How to Incorporate Your Business

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Michael Wedaa – Augmentus Business Solutions

Visit Michael at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-wedaa-1765693/

Podcast Overview:

[00:02:08] LLC is versatile and flexible, great starting point.
[00:04:05] C corporations face double taxation, avoidable.
[00:08:46] Contradictory professional advice inspires DIY expertise.
[00:12:58] Missed thousands by not understanding tax rules.
[00:16:15] Criteria for choosing a creative tax accountant.
[00:20:56] Legal and tax advantages vary by state.
[00:24:36] Remote hiring hindered by California payroll laws.
[00:28:30] Expanding yoga Pilates studio faced challenges.
[00:30:43] Started a corporation to house income streams.
[00:33:53] Entrepreneur shut down a Texan restaurant. Partnered and consults for other eateries.
[00:39:49] Vending business requires home run locations.
[00:42:17] “Create contract with duties to avoid misunderstandings.”
[00:45:07] Tax savings and asset protection tactics for entrepreneurs.
[00:48:40] Legal tips for avoiding IRS audits.
[00:52:15] Tips on travel saving and corporation secrets.
[00:54:08] Business podcast with guest Michael Wedaa.

Business Podcast Transcription:

James [00:00:02]:

You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We’re locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie. If you’re listening for the or looking for the downloadable podcast episodes, you can go to drawincustomers.com and click on that fancy little podcast link. My name is James Ketaman and Authentic Business Adventures is welcoming slash preparing to learn from Michael Weta, the incorporation specialist of Augmentus business solutions, author of Corporation and LLC Secrets, which he’s gonna share more here today, teacher at UCLA on corporations and LLCs, and speaker at business events across the nation. So needless to say, we have an expert in the room here with Corporations and LLCs. So Michael, how are you doing today?

Michael Wedaa [00:00:50]:

I’m doing very well, James. I’m glad to be here. So yeah, thanks for being on the show. It is so interesting. It’s very timely

James [00:00:57]:

that this is going on because I was just at an event 2 days ago, and somebody was giving some advice, I’ll use advice air quotes, about LLC. And they’re like, nah. And I was like, oh, I don’t know if that’s correct. So how about we just start, so people that may or may not know, business owners, entrepreneurs, people that are looking to become 1 of the 2, can you just let us know what is an LLC to start?

Michael Wedaa [00:01:25]:

Sure, it stands for Limited Liability Company. And the best way to describe it in a short way is that it’s kind of a looser form of a corporation. So it does provide some tax advantages and it does provide some asset protections. It just doesn’t have as much legal precedence as a corporation because corporations have been around for hundreds of years and the LLC has only been around since the 70s.

Michael Wedaa [00:01:48]:

Oh, they’re fairly new. I mean, relatively new. Yeah, they’re very new entities. All right. Interesting. So, just consider it as a less formal version of a corporation. There’s not as much paperwork to upkeep and

James [00:01:58]:

it’s a little bit weaker, but not significant enough to avoid. All right. And tell us about the goal that someone would be trying to achieve by starting or creating an LLC.

Michael Wedaa [00:02:08]:

Sure. So, an LLC basically is a good entity because it’s the most versatile. So, for someone who’s getting started, a lot of questions are, hey, what’s the difference between S-corp, a C-corp, an LLC, which one’s right for me? And an LLC is a good starting point because it gives you the most flexibility. So you can start off with an LLC. And once you start making a little bit more money, you can tell the IRS to tax your LLC as an S-corp. So you’ll get some of the tax benefits of an S-corp without having to shut down the LLC and form a new entity. That costs a lot of money to do in some cases. And you can also have your LLC taxed as a C-corp once you get to a certain point. So a good path to follow in general. Yeah. A good path to follow in general, and it depends on your situation. So, this is like a lot of past clients, but it doesn’t fit for everybody, is to start with an LLC. And when you start making a chunk of money, have it switched to an S-corp, have it taxed as an S-corp. And then when you get up close to the $200, 000 profit range, switch to a C-corp so you can take advantage of that flat tax. Interesting. Tell me about the flat tax, because I’ve done the steps LLC to S-corp.

James [00:03:14]:

No problem, super easy, Accountants work their magic. Yes. But I guess I didn’t even know that moving to a C-corp was an option.

Michael Wedaa [00:03:21]:

Yes, absolutely it is. So what happens is you could just file a piece of paper with the IRS that tells them to tax your LLC as a C-corp. And right currently the flat tax of 21% is what C-corps get taxed at. All right. And the reason that’s good to switch once you hit about $200, 000 is the S-corp and the LLC are taxed at the personal income tax rate, which goes all the way up to 38%. And so, when you start hitting that 21% tax bracket, that’s about the time that you want to switch over to the C-Corp. So you can save money. You can save about 17%

James [00:03:55]:

on income tax. Does that move into the double taxation that some people have to deal with the corporations have to deal with? So with C corporations

Michael Wedaa [00:04:05]:

have double taxation as corporations do not. And for those listening, just a quick run on that is that if you have 100, 000 in profit in your C corporation, you’re going to get taxed at the corporate level. And then you pay it out as a dividend to the personal side and you get taxed again on the income side on the personal side. But a lot of people tell you avoid C-course for that reason, but there’s so many legal tricks that you can use to make sure that you don’t get legally, or that you don’t get taxed twice. A couple of them, yeah, a couple of them offhand is pay yourself a paycheck. That means you’re only getting taxed once. You’re also allowed to leave a reasonable amount of money in the corporation without paying it out as dividends because you need to reserve it for future use. So, if I made $2 million this year, leaving $2 million in the corporation wouldn’t fly. Right? Right. Sure. But if I left $500, 000 in there because there were some major purchases coming up, As long as I can justify, then it only gets taxed once. So, there’s many, many ways that you can avoid double taxation. All right. That’s an issue that we had even this past tax year. Since pandemic, you’ve been stocking money away just for that, what the hell just happened kind of moment.

James [00:05:18]:

Yes. And but you still get taxed on that like thanks for saving money you’re a responsible adult. We’re going to take a chunk of that because we’re the government kind of thing. Yes. Yeah. You get roads and schools but we’re going to take a good handsome percentage of that. Yeah, it felt like 1 of those like, I feel like I would have been better if I just would have spent this recklessly. The business. You essentially get a discount on whatever it is you’re buying because you’re not getting taxed on it because it’s an expense kind of thing.

Michael Wedaa [00:05:51]:

Very true. So it feels like I’m getting punished for being a grown up here. Yeah, that’s kind of what it is sometimes. That’s what it feels like. So

James [00:06:00]:

Anyways, when you are talking to, let’s say the person, I don’t, this particular individual was talking about someone that was, had their own business doing marketing. So they’re essentially a solopreneur kind of thing and not necessarily looking at the time to grow with employees and all that jazz. So is the idea there, this person specifically suggested

Michael Wedaa [00:06:25]:

forget an LLC, you don’t need it, it’s a waste of time and money. And I don’t know what your thoughts are on that. So it can be a waste of time and money for those who aren’t making enough money yet. Let’s say they just started and they’re working, let’s say someone’s working a job and they have a side hustle and they’re bringing in maybe 2000 a year. If you form an LLC at that point, it’s going to be a wash as far as the annual fees you got to pay. You also have to pay an accountant to file the taxes for it. And you’re not going to have a lot of money left over. But I tell people, once you get above 5, 000 or typically even better, once you get close to the 10, 000 point, it starts to make sense for someone to form an LLC. So the person who said that wasn’t wrong, it sounds like they kind of made a blanket statement that almost anyone Very broad. Doesn’t need it. Very broad. And I would disagree with that because if you’re a marketer and you get sued, then your personal assets can come up under,

James [00:07:18]:

they can be vulnerable to a lawsuit. So, absolutely, it makes sense for a solopreneur to have a corporation or an LLC of some sort. Yeah. It’s interesting those dollar amounts that you mentioned, because those, I guess, $5, 000, $10, 000, That’s side hustle, which I get it, whatever. If you’ve got a lemonade stand, you’re not starting a corporation. But if it’s your actual job, or your business that you own that’s going to pay your bills, I would hope to God that you’re making more than $10, 000. Yeah, right. If you want to live in anything better than a cardboard box.

Michael Wedaa [00:07:48]:

But see, that’s the thing is most most entrepreneurs start out, you know, they have a job and they’re working a business on the side. All right, you jump ship and just dive right in. I’ve seen it happen. And people Yeah, that’s what I did. Yeah. And some of us were lucky when we did that, but most people are trying to get their feet wet and make sure it’s built up to a certain point before they quit their job. And even in that point, it’s necessary to form an entity. Again, if you’re making a couple grand, there’s usually not enough liability there. It just doesn’t make sense. You don’t want to be in the negative just maintaining the LLC. That’s why it makes sense to have some decent income coming in.

James [00:08:28]:

Interesting. Tell me, How did you end up in this realm of being the guru for LLCs and corporations?

Michael Wedaa [00:08:35]:

Because I can’t imagine you’re just laying there in elementary school, second grade thinking, what do you want to be when you grow up? Like, I want to be the LLC guy. Yeah, right. Totally by accident.

Michael Wedaa [00:08:46]:

You’ve probably experienced this. If you ask, you know, 10 different CPAs the same question, you’re going to get a hundred different answers. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you go to the attorneys, you know, you’re going to get a different perspective with different answers there. So it was so nebulous for me. I’m a serial entrepreneur. I opened up my first business when I was 19. And yeah, I was really young. And what happened is I just started asking all these questions. And so many answers were contradictory that I decided to learn it for myself. So I didn’t become an expert at that point, but I learned enough to be able to get my own answers for my own businesses. And then friends started coming to me. So I started helping them form their corporations or their LLCs. Then I started referring people I didn’t know. I’m like, well, I’m gonna start charging. And then it became something that it kind of had a knack for. I would be working with CPAs and they go, well, you can’t do that. And I would come up with ways, well, how can we do that? How can we legally write this off? And I would start researching and I’d offer a plan up to a CPA and they go, oh yeah, I guess if you do it that way, that’s legal. Okay, that works. So I kind of just, you know, over time became better and better at it until people kept telling me, you need to write a book, you need to write a book. And so that’s where this thing was born. Nice.

Michael Wedaa [00:09:56]:

All right. How long ago did you publish that? That was last October. So October of

Michael Wedaa [00:10:02]:

2022.

James [00:10:03]:

All right. Oh, so really recently.

Michael Wedaa [00:10:05]:

Yeah. It took a couple of years to write because there’s a lot of legal and tax information, a lot of research and pulling up client cases that were relevant to someone who’s looking into this.

James [00:10:15]:

Oh, interesting.

Michael Wedaa [00:10:16]:

Yeah. Yeah. So, it does a good job of breaking down. There’s 2 sections of the book. 1 is for beginners, people that have little or no knowledge of corporations and LLCs. And the last part is advanced for someone who maybe has several of them or they’ve been operating 1 for several years. It has some really advanced and some never heard of before strategies to save money on taxes. All right. Everything in there is 100% legal.

James [00:10:41]:

That saving money on taxes is always a good thing. Yes, it is. You know, it’s interesting. I was just, oh my gosh, Rocky, I can’t think of his last name. I just interviewed him not too long ago on the same podcast. He was talking about what was the quote that he used? Uh, your accountant doesn’t want you to make money. And he said it essentially because the accountant doesn’t want to give you a big tax bill because then you think the accountant’s a jerk. And it was just 1 of those like, huh, totally true, but I never thought about it that way. I’ve always been going to accountants like, help me, help me, help me, instead of realizing where it’s coming from, from their perspective. And I always went to them as help me, help me, help me, because I’m paying them to help me. At least I thought so. It’s interesting how that was not necessarily the case or has not necessarily been the case. Yeah.

Michael Wedaa [00:11:36]:

No. And they’re all, I mean, that’s their job. And accountants, they are, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them tend to be narrow-minded and a lot of them tell you no to a lot of things. And it’s because their job is to be conservative and keep you away from an audit, so I get what they’re doing. But not all CPAs are, you know, kind of created the same. And I always work with guys, I have a couple on my team that I let my clients use exclusively. They are entrepreneurs themselves. So they’re not just a CPA that doesn’t get the struggle and they don’t know what’s going on and they don’t have the creative mind. You know, they are still CPAs. So there’s a little bit of that aspect that comes with the personality type, but they are entrepreneurs and they get what’s going on. And so they think of it more with a holistic view as opposed to that narrow focus that most CPAs have. All right. Yeah, I feel like this was just

James [00:12:26]:

filling in the blank with whatever I gave them.

Michael Wedaa [00:12:29]:

Yeah, well, and you know what, here’s the thing. A lot of people use old Joe that has been doing their personal taxes since their first job when they were 15. And Joe might be great at personal tax returns, but he doesn’t know the ins and outs of corporate and LLC tax returns, doesn’t know all of the write-offs, doesn’t know all the tips and tricks. So that’s why it’s good to get someone who specializes with entrepreneurs. And if you’re a solopreneur, work with someone who specializes kind of in that area or at least has a client base in that area. So, they know what advantages you can take as far as write-offs.

James [00:12:58]:

Yeah. It’s amazing the opportunities. Like every time I talk with someone like you, it was like XYZ thing. And I was thinking, even I’ll give you an example. The mileage deduction versus the expense deduction on vehicles and stuff like that. The rules of the game that I was told initially by an accountant that I had years ago. I started my first business in 2006. That specific business was printer repair. So I was driving all over the place. So we had tons of miles and we figured out the rules of the game that we’re told by that particular accountant, how we can do our best, right? We ended up writing off mileage versus expenses for the vehicle. I talked to this new accountant and he’s like, wait, there’s this other thing. And I’m like, employee owned vehicle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I could have done that in 2006. Like we’re talking thousands of dollars. Yes. Yes. That’s the government got to keep because they kind of make the rules of the game a little bit more difficult for Joe Schmo to know. That’s right. And I feel like I’ve been lied to man. Yeah, right.

Michael Wedaa [00:14:07]:

Right. There’s so many options with vehicles. And a lot of CPAs don’t share that with you. But you can sell your vehicle to the to the corporation. You can lease that’s my my favorite 1 is leasing the vehicle to the corporation. Then you can still insure

Michael Wedaa [00:14:21]:

the vehicle under your personal self, and it’s cheaper than insuring it under a business. So- Mind blown again! Right?

Michael Wedaa [00:14:30]:

Yeah, There’s a lot of different ways to do the vehicle, the mileage deduction, selling it, leasing it. And I lease my car to my corporation because I can work on the gas, the car washes, the maintenance, pretty much every cost related to it. If it’s paid off, I just pay myself a payment every month. And because that’s passive income, you don’t get taxed the 15.3% FICA tax that you would earn income. So, you’re saving right off the bat right there. So, really interesting to transfer that. My book is mostly about how to legally transfer as many personal expenses over to the corporation.

James [00:15:05]:

All right. That’s genius. I think, I guess from the people that I’ve talked to, the business owners that I’ve talked to, the way that they treat taxes is more or less just, I have my accountant take care of it. And I’m like, that’s cool, that’s great. How do you know your accountant’s doing a good job? And it’s 1 of those just like, I just trust. I just trust.

Michael Wedaa [00:15:27]:

And I feel like that- You know more than we do. Right, But that’s a very expensive trust. The CPA knows more than I do, you know, in many cases, you know. Right.

James [00:15:35]:

So we trust them. So I guess in that in that regard, since that’s their game. Yes. It’s 1 of those like like you said,

Michael Wedaa [00:15:43]:

is that their is that their nature is their niche, the W2 person. Yes, that’s right. That’s important to know, because people think that all CPAs know all aspects of taxes and they do not. Yeah, interesting. So it’s the same thing. You don’t go to a heart doctor for a kidney problem. You know, it doesn’t, or a podiatrist for an ear, nose and throat problem. You know what I mean? So there’s specialists in taxes as well.

James [00:16:08]:

Are there some things to look for or questions to ask an accountant to figure out? Like, hey,

Michael Wedaa [00:16:15]:

you’re not my guy or hey, you’re totally my guy. Yeah. And so there’s a couple of things. 1 is I would say, hey, what percentage of your returns are business versus personal? All right. Remember, because if someone’s like, hey, 90% of my business is W-2 income, that’s not your person. Because they’re going to know very little about some of the ins and outs, but someone who’s 50% or more or 60 or 70%, you know, that’s great. Cause you gotta remember, if they’re doing their business tax returns, they’re doing the personal too. So that’s why that 50% number is okay, but make sure there’s a big chunk. You know, it doesn’t have to be half, but I prefer it to be. And also make sure you click. I want somebody who’s creative. I want someone who’s been in the trenches like I have as an entrepreneur, and they understand what we’re looking for. They know what we’re trying to accomplish. I want them to not just copy last year’s tax return. I want them to look at, hey, what can we do here? What, you know, we’ve got a new situation. How are we going to be creative about it? Interesting. Yeah. That is cool. The other thing too, is a real good accountant will tell you, most accountants are so stuck like this that they just go, Hey, no, you can’t do that. Where some will say, well, look, if you don’t want an audit at all and you want no question, you do it like this. If you want to push the envelope a little bit, you do this. If you totally want to be in the red, where if you get audited, they’ll probably say, no, you can’t write off that much. And you’re going to owe penalties and interest and they give you that option. And you can choose and there’s people who are like, I don’t want an audit. But you know, an audit is not that scary. If you can document what you’ve put down on your tax return. If you just making up numbers, but you’re not going to go to an audit. That’s what people think. You don’t go to tax jail unless you’re deliberately hiding money. If I write off too much, I’m just going to get penalties and interest on the part that I over overwrote off. People are saying, you’re the IRS, but You shouldn’t be scared of them.

James [00:18:03]:

It’s interesting. I was joking with my accountant this past season because I’m like, well, I’m paying so much in, I guess this is a guarantee not to get an audit because I don’t know if I could possibly pay in anymore. And he was like, oh, that’s funny. And I was like, no, that’s not a joke, man. I’m feeling like I’m doing something wrong by paying way too much in. Yeah, yeah. It was just a weird, he’s like, well, I guess you made money. And like, eh. I don’t know if that’s exactly, I mean, we did. But on the other side, I feel like there’s, I always feel like you’re playing a game of Monopoly. And sometimes the accountant that I’m working with currently, good guy, but it feels like he’s got the first page of the directions. And just like, what do you mean we can buy houses and get rent and all this kind of stuff? I didn’t know that. All I knew is that we run around the board and we collect 200 bucks every time. Yeah. Like I didn’t know all these other rules. So When I was relying on him to, or the past couple of accountants that I had to share those with me, I don’t necessarily know that they knew the rules. Yeah, yeah. At the time. Yep, they don’t always. So it’s interesting. On the flip side, in their defense, I was trying to think of the statistic that I found on tax code. That the tax code is so long that it would be impossible for any 1 human to read it all let alone understand it. And it changes every year.

Michael Wedaa [00:19:27]:

It changes every year and it’s hard to keep up with all those changes. So you’re right.

James [00:19:32]:

You can’t blame somebody for not knowing the entire tax code. Yeah. Tell me about the LLC thing between the different States. Cause I can tell you,

Michael Wedaa [00:19:43]:

if you’re in California per se, and then you operate in Arizona, is that what you mean?

James [00:19:48]:

Uh, no, just starting LLC in California, being in California versus starting an LLC in Arizona if you are in Arizona.

Michael Wedaa [00:19:56]:

Let’s start there. So, you know, It’s usually better to operate or set up an LLC in the state that you live in and obviously that you’re conducting business in. Because a lot of people will go somewhere like Wyoming or Nevada and try and operate a corporation there because there’s 0 corporate tax. All right. I see Delaware a lot. Delaware too, not necessarily because of the taxes, but because they have a separate corporation court, which tends to favor the business in many cases. That’s why they’re there. Yes. That’s why Delaware is 1 of the better states. It’s because they have a well-established corporate code and they have a separate court for corporations and they tend to err on the side of the business as long as the business is doing what they’re supposed to do. So, just so I understand this, because this is crazy interesting to me.

James [00:20:42]:

If I’m a business, this is a bigger business and I’m expecting sooner or later I’m going to have to go to court. That’s why I’d go to Delaware. That’s why you would incorporate in Delaware, yes. Oh, here I was thinking they had like no taxes or something like that.

Michael Wedaa [00:20:56]:

The taxes aren’t bad there, but it’s really a corporate friendly state as far as the legal side too, because corporations and LLCs aren’t just about taxes. There’s a lot of legal protections and strategies that you can use. That’s the majority of it, I would imagine, right? Because I mean, LLC is essentially pass-through as far as taxes go, right? There are some things that corporations and LLCs that you can use and write off that you can as a sole proprietorship. But yeah, there’s a couple of them. But, and you also have to pay the FICA taxes as a sole proprietorship on all of your income as well, which is that can get really expensive. Yeah, it does. It definitely does. But your question about the States, really it’s about, hey, what’s the state tax? You know, I have a client who is, I believe he’s in Georgia and he’s looking to relocate to Tennessee. And he goes, hey, I want to form a corporation in Wyoming. And I said, there’s no need to do that because, you know, the income tax in Tennessee is 0%. They don’t have income tax. So I said, you know, I’ll see it gets, it passes through to the personal level and then you’re only paying to the feds. And he was like, great. And I go, you don’t have to worry about forming in another state, Because if you form in another state, you have to qualify it as a foreign entity in the state that you’re doing business in or the state that you live in, which means you got to pay taxes there and their ongoing maintenance fees too. So you’re paying maintenance fees in 2 states at that 0, interesting. And that makes sense if you’re making a lot of money and you want to do the Delaware thing, that does make sense because you’re doing it for the legal protection. So who cares if you’re paying, you know, maintenance fees in 2 states. But if you’re just starting out and you’re, you know, every penny counts, why do that yourself? Form an entity in the state that you live in. And the only difference is, is really, you know, is there an income tax in that state or a corporate tax in that state? And the formation fees vary widely by state. Some states it’s 50 bucks to form an entity. And some States, I think it’s in Maine or Maryland, 1 of the East coast States, it’s $500

James [00:22:50]:

to 4. 0, wow.

Michael Wedaa [00:22:52]:

Yeah. And then you got to pay the maintenance fees. In California, you pay an $800 minimum tax, whether you made money or not. So you’re paying $800 a year, plus the $25 filing fee for the annual report. So even if you’re sitting there dormant, you’re paying 825 bucks a year. Holy cow. Then you got to pay for the tax return. So some like, I think Wyoming is only $60 a year to maintain. That’s easy. That’s nothing. In California, very expensive. You want to make sure you’re making some money here if you’re going to open up an entity.

James [00:23:22]:

I’m trying to think. I’m in Wisconsin. We pay, I think it’s $150 to start it and then

Michael Wedaa [00:23:29]:

I think It’s $25 a year to maintain it. Yeah, usually it’s $25 to $100 depending upon the state. Nevada is expensive, but they offset their 0 corporate tax. So, it costs about $800 or $900 for all the annual reports and things in Nevada. It takes 0 tax over there. So, there’s a trade-off. So, that’s not a problem. Yeah.

James [00:23:50]:

Interesting. California is interesting. Because we used to have a payroll company that we used for payroll and we brought that in-house. We have employees all over the country. And I was told by this company that their sole job is payroll for companies. That’s their business. And they’re like, don’t hire anyone in California. We won’t take care of them.

Michael Wedaa [00:24:14]:

Nice. Cause yeah, the laws.

James [00:24:17]:

Yeah. You guys are a payroll company. Like this is all you do. Yeah, they’re like, we won’t touch California. It’s a huge pain. We just say no.

Michael Wedaa [00:24:27]:

There’s so many laws and there’s so many potential pitfalls. I do not blame them for that. Yeah, it’s interesting. That was the first time I had heard of that because we ended up

James [00:24:36]:

getting people from all over the country during the pandemic when work from home started to become a really big thing. And I just think, you know, you find somebody working from home, whatever, who cares where they are? Apparently you gotta care where they are. Yes, that’s right. Yeah, don’t hire in California. Yeah, so I felt bad because I offered a woman a job and I found out after the fact, the payroll company comes to me and they’re like, hey, funny story, we can’t take care of payroll for this person and it was 1 of those like that what your payroll company yeah but California’s weird yeah and they told me just the beginning of how much it would cost and I’m like, no, okay, she’s not that cool. Yeah, yeah. We’ll just move on. So yeah, not, I didn’t feel the greatest telling that person that, hey, we can’t hire you because of where you live. Like she can’t hire you. Yeah, yeah. That’s horrible, but it’s true. Whatever life goes on. So how, um, tell me about the corporation difference S corporation, C corporation, LLCs between States. Are those laws more or less federal or those laws individual per state and some states are cooler,

Michael Wedaa [00:25:48]:

not so cool. Yeah, so there’s the tax side and there’s the law side. So each state is different on the tax side and it’s universal federally. And each state, the laws are mostly the same across the states. I mean, they’re pretty uniform, but there are some states, like I mentioned, that are a little bit more business-friendly than others, as far as the law goes. And there’s some that are definitely more employee-friendly, which is, we just talked about California. So, those are some of the minor differences that people will want to keep in mind when they choose where to form their entity.

James [00:26:23]:

Is that. All right. And tell me about the book. What triggered writing a book? Because I wrote a book and It’s a huge pain. It’s cool, right? You learn to write a book. It’s cool what it’s done, but not what you’re writing. Yeah, and then editing is expensive, and in the end you’re not getting rich. Yes. Or anything like that. So what was the trigger, or the, I guess, the reasoning for you

Michael Wedaa [00:26:45]:

to write your book? There’s a couple of reasons. 1, because I speak all over the country, everyone’s like, you need to put this in a book, you need to put this in a book. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. And I’d written a book on inexpensive travel before, so I was familiar with the process. But another thing that triggered it was the pandemic because I would find new customers by speaking at events around the country. Well, when events shut down, I was like, I need to come up with something that will gather clients in a different manner. And so writing the book was a good way to do it. And so It addresses some of the issues in all 50 states. And I get calls from the book. There’s some calls to action and there are some free stuff that they can come get on my website, things like that. Very cool. Yeah. So, it was a good way to kind of get new clients and have a broader reach than just the specific seminars I was speaking in. So, it was a good thing all the way around. All right.

James [00:27:38]:

So, I want to back up a step just chronologically. You said you started your first business when you were 19. Yes. Did you know about LLCs when you were 19?

Michael Wedaa [00:27:47]:

No. It took until a few years later where it started, you know, entrepreneurs beget entrepreneurs. And I was gonna hang out with friends, then we would start discussing stuff. And like, Oh, look it up. Do we need to form 1 of these? What do we need to do? Like what’s involved? And I had some friends that would just, were impetuous and they’d go form 1 and get all the stuff and they had no idea what they were doing. And I had some friends that were really well read and we just kind of discussed things and learned together. And it wasn’t something I formed until, I think My first corporation was in 2005, which was almost 5 years or more into my first business. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. My sister has

James [00:28:30]:

a yoga Pilates studio thing. She originally, I mean, for years, she rented out of her house. Just a room above the garage. She had a few clients. Every once in a while, she would have other instructors that would come and go, whatever. And eventually neighbors got a little excited because she had people coming and going, clients. And they’re like, hey, this is a quiet neighborhood. We don’t want a business here, whatever. So anyways, she decides that she’s gonna move into an office, gets this office, expands it big. I mean, she, whatever, tripled, quadrupled the business by out of necessity. Because, hey, 1, you can’t be above your garage anymore. And 2, well, now that you got a space, you can hold more than 6 people. So. Yes, that helps. Anyways, I remember talking to her and asked her about LLC and insurance and all that stuff. And she’s like, what’s that? I was like, you’ve been in business 13 years. Smart woman, savvy, super awesome, a business clients lover, all that jazz. But it’s 1 of those, I feel like people believe that when you start a business, there’s 2 things you get, a yacht and just all the knowledge in the world about how to run a business. Not how it goes. And that’s not how it goes at all. So it was interesting because I was like, oh, wait, that’s a like she didn’t know. Right. She’s just like, hey, I like to teach yoga and teach some yoga to people And then I’m going to charge him for it. And then, and I said, it’s funny, cause she’s up Northern Wisconsin, ice, snow, all that kind of stuff. And people were parking on the street, walking across the driveway, around the sidewalk, up some stairs. I’m like, oh my gosh, if 1 person would have fell. Liability City, right? Oh! Yeah. So it was interesting having that conversation with her. Just like, oh my gosh, I guess this is kind of a big deal.

Michael Wedaa [00:30:25]:

Yeah, yeah. Especially something physical. I mean, you know, Someone gets injured doing 1 of the poses and they blame it on her. That’s a serious liability there. Kink in my neck, whatever.

James [00:30:37]:

Yeah. Interesting. So, when you started your first LLC, what kind of business was it?

Michael Wedaa [00:30:43]:

So, I was doing business consulting at that time. Holy cow, back then. Yeah, yeah. And it was mostly related to corporations and LLCs. So I started it to actually house that business. And what I did is I actually had a couple of businesses at the time, And this is what a lot of people ask me. They say, hey, do I need to form a separate entity for all my businesses? And I’m like, well, it depends on how much you make. I had a couple that were just a little bit here a little bit there. So I put them all under 1 umbrella, and then just form some DBAs underneath it. Until they became big enough to where I wanted to separate it. So, if 1 got sued, it didn’t take down the whole house. So, that’s what I did. I had 1 corporation that housed a couple different streams of income and together they created like a pretty good living, but individually they weren’t enough by on their own. So, yeah, that was my first 1 in 2005 and it was mostly for the consulting business. But my first business was, I was a private tutor. I’d go to people’s houses and teach them SAT prep. Oh, wow. Yeah. I made a pretty good business out of that. Then I started hiring tutors and marking up their hourly rates and sending them out. Holy cow. That’s awesome. That was my very, very first business. All right, is that still going? No, that 1 I shut down and occasionally I have, I advertise my SAT classes on a website and my hourly rate is so high that I rarely get a person, but when I do, it’s worth my time, so I’ll go. Oh, well, there you go. So every year or 2, I might get somebody random that’ll last for a couple months, but the hourly rate makes sense. And I just don’t mess with managing the tutors anymore. That took a lot of time. Got you. I bet. It wasn’t fun. I actually enjoy teaching the classes and working with somebody. I get more benefit out of that than I do trying to send tutors someone’s way. I get it. I get it. I always joke with

James [00:32:29]:

other business owners that if I didn’t have employees, this job would be so easy.

Michael Wedaa [00:32:34]:

Yes, right.

James [00:32:36]:

Arguably fine. But in the end, they’re, they’re necessary evil. So yes, yeah, that’s right. Yeah. When you can make money off them, that’s which is the whole goal.

Michael Wedaa [00:32:46]:

Yes. I mean, you got to tolerate them and deal with them. Yeah, they get a guaranteed paycheck. But when you know, when you set up a good system, then you hopefully get to, you know, get some money in your pocket somewhat passively. Yeah, that’s the idea. So the idea.

James [00:33:00]:

So you start you so your first business that you incorporated was actually consulting about incorporating? Yes. Oh, that’s funny. Consulting and forming corporations for businesses. Oh, funny. That’s awesome. Yeah. So, was that working specifically, I imagine, with entrepreneurs or smaller businesses?

Michael Wedaa [00:33:19]:

Yes, it always was. And I was part of a few business groups where someone got to that point, they go, oh, you know, go talk to Michael, he knows that stuff. And then it was almost 100% referral. And occasionally I would get invited to speak in front of a couple of groups and I would get clients that way. All right, and that business is still going? It’s still going, yes. All right. Yeah, but I’ve been in everything. I’ve owned restaurants, I’ve had vending machines, I’ve had ATMs,

Michael Wedaa [00:33:44]:

you name it, and I’ve done it. Holy cow,

James [00:33:48]:

I wanna start with the restaurant thing. How long and how did it go?

Michael Wedaa [00:33:53]:

Restaurants are a very tough business. And, um, I had 1 in Texas that I shut down. It was right in the, the heat of the 2008 crisis. Oh, okay. Yeah, so that was a tough time. So, we shut that 1 down. I partnered with another business, another restaurant with a celebrity that we sold. They brought me in as a consultant and they gave me a percentage and we sold. And I currently am a partner of a Santa Maria style barbecue restaurant here in California. Oh, wow. Yeah, it’s called Santa Maria Barbecue and they focus more on rub than they do on sauces. So you can eat with just the rub and it has a flavor on its own. Nice. Yeah, it’s a tough business. And that 1, I have a percentage in exchange for consulting and kind of, you know, giving them, guiding them on tax and legal issues. And so, all right. And things like that. And 1 of my jobs is to go in and check for the consistency in the food. So it’s a tough job. I have to go in there and try the barbecue and tell them what I think. Oh, suffragette, right? I hate my job sometimes. Oh, that’s awesome. You’re not doing dishes or anything? I actually have. I’ve gone and taken orders sometimes or when they’re shorthanded or if there’s like a big catering event, I’ll go help out. All right. I’ve done just about everything, but the day-to-day I really don’t work with. It’s mostly when there’s a bigger issue that we need to call them for.

James [00:35:11]:

Yeah. I mean, sometimes it’s fun to get your elbows in there and just see How stuff is going.

Michael Wedaa [00:35:17]:

Yeah. I like taking orders from the customers occasionally and going in there and filling plates. Luckily, I only have to do it once every couple of months, but that’s why it’s still fun because I don’t have to do it every day. Right.

James [00:35:28]:

You’re not making your direct living off of it. That’s fair. Yeah. And how do you get into the cash machine business?

Michael Wedaa [00:35:35]:

So, we started when we were younger with vending machines. All right. And that led into the ATM. And I’ll tell you what, I wish I started there because when you have vending machines, you have a variety of all these different stuff and, oh, we want new stuff, we want healthy stuff. And then the product expires,

James [00:35:53]:

right?

Michael Wedaa [00:35:54]:

But in, and you never know, sometimes you drive to a location and it didn’t need to be stocked, right? But with ATMs, cash never goes bad. Right. It just stays in there And you can go online and check to see if you need to go. So you weren’t wasting anything. Yeah. And it was just the way it was. It was such a better business. And we started getting into that as we were kind of getting sick of the vending business. We sold off the vending business and maintain the cash machines for a while. But then, you know, Venmo started coming out and things like that. So we decided we sold early before that business started to tank really widely because it has. There’s still ATM machines in some places. But Venmo and Apple Pay and all that stuff, Cash App and Zelle have really killed the ATM business.

James [00:36:38]:

I guess it didn’t even dawn on me that ATMs are a dying breed, but I have friends that are just like, we don’t carry cash. I even had help this friend. I’m that person. All right. I was there’s a fundraiser for my kids school, whatever, like fundraiser, they went to the sub shop. And like whatever percentage from that day goes to the little PTA group, whatever. I go there and there’s another, there’s a mom there that I know, kinda, like I’m sure she has a kid in my kid’s class, whatever. So we’re just chatting. Anyways, the sandwich shop, their credit card machine went down. So this lady’s got this order for her family and all she’s got are credit cards. So I ended up, I just gave her some cash to pay for it. And it was funny, nobody had cash. Even the kid counting change was like, come on, I don’t even know what to do.

Michael Wedaa [00:37:30]:

And I’ve never, it’s just been 1 of those things like you always carry cash cause you never know where you’re going to be. You know what’s funny is I carry a bunch of ones for tipping a valet or something like that. Some ones and fives for places where you can only tip in cash. So That’s the reason I carry cash. I don’t need a 100% credit card because I’m 1 of those people who really takes advantage of the points and the rewards and I have a different credit card for each thing. I’m on top of that stuff, especially for my business purchases and things. So I never carry cash.

James [00:38:00]:

I buy and sell cars and motorcycles and stuff like that where you got to talk in cash. Yeah. No, in that case, it makes sense because it’s very specific, right? I’ll find a deal online. You’re moving today. Within the next hour, you got to go there. Yeah. And that’s different. Of course, you need to deal with that case, but my line of business, I don’t deal with it very often. Yeah, so I guess I would have never, if I had a bunch of ATM machines, I’d probably think, why is nobody going to these? Don’t people buy stuff anymore?

Michael Wedaa [00:38:28]:

Oh God, it was such a great business though. I mean, ATM fees, you know, 5 bucks a transaction. It was, it was great, you know, really good business, but not so much now. Interesting.

James [00:38:38]:

And the, you know, it’s interesting. I get a, a little brother, big brothers, big sisters, he’s in jail. So I get to go visit him every month or so, something like that. And they have all these vending machines and they only fill them once a month. Ah. And it’s so interesting. No, I’m sorry, not once a month, once a week. Yes. And it’s on, I think Saturdays when they fill them up. So I go and see them on Friday and you don’t know what’s gonna be left. And it’s so funny, you can only go in there with 20 bucks, 20 bucks and change. And between 2 people, that’s like you’re spending that entire $20 on those vending machines. Yeah, I can imagine. A sandwich, a soda, well, I guess that alone. You spend it. Yeah, yeah. And it’s so interesting, because I’m like, you guys are making money hand over fist at this place. Yeah. I’d make sure it was stocked, but it’s prison, they don’t care.

Michael Wedaa [00:39:32]:

Yeah, yeah, right.

James [00:39:34]:

So that’s so interesting. The vending machine thing, I guess it even dawned on me where food can go bad. Yes. That Twinkies been sitting there for who knows how long. Yeah, and it’s very competitive because another vendor will come in and say, oh, I will undercut their prices.

Michael Wedaa [00:39:49]:

And $40, 000 worth of vending machines at their location that you’re still making payments on. And if you lose a location, now they’re sitting in a warehouse, not generating any income and you’re blown up. So, it’s not as easy as people think where you set it in there and you’re making money hand over fist. There are a couple of home run locations that really make it worth it. But if you lose those locations, it’s tough. Interesting. Cool. And then did you end up selling that, the vending machine? We did. Yeah, we bought a route. I think we got our own location and we spent money on a machine, a couple grand on a machine, got a location. And then we bought an existing route for, I think, 40 grand or something like that. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we, then we built it up and sold it from there. All right. For acquiring locations and buying machines. Yeah. It built it up to close to, I want to say it was close to half a million, somewhere in that range, and we sold it off in pieces. Oh, that’s cool. Locations, because we were in Los Angeles, we were in Orange County, which is east of Los Angeles. Yeah. We just sell it off in different regions. So, it was bite-sized pieces that someone could afford. Nice.

James [00:40:54]:

So, when you go about selling the business, how do you go about doing that?

Michael Wedaa [00:40:59]:

So, in that case, we hired a broker because the guy, we worked with the same guy that we purchased the first 1 through and he was a really good guy. And so, he specialized in vending businesses. So, he would pack his own and sell them. And so, we would work through him and pay him a percentage and it worked really well. All right. Boy, that’s a niche. Holy cow. It really is. Yeah. It really is.

James [00:41:21]:

Interesting. And then when you buy the business or buy businesses,

Michael Wedaa [00:41:25]:

are you going to brokers or how are you finding businesses to buy? There are 2 ways. People will advertise them on Craigslist or in other areas because they don’t want to pay a broker. And then brokers will also advertise in the same areas. So it depends on the type of business. You know, if I’m looking, if I’m looking for a particular type of business, like if you’re trying to buy a restaurant or a bar or something, typically those are going to be represented by a broker in most cases. So, you almost have to go through a broker. But there’s all kinds of businesses that you can look on in different online sites that have some things available. I believe there’s a website called bizbuysell.com. It has a lot of different types of businesses. So, it depends on what kind of business you’re looking for. All right,

James [00:42:08]:

very cool. So when you, it sounds like you have partners in a lot of these things or have had partners. That’s right. Tell me how that goes.

Michael Wedaa [00:42:17]:

It goes great, it goes horribly. I’ve had partners steal from us. I’ve had partners just not hold their weight. They work, but they don’t hold their weight. And I’ve had partners perform admirably. And here’s the key, is that a lot of people, this is my number 1 advice to people who have partners. And it’s like, you know, you have to be mean up front and create a contract so that you can be friends later. Oh, right. You do not do a contract to be friendly up front and it turns everyone mean later, right? Yeah. So that’s what I say is, hey, how do you want to, you know, what percent do you think you should get? What do you want to do? What are your duties? What are mine? And even if, James, if I’m doing a business with you and we trust each other and we know we’re good guys, we might make an assumption that said, well, I thought you were going to do that. I thought you’re going to do that. And it doesn’t mean 1 of us is lazy, but that’s why it’s important to list the duties and say, is this what you thought you were going to do? Oh, I didn’t know I was going to do that. Well, how can we change that around? Do you mind switching these duties? You know, stuff like that and put as much stuff down as possible. Look up templates online so that you can be friends later. And then there’s no misunderstandings. What happens if I want to sell the business? Do you get first-rate refusal? Can I sell it to anybody? What if I want to quit and walk away? What happens then? What do I get? What do I not get? Those are things that you all want to think about before you start. Interesting. Yeah, everybody’s suddenly starting to start making money, right? Yeah. Before you start making money, because you don’t want to start making a couple hundred grand and all of a sudden say, well, I thought it was going to be like this. And then you have this beautiful business that falls apart because partners are fighting. Dang, it’s just like any band in history, right? Yeah, yeah. So get that contract going. Oh, what, you don’t trust me? It’s not that, I’m trying to show you respect and make sure that we’re on the same page. That’s what it is. Yeah, that’s fair. That’s totally fair. I had a business partner with Calls on Call when we initially started this, and it took us,

James [00:44:08]:

man, I don’t know, 5, 6 years, something like that, before we got a formal agreement. And it was so interesting going through it, because it was, I mean, I don’t know, it probably took a half hour. We met with an attorney, he had some questions, just like if 1 of you dies, what happens, right? Does the spouse get involved and all that, just stuff that we should have asked way back when. It was just like 1 of those some days. Stuff you don’t think about. You don’t

Michael Wedaa [00:44:31]:

think about your partner dying when you’re in a business. No, not intentionally.

James [00:44:35]:

You know, it’s not something you think about, but it could happen in a car accident. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Yeah, it was funny because we had a trade show coming up shortly after that. And we’re like, we have to take separate cars. We don’t want the business to fold because of an accident.

Michael Wedaa [00:44:51]:

All right.

James [00:44:52]:

Well, life goes on. All good. Tell me about, I’m going to talk about the book itself. When people get this book, what is the kind of information that they’re going to find in there? So, the first half is a little more basic. So, it’s going to tell them about how the asset protection

Michael Wedaa [00:45:07]:

aspect works, how the tax savings work, what are some of the other benefits that people don’t think about, such as getting business credit, things like that. There’s some basic stuff in there and some advanced stuff. It’ll talk about the real differences between an S-corp, a C-corp and an LLC. And I boiled it down in a very easy to understand manner. The book is written because I’m an entrepreneur and not a tax guy or an attorney. I take all the information from them and I put it into our language because we’re entrepreneurs. And so people will read it and go, wow, I actually understand this because it’s not a bunch of jargon. Right. So that’s the first half. And the second half is all the advanced stuff, like where I’m talking about leasing the car, the benefits of doing that versus selling the car to the company. And there’s some advanced tactics. I’ll give you an example of 1. Usually when you form a corporation or an LLC, it’s to protect your personal assets if you get sued in the business. But my book has tactics on how to protect your personal assets, even if you get sued on the personal side using your business. Oh, yes. An example of that is I own my home, right? And I’ve got a mortgage on my home, but I’ve got a lot of equity. So if someone sues me on the personal side, they can put a lien on my house for the equity. But what I did was 1, I got an equity line to eat up some of that equity so that they have a lien on the house and the leftover, I borrowed money from my corporation. So I borrowed money from my corporation to put it in my personal bank account. And just like if I borrow money from a bank, what do they do, they put a lien on my house. So my corporation has a lien on my house for the equity. Oh, interesting. Soon on the personal side, There’s no equity left for them to take. Does that make sense? It does. Yes. And that I learned from an attorney in Solana Beach, and it was a really good 1. And I use that at a lot of my talks, but there’s a lot of strategies like that, that a lot of people don’t think of on creative ways you can use your corporation and LLC that most books don’t talk about. So, I’ve tried to put a more comprehensive thing together on some really creative ways and legal ways. Everything in here is legal to save money on taxes and also protect your personal assets on a different level than the normal way. The normal way.

James [00:47:19]:

Nice. Yeah. Well, that is clever. So something like that, how do you end up in a conversation where either someone’s telling you that stuff or like the story comes up? Cause I imagine somebody had to get sued at some time for the attorney to say, let’s figure out a way to prevent this from being a big deal. Yeah, and you know what? This guy, his area of law was property law, and so he was a little more well-versed in some of the

Michael Wedaa [00:47:47]:

lesser known secrets on how to protect some of the equity in it. And someone referred him to me because he also worked with businesses and corporations surrounding properties. And he shared with me that nugget where someone just said, hey, you should go meet with this guy. You guys kind of play in the same pool and you might learn something. He’s a really good guy. And I had an intern with me at the time who learned a lot from that meeting as well. I bring my interns to client meetings and with attorneys and they would learn more working directly on businesses than they did getting their MBA or their bachelor’s in business in school. But yeah, I remember even my mind was blown when the attorney told me that tactic and even the intern was like, wow, this stuff is stuff I never would have learned in school. Yeah. This is 1 of those, I wouldn’t think to go to a property attorney in regards to my business stuff.

James [00:48:35]:

Yeah. Or even, I mean, a house is a house. The mortgage is pretty straightforward.

Michael Wedaa [00:48:40]:

So, winning the dawn on me. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so, that’s it. I just picked up these tips and tricks from talking to different accountants and attorneys. And some of it was doing research myself. Sometimes I just get an idea and go, is this legal? How do I make it legal? What needs to happen in order to make it virtually bulletproof? If you get audited by the IRS, what are they going to ask for? And that’s the thing is most people don’t realize if you get an audit from the IRS, it’s not a full-blown audit. They’ll send you a letter saying, hey, show us your auto expenses or why is it this much? And you send it to them and you show all your stuff and they go, oh, okay, good. And they go away. If there’s something that they don’t like, then they’re going to come in and look deeper and it’ll become a full blown audit. But my goal in this book is to show people how to how to legally rent office space to their corporation. And if the IRS comes knocking saying how you justify this, well, look, I looked up 3 comps in my area. Here it is per square footage. I measured out the square footage here. I have a rental agreement with myself and the corporation. And Harris goes, okay, he’s done his homework, we’re gone. You know, we get rid of that number. Yeah.

James [00:49:40]:

So they don’t look into, an audit isn’t necessarily a full-blown, 100% show us every line on every document

Michael Wedaa [00:49:47]:

that you had here? Yes, if there’s something that looks funny, they’re going to say, hey, send us the documentation. And if you don’t have it, that’s when they go, okay, we’re coming in to take a peek. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. And you want to avoid that as much as possible. I mean, even if you’re telling the truth, It’s just a, it’s a time consuming process. Oh my gosh. You need to have all this stuff. So it’s like avoid it as much as you can. But if you get 1, you want to be prepared.

James [00:50:08]:

Yeah. It’s funny you say that. Cause I have employees in a lot of different States. And so I’m having to deal with payroll tax in all these states and the volume of paperwork that you get from some of these states, I feel like, do you think that I just sit around with nothing to do but look at this paperwork? All my just pages and pages and pages over 1 employee.

Michael Wedaa [00:50:31]:

Oh my God. It’s painful.

James [00:50:34]:

Painful. And you end up, I mean, like I’m going through a payroll company, and they’re taking care of all the stuff once I get them the numbers. Like the, whatever, whatever specific, they don’t call it account number because that would be too easy. They’ll have every state calls it something different, ID number, or UAI number, whatever it is. And it’s so funny, because I’ll get, there’s 1 from a state I just got, I got on my desk here, 8 pages. And all I needed was that 1 number. And I was sifting through. Yeah, looking for that bottom line. Oh my God. We want the last page. It’s somewhere in the middle. Like how much did that state pay somebody to write all this? Yeah, right? And then put it all out and mail it. Oh, yeah, And just, it’s never as 1 envelope. Yeah, right. You’re like, oh, we got another letter from that place telling us absolutely nothing, just like, reminding you. Oh, I think, oh my gosh, how much is wasted.

Michael Wedaa [00:51:27]:

Yeah, that’s right. That’s where your tax money’s going. Yeah,

James [00:51:32]:

it’s so interesting. I guess it’s interesting from a social experiment, like, huh, job creation, I guess. On the other side, I’m just like, oh my gosh, I’m paying for this. Yeah, exactly, Yes, 100% right. So anyways, we got to wrap this up, but I did want to talk really quick, Michael, about your other book on traveling.

Michael Wedaa [00:51:52]:

Yes, yeah, International Travel Secrets. Nice. That book, I have a unique style of traveling. I’ve been to over 100 countries. I have a travel addiction, and it talks about unique ways to save money. I’ll give you an example. I just booked a flight to London in September from Los Angeles, Los Angeles to London, $175.

James [00:52:14]:

What?

Michael Wedaa [00:52:15]:

And I don’t know where I’m gonna go, but once you get to- Who cares? All the flights are less than a hundred bucks. So I booked that flight just to get me there. And then I’ll figure out the rest later. But I have tips on how to save money on flights, tips on, you know, a tip that I use is if I’m going to a more dangerous country, I carry with me a fake wallet that has a bunch of like, you know, worthless cash from some places it’s worth a few cents and some expired credit cards or some other stuff I throw in there. So if someone comes up and robs me, they get away with the wallet. By the time they realize there’s nothing in there, I’m long gone. So it has all kinds of tips and tricks on saving money and making travel more convenient and things like that. So that’s that’s the second book. It’s basically when you save money on taxes from the corporation book, you spend that money on travel. That’s how that’s how I figure out the philosophy. That is perfect plan. I love that. So Michael, do you have a, well, let’s first let’s talk about your books. Where do the people find those? So the books are both on Amazon corporation and LLC secrets is on Amazon and international travel secrets is on Amazon. You can find them both there. Sweet. And then do you have a website? I do. So the website for my corporation book is Corp LLC Secrets. And there’s a lot of free tools on there for people. There’s agreements, templates for leasing your vehicle or renting office space. It talks about some of our services. We provide a half hour consultation for people who are, you know, they have a corporation and they wanna know, hey, how can I save some additional money? Or they need to form a corporation. They go, which 1 do I need? Which type? And then we also have corporation formation services. But that 1, if you go to Corp LLC Secrets, you’ll see some of those free tools. You’ll get access to some of those services. And it’s something that we’ve been doing for a number of years and we love it. We want our clients to understand why they’re forming the entity they’re forming. Not just, oh, my guy told me to do that and I don’t understand why. We want them to understand why so they can answer the question if someone asks them. Got it.

James [00:54:08]:

So that’s corpllccreds.com. Correct. Okay. Super cool. Super cool. And the books are on Amazon, of course. Yes, They are. Yep, that’s right. Awesome. This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of St. Croix. If you’re listening to this on the web, you could do us a huge favor, give it the big old thumbs up, subscribe, and of course, comment below. Let us know about some questions that you may have about corporations or travel in that regard as a business owner. That’s 1 of the best things that we get to do. I love it. Yes. My name is James Ketaman and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls on Call, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country on the web at callsoncall.com. And of course, the bold business book, a book for the entrepreneur in all of us, available wherever fine books are sold. We’d like to thank your wonderful listeners as well as our guest, Michael Wieda, the incorporation specialist at Augmentus Business Solutions. Michael, can you tell us that website 1 more time? Yeah, so the book is Corp LLC Secrets.

Michael Wedaa [00:55:13]:

Awesome. Corp LLC Secrets. Love it.

James [00:55:16]:

Yes. Perfect. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night. Podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you next week. I want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.