Main Street Business

#591 Benefits of a Privacy Address

• Mark J Kohler and Mat Sorensen

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Your name and home address are everywhere — and that’s a problem! In this episode of the Main Street Business Podcast, Mark J. Kohler and Mat Sorensen break down practical, legal ways to keep your personal info off public records while still running your business and owning assets the right way. You’ll learn why manager-managed LLCs beat member-managed, how to use registered agents and privacy addresses, what PO boxes can and can’t do, and when a Wyoming holding LLC (or similar) adds a layer of anonymity.

We also cover the six states that require an in‑state street “ghost” address, the difference between privacy (camouflage) and asset protection (bulletproof vest), and real-world scenarios for landlords, investors, and anyone with growing visibility. If you’ve ever worried about tenants, stalkers, or just unwanted mail at your front door, this step-by-step playbook will help you tighten things up without breaking the bank.

Subscribe for weekly tax, legal, and business strategies. Like the episode if it helped, drop your questions in the comments, and share it with a friend who needs more privacy!

You’ll learn:

  • Why manager-managed LLCs are better for privacy than member-managed LLCs
  • How to use registered agents and privacy address services to keep your home off public records
  • When a Wyoming holding LLC (or similar) can create a layer of anonymity for property ownership
  • The six states that require an in-state street “ghost” address and how to handle them
  • The pros and cons of PO boxes, virtual mailboxes, and privacy address services
  • The difference between privacy (camouflage) and asset protection (bulletproof vest)
  • Real-world strategies landlords, investors, and business owners use to protect their address and identity

Get a comprehensive tax consultation with one of our Main Street tax lawyers that can build a tax strategy plan with an affordable consultation that will leave you speechless!! 

Here’s the link - https://kkoslawyers.com/services/comprehensive-bus-tax-consult/?utm_source=buzzsprout&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=SALT_Deduction

Speaker 1:

Privacy is becoming more and more important. I think the more and more wealth you start building, the more and more privacy becomes important to you.

Speaker 2:

We could go on and on here. I've got story after story of tenants just showing up at someone's doorstep.

Speaker 1:

You kicked my family out. You didn't pay your rent.

Speaker 2:

Think of it like a camouflage jacket with a bulletproof vest. If someone's got a strong enough telescope and they're smart enough and you've been a bad guy, they're gonna find you, and that bulletproof vest may not do the trick, but for 99% of us, there's gonna be a layer of privacy and protection that's gonna keep away a lot of problems in your life and it doesn't have to cost a lot. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Main Street Business Podcast. Excited to be here with you today. My name is Mark Kohler, here with the illustrious Matt Sorenson. We're here to talk about privacy. We want to keep your life private and maybe your asset private. We've got a lot to talk about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and your address private too in the process, so people don't know where you're at and where you reside. So let's dive into that. I want to give one example out of the gate of someone who jacked it up. This is Drake. You might know him as just Drake, but his name is the singer.

Speaker 2:

Yes, the yes, he's probably does he need to be introduced? He's not in the country genre, or I'd probably know him better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, I like how you're all country now, so like okay.

Speaker 2:

Rock and roll. Okay, is he rock and roll? You're just not Drake. Is it smooth jazz?

Speaker 1:

No, oh, okay, okay, Everyone else knows who Drake is, okay, but his real name is Aubrey Audrey. I don't know, I just know him as Drake. It is Aubrey Drake. And how do I know this? Because I looked up his LLC in California called Silence Policy LLC. What does Drake use this LLC for? Oh, this is the LLC that's on the other name, on the other end of non-disclosure agreements and agreements he has with certain women and all these lawsuits he's had. Would have probably been smart to not name your LLC silence policy LLC, and if you did, maybe don't put your name on it when you file it with the state. If you're a big celebrity, it kind of seems like a snafu and whoever lawyer did that is probably fired. Anyways, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, privacy is getting more and more important in this day and age. Identity theft Everything seems to be public. Age identity theft Everything seems to be public. The, of course, onset of internet years ago, and now we have AI. It is very difficult to be private and it almost takes a full-time job, and so we're going to talk about that today some techniques, some things you can do, some things that just you might as well just accept. It's a way of life, depending on what your situation is. But I want to set us up first for the kind of. The first conversation point is there's trying to keep your name and address private, or maybe trying to keep an asset private, like I don't want anybody to know about this investment or this property. Don't want anybody to know about this investment or this property. It could be where you live, so your name may be there, but can people find you? Or you may not want people to find what you own, and so there's two different perspectives how?

Speaker 1:

do you? Yeah, and I think another way to think about it, particularly for our business owner clients, is you might be the owner of Vandelay Industries and your name's Art Vandelay and everyone knows that you own it and your name's on the website, and you go out and say, hey, I'm Art Vandelay at Vandelay Industries, right and so, and that's cool. We're not talking about that entity Now. I might not want your personal address on that entity that's another issue. But you might have other entities that and your Art Vandelay of investment assets that you own. Maybe it's a rental property and you don't need the tenants knowing that you own this, who you are and maybe even where you live. We'll get to the address here. Secondly, so you might have multiple entities. It's not critical for all of your entities. Your address is certainly critical, but the privacy aspect of that entity and who owns it is more important for certain assets or entities than others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and some of you may have more questions as we continue and this is a great point I'll say now to have a conversation with one of our tax lawyers. They can do kind of a privacy, asset protection comprehensive consultation Literally, that's what it's called on our website. Like we do that so often where people are like, look at my structure, where are the holes? And then you can put a plan in to affect where you want to be on that continuum. And another thing I'd recommend is great research, and there's a lot of books out there.

Speaker 2:

Jj Luna was probably the forerunner of privacy, writing the book how to Be Invisible. I think it's in its third or fourth edition. We've interviewed him here on our podcast a fascinating man helping people disappear when needed. I mean, he talks about examples of judges, criminal prosecutors, where they don't need to be discovered and they're in the public limelight. And he's helped famous people and people that stock they're being stocked people that were a witness and see witness protection program with the feds is one thing. If you don't get that, you're on your own. And so I'm just going to say do your research. And the last point I want to make is there are different levels. Yeah, for some of you, you may say, well, I just don't want my address out. There's different levels, yeah you. For some of you, you may say, well, I just don't want my address out there, but everything else I don't know. If I want to go to that level, I'm not sure. Do I want an alien?

Speaker 1:

having an alias is not illegal, and you're not trying to hide from the irs either, you know yeah, and there's definitely different levels of this and it's going to depend on the state you're operating into, on how much, what extent you want to go here, how big of assets you have, what is your privacy risks, and then it's all tailored. That's the thing. That's tricky is there's not like, oh, just do this and you'll be private. There's no easy button. There's no easy button. I mean, you know it's giving lawyers jobs, let's, you know.

Speaker 1:

But these are serious issues, you know, and we get the value of your privacy. And so there's some ways we want to go through it here on some ideas that we can help you with your entities as you're setting them up or as you want to make changes to this and be a little more private. And you're going to see the different levels, to the extent you want to go, because there's some services and costs you might incur to get this. But there's also some weaknesses we want to identify of some things that we think people do that don't work.

Speaker 2:

I like that and I'm going to pose these two questions or issues right out of the gate and then, like I said, we're going to unpack this as much as possible for you. The first thing is think of do I want my name out there? Is this about me and my personal address as a perspective? And then are there assets that I'm trying to hide. Hiding an asset is almost easier than hiding you. That would. I think is a general point, and so keep that in mind. And there's some assets you're like I don't care if people know about this, but there's other ones that you really want to keep off a public record, off the web and this and that.

Speaker 2:

The second point and I'm going to say it another way that Matt just did is you've got to decide how far do I want to go with this? And it's going to be different for each person, and the further you go into privacy, the more expensive. It's going to be different for each person, and the further you go into privacy, the more expensive it's going to be and the more work it's going to be. And that doesn't mean it's bad. Some people they geek out on this. They're like I love being private, it's almost an addiction and they just they're going to go to the nth degree to make sure that they're off the grid. That's cool. Well, there's some costs and some headaches with that. I also think on the other consumer there's a lot of easy stuff, low hanging fruit you can just do. That's just smart. You know that. You're just not everywhere, you don't need to be everywhere, and you can be smart about it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let's dig into this. Maybe when you're setting up an entity and talk about some of the areas of there's information that's going to go on this thing to the state that's publicly available and that's going to be who owns this is one thing, or who manages it, and let's just talk about person first. We can talk about address second. So one thing out of the gate we always do manager managed LLCs. That's like table stakes guys.

Speaker 1:

Do not do member managed LLCs. Member means owner in an LLC. When you say I'm going to do a member-managed LLC and I'm the member, okay, genius, everyone knows you own it now. Yeah, but if you do manager-managed, you could be the manager, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're the member. So even if you're that's the first thing even if you're in a state where you're just doing manager managing, you're putting your name on that as the manager, which most states you're going to have to. We're going to come to some options here, um, where you could even skip that and get a little more private. Um, but let's at least do manager man.

Speaker 2:

So it's not clear who owned, yeah and some of you may already be going. Oh my gosh, I have a member managed llc. Okay, right out of gate you're frustrated. It's not hard to clean up some of these things. Sometimes in a state we can just do articles of amendment, but that also leaves a paper trail For some of you. If privacy is very important and you've got a member managed LLC, we just got to kill it. Let's come up with a new name. Let's start fresh. Sometimes you just can't polish a turd. I heard that once from a man.

Speaker 1:

That's one of my favorite sayings. What does that mean? That means start over. Okay, the history on that thing's already out there. Let's get rid of it and start fresh.

Speaker 2:

And this doesn't mean just going onto a website, click, click, click and doing it yourself again. The reason you're probably in a mess is because you didn't do it yourself the first time. So if you privacy is an issue, it is definitely not a DIY type of process. You want to get a little support here, some research and have a lawyer help you through it? Okay, so I like what you said, matt.

Speaker 2:

First, if I'm going to try to keep my name out of the public, or I don't want my name attached with this address or this asset, or I don't want my name associated with this business, that's, I'm going to say out of the gate, probably the hardest. Yeah, we can. We have a privacy address service. We'll talk about that later. We also have some good privacy address techniques, but in a lot of States there has to be a person listed as the manager or an entity. Well, that entity is going to have a trail too. So if you're going to set up an entity in another state to come be the manager of an entity in this state, people are going to go oh, I'm going to go look up that entity and there's a trail. Now you can.

Speaker 1:

There's a strategy there. There's a strategy.

Speaker 2:

But again, if you don't know some of those techniques, you might end up spending more money than you need to as well, but the person is a little more challenging.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let me give you an example. Let's say that you've probably heard oh use a Wyoming LLC. We like Wyoming. Actually, there's some truth to that. There's some overselling to it. One of the things that's nice about Wyoming is you don't have to list the name of the manager or the name of the member, so you can file that LLC, we can sign as authorized signer to get it set up as your law firm and you're good, you have this LLC. There's no public disclosure of who's the manager or who's the member. Well, that's great if you're doing business in Wyoming, or maybe this is just an investment holding asset. But let's say you're, you want to go. Let's say that you own an apartment building in Arizona and I'll even give an example of a client in Arizona that bought a property. He's a high net worth person and he bought a well-known property here in Arizona and he did not want to let people know. It's funny, he was telling me this story just a few months ago and he was. He loved this strategy because he didn't want anyone to know that he bought it. So what he did is he did a Wyoming LLC and this is what we've talked about the strategy.

Speaker 1:

For a while I've been playing with many clients and that Wyoming LLC owned the Arizona LLC. Arizona is a weird state where you must disclose the member. Even if you do managers, you have to list anyone that owns 20% or more. Well, who did he disclose as the member? Xyz Industries in Wyoming. You don't have to list who the underlying owners of that are and then who's the manager? That same Wyoming entity. And so by that he had that Arizona LLC that owned the Arizona property. But when you looked at the state at Arizona, which is typically a state where you got to list who the manager is and you got to list who the member is, well, this is Wyoming LLC that when you do go back, as Mark was talking about earlier, and a lot of people go back the next step to that other state, wyoming, is the one where they're going to get.

Speaker 2:

They're going to get like shut down, yeah, shut down, it's nothing over there and there are six states that offer well, I'm going to say six to 11 states that offer variations of this strategy Ohio and a few others, new Mexico, mexico but but again, it's such a tailored process we want to be careful saying, well, just go here, cause then if you go there and do it and it fails, we don't want to be on the hook with you here in this, in this scenario. So this is where we need you to get some support. But anyway, the point is there are options and in that situation that guy had to set up two LLCs, so it cost him more. He had to consult with a lawyer. They helped me do this. Right Now I want to throw this out to you. Let's get it on the table.

Speaker 2:

When your name is out there as the manager, there's another key name that's going to be in every entity. It's called the registered agent. The registered agent is this other person that's going to accept service if the courts or the government needs to find out or notify or get a hold of the owner of this company or some plaintiff's lawyer suing you. Yeah, someone pissed off, all right. So the registered agent is kind of that lightning rod. They're the ones that get the mail, get the whatever and then let the owner know. Now there is a lot of latitude there.

Speaker 2:

The state legislatures have recognized that there needs to be some privacy with this issue. We don't want people showing up the doorstep of your private residence if you want that protection. So registered agent is something you rarely, rarely ever want to do yourself. If you are the registered agent for your current entity and your home address is out there, immediately change that. Give us a call, mainstreetbusinessservicescom Our link's down below. We do it extremely affordable 125 bucks. We'll be your registered agent in any state in the country and we'll make sure that your personal address and your name is off of that piece. Yeah, then you can have a consult and go. Maybe I don't want my name as manager too. Let me meet with a lawyer and see what my options are there, but at least don't screw up the registered agent.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Cause, on that registered agent, not only is that the address that has to be listed, it's also the person at that address. And so a lot of people put, well, I won't put my home address there, I'll put my business address. But then you're listing yourself too, and maybe this is, you know, your investment entities and stuff. And let's go back to just the common one, the landlord thing. Right, do you really want your tenant coming to your office or your place of work or your home to serve this lawsuit on you? Do you want your kid answering the door getting that lawsuit served on your spouse? That doesn't know how important or critical this thing is. So take the registered agent seriously. It's one of those things. We are receiving these for clients. Stuff inevitably happens where you might get served something or a lawsuit, and we're, of course, communicating that to you and getting it to you quickly with our secure systems and how we get that out to you.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, and some of you may think, oh, I'll use a PO box. The PO box is not allowed for the registered agent either, so now I know it's way too expensive to.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, what's the average? Average PO box I was just looking this up for a typical suburban or big city is $50 to $100 a month. Now it can go down to as little as $20 in certain rural areas where they don't have enough mail distribution. So it's a little discounted. But the typical city, if you're living in a city or a suburban area it's $50 to $100 a month and you've got to physically go there Exactly.

Speaker 2:

You've got to pick up the damn mail how many times a week?

Speaker 1:

Talk about adding more miles and you can't even use it for registered agent, but maybe you think I'll use it for the company address which we'll talk about next.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we've kind of turned the corner. So again, a big conversation, lots of reading material out there, articles, and in a consultation you'll unpack it based on your situation. But the first issue is when you set up an entity for operational business purposes or to hold an asset you're trying to hide, you've got to ask that first question do I want my name on this? And I'll tell you generally you're going to be serving as the manager of the entity. Unless you want to pay for an extra layer to kind of hide your name as a manager. You should never do member managed, and then that's going to turn the corner. Your next decision will be registered agent, and definitely don't do that. 125 bucks a year solves that problem and you can't use a PO box either. So I'm going to say what you just brought up, and the next question they're going to ask you is what is the company address? So let me and I'm going to say it this way In every state where you set up an LLC or corporation, there's two addresses who's the registered agent and their address and what's the company's address which is typically going to be your manager.

Speaker 2:

What's the company address and the address of your manager? Company address, registered agent address. Now, as for the company address, you can use a PO Box in 44 states. 44 states will let you use a PO Box and they'll let you set up that PO box in any freaking state. So if I'm going to go out in Arizona and set up an entity, I can say, oh, my address for this company is in Nebraska and it's a PO box. Not a big deal because your registered agent has to be in Arizona. We already crossed that off the list. But the company address can be a PO box anywhere in the country for the company or the manager in 44 states.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but again the PO box might be expensive. You're just saying it could be any address, even as simple as a PO box Now, of course we're not going to use your home address, right as simple as a, as a PO box Now, of course we're not want to use your home address right.

Speaker 1:

So one thing we do what we do with a lot of clients because we just had a lot of clients asking for this and they were complaining about how much a PO box costs and they're on the road. And they're on the road or they just want to privacy. I mean, if they're not on the road, you know, they just want a simple, affordable solution. So we created a whole privacy address service where our law firm and our mainstream business services address in our Utah office. They're in the same building in this, different suites, but is is used and so no one knows it's you, that's, it's not your home address. We will receive your mail, we throw out the junk mail, we scan into a virtual mailbox that you can go in and read your mail, and so that's been very popular for a lot of our clients from a privacy standpoint, also people who are on the road, as you said. It's convenient, it's all in there, and so now most of those clients also, we are their registered agent.

Speaker 1:

I should say all typically in that privacy address it would make no sense to list us as the company address and not do the registered agent. So that's a good option If you're like all right, I don't want my address anywhere, I don't? You guys are registered agent. I don't want to receive legal notices. I'm okay having my name out as manager. Yeah, and that's a separate issue because we can still fix that, maybe with the Wyoming LLC. That's the manager of the entity. If it's a state where the manager has to be disclosed, there's a couple options there. But again that's going to be a whole other entity cost versus the $125 for a registered agent Not a lot Versus a few hundred bucks for the mail service privacy address.

Speaker 2:

Now, before we talk about the six states and we'll list them here for you that don't allow for even us to be your company address, because it has to be an address in that state and a street address. Yes, let me repeat that there are six states, irregardless of registered agent said, we want a company address for your damn company that you set up in our state with a street address.

Speaker 1:

And it's got to be in our state period. Might as well tell you now those six states California, oh, that one Shocker, there's only 40 million people there, that won't affect anyone.

Speaker 2:

Nebraska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Kentucky oh, Kentucky, come on, I know I love justified Okay, Maryland. So California, Nebraska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Maryland those six states. You've got an extra hurdle Now. You've got to have a street address and JJ Luna calls this a ghost address. So it is a street address and they're going to provide a service for you, but it's going to be an extra cost if you're not going to disclose some sort of street address. Maybe it is a business address, maybe a relationship you've set up that can service that street address. Maybe it is a business address, maybe a relationship you've set up that can serve as that business address. Now we can serve that role in California. We do have an office in California so we can play that role for those clients that need that. But you're on your own in those other five states. Regrettably, we don't have an office in Kentucky. Yeah, so probably not Kind of a separate issue, yeah, so I want to make a any thoughts on that before I make a point.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So just keep in mind, especially in those states you're going to need to be, particularly if, like, you're the real estate investor. You know what I mean. I mean you're going to have a challenge on solving for that in those States, and so that's where this service can really come in handy. And um, and what I'll say on privacy in general I just want to kind of come back to this is, um, it's just interesting the different clients I've talked to over the years.

Speaker 1:

Privacy is becoming more and more important. You know, I remember early on I had a Grammy award winning artist that I talked to. They set up 30 plus entities not Drake, but a better one, one that was better at their tax legal planning because they came to us and they were very concerned about their name and address being on this. But just even a few months ago, I remember talking to a client, somewhat of a family friend I was working with, that had like a stalker and she was very nervous about her name and address being out there. She didn't have a separate office or anything, and so we've all got these different angles in terms of privacy and why it matters to us. But I think the more and more wealth you start building, the more and more privacy becomes important to you and sometimes it's hard to see and sometimes you got to kind of foresee this and plan 10 years in advance, because if you've built all this wealth and you look back and then you're like, well, how do I stay private?

Speaker 2:

Well, you've got this trail going back, sadly, so sometimes you got to kind of plan in advance of it. I hate to say it. Yeah and I. We could go on and on. Here I've got story after story of tenants just showing up at someone's doorstep, yeah, uh my family out.

Speaker 2:

You didn't pay your rent, yeah and if you have a family with children and you're doing business, um, that fateful day could come where there's disgruntled uh, employee, vendor or tenant or someone that your address is out there everywhere. So there are again steps you can start taking to rip that out of public purview. Now I wanted to make one other major point I think and then really we've covered quite a bit here is remember there's a difference between privacy and asset protection. This is a really interesting concept but I want you to adopt. Just because you're private doesn't mean your assets are protected, because once they find you, you're exposed and then protection can be very, very important.

Speaker 2:

But if your name's everywhere, man, your protection is going to take a beating. So think of it like a camouflage jacket with a bulletproof vest. Now, if someone's got a strong enough telescope and they're smart enough and you've been a bad guy, they're going to find you and that bulletproof vest may not do the trick. But for 99% of us, if we use careful judgment, we're a good business owner, we've got strong ethics and we're out there and we put on that camouflage jacket and we do have a bulletproof vest. You know the scam artists out there, the people that have bad motives. Maybe you make a small mistake here and there. There's going to be a layer of privacy and protection that's going to keep away a lot of problems in your life and it doesn't have to cost a lot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and of course, the camouflage is the privacy. Yes, the bulletproof vest is the asset protection. I just want to make sure you picked up on the analogy there and it's not an either or we like both. Some clients are more interested in one versus the other because of their specific situation, but we think a well-tailored plan on the legal side captures both. We're addressing both. We're going through both in your situation and that's what our attorneys do at KKO Sawyers on the tax and legal side, and we got the different services If you need them at Mainstream Business Services where we can help take care of this stuff, for you be a resource so you can increase your privacy and your asset protection.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, resource, so you can increase your privacy and your asset protection. Yeah, now you want to go on pro tip, let's go next level. Start to overlay your privacy with your asset protection, with your tax, with your legacy plan. Wow, okay, now I'm bringing everything to bear. And when you're organized and you've got these proper plans in place, isn't it funny how the divine kind of says, oh, you're organized and you've got these proper plans in place. Isn't it funny how the divine kind of says, oh, you're ready to receive, things start to happen in your life. Because when you're a train wreck, things just don't click as well, you're just not as successful. But when you've got these plans in place and you're thinking ahead, it's funny how things just start to work better for you. They really do yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's the universe. Don't pass it back to me. That was great. We should just close on that. That was the, that was the like, the close, that was the, that was the hit. We're ending on that. Thanks for having us. We'll be back next time. Another amazing episode of the Main Street Business Podcast. We'll see you then.

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