Practical Tax with Steve Moskowitz

On this episode of Practical Tax, Congressman Jared Huffman joins us to discuss green tax initiatives and Chris Westfall joins us to discuss side husltles for businesses.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Hello and welcome again to another edition of Practical Tax with tax attorney, Steve Moskowitz. Steve, hope all is well.

Steve Moskowitz:

All is well and there is so much going on in the tax world. It just keeps us happy because we're getting back so much money for our clients. For example, this ERC program, employee retention credits where the federal government is giving away their grants, they're not loans, up to $26,000 for every employee that you have that qualified is tremendous and is helping out so many small businesses.

Chip Franklin:

We have been talking about this for four years, right? That's been going on for a while.

Steve Moskowitz:

It hasn't been that long. It may seem that long, but it hasn't. And the bottom line is that... The important part is you have to know, and there are some real differences of opinion, who qualifies and who doesn't. There are two tests. One test is a certain drop in gross revenue. That's easy. It's math, either above or below a certain number. But there's a second test called full or partial closure. And that's really a facts and circumstances test. For example, even an essential business like Safeway could only use 25% of the inside of their business, as was mandated by the state of California for all businesses from the beginning of the pandemic until 6/15/21. That may qualify them supply chain disruptions and so on. But it takes some work to figure that out and a lot of firms are ignoring that. If you don't meet the math, they say no ERC for you, that's wrong because the test is either/or.

On the other hand, the IRS is warning that there are a bunch of fraudulent firms just making stuff up and like anything else in your tax, obviously, you want to take everything to which you're legally entitled, no more and no less. You'd never want to put anything on any tax return or anything you give to the government is fraudulent, yet some companies are doing that. And there are these popup companies, they just came into existence to file ERC and then they're going to be gone when the IRS is asking questions whereas we're a law firm and we've been around for over 30 years.

Chip Franklin:

Well, all of these trails lead to Washington DC eventually, right? I mean-

Steve Moskowitz:

Yes, they do.

Chip Franklin:

... [inaudible 00:02:28]. And we're nice enough to be joined today by US representative from California, Second Congressional district since back in 2013, Congressman Jared Huffman. Congressman, good to have you here.

Jared Huffman:

Good to be with you.

Chip Franklin:

I understand-

Steve Moskowitz:

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Jared Huffman:

Thank you, Steve.

Chip Franklin:

And you're in the neighborhood just a little north of us and enjoying again, California. Whenever I hear about people saying, "Oh, we're moving to Texas." I'm like, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." I love it here, right?

Jared Huffman:

Yeah. Yeah. California is still going strong despite the detractors out there who don't wish us well.

Steve Moskowitz:

You know there are always detractors for everything.

Dr Gregg Larivee gives their insight on the cost of poor health, while Les Winston discusses the business philanthropy.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

All right, welcome to Practical Tax with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. I'm Chip Franklin and Steve, boy, I tell you, I'm excited about today's show because we cover a wide variety of areas, all which have at some heart of it, like most things, to do with the taxes we pay and what that means about our quality of life. And I mean, obviously with the extensions and the tax, even this has been a really busy time for you, this time of year. When you see people that are filing these extensions, I mean, I'm one of them. Well, what happens to people that they would file this late in the year?

Steve Moskowitz:

Oh, that's very common. And for example, we oftentimes tell clients, we advise them to file extensions because you know how I've talked about retirement accounts and how that's such a benefit? Cash flow. So what happens is you have with a lot of the accounts, you have up to the time of filing the return plus extension to set them up and fund them. So I suppose you have this situation: you're a business person, and this is a tiny little bit technical because it gets into the accounting and the tax.

You've made a big profit on your taxes, but you don't have any cash because you spent your money on inventory, which is an asset on the balance sheet. So they say, "Well, wait a minute, I've made all this money on my tax return but I don't have any cash because I reinvest it in the business," and that's sitting there in inventory. So you say, "Well all right, that gives me an extra half a year to earn," and then the money that I earn, I can put into the pension plan on or before the due date, including extension. Again, that date varies depending on the form of entity and the plan you have. But that's a good reason to do it.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah.

Steve Moskowitz:

And then you legally greatly lower your taxes with money you've earned three quarters of the way into year two, that you're deducting from year one where most things you have to write the check in year one. This is an exception, that's one of many.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. I think I've filed an extension for 20 straight years now. And it's not for any of the reasons you said, it's most-

Steve Moskowitz:

A lot of times you're waiting for documents from others.

Chip Franklin:

Right, and that happens too. All right. One of the biggest issues facing not just Americans but almost everybody in North America and in Europe, is healthcare and how it affects not only obviously businesses and individuals, but our society as a whole. Our first guest today is Dr. Gregg Larivee, I almost messed his name up, Dr. Gregg Larivee, and he's created the Integrated Medical Center in Florida and he's been treating NFL, MLB, PGA, and NBA athletes, plus people from all sorts of life for more than 20 years. And he is nice enough to take the time to join us here on Practical Tax. Doc, good to have you here. Thank you so much.

Dr. Gregg Larivee:

Thanks for having me.

Chip Franklin:

We had a great conversation before we came on about sports and I think sports is for many Americans, is an escape, but for many of these athletes, obviously it's something they can't escape as when they leave the sport later on and the injur...

Meghan Watkins of CEO Coaching International joins us this week to discuss the intricacies of managing your businesses growth and productivity.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. I'm your co-host Chip Franklin. That would be the host to my left or right there. You get it. I love talking about productivity because I know that there's a lot of different ways to measure that, right, Steve? I mean-

Steve Moskowitz:

Absolutely.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. And as a business grows, obviously they want their people to be more productive. One of the things though about coaching and training employees is, are you ready for success? I mean, a lot of people, they're worried about what's coming around the corner, of the bad thing, but sometimes successes then comes, and you find out that you're just not ready for it. Well, joining us to start this show is somebody that does this for a living. She's a CEO of Coaching International with more than two decades in building cohesive teams, and she's very passionate about this. Meghan Watkins, it's nice enough to join us. Hello, Meghan.

Meghan Watkins:

Hey, good afternoon-

Steve Moskowitz:

Hi, Meghan.

Meghan Watkins:

... [inaudible 00:01:14] Steve, nice to see you.

Steve Moskowitz:

Pleasure.

Chip Franklin:

Good. Thank you for being with us. Let's just jump right into that. I mean, because you both have a lot of experience in this. Steve has had many employees over the years. Your job has been to try to get employees to be top producers. But there's another caveat that too, you want to be happy. How is that, how do you achieve that balance, Meghan?

Meghan Watkins:

Yeah, I mean think it's really, I think that a lot over the last couple of years has really encouraged leaders to understand that really knowing their team, and taking the time to really understand what motivates their team, is really vital to the overall happiness. And for some that are looking for maybe the opportunity to work from home, that could be really something that's really important to them. And others really actually want to have the ability to work together in an office. And so what we found is typically that hybrid model is usually the most optimal, and sort of allows the ability to have a level of accountability with their team, but also give them that level of flexibility that a lot of people are really demanding at this point.

Steve Moskowitz:

That's what we have in our office. Prior to the pandemic, as a traditional law firm, everybody was under one roof. With the pandemic, we all had to go home initially for three weeks, we were told. And then when the pandemic dragged on, a lot of people got used to working from home. And a lot of clients said, "Wow, you mean I can just talk to you on the phone or your computer?" Just like we're doing now. Physically, where are you?

Meghan Watkins:

Physically, I am in Dallas, Texas right now, and I'm in my home office, but I also do have a shared workspace that I go to as well. And that really speaks, I think to, at the root of it, what we're all craving. We're all ability to have flexibility in our day to day. But we're also still humans that crave the ability to connect directly with others, and be able to interact with others face to face on occasion as well.

George Nagle is a former Global Executive Director of Marketing with responsibility for a portfolio of over $352 million. He’s joined by Personal Injury Attorney Gregg Goldfarb who discusses where injury and taxes intersect.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Well, welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. Steve, it seems that every week we have a couple guests on, and we're always trying to find a way to help viewers and listeners understand taxes. And as you've said so many times, and so well, taxes are a part of our life. As Ben Franklin once said, that and death are unavoidable. But it is unique the way that we find that they do come into our lives.

Steve Moskowitz:

It really affects every aspect of our lives, because money is so important. It affects, literally, the food you eat, the place you live, how you-

Chip Franklin:

Stress? Yeah, try not having any of it.

Steve Moskowitz:

That's when it's a real problem.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah.

Steve Moskowitz:

And taxes wants to take a big chunk of that away from you. So the amount you pay is directly going to affect not only your life, but how your family lives as well.

Chip Franklin:

Well, let's just jump into our first guest. Again, that's Steve Moskowitz. I'm Chip Franklin. This is George Nagle. He's a former global executive director of marketing. His portfolio had a responsibility of over 352 million, and he used a lot of creative innovative ways in a business to drive profit and loss. And we're always interested in profit loss, right?

Steve Moskowitz:

Absolutely.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Joining us right now is Mr. Nagle. Hi, George. Where are you right now? What part of the world?

George Nagle:

Hi. So I'm out of Lansing, Michigan, so the state capital here in the wonderful state of Michigan.

Chip Franklin:

Great state, yeah. Let's talk about this right out of the get-go, and talk a little bit about the idea of profit and loss, and how-

Steve Moskowitz:

I prefer profit.

Chip Franklin:

Right, right. Although it's nice to have losses on paper at the end of the year as well.

Steve Moskowitz:

The sweetest thing in life is a positive cash flow with a tax loss. Now you're talking my language, Chip.

Chip Franklin:

Let's talk a little bit about ... this goes back decades ... but the idea of positive thinking, and the other one too, thinking outside of the box. When you hear that phrase, I'm kind of curious from both of you ... Let me start with you, George. What does that make you think of when you think of thinking outside the box? What does that mean to you?

George Nagle:

So to me, that really means that people recognize that they may be a little stagnant and they feel a need for change. And Chip, the funny part about that is when you say that to people, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, we need to change." And then as soon as I say to them, "Great, who's going to change first?" Dead silence. And a lot of that comes down to ... When organizations are usually saying that, what they are lacking isn't necessarily a need for change; it's a need for better execution within the field that they already play in, and then they can bring in some different thinking, some breakthrough thinking, not necessarily thinking outside of their box. Because, Chip and Steve,

Rocky Lalvani joins us to discuss the ironic twist that businesses need to focus more on profits and Stephen Patterson tells us how to guide your business through a recession.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Well, welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with Tax Attorney Steve Moskowitz. I'm Chip Franklin, and this is where we talk about issues surrounding taxes, and obviously that's a wide area, and it covers everything from individuals to multinational corporations and everything in between. And also, of course, you'll find this on our Ask a Tax Attorney segments, there are spaces in between that we try to fill in the cracks on the show, and Steve does a great job, and we love having great guests. Our next guest today is someone who can talk a little bit about what we love to talk about, which is profitability. And he's taught this to business owners for years. He teaches them how to ensure how they get paid and make a profit a priority. As a certified profit first professional, he implements these profit first systems and we'll talk about that coming up in just a second. Rocky Lalvani joins us here on Practical Tax. I'm laughing because I hope I got your name right. I didn't ask you in advance. Did I get it?

Rocky Lalvani:

You did wonderful, Chip. Thank you.

Chip Franklin:

Well, that's good because I took me a while for Moskowitz, but I don't mess that up anymore.

Steve Moskowitz:

You did perfect, Chip.

Chip Franklin:

All right, so let's talk about, you said the profit answer, man. Let's kind of jump in with a question, and obviously profit comes first in business. You can't stay in business long without a profit, but there's also growing pains, hard times and salaries. How do you balance that? How do you balance the need for profit with the people and everything else that goes alongside that?

Rocky Lalvani:

We have a simple saying, profit is a habit, it's not an event. And I think too often for business owners in the back of their mind, it's always I'll be profitable when, right? I'll be profitable when I hit maybe a certain dollar amount in revenue or I'll be profitable in three years. But if they don't have a plan to get there, then I think that's a major, major problem. Yes, we have to pay our bills, we have to pay our employees, but we also have to pay ourselves. And I think this is much more of an emotional issue than it is sometimes a numbers issue because the business owner wants to pay everyone else first and they kind of leave themselves to last. And that's one of the things we're trying to say, "Hey, you as the business owner also need to get paid and you need to get paid well for your efforts. You took the risk to start the business. You put probably in more time than anyone else into your business. And yet, why are you leaving yourself to last?"

Chip Franklin:

Huh. Steve, when you get small businesses approaching you for help and consultation and tax, obviously advice, are they usually starting out or are they switching from another firm? Or did they just decide to you bring in money and grow?

Steve Moskowitz:

All over the map. People that are just in every phase that you've mentioned and then some.

Chip Franklin:

And obviously that's a great point you made because some people just love the business so much. And I think of restaurants,

Financial expert Derrick Kinney discusses 529’s and how to prepare for a child’s education and Sharon Ramage joins us to discuss how you maneuver the taxable side of divorce.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

------------------------- Episode Content ---------------------------

Chip Franklin:

Well, welcome to the Practical Tax Broadcast with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. I'm Chip Franklin. We've talked about this in the past. If you had a kid that was five or six years old, would you jump in and start saving for college right then? Is that the best-

Steve Moskowitz:

No. I would save on the day he was born. When he or she were born, I would be making the first deposit.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Let's get into that too. In fact, let's start with our first guest. Derrick Kinny is a financial expert, author of Good Money. You've seen him on Fox News, Fox Business, Bloomberg, CNBC. Right down the line, everything. He's one of the top financial experts around the country. Nice enough to join us here with Steve Moskowitz, tax attorney Steve Moskowitz, on Practical Tax. Derrick, hello.

Steve Moskowitz:

Hi.

Derrick Kinney:

Hi, Chip. Hi, Steve. Great to see you both.

Steve Moskowitz:

Great to see you too. Thanks.

Chip Franklin:

So, you probably heard what Steve said. Would you agree that as soon as you start to think about having kids, you should start that savings?

Derrick Kinney:

I agree with him completely.

Steve Moskowitz:

Yeah. Actually, Chip, I agree with that. When you start thinking about it is when you start making the deposits. Don't even wait til the birth.

Chip Franklin:

Okay. Well, let's back up a little bit, and talk about the different ways to do it and the tax implications. The 529. If I understand that correctly, a lot of states, if not every state, has an option where you can ... Well, Steve, why don't you explain it to me so I don't mess it up?

Steve Moskowitz:

You were doing just fine, Chip. You never messed anything up. Basically, this is an incentive. The government gives all kinds of incentives for people to do things, because if you don't, eventually people look to the government and say, "You pay for it." So what you have here is an opportunity for people to put money away, and you can save some taxes. Not on the deductibility, but on the income tax you would've paid on the earnings. And then what they do is, in a recent change in tax law, they got more generous. Because it's not just for college anymore. It's kindergarten on up. So this is a way that parents, grandparents, interested people can set up an account for the child, and then you take advantage of the education. And education is so important to so many people, and this is something to help pay for it. Derrick, what do you think about that?

Derrick Kinney:

Yeah. I agree. It's interesting, because you want to think strategically. You mentioned the 529 now being able to use K through 12, and you can pull out to $10,000 per year. Whether it be private school, a charter school, it gives parents more options. But what I like about it is, is people work with someone like Steve, or they work with an estate attorney, et cetera. And they recognize that, "Look, I'm going to have an estate problem. These are ways people can use to help solve that problem and be the good person in their family." In the 529, they could give $16,

On this episode, we speak with expert on salaries and discuss how small businesses can compete for employees by offering more than just money. Also, an experienced CEO and coach to Fortune 500 companies joins us and discusses guiding individuals and teams to success.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

All right, welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with Tax Attorney Steve Moskowitz. Steve, this is funny. I have a good friend of mine I do a podcast for. He's a former major leaguer and he hates the idea of everybody knowing the salaries that major leaguers make. In fact, there's one story about this kid, Lindor, who now plays for the Mets from Cleveland. And he wanted to make 340 million guaranteed, because it was a million more than another major leaguer he didn't like. And we were just talking about-

Steve Moskowitz:

Who could live on 339?

Chip Franklin:

I know. But in an office place, having salaries and talking about salaries around other people, it doesn't make for a very good, I mean, I'm sure you wouldn't want people going around and comparing salaries in the office.

Steve Moskowitz:

It's something that's very personal. And there's all different motivations and people do different things and do different work. And sometimes somebody may have a difference of opinion as to what their work is worth as opposed to a coworker, as opposed to the company. And again, we were talking about the divorce area. This is a volatile area.

Chip Franklin:

It's very volatile. Well, that brings us to our next guest. And Andi Monet, she's an expert in this area. And she's been talking about salaries and she joins us here on Practical Tax. Andi, hi. Thanks for being here.

Andi Monet:

Thank you. Happy whatever day of the week it is today, gentlemen.

Steve Moskowitz:

It's Friday.

Andi Monet:

Friday.

Chip Franklin:

It's always Friday if you have the right attitude. That's my thought. I wanted to talk to you and Steve and I wanted to can kind of go down the road of salaries as it applies to small businesses trying to recruit top employees and top administrators to come and work for them. It's kind of like I talked about with the sports. In baseball, you have the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers. And since there's no real cap, they can get the best players. So the other teams have to battle and show a different reason. What are some of the alternative things that small businesses can do to attract people when they can't match these humongous salaries?

Steve Moskowitz:

Well, first thing I would think of is, what state are you located in? Because if you're in a non-tax state, that can save you a lot of money. California, you're giving away 13.3% of your income, where if you're in Texas, or Florida, or State of Washington, or Nevada, or a number of other places, then the answer is your state income tax is in that state, zero.

Andi Monet:

And that's a really good point, because I lived in California. I was born in California, but I also lived there. But I live in Texas now. And the reason we moved, not me, but actually my ex-husband, who's my best friend, speaking of divorce, we do everything together still.

Chip Franklin:

That's definitely not the norm.

Andi Monet:

It's very unusual, but there's a whole reason for that and I value him.

How do startups navigate the integration of technology with old world business models, and how do you know when it's a good time to invest in real estate.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. Steve, as you always say, there's so many ways you can look at a subject and somehow taxes creep in there. And this is one of those cases today, I think that when we look at it, our first guest is a leader in training and business development, but it gets even more interesting. Listen to this. He was a Yale grad and a grad from Columbia Business School. He also was a closer drafted in 2008 by the Detroit Tigers, a major league baseball coach.

Anyway, interesting stuff. After baseball, he was an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense. He co-founded a thing called Block Party, which changed the way tailgating partnerships are developed in division one colleges and got a direct commission into the US Navy as a reserve intelligence officer, where he currently serves as a lieutenant. But we're talking to him today because he moved back to New York City after the pandemic and started OneRange, which is an early stage workforce development tech company. That's a big intro. And his name is Steve Gilman. He's here with us on Practical Tax. Steve, thanks for being here.

Steve Gilman:

Hey, thanks for having me. Happy Friday.

Chip Franklin:

First of all, thank you for your service.

Steve Gilman:

Indeed.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah, really indeed. It's interesting too that I wonder if any of the acumen that you've picked up in the intelligence areas of your service have paid off in business?

Steve Gilman:

Yeah, I'd hope so. But I'm finding new ways every day to translate some of the skills. Intelligence is specifically interesting within the military and civilian world, because you meet a diverse group of individuals with diverse thoughts. So a lot of what we're doing has to do with cross-functional teams, getting different ideas into different stages and then doing a lot of analysis, which plays into every day, every little piece of what I do in the business world.

Chip Franklin:

Sounds a little bit like what you do as well, Steve. I mean, obviously analysis is a big part of it.

Steve Moskowitz:

Thank you.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Well, let me ask you both this question, before we get into the details here. What is the future of work as we see it today? Let me start with you, Steve.

Steve Moskowitz:

Work has a lot of aspects to it. There's obviously the business aspect, the personal aspect. This is the personal society. That's what a lot of people don't realize and they think of work just as the business part. They don't realize how much socializing goes on. They don't realize how much it's all part of your life. And a lot of times when people retire, they find out they're so empty because all their social contacts are gone. And a lot of people, if they identify themselves through their work, they just feel empty. And a lot of times healthy people, when they retire, they start becoming ill because there's just no purpose for them anymore. So there's an awful lot to work. Plus, besides making money, there's a lot of good you can do in the world.

Chip Franklin:

Mr. Gilman, since you're both Steve,

Patent Attorney John Rizvi discusses intellectual property and how the tax code applies to the sale of ideas, plus experienced Construction analyst Shelly Armato discusses the state of construction and the ups and downs of investing in the construction industry.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Hello. Welcome again to another edition of Practical Tax with Tax Attorney, Steve Moskowitz. Steve, when you think about intellectual property ... It's funny. We were talking with an intelligence officer on one of the last shows we did, and I think about when people talk about intellectual property, it is interesting. If you were to purchase something that was intellectual property, if I wanted to purchase a copyright for somebody, does that have all of the same entanglements of a regular sale when it comes to tax and the federal and state governments?

Steve Moskowitz:

When you talk about tax and you talk about entanglements, the answer is almost always yes.

Chip Franklin:

Okay, fair enough. We'll dive into that a little bit deeper. Our next guest is known as the Patent Professor. He's an adjunct professor of patent law at Nova Southeastern Law School in Florida. He's written two books on patents and John Rizvi is nice enough to join us here for Practical Tax with Steve Moskowitz. Hello, John.

Steve Moskowitz:

Hi, John.

John Rizvi:

Yes, how are you? Pleasure to be here.

Chip Franklin:

Great! I love that you have the Patent Professor and it has a little R on there on it. I tried to find that on my computer one day. On a Mac, you got to hold six buttons down at the same time. But let me ask you, do you have to ... and I've heard this before with, I don't know, copyrights or trademarks or patents ... but when you get it done, you have to let people know that you have a patent on it, right? Or the rights to it can start to slip away. Is that accurate?

John Rizvi:

Yeah, so you have to put people on notice. So patents and trademarks are both different. Briefly, a patent protects an idea, like an invention, and trademarks protect brands. Whereas the patents, you would mark the product with US patent number and you'd have a patent number. With trademarks, and I don't know if this is going to show up well on screen, I have a cup of coffee with me-

Chip Franklin:

Starbucks. We see it.

John Rizvi:

Yep. Everyone is seeing the R with the circle around it on the logo. And I don't know-

Chip Franklin:

Gotcha.

John Rizvi:

[inaudible 00:02:28] knows what I'm talking about. For a trademark, that indicates that it's a registered trademark. Now sometimes, you'll see a TM and a TM is putting people on notice that you're seeking rights to that name, but it's not necessarily been granted yet by the trademark office. It's very important to label and put others on notice. Otherwise ... and there's a lot of advantages ... it eliminates the defense of, "I didn't know that was a trade name." For patent cases, there's a defense of innocent infringement. It doesn't get you off the hook as an infringer, but it at least makes it more difficult for a judge to award punitive damages because it makes it look like it's an accident. But if you have your registered trademark every time you have your brand ... You have it on your sign, your website, your business cards, letterhead ...

Darol Tuttle discusses the difference between estate planning and asset protection, while Fluent Financial’s Mitch Kramer ponders the FED’s Jerome Powell’s next move.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with tax attorney, Steve Moskowitz. How often do you have clients that are looking 10, 15, 20 years down the road?

Steve Moskowitz:

If they're not, part of our job is to do that because life and business isn't just about today. If you want to be successful today, you have to say, "Well, what am I going to do in 5, 10, 20 years or more? What's beyond that? What's the plan?" And that's so vitally important, and we do that in a variety of ways. For example, with a pension plan... And I use the term pension and retirement accounts interchangeably, although there's some small technical differences. But for example, when somebody walks in the door I say, "Well, look, what about your retirement?" "Well, I just started the business today." "Okay," I have a tough question to ask, "Would you prefer to, A, pay more taxes or, B, pay less taxes?" and they say, "Well, I'm going to go with B." I say, "Good move." And then I say, "Well, okay, let's plan for your retirement. You can literally pay less to the IRS by taking care of yourself with a pension plan down the road."

And why would the government be so generous? Because they're concerned about social security and paying for people, and they want people to be able to be self sufficient. Because let's face it, in our country, if people can't take care of themselves, what do they do? They go to the government and they say, "Take care of me," and the government does.

Chip Franklin:

Sometimes.

Steve Moskowitz:

Who pays for that? It comes from the people that are working and paying taxes.

Chip Franklin:

Well, let's jump in with our first guest then. Darol Tuttle is an asset protection attorney, been doing this for more than a quarter of a century. Darol, thanks for being with us today. Let me just ask you straight up, what is the biggest difference between estate planning and asset protection for you?

Darol Tuttle:

Yeah, estate planning is only about estate transfer. It really has no value proposition for the living client. They come in, they hire me, and they pay me a bunch of money. And I set up a living trust or will and then I say, "Okay, go off and die," because really, all we're doing is we're saying, we want to make it easy to retitle the assets after you're dead. Now, so the value proposition is really just peace of mind. Whereas asset protection, the way I define it, there are three threats to wealth in America today. Number one, unreimbursed medical expenses. Number two, unnecessary taxation. Number three, family and financial mismanagement. Now, some asset protection attorneys throw in protection against lawsuits and judgments, offshore trust. I don't practice in that area of law.

And so to me, asset protection has a higher value proposition because we are transferring assets, creating trusts, proving legal strategies that are authorized sometimes by the federal statutes to make those assets unavailable to creditors to include the Medicaid agency and sometimes the tax agency after the first death. Like a credit shelter trust would be an example in the state tax arena of asset protection,