Lawyer Explains: How Rupert Murdoch RUINED His Trust

So Rupert Murdoch just screwed up and his trust lost in court. He's wanted to change his trust. His media empire is now going to go in a different direction. He is appealing that case. I want to explain it here and what you should do differently with, with your family business and your trust so this doesn't happen to you. Now you would think, hey, Rupert Murdoch has a trust, it owns his businesses. If he's alive, he should be able to change it. Here's what happened. At the end of his second marriage with Anna Rupert Mann, he cut a deal and it was part of the divorce deal. Who knows how this happened but he was going to have shared trustee control of all of his assets with his four children. They had equal voting rights with him. So now, and this is probably what his wife wanted in the settlement, his kids run the business with him. He is not all powerful dictator of the media conglomerate any longer. His trust became irrevocable. He could not change it without their approval. And that's what brings us to today. He wanted to change the direction of the future. He had one son that he wanted to have run the media giant upon his passing in a certain direction, in a certain way. And the three other children said no, we don't want that. This is truly just like the movie or I should say the TV series succession. There's a lot out there on the web on how it was patterned after that or vice versa. It is a very interesting case. So it's in summary, he set up an irrevocable trust that he could not change and made his kids co trustees with him. And the reason was it was part of a divorce deal with his second marriage. Now here's the lesson learned. We want to have a trust. Trusts are good. We want that trust to help our businesses, our real estate portfolio, our little empire that we're building. We want it to live on. We want it to provide income for maybe our kids or our surviving spouse or our grandkids charity, a whole host of options. I love the revocable living trust because while you're living you can change it. Hence revocable living trust. When you make a trust irrevocable, it's hard to change. You've got to have either the vote of the beneficiaries or trustees or however the terms are drafted, typically the the trustees and beneficiaries which has happened here with Rupert Murdoch and he's going to now have to deal with this moving forward because of that irrevocable nature. I do not want that happen to you. Now I want to show you a diagram of how this plays out and what your business should look like for ownership and structure. I call it the trifecta. So what I want to see is your operational business here in is maybe one corporation. I'm going to put S Corp. It could have multiple subsidiaries. You're building your little mini empire, whatever that may look like, and the trust owns it. Your revocable living trust of which you and or your spouse, I'll put number one spouse and number two spouse, they are co trustees and they would run this. If you're single, it's just you. And this revocable living trust is going to dictate how things start to happen upon the first death. Okay, now we'll come back to this. I want you to see the power of this. Now over here you might have retirement accounts like 401ks, you might have IRAs, Roths, all sorts of cool little saving strategies and building wealth strategies. And then you're going to have your investment empire. So we have operations over here, we have assets over here and we're going to put our investments, crypto stock, bonds, ETFs, whatever. And we could have this in LLCs or multiple LLCs. So we're building up this overall wealth. And guess who owns these LLCs? Your trust. Guess who the beneficiary of the retirement accounts are. The trust. Guess who owns your home. This is the trust. So when you pass away and we'll say that's you in this example, I don't know husband or wife. When there's the first death, you can have all sorts of provisions start to kick in. You might want it to become irrevocable if there is second marriages going on. So you have his, yours and hers. So we've got three groups of children here. Maybe in that case you might carve out one or two trusts. That cannot change. So I'll put irrevocable trust, irrevocable trust. But the one that lives on with the surviving spouse, that one is going to stay typically revocable and where most of that wealth may go. Because what we're going to do is carve out money for the first group of kids and the second group of kids. With these irrevocable trusts, on the second death, everything gets split equally and maybe this trust for sure. So this is a typical structure. And what I want to say here is as a business owner, you need a trust. You don't want lawyers involved. You want to keep control. With a business succession plan. When we design an Estate plan. We build you a trifecta. We have a comprehensive estate plan where you get to choose how these different businesses are going to flow down into your trust, how you're going to control it, and who's going to control it when you die. That's the beauty of a revocable living trust. There's no probate, there's no judges, there's no fights. It's the law. And you can choose certain parts that might become irrevocable, but to make it irrevocable during your life, holy crap. Very rare. We would not want to do that. Oh, but there was a divorce and Anna was like, I want the kids involved as trustees and owner of beneficiaries of this trust that's going to own this media conglomerate. Maybe to protect her, protect them, who knows? Divorce is tough. So I want you to ask any question on this matter. Should you have a trust? Should you have a will? I'd like to do a poll. How many of you don't have a will? You know, there's 50% of Americans don't even have a will. It's even uglier than what Rupert's dealing with. So if you have a question about this. How much should it cost? What should I do? What do I need? How would my business be owned by my trust? Please post your question down below. I'm here for you now. My name is Mark Kohler. I'm a CPA attorney, best selling author. I speak about this around the country and I'm also a tax lawyer. There's some tax pieces to the Rupert Murdoch piece because he's worth billions, you and I. I'm not worth billions and I'm not even going to pay estate tax right now. I hope not to. There's a lot of good planning that can happen in here with a good trust where you avoid any federal tax. No probate, no fights, and the money goes where you want. You can put a bucket for the grandkids, you can create a bucket for your kids. And again, spouse, single, married, or not so very, very powerful. The revocable living trust is part of an overall estate plan. And I want to point that out here too. Let's go back to the whiteboard. An estate plan has certain pieces and parts. It's going to include a will and a trust and powers of attorney for health care and finances. And it's going to say, oh, a living will, meaning pull the plug if I'm a vegetable and all sorts of extra provisions of where certain assets, even the, the guns the piano, the horses, the dogs, the pets. Where are they going to go? Well, this whole package goes into a binder. And this binder is called an estate plan. The trust is the foundation of this. This is going to be like 30 to 40 pages long. And in here you're going to put your business succession plan. Where do you want your rental properties to go? Do you want one rental property to go to each kid? You may say that. Oh, I've got three kids. I want each one to get a rental. Oh, I've got a farm. I want the farm to be handled a certain way. Oh, I've got a business. I want one kid to be able to run it, but I want the other kids to get a part ownership, but they're silent or they get to vote. I'm going to have a board of directors. It might include some of the employees because I know that the employees know how to run the business better than my kids. But if you don't plan your empire when you die, the whole thing can go down the toilet. So we want to make sure we have a plan for your business. Your future is called a revocable living trust. Rupert, I'm sorry, you did an irrevocable trust. I'm sure it had a big. Well, the big reason was the divorce with Anna, second wife. And that's what happened here. So, questions in our studio. What do we have here?

So our first question is, how can I deduct the cost of setting up my estate plan?

I think an estate plan is. The bulk of it is deductible, maybe not all of it, but the bulk of it. When you add a business succession plan, think about it, you've got an operational business. You're selling stuff online, you're an influencer, you've got product services, or you have rental property and real estate. You're doing an estate plan for your business. It's a business succession plan. Would you do this estate plan otherwise? Maybe not. You're doing a trust in an estate plan to protect the business. That is a business expense. So if your estate plan costs 2500 bucks, I might write off two grand of it. Because a will, you can do a will for 500 bucks, but the estate plan for 2,500 bucks, that could definitely be the bulk of a write off. Now, by the way, I want to say this. Now, we charge for a comprehensive estate plan, $2,500. And we help clients that are multimillionaires. It does not have to be expensive. Some of you think, why I Can't afford a lawyer like you, Mark. This is way too expensive. No, you got a few rental properties, a little life insurance, a little 401k. We got to get you into estate plan. So I want Ty, my new, our sales manager here at the law firm. He's going to be in chat on all of our different platforms. He'll put a link if you would like to get a comprehensive estate plan before year end. Get it paid for and get it scheduled with one of the lawyers. You work with a lawyer for the whole thing and you can get a write off for that right now in this year and book it right there. He'll also put in a second link to just book a phone call. There's no obligation. One of our new member team, new client team members will give you a call at a specific time. So use either of those links to just get this scheduled. This is an important thing to get done at the first of the year when you're doing your New Year's resolutions as well. And get a tax write off before you're in. Next question.

Dana, you might have already answered this one, but how much does it cost to set up a revocable living trust?

Well, the costs out there are going to vary from I don't think you can do it for less than a thousand. And I know there's law firms out there that cost 10,000. So we're around 20, 20, $500 now. And when we have a client that comes in with 20 or $30 million, yeah, it's going to cost more. Maybe it's five grand, but we feel that an estate plan should not be uber expensive. It's, it's crazy what some of the estate planning lawyers charge, but oh, you've got a lot of assets. Now. It is true if you want to come in and have 10 different meetings, it's going to cost 10 grand. I mean, but we want to get you in, get on a call with a real lawyer, get a draft of the estate plan, follow up with that lawyer and you have that meeting and then get this thing signed and get it out the door. Let's get it. Get you a draft. And what I love in these trusts is you can do all sorts of provisions. Kids get a third when they're 20, a third when they're 25, a third when they're 30. We could say money for college, money for marriage, money for a business, money to buy your first home, but otherwise we hold that money back when you dump a million dollars of life insurance on a kid. When they're 18, you're ruining their life. You can have your life insurance, go into the trust and divvy that out for your kids properly and divvy out the real estate and divvy out the business properly. You've worked so hard your whole life to build this business. Have a revocable living trust that you can change. Not like Rupert, but a trust you can change while you're alive and modify it and it and make it happen. So when you die, what you want happens. Next question.

Next question is, what is the difference between a living trust and a Wyoming LLC for protecting assets?

Great question. Well, a, I'll put here at the bottom, a living trust. Okay? And I want you to have a revocable living trust. A revocable living trust gives you no asset protection. It protects your assets from the kids, it protects it from federal tax, it protects it from waste and lawyers and probate. That's what it helps protect you from. But when you go out and buy real estate, we might want an extra layer of protection. And so for some clients, be careful. If you're getting sold a Wyoming LLC. For every 50 LLC we set up, we do one Wyoming LLC. Because they're not for everybody. So if you're talking to someone that sells them to everybody, you got the wrong advisor. And I'll tell you that right now, and I'll go toe to toe with them. We've had, we have a law firm where we set up thousands of entities every year. 5% of them are in Wyoming. And we're looking out for our clients, not ripping them off. Now, a Wyoming llc, which I love them and they're great for, asset protection is called a cope, goes here. Then that LLC owns your other LLCs in other states that actually are on title to your rental property. Don't worry about mortgages. You're going to transfer the property to the LLC. The due on sale clause will not apply in 25 years. And transferring thousands and thousands of titles on rental property. Llc. We've never had a client pay under the due on sale clause. You want that asset protection. So you have asset protection here, you have asset protection here, and the trust owns the Wyoming LLC. That's how it works. 100%. 100%. 100%. Now, let's say over here you have a partner. You're 50. 50. That's cool too. You can do that. So that's how does the Wyoming LLC works. Next question, next question.

At what income level would you recommend I open up a revocable living trust?

Great question. It's not about income. It's do you have any assets at all? Do you have a business or rental property or a home that you want to go to the right person when you die? It could be worth a million, it could be worth 100 grand, it could be worth 10 million. The dollar amount doesn't matter. Where do your assets go and do they go through court and a fight? That's what you're trying to avoid. Don't worry about your income. You can make $10 a year or $1 million a year. That doesn't tell me if you need a trust. Number two, if you have minor children or children that act like minors, you need a trust because you're going to leave them something. And if you leave them even $500,000 on a little bit of life insurance on a 401k, do you want that to go to your minor children? And at age 18 they're going to go around and start buying sports cars, which they will do? No, not on my watch. So we have a trust to protect the kids from themselves. You could be a single mom with a million dollar life insurance policy that costs you 300 bucks a year. Where do you want that million to go? To a trust. And you can change that trust the rest of your life and you're in control. If you get remarried, great, we'll modify it. But if you died, that million dollars is going to end up in an 18 year old's hand. That would have ruined me. No Good. So if you have kids, if you have assets and if you're married and especially if you have a second marriage, where's your stuff go? Does it go to your spouse, your first spouse, second spouse, kids, his, hers, ours? You got to have a plan. So that's some of the main reasons for the trust or more. Next question, next question.

Can an ITIN holder have a revocable living trust?

Yes. You can be a foreign citizen and have a revocable living trust. You can have an itin, you can have, you can be a resident alien, a non resident alien if you want to trust. And in fact this would be example, let's say you have it I a client in South America, Mexico even and they have property in the us I want it in a trust in the US even if they don't live here so that if something happens to them down in Mexico, the trustee can handle the property and sell it up in the US without any problems. In fact, I would say if you have an itin, you need a trust more than anyone else. Because what's going to happen to your stuff when you don't maybe have rights yet as a full citizen? Oh, my gosh. Make your lawyer the trustee and say, if something happens to me, here's what I want you to do with that property. Huge, huge issue. Now, again, if you need to get a trust done before year end and get the tax write off right now. Ty, put that link up in there again. Book it, pay for it. Tax write off. You want to get a call with one of our team members? That's a second link. Just get a call. This isn't an infomercial. I want you to get some help. And there's a lawyers out there that'll charge you five or ten grand for this. And you don't want to DIY this stuff. This is where you get jacked up. All right, next question. Next.

And I'm looking forward to hearing your answer on this one. Carlton Dennis has videos stating that the only way that heirs get a step up basis is using slash, setting up a revocable living trust. My understanding is that is false and misleading. My understanding is that when the step up occurs, that the step up occurs when transferred from an estate, whether held in a real RLT or not.

Correct? Correct. And I love Carlton Dennis. I don't know what context in which he said that, but let's tell everybody what this is. This is very, very important. So we'll go back to our trifecta here for a minute. So here's my trifecta. And let's say you own a home, okay? And you currently own that home. Just you. And so you're on title. We didn't put it in the trust yet. And let's say you bought that home for 300 grand. So go purchase price 300 grand. And then let's say your fair market value is it's worth 500 grand. Okay? So if you sold it tomorrow, you would pay tax on $200,000. All right? That's called the gain. That's called a capital gain. All right? If you die and your kids inherit it, we'll say kids. It could be your spouse even. But your kids, you die and the kids, we transfer the property to the kids, by the way. It would have to go through probate, lawyers and court, but after all that crap, the kids would get it. Guess what their basis is? It's stepped up to the fair market value. So when your kids get it, it's worth 500 grand. So they could sell it tomorrow. And we'll put sales price 500 grand. They pay zero tax. But it's this line that sucks because it's got to go through court to get to the kids. Now, option two, the trust owns the home.

What?

Love it. And guess who gets the money? The kids. When they're supposed to. So now when you die, same story, you're dead. The kids get the property without court, without probate next month. Stepped up basis, fair market value, 500. Sell it whenever the hell you tell the trustee to sell it, not the kids, no tax. Now let's say the trustee holds on to it for two more years and the value goes up to 600 grand. Oh, okay. Now the new sales price is 600 grand. If you would have sold it when they within, let's say nine months of date of death, then there would have been no tax. But now two years later, it's up to 600. Well, do we go back to this basis back here? Nope. You got stepped up basis. 500. So the kids would only pay tax on 100 grand. So you're stepped up basis to fair market value on DoD date of death. That's so Carlton. He's a smart guy. He may have just. I say things sometimes out of context too. But no, the trust does not have to be there for this step up to basis. But what you're trying to avoid is that train wreck of going through court. This is what you're trying to avoid. And it costs thousands of dollars. It really does. And the kids are going to get money when they shouldn't. Next question, Next thing.

We actually have somebody over on Instagram who isn't seeing links in the chat. Can you just quickly explain where they can go to contact your company to

set up these revival trusts? And ty, if you can get over to Instagram and post this, great. If not everybody just go to and I'll write it up here, kkoslawyers.com and right there on our main page there's a link to book a call. Book a call with one of my new client specialists and they're called the new NCS team, New client specialist. And just book a call and tell them what you're looking for. They'll quote the options. We have kind of the basic estate plan around 1800. I like the 2500 because that's where we do the business continuation plan. You get the trifecta, we draw the picture, we bring it all together. So I would recommend spend the extra $700, definitely an extra tax write off there because you're doing it for the business. There's a good argument. So do it for your business, do it for your investments. Take the write off, go for the comprehensive, but just go to Kkos lawyers and you can schedule that. Next question.

Dana, next question is from LinkedIn. What if a transfer on death deed is filed? Can the step up basis be used at the time of death?

Yes. Whether there's, there's, there are different states that will allow certain types of titles to be recorded. Even just think joint tenants rights or survivorship. I've had clients go, oh, this is, I got a story for you here in two seconds. But you could, you could put a title record, a certain type of title that would create an action upon death that would give the property to a kid or whoever. They still get stepped up basis. Absolutely. But here's the question. Should they have the property upon your death? If you've got kids that are under age 18 or kids that act like they're under age 18 or you're in a second marriage with kids from both sides, don't you want it to go into the trust where you can define maybe some parameters of when that child gets the money? Also some people say, well, Mark, I'm just going to put my kids on title or my, whoever, and then when I die, they get the property. I don't need a trust, I'm good. They're just on title with me. And again, different states have different ways of doing this. I had a grandma, I'll never forget this. She came to my office, it was a good 15 years ago, came into my office in tears. The IRS was coming after her house. And she's like, mark, I don't know what's going on. I've been filing my taxes, the IRS is coming after me. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, let's look at your deed. We looked at her tax return. I'm looking at everything and I can't figure it out. And then I go back, I saw something and I went back to her deed and she put her son on title with her. I go, why'd you do that? She goes, well, I didn't want to pay for a trust, so I just put my kid on title. So when I die, I, the property's his now, by the way, because she put her kid on title. The kid only gets a stepped up basis on the half that mom owned. Because, see, he already owned half. You don't get stepped up basis on something you own. He only got a stepped up basis on the half mom owned Number two, I asked her, does your son have IRS problems? She goes white and starts crying. Yeah, well, guess what? The IRS is coming up to your house because you gave half of it to your son. When you put a kid on title, you're giving them half of your house. Well, Mark, I want to avoid probate and make sure they inherit the house. Then do a freaking trust. You're out a couple grand and it's done. Sad story. Sad story. We had to pay the irs. Save her house. Kid didn't deserve it, I'll tell you that. Next question, next question.

So another influencer, Pace Morby, says that the IRS cannot impute interest on below market interest loans. My understanding is that for seller financing over 250k, the IRS can impute interest if the rate is below market under section 1274. What say you?

Well, I think Pace Morby does a fantastic job. He also operates in multiple states, training with his teams all over the place. But he's talking about federal law here and the irs, and there's cases all over the board on this. And I like that this viewer quoted a reg that the IRS can impute interest in certain instances when interest should have been fair market value. And this can be a deal with third party lenders, borrowers. It could be family members, but it's very case driven. And so I have to be careful. That's the law. But can you get around it? Is there an exception for almost every law out there? There's some workaround. But I will say I do agree that the IRS can do that. The issue is will they do it and in what instances? And so I bet you if we. I had. Pace has been right here in this studio, sitting right here at this desk. Love Pace. And I'm sure if Pace was here to talk about that, he'd go, well, in this instance, the IRS can't do it, but in another instance, the IRS very well may. So we have to look at kind of the fact pattern there. But a great quote. I love it. And you got to know what you're doing and, and what the exposure is. So I'm glad you're asking that question next.

We're out here trying to get some controversy and everything, and you're just handling everything.

I don't mind controversy. This is good.

I'm making any enemies today. All right, let's see. Next question is, can I fund an ILIT by having an LLC step up for investing and loans, provide a loan to the ILIT big enough so the investment can pay back the loan? And the premium.

Okay, so what's going on? Is the islet now the islet. And let's go back to our whiteboard. Here's a revocable living trust mainstay. You got to do that revocable living trust for everybody. I bet you Rupert Murdoch wished he would have had a revocable living trust. In fact, he did before he got divorced from Anna on his second divorce. And then it turned into a irrevocable trust upon the divorce. So we want everybody to have a revocable living trust. Makes total sense. It's wonderful. And now let's say you've got an expensive estate and you want to do some planning and throw in what's called an iLit, an irrevocable life insurance trust. And they typically have two pieces. There's a insurance piece for term type insurance and then there's a cash value piece. Now this could be an eyelet. It could be. I'm sorry, this could be Iul vul universal variable life. It could be whole life. There's all these different types that create this cash value. And then the person brings in the fact, oh well, I want an LLC over here and borrow from the islet tax free, which can work. And then when I die, my death benefit will pay that loan off and all these sorts of things. I don't know what the purpose of this question is, but what you're talking about is a very usable strategy. But here's my point I want to make. What you're talking about is over here and has nothing to do with the revocable living trust. You still have a revocable living trust. The islet works with the life insurance and your real estate or your business or whatever the hell you're trying to do. There's. And they can work. They can also be poison pills. Your agent has the power to even either make that IUL index universal life or variable universal, any of those life insurance products. They can work really well or be a disaster. And some agents know what they're doing and some agents don't and sell them to everybody out there to make a living off and prey on those that don't know better. Be careful there. I think insurance is great, but it's got to be crafted properly with the right advisor. But that's over here. It has nothing to do with the revocable living trust, truly. Next question, next question.

How can I protect my assets and a trust from the spouse of the child?

Okay, so what they're asking means that they're trying to Protect the assets from

the parent of the child, from the spouse of.

Oh, the spouse of the child. Oh, oh, okay, okay. That's easy. Okay, so here's our revocable living trust has all these assets, okay? And then let's just say you're even single. You're single and things are going along and bam, you get hit by a truck. Sorry. Someone dies in all these examples.

Sorry.

Okay, you die. Death. Okay, so what we do with the trust is we say, which is typical, is we say it's going to follow bloodlines. And so if you have three kids, and let's say first kid is single, second kid married, third kid married with two grandchildren, we'll call A and B. So now I have grandkids even in the mix, huh? Doesn't this get exciting? So in your trust, and this is the beauty of the trust, you get to figure out how all this crap plays out. They call it dead hand control your hands coming out of the grave. And I'm going to screw around with my family. They love it. It's great. Made for tv, movie. Okay, so you may say, okay, I die with $1,200. 1.2 million. So I was trying to get. Let's go 12 million. Sorry, 1.2 million. Okay, so your estate, that could be equity in your home. Some of you are like, I don't have 1.2 million. Do you have life insurance? Oh, yeah, that's part of it. Do you have a little equity in your home? Oh, yeah, a little bit. Do you have a 401k work? Oh, yeah. Do you have a rental property? You have business? Oh, my gosh, I'm worth more than 1.2 million. It adds up quick, people. And where the hell does it go? So you say, well, the first kid, they're cool, no problems there. That's all good. And I'm just going to give them their third. So they get 400 grand. Okay. Oh, you know what? I'm going to make this even better. Okay, this is good. So this kid is under age 25 and you go, they're going to get 400 grand. But I only want to give them 100 grand now. And when they turn 30, they can have the rest. And if they graduate from college, they can have more. And if they buy their first home, they can have more. So you can have all these rules, and this kid gets their 400 grand once they turn 30 and meet certain rules. All good. You're helping them grow up. You're not ruining with money. You're helping them with money, there's a big difference. Now the married kid, you're like this spouse train wreck. Oh my gosh. So what you may say is, I'm going to lock this down. There's several ways to do this. Here's the problem. If you just give your kid the money and they're married, once they co mingle it with their spouse, it's toast because it becomes a commingled marital asset. It's very hard to trace in a divorce. The longer they're married after receiving that money, the more they commingle it, the more their spouse helps build it. It's going to be really hard to peel that money away. And so what do kids do? They just start co mingling it and building it and growing it. And then this spouse here says, oh, I want some of that. And it's not good. So what, one time sometimes what we do is we'll say, well, this 400 grand, we're going to put it in an irrevocable trust for this kid. They can have all the income from it, they can have all the income and they can even invest it the way they want. But they don't get the principal. They don't get the principal. We're just going to give them the income as long as they're married to this person or until a certain age. And so now you're protecting the kid from the spouse, the daughter or son in law you don't like. I'd videotape that signing, by the way. Okay, now the third issue. Let's say heaven forbid your kid predeceases you. Oh no. Be terrible to outlive one of your children. I can't imagine, knock on wood, my four kids are all alive and well. But if one of your kids predeceases you, what do you do with that 400 grand? Lots of options. Typically the family's gonna say, I'll give 200 grand to this grandkid in trust until age 30 or something. 200 grand to this kid. So they each have their own bucket and it's for college, home, whatever. And they get their money at age 30. Let's say. The other idea is you could say, well, this spouse, and this is how you get to decide because this spouse could have played a huge role in your life. You love that other daughter in law or son in law and you want them to help raise those grandkids properly. You may say, you know what, going to give them 200 and I'll put 100k in trust for each grandkid and that's all they need for college and everything. But I want to give 200 to this kid to help raise them. You can do that. So the beauty is you get to define all this in a trust. And we charge 2500 bucks. You know, get the whole thing. That's it. You know, this is not expensive to do this. It's easy. Do it all the time. All right, maybe a couple more questions,

a couple more comments. We have a comment here. He says make it 1 billion and you're looking at the government getting 40% plus of it, even in the revocable living trust.

Yes, totally. Yeah. The estate tax kicks in at about 25 million now, and then it's going to be up to 40%. Yeah. The government takes a bunch of. Now we do see with the Trump administration some interest in changing the estate tax laws because they're going to go back to older laws that are even worse this in 2026. So we're going to see some changes in estate tax here next year. But it's ugly. Yeah, you. If you're worth more than 25 mil. We're talking other strategies. I have other strategies, but I didn't, I didn't think we were talking to people with over 25 million today. So bless your heart. Okay, next comment.

Yeah, we have Elon here in the chat, actually. So, yeah, the last thing I wanted to actually share with you and get your thoughts on is we did open up a poll when you mentioned the will. And 62% of our audience right now does not have a will.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Okay, I got, I got a tip for you guys, and it doesn't cost you anything. I mean, I'd love you to get your estate plan done and call the law firm. Now, let's go back to this. Let's look. When you do an estate plan, here it is, it's in a binder and you get all these pieces. Now look at this. The will feeds into the trust. Everybody always gets a will with an estate plan. So that's called a pour over will because it pours over into your trust. Powerful that everybody gets a will when you do an estate plan. Okay? But for all of you out there, 62% of you, listen, you can do your own will this weekend. I challenge all of you, and you can do it free. Now, I'm not saying it's the best, but it's better than nothing. So what you do is called a holographic will. Now, some states allow you to type it and then get it witnessed and require you to notarize it. Some states require that you hand write it, which is called holographic. So to be safe, I'm dealing with all 50 states. You can Google the crap out of your state, I don't care. But do this. Go somewhere special on Saturday morning. Maybe it's Starbucks. Maybe it's down by the lake, out by the beach, up in the mountain. That perfect room in your house where you can look outside at the trees. Whatever. Sit down and say, I, Mark Kohler. This is my will and living testament. I hereby bequeath everything I have to the following people. And if I have children under age 18, here's who I want to have raised them. Now, your biological spouse is going to get first shot at it. You may say, I'll give them money if they'll let someone else raise them. You can say that, but you can say, here's who's going to raise my kids. And you're going to point. I'm going to put these three things out. You're going to say, this is my last will and testament. Here's who I want to get all my stuff. You can't put all these weird provisions in there. That's a trust. But you can say, here's who gets it. Number two, you're going to say, who's here raised my kid? So we're going to say, who? Sorry. You're going to do three things. Three things, okay? You're going to say, who gets what? And just say it. I'm going to split it up this way, that way, whatever. That's number one. Then number two, you're going to say, who is the guardian of my kids? And by the way, if you have pets, over 60% of Americans have pets. Pets are euthanized every year, thousands of them, because no one wants the pet. No one said, I'll give them 20 grand if they'll take my cat or take my dog or my horse. If you have animals, name the guardian of your animals, too. Very common. We have a provision for that. And when you do, who gets what? You might put the piano, the ring, the guns, whatever it is, you've got to be very specific and just write it. This is my will and testament. Here's who gets what. Here's the guardian of my kids and the guardian of my animals. If they'll do it, here's who I pick. Because if you don't pick them, the court's going to go fight about it. And then three, you're going to say, here's the executor. This is my quarterback. This is who's going to carry this out. The executor is going to take your will to court. It still has to go to court, but at least they have a game plan. Without a game plan, it's a free for all frickin. It's like a mosh pit at a punk concert. That's what it looks like without a will. With a will, there's still going to be a concert and they're still going to read it. But the judge is going to go, okay, as long as there wasn't a gun to their head. Da, da, da. Now, once you write this out, there's two more things. You have to get two witnesses that see you sign it. They have to see you sign and then they sign it right there below you. I witness this eyewitness, this two witnesses, and they can't be any of these people. They can't be any of them. So you got to go grab your neighbor, you know, the worker down at 7 11, whatever, have them come in and go, I saw Mark sign this and they signed two witnesses and I would love it. You get a mobile notary for 25 bucks. Get a notary to show up and notarize it, you're done. Now it's a good first start. And people, you can do that this weekend. Go knock it out, put it in your corporate book, say where your business goes, then make a commitment. As soon as you make a little extra money next year, get your estate plan done. You're doing a favor to yourself. All the hard work you've done, your family, your loved ones, some of you are like, I hate my family. I'm just going to let them fight. Okay, School, dude, whatever you want. Okay? All right, everybody. Well, I want to say thank you for being here today. Keep a revocable living trust alive and well while you're alive, be careful making it irrevocable. You don't need a Rupert Murdoch situation. Get on top of this. There's a link down below to get your comprehensive plan done right now. You can pay for it, get it the write off and book it with the attorney right now before you're in. Or just book a call, have a phone call with one of our people and see what we can do to help you with your llc, your estate plans, your corporation. We're there for small main street business owners. Thanks everybody and I'll see you next week. Enjoy the holidays. Travel safe and be safe. It.