simple.
- [15:26]
B
Yeah, well, the bait, the problem is they don't know if it's a security or not. Each coin is different, right?
- [15:31]
A
Yeah. And now we're seeing the SEC back off of that argument too. And that's the powerful thing about crypto. And by the way, I know how it's taxed. I can save you money tax. Talking to me about the blockchain, this could be scary. Someone's gonna be listening, going, this guy's an idiot. So I gotta be careful. Sean. Yeah, it's, I, I love that the SEC is backing off a lot of those arguments. The thing that people need to know, the first question on the 1040 tax return is did you buy, sell, trade or earn any crypto? That's the first question. The IRS has tasks for us on this. And by the way, everybody the blockchain is, is public, it's open source. So you're not going to hide your transactions. And there's no oh, I didn't know ignorance is bliss argument. The irs, they're going to, it could come three years from now.
- [16:18]
B
I mean, they know you upload a photo of your ID when you buy crypto on Coinbase or whatever.
- [16:22]
A
Yeah. If you in the day will come where you're like, well, they don't know where it's at. Well, someday you're going to sell it.
- [16:27]
B
Yeah.
- [16:28]
A
You're on the radar there. It's crazy.
- [16:31]
B
Did the no tax on tips pass through? That's a big deal, right?
- [16:34]
A
It is. We, we're seeing no tax on. Well, let's step back even further. So Trump asked for 3.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years because it's got to be a reconciliation bill, which it's, it doesn't need as many votes to pass. And it says, hey, any, any tax savings we have over the next 10 years, you got to show how we're going to pay for it the next 10 years. It's all got to reconcile. It's all got to balance within 10 years. So Trump says there's three and a half trillion. I want, I want no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. I want to get bonus depreciation back. The 198 pass through for S Corps, all the things that were in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Love it. So now that whole package will have to be massaged and figured out in Congress. But the beauty is, more than ever before is we now have a higher top of line number because the only way you can pay for tax breaks is by showing tax savings or more revenue. So we're seeing the tariff situation help with the budget. We're seeing Doge cut waste, fraud and abuse. And then he also said to Congress, go cut some of this frivolous, stupid spending in other departments. So I think they're going to find a 3.5 trillion and more. I think it's going to be really exciting. I'd like to see a reduction in tax rates. So this is like Christmas for us accountants, you know, like seeing how this is going to come together this year.
- [18:00]
B
You, you optimistic about the interest rates going down?
- [18:03]
A
Yes, whenever the. I do. I am. When the economy's doing well, when people feel, when with consumer confidence rising, tax savings happening and just we have a voice in the White House now, right? Like we know who's leading us. You may not love Trump, you may not like him, that's okay. But at least we have a leader, you know, and he's trying to move the ball down the field. So let's root for the team. If you don't like the quarterback sometimes, you know, let's, let's get behind the team. And, and so I think it's going to have a huge impact, a trickle down. We're going to see interest rates go down, we see consumer confidence go up, we'll see inflation go down. They say it could be, you know, this golden age.
- [18:44]
B
We'll See, we'll see. First term was pretty good economy.
- [18:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's starting to already roll. I mean, we're not. Did we hit 100 days yet?
- [18:53]
B
No. People are freaking out now because the stock market's down 20%. But like, I think long term, we'll see how it plays out. But it's looking good.
- [18:59]
A
Yeah. I think Wall street is there. It's a sell time. We're going to see that confidence grow and the market bounce back. I'm very bullish. I'm excited, especially with the different crypto investments. I'm buying all I can. Yeah, yeah.
- [19:18]
B
Crypto could be life changing money. It's changed my life and I know there's still a lot of opportunity in crypto. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like you're a fan of the tariff stuff, though.
- [19:26]
A
Yeah, I think tariffs, again, are top line. We're not going to get enough tariffs to abolish the tax code. You know, be careful what people should read out there. You know, they should be careful. But the tariffs are going to help create more savings, more efficiency in government. And so I think it's, it's fair that companies that want to come sell their product in the US have to pay the same tariff we have to pay when they go to their country.
- [19:52]
B
Yeah, they're doing it to us. Yeah.
- [19:54]
A
So love it.
- [19:56]
B
Let's see. You think the stock market's going to pick back up eventually?
- [20:00]
A
Yeah, I think as we see everybody tightening their belt, the waste, fraud and abuse, I think companies are going through the same processes right now. They're starting to realize we've got to, we got to be smarter. And as we see again, the consumer confidence grow and inflation come down and interest rates come down, oh, my gosh, the stock market's going to roll. I mean, I just, that's me. I mean, how can it not? You know, when we're, whenever you get in our own lives, you think about it, right? When you're like, say, you know what? I'm going to be careful what I spend. I've been eating on doordash too much. That's my problem. Or I've been, you know, traveling too much or just being wasteful. It's kind of funny how the universe blesses your own life. When you, when you tighten the belt, you get a little more efficient. You get rid of some of the crap you shouldn't be spending money on all of a sudden. Whether it's God, the universe blesses you and you're like, yeah, I'm making more money. Than I did before. And you're like, what? How is that? It's just kind of weird, right? Like you just change your mindset of being more efficient and being more cautious and careful. And we're doing that as a country right now, which is going to have this ripple, you know, trickle down effect again. And it's, it's gonna, I think just, the country's gonna. Great time. Yeah, go. It's gonna be awesome.
- [21:12]
B
Are you worried about our country's debt?
- [21:15]
A
Well, I'm less worried about it now that Elon's trying to help get it under control. And President Trump has been very clear that he wants to tackle the debt and at the very least not let it grow any further.
- [21:29]
B
Right.
- [21:29]
A
I mean, wouldn't it be neat if that, that counter that's in New York Times, you know, in Times Square, that's showing the debt growing. It'd be cool if that turned around.
- [21:38]
B
I don't even know what it's at now. It's scary number.
- [21:40]
A
It's scary. I don't even want to look at it. But I think we're headed in the right direction again. I mean, when you, when you drive your car on a journey, the first, we're not even in the first hundred days again. Right. And so it's really, we're just going, you know, everybody be patient. And we see people on Twitter upset that Pam Bondi hasn't filed more cases yet. Guys, she's been in what, two months? Give her a chance, you know, you gotta build a case, you know, and, and she badass or what too crushing it.
- [22:06]
B
Oh yeah, people want that instant result these days.
- [22:08]
A
Yeah.
- [22:09]
B
It takes time to incorporate stuff like this.
- [22:11]
A
Yeah, we're in microwave society and, and yet again with the taxes and legal and building wealth, it's base hits. And everybody wants to hit that home run. Just base hit, base hit, base hit. And, and that's that grinding daily commitment. I see what you do. I mean, people don't realize how much work. I mean, I've got a podcast, I got probably 700 episodes. You freaking do that in four months.
- [22:35]
B
You know, we filmed 40 this week.
- [22:37]
A
Oh my gosh, you're a machine. But people are thinking, oh man, if I, I had the following Sean had or whatever, they don't know how much work it is.
- [22:45]
B
It's a full time job. I'm probably working 80 hours a week, to be honest.
- [22:48]
A
Yeah, I, I, this poor guy, people don't know. I was like, hey, you need some lunch? He's like, no, I'm grinding Through, man, I'll eat. But, you know, I'm impressed.
- [22:55]
B
Yeah. It's fun to learn a lot. Yeah. How shocking have these doge investigations been for you?
- [23:03]
A
It's worse than we all thought. It's been shocking for me. I mean, we all knew there was some waste, but to see what the fraud is that's going on, and it's sad. And it's both sides of the aisle. You know, it's the oligarchies, the Republicans, the. The Democrats, they've all been in on it. And so it. That's probably been the saddest part. And it's shocking. I don't know, maybe some people knew that it was this bad, but I.
- [23:29]
B
Didn'T know it was this bad. And you're right, though. It's both sides. People try to blame the Democrats, but it's. It's both sides.
- [23:35]
A
Yeah.
- [23:35]
B
Yeah.
- [23:36]
A
And that's what is so fun about President Trump. He can run as an independent, but now he's freaking. He's operating as an independent, pretty much.
- [23:45]
B
I wouldn't label him Republican.
- [23:46]
A
No, I use just, like, common sense. It's just so cool.
- [23:49]
B
Yeah. Common sense wins these days. That's the point we got to.
- [23:53]
A
Yeah.
- [23:54]
B
Where someone with common sense wins. That's all you need.
- [23:56]
A
Yeah. Is that crazy? So this is so funny.
- [23:59]
B
I used to want the brightest politician to win, like, who presented themselves the smartest, but that's not the case anymore.
- [24:05]
A
Yeah, it's funny, we were just talking about that yesterday, that it's. You need that. That charisma, you know, and that leadership skill, that it's different than intelligence. It's another type of intelligence, and President Trump's got it, hopefully.
- [24:21]
B
Absolutely.
- [24:22]
A
Carry it through.
- [24:22]
B
What's next for you, man? You speaking at any events or any conferences coming up?
- [24:26]
A
Yeah, well, I've been. I'm on a. I'm on a mission, as I referred to a little earlier. I'm trying to help accountants around the country, and there's. If you go, I'm a lawyer, I'm a cpa. I've checked all the boxes. And you don't learn how to be a tax strategist by going to school. You learn how to think as an accountant, but you have to get out on the streets and learn tax strategy, and hopefully you get with a good firm. And so, so many accountants are frustrated, and the business owners out there. I'm trying to impact more business owners, not with my own firm, but helping thousands of accountants get certified tax advisors, learning how to build a practice and communicate so that's. I've got a couple conferences a year. I train every week, and my podcast and shows are about helping accountants catch that vision because they're starving for it, too. They want to have. And they're scared of AI. They're thinking, okay, AI is going to do my job. Well, strategists, AI can't do strategy. AI can do the tax return. That's cool. But people can go to TurboTax for that.
- [25:25]
B
Yeah.
- [25:26]
A
Holy crap. They want a conversation. And so that's my mission.
- [25:31]
B
AI replacing tax strategy will take some time, I think.
- [25:33]
A
Yeah. Because the strategy is so. I mean, AI is amazing. Who can envision.
- [25:40]
B
I use it daily. It is amazing.
- [25:41]
A
Yeah. But when you start to apply, what I like AI for is it gives me inspiration. I can say, write me an article on this, Write me a this on that. What should I do with this? Okay, Then I see it, and then there's that human spirit that looks at it and goes, all right, here's how I'm going to twist it. The people that should be afraid of it are the ones that aren't creative, aren't willing to take risk, and aren't willing to communicate and have a conversation. So if I can take AI and then add that human element of experience and. Because you can't, when you meet with a client and I've done my 10,000 consults, and you look them in the eye and they say, I want to have five rental properties, but I got a kid that's got to go to college, got bad healthcare, and we have no savings, and they're literally in tears. I mean, AI is not going to solve that. It's. It's human empathy and helping them figure out what their path is for their small business. And when you create that connection, oh, my gosh. That's the magic of what people want from a real tax advice. That's crazy. You don't talk to your banker every year. You don't talk to your insurance agent or you're your lawyer over here. You have to talk to your accountant. They have the perfect opportunity to change someone's life, and they're like, give me your stuff. Here's your tax return. Bye. Holy shit.
- [26:56]
B
I'm glad you're changing that, man. You're helping a lot of people, Mark. Where people find you in your show.
- [27:01]
A
Oh, thanks, MarkJ. Kohler.com My blog. The podcasts are all there if you want to find the law firm, self direct your retirement, all that. And if you're an accountant out there, come join my community. We're having a great time.
- [27:13]
B
Beautiful. You got a book also, right?
- [27:14]
A
Yeah, I've got four or five books now. I need. I've got a new one in the works. As soon as we see the tax code, the change this year is going to create a third edition.
- [27:23]
B
Wow.
- [27:24]
A
Because it's going to be significant. So, yeah. Several books on Amazon. I love my tax and legal playbook. Learn the game.
- [27:32]
B
Yeah. We'll link it all below. Thanks for coming.
- [27:33]
A
Thanks, man. Thanks for having me, guys.
- [27:35]
B
I'll see you next time.