Adventures with lyrical - buying a business

Shonuff

Shonuff

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Cathan said:
Another topic from: The Millionaire Next Door I have a question about to those that are already financially independent here...

What did you do for your kids" education? Did you send them to expensive private schools or to public school? The book praises education but it also said most of the rich people send their kids to public schools.

Personally, I went to public school and I wish to god I"d had the advantage of going to a private school where the classes are smaller and I could learn at my own pace in an environment more conducive to learning, and that was back in NC...

Here in New Orleans private schools are where kids with money go to school and public schools are mostly for the poor kids. Catholic private schools are a big portion of the high schools here and my fiance plans to send her daughter to a coed private school that"s about $9000/year. I"m all for it even if it does mean a big drain on our funds. In another city where public schools were good I could possibly argue for sending her to public schools but here in New Orleans? Fuck that...

So what did the rest of you do for educating your kids?
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The neighborhood we live in is full of doctors who all have their kids in private school. We, instead, opted to move to the area with the best schools, and even though the cost of living is expensive here, the schools are rated the best within 50 miles regarding public schools. My parents always did the same for us, we always went to the best public schools in the area.

When we were in Atlanta, we had to move to the rich suburbs to be able to do this. Atlanta schools are a joke, probably worse than NOLA schools. If your kid doesn"t become a victim of a violent crime many times over, they can expect to get out of school unable to read, and get laughed at when they apply to colleges. We moved just south of Suwanee, where there are the finest schools in the State. The problem is that we worked in the city, and it made it so that we"d have three hours on the road. But those are sacrifices we all make.

Anyway, Kiyosaki"s not a big fan of prestigious private schools, and I"m not ether. I still was able to get into a top 20 business program in the U.S. from public schools, not having "pedigree" didn"t hurt me.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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OneofOne said:
I was trying to stay away from the D-word but, divorce.
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And I"d agree with this hesitantly, only after many discussions and counseling. Alot of us are saying to talk about this beforehand and ignoring the fact that the guys asking advice are already married. Anyway, thankfully, she came over to my side and its solved.
 
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Evelys_foh

shitlord
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It takes quite a bit of shame to let someone give up control of their money. For me, it took having to ask a boyfriend to loan me some cash until payday when I was making 2x what he did. I never wanted to be in that situation where every time I looked at a bank statement I saw overdraft fees, and a 538 credit score would have been an improvement over where I was.

Now, my hubby does the budget because he"s far better at managing the day-to-day and month-to-month spending, despite the fact that out of our combined $135k income, I bring in over $100k of it. I manage our investments, because I have a better long view of money that his short-term budgeting puts me in a position to execute successfully.

Having been the person on the other side of the sit down conversation you guys all want to have with your wives, the best advice I can give is to frame it about the future, and actually show what that $500 a month in lattes and lunches can actually turn into (and yeah, I was spending about that while over drafting).

Like any other addict, a spending addict has to hit rock bottom and want to change before they will, and seeing how switching to sandwiches and a thermos of coffee with fancy creamer turned into having my toys, savings, and investments is what made me hit my spending rock bottom.

Also...reward them. When my hubby took over our budget, we set out a list of needs and a list of wants. In my case, I"ve got such a scary health history (cancer, 3x, in remission for over a year now, knock on wood!) that I don"t know if I"ll be here in ten years to enjoy the fruits of savings, so we make it a point to each fulfill a "want" each quarter. This quarter, it"s going to be the honeymoon we never got a chance to take. Sometimes it"s a game system or blowing $700 on a once in a lifetime dinner -- but being a position to have a controlled, structured way of blowing a bit of cash once every 3 months sates my urge to enjoy what I"ve earned.

If you"re already married, you need to decide if that person is enough fulfillment for you to retire poor if you retire at all. If not, and they won"t change....well, do what you have to do.
 
Dandai

Dandai

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I haven"t read all 14 pages, but I plan to. I"ve always been fascinated with wealth and wealth accumulation because of my dad (who ironically, despite having read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The Millionaire Next Door, still insists on living way above his means). He taught me young that it isn"t what you make, it"s what you spend. I"ll be turning 27 this year and have no debt, about $15k in mutual funds, and enough money in savings that neither my wife nor I would have to work for almost a year.

I"m presently listening to The Millionaire Next Door audio book and they really preach about being actively involved in your investments. I was planning on going into my mutual funds office tomorrow, but I was wondering what kind of information you folks would recommend to bring along so that I don"t get taken for a spin?
 
C

Candiarie_foh

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Haven"t read Millionaire Next Door, but active/passive investing is something that"s been beaten to death, reincarnated, and then beaten to death again here.
 
Dandai

Dandai

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Candiarie said:
Haven"t read Millionaire Next Door, but active/passive investing is something that"s been beaten to death, reincarnated, and then beaten to death again here.
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Haha! Alright, I"ll keep reading through the thread then.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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So, I just did an analysis for a bank our personal income. We are looking at re-financing some of our vehicles, and they claim we don"t have the income. So now I"m having to show them all of the stuff the business pays for on our behalf.

When I worked for corporations, I was always told that owning a business was the way to go, because even if you are losing money, there"s so much in the way of expenses the business can pay for. Cars, cell phone, meals and ent, and even some credit card interest are all fair game.

I"m not sure I ever did this analysis, but literally we are paying ourselves 5k a month tax free and alot of expenses are legal deductions paid through the business. It like we are making 110-120k a year, and since I own 100% of the shares in the corporation, I"m having it pay my personal taxes also. The income level is fine, thats all I need to be able to live in a 5k sq ft house and have a Mercedes and a 20k home theatre. I don"t need any more to live off of, the rest goes back to operations.

Simply put, making 50k in your own business a year is like making 100k a year working for someone else. If anyone wants to see the analysis, just ask and I"ll post the spreadsheet here.
 
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Evelys_foh

shitlord
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I"d definitely be interested. My goal for age 40, assuming my health holds up, is to be running my own IT consulting firm, or to get the website idea that"s been kicking around in my head off of the ground.
 
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Cathan_foh

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Do you play games on that home theater set up? I can only imagine how awesome it would be to jam shit on a mega high quality screen from some super comfortable audience chair with theater quality sound. FPS bombs going off near you would literally put you in shell shock!

Lyrical comes out of the home theater walking around with a RHW boner all shell shock like someone blew his face off with a mortar...
 
OneofOne

OneofOne

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I would *love* to see your spreadsheet posted here. Show us what you are writing off as business expenses.
 
Cutlery

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OneofOne said:
I would *love* to see your spreadsheet posted here. Show us what you are writing off as business expenses.
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Yeah, I"m sure the IRS has different ideas of what your business expenses are than you or your tax guy does.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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So, here we go. Below is where we are, but its not the only stuff we pull out. Everything"s been cleared by the CPA, the only thing that is a grey area is the Mercedes, but we are prepared to defend that (like the IRS ever actually audits anyone LOL).

I don"t even get crazy with what we do, I literally have known people in that have businesses that deal with high amounts of cash pull out millions in cash and hide it in their house rather than report it to the government. I know a nightclub owner (anonymously through a business broker friend of mine) that pulls out at least one million dollars a year and hides it in the walls of his house. One guy I know added a wing onto his house, and had the parts and labor expensed through the business . Another guy I know (again through my broker friend) had his daughter"s get married, and he wrote had 20k in wedding dresses in the line item called "uniforms." He had invoiced and everything to back up that they were uniforms. Finally, a guy I know that wanted to sell me a commercial cleaning business had three or four homes (some by the lake), every member of the family had a brand new Mercedes, and his best profit year he showed a loss of 18k. And these guys are mostly in their 60"s and did this for 30-40 years with not even a sniff from the IRS.

I want a new gaming pc, I expense part of it, since I use it mostly for business. The home theatre is partially expensed also (used for meetings like any other corp does).

I"ve preached budgeting, and it took along time to get my assets to the point where I don"t really need a budget anymore. Lets just say it took 15 years of scrimping/investing/saving and living way under my means so that I don"t have to. I"ve conducted due diligence on maybe 100 businesses, and you"d be surprised at the jaw-dropping stuff I"ve seen.

Flame away, I don"t care. The reality is my books are as about as clean as you"ll find.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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Cathan said:
Do you play games on that home theater set up? I can only imagine how awesome it would be to jam shit on a mega high quality screen from some super comfortable audience chair with theater quality sound. FPS bombs going off near you would literally put you in shell shock!

Lyrical comes out of the home theater walking around with a RHW boner all shell shock like someone blew his face off with a mortar...
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No, I don"t play on it anymore, seemed a little too decadent for my tastes. I used to play L4D on it alot, but then I thought about running down my bulb on the projector. Like most people that have high end movie theatres in their home, they tend to use it only on special occasions (sports or movies).
 
OneofOne

OneofOne

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Lyrical said:
Everything"s been cleared by the CPA, the only thing that is a grey area is the Mercedes, but we are prepared to defend that (like the IRS ever actually audits anyone LOL).
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I can get into detail if you want, but I"ll tell you right now you better hope you never get an audit. Your CPA is either incompetent or just doesn"t care (is he even a tax practitioner? because the amount of tax info a CPA needs to know to get licensed is... very very little). I too know of businesses that play fast and loose with the rules - I help represent them before the IRS. It"s a roll of the dice whether anyone ever gets an audit or not, but it"s a roll you really don"t want to lose.

PS - hiding cash transactions is not hard to find, especially when it"s standard fare for Auditors to request your banking transaction sheets for the entire year(s) being audited.

PPS - IRS has started a new program of aggressively going after small businesses, because they"ve realized they are losing a sizable amount of tax revenue there (and don"t have the political balls to go after the big guys, which I"m not sure would matter anyway since corps like GE poach the best and the brightest the IRS have to offer).
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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OneofOne said:
I can get into detail if you want, but I"ll tell you right now you better hope you never get an audit. Your CPA is either incompetent or just doesn"t care (is he even a tax practitioner? because the amount of tax info a CPA needs to know to get licensed is... very very little). I too know of businesses that play fast and loose with the rules - I help represent them before the IRS. It"s a roll of the dice whether anyone ever gets an audit or not, but it"s a roll you really don"t want to lose.

PS - hiding cash transactions is not hard to find, especially when it"s standard fare for Auditors to request your banking transaction sheets for the entire year(s) being audited.

PPS - IRS has started a new program of aggressively going after small businesses, because they"ve realized they are losing a sizable amount of tax revenue there (and don"t have the political balls to go after the big guys, which I"m not sure would matter anyway since corps like GE poach the best and the brightest the IRS have to offer).
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Funny, I thought you worked for SOE awhile back.

We are prepared to defend ourselves if it happened, but that doesn"t happen, and the penalties are so low, who cares? I"ve known business owners pulling out in the magnitude of millions and the IRS just is not enforcing anything. The guy who owned the business before me paid himself 200k a year and then pulled out 300k a year and hid it, was in business 50 years and never audited once.

Cash transactions mean jack squat if it doesn"t go to the bank and there"s no record of it anywhere. Most business owners I know in cash take the money, hide it, and spend it when they need it.

The company cars are legal (although the Mercedes might be a push), I can pay myself whatever I want (i.e., I owe 20k in personal taxes and have the corp bonus me), we have office space being used that is shared out of our home, we do quite a bit of driving on business (backed up by mileage logs), and I we use our cell phones to call customers on bids, contracts, customer satisfaction, etc.
 
OneofOne

OneofOne

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Work for SOE? You have me confused with someone else sorry. Never worked for a gaming company, and never intimated I did/have. I work for my father"s tax business as a licensed Tax Practitioner, and have 1 more test to take to become an Enrolled Agent. I"m also going to school part-time for an accounting degree with an eye on getting my CPA.

If you are happy with where you are, more power to you. I got no skin in this game, I"m just telling you like it is. Cutlery and I had a similar disagreement previously for the same reason - different perspectives. I do audit work on a semi-regular basis, and deal with IRS information requests even more often - it might seem to never happen, to you, but I have the exact opposite experience.

I do find it interesting that instead of addressing the actual actions you"ve taken, you are instead focusing on why you won"t get caught, and justifying by what others have done
 
General Antony

General Antony

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Lyrical said:
So, here we go. Below is where we are, but its not the only stuff we pull out. Like most business owners, we feel government is lazy and would rather blow cash on stupid things than to be efficient. Everything"s been cleared by the CPA, the only thing that is a grey area is the Mercedes, but we are prepared to defend that (like the IRS ever actually audits anyone LOL).

I don"t even get crazy with what we do, I literally have known people in that have businesses that deal with high amounts of cash pull out millions in cash and hide it in their house rather than report it to the government. A friend of mine owns several large nightclubs in Kansas City, reports that he"s losing money, while he"s got a different colored Maserati for every night of the week. I know another nightclub owner that pulls out at least one million dollars a year and hides it in the walls of his house. One guy I know added a wing onto his house, and had the parts and labor expensed through the business . Another guy I know had his daughter"s get married, and he wrote had 20k in wedding dresses in the line item called "uniforms." He had invoiced and everything to back up that they were uniforms. Finally, a guy I know that wanted to sell me a commercial cleaning business had three or four homes (some by the lake), every member of the family had a brand new Mercedes, and his best profit year he showed a loss of 18k. And these guys are mostly in their 60"s and did this for 30-40 years with not even a sniff from the IRS. Realistically, a customer pays me $2k in cash on a job, where do you think it goes?

I want a new gaming pc, I expense it. The home theatre is expensed also, since it is used for meetings LOL.

I"ve preached budgeting, and it took along time to get my assets to the point where I don"t really need a budget anymore. Lets just say it took 15 years of scrimping/investing/saving and living way under my means so that I don"t have to. I"ve conducted due diligence on maybe 100 businesses, and you"d be surprised at the jaw-dropping stuff I"ve seen.

Flame away, I don"t care. The reality is my books are as about as clean as you"ll find.
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Shit I"d tell the IRS where the money is and collect like you just passed go.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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OneofOne said:
Work for SOE? You have me confused with someone else sorry. Never worked for a gaming company, and never intimated I did/have. I work for my father"s tax business as a licensed Tax Practitioner, and have 1 more test to take to become an Enrolled Agent. I"m also going to school part-time for an accounting degree with an eye on getting my CPA.

If you are happy with where you are, more power to you. I got no skin in this game, I"m just telling you like it is. Cutlery and I had a similar disagreement previously for the same reason - different perspectives. I do audit work on a semi-regular basis, and deal with IRS information requests even more often - it might seem to never happen, to you, but I have the exact opposite experience.

I do find it interesting that instead of addressing the actual actions you"ve taken, you are instead focusing on why you won"t get caught, and justifying by what others have done
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I"ve already looked at the rules, and have no fear of the IRS.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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OneofOne said:
If you are happy with where you are, more power to you. I got no skin in this game, I"m just telling you like it is. Cutlery and I had a similar disagreement previously for the same reason - different perspectives. I do audit work on a semi-regular basis, and deal with IRS information requests even more often - it might seem to never happen, to you, but I have the exact opposite experience.
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Yeah, everything I hear from my wife is that most tax preparers are fucking morons, and everything you see is most IRS agents are fucking morons. We"re probably both right in the fact that most of the population is made up of fucking morons.

And tax cheats. Lotta tax cheats. And my wife crushed a shitload of small businesses for just "doing what their tax preparer said was okay."

But I ain"t gonna lie to you, when she starts talking tax law, my eyes kinda glaze over and I feel the need to run down to Fleet Farm, so I don"t pay too much attention to it.
 
C

Cathan_foh

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Not sure I"d state that over the internet here...

Say some tard on the board doesn"t like you and has the ability to figure out personal information about you. If they read this thread I bet they could dig up a name.

Then they send your info in to the IRS dropping a dime. I don"t know how often the IRS audits people but years ago my mom, sister and I lived with my sister"s dad (all 4 of us). Sister"s dad ran his own construction business and mom knew he was fucking over the IRS. When they split she took his records and sent that shit to the IRS. He got audited and the IRS put it to his ass.

Do what you do but if I were you I"d edit that info out of my posts. Some of the people on this board are unstable at best and others are just looking to fuck with people.
 
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