Get Rich Education 525: Immigration Surge Tightens Housing Demand, How to Avoid Paying State Income Tax
Keith highlights the unprecedented surge in immigration and its impact on housing demand. The conversation also covers state income tax policies, noting that nine states have no income tax, and the impact of international tax laws on US citizens abroad.
Immigrants now make up more than 14% of the US population, the highest proportion since 1910.
The US is facing a significant housing shortage, with an estimated 4.5 million housing units needed.
Housing shortages are expected to continue, with homelessness rates rising by 12% year over year.
Learn about the challenges of being a US citizen living abroad and the potential for double taxation.
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Connect with Tom's team at WealthAbility for a free consultation on permanently reducing taxes.
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Keith Weinhold 0:01
welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, both an immigrant surge and a big wave of US born residents is tightening housing demand near unprecedented levels. Then we're joined by show regular Tom terrific again, but it's not Tom Brady on how to legally avoid paying state income tax and the fact that if you're from the US, if you move out, you must still pay tax on your worldwide income, plus more tax strategies that you can benefit from today on Get Rich Education.
Speaker 1 0:34
since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show, guess who? Top Selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit getricheducation.com
Corey Coates 1:20
You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.
Keith Weinhold 1:36
Welcome to GRE from Athens Georgia to Athens, Greece and across 488 nations worldwide. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, get rich education. Founder, Forbes real estate council member, best selling. Author, long time real estate investor and holder of a humble bachelor's degree in geography from a college in Pennsylvania that nobody's ever heard of. It's that time of year where you now have Halloween decorations in your front yard competing hard for space with political campaign signs. What's your HOA gonna do now? Welcome in this slack shot operation right here is the get rich education podcast. I think you know that by now it's episode 525
Brace yourself, immigration has absolutely exploded. I've got the latest numbers on that, and there's a chart recently published in The Wall Street Journal that shows it all legal and illegal. We're a real estate platform, so the question I'm asking is, Where in the heck are we going to house all of these people? In addition to soaring immigration, we'll look at our own domestic US born surging population that are forming households now, and that part might have flown under your radar. This is an urgent issue. All of this isn't just coming. It is already here, this explosion of housing demand, it will indelibly shape both broader society and real estate's supply demand component for decades, it is really approaching the unprecedented we look at net immigration to the US since 2000 it's really these past four years where the numbers have shot up like a rocket through 2020 immigration averaged around 1.2 million people per year, but since 2021 it has more than doubled to around two and a half million net immigrants per year. But the number of illegals arriving among them has gone up as much as 10x starting in 2021 and the overall figures they keep rising. Last year, there were over 3 million immigrants, about three times the total number that we averaged in the first 20 years of this century. So a 3x total net inflow, legal and illegal. And these figures in the Wall Street Journal chart, they are sourced by the CBO. Now you might think that the immigrants that did not enter legally could eventually get deported, but some of them that are already living and working here, gained something called Temporary Protected Status that keeps them here. Well, our central question remains, Where in the heck are we going to house all of these immigrants in a nation of almost three 40 million people? Do you have any idea what our foreign born population is up to now, okay, so not the descendants of those people, just the foreign born population here now, out of the 340 million total US population, any guess? Venture a guess. Last year, the US foreign born population reached 47.8 million. And that figure 47 point 8 million, that is five times more than in 19 75x Do you even realize that's almost double the population of the entire continent of Australia, now crammed into the states. That's how many immigrants, 47.8 million is. It's also the same as the population of all of Spain. That's another way of saying it all in the US today. And by the way, that is my geography degree at work, right there. Hey, the geography muscle is one that I just don't get to flex enough. Immigrants now make up more than 14% of the population. That is one in seven Americans. And that proportion, right there is the most since 1910, per Pew Research. Well, where are the immigrants from? Alright? Before I get into that, if we go back about 60 years, immigrant growth accelerated after Congress made changes to US immigration laws in 1965 that was a key year before 1965 the law favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe, and it mostly barred immigration from Asia, all right, Well, so here in modern times, where are immigrants from? Mexico is the top country in 2022, 10.6, million immigrants living in the US were born there. That is almost a quarter of all immigrants. And then the next largest origin groups in order are those from India, China, the Philippines, and then El Salvador. All right, so there are a lot of new immigrants here, like a demographic shock wave that's going to drive the demand for housing. But there's way more to this housing crunch story. Combine this nascent immigration influx along with America's own high birth rate years. And this is something that you might not be aware of, though, what I just talked about that might have been somewhat informative to you. You probably had some idea that immigration is higher now, because it's been in the news cycle for a few years here, but something that you probably don't know. And yes, fertility rates are down today, but there was a boom of US born residents from the years 1990 to 2010 and then you might say, well, so what 1990 to 2010 that was in the past? But no, actually, it is just the beginning, because when it comes to housing, it has less to do with the birth year. Currently, what you have to do is add perhaps 25 or 35 years to that birth year, because that's the age of when that person tends to start their own household. And the average age of today's first time homebuyer is 35 to 36 years old. Well, the US is peak birth year occurred in 2007 then adds 35 or so to it. And that means that, on average, they will buy their first home in the early 2040s and a lot of them were going to start renting in the 2020s and 2030s So suffice to say, a lot more Americans will need homes. Well, what else will those high birth years from 1990 to 2010 mean now and into the future? Realize that over 13,000 Americans are turning 35 every single day, both now and years in to the future, record highs. Yes, every single day, just another demographic figure that's on the rise, and there are deaths to account for as well. But the population aging into home ownership is projected to exceed the population aging out like with deaths for a long time, this will pump housing demand. The US has about 144 million housing units today, and we are going to need more housing of all types. Well, between all the fresh immigration I discussed and this US born surge, you've indubitably got the recipe for a ridiculous amount of demographic driven housing demand. And you know, maybe over the past few years, at times, you or some of your friends or family, they've wondered why housing prices have risen fast, why rents have risen fast, and why? Even a tripling of mortgage rates couldn't stop it. It could only slow it down. It's because of this demand that is just coming, and it's going to keep on coming from both the US born demographic surge and an immigrant surge. And here's the thing, as we know this is all amidst a still lackluster US housing supply today, so greater demand, yet still a meager supply. Zillow estimates that we're still four and a half million housing units short, and the housing deficit is growing, although other outlets have estimates that, you know, they really are all over the place. These estimates as to how great the shortage is, 3 million is probably closer to a good amalgamation of how severe the housing shortage is, all right. Well, how do we reduce the housing deficit? We need to start more construction, but it had its recent peak in 2022 and it's fallen since then, in single family homes, because builders faced higher interest rates then and new apartment building starts, they have fallen too. And two years ago we had a lot of apartment building starts, actually. And as you drive through major cities today, you might still see cranes in the air. You still see a lot of active apartment building construction, actually, but more of those projects began two years ago. They began to freeze as interest rates rose, and now they've just got to complete what they've already begun. It can be two years from an apartment construction start to a completion. So as some of these complete, there will be some absorption time there on apartments. But the starts are way down on apartments. This year, we should have at least double the number of apartment starts being started than what we have now. So this sets us up for more future shortages, regulation and zoning. We know that that slows down building for most any housing type, single family, homes, apartments, condos, whatever it is. And nimbyism is a condition that's especially pervasive in the construction of new apartment buildings. Neighbors don't perceive new single family homes as a threat in their neighborhood like they do apartments, whether that's warranted or not. That's how people feel. That's the sentiment. That's the type of neighbor that shows up at a public meeting and speaks out against new apartment buildings. So to summarize what you've learned so far, it's really the confluence of four housing factors coming together here, two of them for higher demand and two for lower supply. The two for higher demand are more immigrants and a surge of US born people from 1990 to 2010 that are just starting to get old enough to need their own place. That's the higher demand side. And then the two factors on the paltry supply side are both a lack of current supply and not enough building for the future. Either it is an increasingly dire situation, and it can even be in your face. Actually. How is it in your face? Well, it's one reason that you see more homeless people on the street in your nearest city, although you might see more US born homeless than you do immigrant homeless. HUD tells us that the homelessness rate has jumped 12% year over year. That's the fastest homelessness increase rate they've ever reported. I talked to you about that before, and I'm waiting for HUD to release their new number in December. They released that annually. You know, amidst this demand, supply imbalance, in fact, anymore, let's look at it this way. Let's flip the script. Consider what could possibly stop insatiable US housing demand from exceeding supply for decades. And when you do, when you think about what could stop that, it starts to get absurd a sudden, new construction technology that pumps out homes like a popcorn machine, climate change that roasts us into human popcorn, not the good kind, and AI or VR, so advanced that We're all going to live inside some sort of force field. How about an even worse pandemic, or even a world war that would have to kill at least 10s of millions of people, or something like that, or aliens or asteroids destroying Earth? Or how about a depression level economic contraction. But see all these scenarios that would derail the housing demand trend. They range from the pretty unlikely to the downright ludicrous. Starts to sound like a Sci-fi flick, and amidst a lot of those afflictions, your life's biggest concern wouldn't be your real estate investment portfolio. It would be primordial human survival. Now, before I summarize your big takeaway here, let me tell you immigration, it has near term downsides, like a lack of housing and a demand for public assistance. And yes, I know a huge pack of new immigrants can appear sort of like a Walmart at first glance, huge, chaotic and full of people that seem like they've given up on life.
But that is certainly not always the case. A lot of immigrants are ambitious long term new young people drive an economy. Immigrants have long been a backbone of innovation. A lot of our tech giants were started by immigrants or their children, and also a lot of immigrants find those construction jobs that can help us build our way out of the housing shortage crisis, but that is going to take a long time. The bottom line here is that if you're looking for your own home, waiting probably won't help. As an investor, own more properties now, own lots of rental housing, you're going to have something that everybody needs. Housing demand is expected to exceed supply well into the future. Both this US born surge of people and the immigrants, what they do is they tend to be renters for years before they become buyers, if they ever become buyers, from here today, it's a realistic scenario to expect then soaring real estate prices, higher rents and lofty occupancy rates for years.
Well, Tom terrific is back in the house, and we are talking taxes. Brady's in the gun bulletin to his left. He's got the hoo man on the right wing with Dobson to the right Collie and Tomkins left. Brady throws it to the end zone for kenbrell Tompkins. Leaping. Kenbrell Tompkins, Brady's back.
That's your quarterback. Show ponies, where's the beat? All right, that's enough. Scott zolak, Bob Sochi on the call there 95 the sports hub in Boston. No Tom. Brady is not the Tom terrific that we often have here. Brady simply doesn't know enough about taxes. We've got the tax expert with us, the extraordinary Tom. We're right. What about that spirited play call at the end there? Did he say unicorns show ponies? Where's the beef? I don't really get all that. So getting back to real estate and taxes here, look, here's the thing, when you see what your government spends money on, and you're disgusted by some of these spending programs, doesn't that give you a supreme motivation to want to reduce your taxes? Well, we're going to talk about state income taxes where they're high where they're low. There are currently nine income tax free states. Are more states looking to drop their income tax to zero and join them? Or is it going the other direction, where they're looking to raise them if you live in one state and invest in another. We'll get into how that looks too. Canadian listeners, sorry, we don't plan to have provincial income tax discussion today. Now, I seem to have become here no more for my real estate investing voice than anything else. Last month, I was in Pennsylvania for a while, and I ran into one of my high school teachers. He was the art teacher, but he also taught a class called journalism in publications. That was an elective class, and I took that class as a high school student. I think I was a senior then, well, our job was to lay out the yearbook, writing, positioning and centering this text here in that image over there. Well, I told my old journalism and publications teacher that he's been a substantial influence on me because, as you know, I write our Don't quit your Daydream letter to you about every week. And I just love doing that, I've always thought of myself as more of a writer than a talker, and I myself really enjoy writing and laying out the body and images of our newsletter and sending it to you about weekly on crucial information that you must know About, real estate investing, economics and wealth mindset. It's got a dash of humor, and every single letter can be read in less than five minutes, often less than three minutes. I would love to have you as one of our 1000s of weekly readers, and it is free. You can get it simply by texting GRE to 6866. come along and join us for real estate investing information and fun. Just take a moment and do it right now while it's on your mind. Text, GRE to 6686 lots more. Straight ahead. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get Rich education.
Hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage, you can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. Start Now while it's on your mind at Ridgelendinggroup.com, that's ridgelendinggroup.com.
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Chris Martenson 21:42
this is peak prosperity's Chris Martinson. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.
Keith Weinhold 21:58
This week's guest is, to me, the world's foremost tax pro. He is an international authority on how you can permanently reduce your taxes, and he really makes taxes easy, fun and understandable, like no one else that I've ever met does. He runs a terrific educational platform too. It's called wealth ability. Welcome back to get rich education. Tom, we're right.
Tom Wheelwright 22:21
Thanks, Keith, always good to be here.
Keith Weinhold 22:23
Yeah, it's so good to have you back, because taxes are such a dynamic topic. And one place where I wonder if it's going to be dynamic, Tom, is we have a number of states that don't have any state income tax, which is something that people have to pay on top of their federal income tax. Federal alone can be up to 37% some of the states with the fastest population growth, like Tennessee, Florida and Texas, don't have any state income tax. So what I'm wondering, Tom is, are more states considering abolishing the income tax like those states have done.
Tom Wheelwright 22:59
We've actually seen a lot of states in the last couple of years reduced their income tax rates. So Arizona, where I live, is one of them. We went from over a potential tax rate of like eight and a half percent potential to an actual tax rate of 5% there was actually a proposal passed that would have increased it down to a tax rate of two and a half percent. Our former governor, Doug Ducey, his goal was to abolish the income tax in Arizona, and we did get down to two and a half percent. There are a number of states, typically in the middle of the country. You don't see any states on the coasts doing this, outside of Florida, that are reducing their tax rates. So you do see states doing that. You see other states that are increasing their tax rates. Recently, I was reading about Bill Belichick, and he said, Massachusetts is always hard getting the top earners, the top free agents, into New England. Because he says, This is taxachusetts, because they have a surtax on millionaires. Well, of course, all football players are millionaires. That is an issue. People are leaving states like California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and they're moving to low tax states such as Arizona, Texas, Florida and, you know, the whole southern belt.
Keith Weinhold 24:15
with Belichick having Tom Brady. It didn't matter if he couldn't bring in the best players, because Tom Brady made stars out of nobodies. It seems like he could complete a pass to any no name wide receiver or tight end for two decades there in New England. But can you tell us more about maybe interesting dynamics with state income tax? For example, I know that California has punitively high state income taxes, and then you have other states that have tax rate tables and some that have flat taxes, like, I think Pennsylvania has about a 3% flat income tax. Colorados is 4.4 so can you tell us more?
Tom Wheelwright 24:51
Yeah, there are, you know, the federal income tax has graduated rates. We go, actually, from a zero rate to currently a 37% rate, which is not really 37% rate. It's really 41% because there's a 4% add on tax that pretty much you're gonna pay. So it's really over 40% California has a graduated tax rate, but it goes up to 13% Minnesota has a high income tax. New York has a high income tax. So Massachusetts, we're seeing high income taxes. The states that provide have big governments and provide lots of services have high tax rates. That's why we see it on the coasts. Interesting enough. Minnesota. Minnesota is the liberal state in the middle of the country, and so they have liberal states tend to have very high tax rates, and conservative states tend to have very low tax rates.
Keith Weinhold 25:45
Now we have a lot of real estate investors here that have learned that the best deals are outside their home state. So that investor might be domiciled in a Minnesota, but investing in, say, Arkansas, tell us about how the state income tax affects them.
Tom Wheelwright 25:59
So it's kind of like being a US citizen, right? You live in the US. You're taxed on your worldwide income. You live in Minnesota. You're taxed on your worldwide income in Minnesota. So by virtue of where your residency is, you are taxed on all of your income. Now you'll get a credit, typically, for taxes paid to another state. Well, let's say that your tax rate in your state is 10% and then you invest in a state with a tax rate of 3% well you're going to get tax credit of 3% so you're still going to pay 7% in your state, plus 3% that state. You're still going to pay your 10% it's just going to be some of that's going to go to another state. Some of it's going to go to your state. But in total, your tax rate is likely to be wherever you live. That's youroverall state tax rate. I'll give you another example. Let's say that you invest in Texas, you live in in Minnesota, you're going to pay Minnesota tax rates on your income, you get no credit because you have no tax in Texas. What's worse is, though, you have property tax in Texas, but you don't get a credit in Minnesota for your property tax paid in Texas. So you have much higher property taxes in Texas than you do in most states. Right? Because every state has to raise revenue, right? In Texas has decided to it largely on sales tax and property tax. So that means that you don't get that offset. Property taxes are pretty serious in Texas. If you're an investor in Texas, you know that property taxes are pretty serious, but you don't get any kind of benefit in Minnesota, but you still pick up the income in Minnesota.
Keith Weinhold 27:38
In some Texas jurisdictions, property taxes can be 3% annually based on the property's value, pretty punitive. There in Texas, Texas is a good example. That's where we have often high property tax rates, but zero state income tax. So with these other states that have zero state income tax, are they subsidizing that with property taxes or sales taxes, or in what other way are they making up that?
Tom Wheelwright 28:03
Of course, for example, we were talking earlier about Tennessee. Tennessee doesn't have a personal income tax, but if you have your real estate owned through a limited liability company, you do have a 6% tax on the income of the LLC. So even though it's a pass through entity for Tennessee purposes, it's taxed. They have all sorts of mechanisms to raise revenue. All states need revenue. Now, some states raise less revenue per capita than other states. Those are the states that people tend to move to. But don't forget those other taxes. I mean, sales taxes. Sales taxes can be very high, right? And you pay sales taxes typically don't pay them on food or prescription drugs, but you typically pay them on pretty much everything else, and including leasing a car, they're going to get their money. It's just how they get their money.
Keith Weinhold 28:50
Well, we've been talking about ways that you could potentially legally escape taxation, depending on what state that you live in. So in a domestic sense, and Tom we pull back and we think about that in an international sense. A lot of Americans don't seem to realize that if they're, I guess, born and raised and get citizenship in the United States when they become an adult and get older and they go abroad, they have to continue to pay US taxes if they move to Norway or Dubai. Can you tell us about that?
Tom Wheelwright 29:21
Yeah, so US citizens are taxed on worldwide income as long as they're a US citizen. Here's what's really interesting in the US let's say you give up your US citizenship, you're still subject to taxes on your worldwide income for 10 years. Wow, after you give up your citizenship so you no one get any of the benefits of being a citizen. You've given that up, and you still have taxes for 10 years. Earlier this year, we did an episode, and we talked a little bit about this unrealized capital gains tax, right? People don't think, well, I'll just leave. Doesn't work that way. You're still going to have the capital gains tax for at least 10 years, and the only way to get rid of it is to give up your citizenship and wait 10 years. It's a pretty restrictive law, because most countries only tax if you live there, if you're a citizen of France, but you move to Belgium, you're taxed in Belgium, you're not taxed in France. Not true with us.
Keith Weinhold 30:19
Yeah, that's remarkable. I didn't know about that 10 year thing. Even if you renounce your citizenship, those taxes will follow you for 10 years regardless of where else in the world you live. Um, I'm just maybe this is a little bit of devil's advocate. I mean, this sounds preposterous when we first think about how Americans are taxed abroad for the rest of their life, but maybe thinking of it philosophically, if it does make sense in any way, which is really hard for me to say, but maybe it's because, okay, well, you were born and raised in the United States, where we have this very mature infrastructure and stable currency and good educational system, so you got to be a beneficiary of that. So when you're 30, you can't move away and never give us any tax money to support that. Again, what are your thoughts with that?
Tom Wheelwright 31:02
different countries have different tax systems? What I will say is, just like the state discussion, you do get a credit for taxes paid to another country. So if you have income taxes, let's say you're living in Portugal and you pay Portuguese income taxes, you're not going to pay taxes twice. You're going to pay the higher of the two rates, either the Portuguese tax rate or the US tax rate, but you should not be paying tax twice. Now, if you're going to do that, you need a really good team of tax professionals. You need a good US tax professional, and you need a good tax professional where you live, and those two tax professionals need to talk to each other on a regular basis, because otherwise you can end up paying double tax, and that is the worst of all worlds. You do not want to end up paying double tax. So make sure that just know that if you're going to invest in another country, or you're going to live in another country, you need double the tax advice.
Keith Weinhold 31:05
I am just going to speculate that there are an awful lot of people that don't consider taxes before they move, whether that's domestic or international, not that that should be the top consideration, but a lot of people probably aren't even thinking about it.
Tom Wheelwright 32:13
A lot of people aren't. That's true. Now, are there ways to reduce your taxes internationally, particularly if you're in business? Yes, there are ways that you can reduce your taxes. So know that there is still tax planning available. But I hear about people saying, I'm going to invest in the Dominican Republican, or I'm going to invest in Dubai, or I'm going to invest somewhere else. Just know that you've got now two sets of laws that you're working with you're working with US laws, and you're working with that country's laws. And so make sure that you've got good advisory on both sides. When we're talking about moving for tax considerations, we should cover Puerto Rico. Tell us about the advantageous tax laws for Puerto Rico, and if they're going to sunset, they're there for the foreseeable future. So Puerto Rico, depending on how you earn your income, you can potentially reduce your income tax rate from the current 37% rate in the US to 4% yeah, that's basically an agreement with Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is still the US, but it's got special laws that it's almost like a treaty, right? Even though it's a territory of the US. And what happens is, is that if you set it up properly, you got to live there, by the way, you can't just pretend. You got to live there six months in a day out of the year, over six months a year. And if you do, then you get a 4% tax rate on the income you earn while you're in Puerto Rico. If you earn income while you're in the mainland, you're going to pay tax on the mainland, but the income you earn in Puerto Rico, you're going to pay 4% tax. And there are certain types of income that that works for certain types of income, it doesn't just make sure that this is one where you need a Puerto Rican tax advisor as well as your US tax advisor. Capital Gains also have they have a potential tax rate of zero. So there are obviously details you have to follow again, make sure, before you get into that, know that there are huge tax benefits for living in Puerto Rico. No question. You know, it's the Puerto Rican discount. What can I say? We say in Arizona that California has a beach tax and we have a desert discount. The same was true in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has a Puerto Rican discount. That's what it is.
Keith Weinhold 34:24
Yeah, you're going to be getting on a plane a lot in order to go anywhere. I know an awful lot of entrepreneurs that have relocated to Puerto Rico. You do too. Tom, you the listener, probably do as well. It's really important to have the right team before you make such considerations. And before we're done today, Tom and I will talk about how you can connect with him and learn more. But Tom, since we last had you here, you updated your terrific book, which I have on my bookshelf called Tax Free Wealth. Tell us about the updates and changes you made to the book.
Tom Wheelwright 34:56
We do a new edition of tax free wealth every time there's a major change in the tax law. So the second edition was the 2017 tax law, because that was a major change. Since 2017 though we've had six major changes to the tax law, we had a bunch of major tax law changes during COVID And so what we did was we actually took the 2017 and all the new ones, werolled them all into a new edition. By far. This is the best edition of tax free wealth by a long shot. I mean, I think tax free wealth, you know, got good bones to it. It's a good book. Got almost 4005 star reviews on Amazon. This is the one I like the best, by far.
Keith Weinhold 35:18
Tax Free wealth, I read the original edition, and it's not like watching motorcycles jump off ramps, but for a tax book, it's actually really a good read there. He really brings life and some good examples to how you can permanently reduce your taxes. Tom, you and your terrific firm wealth ability have been helping people do that for years. If you the listener, want to Tom's team and Tom's referral network to help you permanently reduce your taxes. We have a resource for you atget rich education.com/taxwe can actually set up a free consultation to confirm if indeed they can help you in your situation. And Tom, why don't you talk to us some more about the importance of having the right tax pro on your team, and how they're not actually an expense, but really they're an incentive to you, because the fastest way to get an ROI is actually by reducing your taxes, because it can be done almost instantly.
Tom Wheelwright 35:36
Yeah, for sure. And what's important is that you have a relationship with a tax advisor that does give you tax advice. That's why it's called a tax advisor. They actually give you tax advice, and they willing to give it to you. And they're not waffling. They're not saying, Well, I don't know, or they're not backing off. They're saying, Well, look, if you do this, this is what you get. You have to choose whether you want to make those changes to your situation, but they're going to give you, you know, what changes you can make to your facts in order to reduce your taxes. I think the most important thing, though, is that you have a partnership with your CPA, that this is a true relationship. And we've actually changed the way we work with clients. We used to charge for projects. We used to charge for tax returns. What we want is a relationship, so we basically charge a monthly fee for the relationship. So that's a recent change in our model, you're going to see more and more CPAs go to that model, because it is a much more comfortable model for both the CPA and for the client. But what we want to do is we want to emphasize the relationship. We don't want you to feel like every time you pick up the phone, you're going to get charged. We don't want you to feel like, well, all that tax return fee is just killing me. No, it's not a tax return fee, it's a monthly fee. It's an annual fee, billed monthly, is what it is. And that way you have something come up, you don't have to worry about them and get a bill for it. You have even an IRS audit come up. Once you're a client with us for a year. After the first year, we'll then allow you to pay a small monthly fee so that when you get audited, you won't pay us for handling the audit. We call that an audit defense plan. I talk about that in tax free wealth. To me, we've been operating this way. So my firm, which I worked with people like Robert Kiyosaki, we've been operating this way for several years, and it is the best way to work with a tax advisor, because you always have that relationship, and you never have to worry. I'm not going to get this big tax bill, this big fee, like you do for an attorney, right? You don't call your attorney, because you can get a big fee, right? Every minute it's going to be a big fee. This is a great way to work with a tax advisor and make sure that you can be proactive, and they can be proactive. It's really a great way to help build the relationship over time, which is something that you're going to want to have over time again. If you want to learn more and have that free consultation, you can start at get rich education.com/tax.
Keith Weinhold 38:56
Tom, it's been valuable as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show.
Tom Wheelwright 38:59
Thanks, Keith.
Keith Weinhold 39:06
Nine states don't have an earned income tax. Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. And the way to avoid state income tax is clearly to start by living in one of those states. I don't believe that moving to one just for tax reasons, is a good idea, though, like I was saying earlier, do you agree with how your government is spending your tax dollars? If you don't, then you owe it to yourself to reduce your tax burden, otherwise, you are just helping to fuel reckless spending. And when you lower your tax burden, not only do you stop fueling reckless spending, of course, you increase your own personal return on investment. You know in fact. This paying any more tax than you have to fuel a kleptocracy. I think it's at least worth asking the question then, because this is get rich education, little learning moments, some vocab rehab. Here, you can think of a kleptocracy as being synonymous with a fevocracy. The strict definition of a kleptocracy is a government whose corrupt leaders use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern, typically by embezzling or expropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population. All right, well, is that a little too strong for the behavior of our elected leaders or not? I'll let you decide that. But see, most of the 1000s of pages of the US tax code does not outline the taxes that you have to pay. Did you realize that the vast majority of the IRS Code is a guidebook to help you reduce your taxes that are in those tax tables. Well, now my own tax return is hundreds of pages long, and a lot of it outlines how my taxes have been reduced for that tax year. Well, Tom's excellent book called tax free wealth is sort of a digestible way to make the reading more fun than any psycho that would read the entire IRS tax code, but to make it even easier than that, it's really a good opportunity to connect with Tom's team and see exactly how they can help you reduce your tax In your specific situation, and is especially helpful for real estate investors and business owners. You know that I often like to leave you with something actionable. You can book a free consult at getrich education.com/tax that's get richeducation.com/tax.
Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.
Speaker 2 42:06
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.
Keith Weinhold 42:34
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