Lee Phillips
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What Is A Pass Through Entity?
There is a lot of confusion about pass-through entities. I have people all the time tell me that one of the advantages of an LLC is that it is a pass-through entity. The confusion comes because people don’t separate the legal aspects of an entity with the tax aspects. The legal structure of an entity is totally independent from the tax structure of the entity.“Pass-through” is a slang tax term. It means that the profit and loss of the entity “passes through” and is taxed at the ownership level rather than the entity level. The entity itself is not a…
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How Long Does a Power of Attorney Last?
The question of how long a power of attorney lasts has two different answers–a legal one and a practical one. First, the legal answer is however long you set it up to last. If you set a date for a power of attorney to lapse, then it will last until that date. If you create a general power of attorney and set no date for which it will expire, it will last until you die or become incapacitated.You can get around the problem of having it lapse upon incapacitation by creating a durable power of attorney. The durable power of…
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The Three Ways to Control Taxes
Most of the tax planning advice that financial advisors give you really doesn’t help lower your adjusted gross income, which is what you have to lower if you are really serious about tax planning. There are basically three techniques that can be used in serious tax planning. I think it’s important for real estate investors to know how to:Postpone the TaxShift the TaxChange the Nature of the TaxPostpone the TaxYou can undoubtedly think of ways to postpone the tax. You might name retirement type plans such as 401(k)s, standard IRAs, or others. You could include 1031 exchanges. You probably didn’t…
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Ten Things You May Not Know About an LLC
A CPA friend of mine recently sent me a list about LLCs that he had sent out in a newsletter. I let him know that his source for newsletter information doesn’t understand a fundamental basic concept of LLCs–that the LLC tax structure and legal structure are totally separate from each other.Check out his list and my comments with links to additional explanations:Ten Things You May Not Know About an LLCYou probably know of several businesses whose formal names end with the acronym LLC. And you probably also know that LLC stands for limited liability company. Here are ten things you…
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In Real Estate – Anonymity is a Myth!
For some real estate investing gurus out there, anonymity is the name of the game. Some try to tell you,”No one can sue you if they don’t know who you are.” But you need to know that anonymity is a myth.In this day and age, no one is anonymous. Even if you keep yourself out of search results online for a casual browser, there are industry databases that can easily search out every property you have ever been associated with, whether your name was on the official title or not.Land trusts are very popular these days. The gurus claim that…
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Due-On-Sale Clause
Way back around 1980 when interest rates were climbing, mortgage companies wanted to make sure they got in on the action instead of being tied into 30-year mortgages at the lower, previous rates. Wouldn’t it be nicer for them if they could ensure that if any property was transferred, any remaining debt would have to be refinanced at the current higher rate?Thus was born the due-on-sale clause. The Garn-St. Germain Act of 1982 made the enforceability of the due on sale clause a federal issue. Lenders do not have to include a due-on-sale clause, but nearly all do. The lender has the…
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REI Investors – Hear About Latest IRS Scam?
I was called personally by the “IRS” several weeks ago. The IRS folks left a message for me saying that the IRS was putting a lien on my property and issuing an arrest warrant for me, because I owed back taxes that had never been resolved. I was to immediately call and talk to an agent. I noted that the phone code read Washington DC.Fast forward three weeks. The sheriff is outside now with the warrant, and I am going to jail. NO NO NO. It’s all a SCAM.This is serious though. In the last two days we have had three…
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Investors When Asked To Co-sign A Loan – Don’t!
When you co-sign a loan for someone, you are taking on risk on with no return. When lenders refuse to give a loan to someone it is because they are too much of a risk. Consider the following about co-signing or guaranteeing a loan for someone else:The lender does not have to go after the person you are co-signing for first if there is a default on the loan. Lenders actually often go after you first because they know you are more likely to have the means to pay off the loan. There is no legal obligation to go after…
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LLC Operating Agreement Template – Is Bigger Better?
An LLC operating agreement template lets you write your own LLC operating agreement. The operating agreement is a fundamental part of your company’s legal protection, yet many small businesses don’t have one. If they do have one, it is often only a 5-page token effort. What difference does that make? Articles of organization are not meant to just hang in the file cabinet. They need to be maintained and followed in the operation of the company to ensure that they work to protect both your company and personal assets from a lawsuit on either side. It is because of this…
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Save Tax And Use Savings To Invest
How do I save tax? Each quarter and year as taxes come due, do you feel that you paid more in taxes than you were expecting to and that you may have made some of the common tax mistakes that could have saved you money?Taxes really are one of the biggest obstacles that prevent people from accumulating wealth and generating cash flow. Each year, people round up their tax documents and haul them to the tax preparer, then become frustrated when their tax preparer tells them the bad news of how much they owe. In the back of their minds…
