← Travis Makes Money
Travis Makes Money
INTERVIEW | Make Money by Saving Taxes with Smart Strategy with Mark Kohler
00:29:36
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- [00:01]
Sponsor Voice
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- [00:29]
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- [00:34]
Travis
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Sponsor Voice
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- [00:42]
Travis
what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast, where it's our mission to help you make more money. Today on the show, I have a new friend, Mark Kohler. Mark is a CPA's nationally recognized tax and legal strategist, senior partner at KKOS Lawyers, co founder of Directed IRA, which is a Inc. 5000 company. And he's a bestselling author with 25 years of experience and over 10,000 client consultations. Mark is known for helping entrepreneurs and small business owners legally reduce taxes, protect assets, and build lasting wealth there. He's also been all over the place in terms of the volume of podcasts that he's done, the volume of parents he's done on Fox, NBC, Bloomberg, cnbc, Entrepreneur, Yahoo. Finance, Wall Street Journal, Warden, you name it, he's been there talking about this stuff. But I've been familiar with Mark's work now for quite some time, so I'm excited he was able to take some to join us on the show today. Mark, what's up, man? Welcome.
- [01:31]
Mark Kohler
Hey, thanks for having me. I mean, I, I think I should have been your first show because, yeah, you know, I followed, you know, Ben Franklin. A penny saved is a penny earned right there. Bam. It's easier make, it's easier to save money than make money. So I'm just saying, you know, this is, the time's come. This is good.
- [01:47]
Travis
Yeah, I think we're full circle now. Yeah, well, we, we had something to cover, a thing or two to cover on this. Well, let's talk. First off, I know tax season's around the corner. We're like a week and a half out. I'm sure you're not busy. So let's talk about, you know, the current year that we're in right now. What are some of the things that you've been noticing or something you've Been realizing what are people maybe stepping over this tax?
- [02:13]
Mark Kohler
Well, it's funny. I'll say this, that I'm not busy at all. I mean, really. And I know that seems a little flippant, but if your accountant is crazy busy right now, you've got the wrong tax strategist. My busiest month of the year is December. In fact, we don't even. We love our employees. They're incredible. We require them to take all their vacation time before Thanksgiving because it's. It's balls to the walls before you're in, because that's when the buzzer goes off. This is. We're just reporting what the hell you did last year. So if you did some, you didn't put in the right strategy last year. You're paying for it now. And so I'll be golfing on April 15th, so. So sweet. I've got some tips. I got some tips, but it's for the 99% of it.
- [03:00]
Travis
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about maybe what we can avoid for the next tax season then. If there's some things that are top of mind for you that especially because I know this stuff's constantly changing, you always have to keep a pulse on it, right?
- [03:11]
Mark Kohler
Yeah. Yeah. No. And that's why I'm glad you're doing this show right before April 15, because some people are going to be like, well, I need to hear what Mark's going to tell me to do before April 15th. He's going to pull a rabbit out of a hat, right? No. Here's what I'm going to say. I'll give two major tips. The first one is, thank you for listening. Do not stop listening to this podcast. You're thinking, Travis, what, are you crazy? You want listens? Why are you talking to a tax guy? I want to talk about tax strategy for this year. You've got nine months to do it and do it right. In fact, planning really started a couple months ago because there's some strategies in Q1 that you might already be paying for now when you go to report 20, 26. So let's. We're going to talk some strategies. We can have a lot of fun with that. Number two, if you're stressed out before April 15th, file a freaking extension. You know your chances of an audit go down when you file an extension. It gives you time to do a better job. If you're not happy with your strategist right now or don't even have a strategist, why not punt? That's the beauty of April 15th we're not even in fourth quarter. Literally. Let's just pun and wait until we can really do a better job on our tax returns. Send in a little money if you think you owe the penalty and interest is nothing. A credit card's more expensive than paying if you're later in the year if you have to now. October 15th game over. But for 2025 reporting. But let but let's file an extension. It's. It's so common.
- [04:43]
Sponsor Voice
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Travis
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Travis
Areas that you typically, when you start working with somebody do you do you typically find that there are common areas where people are completely step like they're stepping over $100bill to pick up a dollar. If that makes sense. Where they're like, they think they got like this big thing that it's going to be the write off that saves them all this money or this strategy that they employed. When you look at it and go like this is, this is nonsense. This is ridiculous.
- [08:40]
Mark Kohler
Yeah, no, there's a bunch and we'll start to unp those as many as we can here. But the first one, common themes first, the Wyoming LLC strategy. Everybody's like, oh, I got to set up in Wyoming and I'll save taxes. No you won't. In fact, LLC do not save taxes. I don't care what state you set Them up in. They don't. LLCs don't save taxes. Do I have to have an LLC to have a lemonade stand? Do I have to have an LLC to take a tax write off for my business? No. And I'm going to pay the same taxes. I'm going to do the same damn form. Now, if I want to do an S Corporation, I can start talking some strategy and I can start talking about certain write offs and ways to. Ways to take write offs inside my business. But the LLC is just a shell. And so that's a common misconception is that somehow setting up in Wyoming is going to save me money. And it's not. It's going to probably cost you.
- [09:36]
Travis
If you have an llc, you can file taxes as an S corp. Is that correct?
- [09:41]
Mark Kohler
Yes. Now, I like that you point that out because someone's like, well, I'm an LLC tax descent. Then you're an S corp. Don't say you're an LLC because you're going to confuse your tax people, your insurance people, your legal people, your team needs to know, once you make that S election, you're an S corp. You're no longer in it. Now, yeah, you're going to have the LLC acronym behind your name at the state level, Secretary of State, blah, blah, blah. But with the irs, you are now an S corp. Now, S Corps, they say taxes, but that's for an operational business, not passive investment. Syndications, real estate, all that jazz. You still need an llc, but they're not saying tax.
- [10:22]
Travis
Yeah, fun fact, Mark. Your. Your firm, Kickos, is the one that set up my LLC probably eight years ago. And that was the first thing that they debunked for me. I was like, I heard I should be in Delaware. How about we just do it where your business is? I was like, okay, whatever you guys say.
- [10:40]
Mark Kohler
Yeah, well, no, and you bring up probably the second point is that most people are lacking in a coordinated structure. And so you know me, Travis. I talk about the trifecta and setting up your diagram, reviewing it every year. You're in trouble, Travis, because you should be doing a checkup every year with us, looking at what you've bought, what you've invested in, how it's going. What's your income level? Are you maximizing all your write offs? I can meet with anybody, Travis, and save them 10 grand. I literally, I can. I've looked at thousands of tax returns. I know where the holes are. So anyway, that coordinated structure is. And I like what you just said. I wanted to refer to that, well, if you live in Arkansas and you're a landscaper, you're going to have a S corporation in Arkansas, but then you're buying rental property in Tennessee or Arizona. Then I'll have an LLC in the state where I'm doing business. Now, me as an individual, where I'm doing business, that's going to be operational income. I'm going to lean on an S corp. I'm going to be set up in that state, setting up in some other states. Not going to help me because I'm doing business in that freaking state now. Rentals in another state now I can set up over there and do privacy, asset protection, wealth building, and I'll need that structure for that.
- [11:56]
Travis
Love it. Mark, I want to shift the conversation a little bit and talk about your strategy. As a business owner yourself, an entrepreneur, obviously you help a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of small business owners, but you are also an entrepreneur yourself, and you've been doing this for a few decades now. But one thing I've always appreciated about your content is you're. How do I say this without offending other CPAs. You, you are highly aware that your content structure is built to be the most boring on the planet. So you, it seems, it seems to me, anyway, that you have worked, worked tirelessly to ensure that your keynotes, your presentations, your podcast, your media appearances are as entertaining as possible. How much effort have you put into doing that over the years?
- [12:38]
Mark Kohler
Well, it's taken a lot of therapy. You know, ayahuasca rooms. I've done it. No.
- [12:48]
Travis
Yeah, exactly.
- [12:49]
Mark Kohler
Burning Man. I watch Saturday Night Live reruns every night. No, it's regrettable. And I have a training program for accountants around the country. And any of you that are listening, that want to be that tax advisor, which, you know, is the holy grail, talking to those accountants out there, you know what I'm talking about. Compliance will eat you alive. And people like Travis, business owners, millions of them, want a tax advisor. So I train them. And what I'm getting at, though, is that these accountants around the country, they're like a teddy bear or whatever, a candy shell. You know, they just have this outward fear of maybe communication or they're just not, you know, outgoing. But deep down, they want to make a difference in people's lives. They really do. They just don't know how to. And we, as business owners, you guys can help make it easier on them by trying to start the dialogue, not treating accounting like a commodity, and know that you can move the needle and not Just. It isn't just what it is.
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Travis
Yeah. Were you always an effective communicator? I see. It seems to me that the, the personalities, like people get into accounting because they like the numbers and the spreadsheets and they, they're avoiding people almost by pursuing that career path, not wanting to engage more with communication and, and persuasion and leading and influence and things like that. So is that something that was always a strong suit of yours, or did you have to spend a lot of time early in your career that.
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Mark Kohler
Well, okay, I'll get a little personal of transparent.
- [14:22]
Travis
Okay.
- [14:24]
Mark Kohler
So, no, I've been. I would say I did grow up being a nerd. I was trying, you know, I wanted to. I was Michael Anthony hall and 16 Campbells. You know, I, you know, dominated the, the nerd group. But I, I ultimately went on in a Mormon mission when I was 20 years old, and I went out for two years. And you go out on your own dime, they send you wherever, you just volunteer. You pay for it yourself. And I went out and started knocking on doors and did the normal. And all of. Everybody listening. You all seen them, the Mormon missionary, two by two, knocking on doors, man, you learn real quick how to have a conversation and how to talk, how to, to, to. To really connect with people and share a message. And so that was probably step one and then step two. I was always an entrepreneur as a. Had the lemonade stand and all that jazz. And when I went to undergrad, I started a janitorial business and I just started hiring other students, started cleaning buildings, carpet cleaning, window cleaning. Had 25, 30 employees. Sold the business to go to law school. But during that process, I was going to business school and I thought, you know what? Freaking a. I can, I can do marketing, I can do business management. I mean, I've, I've had a lifetime of learning the hard knocks for sure, but I thought the one area that was weak for me was accounting. So I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get an accounting degree. I'm gonna fill in in my weak area. And I don't know why that I saw that vision, but so I joined, I went into the accounting program and I stood out with my personality. I was still probably a B to C student, but now I hire all the A students and. But, but I really thought accounting is the language of business. If you know the numbers, you're freaking running the meeting. And so that's what I did. And then went on to law school and probably answers your questions.
- [16:22]
Travis
Yeah, no, it does. It does like. Because. Yeah, I find that what I like about your story is that you didn't run from the thing that felt like. Like a lot of people might just be like, you know, well, I. I'll just stay here in. Where I'm comfortable because I'm really good at what I do. And it's like, y. Also, if you don't get other people to know that you're really good at what you do, then you are def. By, like, by definition, limiting the growth of your own business that you really want to see be successful. And I would assume. And again, I don't want to put your words in your mouth. I'd love to hear from your perspective. I would assume that a lot of the media appearances, your. Your presence on stage, the podcast you've done, the effort that you've put into that sphere, has been directly beneficial to growing the firm to the degree that you have to this day.
- [17:09]
Mark Kohler
Absolutely. It's been absolutely critical to my success and what I've felt my claim to fame is in this area. It's not just being able to kind of make it interesting or funny or dramatic. It's being able to keep it simple. Like, I've been at the table at msnbc. I've been at the front desk and in la, NBC, and there's other experts there. And a lot of times I'll say they're smarter than me, but I'm the guy you can understand, and you're like, I want to hear him more from him. I don't care if that guy's smarter or that gal's smarter. He makes sense of it. And so being able to take something complex and put it palate, no matter who you are listening right now, whatever your genius is, being able to make it interesting and understandable to someone holy. Who cares how smart you are if they don't understand you?
- [18:10]
Travis
Yeah, yeah, we get. We get lost in the sauce, right? Like you. You get. You get sold on a certain career path because of something that interests you or. Or the. The sort of, like, almost emotional connection that you have to this field or this line of work. And then after the emotional connection, you start logicing everything to death. You learn all the terms and you learn.
- [18:29]
Sponsor Voice
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Travis
Learn all the jargon. And that might fascinate you, but it may not connect with the person who you're trying to do business with because they don't even understand the word that you just used, let alone the strategy that you're going to employ that's going to help them save a bunch of money. So it's like the, the, there's like a layer that exists between you and the customer that's just this wall that you have to be able to take down so that they can actually trust you and trust that you know what you're doing enough to get hired to do the job, you know.
- [23:22]
Mark Kohler
Excellent point. And I want to go back to Your other point about leaning into something you may not be great at. I want to challenge you college students out there that are those going back to school or maybe picking up additional training or trade or whatever, why go get. Keep going to school just to get a degree with something you're. It's easy for you or you totally enjoy. Add something else to your repertoire. If you're a musician, you want to learn the song you can't play. And when you're going to college, guys, you're like, well, I don't get math. You know, I can't go engineering or accounting because I just don't get. You're not going to flunk out. The only way you flunk out of college is by just not showing up or being drunk or high every day. Other than that, you're going to graduate, so who cares? And you know, I don't need to know trigonometry, but I can go and open doors with a degree to learn something. That's my weakness. That's going to make me become a superhero.
- [24:24]
Travis
Yeah, the superhero. Yeah, I love that you use that term because like, so this show's all about how to get people out of their minds and into the ability to earn more income. And the thing is, you always get paid for the value that you bring to an organization if you're an employee or to the marketplace if you're an entrepreneur. It's all about the value that you can create. But the issue is, like, if you only accept that there's this one skill that I'm good at and you don't ever stack other skills on top of it, then it just makes you more of a commodity in the marketplace, regardless if you're trying to get a job or if you're trying to start a business. The superhero, which is why I like to use that term, the superhero earner has a unique skill stack such that they're positioned so uniquely in the marketplace that it allows them to be able to out earn everybody else who has one of the skills that they have acquired over the period of time they've been working, if that makes sense. It's like the unique value that you can bring is what makes it to where you can earn more than anybody else.
- [25:19]
Mark Kohler
Totally. And let's use even a more specific example, the mba. Okay. Someone listening today is considering an mba. Okay. Why not do a master's in tax, a master's in finance? You're going to take the same damn management classes as all the business management guys. Yeah. I mean, there's four there's four areas of business in most colleges for business school. Accounting, finance, marketing or management. That's it. So you have to choose a track. Why does everybody choose management? Because it's freaking easy. I'm sorry. Go choose the hard one. Because let's say a year from now, two years from now, you're sitting there across the conference room table trying to sell yourself or sell your business and they go, yeah, what you do for school? I got a master's in taxation versus. Yeah, I got an mba. An mba? What do you mean? As well, like, you know, you and
- [26:19]
Travis
everybody else who's interviewing right now.
- [26:20]
Mark Kohler
Yeah. So Masters of tax, the first thing they're going to say is, why did you do that? Number two, they're going to go, what extra value could you bring to us? You're in. You're in. And you think you're going to fail in masters of Tax? No. You might just learn something. Holy crap.
- [26:39]
Travis
Yeah, what? So to talk a little bit about what that looks like for young people, especially today, Mark, I know this is a big hot button topic and you probably get asked about this ad nauseam, but obviously for probably a good reason and you probably know where I'm going with this. What are the implications on your career field with AI and different tools that are coming out in that space now?
- [27:01]
Mark Kohler
Well, I don't mean to sound flippant or whatever. I'll use that. To use that word. Yeah. Is we're booming because AI could not replace tax and legal strategy. A tax advisor relationship. Yeah, I can go now. If I was going to just do compliance and tax returns, I'd have a problem. I AI, they'd be on my tail. I'd have to be starting to change my structure, my volume. Not that I can use AI to do more compliance, but it's going to change the whole exchange of value there. But if I'm going into strategy, and this is why I have accountants around the country during my Main street certification deal, is because they're like, I need to learn the strategy that you don't learn in school. I need the street smart strategies. Because you got. You know this, Travis, when you go out and start talking to accountants, you're going to get the same blah, blah, blah until you find that one guy or gal that's like, hey, I got some extra strategy. Let's get you kids on payroll. Why aren't we writing off your annual board meeting? What are we doing with your auto? Are you some oil and gas? Are you using a self directed IRA or Roth for your next business, what are you doing on exit? Can we use a charitable range of trust? I mean, I just dropped seven points there. That. Six or seven, whatever the points there that. You don't get that in a continuing education course or at college. You got to go figure that out.
- [28:25]
Travis
Yeah.
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Mark Kohler
And so an accountant that's cracked the code. You're buried. You're buried.
- [28:31]
Travis
Yeah, yeah, You're. You're essentially getting back into this skill set thing where it's like you, you have to look at, well, what piece of this is probably not going to be figured out by AI at least anytime soon, right? Like, maybe we extrapolate 10, 15, 20 years into the future. There might be some, you know, potential use case for that, but at least in the near future. And my ultimately, like, my take on it, at least for the next 10, 15, 20 years, is like, people like, even, even in my generation, you know, people in our 30s right now, like, we're just ultimately still going to want a human being who we trust on the other side in order to be able to make these types of decisions. Because we, because that's what we've always done. And we, we're not going to be like, oh, yeah, let me just replace my accountant with an AI tool tomorrow. Like, it's just, it's not going to do the same thing because you still want the somebody who has the ability to be like, oh, what about this unique creative thing that we could do here with this particular type of income or this investment vehicle that you were looking at, or the capital gains that you got last year? Maybe we can write that off against, you know, like the, the, the. The human touch. Point is what is, what is going to be required for at least another, you know, couple of decades of business, I think.
- [29:39]
Mark Kohler
Okay, all right, so, and I, I have a feeling, and I, you know, been. I know this because I follow your podcast. You talk a lot about AI and the threat and the la, la, la. Okay, can I give a little tip here, please? First, you just said, hey, don't discount the human touch. That's one way you can fight AI. Number two, choose a career path that's based on a trade. AI cannot be an excavator. AI cannot be a plumber. AI cannot be an electrician. AI cannot be a home builder. For example. Be more specific. My stepson, I won't say the city or the town, because I just, I'm gonna protect anything. He's going into excavation. What young man doesn't love to get on a freaking excavator? Or a backhoe or a skid steer and freaking move dirt around and tear stuff up and build things. We all love that. Like I know there's guys listening right here. If I could pay 200 bucks this weekend, I'd rather go play in a pile of dirt with a skidster than go play golf. Like I could literally do that. You could get me a backhoe and I could just go move dirt for a weekend. Yeah, you can have it. Right? So. So quit thinking, well I'm not good with my hands or whatever. You can get through a contractor license certification faster than a four year degree. So go learn.
- [31:01]
Travis
Yeah.
- [31:02]
Mark Kohler
Yeah. So I was talking to this engineer in this town that'll stay nameless and I was telling him about my stepson going into excavation. He goes, mark, the richest guy in this town, runs the excavation company over there, blah blah blah, around the corner. He's the best in town. If you're going to build a building, commercial or residential, you call his company. He's got a crew, three crews going around the clock. He bought rental property with his profit. He didn't go blow it on Range Rovers and Beamers. The guys owns half the town and he's the excavator. Yeah. Is AI going to even threaten his business? Hell no.
- [31:40]
Travis
Right.
- [31:40]
Mark Kohler
And so people find a trade that you're somewhat interested in, you'll make a half a million year.
- [31:47]
Travis
Yeah, right, right. It goes back to the supply and demand thing. Right. It's like for, for decades the supply and demand on like business and, and getting a desk job, there was, there was more demand in those areas. But now that it's sort of like everybody's pursued this, you know, blue collar got looked down on for so long that everybody's pursued the opposite end of the spectrum for so long. And then AI is going to replace a good portion of those jobs, maybe not all of them, but a good portion of them are going to be at least the lever pullers. Right. The people who didn't build four, five, six different skills in their skill stack, they're going to be replaced by that thing. And so then the, the, the supply on the other side is now limited. Therefore the demand is increased, which means they are willing to pay more money to have a good electrician on board or a good plumber or a good excavator, whatever it is, like go where the money is. People like, it's not crazy complicated.
- [32:35]
Mark Kohler
No. It's funny, I think of the movie for this is Think of Wall street with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen and Charlie Sheen was dying to get to Wall street. Go like. And his dad was a blue collar worker. Martin Sheen, his real dad in real life was the blue collar worker. Oh, what was the name of the company? It was blue collar. Blue. Oh, what was the name of the stock?
- [32:58]
Travis
I forget it.
- [32:59]
Mark Kohler
I forgot it was blue something. Anyway, he was like, dad, I'm going to Wall Street. I'm going to make million and Everybody in the 80s and 90s, me included, I wanted to go to Wall Street. I became a tax lawyer, figured out Main Streets where I really want to be and that's my brand. But this shift, I love what you're saying is that now the tables have turned and we've realized holy crap, all of the money is in trades. Not going to compete against some robot. And yeah, it's yeah.
- [33:28]
Travis
Especially when the robot works 247 and only gets better and more efficient by with every single month that goes by. Doesn't complain, doesn't need health care, doesn't need a fat salary. You know what I mean? But on the other end of the spectrum, man like you, we need all those other, those other things that Mike Rowe talks about. This obviously ad nauseam shortage in the trades, you know, is crazy right now.
- [33:49]
Mark Kohler
So.
- [33:50]
Travis
But yeah, dude, Mark, I know you're a busy guy. I don't want to take up too much your time. I appreciate you for spending some time with us today. Where can people go to continue getting more from you and from your firm?
- [33:59]
Mark Kohler
You bet. So thank you so much. @markjkohler.com is where it can all start. I've got links to my law firm, the trust company, our business services and my education from there. So I have a business owner sit room like a situation room. When you've got a situation like the president, you can go in and get support with my AI twin Mark bot. And also every other week I hold a live mastermind call with me and these those in the community is super affordable. It's a tax write off. So anyways, just check it out@marcjkohler.com for a business owner out there, you want to surround yourself with other business owners trying to scale, trying to figure it out. I'm going to bring the tax and legal to bear. If you don't save 20 times whatever you pay me. Just be a part of our little situation room community. I'll give you your money back. Like I already know I'm gonna rock your world. So anyway, check it out and thanks so much Travis for having me. Appreciate it.
- [34:53]
Travis
Yeah, of course, man. Of course. Markjkohler.com that's K-O H L E R markjkohler.com for all things Mark and all the other things that Mark is working on. Dude, I again appreciate you for taking the time. I do not take your time for granted. Everybody else listening. Remember, money only solves your money problems. But it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey, everyone.
- [35:30]
Sponsor Voice
Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [35:33]
Mark Kohler
Oh, no.
- [35:34]
Travis
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual Together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league. Anyways, only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.