My Street Money Live

How much time.

Sam?

Welcome to my Street Money Live with me, Luis Barajas. And we're here every Tuesday. We're now at a new time, noon Pacific Standard Time, 03:00 Eastern Standard Time, and anytime in between there. Also know that we are taping this show and I think my son Eddie is posting it up on YouTube. We're putting clips on our social media sites. This is a show to not talk about Main street or Wall street, but to talk about topics on my street. My street is kind of where I grew up. I grew up in East Los Angeles for regular people who don't have lots of assets, who are out there doing the best that they can to make more money, to. To live a better quality of life, to use their money to help express their full potential and live their highest purpose. We want to always build what I call financial dignity in our communities. And this is to empower the Latino community. And so some people are interested in this, some people are not. That's okay if you're a Latino. If you're. We're going to be doing these in English and Spanish. I'll be bilingual. I'll actually be speaking Spanglish. And we'll answer some of the questions in English, some of the questions in Spanish. Please, please, please share this with your friends, your Spanish speaking friends. We are starting to post material and content on our website. @luisbarajas.com People can join our community for free. You'll be able to go on and enter your information and we'll be sending you information and a lot of the information that I post and that I read and I go through and questions that we'll answer, we'll be doing it through the community platform. Please send me questions@infouisbarajas.com, infouisbarajas.com we'll be answering them. I try to answer as many questions as I can on our social media sites, especially TikTok. I'm getting a lot of activity on TikTok and I try to go on as much as I can, but I also run several companies. I own an investment management firm. I also run a business management firm for Latino entertainers. And so with that and our employees, we get really busy. So I can't get to everyone all the time. But I try to go in and read some of the prior posts and try to get information as much as I possibly can to you.

What do we do is we're providing this information for free. I do have content. I do have workshops. I do have seminars. I do have coaching material. We're even starting a firm called Corazon Financial Insurance Services towards the later end of the year, in the next couple of months. And we're going to be trying to build financial insurance services with the consumer advocacy touch for Latinos in lower income areas to really build wealth. As I say that it's not about Latino spending in the United States that causes the power that we have. It's about us investing, saving, buying homes, investing in companies, starting businesses, everything. That's what empowers us. This is not a political show. Even though right now we're going through a lot of really, really complicated and difficult times. My job is not here to sit and complain. My job is not to be a victim. My job is for you not to be a victim. Our job is to always take a look at what's going on and seize opportunities if we possibly can. We don't want to live in fear. We want to live in the state of where we're responding to what's going on and not hiding from what's going on or not victimizing. My understanding right now is that there are people in America who are, I feel.

Not keeping us or Latinos here in the United States, especially here I'm in California. They're not doing what's best for us, even though we have participated and we participate heavily in the economy, keep the economy running and do a lot and give a lot to the community.

And so they feel that one way is to take the people that have been living here 20, 30, 40 years that unfortunately were not able to get documented and sending them back home. And then Latinos are saying kind of the same thing. They're playing the victim that their economy is bad or something's going on and it's because of Latinos or the undocumented Latino. And I go back to, they're playing the victim role. I don't want to be playing the victim role. Let's stay positive, let's stay strong and let's share great, great information. I try to give you everything that I know at this particular time. And then people change the laws on me. They change the information. There's other things that I don't even know about or other organizations that are helping people. So my job is going to be the place where you can come and I'm doing research all the time. I found something new, in fact, basically CNBC did an article on Latinos and what they can do for in case they get deported, how can they protect their assets? I was heavily interviewed on that Google cnbc. Lewis and I found out that there's another organization who's posted, done a wonderful manual for Latinos. Let me take a look at it. It's called the Appleseed Network. The Appleseed Network. And it's this one right here. Okay. And I'll read it to you. It's the deportation preparation manual for immigrant families. Make a plan to protect your kids and finances in the face of deportation. It is a heavy, thick book. It's 297 pages. I downloaded, I printed it. I'm going through it. I've learned a few things that have to do with more on with the children and what happens when the kids stay here in the United States and other things. There's also information about money. So it's called the Appleseed Network. Just learned about it. And it's a wonderful. Go to there. It's appleseednetwork, I think.org go to their website, download this manual as well. We'll have links on our site. Right now, unfortunately, I got my son who's helping me out, who's basically, this is our team, and I've got Ana Trujillo Limon and Eddie Romero helping us with all this. And we're doing the best we can. This is our team, and this is with our team. It's been around for a long time. Eddie's been helping me for the last, I think, 20 years, taking information out to the Latino community. Okay, so do that. Okay.

Para la gente que estas cuchanda este aqui estamos paradale informacion y siemprecada aprendia.

Apple seed network punta org apple seed network.

Understanding list Deportation preparation manual for immigrant families Pero hay en el cito de la pagina. The Apple Seed Network. Medicenque.

Isros waponetros paracaprendante.

Para quetenga recursos financieros para ques.

The financas.

Okay.

SSLC.

De los angeles.

In YouTube. Okay. So.

Puedenira la pagina. The YouTube. Por favor, si pueden este. Si me pueden apoyar con las paginas.

The Facebook, the Instagram, the TikTok.

La television.

Okay, so questions that we've had this week, I've written down a few things. I'm starting to see the same thing. And again, you know, we got 30 minutes here. We got another 20 minutes. It's if I have a business and.

I'm not the only.

And I were to get deported or I leave or I what do I do with my small business? Okay. I will share with you that the best thing that you can do is if you are a small business owner with several employees. First of all, most businesses are sole proprietorships, okay? And sole proprietorships is that you are not protected from if there was a lawsuit or something happens to you from them going after your personal assets. The next thing is if you die, that business dies with you. And you may have copyrights, you may have intellectual property, you may have assets that your family can sell. And the thing is that what we want to do, or the business has revenue that you can sell if something were to happen, if you were to pass away, or if you just want to sell the business. And so it becomes a lot easier if you actually incorporate. And when we talk about incorporations, we talk about you converting yourself to an llc, a limited liability company, or you create a C Corp and.

You can file what is called Form 2553 to become an S Corp, which is kind of a small business corporation. And so we don't have during the time here to tell you all the details, but this is what your accountant, your cpa, your enrolled agent can walk you through. It's important that we start going from being sole proprietors and thinking of ourselves as business owners that can grow and hire people and that our company not only creates our income for ourselves, that we're self employed, but that creates equity for us. That's how we build, that's how we build wealth. And I will share with you that working with Latinos and actually doing tax returns for Latinos for the last 40 years, most of the wealth is seen when people are self employed or their owners or partners in the business or when they think like a business owner. I know a lot of employees who are intrapreneurs within companies who do extremely well, but they have the mindset of a business owner. Right? So a business owner doesn't watch the clock. A business owner, when he's sick, I know that I've had 102 degree temperature and I've had to take calls and continue working. I've hurt myself and I don't miss a day. Business owners are there all the time. And at the end of the day though, also when you create a business, if you don't want to be there, you don't have to be there. You can take a vacation because you've set up systems to continue growing the business. And that's what we want to do. We don't want to build a business that depends on just you. We want to build a business that you can sell at some point, that you're building equity, and that's how you build wealth. And you can pass that business on to your children if they're interested in running the business. You can sell the business to somebody who's interested because you've created something that nobody else has created, or you've got a nice revenue source that you can retire on for a long time. But the best way to do it is create a business. And believe it or not, all the information that I'm giving you today, you do not have to spend thousands of dollars with attorneys. You can go online and find that information. Let me just say this quickly in Spanish.

Si ustedeson estetiens supropio negocio la mayoria de los empresario sino negoci Sole proprietor no san in cuna corporacion y lo que pasa siegos.

Limited liability corporation, una C corp un.

S corporation y loidal que se cientan con sukuntador un certified public accountant, un.

Enrolled agent, una Persona quetina experiencia.

Muy importante.

In california.

Rocket lawyer is the legal zoom.

Google chatgpt.

Okay, ahora. One of the things that we want to do is we have to be careful right now, because what is happening is I am seeing that in every single time that there are.

Times of crisis, just like we're seeing right now with all the ICE raids going throughout the United States. There are people that are going to want to take advantage of you and charge you a lot of money. So you have to be really careful. I had somebody that wrote to me, I think it was an Instagram or the TikTok, and I said, hey, if you right now have assets and you want to and you are being deported and you need somebody here to manage those assets or sell them and send them to you, to your country, wherever you're going to go, you need to do a durable power of attorney. Those you can do for free online. And a lot of sites have that, not just one or two. I mean, you could pretty much do those for free. You can download the form. And again, as I said, you're going to name a special agent. You're going to name an agent to be able to do that for you, somebody that you trust implicitly. All right? And you're going to have to have that paperwork notarized. And to get it notarized doesn't cost that much. Okay, so let's say that somebody charges you a lot. They charge you 50 bucks or 40 bucks. It's not a lot of money to protect your assets. But I read somebody sent me and said, hey, I just asked for them to do a durable power of attorney. And they were charging me $2,500. I said, no, they were probably charging you for a full estate plan. Can you go back and ask them if it's a trust, a will, a durable power of attorney, advanced healthcare directive, nomination or guardian, everything that's involved in an estate plan. Right. And it's, and that should, I mean, there are people charging 2,500 to $5,000 in Orange county, where I live, I've seen some attorneys charge as much as 5,000 to $7,000 for that.

And I said, can you go back and ask? And they said, hey, I asked, they're charging $2,500 for a durable power of attorney. And I go back, okay, so they're right now taking advantage of the situation. So you must be very careful.

They say desperate people do desperate things. Be careful and don't just pay because you're desperate. You can go online, do search, reach out to us if you can. Infoluisbarajas.com will try to guide you to the right places. Again, the Internet is your friend. You know, join our community. The more people we have in our community who care about our community will know about resources in their hometowns that they can post on there. And that if I research and I do and I find out that they're a great resource, I will set, I will create that link for you so you can go there. Okay.

And so that's one of the things that you can do. So again, if you just jumped in and you haven't seen the I talked about one of those great resources Appleseed Network has created. We well, this is June 2025, I think they updated it and they're creating one in Spanish. It's a manual for deportation preparation manual for immigrant families. Okay. So and again, I've got somebody on right now, Celi Castillo, saying rely on your also Hispanic chambers of commerce. There's a lot of resources out there right now, but be careful. I know that right now a lot of people and are in fear. And you know, and so, and rightly so, and rightly so, they're afraid because they don't know what's going to happen to them. They've been here for years. There's young, when I say there's young kids, I said there's people in their 20s and 30s that their parents brought them to the United States when they were a year old, two years Old, maybe never got documentation. And they don't even speak Spanish. And they're going to. If they get deported, they're going to go back to Mexico, to a country that they don't know. And I will share with you as someone who's lived here forever. Born and raised in Los Angeles, right? When I went to Mexico, I wasn't Mexican. I was the pocho, right? The Latino that didn't speak Spanish. And here in the United States, the other day, I did a talk at ucla. I spoke on the impact of culture on finances at UCLA Extension this past. A few days ago. And my wife gave me my passport. He goes, here, just take it, just in case. So I'm here and I'm not feeling right now, you know, like I'm loved. And so it's just kind of. We're in a weird time, right? And so it's. I get the fear, I get the sleepless nights. I have been very uncomfortable, what's going on. But we have to prepare ourselves. We have to be positive. We have to look for opportunities. We must help others. As Latinos, one of the things that I want to tell you is that this is the time where either we become bitter or we become better. And if we become better is that we support each other. There are a lot of people. There are a lot of Latino business owners that people don't want to go. And because they're afraid that if something may happen to me, if they're there and it's a Latino business, you need to support the Latino business owner. Go out of your way if you know that they have been there for the community. They've been there for years. This is the time that you decide that you are going to provide support to the people that need it most. And that is our own people, right? In the United States, we're not considered a race. Technically, we're not a race. We're a culture. I remember years ago when I was. I remember that I would fill out applications for some of my designations or registrations or whatever, and they would say, are you black, white, Asian or whatever? I never would see Latino. And I guess I would have to put white.

Now you'll see applications Latino.

But Latino is not a race. It's a culture.

And so this culture needs to stick together right now. We sometimes hate each other. We love each other, but this is a time that we stop the hate. We support each other, we protect each other, we help each other out. If somebody's getting deported and it's a family member, be there for them, there's a lot of fear. Fear. Okay. And be strong for each other. All right, I got a question here that I wrote down. I am retired. I lived in the United States, came on a work visa, overextended. But I worked here for 30 years and now collecting Social Security benefits. And what happens if I were to get deported? All right, well, hopefully this doesn't happen to you, but if you're undocumented and you do get deported, you will lose your Social Security benefits. Okay? And that's an unfortunate situation. Now, if they change the laws and they pass an immigration bill where you can come back to the United States, you will continue getting that. Now, where did I get this information? I actually went on the Social Security site and I read what's going on. So again, I'm going directly to the resources. I'm not hearing it from outside. This is what it says. If you get deported, you will lose it. Now, what happens if you're the same person and you decide to, you know what? Let me just go back to Mexico for a while and live there, or let me stay there for the next few years and figure out what the next administration is going to happen or what happens? Okay, maybe things happen. You will continue getting your Social Security, but if you're out of the country more than six months, technically, if Social Security finds out, they can stop you getting that Social Security. Right? So technically, you have to come back into the United States. And if you don't have the documentation, it may be hard for you. So that's why you want to go see and take a look at and talk to an immigration attorney. That's going to help you out again, Remember right now, there are good doctors, there are bad doctors, there are good attorneys, and there are bad attorneys. And at the end of the day, when you talk to an attorney, make sure that they're an immigration attorney. They've been doing it for a long time. I know several really great people. I know somebody in San Francisco who's been doing this work for the longest time and is doing the best that she can to keep up. They're on overwhelm right now, and they're not charging a lot of money to be your attorney. Okay? There's people in Santa Ana, there's all over the country, there's attorneys that are Spanish speaking that can help you. So what we want to do is you want to prepare and take a look at. Don't just wait until something happens to you. Think about what may happen and how would you respond? Okay? Not React at last minute. The other thing is this. We mentioned in the last couple episodes, I mentioned in some social posts that you, if, God forbid, something were to happen to you and you go back, or let's just say you just want to go back, you're going to go back to your country and you've got assets here and you're not ready to sell them and you want to, you know, they can't, they're not going to do anything. You can be an investor. If you're listening to me, because again, this is going globally. If you're in another Latin American country and you still want to invest in the United States and you don't have to have, you don't have to have documentation, you can invest, you can open up an entity or corporation and get an ein.

An ID number for your corporation and you can be the owner and you can be living outside of the United States and have a business here in the United States. I just want to let you know. But if you have a business here and decide to go back to your country for a while and keep the business running, you can absolutely do that. But you want to have somebody who is going to have a power of attorney to make financial decisions for you. Again, I'm going to say it for the 100th time, this person you must trust implicitly. Because once you give power to somebody, they can do anything with your money. They can sell your assets, they can take the money. So you've got to trust them. Okay? But the problem is that it gets really difficult if you live in another country and you can't get in because of what's going on with the immigration situation right now is you need somebody to do payroll, pay your employees, pay your taxes, okay? So again, if you have a company in the United States, I just talked about taxes. And even though you're outside, or if you're earning money in the United States but you're not living here, you're living, let's say, in Mexico, you still have to file tax returns. And if you, and again, if you're not documented and you have a business and you're an owner living in Mexico, you still have to file what's called a 1040. Nr.

Nr stands for non resident. Okay? A 1040 stands for non resident. And that way you don't get in trouble, right? So again, we want you to get caught up. If you right now are here and you are not reporting your taxes, you need to get the tax situation fixed as soon as possible. Why? Because the irs, that Said they would never, ever talk to Immigration. I have heard this. I don't know, 100% as a fact. Okay? I have heard by several sources that immigration and IRS are not going to be talking for the first time. I wouldn't doubt it right now, to be quite honest with you. I really wouldn't doubt it. Okay? So again, this is hearsay information. I don't know if it's factual. This is what I've been hearing. I. People been saying that for the last hundred years. I've been telling them it's absolutely not true. It's never happened. The IRS couldn't care less in the past if you were undocumented, if you were selling illegal stuff. What does it matter if you were earning money in the United States, as long as you were filing your taxes, at least from a tax standpoint, you're fine. Just report the income, your expenses, pay your taxes, you're good. Okay? There are people here who are filing the taxes, and they get an ITIN number. They're living outside of the country, but they're earning income. I've got songwriters that are writing songs and they're getting paid by publishing companies, and they're paying them here in the United States, doing some withholding. We file their tax returns for them and they don't get in trouble, okay? Everything is fine. So you can do that. So, you know, but file your taxes. If you are owing money and you're getting letters from the irs, don't hide. Don't throw those letters away, okay? You can call and you can establish a payment plan. If for whatever reason, you cannot afford to pay. I mean, we're seriously saying you cannot afford to pay. They'll just. They're not going to collect as long as you reached out to them and told them. And they're going to get a. They're going to have you file a form called 433F, a financial statement. They're going to say, oh, shoot, this person doesn't have any money. They're not going to be able to make payments. They're just going to wait. They're going to reach out to you every year and say. And have you fill out that form and see if you have the capacity to pay. But if you do have the capacity to pay, they'll give you 60, 72 months to pay. Okay? And set up an installment plan. And then basically, guess what? You're okay. You're not. You know, but the thing is, if you're not making. If you owe money, you're not making Payments you're hiding from the irs. You leave the country and maybe you have a green card and you're trying to get back in. They may stop you from coming back in because you, because you're in trouble with the irs. You need to file tax returns. Okay, go to an enrolled agent, somebody in the community who's been doing taxes for the longest time. Go to a cpa. You can file your tax return. But if you're a business owner, I always say use a professional person. For most people, you can file your taxes. They're very, very simple. And you have people like Intuit, Intuit has turbotax, and they'll walk you through and it's very, very simple. Most of the time we're just afraid to do it because we want to make a mistake. A lot of the financial technology is actually helping you avoid making those mistakes. They walk you through the process and it's pretty simple. The fear is in that you just have never done it. And once you do it the first time, what most people tell me, oh, that was pretty easy. And I said, yep, I told you you could have done it. And so again, if you know, so get caught up with your taxes. What other questions do we have? Here's a good one that we haven't talked about at all, haven't posted on any social media site. It's. I have been championing 529 plans or their college savings plans for the longest time in our community because one of my goals was, I know we can't, but if we could save money to send our kids to go to college, help them build their self esteem, get them to travel, get them, get them to be global citizens, we should put money away as parents into the best tax savings vehicle there is right now, which was a 529 college savings plan. Here in California, it's called the scholarship. Every state has their own plan. It doesn't really matter where you save. You can use that money for college anywhere. Okay.

So now all of a sudden for the people that are being deported and you have a 529 plan and you started that 529 plan and you've put money in there and let's say you're going to take your kids with you in this situation, I'm going to say Mexico because again, my parents are Mexican. So again, whether you're listening to me, you're Colombian, Venezuelan, Argentine, you know, from.

Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru.

I'm just going to say Mexican. It's because that's who I relate to. All Right. For right now, same thing. If you go back to your country of origin and you have put money in a 529 plan, guess what? You're fine. Nothing's going to happen with that money. If you're eventually going to send your kids back, immigration changes, administration changes, you can use that money for your kids to go to college. You can change the beneficiary, even if you have an address. We called California Scholarship yesterday and said, what happens if my client moves to another country? They say, well, we cannot use the address of that country to send the statements, but if they have an email address, we can send the statement so they can see what their money is doing for their kids. College college fund. How do those 529 plans work? You put money in for the kid to go to college. Let's say that you kept putting 100 bucks, 100 bucks, 100 bucks eventually ended up putting $20,000 and it grows to 40 or $50,000 and the kid goes to college. It doesn't have to be college. It can be actually a private school in high school. But if they're using it for college, you take the money out. Let's say you're going to pull all the money out for the very first year. Well, normally if it went from 20,000 to 50,000 in any investment, you'd be paying a capital gains tax. You'd be paying a tax on that money. Okay, Federal and state. Maybe if you live in a state that doesn't pay taxes, you won't pay for the state like Texas, Washington, Florida. Okay, but you'll be paying taxes on it. But if you use that money for college expenses, for computers, for their housing, for their tuition, all that money becomes tax free. All that growth becomes tax free. What a great investment. If not, you can use it for yourself. If it doesn't use it, you can change the beneficiary. You can use it for a grandkid. So 529 plans were great, but right now people are calling me and telling me what's going to happen to my money in the 529 plan for my kids. Okay, so nothing's going to happen. We can change the address on it. You just call that institution, you can find it on the Internet as well. Like I said, I know this because I called California the scholarship. I had one of my staff people call yesterday so I can confirm this today on the air with you guys. We've run out of time.

Fraudes y estafas Fraudes y estafas y me Estanes cuchanda ahorita. Ay mucha gente quesado mando ventaja de nosotros por quesado istamos.

Y cuanto vacostar las cosas.

Financiera.

Un testamento una canta.

Internet.

Una cata de poder financiera que yo poda sur pogratis and dondo la podem contrar y a le vada lor recursos.

Okay.

The other thing is this is if you're looking for a professional right now, if you're actually going to be working with a financial advisor or with an attorney or with an accountant, make sure that there are professionals that have been around for a very long time. They've got a lot of experience. This is the time that you really want to use experienced people, at least on the financial planning side. You know, at the minimum, I want to make sure that they're either a certified financial planner or they have been in the industry for a long time and have a great reputation in the community.

Okay.

If they're going to be doing preparing taxes for you, you would want them to be an enrolled agent. There are tax specialists that can also help you if you are in trouble with the IRS anywhere in the nation. Like, for example, I am an enrolled agent. So when a client comes to us and they are getting audited in New York or Chicago, whatever, I can help them out. And so any enrolled agent in your neighborhood can help you out as well. Okay, they're a tax specialist. A CPA is a great accountant, can give you advice because they're probably doing the financial statements and the bookkeeping and the accounting for business owners. So they have a lot of business experience because they see it from different angles from different businesses. They can help you convert your sole proprietorship to an llc, an S corp or a C corp. And then an attorney, if you're going to be finding an attorney, make sure that they're an estate planning specialist. If you're going to be doing a trust, if you're going to be doing immigration, immigration specialist, someone. Because some attorneys do litigation, some attorneys do all sorts of business law, and they may not be a specialist. You want to find somebody. For example, you know, I've been working here in California with several estate planning people that that's all they've ever done and that's all they ever know. And so the thing is that they're the ones that can see things from different angles. They can see things that we can't see. I learn from them all the Time. And I've been working at this for 40 years now. All right? So ask a lot of questions, and that's the time that we have. I've gone way past the time again. Please, please, please. Right now. Don't panic. I know that it's okay to be scared. I feel for you. I'm not sleeping. I think I cry every night for the people that are suffering. It's been really hard for everybody. Be strong, be tough. Use this time for opportunities to make yourself better, not become bitter. Don't worry about what the heck is going on. We don't have control. At least I don't have control. I don't think you have control, but we do have control over what we can do. You take the information and you implement. I've had meetings with people that have given information, and I know that they're.

Not going to implement.

So execution is everything. Okay? Information plus execution equals power. All right? Knowledge is not power. The information that we're gathering, that we're sending, if you go to my site@luisbarajas.com and you download this document, los trenta.

Pasos para que una base financiera is.

Not going to help you unless you implement this stuff. Execute. Don't be afraid. We're here to help. There's lots of people. There's lots of organizations that are there to help you. And again, please support each other in solidarity. This is not the time to pick and talk about, you know, about racism. Listen, guys, there's racism everywhere. There's racism in Mexico among Mexicans. There's racism in Japan against Japanese Americans. There's race everywhere. All right? Let's not be victims. Let's be strong. Let's be in support of each other. Let's help each other out, support Latino business owners. Support each other. And again, you know, and if you've got somebody who doesn't speak English at all, go with them to the meetings with the financial advisor, with the immigration attorney, whatever, because not a lot. A lot of the Latinos that studied here, the reason why they went to the great schools is because they mastered English. English was, you know, even though it's a second language, they may understand 100% of it, but they don't speak it fluently. And so it's hard for them to explain it. So be there. Be the translators for them. Go with your parents, go with your brothers and sisters. Go with your cousins, Help them out. We'll see each other next Tuesday. I'll be here. Please send me questions, and I will be here for you as I've always been here for you. Thank you very much.