In this episode of the Main Street Business Podcast, hosts Mark J Kohler and Mat Sorensen delve into various tax strategies for W-2 earners and discuss how to effectively minimize your tax liabilities. They explore the benefits of different deductions, tax credits, and alternative investment strategies, emphasizing the importance of smart tax planning.
Here's what you can look forward to:
This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking expert advice on managing their taxes efficiently, understanding complex tax strategies, and maximizing tax savings.
In this episode of the Main Street Business Podcast, hosts Mark J Kohler and Mat Sorensen delve into various tax strategies for W-2 earners and discuss how to effectively minimize your tax liabilities. They explore the benefits of different deductions, tax credits, and alternative investment strategies, emphasizing the importance of smart tax planning.
Here's what you can look forward to:
This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking expert advice on managing their taxes efficiently, understanding complex tax strategies, and maximizing tax savings.
Being smart about this and being aware about it is money in your pocket. I mean, taxes are the largest expense you're likely to have in your life.
Mark J Kohler:So many people are like, oh, well, I got a refund, so I'm doing something right. No, if you're getting a refund, it's actually an indicator you're doing something wrong.
Mat Sorensen:This is like the rocket fuel on your tax return that's really going to drive tax savings. Welcome, everyone, to the Main street business podcast. It is that time of year. You are getting your w two, or.
Mark J Kohler:Next week is 1099. So please stay tuned for next week's show on what do you do when you get that 1099 you didn't expect in the mail? You thought it was just free income when someone was paying you, but that's next week. But for all of you that are getting a w two exclusively, you got a w two. It can be hard to do tax planning, but we got you. We're going to give you as much as we can to help you save taxes and give you some perspective on how you view that. W two.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah. Now, we're both tax lawyers. We've been doing this for years, consulting business owners, real estate investors, high income w two earners. And there are tax strategies for w two earners. But we want to make sure you understand the real benefit, the real tax planning, the real tax savings is as you're deploying your earnings and building assets like rental real estate, small business side hustles. This is where tax planning really changes your life. Really seriously change your life in terms of what you can make building wealth, but also saving taxes at the same time.
Mark J Kohler:And I know you w two very talented, skilled, educated w two workforce, you're thinking, mark, man, I've heard it before, I'm too busy. It doesn't mean you have to start another job to use alternative strategies. We're not going to call them alt assets or alternative assets. We're going to call them alternative strategies, something you can deploy on your tax earner. Now, here's the agenda today. First, we want to talk about just that. What some concepts about your w two and how to approach it. Number two, give you the list, like all the little things you can consider to hopefully save you a few bucks on your tax return with that big fat w two or a couple of w two s that are moderate wherever you fall on the spectrum. And then third, we're going to swing back to these alt strategies. You please be willing to hear them because it's part of a one two, maybe even a five year strategy to implement some of these alt strategies that have really moved the needle.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah. So let's talk about you got your w two.
Mark J Kohler:What should you be thinking about this?
Mat Sorensen:Well, I think that's the first thing on the actual w two itself. There's some information on there how much tax was withheld. Right. And so when you got your job, you put in the withholding you want. And so there's some taxes withheld, some federal and state income taxes. There's also your 401K contributions. That is on the w two itself. We're not even at the 1040 yet. We're going to get to your 1040, and this stuff flows on your 1040. There's a lot of info on the w two itself, the tax you paid, which when you're netting out the 1040, if you come under that, you get a refund. Right. If you owe more, then you got to send a check to the IRS.
Mark J Kohler:I think, and a couple of mindset that are devious or detractors from the real story. So many people are like, oh, well, I got a refund, so I'm doing something right. No, if you're getting a refund, it's actually an indicator you're doing something wrong. First of all, a refund is not a barometer for tax planning. Number two, a refund means you gave the IRS an interest free loan. So if all things perfect, you want to flip that last quarter out of your wallet to the IRS at the end of the process in April. No refund, no payment. That would be ideal. So let's keep our eye focused on what your effective tax rate is, not whether or not you're getting a refund.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah. And of course, the higher income you have, we have a structured tax system where you jump into higher tax brackets on the next layer of income. So you're going to be paying more. But we want to make sure we're taking as much deductions as possible that pop you back down and then also getting tax credits. So we want to talk about those two because for you w two earners and you're doing your 1040 and really everyone, I should say we're going to get into deductions. We're going to talk about those. There's different varieties and types and how those hit your 1040, want to make sure you know which ones are there, how to take them, and then also credits.
Mark J Kohler:I love it. And I think one last concept and then we'll jump right into the list of things you can do is just have the reality check that the larger your w two, the fewer the write offs are going to be. It's just the way there's a word for it.
Mat Sorensen:Phase out. That's what they call it. That's what the iris calls it. You might have another word for it.
Mark J Kohler:Yeah, I was going to say, there's so many choice words go through.
Mat Sorensen:It's not a ph.
Mark J Kohler:Apparently the rich need to pay more is some of the concepts in legislation. So that means the more you make, the more you should be interested in the alternative strategies we're going to come to. All right, so I think there's three main categories, Matt. There's above the line deductions, which is before your adjusted gross.
Mat Sorensen:What line are we talking about? Okay, adjusted gross income line.
Mark J Kohler:The line.
Mat Sorensen:Above the line.
Mark J Kohler:Below the line. Above the line is adjusted gross income. Below the line is after that. So what is your agi? And if you go get a home loan, you apply for a loan of any sort, frankly, they're going to look at your agi. What's your agi? Most of you should know what your agi is. The second level are the below the line deductions. Not as good as above the line, but not bad. But there's above the line. Below the line. And then the credits. Those are kind of these three categories. So let's move in that order, because above the line are the best, and credits are hard because so many people phase out. And so they're probably the worst.
Mat Sorensen:And let me say this, too. I want to make sure I understand the difference between a deduction and a credit. This is for everyone. I know many of you. We have a lot of professionals, cpas, tax attorneys, enrolled agents, financial advisors, listen to our show. But we want to get this for everybody, a deduction. If you have $1,000 deduction versus $1,000 credit, which would you rather have? The $1,000 credit?
Mark J Kohler:Yes, I'd want the credit, Matt, because.
Mat Sorensen:The deduction only reduces your taxable income. Let's say you're in a 25% tax bracket, federal, 5% state, getting a $1,000 deduction, that saves you $300, because I'm saving the $250 in federal tax and the $50 there in state tax. But the $1,000 tax credit is. That reduces my tax bill, $1,000. That does save me actually $1,000. So tax credits are more valuable. Obviously, we want to get all this deductions as possible to take our taxable income down. But I just want to make sure I understand the difference between them, and that's why they have different names.
Mark J Kohler:And the government motivates us. We've chosen as an american culture and government that certain tax credits and deductions are there to motivate us to spend money in a certain way. Put in handicap access in your business, get a tax credit. Buy electric vehicle, get a tax credit. Oh, you get a write off if you put money in your health savings account. We want to less burden the medical healthcare industry, put money in your ira, less burdened on the Social Security system. So the government's trying to motivate us to do certain things for right or wrong, and most of them have a really good place to be. So let's talk about bubble line, some of our favorites. Matt, you go first.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah, I love the health savings account because this is a time when you're doing your 1040. A lot of people track their medical. They're like, I got all my medical expenses. We paid the doctor this, I got the prescriptions here. One of the kids had to go to the hospital, spouse had this, and they're like, oh, man, we had $3,000 in medical expenses. Dang, I'd love to get a tax deduction for that. They ask it on my 1040 if I have medical expenses. And then you add it all up and they're like, no, it didn't exceed seven and a half percent of your Agi. If you made 100 grand a year, you had to have more than 7500 in medical to even have a one dollars deduction on your tax return. Health care expenses are very difficult to write off on your 1040 unless you have a health savings account. Health savings account. You put your money into it, you get a deduction for the money you put in.
Mark J Kohler:No phase out.
Mat Sorensen:No phase out. Highest income. You could do it. You could be making millions a year and still do a health savings account. You can invest it, self direct it, and it comes out tax free for qualifying medical expenses anytime. Is that $3,000 I gave in that example you already spent? I'm not talking about spending more money, we're just talking about getting the deduction for the money you're already spending. That is a health savings account. We have separate podcasts entirely dedicated to that. But that is my favorite one above the line.
Mark J Kohler:I think the next one above the line for me is just the retirement account options you have. Back to the w two. You should be looking at that 401K contribution on your w two. Was it as healthy as I could have? Could I have done more because that's going to reduce your w two. If you're doing a traditional four hundred and one k, and if you're doing a Roth four hundred and one k or a Roth Ira, what? Better yet, create income you're never going to get taxed on. So it's more of a long term play, but I think we can find a balance there. And so as a w two wage earner, you could do the traditional IRA on top of your work, you could do a Roth Ira. It's called a backdoor Roth at any income level. Don't think I was talking to a financial advisor and casual conversation over Christmas. And they're like, I was like, I love the Roth. And he goes, yeah, but if you make too much money, you can't use it. I'm like, where are you getting educated on this? Everybody can do a Roth Ira, and it's not crazy strategy. So Roth IRAs, traditional iras, Roth 401K. Traditional 401K, that's all above the line and you don't have to have a small business or an alt strategy to use them. Yeah, after that, it's really just you're throwing pennies in a pond. I mean, student loan interest, educator expense.
Mat Sorensen:I mean, we still want the student loan interest. For many of you, it's $2,500 a deduction. I know it doesn't save you a lot, but $2,500 deduction. Now, the hard thing on student loan deduction is if you're single and you make 75 grand, when you start making 75 grand or more, you phase out on it. Well, I hope you went to college to get a job where you can make that over time. I mean, maybe for the first few years you're not. But, jeez, married one hundred and fifty five k. You start phasing out on this. So if you're both working, a lot of people phase out on the student interest deduction. That's the big issue. And that's where we talk about the phase out where, yeah, there's a deduction, but if you make too much money, you don't even see it.
Mark J Kohler:It's brutal.
Mat Sorensen:Write your congressman. Yeah.
Mark J Kohler:And the hard part is the people that have larger student loan debt are the ones that got more extensive education. That creates a larger net income or salary.
Mat Sorensen:Yes.
Mark J Kohler:Which means you phase out from writing off the interest on the loan you got. So it's just a vicious cycle.
Mat Sorensen:But they're still broke because they have a lot of student loans, a lot of interest that they're paying, and they don't even get $2,500.
Mark J Kohler:So I'm just going to say this in general, I really think above the line. And we're going to come to the alt strategies here in a minute that have some good above the line. But if you're just w two, no other sources of income or investments, you're looking at the HSA and using your retirement accounts. Above the line.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah. And by the way, the alt strategies that we're talking about, rental, real estate, starting a business, whether it's even a side hustle or main hustle, this is like the rocket fuel on your tax return that's really going to drive tax savings. This stuff we're talking about is like diesel. Yeah. It might make a difference, but is it really a big deal? At the end of the day, yes, it saves you taxes, but I just want to make sure, you know, there's still rocket fuel coming.
Mark J Kohler:Yeah. We got more for you now. Below the line. Below the line. AGI, this is where you do what many of you have heard of the standard deduction or itemized deduction. The standard deduction is so robust this year now in the low 20,000 range.
Mat Sorensen:For married filing, 27,700 standard deduction for married filing joint 27,000.
Mark J Kohler:So you've got to come up with some significant mortgage interest, charitable deductions, medical expenses, over seven and a half percent of your AGI and maybe salt, which is the state and local tax deduction. So you can only write off ten grand of state tax or property tax. So most people, millions of Americans are now choosing the standard deduction over itemizing, which again limits your ability to really move the needle on your tax return.
Mat Sorensen:Right. Yeah. Because you're just taking the default position. For most people that definitely are renting, they have no mortgage interest. It's really hard to hit the standard deduction, I think.
Mark J Kohler:Exceed the standard.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah, to exceed the standard deduction where you're going to actually track and itemize. Now, in some ways, this is nice for people that are lower income. They don't have to track all this. You just get the easy standard deduction. You don't need to do this. But for those of you that are higher income, you have larger mortgage interest. You're maxing out the 10,000 in state and local taxes, which can add up. I mean, you're making a couple of hundred grand a year. You're going to pay that when you look at my property taxes or versus my income taxes, depending on the state you're at. So we do want to make sure you're tracking this and have a good sense of do I need to be keeping on tabs on this or am I not even close and I'm just taking standard deduction.
Mark J Kohler:Hey, and in the studio here, I want to ask you if one of you could get on your computer there and tell me what the interest paid on a 6% mortgage would be on a $750,000 loan. So just kind of do a mortgage calculator. $750,000 loan at, let's say 6% interest rate. Okay, we'll come back to that.
Mat Sorensen:Now why did you pick 750 grand?
Mark J Kohler:Because you can only write off the mortgage interest up to a $750,000 home mortgage amount. So between salt and the number they're going to kick out here, unless you're doing a lot in charity and have a lot in medical, you're going to again default back to the standard. So this is why your options are limited in these two buckets. Now, if we get to tax credits, should I just rattle off some of the hot ones? Do you want.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah.
Mark J Kohler:Child tax credit, the dependent care credit, the earned income credit, those are all going to be when you have lower income, generally you're going to be definitely below 80 to 100 grand adjusted gross income as a married couple, even less as a single. The education tax credits phase out. Then you have the adoption credit. These are just so unique. And for our high w two wage earners, they're not going to really touch these, regrettably. And we talked about the alternative fuel tax credit on the electric vehicle. Those phase out now. And so it's just really tough again to find some options here. We got that interest figure.
Mat Sorensen:Well, what's for the year? Any interest?
Mark J Kohler:Total interest paid for the year.
Mat Sorensen:Paid for the year? Yeah.
Mark J Kohler:So what is my interest for the year on A-7-I don't want to know the payment. So you're going to look at the amortization schedule and add up the first year of interest paid. All right, so this is good.
Mat Sorensen:All right. You rattle off a few, but child tax credit, this is for kids, children twelve or younger or any dependents, people who depend on you, they could be adults where they need dependent care. It's a percent, 20% to 35% of the expenses. It's good. Phases out for high income earners, but for really people that are working and paying childcare, this is a very popular tax credit. Now the max of it is 2000. Right now. Right now there is a pending deal in Congress to increase this tax credit from 2000 to 3000. Actually if you remember during COVID they bumped it to three and then it kicked off. And so now there's a deal in Congress right now to try and fix it. And there's, of course, some other sausage being made in the factory at the same time here with this. But it's one of the deal points is to bounce this, and they're trying to do it before 2023. Returns are filed. Like right now, this is being talked about. This could be 3000 for the year.
Mark J Kohler:So I'm going to summarize where we're at now in the second part of our podcast. If you are middle income american or lower, whatever those terms are, I don't mean to be offensive there. If you're middle income or lower, you're going to have more options with these tax credits, maybe. And if you're making more than that or you're above the middle class, you might be able to do more itemizing, but the credits are going to go. So you kind of have to pick and choose what lane you might try to exploit. But that brings us to the real money, the alt strategies. That is really where the wealth is in America, too, and where so many people find financial independence. It's saving taxes and building financial wealth at the same time. It's an exciting area. We like to call that alt strategies, alt assets. And before we move, did we get a number? What was the year for a total interest paid? So about 28,000 interest on a $750,000 mortgage. Not many Americans have a $750,000 mortgage, but if they did, they could write.
Mat Sorensen:Off, and a lot of them didn't get 7% mortgages. Those are the new people getting in right now. But everybody else is back into the threes and fours.
Mark J Kohler:That's true. That's true. So it could very well be $20,000 in mortgage interest, 10,000 in salt. You're at 30, so you just barely exceeded the standard deduction. You may do something for your church or school, a charity.
Mat Sorensen:It can add up. Everybody's a little different. And this is why tax planning is so unique. It's not just an easy button, unfortunately, and we all have to go freaking do our tax return. But being smart about this and being aware about it is money in your pocket. I mean, taxes are the largest expense you're likely going to have in your life, definitely. For business owners and people that are successful making money, this is the largest expense you have. So being careful about where that money is going and making sure you're taking advantage of every deduction every credit possible is absolutely critical so that you can keep your hard earned money. All right, let's get into these alt strategies, as we've labeled them. I think one of the important points is, remember when Donald Trump's tax return got revealed? Jeff Bezos's tax return came out. Warren Buffett. And what did all of the critics say? That it was unfair that these guys were paying an effective tax rate below 10%. All of them. And Mark and I did a podcast when that came out, and it went through each one of them and said, here's why, guys. They're not taking deductions. They're not worried about above the line. Below the line, necessarily. They're not taking tax credits. They're using these alt strategies. Donald Trump is using the real estate strategy. He's a real estate investor, developer at a significant level. He's built billions of dollars of wealth. He's a real estate professional. He's using real estate tax strategies. Jeff Bezos built a business entrepreneurship, grew his wealth, which is not taxed until he sells his Amazon stock. He's got this massive wealth. And so people are like, buddy, he's worth billions, and he pays pennies in taxes on what his wealth is. Well, that's the business ownership and the wealth. That's not income. That's wealth that he's built in the business ownership. And so we can go down the list here on the different ways to do that. But that's just two easy examples of Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos.
Mark J Kohler:Yeah, and I want to throw in Peter Thiel, who built billions of dollars inside his Roth Ira. And they're like, he's not paying tax at all, let alone the tax rate is a zero.
Mat Sorensen:That's a zero. Not even pennies.
Mark J Kohler:Yeah. And everybody's like, well, he had to use a strategy only the wealthy use with high dollar tax lawyers. No, we've been teaching the strategy for 20 years on how to do what Peter Thiel did, and we have clients doing it every day with their IRA and 401 ks. All right, so if that doesn't wet your whistle, let's get a little more specific. We have podcasts on every one of these topics, but let's go through Matt, your favorite alt strategy. And you'd like to say, here's my favorite. But the reality is it kind of depends on each person's situation.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah, it does kind of depend on each person's situation. But I like the small business side hustle, because not only are we talking about opening up some opportunities for tax savings, we're talking about entrepreneurship, building wealth, creating control in your life, some degree. Being a business owner can be tough. I don't want to just make this seem like it's all rainbows and sunshine, but really business ownership is going to open up a ton of deductions and find a passion that you have an interest, that you have something that you're really good at, that you can make money and people are going to pay you for. So many side hustles turn into main hustles for people, or sometimes they can just stay that. We have lots of clients that have a full time w two job in a profession or high income earner that are just a think job that they love and they have a passion project small business on the side that makes money. But here's what it does. It opens up tax deductions. Stuff you weren't writing off now become tax deductible. The cell phone you use in your business, maybe some equipment and laptop cameras. I'm just sitting in our office here. We do a podcast, all this gear in here. Like we write this off.
Mark J Kohler:And I'm doing some math here. Matt, you're going to love this math.
Mat Sorensen:Auto, home, office, some travel education. So these items now become tax deductible expenses to you that could sometimes only have been personal, but they have some quasi beneficial use to you as well. So we're building wealth, we're creating a business and something, we're not talking about creating a business to get a tax write off. That's foolish. I'm talking about getting the best of both worlds. Create a business, something you're passionate about that can make you money. And let's get some tax planning and tax strategy at the same time.
Mark J Kohler:Okay, so if I do the math here, which is really interesting, let's say you make $200,000 and you pay 20% in taxes. I'm going to go 30. I really should do that. So be patient with me, everybody. So you made $200,000 and with state and federal 60 grand, you're going to pay 60 grand in taxes. So you net, at the end of the day, you net 140. So you're going to go home with 140 grand. That's kind of a bummer. And you're like, okay, that's my effective tax rate. I paid 40 grand on my 200,000. After all, my above the line, below the line tax credits, all that. So I paid 140. My effective tax rate was 30%. Well, let's say you go out and you're a very skilled w two wage earner that has some skills, and you're like, I'm going to do some consulting on upwork. Maybe I have a creative idea of something I could brand and sell on Etsy or Amazon or some online product. You're going to do some speaking, write a book. You could maybe just drive Uber on the weekends. And you love that. Or just something to change it up. And you're going to make an extra, say, between 2000, 3000 a month, and maybe we even keep it at two or around 20,000. So let's say you make $20,000 more just doing this little side hustle. 1500 a month. Well, again, it's maybe a passion project, something that could turn into more. But that $20,000 mysteriously is tax free. Okay, now here's why. Because with a $20,000 side hustle, you're writing off home, office, auto dining, computers, electronics, laptops, cell phones, chargers, everything at the Apple store, everything at Best Buy, all sorts of supplies and equipment, marketing, cameras, drones, equipment, all these things you couldn't write off before as a w two wage earner. Hell, you could maybe drum up 30 grand in write offs of all this stuff. Let's talk about putting kids on payroll. A second can have two. So if we could drain $30,000 off your tax return for expenses you were going to pay anyway, but now you brought in 20 to 30 grand. Your effective tax rate, that used to be 30 is now 25%. You've saved taxes because you changed the numerator. You now are making more money but paying the same amount in tax, but making more money tax free on top of that equation. That's how it works. But are you going to deploy that money on a new Range Rover or BMW lease? No, you're going to build wealth with it. And then what happens is snowballs. The next year, you're making more passive income or tax free income, and the next year after that, all of a sudden, oh, I'm Warren Buffett in a 20% or 18% tax rate while my secretary pays 25% tax rate because you get a system down.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah. And you're getting rewarded for ownership of assets. And that's the thing with real estate and business ownership in particular, is even a stock portfolio you're building that, too, is you're not paying taxes, you're building this wealth. So many people are used to. You go to work, you make money, which is how you build wealth, is for your work. You get taxed on that. Well, when we're talking about assets, we are not paying taxes until you sell those assets. And so if you continue to accumulate wealth, which is what the wealthy do, but we're doing it in these avenues, real estate, business ownership. It could be a stock portfolio, too. And we have something called the trifecta, by the way, that I just wanted to mention here, because what we're talking about is this left side of your equation of your life, of where you're making money, you're earning income. We've got the right side of your life, too, though. That is where you're building assets and wealth. You're earning money over here, we're trying to minimize the tax as much as possible. We're taking as many deductions, as many tax credits. If you got a small business, we may be using an s corporation or doing some entity tax planning, and that income then falls over here to build wealth. The taxes you pay on this right side, over here, on your assets and investments, is a fraction of what you're paying over here. When you're earning income, it is much less. And this is what you can grow. And then this, as you're building, it creates income that pays for itself, that buys more assets at a certain point, you're not working over here, right? That's the holy ground.
Mark J Kohler:No, absolutely. And if you want to save taxes as a w two wage owner, you have to embrace some of these strategies that may seem like more of a drain on your time and resources, but in the long run, they free up your time and resources. Because if you start that little side hustle, we're saving the money in the manner in which I just described, getting a lower effective tax rate. Now you're taking that extra money, and maybe you're getting out of debt initially, then you're building reserves, and then you're deploying. And when you start to deploy in real estate, now you're building tax free wealth with real estate and passive income. That's 99% of the time tax free with depreciation. Back to the Donald Trump story in 2016. And so you're starting to build this machine that's working for you when you're asleep and while you're at your day job. And yes, it's not a get rich quick scheme. That's okay. Let's put your ladder up against the right wall, start in the right direction, and it just makes such a big difference. In fact, there was, you know, Ukdorf, he's a speaker pilot, he's in the religious community as a very motivational speaker. And he would talk about 1% degree if he said if you started at the longitude of, let's say, California, and you were going to fly around the country on that latitude, so you're going to cruise around the, I'm sorry, around the world on that latitude. If you're off by 1%, when you get around back to California after flying around the world, you're going to be 500 miles off target. Just 1% now.
Mat Sorensen:And you're going to be in Tijuana.
Mark J Kohler:Where they don't want to be. But the beauty is 1% can also.
Mat Sorensen:Be.
Mark J Kohler:It could also be from a positive point of view that if you can set your trajectory just a little different by 1%, you're going to be 500 miles more in the direction where you want to be. You just can't wish yourself there. Got to do it. But it's not an overnight experience.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah, great point. Yeah. And I think tax planning, too, is something, as you're learning a lot of these tax strategies, it's something that you're going to implement every year on your return. And as you're building wealth, it's something where you, over a long period of time and think of, I hate to say it, but the people in the news, the Donald Trump's, the Jeff Bezos, they were actually paying more taxes when they were just starting out. Yes. Relative to their wealth and income now. Now they've got significant assets here and deductions and expenses that are offsetting even their really high levels of income and wealth right now. And so they're ahead of it now. And so it starts working in your favor as you keep building one of the communities.
Mark J Kohler:And over 25 years, Matt and I have gotten to see the habits and characteristics of certain communities. You talk about engineers or realtors or dentists, they all have certain ways they approach taxes and wealth building. It's fun. We have a lot of fun with it. But on this note, one that has always just consistently, I see it all the time, are firemen. How many consults have you had with firemen that are like, work? Four on, three off or ten on, ten off? All these weird schedules. But firemen by nature, they're type a. They're going to go out and kick ass when they're not at the fire station. I've met so many over the years that the minute they're off the clock and they get their rest and they're back going, they're building a small business, they're buying real estate. I've had so many firemen that are getting tax refunds and not even paying tax on their firemen income because they have so many other side hustles and real estate deals going on. But it didn't happen overnight. It's like these five or ten year old fire after they've been in the force ten years, they're just perfect examples of a well balanced plan.
Mat Sorensen:Yeah. This is my grandfather, Captain Sorensen. Yeah, he was a fireman. Oh, I didn't know my dad's dad. And he had a stamp machine business on the side. He had a siding business at one point, but for most of my childhood, he had a stamp machine business, and he owned two fourplexes.
Mark J Kohler:Really?
Mat Sorensen:Yes. And so I would actually go with them on weekends, and we would go take out the change. These were, like, actual stamp machines that you have at, like, gas stations and convenience stores where you just, like, buy a stamp. I'm aging myself here. You put in, like, a quarter and get a stamp. That's right. Yeah. This is back in the day, and so we had these.
Mark J Kohler:Do you buy a pack of cigarettes out of the vending machine, too?
Mat Sorensen:Heck, no. Not with my grandpa there. I mean, you could have if you were into that, but I have a lot of fond memories of that. But that's what he was doing. He was building wealth. He had this little business on the side he got family involved in. It was actually fun for me and my brothers to go, because we would have, like, we'd come back with all the quarters, and then we'd roll quarters, and then he'd go take them to the bank, and you'd get money. And I thought that was so cool as a kid, right? This money, it was like, $20 of quarters. You're like, wow, you're loaded.
Mark J Kohler:They're heavy. That's real money.
Mat Sorensen:Scrooge McDuck, we're going to be swimming in this one day. But that's a great example of it. And I'll say this, with his fourplexes, he never sold them. That was another thing that I recognized, and this is just a little self reflection on me. There's so many pieces of rental real estate I've had. I'm like, oh, why'd I sell that one? Why'd I sell that one? He never sold them. He kept them forever, paid off the mortgages they continued to appreciate, and was able to leave that onto his family.
Mark J Kohler:Yeah. And there's a point. I mean, Matt and I have many shows where we talk about, do you really pay off the mortgage and hold a property forever? There's the 1031 strategy and others, but the point is, they never divested of real estate.
Mat Sorensen:Yes, he never got out of it because he wanted to buy a new car or buy a new personal residence that was nicer. Like he built that asset that was a cash flowing, appreciating asset that he relied on his retirement. Right. I still remember I had to do a tenant eviction form. Crazy stories on that stuff. But these are assets that are helping on your tax planning that when you hit 60 years old, the rent you are getting on that from when you were 40 and you bought it is going to be triple when you bought it in the first place. And this is something you can really look forward to in retirement because then you have no expenses if mortgages paid off. Anyway, there's lots to talk about there.
Mark J Kohler:So in summary, we're going to say this now. Our podcast is dedicated to main street America. We love w two wage earners. We understand that it's good to be diverse and have certain assets in Wall street and available and liquid and ready to go. But these alt investment strategies will build wealth faster, give you more personal freedom and save you taxes. But you have to be dedicated with that just a small degree in the change of your trajectory. And as you do that, you're going to see your tax return blossom and it's going to be exciting. I know that sounds dorky, but it really is. When you see that tax return and you're saving money, it really is exhilarating. And so please get to our podcast, listen to prior episodes. We've got our main street tax probe network with over 500 tax right now, just now, and it's growing exponentially of tax advisors around the country trained on mining mass strategies that will help you implement these. Because if you go to your current accountant and you're not hearing what we're talking about, you've got to upgrade as well. It's time to let your brother in law go. Time to let your uncle go.
Mat Sorensen:They can still be your brother in law. They just don't need to be your accountant.
Mark J Kohler:Yes, that's right. So we're here for you. We hope that you've enjoyed this podcast. We're not going anywhere. Any final words of wisdom?
Mat Sorensen:Yeah, we'll be back. Happy tax season. This is a time of year that it's about savings. It's about savings. So be engaged with it, be active in it, and think about this from a long term perspective of building wealth. And we hope you enjoyed today's show. We'll see you again next week on the Main street business podcast.