Six Ways the Wealthy Manage Taxes

Taxes can be one your most significant expenses, and the government can place a heavy tax burden on wealthy individuals. If you have a high net worth and and want to learn how to save money on taxes, the following six strategies may apply to you.

Take Business Tax Deductions

Wealthy people who own businesses can take many more tax deductions than people who don’t. With the proper corporate entity in place—and an intent to create a profit—you may be able to deduct:

• Advertising
• Travel
• Office supplies
• Vehicles
• A home office
• Continuing education
• Meals
• Certain assets
• And more

You may also be able to depreciate a percentage of the cost of certain equipment. It’s vital to tap professionals like Legally Mine, though, to ensure the legality of your deductions.

Emphasize Investment Income

As much as possible, wealthy people switch from earned income, such as paychecks, to investment income. The government can tax earned income at a rate approaching 40%. In contrast, capital gains taxes on investment sales can be around 20%.

Take advantage of capital gains taxes by holding dividend-yielding stock and selling the shares when they appreciate. In addition, if you own rental real estate, you can deduct certain property expenses to reduce your taxable rental income.

Buy Whole Life Insurance

Some wealthy individuals and families use certain whole life insurance policies as investment accounts. The cash value of a policy can grow more quickly than the premiums paid into it, and the growth is tax-deferred.

For certain purposes, the owner of a policy can take out tax-free loans from the policy, possibly to buy investments. Of course, when the owner dies, the policy pays a large tax-free benefit to a beneficiary or beneficiaries.

As an investment strategy, though, whole life insurance may only succeed with the right product and an expertly-crafted plan.

Deduct Property Taxes and Mortgage Interest on a Second Home

If you have the resources to purchase a second home, you should look into the tax advantages associated with it. You may be able to take itemized deductions of property taxes and interest payments.

You might also be able to apply these tax advantages to a houseboat or yacht, if it contains a kitchen, a toilet, and a place to sleep.

Avoid the Estate Tax

If you have received a large inheritance or achieved a certain level of assets on your own, you might want to reduce your potential estate tax. Proper planning could increase the amount you leave to your family or other beneficiaries.

Common tactics for lowering your estate tax include:

• Giving gifts to family members
• Donating to charity
• Transferring assets to a family limited partnership
• Creating an irrevocable life insurance trust
• Transferring your home to a qualified personal residence trust

Contribute the Maximum to Retirement Accounts

You can further reduce your taxable income by contributing as much as possible to tax-advantaged retirement accounts. You can fund a 401(k), IRA, and other types of accounts with pre-tax money, even opening and using multiple accounts of different types.

Some account types allow you to choose between a traditional and Roth version of them. The traditional option gives you tax advantages immediately, whereas a Roth option gives you tax-free income during retirement.

How can you as an individual be sure you have the latest information on how to save money on taxes? Connect with an asset protection team such as Legally Mine, which continues to study the latest tax laws. The strategies above may change eventually, but a strong team can help you take advantage of the most current tax codes and achieve your goals.

Medical Malpractice: It Could Happen To You and Legally Mine Reviews Can Protect You

As a doctor, you’ve promised to do no harm. You care about the welfare of others every day. You’ve trained hard and you work hard. Yet someone could bring a medical malpractice suit against you, no matter how skilled you are.

We’re all human. No matter how hard you try, you can still make a mistake like anyone else. Many malpractice suits are based on an injury that was unintentional and might even be outside of a doctor’s ability to control.

It’s good if a team like Legally Mine reviews your assets and creates a plan to protect them. Of course, you care about patients and may want to help if they’ve been hurt at your practice. However, your personal assets often won’t be enough to cover a malpractice claim.

It’s important to make your personal assets invisible to potential plaintiffs—as much as possible. No one should take more than they deserve, and you shouldn’t become impoverished while you make things right.

Major Causes of Malpractice Claims

There are two major categories of causes behind malpractice claims: substandard care and failure to obtain informed consent.

Substandard Care

A malpractice suit must provide proof that a physician caused injury through substandard care, which can include mistakes or negligence in:

• Treatment (or the failure to treat)
• Diagnoses
• Medical decisions
• Dosage of medicine
• Aftercare

A malpractice suit generally can’t begin if a patient is simply dissatisfied with treatment. Even if a doctor provided substandard care, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury that led to considerable damage. Without that, a suit won’t get off the ground.

Lack of Informed Consent

What happens if you don’t get informed consent from a patient before a procedure? Even if you perform the procedure perfectly, a patient could bring a malpractice suit against you if the outcome of the procedure is unfavorable.

As you know, some treatments have a high probability of helping a patient and a small chance that something could go wrong. There’s risk involved, but some patients are willing to take it. However, without informed consent, you could be left responsible for any negative result.

Protecting Your Assets with Legally Mine

An ineffective way to try to prevent malpractice suits is this: requiring patients to sign a document stating they won’t sue. They don’t work because courts often don’t honor these agreements, because patients sign them without understanding their complex legal language. Plus, patients can feel insulted by them or suspicious.

Instead, you need to implement a legal asset protection plan, which minimizes the visibility of your assets. If plaintiffs and their attorneys don’t see that you own many personal assets, they won’t have the motivation to pursue a suit against you. They’ll have to go to your medical malpractice insurance instead.

There are complex rules and considerations involved in asset protection for doctors. For example, out of all the corporate entities you might use, only some will be right for you, and they can be set up correctly or incorrectly. Also, each state has different laws that apply to asset protection.

You might have heard that asset protection involves hiding money in another country and paying unreasonably large fees to do so. Fortunately, there are strategies available that are perfectly legal, ethical, and inexpensive. If a professional firm like Legally Mine reviews the best strategies with you, you can get a personalized asset protection plan that you can feel good about implementing.

Asset Protection - What Works and What Doesn’t

As a professional, you run the risk of losing everything if you’re not properly safeguarded with a solid asset protection strategy.

That’s why you must protect your assets against:

·       Lawsuits

·       Tax Liens

·       Bankruptcy

·       Divorce

How do you protect yourself and avoid financial harm?

Legally Mine offers 11 proven asset protection and lawsuit protection strategies that work.

1- Don’t Put a Target on Your Back

There are about 1 million lawyers in America. That amounts to 1 lawyer for every 300 residents!

For that reason, you need to make your wealth less visible. How? Avoid being perceived as having deep pockets, both in everyday life and on paper.

2- Don’t Procrastinate

If you feel the need to shield your assets, it’s probably too late. At this point, your actions could be interpreted as a “fraudulent transfer”.

You’re better off assuming you or your business will one day be up against legal action and taking asset protection seriously starting now.

3- Get More Than Enough Insurance...Then Get More

Insurance is your first line of defense in asset protection. All other actions are considered supplemental to it.

In every policy, there is an exception and chances are fair that your policy won’t pay. Take out multiple policies and consider an umbrella policy to protect against any gap in coverage.

4- Don’t Let Your Personal and Business Financials Commingle

If your business assets and your personal assets are not 100% separated, you open the door for plaintiffs to assess damages based on both.

This means you must always keep separate bank accounts and credit cards.

5- Review Your State’s Laws

Every state has different laws. It’s in your own best interest to know which asset protection and lawsuit protection strategies are legal in your state.

Some of the differing state-to-state laws surround topics such as:

·       Homestead Exemptions

·       Titling of the primary residence as “tenants by the entirely”

·       Federal bankruptcy exemptions for ERISA-qualified retirement plans and IRAs

6- Do Your Homework on Every Asset Protection Tactic

The growing need for asset protection has generated a proliferation of simplified information. Quick explanations are great for an introduction, but the reality is that every situation is unique and the details to cover are vast.

·       Do your homework.

·       Weigh the benefits as well as the costs.

·       Hire a professional with expertise in asset protection and legal protection, such as Legally Mine.

7- Don’t Try to Conceal Assets

It’s common to panic if you sense your unprotected assets will be taken...but don’t! To reiterate strategy #2, don’t try to conceal assets. Otherwise, it could be defined as a “fraudulent transfer.”

Protecting yourself beforehand is by far the best option, but if you didn’t, try one of the following tactics instead:

·       Refuse to settle and go to trial.

·       Appeal the verdict.

·       Negotiate a lower amount.

·       Work out an affordable payment schedule.

·       Bring your situation to the court of public opinion.

8- Diversify Your Asset Protection Strategies

Don’t just stick to one or two asset protection tactics. Use multiple strategies. That way, if one of them doesn’t work out and you are left with a devalued asset, your other assets will still be left intact.

9- Realize You Are Not an Exception

There are certain professionals who are especially vulnerable to lawsuits:

·       Medical doctors

·       Dentists

·       Architects

·       Psychotherapists

·       Lawyers

If you are in one of these professions, don’t assume you’ll be the exception. You may just end up losing everything in a malpractice lawsuit if you’re not prepared.

10- Don’t Try to Avoid the Complexities of Asset Protection

It’s not wise to take financial shortcuts. You will regret it should problems arise.

If you are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of details, paperwork, and legalities that are involved in full asset protection, hire an expert like those at Legally Mine to do the job right. You’ll never regret it.

11- Keep Going

Trust us, your situation is never set and you’re never done with asset protection.

Every time there is a change (state law, family relationship, health, job, real estate market, etc.) it also changes your assets and the protection of them.

Even if you are currently “set,” there is always another strategy to implement that will further protect your assets or that can increase your wealth.

Continually reassess and tweak your asset protection and lawsuit protection strategies to reap the rewards of a future full of financial success.

If you have any questions or want to better protect your assets, contact Legally Mine today!

How to Get Big Tax Breaks | Legally Mine

If you want to truly reach financial success, you must reduce the heavy burden of taxes.

With proper entity structuring and smart tax strategies, you will be shocked at the tax breaks that are open to you. The proper use of legal entities for tax purposes is very important because they allow you to take advantage of different laws that will serve you best. These laws can be used to take huge deductions...deductions that are life-changing.  

The Big Tax Breaks You Want

When most people think of tax breaks, the following federal tax credits are first to come to mind:

• Earned Income Tax Credit
• American Opportunity Tax Credit
• Lifetime Learning Credit
• Child and Dependent Care Credit
• Savers Tax Credit

Also, small business owners know well the small business tax deductions they can take:

• Business Insurance
• Business Interest and Bank Fees
• Charitable Contributions
• Education
• Home Office
• ...And many more

However, the surprise really comes when you find out that you may qualify for some of the many tax breaks that are afforded to the largest corporations in America. Yes, there is a whole other set of tax breaks that can be taken legally in order to ease your often-high tax burden. These “tax expenditures” are designed to legitimize special interest tax breaks and loopholes. You better believe the corporate giants take full advantage of the tax code that was written especially for them!

Just ask General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation. They are notorious for claiming tax benefits, at times going years without paying any taxes at all. In fact, GE paid less in federal income taxes in five years than a single American family pays in one year. They certainly have earned billions of dollars in tax benefits, though! Dozens of other Fortune 500 firms enjoy the same benefits.

The good news is that you can receive some of the same tax benefits as the big boys!

How Legally Mine Experts Can Help

While CPAs and tax preparers often act more like IRS compliance officers and tax return filers than tax reduction specialists, Legally Mine goes the extra mile to make sure you get to take full advantage of the tax code while remaining 100% compliant to it.

Most tax preparers have no idea that legal entity laws exist because they were created for the super wealthy and the IRS does not widely publicize them. This puts a heavy burden on you to find out what they are and how to implement them.

Luckily, Legally Mine knows the ins and outs of these tax laws and how to put them to work for your benefit.

Legally Mine Reviews

Legally Mine was founded over 40 years ago and currently boasts a team of attorneys and financial experts who help thousands of customers meet their tax reduction needs. We have been able to implement tax-saving strategies that save people, on average, $7,000 per year in taxes.

Here are just a few reviews left by our happy clients:

“In a day and age when customer service is lacking in most businesses, Legally Mine has been outstanding. They have either been able to talk me through my questions or get someone else in the legal team to quickly return my call and answer my questions. Phenomenal customer service.” -Madisonville Vet

“The staff at Legally Mine were very professional. They went over every document and answered every question that we had. They made all of the legal processes very quick and painless.” -Natanya Nielsen

“Great and helpful guidance. Patient with my questions and very informative.” -Justin Rader DDS

See for yourself how Legally Mine can help you get big tax breaks!

Legally Mine: What to Do Before You're in a Medical Lawsuit

While a lawsuit cause is often out of control of the party held responsible, the motivation for the lawsuit is always the same: assets. If your assets are protected, there simply is no motivation to go forward with a lawsuit. However, unprotected assets raise the flag to potential prosecutors that there is money to be won.

Here is how can you protect yourself from a medical lawsuit and how Legally Mine can help.

How to Protect Your Assets

Many medical professionals require their prospective patients sign a disclosure document “absolving” the medical professional of any medical mistake. The truth is, these documents rarely hold up in court.

In addition, you probably assume you are already protected from losing your personal assets should you find yourself in a medical lawsuit because you filed your practice correctly and separated your personal assets from your business ones.

Unfortunately, these two actions do not guarantee you won’t lose everything should you get sued (even if you know you’re innocent and believe you will win your case). Yes, asset protection entities such as LLCs and Family-Limited Partnerships can be used to protect personal assets, but if they are worded incorrectly or the papers are not kept up to date, these entities will lose most (or all) of their effective benefits.

The fact is that a judge can “pierce” the corporate veil and make available all of your personal assets to the lawsuit if the prosecuting attorney names you, the medical professional, personally in the case. However, if your personal assets are protected and cannot be taken in a lawsuit, a prosecuting attorney will be forced to settle with the insurance company instead.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Split your medical practices up into multiple locations.
• Set up a separate company (an LLC) to hold medical equipment.
• Set up an Asset Protection Trust (and consider an international one).
• Use LLCs to hold investments.
• Do not mix safe and dangerous assets.
• Add additional privacy measures to your LLC.
• Put your home into a land trust.
• Strip the equity from your domestic real estate.
• Place other liquid assets beyond the reach of the courts.

While this can be a lot to take in, and while an average attorney isn’t always equipped to complete all these steps properly, the Asset Protection Package from Legally Mine will get you the protection you and your family deserve.

Legally Mine Reviews from Medical Practices

In recent years, the American Bar Association conducted a survey of their attorneys which revealed that only 0.05% of U.S. attorneys consider asset protection one of their specialties . . . but it is ours!

That’s one reason why our Legally Mine’s clients are so happy with our service. Read for yourself.

“I attended a state conference, and one of the presentations given was from Legally mine. After realizing my exposure to lawsuits and the potential for a serious setback in my financial holdings, I contacted Legally Mine. They carefully walked me through the process. They have patiently answered my questions and advised me with the best decisions that would fit my situation. After setting up several legally protective entities, I am protected and know that my estate will be there for my loved ones.”  -Dr. Leo Hastings, DVM

“Legally Mine has done a fantastic job helping me start up our business. I would’ve never been able to figure out how to create or maintain an LLC by myself. I would’ve had to pay a lawyer several thousand dollars along with another thousand to a different lawyer to help me create a living trust. They really walk you through everything which is exactly what I needed since I really have no experience with any of this. I feel so at ease knowing our family and assets are now protected…” -K Ott

“They provide a variety of services to protect a person or small business’ assets from liability or lawsuits by limiting your exposure. And, a real person answers the phone when you call. The people I have dealt with have been helpful when contacted.” -Joe Zinser

Now that you’ve heard from our happy clients, get started protecting your assets from a medical lawsuit. Contact Legally Mine today!