Mark J. Kohler
speaker
651 appearances
4 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2019
last heard 10 Jul
Mark J. Kohler’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And so sure enough, I stood out in the accounting group as the party planner. It was super fun. And then I had this teacher who was a lawyer and an accountant. And I was like, holy crap, this guy can take over the world. So you had all the benefits of understanding the numbers sitting at the table in business. And then I could freaking file a lawsuit, fight the IRS, do whatever.
And so I was like, I want to be that guy. So I went on to law school, come to find out of 100 lawyers, one of them has any tax background. And I freaking said, I'm going to Main Street, screw Wall Street. And here I am.
Isn't it true? Yeah, it's maddening. And the hard thing is taxes are law. I mean, it's tax law, you know, and understanding it. And only the big dogs or big companies have been able to afford tax lawyers. So I've worked really hard over the last 25 years building a model based on volume and a boutique where we can help clients around the country. We've been doing that.
But the important thing here is the number one cost in our lives are taxes. And people don't want to talk about it. It's too boring. It's too complex. What the hell do I do? Well, we're going to freaking demystify that. That's my whole career is to say it's not that hard. And you're the captain of your ship. Quit looking for an accountant to do it all for you. You can freaking run the ship here.
Hire the first mate and you can control your destiny.
Well, great question. And what's interesting is since COVID, we've had the great formation. We're pushing up to almost 45% of working Americans have a side hustle. And people, that's a small business. That's a gateway drug. It's not a burden. We should look at it as an opportunity to use those funds to get out of debt, build wealth, create assets.
And one in five Americans own a rental property in some form or fashion. So if I've got a rental property and a little small business, people, you're not quitting your day job. Let's just tap into that.
And so a common, common theme in what we do every day is meet with that community, those people that are the backbone of this country that are starving for simple answers to get their kids on payroll, save some taxes. right off their auto, but you know, whatever it is. And I love that bread and butter stuff. And so it's just, there's no mystery.
It's not like there's this secret thing like, Mark, how do I save tax? It's just, it's just doing the basics and knowing it, understanding it, owning it. And, and that's, so there's no sexy secret there, except that, You really can build a wealth that you maybe never imagined with just those simple base hits. It's not about getting rich quick. It's not getting rich slow. I want to get rich slow.
Oh, yeah. See, you give me a day, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that W-2 day job, work corporate America. That's cool. It's great. Let's go do your taxes. Bend over. I can't do anything. I mean, you're screwed. But if you've got that small business, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Now that little 1099 some of you are getting, that's like, that's a golden ticket.
Now I'm writing off home office, auto, dining, computers, electronics, your cell phone, family members. I'm funding a Roth IRA. You can set up your own damn 401k. Now we're going to take all that money and start deploying it, and we're going to be efficient. We're going to be lean and mean. And that, I can, you can pay... 30% less in taxes on that money than your day job.
Your day job, you're screwed. Let's go get this other money that's a lot cheaper to get. Everybody wants to talk about making money. Why don't we talk about saving money? It's easier to save money than make money.
Well, very, very perceptive question. And I'm going to try to answer this simply. So everybody, there's seven tax brackets out there and the highest being 37 and a half. Okay, cool. No one pays in total 37.5% in federal taxes because it's graduated. So when we have brackets, that's our bracket on the next dollar after a certain limit.
So once everybody kind of gets that, that this is a graduated bracket, that's point number one. So then what we want to look at is what is your effective tax rate? So like after we take all the killer write-offs we can think of, lots of options, right? What's that effective rate? And for some people, it could be zero. For others, it could be 35%.
Now, it is generally true, the more money you make, the more tax rate you're going to pay, a larger percentage of your income in taxes. But then we've got strategies and tools. for example, why Trump was such an anomaly, and he really wasn't, it's just the Wall Street Journal wanted to point this out, is that he is a real estate professional. I've got his tax return here on my laptop.
I got Joe Biden's and his from 2016. He was a real estate professional. Now, you talk about here on your show all the time. If you want to invest in short-term rentals, long-term rentals, do real estate and deploy money in real estate. It's not for everybody. but we have depreciation strategies and investment strategies that can offset my income over here.
Trump had so much in depreciation from his hotels and in real estate investments, he was able to wipe out his income from The Apprentice and his retail. So his effective rate at the end of the day was very low. Now, someone else who just works a day job, has no write-offs, makes 500 grand a year at Verizon as a VP.
Okay, you're going to be paying 30% or more in effective rate because you're not using the strategies correctly. to your, in the best way. And I'd like, before we started the show too, you were talking about, hey, don't hate the player. Just hate the game. You know, if you don't like that Trump paid 6%, don't be pissed at Trump. Just learn the rules.
And so when you understand the rules, you're like, okay, I could invest in oil and gas. I can invest in a little solar. Oh, I'm going to build a Roth IRA. Peter Thiel's got a $5 billion Roth. It's a tax-free ATM. Oh, I'm going to invest in my health savings account and never pay tax on healthcare again. And these little tools that are out there are amazing and they're not complicated.
Rich people, okay, here's the last point. Rich people geek out on tax strategies. If you want to be rich, start geeking out on some of the stuff and it'll blow your mind because this is where the rich get richer.
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