LIVE - Q&A: Financial Steps to Take During Coronavirus Quarantine

Five questions?

Yes, but you gotta give a bunch because, like, it's Q and A.

Okay. So it'll blow up is what you're saying. All right, I'll just repeat your questions. Are you going on the mic or you're just going to throw out a question and all? We have a mic?

Yeah, we have a mic.

Okay.

Are we ready?

Yep, I'm good.

Okay. All right, let me.

All right, welcome, everybody. My name is Mark Kohler. We're here. Where's my camera? I gotta go over here. I got my crew here. Look at this setup. I feel so professional. Crew's rocking at Cadence. Back for my ditter rod. That's right. My camera guy was up in Alaska filming dog sleds. So he can't complain about the cold weather in Idaho anymore, but he wanted to do the cold weather scene. I think I see a ski lift in the back here. We're gonna have to see where that's at. Anyway, for those that do not know me, thank you. Watch this. I'm gonna save you money. It's gonna be good. Mark Kohler, cpa, attorney, best selling author, radio show host, and I'm here with you live every week on YouTube and Facebook. Entrepreneur. The world's crazy. We're in this pandemic and there's a lot of tax and legal issues to talk about. I already got some questions flying in. Got a question on my phone right before I walked in the door. I'll hit Adam and Britain's question here in a minute. Guys. We are all about building wealth, saving taxes and trying to survive this economic craziness, the quarantine, whatever, right? So I'm doing live Q and A. I got my whiteboard here. We're going to rock with that. Look at this thing. This is pretty cool. I got a. Oh, I'm using the wrong pen. I got to use the right pen. I'm going to ruin my thing. Look at that smiley face. We're rocking. Okay, ready to roll. Okay, I'm going to start now. When I do this, Facebook, YouTube Live, please. If you have questions, type them in down below. My team over here, Logan and Rosalie will read those questions out loud. Are we looking good, tech? We're good. Alright, we're going to do it. I want to say thank you to entrepreneur. A big shout out to their entire marketing team, allowing me every week to go live to answer your tax and legal questions. Business questions. We'll see where this goes. Okay, so I promised Adam and Britton I'd answer their question first on our show today. This could be a really important comment for many, many of you. So Adam and Britton just rented an apartment. They just signed a year lease. Guess what? They signed that lease two to three weeks before the economic craziness of the coronavirus which has rocked the world. Now there are situations where many of you are taking advantage of this opportunity to get a better lease, to move, to buy a home, to sell a home. Real estate is still booming right now. In every market and climate there's buyers and sellers. It just sometimes changes to a buyer's market versus a seller's market. So I don't want your many of you to think of my comments as negative on real estate and you should just, you know, stop buying, stop making offers. I'm not saying that at all. But in Adam and Britain's situation, they wanted to cancel the contract. There's been a big change in their financial picture with the call it the, the whole pandemic. So let me give an example here, a second example. Matt Sorence and I are holding our annual SDIRA summit where we talk about self directed ira. So it was supposed to be in Phoenix in two and a half weeks. We had a hotel, reserved, food, catering, the whole nine yards. We've turned it into a virtual summit so all of you can participate. From home. 99 bucks, two days of content. You're going to love it. Recorded as well. But the point is we had to cancel with this hotel. The hotel did not want to give us our money back. But then we threw down a special provision and I gave this word to Adam and Britton and anybody out there that's in a contractual situation for an event and a lot of places are saying, oh, we'll be good, we'll give you your money back. Now they have to. There's a term in a contract called force majeure, which means if there is a market condition, a natural disaster, act of God as sometimes it was referred to, that makes. It makes the one party, the contract, unable to perform. It's so hard to put this in layman's terms. I know some lawyers out there cringing in law school, they have great ways of defining things like this. But force majeure means I can't perform and it's for a reason, out of my control, outside of my ability to perform, that is catastrophic. That's called force majeure. Let's say you can claim that. And Matt, my amazing partner, called up the hotel in Phoenix and said, hey, this is force majeure. Do you need me to send Over a letter. I'm out of this contract. I want a full refund. And they immediately call back, oh, we're going to be so nice. We'll let you out of this contract because they had to. So Adam and Britton and any of you out there that need to make a change in a contractual relationship with someone or get out, you can write a nice email, write a nice legal letter from your lawyer if needs be and claim force majeure. You are unable to perform because of this pandemic and you should be fine. So look that up. Okay, I'm going to jump to another question before we jump to those online. We cranking what is Today it is the 25th of March, the new norm. Is it 6th? Is it Thursday? 26th? Oh, my gosh. I don't even know where it's at. Isn't it crazy? Everybody working from home and everything? All right. Jason asks on Facebook, hey, Mark, if that new bill passes, the 2 trillion dollar deal the Senate approved yesterday still in the House. Hopefully we'll see it before the weekend for families to get money with this bill passes, will we owe taxes? Will we still get it? What are the provisions? Let me just say this, people. This is a good motto to live by. Never go to a sausage factory. I'm not kidding. If you ever go to a factory where they make hot dogs, you will never eat a hot dog ever again. Don't do it. It's the same thing when it comes to seeing laws be made. You're going to see what the Senate says, you're going to see what the House says. And then it goes to committee and then it goes back to the Senate. Then it goes a mess. It's a disaster. Let me just say this. Next Wednesday, we are holding a live podcast. Matt Sorenson and myself on our radio show next Wednesday, and we're going to break down the new stimulus package and do it as quickly and as easily as we can for everybody. So I'm going to tell Jason and everyone else, don't ask any questions today about the stimulus until it's signed, sealed and delivered. We don't know what it's going to look like. So be patient once it's out, trust me, I'll have a blog article out there for you. And our podcast next Wednesday live at Noon Mountain. We'll break it down. Any Q and A there for sure. Hone says, Hon Tai says, are you allowed on Facebook? Are you allowed to have both a solo K and an ira? And the answer is yes. Now, there are provisions that may not allow you to deduct your IRA contribution if you or your spouse have a 401k at work. And there might be income limits if you have a 401k with your day job, whether it's your own solo k or not. But can you have both? Yes. Now, this opens up what we like to call. And I got to use my new whiteboard. Let's do it. I call this the backdoor ira. So if HONE there has a S corporation. Oh, this thing's so cool. So he has an S corp, and he's taking his salary and sets up a Solo 401K. Now for 2019, we now have till July 15th to make contributions to this or September 15th if you extended. Depends on what type of business structure you have. So he can do a solo 401k for 19,500. He can also do a match for 25% of whatever the salary is then. Looks kind of crappy. Whoa. Just lost something there. Pushed too much. Okay, then what we can also have over here is a backdoor Roth ira. So you can have both, and that's what I do, and that's what I would recommend. Hone is that you fund your solo 401k. And if you're married, husband and wife may fund it. Then you can do backdoor Roth IRAs for both of you. What you normally you do with the backdoor Roth is you do a traditional, and then you convert it to Roth. There's no tax because you didn't get a deduction with the traditional. So that's what we do. All right, I'm going to take one more of these, written ones in advance. Then we'll go over to some questions online. This is from Melina. I love Melina. She's out there in Riverside, California. Melina, thanks for throwing down a question, giving you a little shout out. She is the owner, operator of New Wealth Advisors. Her late husband Dave. Both of them just created such a wonderful program out there, and she's continuing to provide and teach, and she does a great job. If you're local to Riverside area, in that vicinity, even as far south as San Diego, they have a great club. Go check it out. So Melina says, can you speak to 1099 subcontractors, please? Well, Melina, my whole workshop is for 1099 people. You gotta give me some more background here. And love, let me just say this. One in three Americans now are participating in what we're calling the gig economy. They have a side hustle that's a 1099. Now, we know that some states like California are cracking down on certain industries and requiring they issue a W2 because they look and act like an employee. So the state says. But millions of Americans around the country got a 1099 this year for the first time. And they're freaking out. Guys, this is the best news I've had all day. If you get a 1099, that gives me a chance to work some magic on your tax return. In our accounting firm, I've got four amazing partners, a staff, 50, 60amazing CPAs and bookkeepers. And what we want to do is have you run in with that 1099 because now you have a small business. So let's go back over here to our structure. If you've got a 1040 here and your W2 comes in, this is your day job. Now off to the side, you have a 1099. Well, this is what we call a schedule C. Now we're going to graduate this to another level here in just a moment. But if you have a schedule C, you claim the 1099 as income and then we write off all the expenses and whatever the net is, you're going to pay self employment tax. It's not the end of the world. But the beauty is right here. I can take all these extra write offs right, right in here. And that could be cell phone, home office, auto dining, computers, Internet, electronics supplies, headphones, my cell phone, maybe even a wallet to carry my business credit cards in. I'm writing off. My iPad, I'm writing off. See, I want you thinking big people so that 1099 is a way to minimize. So you don't even pay tax on, on most of the 1099. A great example is the Uber driver. They got a 1099. Now they get to write off auto and then they only pay tax on what's left. So you're creating more income at a lower marginal tax rate. That's American dream, people. So, Melina, I'm just going to say this for everybody out there. If you've got a 1099, you're a small business owner. What I want you doing is keeping track of every expense possible. Don't fret. This is a good thing. Do not be sad. I want you to have a 1099 year in your tax return. It's a wonderful way to build wealth. Now, if your 1099 grows too much, now we're going to convert you over to an S corporation, have your LLC over here for your rentals, and have your trust down here for your family planning. That my friends, is the trifecta. So as a 1099, you kind of start out as a sole proprietor and then it grows into an S corp. One fun thing that we think about this, the 1099 is the gateway drug to the American dream. People you can start making more money while maintaining the day job, but you're making the money on the side and you're building wealth and you're creating tax write offs. So what I love. Alright, what do we got? Give me some questions, Logan. All right. On the microphone. Hopefully we can hear him and I won't have to repeat it.

So this is from Daniel Cohen from New York. He says hi Mark. I currently have an S corp for my construction business in New York. I just signed a contract for a job in Virginia. Would it make sense to open an LLC or S corp in Virginia to save on New York taxes?

Oh boy. Gosh, Dan, you got bigger questions and you don't even know to ask the first thing I'd say in this. Say this kindly. If you've got an S corporation, you get a big contract in another state. First person you call is your mom. Tell her how excited you are. Then number two, you call your lawyer or accountant. We're tax lawyers. So you kind of knock out two birds with one stone. You might just schedule a half hour. I got five tax lawyers in my office. Kevin, Jerem, Lee, Devin and Christie. They're amazing. You can could set up a half hour with all of them. There's questions you're not even asking. The first thing is everybody think about this. Now did he say Daniel, say New York City or New York State? New York. Okay. Now here's the problem, Daniel. If you're in the five boroughs, Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens. I used to live in Queens and Manhattan, so I know my boroughs. If you're in the five boroughs, the S corporation kind of sucks. So you got to be careful. There's. But if we're just going to assume Daniel is outside of the five boroughs, I might want to move your S corp to Staten Island, Westchester County. I want to get you out of the city for tax purposes with an S corp. But Daniel's in New York. So Daniel, he's got a New York S corporation and he's going to do a job in Virginia. Now think about this. If he is going to go do a job in Virginia, is Virginia going to tax him on his profit on that job? Yeah, he is. See Daniel, you're worried about New York taxes. New York's Going to give you a credit for any state taxes you pay in Virginia. You're actually going to save New York taxes by doing a job in Virginia. The point is you got to pay Virginia taxes now. So he goes over to Virginia, does this deal. He's got income coming in, expenses going out, and whatever he nets on that job in Virginia is called a non resident tax return. So he doesn't live in Virginia, but his S Corp went and did business in Virginia. Now excuse me, for many of you out there, I may do, let's say I go to New York and I do a little workshop for a day. It's a one day thing. I sell a few books, someone pays me. New York's going to treat that as a de minimis, one time event. I don't have to file in New York, but when Daniel goes to Virginia as a contractor, he's probably going to have employees in Virginia or subcontractors at the least. Right. And he's got a physical project in Virginia that's going to take a lot more than one day. So I don't want to freak all of you out there and my RV owners. Just because you drive through Texas and do a RV repair or inspection for one day doesn't mean you're going to have to go file a Texas tax return. But if you stay there for three months and an RV park can do it, you will see the point. People, I'm trying to give some examples here. So Daniel goes to Virginia to do work, he's going to have to file a Virginia non resident tax return and pay tax in Virginia. Then he'll get a credit back in New York. So this is very common and it's okay. What I'm worried about, it's not a tax issue. Daniel, you've got to register to do business in Virginia. That's the big issue. And I don't know if I'd set up a new entity in Virginia. If you're going to be there a long time, you got partners there maybe. But what you want to do is I would do a foreign registration. You want to do a foreign registration and register to do business in Virginia, you're going to pay tax in Virginia. If you're going to have employees in Virginia, you got to set up workers comp state unemployment in Virginia. So get with your payroll accountant. Your accountant on the payroll issue too. So this is the big deal because if you get in a lawsuit in Virginia, I want you to have protection. So I'm going to just back up and say, Daniel this is not a tax issue. It's an asset protection issue. Get registered to do business in Virginia. Talk to Susan, my paralegal in my office. Susan, she can register your entity in Virginia. And I'd schedule a half hour with one of the attorneys. Just go through one of the. You know, go through it with one of them and talk about all the issues. There's things you're not even bringing up that we want to talk about, so. All right, Rosalie, who we got?

I have Sarah on your Facebook. I'm in need of money for my small business. What is best? Apply for SBA loan, line of credit on my house or refinance my house?

Oh, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. I have feelings. Sarah is getting hit by this economic impact. And I've got a side note for my S Corp owners. I'll bring this up in a minute on what we need to do right now in our first quarter. So Sarah needs money for her business, and I have a feeling, again, it's because she had to shut her doors or sales are down dramatically because of this pandemic. So I always struggle for what to call it, right. This disaster. Financial disaster. Sarah, the first question that Matt and I, we've been talking about on our webinars is making sure taking out a loan is the right thing to do. Now, you may have already beat it up with your little board of directors, board of advisors. Talk to your family, your significant other, maybe talk to your lawyer, accountant, whoever. Sarah, that's step one. Any of you out there that are struggling right now going out and borrowing more money may not be the right answer. Maybe it's time to let that business just go away. Doesn't mean you're a failure and start up fresh when the market rebounds. So, Sarah, I just want to tell everybody that there's a business here in town. I won't say their name, but we have a friend that knows the owner really well. And the owner said, if we have to shut our doors, we're not reopening. It's just too tight. We are barely making it as it is. If I have to go, get out and take a loan and eat losses for a couple months just to stay in business to barely make a living. I'm not going to reopen. I'm just going to shut the door. So, Sarah, that's issue number one. Now, let's just assume, Sarah, that you've got to go get a loan. Frankly, I would wait to see what the stimulus package has coming out and how long it's going to take to get access to the money within the next three to four days. We're going to see. So I don't know if I'd go tap into your equity on your home quite yet. Let's see what the SBA disaster loans going to look like in any of these loans in the two trillion dollar package to see what's available. Here's the little backdoor trick, everybody. You can take money out of your ira. Now this is another option. I'm not advocating this for everybody, but if you're going to go get a loan and the loans going to take three weeks, you could go get money in the next three days out of your IRA. When the loan comes back, you pay back your IRA that you can pull money out of an IRA and you've got 60 days to put it back. No penalty, no tax. You could also borrow from your 401k right away. Then when the money comes back out on your SBA disaster loan, pay off your retirement account. I do not want you draining your retirement account. To keep your business open, people be careful. Couple ideas. All right, what do we got, Logan?

All right, this is from Oremario. After creating a self directed 401k, can I keep adding monthly contributions and use doses to help pay bills like the mortgage of the property the 401k owns?

Yes. Excuse me. All right, so Oramaro has an S corp. He then says he has a 401k. Then he said the 401k more than likely has an LLC. LLC that owns a rental property. Now what it sounds like to me is that he's having problems with his tenant up here because of the pandemic and so his tenant cannot pay rent and he's stressed out. Now can Oremario. Sorry, I'm pronouncing your name poorly. I apologize. He's taken a W2. Can he take money out of here? Put it in the 401k, take a tax write off, fund the 401k that funds the LLC to help make the mortgage payment over here because his tenant isn't making the payment. The answer is yes. So you can take a write off. Let me repeat it this way. You can continue to fund the 401k as long as you've got profit over here. And you're going to fund the 401k, take a write off, fund the LLC that funds the rental. Now I don't know if you have other partners in this LLC that could create a little hiccup, but there's lots of options there. Now I want to give everybody a little tip here on the side. Now, this is important for any of you out there that have. Man, I got a little cough. I hope I'm not getting sick, but okay. It's probably my rock star. It's an afternoon rock star. Usually I'm only a morning rock star guy, but it's been a long week. So if you have an S corp. Now, this is important, everybody. If you have an S corp, you've got to take a salary, right? You're going to take a draw and then you're going to take part of it as a salary. Now, this is important. When do you report that salary? Well, you've got to report it all four quarters. Now, when is your first quarter payroll report due? It is due in April. Well, if I had kind of a bad first quarter, like where a lot of us are facing with this pandemic, why don't I take a zero payroll? If I take a zero payroll now, then I have a zero deposit in April. Then I can catch up on my second, third and fourth quarter payroll and take more money, those three quarters and do my deposits in July, October and January. See what I'm saying, people? If it's legitimate, talk to your cpa. Maybe I take a reduced or zero payroll first quarter, save making a deposit here and pick up my deposits later in the year. That could give you some relief as well. So think about that as you're trying to survive during this pandemic financially. Survive. All right. Rosalie, how are we doing? We got lots of listeners, lots of people looking good. I want to tell all of you, thank you. Caden is working the camera. How's it looking, Kaden? I can't even see it. I think it looks pretty cool. Makes me want to go skiing, tell you that. All right, what do we got?

Okay, I have Julie, Mark, can I take a salary from my LLC that holds our rentals? I am a real estate professional. By the way, I love the gorgeous picture behind you. Last night was tropical. Today, snow. You really get around.

Oh, man. Julie, thank you. Yes, I was on a beach in Costa Rica for our webinar last night. I debated holding this live broadcast today, but we couldn't get through all our questions yesterday. So, Julie, thank you for paying attention today and watching. I hope you're not getting sick of me. There's just so much going on. And I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Everybody's struggling financially to hold things together. I know some worse than others. And so, God bless you. Hang in there, Julie. All right, S Corp, right? Is that what she said? Out of her LLC with a rental? Yeah. Now, Julie, I normally wouldn't do this. Now let me tell you why, and you might. So, okay, Julie says she has an LLC with a rental and she wants to take a salary out of here first. You can't do that. You cannot take a salary out of an llc. And some of you are like, well, hold on. I set up my LLC on LegalZoom. No, you can't. Now if you took your LLC and made an S election, then you can take a salary because it's a freaking S corp. Once you make an S election on an llc, it's an S corp. So don't say llc, say S corp once you make the selection. Now, Julie, I have a feeling you want to take a W2 because you want money. Just take it. Just take a draw. You can do that anytime you want. So rent comes in, you pay the mortgage and you can take a draw. And it's passive income after depreciation and everything. You may not even pay taxes on the draw. So that's point number one. Talk to your accountant if you're confused here. And you could meet with any of our tax lawyers or CPAs and just say, hey, I need a little consult here. I'm confused. You should be able to take a draw and have no problem. Now let me. What Julie's on to though is the backdoor 401K. The only time I want to have Julie take a W2 with rental property is I pay a management fee. See, she can't take a W2 out of an LLC. You can't do it. So what I do is I take a management fee and pay the S Corp, let's say 20 grand. I get a write off for 20 grand. The 20 grand comes into the S Corp and then I turn around and give myself a W2 of 20 grand. I pay zero tax and then I take the 20 grand and drop it into a 401k. So if Julie's trying to backdoor into a 401k, she can't get there this way. Can't do it. But she could go around the back and come in through the S corp. If that's what you're trying to do, Julie. Now for you accountants out there, you know, I'm being a little simple because you've got a FICA. You got to pay FICA on the salary, which is 15%. So usually what we do is we gross up the W2 to net 19 5. Because this year you can only put 195 into the 401k. So be patient. I'm using round numbers here. 20 grand, but you get the concept. So. Julie, that's the only way I do it. All right, Logan, Alexander, from where? Do we have a where? You know what, people, I'd love to know where you're calling from. All right, okay.

Somewhere in America.

Somewhere in America.

How can I take money out of my 401k and best use it? Down payment on a house, move it into a Roth.

Well, Alexander, you give me two examples and you say, now this is good. So Alexander has a 401K and he says, how can I best use it? Well, you know what people, this is a good question. Alexander, because what's good for Alexander could be bad for Caden. What could be good for Caden could be bad for Logan and vice versa with Rosalie or me? Because I've got to meet with you. And guys, we're not trying to soak you here. Set up a half hour with one of our tax lawyers and just say, hey, what are my options and what's best for me? Now for Alexander, I could tell him what's best for him and really screw up some of you because that could be the worst thing for you. So questions I would ask are, how old is Alexander, married or single? Does he have a day job? What's this 401k? Is it a solo 401k with his own S corp or is it a day job and he's got a 401k? His options are going to be limited. Is it a self directable 401k or is it a stock market 401k? See, so there's all questions Alexander, we do in a half hour consult and it doesn't take thousands of dollars to do that. For a few hundred bucks you can get an answer. But let's talk about some of the options and I'll just. And then you guys can pick and choose what might be best for you. So let's say he's got 100 grand in this 401k. All right, 100 grand. Well, the first thing he could do is I may say inside the 401k, let's go set up an LLC and let's go invest in something, you know, well, it may be real estate, it could be racehorses, super bowl tickets, a restaurant, cryptocurrency, gold, silver, I don't know. But let's get a great rate of return. Let's shoot for a 10 to 15 to 20% rate of return by doing small business, not an ETF or a mutual fund that pays 5%. Some of you think it's heresy when I say that it's not. I have clients that are doing this higher level investing at 10 to 15, 20% rates of return. Now. I think we died. Let me see if I can get back in. Live. There we go. Back live. Here we go. So we've got the 401k. The first option is, let's better invest. Number two, you can convert inside a 401k to Roth. Think of a 401k like a honeycomb. If there's you and your spouse, then husband, wife, let's say you'd have. This side is traditional, this side is Roth. This side's traditional, this side is Roth. So, Alexander, you could convert part of the money inside the 401k to Roth. That's option two. Option three, you might be able to spit some out to an IRA, then convert to Roth. That's option three. Option four, you could borrow from the 401k and you can borrow up to 50% or 50,000, whichever's less. And since he has 100k in here, he could borrow 50 grand. Boy, you could partner with others. You could. You could bring your IRA, your kids, Coverdale and an HSA and form an LLC with three or four partners, including your 401k. Anyway, there's so many options. So, Alexandra, the answer is, I don't know what's best for you, but we could get to the bottom of it quite quickly. All right, Rosalie, I have Lisa on entrepreneur Facebook from. She didn't tell us where she's from. Gosh, you guys, you're killing me.

All right, so, hey, Mark, what are like event planners, caterers, photographers, etcetera, doing at this time of social distancing and lost sales? I have a community of 200 plus micro businesses and small businesses in Mexico that all seem to be crumbling. Do you have any tips to compensate or find new income streams within their same business for their clients who are now at home and not spending? Thank you so much.

Oh, my word. So hard. Lisa. Alright, I'm just going to throw out a few ideas. And Lisa, I'm sure you've already thought a lot of these, if not of more, but I'm just going to. Sometimes you're so close to the situation it's hard to think. So let me throw out a few ideas. She's in the event industry, right? So we're talking photographer, we're talking catering, we're talking about an event location. I'M just going to throw out a few ideas. The first thing is before you look at do it, what we talked about yesterday is do a financial triage. Look at what your fixed costs are and what you have to do to stay in business. Do you have some loan payments? Do you have a retail space? Do you have enough money to just stay open for 30 to 60 days? And if some of you don't, your best decision may be to just close down and then come back stronger. Kind of clean house and just, just don't make payments to stay open when you don't have enough money to barely stay open. Fair. The next point would be is if you can stay open, let's start thinking marketing. What are some things you can do to at least get some money coming in the door? The first thing that I would say is catering. You probably have the most flexibility in this situation. Start doing a quarantine special. Going to bring tamales to your house for $30, $40. Think a little bigger than Grubhub. There's bigger families that might be at home. I've got a college student at home that we immediately brought home. People are getting sick of the local restaurants with grubhub and Dine Dash. Dash. What is it called? Doordash. Sorry, Doordash and Grubhub. Maybe you say, hey, we'll cater to Mexican dinner, a Italian dinner. We'll bring in brunch on Sunday and you might even say we're going to leave it on your doorstep. Some sort of scenario where you say the food is ready to cook at home. Some people are. I don't even want someone that touched the food. Well, maybe you deliver it frozen and so people can cook it themselves. But it's something. So think outside the box. A quarantine special, bringing catering to someone's home photography. The thought that comes to my mind is it's not about just doing the sitting and taking the pictures. It's also the editing. Maybe you cycle back to some of your clients where you did video or pictures a year ago, six months ago and say, hey, I'm going to do a discount and do some additional editing, some additional framing. Maybe I'll help put some that are website ready or I can do some printing of some things that might work that are outside of the box where you don't need to see them physically. Another idea is maybe you get people to go take pictures and send them to you and you touch them up. They might be hacks, but you might be able to get it in Photoshop. And do a better job for them on the event location and photography. Maybe what you do is offer a pre booking discount. Say normally I'm $300 for this event location or 3,000 if you book now for six months from now or four months from now. I'll do it half off. And if you need to cancel in the future, I'll give you 90% back or something. Maybe you can get people to pre buy some of your services at a discount just so you can keep the doors open. Just an idea, but Lisa, my heart goes out to you. Try to be creative in your marketing. Try to get people to prepay for some things and don't keep the doors open if it's not worth it. It doesn't mean you're a failure. Guys, there's people out there that are very, very smart business people and they've lost their business due to this pandemic. They're going to come back and they're going to do it better the next time. So don't give up. Logan. Dominique.

Dominique from Sacramento, California.

From Sacramento. Man, he's at the epicenter of so much right now. Close.

Okay, I had KKOS backdate my LLC to an S Corp for 2019. We did that in January with the expectation to have KKOS take care of the payroll requirement for 2019. Told after the backdate went through that KKOS wouldn't be taking any more payroll clients for 2019. What am I supposed to do? Just not do payroll for 2019? Will I be penalized or audited? Also, will this new legislation waiving the payroll taxes because of COVID 19 mean that I don't need to do payroll for 2020? He has an LLC taxed as an S corp.

Okay, Dominique, I'm glad you're with us. You did the right thing. Remember, at our, in our family of companies, I've got kqs, the law firm and K and E, the accounting firm. Kqs, the law firm did your backdate and got you to an S corp. That's a good thing. K and E, we get swamped sometimes. They can't do the payroll and they don't know that the law firm side has got this payroll process going through. I'm so sorry. We're trying to improve on that communication, but not all is lost. And this goes to everybody that's listening. If you've got an LLC and you taxed it as an S corp, or let's say you had an Inc and you were an S corp, right, to begin with. And we backdated it. Or let's say you were an S corp 1119 for the whole year, but you never did payroll. So, know what did Dominique do? He went through the whole year as an LLC and then backdated into an S Corp 1119. Not a bad thing. What we do at K and E and other accounting firms is we're going to create a payroll through a management fee. It's kind of a backdoor way to make sure you pay your FICA. The F word. FICA. We want to make sure, Dominique, you pay your FICA, but we're not going to issue a W2 at this point. What we'll do is push it out onto a schedule C and pay your FICA here and then get you on payroll for this year. So let me repeat that for everybody, if that sounds like garbly goop. If you did not do your payroll for 2019 as an S corp, even if you got backdated into an S corp, not all is lost. Talk to your accountant and say, I want to push out a management fee, pay my fair share of FICA on a schedule C, and then take everything else out as pass through. It's clunky, but the IRS will accept it as long as that allocation is fair. Now, do you want to do that every year? No. Are your chances of an audit higher? Yeah, but it doesn't mean you're going to lose the audit. It just means, hey, I did my fica. I'm okay. And sometimes we've had to send a letter and everybody's happy. But what Dominique needs to do, and all of you moving forward, we need to make sure that you, in 2020, do your payroll four times. So, payroll, payroll, payroll, payroll. Now, I just said a moment ago, maybe you claim zero payroll in the first quarter, but, Dominique, you've got to pick up payroll in quarter two, three, and four, and you've got to do it quarterly. Everybody, the IRS is going to get mad if you don't. So I hope that helps, Dominique, and many of you. It's all good, Dominique. Don't be mad at us. We're here for you. We get busy, too. And we can still fix the payroll issue by doing this allocation. So if you want help and you want to work with us, talk to Mackenzie. She's great. She will make sure that we're good. And I touched something on here. Maybe it's that. That. That. Oh, I'm touching too many buttons now. Okay, so let's see if we can get it going here. Caden, I might have you come Touch this up. Okay, what's our next question? Ursula's Logan, can you help me? I'm having a hard time making my whiteboard work. All right, thanks, bud. Okay, what do we got? Rosalie?

Yes, I have Jody from Washington State. Hey, Mark, what are your favorite market marketing sales strategies that you think would be beneficial to focus on right now?

Well, Jody, thank you. And I'm grateful that you would ask me about marketing because I teach a couple classes on marketing. I love marketing. Jody, what I would do is the first thing you've got to focus on is virtual, right? You've got to find every way possible to get ahold of customers in the cyber space. If you have a brick and mortar location and you're trying to meet with people face to face and face to face contact has been critical for your marketing in the past. For example, Jodi, I was just talking to a girl, Brittany, that works with a law firm in the Sacramento area that does evening dinners. And that's how they recruit a lot of their customers. They can't do it right now. They are rushing to hold virtual meetings online and trying to go virtual, which they've never done before. Now, Jody, here's the glass half full point, and anybody listening. If you're being forced to market in a new way, it's painful, it's scary, you're nervous. But guess what? When this is all over, and it will be over, it's not going to last forever. You've just learned a new marketing technique. Maybe you've found a new channel that you've never used before. It's uncomfortable. But you're going to learn a new way to do business, and that's a good thing. Another thought is going back and cultivate. So I'm going to say three things. I'm going to write this. Number one, go virtual. Try to figure out how you can make sales. These are new marketing techniques. So you're going to try to go virtual, more so than you ever have before. Number two, go back and reach out to your prior customers. A lot of times, the best place that business can be made is circling back and making new sales to customers you've sold to before, maybe through discounts, maybe through specials. I'm doing right now a $99 digital education. All of my videos, all of my books, everything I can that's digital format. 99 bucks. It's on my website right now. There's a link to that. You'll see some websites go out, some emails go out. That's a great special for a lot of people. I only usually do it on Cyber Monday for 24 hours once a year. But while people are in quarantine, this is a great time to get study and education done. So I'm reaching out to prior customers and virtually so that. That's a thought. Judy. I had another good one. And by the way, if anybody has a comment for Judy on some other marketing techniques, you guys pop off if you see something. But I was going to say go virtual prior customers and maybe outside of the box, do some new networking. Think of people that you've wanted to network with before and now you're forced to go out and contact them, have a webcam meeting, figure out how you can scratch each other's back. Think if there's a new way to deliver your product through home delivery. Is there something that you can do that is different than you've never done before? Just think outside the box, Jody. If we get any ideas that are shared here on the network, we'll do that. And if I remember what I wanted to say, I'll do that as well. Okay. Logan, Cathy from

Houston, Texas.

Houston, Texas. Thanks, Kathy. Now, I know you may not have a Buc EE's near you, but I'm going to get out there. I really am. We're going to do it. Okay, Kathy, what do you got for me? Thanks.

I'm in the process of dissolving my LLC that you set up inside my SDIRA at directed ira. I thought I would buy real estate, but it's a no go. Don't earn enough to get a loan for a home for home equity. So I'm transferring the cash back to directed Iraq. Oh, shoot. Any good reason to keep the self directed nature of the ira? I'm not an expert in anything else to buy and sell.

Okay. All right. I'm glad that you brought this up, Kathy. Before you go dissolve everything, the first thing I would do is remember, in most states, including Texas, you've already paid for the LLC for the year. And you could call Becky in my office. So let me write down her name. Becky Lloyd. Go talk to Becky Lloyd and say, how long can I keep this LLC at no additional cost and the last day I better dissolve it before it costs me because you might have be able to have this LLC for free the rest of the year. That's point number one. You may say, I gotta get rid of this llc. I don't need it. It's not going to work for real estate. Okay, okay. But you might have nine months before you really have to do that, so find out when the drop dead date is. That's number one. The next thing is compare your alternatives. If you've got this ira, a self directed ira, and you put the money in an LLC and you're not seeing a lot of options, let's say you're a little frustrated and you're like, I don't see real estate. Well, hang tight. There may be other options. Maybe it is true. You want to dissolve the LLC and come over and just put the money back in the IRA and then move it over to Smith Barney or Ameritrade and just go buy an ETF or a mutual fund. But what I'm trying to say is compare what your options are. If you go do an ETF or a mutual fund, at best you're going to be at 8%, maybe 10% if you're lucky, right? So you've got to say, if I had 50 grand here, is there any way I could turn it into 55 grand? That's a 10% return. So sometimes. Now this is important people. Money is just as important as time and ideas. So you might want to reach out to your family or business network, Cathy, and go, hey, I got 50 grand. Anybody got some ideas? You're going to get a lot of crazy ideas out there. But Kathy, what you could do is take this self directed ira. Oh, we're going to figure out what's going on here. Self directed ira, and you could form an LLC with a couple other people. Someone may have a great idea and the time to implement it. Someone else might have credit, Someone else might have some money too in an IRA or an hsa and you say, you know what? Alone, I can't do anything with my 50 grand. But if I pooled this money with three or four people and some people with some ideas going to try to do a light bulb. So here's my little light bulb. I've got an idea. You could be working with multiple people and still get that 10% return. Now, some of you are like, Mark, that's way too aggressive for Kathy. I get it. But it's an idea. And Kathy should be able to look around her family and network and say, you know what? I am going to pool that money with several people. I can do the real estate I had in mind, or maybe there's a restaurant down the street and you're after this pandemic's over. Your sister's like, I'm opening up that cupcake shop I always wanted to open and your 50 grand could turn into 100 grand? I don't know. So I just want you to be open to a lot of different ideas and see what you can figure out. So let's see where we go. Okay, we're going to wrap it up. Let me say this before, one more question.

I have a cool one.

Okay, he's got a cool question. Now before he does that, guys, I'm going to give away a book. All you have to do is share this broadcast. Rosalie is going to see who shares it. She does a drawing and with the drawing she will contact you tomorrow. I'm going to sign it right now and date it. It's the 26th, right? 3, 26, 20 in quarantine. The quarantine book. And I'm going to sign this. Mark Kohler. I want to say, man, survive the pandemic. That's what we're going to do. Survive the pandemic. And hopefully we all do. So here's your book. Last week's winner was Marsha Kajading. Marsha Kajading. And she won the Financial Freedom book, which is this one. I got all these great books for your home study. And don't forget I got that little $99 deal. I'll make sure the link goes out tonight. But these are our book winners from last time. So if you share this, you will win the book tomorrow and Rosalie will get that word out. Okay, what's the good question?

Hi, Mark. This is from Benjamin. Hi, mark. I'm a 17 year old and I was wondering if I should study economics and finance in school or do some other option in school and study finance on the side.

Is this your question? No. I know he's already graduated. I'm joking. Okay, repeat it. Economics and finance on the side or do finance and economics as a dual major?

If I should study economics and finance in school or do some other option in school and study finance.

Okay, now, by the way, I teach a team, teach a couple classes at college and I participate. Helping out in a church ecclesiastical way on a campus here nearby. And so I talked to a lot of college students. Let me give you the answer. This is good. What's his first name again? Benjamin. Okay, any college students listening? Don't focus on the major, focus on what you want to be doing when you graduate. What did you see yourself doing five years from now, ten years from now? And then work backwards and find the major that gets you there in the best way, that might be the fastest, the cheapest, the best major or the major really doesn't matter. The degree matters. You want to get your four year degree because you need that to open doors. But if you see yourself doing something here 10 years from now, and economics and finance doesn't even matter, freaking graduate in zoology and get done and then get the experience you need to get there. I think too many students focus on I want this major. Why? What's your plan when you get out? I don't know. I'm just going to go apply to a bunch of jobs. Well, that doesn't make any sense at all to me. Start with the end in mind. And I know some of you are like Mark, that's so hard. I don't know what I want to be someday. Then you know what? Slow down your education a little bit. Don't quit. I took seven years to get through my undergrad, but I had a small business the whole time and it gave me a chance to get out there and see a lot of different businesses and operate as an entrepreneur. But I was always taking a class. Summer, winter, fall, every break I had at least one class because my dad said if you ever quit taking classes, you'll never go back. So I always took one class. Now for you guys that are out there thinking, I got to graduate in four years and here's my degree, what the hell are you going to do when you graduate if you don't know, Take an extra year. Now it doesn't mean withdraw from school, but take some classes and go take an acting class, go take a contractor class, go take a realtor class, go take a medical class at the, at the hospital, I don't know, dip your toe in a bunch of different waters once you find out what your passion is. Now we can get back to school and find the best degree at maybe a cheaper university, maybe a more expensive university, maybe with no student debt, maybe with student debt. But I want you to know what the hell you're doing and why you're doing it. That's my recommendation, Benjamin. I don't know which one's better. You tell me what you want to do in five or ten years. Alright? Don't forget to subscribe. If you're watching this YouTube live, hit the bell. Every time I shoot a video, you will get an update. And please follow me on social media and share this. If this was helpful at all to you, share it now. Next week is going to be nuts. We're going to have a 2 trillion dollar package that I got to be breaking down. I'm doing two live webinars with Entrepreneur magazine as well. Be on the lookout I send out a newsletter every week and my live podcast on Refresh youh Wealth and blog Talk radio will be next Wednesday, and we're going to break down the new stimulus package. Thanks, everybody. Don't give up. I know it sucks out there. It's hard on all of us. But keep trying. Keep treading water. The waters will recede. It's going to be okay. Keep treading.