Professional Answer from Tom Wheelwright Taxes are a part of life. The simple question is whether you are going to use the tax law to make them a smaller part of your life, or do nothing and let them stay a huge expense. With a sound education on how the tax laws work coupled with better tax planning from a competent tax advisor who understands the laws, most entrepreneurs and investors can permanently reduce their taxes by 10 percent to 40 percent. And the money you save in taxes can be used to invest and build your wealth. So don’t wait. Take action now and learn how you can reduce your taxes.

such as doctors, lawyers, and small business owners will find tremendous value in the pages ahead, but those with as little as a few thousand to invest will learn how to create a version of the structure that will provide all the same benefits. Here are the astounding benefits available to all: • unlimited deposit amounts (with no income limitations) • no tax on the growth of your investments • no tax when accessed (if structured correctly) and • any money left over for your heirs cannot be taxed.

And this speaks to the importance of taking advantage of every tax-advantaged investment opportunity that you can. You should maximize your contributions if you’ve got a 401(k), or a 403(b) if you work for a nonprofit. You should take every opportunity to invest in a tax-deferred way.

Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned.

I said it before, but it’s worth repeating: most of today’s 401(k) plans allow you to simply “check a box,” and your contributions will receive the Roth tax treatment. This decision means you pay tax today, but you never pay tax again!

Starting a business on the side while keeping your day job can provide all the cash flow you need.

(To properly value a business, you also have to discount those future cash flows to their present worth, since a given amount of money today is worth more than the same amount in the future.)

Why is owning equity in a business important to becoming rich? It’s ownership versus wage work. If you are paid for renting out your time, even lawyers and doctors, you can make some money, but you’re not going to make the money that gives you financial freedom. You’re not going to have passive income where a business is earning for you while you are on vacation. [10] This is probably one of the most important points. People seem to think you can create wealth — make money through work. It’s probably not going to work. There are many reasons for that. Without ownership, your inputs are very closely tied to your outputs. In almost any salaried job, even one paying a lot per hour like a lawyer or a doctor, you’re still putting in the hours, and every hour you get paid. Without ownership, when you’re sleeping, you’re not earning. When you’re retired, you’re not earning. When you’re on vacation, you’re not earning. And you can’t earn nonlinearly. If you look at even doctors who get rich (like really rich), it’s because they open a business. They open a private practice. The private practice builds a brand, and the brand attracts people. Or they build some kind of a medical device, a procedure, or a process with an intellectual property. Essentially, you’re working for somebody else, and that person is taking on the risk and has the accountability, the intellectual property, and the brand. They’re not going to pay you enough. They’re going to pay you the bare minimum they have to, to get you to do their job. That can be a high bare minimum, but it’s still not going to be true wealth where you’re retired but still earning. [78] Owning equity in a company basically means you own the upside. When you own debt, you own guaranteed revenue streams and you own the downside. You want to own equity. If you don’t own equity in a business, your odds of making money are very slim. You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a smal

the typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.

You can do everything right: find a fiduciary advisor, reduce your fees, invest tax efficiently, and build up a Freedom Fund.

The benefit of making your offers small and Modular is that it allows you to take advantage of a strategy called Bundling. Bundling allows you to repurpose value that you have already created to create even more value.

Government actions often provide substantial benefits to a few while imposing small costs on many.

Once you start focusing passionately on ways to save more, earn more, reduce fees and taxes, and find better returns with even less risk, you’ll be amazed at how many new opportunities you’ll discover.

Like many other going-private LBOs, our deal involved significant leverage. But ours had one big difference. If we succeeded in growing Tribune, many people would benefit, including, first and foremost, the employees. The ESOP would enable employees to participate in the upside. The majority of any increase in the value of the company’s stock would accrue to the ESOP and ultimately to employees through their ESOP accounts. So employees would be highly motivated to succeed. That sounded great to me. Everyone would have skin in the game. Including me. It would be the single largest personal investment in my career.