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189: Protecting your Assets and Saving on Taxes with Scott Smith
Travis Chappell
Podcast

Overview

Real estate investor and asset protection attorney Scott Smith of the Real Estate Nerd Podcast talks with your host Travis Chappell about protecting your assets, saving on taxes and networking better.

Topics Discussed:

  • Scott talks about how he got into saving money on taxes.
    • You become an entrepreneur, an investor, and then taxes become important.
    • Tax strategies to structure your company and maximize tax savings.
    • Scott explains the solo 401k.
      • Your 401k contributions are limited to about $55,000 each year.
      • You can use these contributions to invest.
  • Scott’s main focus is providing value through his company and securing their retirement.
  • After some time as a litigator, Scott went back to real estate.
  • What kind of deals do you do as a real estate investor?
    • He’s personally invested in over ten different states at any given time.
  • The number one best thing about real estate investing is that there are no barriers.
  • One of the biggest limiting beliefs in real estate is that it’s too risky.
  • Scott started the Real Estate Nerds podcast was created to talk to the professionals about the industry but not the deals themselves.
  • What are your thoughts on owning the house that you live in vs. renting the house you live in?
    • It depends on your personal situation.
    • Navigating this is when it becomes really important to have a mentor.
  • You need three legs in your stool – Your attorney, your CPA, and your mentor.
  • The number one thing to recessions proof your income is to learn how to do a trade or valuable skill.
    • The second thing to do is to structure your assets into an LLC structure with anonymity.
  • Scott talks about forming up an LLC that elects for an SCorp tax treatment.
    • You then get to pay yourself as an employee and gain tax benefits.
    • You want one parent LLC that owns the other child LLC’s and it’s infinitely scalable.
  • Do you believe that what you know or who you know is more important?
    • Who you know for sure.
    • If you can know someone engaged in your same endeavors you’ll gain so much more value.
  • Why do people neglect to network?
    • Cold introducing yourself to people kind of sucks and lots of people suck to talk to.
    • You have to rethink where your reward system comes from.
    • You’re always going to get more of what you believe to exist.
    • You have to stop thinking of networking and relationship building as separate things.

The Random Round:

  • What profession other than your own do you think it would be fun to attempt?
    • Heart surgeon
  • If you could sit on a park bench with someone past or present and talk with them for an hour, who would it be and why?
    • Tony Robbins
    • He’s able to be actively engaged, train the public and serve people.
  • How do you like to consume content best?
    • Podcasts and presentations, then talking to the presenter afterward.
  • What’s one of your favorite podcasts?
    • Joe Rogan Podcast
  • Give us a glimpse of your morning routine?
    • Wake up at 4:45 am
    • Protein
    • read
    • Stretch
    • Box
    • Get to work
  • What’s your go-to pump up song?
    • Eye of the tiger
  • What is something you’re not very good at?
    • Walking slowly.
  • Where can we find you online the most?

3 Key Points:

  1. You need the right mentors to help you navigate your real estate decisions.
  2. The way you structure your business can save or lose you a ton of money in taxes.
  3. You need to change your mindset and think that everybody’s got something you can learn from.

Tweetable Quotes:

–      “One of the biggest limiting beliefs in real estate is that it’s too risky or that you need money to start. “ – Scott

– “Most of the problems we have can be solved by simple awareness.” – Scott

– “Nobody can ever perfectly time a market.” – Scott

Resources Mentioned:

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