RPF0134-QandA_on_WY_Corp_and_Sri_Lanka

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00:00:30.620 | We continue our Q&A series today with two questions.

00:00:34.460 | One from Mary on whether to incorporate

00:00:37.700 | in California or Wyoming.

00:00:41.300 | And another one from Bonica about how to build

00:00:44.800 | financial independence and set out your asset allocation plan

00:00:49.540 | when you live in Sri Lanka.

00:00:50.980 | ♪

00:00:53.980 | ♪

00:01:06.980 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:01:09.520 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

00:01:11.520 | Today is Wednesday, January 14, 2015.

00:01:16.900 | Thank you for being here.

00:01:19.140 | If you're tired of listening to the same 11 guests

00:01:22.040 | get bounced around on the once a week,

00:01:24.040 | every other financial podcast, you're in the right place.

00:01:26.040 | This is the show where we cover the stuff that,

00:01:29.040 | well, we cover some of the stuff that other people do

00:01:31.040 | and all the stuff that no one else covers as well.

00:01:34.040 | ♪

00:01:40.320 | I guess I should have said in addition to if you're tired

00:01:42.320 | of the same 11 guests that make the rounds everywhere,

00:01:45.200 | this is the show for you.

00:01:46.200 | But also if you're ready to go a little bit deeper

00:01:48.560 | than every other personal finance show,

00:01:51.240 | this is the show for you.

00:01:53.240 | I'm seeing, it's just fascinating to me,

00:01:55.240 | the massive growth that I see in the podcast space

00:01:58.240 | of the number of new shows that come on

00:02:00.240 | every single, practically every day.

00:02:03.240 | I think it's awesome. I really do.

00:02:06.240 | I'm a hardcore competitive person,

00:02:10.240 | not in the sense of trying to be better than everybody else,

00:02:13.240 | but just a believer in the value of competition

00:02:16.240 | and the value of market competition

00:02:18.240 | as ultimately being a win for the consumer.

00:02:20.240 | I feel strongly that you as a podcast consumer

00:02:23.240 | are going to win, but you certainly wonder,

00:02:26.240 | is there at some point in time, is there too much?

00:02:29.240 | Is there too many? Too many options

00:02:31.240 | in the same old, same old, same old.

00:02:34.240 | But we'll see. It's probably much like anything else.

00:02:37.240 | There's a massive rush at the beginning

00:02:39.240 | and then over time people shake out

00:02:41.240 | and I'll keep on working hard to try to be in the lead

00:02:45.240 | and keep my show fresh and interesting and original.

00:02:50.240 | Today we're going to continue with our Q&A series

00:02:52.240 | and cleaning out with these final two questions,

00:02:55.240 | I'm cleaning out the voicemail feedback line,

00:02:57.240 | which opens it up for you to call in a question.

00:02:59.240 | We're going to kick it off with a question from Mary

00:03:02.240 | about incorporation.

00:03:04.240 | Hi, I have two questions for you.

00:03:06.240 | The first one is that my husband and I run an online business

00:03:10.240 | that we have set up as a sole proprietorship

00:03:13.240 | and it's our one source of income, our main source of income.

00:03:17.240 | And we want to set it up as a C-Corp

00:03:20.240 | and we've been advised by friends

00:03:22.240 | to try doing that through Wyoming.

00:03:26.240 | We live in California.

00:03:28.240 | Can you go through some of the benefits of doing that

00:03:31.240 | and if that's what you would advise,

00:03:33.240 | since we live in California

00:03:35.240 | and we would like to try doing this in another state

00:03:38.240 | and if not Wyoming, which one would you recommend?

00:03:41.240 | My 16-year-old son, he also has his own business

00:03:44.240 | and it's growing to the point where we could set it up

00:03:48.240 | as a sole proprietorship as well.

00:03:50.240 | However, he needs to get his own liability insurance

00:03:54.240 | for the type of work that he does

00:03:56.240 | and because of his age, we're having a hard time

00:03:58.240 | finding business insurance for him.

00:04:01.240 | So we thought the best way to handle that

00:04:04.240 | is to set him up under a C-Corp as well for his business,

00:04:08.240 | but my husband would be the one kind of running that

00:04:11.240 | or setting that up and I believe that would mean

00:04:14.240 | my son would be an employee and then the liability,

00:04:18.240 | we would be able to get insurance

00:04:19.240 | under that type of a C-Corp business.

00:04:22.240 | If you have any advice on that second one or the first one,

00:04:25.240 | we would really appreciate it.

00:04:26.240 | Thank you.

00:04:27.240 | So this is an interesting question to me

00:04:29.240 | and we're going to start off with Joshua's card

00:04:31.240 | and a rule of financial advice, which is this.

00:04:34.240 | Don't get financial advice from friends

00:04:36.240 | and don't get business advice from friends.

00:04:39.240 | Now, I say that with a twinkle in my eye

00:04:42.240 | and a chuckle in my mouth simply because, yes,

00:04:46.240 | it is valuable to get advice from friends,

00:04:49.240 | but one of the challenges of taking advice from friends

00:04:52.240 | is that it's very rare, even if you're working with a friend

00:04:56.240 | who has just gone through a process,

00:04:58.240 | their own process of figuring out what's right for them

00:05:02.240 | and for their business,

00:05:03.240 | it's very rare to actually have a layperson, a friend,

00:05:08.240 | who is able to step back and take a comprehensive view

00:05:12.240 | of the issues that are at stake.

00:05:14.240 | This is just--most people can't do it.

00:05:16.240 | Most people don't do it.

00:05:18.240 | If they could or they did,

00:05:19.240 | they're probably working in a business of some kind,

00:05:22.240 | so they're not generally objective.

00:05:24.240 | And the challenge is there may be two businesses

00:05:27.240 | which to an outsider, to a layperson,

00:05:30.240 | seem very similar, and so you would naturally assume,

00:05:34.240 | well, there would be similar result

00:05:40.240 | as far as what's the appropriate planning steps to take,

00:05:43.240 | and the reality is there are some unique considerations

00:05:47.240 | that the owners of those businesses are trying to achieve

00:05:49.240 | that make them very different,

00:05:51.240 | and so in order to give good advice,

00:05:55.240 | you need to understand what those differences would be.

00:05:57.240 | So take ideas from friends and research it a little bit further

00:06:01.240 | as you have done with me.

00:06:04.240 | Now, I'm going to straight up--I'm going to tell you,

00:06:06.240 | I'm not a good--my answer at the end of a little bit

00:06:09.240 | of background information for the audience

00:06:10.240 | is simply going to be, "I don't know.

00:06:12.240 | I don't have a clue, and I don't know what you should do."

00:06:15.240 | So I'm going to preface my comments here.

00:06:18.240 | I'm still going to answer the question

00:06:19.240 | and use it as a--on this show as a way

00:06:22.240 | to kind of give people some ideas

00:06:23.240 | and hopefully help you with some thoughts,

00:06:26.240 | but I simply do not know enough,

00:06:29.240 | and there's no way for me to give any reasonable advice

00:06:33.240 | in your context.

00:06:34.240 | You need to consult an expert in your area.

00:06:39.240 | You need to consult a business planning attorney

00:06:42.240 | who can give you some excellent, objective advice,

00:06:46.240 | and it's very much worth the costs and fees

00:06:49.240 | associated with that.

00:06:52.240 | There are many reasons why I can't give you a good answer.

00:06:55.240 | Part of it is just due to my lack of knowledge

00:06:57.240 | on California law, you know, your specific--

00:07:00.240 | the specifics of your situation,

00:07:02.240 | but part of it also is just

00:07:04.240 | what you're trying to accomplish.

00:07:07.240 | I would start with simply saying,

00:07:08.240 | "Why do you want to incorporate?"

00:07:13.240 | You might think that's an automatic answer,

00:07:15.240 | but it's really not.

00:07:16.240 | There may be many valid reasons to incorporate,

00:07:19.240 | but you need to know clearly that there are also

00:07:21.240 | some disadvantages to establishing a corporation,

00:07:24.240 | a corporation comes with additional costs,

00:07:27.240 | additional headaches, additional record-keeping,

00:07:31.240 | additional tax returns.

00:07:32.240 | It brings in additional--an additional burden,

00:07:36.240 | additional paperwork.

00:07:38.240 | It's probably going to be a wise idea,

00:07:41.240 | but you need to know specifically and clearly

00:07:43.240 | why you're going to do it.

00:07:46.240 | Make sure that you can clearly defend that decision.

00:07:49.240 | Next, I would say, "Why a C corporation?"

00:07:52.240 | There are many compelling reasons

00:07:54.240 | why you might choose to establish a C corporation.

00:07:58.240 | I'll do teaching shows at some point

00:08:00.240 | where we talk about all the differences

00:08:02.240 | and, you know, reasons to choose one entity over another,

00:08:05.240 | but there may be many compelling reasons

00:08:08.240 | in your situation why you should,

00:08:10.240 | but there might also be compelling reasons

00:08:12.240 | why you should consider a different form of entity.

00:08:18.240 | You might consider an S corporation.

00:08:20.240 | You might consider a partnership.

00:08:21.240 | You might consider an LLC,

00:08:22.240 | a limited liability company taxed as a C corporation

00:08:25.240 | if you're looking for your tax benefits.

00:08:28.240 | So this is important that you know those questions.

00:08:32.240 | And then finally, "Where to incorporate?"

00:08:34.240 | Now, this is one of those issues

00:08:36.240 | that actually gets a lot of press,

00:08:38.240 | and you have to be very careful

00:08:40.240 | where you get the press from.

00:08:42.240 | This is why immediately I just simply recommend

00:08:44.240 | go to a good attorney and talk to a good attorney

00:08:46.240 | because a good professional in this area of practice

00:08:50.240 | will quickly be able to dispel the hype

00:08:53.240 | that you may read about online.

00:08:55.240 | Just for fun, I went and started to read a little bit

00:08:57.240 | from some of the Wyoming

00:09:00.240 | corporate registration service companies,

00:09:03.240 | and this is the same issue that you face

00:09:05.240 | in just about any business establishment place.

00:09:11.240 | It's big business to help people start business,

00:09:14.240 | and what happens if you only get your insight

00:09:18.240 | and your information from one specific source,

00:09:22.240 | you might not have the background

00:09:24.240 | to know that there are other options.

00:09:26.240 | The example that I use is here where I live in Florida.

00:09:30.240 | You often hear these things advertised on the radio

00:09:34.240 | or on podcasts, especially they're very popular,

00:09:36.240 | of the legal document companies,

00:09:38.240 | where you go online and you can hire somebody

00:09:40.240 | to help you establish your company.

00:09:42.240 | Well, if all you need is to establish a company,

00:09:45.240 | in many states, and at least in my state,

00:09:48.240 | you don't need, if you just have a very simple scenario

00:09:51.240 | and you're not doing any complex planning with your entity,

00:09:54.240 | you don't need to purchase a document

00:09:56.240 | to help you file your articles of incorporation

00:09:59.240 | or your articles of organization.

00:10:01.240 | You don't need that.

00:10:02.240 | You just go on your state,

00:10:03.240 | and they've got a standard boilerplate form.

00:10:05.240 | You click a few buttons, pay them their fee,

00:10:07.240 | and you're done.

00:10:08.240 | In the state of Florida, it's remarkably easy.

00:10:11.240 | You go to sunbiz.org or whatever it is,

00:10:14.240 | and you're done.

00:10:15.240 | You can file an LLC in a few minutes.

00:10:17.240 | I've done it.

00:10:18.240 | And it's extremely easy to do.

00:10:21.240 | You don't need any extra services.

00:10:23.240 | Now, you certainly, when you file a boilerplate LLC document

00:10:27.240 | or a boilerplate corporation, articles of incorporation,

00:10:31.240 | you are not establishing any special organizational rules

00:10:38.240 | that may help your business down the road.

00:10:40.240 | But many people simply don't need that.

00:10:42.240 | It just depends on the nature of the business

00:10:44.240 | and what you're trying to actually accomplish.

00:10:46.240 | So the same thing when you go online

00:10:48.240 | and you start reading about where should I form a corporation.

00:10:51.240 | And usually, it's rare that I hear people talk about

00:10:54.240 | Wyoming corporations.

00:10:55.240 | Usually, it's a question about a Nevada corporation

00:10:58.240 | or a Delaware corporation.

00:10:59.240 | And then you quickly get into all of these ideas

00:11:02.240 | and all this sales copy about why you need to file

00:11:05.240 | your corporate entity in Nevada

00:11:07.240 | or why you need to file your corporate entity in Wyoming

00:11:10.240 | or why you need to file your corporate entity in Delaware.

00:11:14.240 | Now, this Wyoming thing is interesting

00:11:16.240 | because it seems like Wyoming is working hard to compete

00:11:19.240 | with some of these other states that are well-known

00:11:22.240 | for having some favorable laws.

00:11:24.240 | Let me give you the financial sales copy first

00:11:28.240 | that you can get with a quick duck-duck-go search online

00:11:32.240 | and you can pull up your information

00:11:34.240 | in a couple of minutes as far as this, about Nevada.

00:11:38.240 | And Nevada is the one that's more famous

00:11:40.240 | that people always recommend is this is the state

00:11:42.240 | in which you should set up your incorporation.

00:11:45.240 | And if I'm giving you the sales copy,

00:11:49.240 | it's all about Nevada law.

00:11:51.240 | And the Nevada law protects the directors and officers

00:11:55.240 | of a company for any personal liability

00:11:57.240 | for acts committed on behalf of the corporation

00:11:59.240 | or by the corporation except in cases of fraud.

00:12:02.240 | Because the jurisdiction for the corporation

00:12:04.240 | is in the state in which it is incorporated,

00:12:06.240 | then Nevada is the preferred state.

00:12:08.240 | So it has some of the most tested corporate laws,

00:12:11.240 | has the highest degree of privacy.

00:12:13.240 | It's the only state in the United States

00:12:15.240 | that does not share information with the IRS.

00:12:18.240 | It doesn't have any state corporate taxes,

00:12:20.240 | and they're just super great for protecting yourself

00:12:25.240 | and protecting your assets.

00:12:26.240 | There's no corporate income tax, no taxes on corporate shares,

00:12:29.240 | no franchise tax or gift tax, no stock transfer tax,

00:12:31.240 | no state personal income tax,

00:12:33.240 | minimal reporting and disclosure requirements.

00:12:35.240 | Stockholders are not a matter of public record.

00:12:37.240 | The law requires only one director.

00:12:39.240 | Directors can change bylaws,

00:12:40.240 | and there's no minimum capital that's required.

00:12:43.240 | And only the officers, directors, and resident agents are disclosed.

00:12:47.240 | So in Nevada, you don't have to reveal

00:12:49.240 | the stockholders of a corporation.

00:12:50.240 | I'm just reading these from a list here.

00:12:51.240 | So these are all the Nevada corporations

00:12:53.240 | that have been proven effective over time

00:12:55.240 | by thousands of clients from literally every state

00:12:57.240 | in the nation and around the world.

00:12:59.240 | So why would you choose Nevada?

00:13:01.240 | Well, Nevada's this really great place,

00:13:02.240 | and if you're going to set up this business,

00:13:04.240 | that you need to set up, then Nevada is what you should do.

00:13:09.240 | Delaware is another one that is often talked about.

00:13:12.240 | More than 60% of Fortune 500 companies

00:13:14.240 | are incorporated in Delaware.

00:13:16.240 | So if you're concerned about your company's image,

00:13:18.240 | consider that there may be some prestige

00:13:20.240 | that you're a Delaware corporation.

00:13:22.240 | And how do you get this set up?

00:13:24.240 | And then Wyoming now is the new, relatively new game in town

00:13:29.240 | where their fees are lower,

00:13:31.240 | all of their costs are lower than Nevada and Delaware,

00:13:33.240 | so that's where you should set up.

00:13:35.240 | But there are a number of myths in this area,

00:13:38.240 | and I want to talk about a couple of them

00:13:40.240 | and then talk about some ways and reasons

00:13:42.240 | why you would choose one of these states

00:13:45.240 | when establishing an entity.

00:13:46.240 | And this is where it all goes back to why.

00:13:48.240 | And you have to filter--

00:13:50.240 | that's why I did this show recently

00:13:52.240 | on how to filter your advice through the lens of scale.

00:13:54.240 | You have to figure out,

00:13:55.240 | what do I actually need at this point in time?

00:13:58.240 | As an example, let's say that you come to me

00:13:59.240 | and you say, "Joshua, I'm a real estate investor.

00:14:01.240 | "I'm trying to figure out how to protect

00:14:03.240 | "my different pieces of real estate

00:14:05.240 | "from creditors that are looking for me.

00:14:09.240 | "And how do I set up some asset protection planning?"

00:14:11.240 | This is--real estate seems to attract all of the snakes

00:14:15.240 | and the salespeople that have some great idea

00:14:19.240 | about put every single property

00:14:20.240 | in a single-member LLC and/or land trust.

00:14:22.240 | And these ideas, they have merit,

00:14:24.240 | but you have to filter it through the lens of scale.

00:14:27.240 | If you're going out and you're going to buy your first property,

00:14:30.240 | are you really going to set up a--

00:14:33.240 | what is it?

00:14:35.240 | It's not Nevada. New Mexico.

00:14:37.240 | Are you really going to go and set up a New Mexico LLC

00:14:40.240 | so that you can own this property completely anonymously

00:14:43.240 | when you're about to make your first real estate deal?

00:14:46.240 | Maybe.

00:14:47.240 | But it might also just simply not be worth the hassle.

00:14:51.240 | That might be different than if you've got

00:14:53.240 | 200 pieces of individual property,

00:14:55.240 | and over time you're just making some transitions

00:14:58.240 | in your personal portfolio.

00:15:00.240 | So filter it through where are you actually at

00:15:03.240 | in your need for these things.

00:15:06.240 | So some of the myths that people talk about

00:15:09.240 | when they come into these ideas,

00:15:11.240 | they talk about, "Well, if I incorporate in Wyoming or Nevada or Delaware,

00:15:15.240 | I'm going to have lower costs than if I incorporate in California."

00:15:20.240 | Without a doubt, that is simply not true. Period.

00:15:24.240 | And the reason it's not true is because

00:15:26.240 | in order to do business, if you're doing business in California,

00:15:29.240 | most likely--I could be mistaken on this,

00:15:31.240 | I've never done business in California,

00:15:33.240 | I'm not familiar with California business law.

00:15:35.240 | With that disclaimer aside, most likely,

00:15:38.240 | even if you go and you register in Wyoming,

00:15:40.240 | you're also going to have to register in California

00:15:42.240 | in order to do business in that state.

00:15:44.240 | So you're going to have to pay Wyoming fees and California fees.

00:15:48.240 | Or if you're registering in Nevada,

00:15:50.240 | you've got to pay the fees in Nevada and in your home state.

00:15:53.240 | And Nevada is horrendously expensive as far as the fees they charge.

00:15:56.240 | So now you're just adding on a whole other level of fees.

00:15:59.240 | So incorporating in another state instead of in your own home state

00:16:03.240 | does nothing for you in terms of saving you cost.

00:16:07.240 | One of the other big myths that you hear constantly

00:16:10.240 | is that somehow there's going to be some tax savings.

00:16:13.240 | And this is also not true.

00:16:17.240 | Just because you set up a corporation in Wyoming

00:16:22.240 | and just because Wyoming doesn't tax corporate income

00:16:27.240 | doesn't mean that you're not going to be taxed on your income.

00:16:29.240 | You live in California,

00:16:31.240 | so you're going to be taxed on it in California,

00:16:33.240 | in your home jurisdiction.

00:16:36.240 | Incorporating in another state does nothing for you

00:16:39.240 | from the perspective of tax planning,

00:16:42.240 | whether it's Nevada or Delaware or Wyoming.

00:16:48.240 | You constantly hear this when people are doing trust planning

00:16:51.240 | and they say, "Well, I set up a..."

00:16:53.240 | And by the way, I'm not being harsh.

00:16:55.240 | I'm just trying to give a little bit deeper level of education

00:16:58.240 | because you hear well-meaning people who are simply misinformed.

00:17:02.240 | And that's why I give my disclaimer at the end of every show saying,

00:17:06.240 | "If I'm wrong about something, come and tell me

00:17:08.240 | because I'm very well-meaning and I could simply be ignorant and misinformed."

00:17:11.240 | Being ignorant is not a crime. It's just we're ignorant.

00:17:13.240 | We need to be helped.

00:17:16.240 | So to stay on point with tax planning,

00:17:19.240 | one of the other areas you see this a lot is in things

00:17:22.240 | involving estate tax planning or income tax planning.

00:17:26.240 | The idea that because I set up a living trust

00:17:28.240 | and I put all my assets into a living trust,

00:17:31.240 | somehow it's going to do something for my tax planning.

00:17:33.240 | It does nothing for your tax planning.

00:17:35.240 | That's a whole separate area.

00:17:38.240 | Transferring and retitling all of your assets into a living trust

00:17:41.240 | doesn't help you with your taxes.

00:17:43.240 | It just simply helps you with your probate process

00:17:47.240 | and avoiding disclosing all your assets to the court at the date of your death

00:17:50.240 | and it eases the transfer of assets from one party to another.

00:17:53.240 | But it does nothing for tax savings.

00:17:56.240 | So same thing with income tax savings.

00:17:58.240 | Setting up a corporation in another state doesn't do anything for your tax savings.

00:18:02.240 | Now there are ways to skin this cat, so to speak, but they're very specific.

00:18:07.240 | And you mentioned that you run an online business.

00:18:10.240 | Well, that's an important piece of data.

00:18:13.240 | Are you getting hammered with California sales taxes?

00:18:16.240 | And that's what you're trying to accomplish?

00:18:19.240 | Well, if so, then you're trying to lower those.

00:18:22.240 | That's what you're trying to accomplish?

00:18:23.240 | If so, then, well, maybe you should be thinking about setting something up.

00:18:29.240 | Maybe you should be thinking about establishing an entity in another jurisdiction

00:18:36.240 | or in another state where there's no state sales tax.

00:18:39.240 | Or maybe you should be setting up an international company of some kind.

00:18:42.240 | Now I don't know. I have no idea what your scenario is.

00:18:46.240 | My point is just simply incorporating another state just doesn't automatically change anything

00:18:50.240 | because it doesn't do anything for your tax planning.

00:18:54.240 | So why do people incorporate in other states?

00:18:58.240 | Well, the well-known ones are Delaware and Nevada, as I mentioned,

00:19:03.240 | and Wyoming is working to compete with them going forward.

00:19:07.240 | And probably the primary reason that people will choose another state is for liability protection.

00:19:14.240 | The primary reason to set up a company and to set up a corporation is to protect from liability

00:19:19.240 | and to create limited liability of some kind.

00:19:23.240 | And so in that scenario, in order to protect from liability,

00:19:28.240 | it's useful to do so in a place that has more favorable laws.

00:19:36.240 | And one of the biggest concerns for many people is the idea of what's known in legal speak

00:19:43.240 | as piercing the corporate veil.

00:19:45.240 | And the idea is I said I go and I'm engaging in some sort of business that has risk and a built-in liability.

00:19:52.240 | So I establish instead of doing business as Joshua sheets the individual,

00:19:57.240 | I set up the JS Corporation and that's the business that's now engaging in that corporate liability.

00:20:03.240 | Well, if I'm doing business and I've become liable because of some problem

00:20:11.240 | and now I'm liable for the debts and obligations of the corporation,

00:20:15.240 | some states at some point might come through and pierce that corporate veil.

00:20:19.240 | And even though that company was minimally funded and they say,

00:20:23.240 | "Well, Joshua, listen, you've got" -- I don't --

00:20:25.240 | "but you've got $5 million sitting in the bank account,

00:20:28.240 | but your company now only had $50,000 and we have a lawsuit judgment here for $5 million.

00:20:35.240 | We're going to pierce that corporate veil and hold you personally responsible."

00:20:38.240 | And some states this happens more often than others.

00:20:42.240 | Now, I'm not an attorney so I don't know how.

00:20:44.240 | It's just from my reading.

00:20:45.240 | But California is actually at the top of that list.

00:20:47.240 | And so is Florida. Florida is number two.

00:20:50.240 | California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania,

00:20:55.240 | these are the states that are at the top of the list for actually cutting through and discarding that corporation.

00:21:00.240 | Now, is this automatic?

00:21:03.240 | No. If you have a corporation that's a legitimate corporation that's running well,

00:21:08.240 | that is certainly a separate entity in every way, it's unlikely.

00:21:13.240 | It's hard for me to believe the state is going to pierce that corporate veil when it's a legitimate operation.

00:21:19.240 | Now, if it's slightly shady or it's just one of those things that's kind of more paperish,

00:21:25.240 | it's more in form rather than in substance, well, that's where you would ask some questions.

00:21:33.240 | And now, how relevant is that to you? I don't know.

00:21:37.240 | I don't know what kind of business you're running.

00:21:38.240 | I don't know how important that is to you.

00:21:41.240 | Nevada is, from everything that I've read, Nevada is certainly the most strict with disallowing that piercing of the corporate veil.

00:21:54.240 | There's one case that is well known called Rowland versus LaPire,

00:22:00.240 | and it was in that case, the corporation that existed did all kinds of stuff that in most states

00:22:08.240 | would make the stockholders and the officers personally liable for the corporate debts.

00:22:13.240 | The company was minimally capitalized. There's no formal board of directors, no formal stockholders meetings,

00:22:19.240 | no dividends that are paid out. The officers weren't paid any salaries.

00:22:23.240 | There was no corporate minutes that were kept or any evidence that they were ever kept.

00:22:27.240 | But the corporation did have a checking account in the corporate name and licenses that were in the corporate name,

00:22:32.240 | and the Nevada court held that the corporate veil couldn't be pierced unless there was fraud that was demonstrated and actually shown.

00:22:39.240 | So, in most states, as the legal information, whatever that I've looked at in the past says,

00:22:45.240 | then that would be an example of how Nevada law was superior.

00:22:48.240 | So, if you're running something under that kind of operation, maybe Nevada is better.

00:22:52.240 | But if you're in California, it's hard for me to imagine that if your company is well capitalized,

00:22:57.240 | if your company is truly a formal separate company with a formal board of directors,

00:23:02.240 | that there's formal, you're keeping your corporate minutes reliably,

00:23:06.240 | and that the corporation has separate assets, everything is separated and run properly,

00:23:12.240 | and I would do that anyway, just keep your life simple, audit-proof yourself from the beginning,

00:23:18.240 | then is California law really that worse? It's hard for me to imagine it is, but again, I don't know. Ask an attorney.

00:23:25.240 | The other reason why people will choose other states is simply due to a higher, more privacy.

00:23:34.240 | And so, in many states, maybe the shareholders of a closely held corporation are public record,

00:23:41.240 | and if you are a shareholder in different companies, then I can just go to a corporate record search and publicly pull up all of the information,

00:23:50.240 | and this might not be to your benefit.

00:23:53.240 | I personally think one of the things that is important for us to do as part of our financial planning is to live a low-key lifestyle and not be a big target.

00:24:04.240 | You can avoid a lot of problems if you just simply don't drive a Rolls Royce around every day.

00:24:09.240 | Drive something low-key. No matter how much money you have, just don't show it off.

00:24:14.240 | Or at least don't show it off in your hometown, you start to paint a bullseye on your back.

00:24:18.240 | So, this is a concern to many people, they don't want everybody knowing all of the business interests that they have,

00:24:24.240 | and so therefore, you can set it up with different ways of, you can set it up with different, I guess, just roadblocks in place.

00:24:36.240 | Now, at the end of the day, anybody who's motivated enough can find out just about anything they want, and it's certainly the government.

00:24:43.240 | If the government puts enough resources on you, you can't hide a thing. Period.

00:24:49.240 | It's just simply not possible.

00:24:51.240 | But you can at least not stand out. You can at least not be easily found. You can at least not be prominent.

00:24:57.240 | And so that's one thing that you can do.

00:25:00.240 | This is very attractive to company owners, but it may also be attractive to, again, people like real estate investors.

00:25:07.240 | It certainly is possible that you might want to buy a ranch in another state. Maybe you want to have a safe retreat.

00:25:13.240 | You want to have an ability to have a location to fall back on, where if something bad happened in your life, you wanted a backup location.

00:25:23.240 | You wanted to have a private ranch that was your little retreat that you were able to go back to.

00:25:28.240 | And you might prefer if no one was able to find it, or able to find you, at least not easily.

00:25:34.240 | No one is able to do a simple public record search and pull up, "Oh, Joshua Sheets lives at this location."

00:25:39.240 | Well, you can do that.

00:25:41.240 | You just simply establish a couple of entities and make sure that you're doing it in a way that's private.

00:25:50.240 | Again, this was the most common one here, is the New Mexico LLC.

00:25:54.240 | But you do it in a way that's private, and you have your corporate entity purchase the property, and you use a transfer agent, and you use an attorney to do the deal.

00:26:02.240 | And you can have a property that you own in another place, another state, another country, another town, that is not easily found in the public records.

00:26:10.240 | And that may be a wise thing for you to do.

00:26:13.240 | So if you need privacy, then there might be some reason to do it.

00:26:17.240 | But those are the primary reasons why people do it.

00:26:20.240 | The Delaware thing, incidentally, by the way, the primary reason that companies incorporate in Delaware is purely due to the fact that they have a special court.

00:26:33.240 | Excuse me, it's not purely.

00:26:34.240 | It's primarily due to the fact that they have a special court that handles business transactions, business cases consistently.

00:26:45.240 | It's called the Chancery Court.

00:26:46.240 | And this court exclusively hears business entity cases, and it has a reputation as being a very well-run, very efficient court.

00:26:54.240 | And because Delaware has such an extensive body of corporate case law that goes back for years and years and years and years, and it covers all the aspects of the business stuff that you get into, mergers, acquisitions, debates, arguments between management and shareholders,

00:27:15.240 | and how do you set things up, then it's very, very predictable.

00:27:18.240 | And so because the Delaware law has been, in essence, probed so many times with so many cases, it's extremely predictable.

00:27:26.240 | And if you're not aware of the body of – the way that our legal system works in most states, we – our legal system functions on the – I think it's the English common law tradition where everything is based upon case law.

00:27:40.240 | So that's why attorneys have to do so much research. They'll usually look and say, "What's the precedent that was established in a previous case in this type of issue?" And that will be applied.

00:27:50.240 | The courts will use the precedent that was established in a previous case and will generally follow that precedent.

00:27:55.240 | So for a large Fortune 500 company, then it's very, very predictable, and the attorneys that represent that company can go back to and have this high degree of predictability instead of having to go and test and see what the Florida court is going to do with this law.

00:28:11.240 | So that can really be a useful feature for a large corporation. Many large corporations will have multiple lawsuits going on at all times, and it can be a major benefit to them to have the chance to recourt in which to do business and also to have the predictability of the case law.

00:28:32.240 | So that's why 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware. But does that mean that even if you think your company is going to grow big that you should start there?

00:28:41.240 | Delaware is incredibly expensive from my research – is incredibly expensive to actually establish your company in.

00:28:48.240 | And so in this scenario, you might just want to register in your home state and then do a transfer to Delaware at some point if you need to.

00:28:57.240 | And it's relatively easy from what I understand from my attorney friends that it's relatively simple and straightforward to just simply do a transfer and transfer your company – that's not called a transfer.

00:29:08.240 | I forget what the legal word for it is. But you just move your location of corporation from one state to another.

00:29:15.240 | So that's a little bit of background for you, and I would just simply say this. I'm the wrong guy to ask.

00:29:26.240 | After I just spent 26 minutes giving you information, I'm really the wrong guy to ask.

00:29:33.240 | About the only good that I can do is just simply to tell you how I'd research it, and I would think through what are you specifically trying to accomplish.

00:29:40.240 | Is it costs? Is it taxes? Is it privacy? Is it liability protection? And so what are you trying to accomplish?

00:29:50.240 | If you're trying to save in tax just because you live in California and incorporate in Wyoming, it's not going to do much for you.

00:29:55.240 | If it's cost, that's going to be doubly expensive because you're going to pay in Wyoming and in California.

00:29:59.240 | Wyoming fees are evidently not very much, but you've got to file on both. Is it privacy? Well, that might be compelling.

00:30:04.240 | Or is it liability protection? I don't know. So you need a good attorney. You need good legal advice. It's worth the money.

00:30:10.240 | I don't know what you should do. I have no idea. If I could get out of California – I really want to bring on somebody who's liberty-minded and cost-minded and ask them –

00:30:20.240 | because I know some people who are very focused on liberty, personal liberty, and costs and cost efficiency, and they continue to live in California.

00:30:29.240 | I can't figure it out. I can't figure out why. So either there's some planning things that's on my research list to figure out how could I live in California and keep my business affairs out of there.

00:30:38.240 | I simply don't know how to do it yet. But I don't understand why many of you put up with California and the laws.

00:30:48.240 | So if any of you Californians can enlighten me, I'd love to hear your comments.

00:30:52.240 | Why would somebody who's interested in lowering their personal costs, who's interested in living a freer lifestyle – and I recognize that Southern California versus Northern California, these are dramatically different places.

00:31:06.240 | But I just scratch my head any time I hear of people living in California from a financial planning perspective.

00:31:13.240 | If any of you know, please enlighten me. Come by the show notes for today's show and let me know. Comment.

00:31:18.240 | And if you know of or can point me in the direction of any research on how to live in California and yet keep your business affairs and your money out, I'm interested in knowing how to do that.

00:31:29.240 | So maybe you can help as well.

00:31:31.240 | Now, the second question you asked as far as for your son, that's also an interesting question.

00:31:36.240 | And I did a little research on it, and I simply don't know the answer on that either.

00:31:40.240 | So what you should do and what he should do, I don't know.

00:31:44.240 | I found conflicting information.

00:31:47.240 | And the primary issue that people talk about is, well, minors can't legally enter into contracts.

00:31:53.240 | And that's partly true.

00:31:55.240 | Minors can enter into – from my understanding, minors can enter into legally binding contracts.

00:32:00.240 | But sometimes they can actually repudiate the contract.

00:32:04.240 | And so therefore that would make it difficult for someone on the other side of a contract to have confidence in it.

00:32:11.240 | But they can enter into some contracts.

00:32:13.240 | And as far as who can own the corporation, who can organize it, who can do that, I don't have the expertise to know the answer.

00:32:20.240 | I would start by simply calling a property and casualty agent and call a couple of them and describe to them your problem.

00:32:27.240 | And maybe you've already done this.

00:32:29.240 | But if your simple problem is how to get insurance, how to get liability insurance for his business activities,

00:32:36.240 | I would start with just simply by calling some insurance agents and tell them your problem and see if they would have some ideas.

00:32:42.240 | I have never practiced in the area of liability insurance.

00:32:45.240 | I'm not licensed.

00:32:46.240 | I don't know how to do it.

00:32:47.240 | But I do know that in the issues that affected me and whether it was life insurance planning or investment planning, I do know how to get around a lot of the sticky things that other people do.

00:33:01.240 | And so you just develop an expertise in that area.

00:33:03.240 | So I would start by surveying some PNC agents and ask them what they would suggest.

00:33:10.240 | And if they all say just establish the entity, then maybe that's what you need to do.

00:33:14.240 | But you might be able to get something accomplished simply.

00:33:18.240 | You might not need a corporate entity with your husband as the owner and your son as an employee.

00:33:23.240 | You might just simply need a more official DBA.

00:33:27.240 | I don't know.

00:33:28.240 | So start with asking some property and casualty agents.

00:33:33.240 | If any of you have some help that would be – any of you do have expertise, come by and share it in the show notes on today's show to help.

00:33:41.240 | That would be super useful.

00:33:43.240 | This is episode 134.

00:33:45.240 | So you can find the show notes at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/134.

00:33:50.240 | Maybe we can crowdsource some information.

00:33:52.240 | Thanks for the question.

00:33:53.240 | Hope at least some of the background was helpful and useful to you.

00:33:57.240 | Let's boogie on to the second question for today and it comes from Banuka in Sri Lanka.

00:34:03.240 | Here you go.

00:34:04.240 | Hey, Joshua.

00:34:05.240 | My name is Banuka and I've got a few questions for you.

00:34:08.240 | I've pretty much gone through every episode of the podcast and I love what you're doing for the community.

00:34:13.240 | So I'm 20 years old and I run a small digital marketing company and I'm involved in a few startups.

00:34:20.240 | I'm from Sri Lanka.

00:34:21.240 | If you don't know, it's a small country close to India.

00:34:24.240 | So the living expenses aren't really that high and I managed to save a couple thousand dollars every month, around 80% of what I make.

00:34:32.240 | I've been saving a bit since I was 18, but I only started investing seriously from last year.

00:34:38.240 | I have around $20,000 so far of my total portfolio saved up.

00:34:43.240 | Most of them are in term deposits, kind of like bonds.

00:34:47.240 | Now, since our rate of inflation is around 4 to 6%, the term bonds you can get are anywhere from 6 to 9% depending on the period of years.

00:34:58.240 | I generally go for the five-year bonds.

00:35:00.240 | So I've dedicated around 50% of my portfolio into these bonds and then I have around 30% of my money as loans where I give out to people who I know can and will pay me back for around 15% interest.

00:35:14.240 | And the other 20% is in seeding a few small-scale startups.

00:35:20.240 | I know you would tell me to have 100% of my allocation in an all-stock portfolio and I get that.

00:35:27.240 | Being in the United States, the stock market is fairly efficient and you can index in a company like Vanguard for a few basis points.

00:35:35.240 | I share the same opinion as you in terms of education.

00:35:38.240 | I dropped out of my final exams around two years ago and I kind of gave up on the whole school system and started reading books on personal finance, economics, marketing and business and a ton of biographies.

00:35:49.240 | I'm still unaware of how I should have my asset allocation.

00:35:53.240 | There is tons of financial literature for the US market but for third world countries and emerging markets, it's a very different story.

00:36:01.240 | Here, our stock market is manipulated and all the blue chip stocks are overvalued, extremely overvalued.

00:36:08.240 | I'm not sure whether investing in the stock market is a good idea.

00:36:13.240 | We have an index fund like the S&P 500, however, the brokerage firms that handle those indexes take around 2% of the fees right off the top, which is quite ridiculous.

00:36:23.240 | It's actually higher than a managed fund that you could get in the States.

00:36:28.240 | I want to have something like the old season's portfolio from Anthony Robbins' new book Money Master of the Game so I can reduce the time I spend with my investing side and maximize the time I spend with my employees and growing my company.

00:36:43.240 | But I'm still not that sure.

00:36:46.240 | I know the question isn't something you can give a direct answer to but say you were in a wildly inefficient market which is being manipulated day in and day out, would you put your money in it or would you take the less risky approach?

00:37:01.240 | Also, I've sent you an email as well because I think I can help you out a bit with all the tech stuff on your show.

00:37:07.240 | Anyway, thanks in advance and I love the fact that you do this hour-long daily show.

00:37:12.240 | I just go out for a walk and when you miss out on a show, I don't get any exercise.

00:37:17.240 | So keep up the daily dose of Joshua and sorry for the long question.

00:37:21.240 | Thanks, Monika.

00:37:24.240 | We're going to call this the diet of radical personal finance.

00:37:27.240 | Not the diet, the exercise regime of radical personal finance.

00:37:32.240 | Go and listen to the show while you walk.

00:37:33.240 | I like it.

00:37:34.240 | It's a good idea.

00:37:35.240 | I should do that myself.

00:37:36.240 | I'm trying to walk more and maybe I need to just listen to my show every day while I walk.

00:37:42.240 | It's a great question and I love questions like this.

00:37:46.240 | I love them because they help me to think.

00:37:49.240 | I enjoy traveling and as I travel, I'm always asking myself the question or I'm often asking myself the question, "What would I do if I lived here?

00:37:59.240 | How would I build wealth if I were here in this cultural context?

00:38:04.240 | What would I have to do?"

00:38:07.240 | And I find this to be a very searching question because it exposes certain realities that you're not, I think, in tune with if you don't travel a little bit.

00:38:21.240 | So for example, for years, I operated under the assumption that much of the world was very much like the United States.

00:38:28.240 | And in the United States, we have this cultural ethic of essentially bootstrapping our way up.

00:38:37.240 | Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

00:38:39.240 | Anybody can do it with enough grit and determination and achieve the American dream.

00:38:43.240 | And this is culturally built into us.

00:38:45.240 | It's fading a little bit, especially a lot of people are intentionally, I think, fading it.

00:38:51.240 | And is it completely true?

00:38:53.240 | Is it not?

00:38:54.240 | I don't know.

00:38:55.240 | Of all the places I've traveled, it's more possible in the United States than anywhere else I've seen so far.

00:39:01.240 | Hopefully, that will spread.

00:39:03.240 | But one of the things I learned as I've traveled is that it's maybe not quite the same in other cultures.

00:39:08.240 | And that was a big shock to me when I realized I had to account for certain realities, certain corruption, societal caste systems.

00:39:18.240 | I had to account for certain things.

00:39:20.240 | And it made me come to the conclusion – well, I won't go into a long-winded way, but sometimes it's not possible.

00:39:27.240 | And I'm just like, "I have no idea how I would do it here," and I would just leave.

00:39:31.240 | If I were living in – this is when I've traveled a good bit in Central America.

00:39:38.240 | And I admitted to myself, if I were living here, trying to make it here, I wouldn't.

00:39:43.240 | I would probably sneak up to the United States and I would get into the U.S.

00:39:51.240 | And there's no possible way for people to immigrate and follow the law.

00:39:55.240 | It's very frustrating.

00:39:56.240 | I'd be one of those, I think, probably who would just simply ignore it and get in and get started and deal with it later.

00:40:02.240 | I don't know.

00:40:03.240 | It's kind of hard to figure out, and you don't know until you're actually in those situations.

00:40:07.240 | My point is I love questions like this because it forces me to expose some of the principles that are consistent across cultures.

00:40:19.240 | It sounds to me like you're doing an amazing job already.

00:40:23.240 | It really does.

00:40:24.240 | To be 20 years old and to be able to save a couple thousand bucks a month and to have about $20,000 saved up – I assume that's U.S. dollars, equivalent to U.S. dollars.

00:40:36.240 | And to be running a small tech company and be involved with some small-scale startups – what more do you want, man?

00:40:43.240 | That is phenomenal.

00:40:44.240 | That's more than I was doing at 20 years old.

00:40:46.240 | So you're way ahead of where I was, and I love that.

00:40:50.240 | I hope we can get lots of people ahead of where I was.

00:40:54.240 | That's what I want to do.

00:40:56.240 | But I do want to give you some thoughts regarding the asset allocation question.

00:41:01.240 | I'm probably a bit weird as somebody who formerly managed investment portfolios and formerly sold investments in that I really don't have the same allegiance to publicly traded securities as many people do.

00:41:16.240 | I view the stock market, publicly traded securities, as simply one competitor for my money.

00:41:28.240 | And if Home Depot or if ExxonMobil or if Walmart Corporation want my money, they've got to compete for it along with every other opportunity that I have.

00:41:42.240 | And they're going to offer certain advantages and certain disadvantages to other things.

00:41:49.240 | I don't think that investing in publicly traded stocks is the most efficient, the quickest, the most effective way of building wealth.

00:42:01.240 | And my evidence for that is simply that of all of the biographies or short character sketches and stories of people who build wealth over time, I've almost never read or met somebody personally, I've almost never read of a very wealthy person that built their wealth by having a well-diversified stock portfolio.

00:42:26.240 | It does happen if you give it enough time. And this is why it is so important to get started early.

00:42:31.240 | I mean, just the compounding effect that time can have is truly phenomenal.

00:42:37.240 | At 20 years old, if we, let's just say, have $20,000 bucks, let me give you an idea of the amount of wealth that you could have.

00:42:46.240 | If we put in $20,000 bucks as our starting point and I give you 40 years of investing and I give you $2,000 of monthly contributions to the account and I give you a 10% rate of return, then at the end of – my calculator is in the wrong mode.

00:43:05.240 | I've got to get it out of scientific notation.

00:43:08.240 | Okay, so $2,000 a month. Here we go. Okay, 40 years, 10% interest annually, switch to monthly, $20,000 of our starting value and $2,000 per month.

00:43:24.240 | If we could average a 10% annual rate of return, that's $13.8 million that you could be – of wealth that you could have at the age of 60.

00:43:34.240 | That's pretty astounding. You mentioned that you are lending money out for about 15% return.

00:43:42.240 | Let's just put in 15% and let's see what that number would be.

00:43:46.240 | You're up to about $70 million at the age of 60 if you could average 15% over your investing lifestyle and that is in nominal terms, not in real terms.

00:43:56.240 | I'm not adjusting that for inflation. So, that's $70 million not adjusted for inflation.

00:44:02.240 | That is so powerful and what is so amazing about – one of the reasons – one of the things that makes public trade security so valuable is the fact that, as you said, in the United States, we're spoiled that we can trot down to Vanguard and for 25, 30 basis points, pick up an all-stock – what's it called?

00:44:23.240 | A total market index fund and you can essentially figure probably somewhere in that 8% to 11% rate of return depending on the coming decades and that becomes your proxy.

00:44:37.240 | And so, you can – it's very motivating to tell a 20-year-old, "Look, you could have $13, $15, $20 million just simply by doing what you're doing and you don't have to be a genius."

00:44:46.240 | There's no management expertise. There's no investing expertise. There's no specific genius. It's just a commodity product that you can essentially buy and it is certainly subject to market forces.

00:45:00.240 | It's certainly subject to economic cycles. It's certainly subject to various risks, but that is an amazing product and so it's very useful to have that as a competitive solution.

00:45:10.240 | But I still go into the fact and say that very few people build massive fortunes with – by simply investing in public trade securities.

00:45:20.240 | The people who do build massive fortunes usually started very young or youngish. They also usually had a high-paying job and that was what allowed them to invest $2,000 a month.

00:45:36.240 | And so, we've got to first smoke that out. And if somebody just wants to have a high-paying job and invest in stocks and toss it all in an index fund and go surfing every day, man, that's the easiest, most straightforward approach that you could take and it's one of the few things that's truly passive.

00:45:53.240 | I am convinced – everyone's on this relentless hunt for the elusive passive income. At the moment, I'm convinced that there is no such thing as passive income except the ability to live off of dividends and growth in stock value of publicly traded companies that you don't have to be involved in managing.

00:46:11.240 | Your online business isn't going to do it. Your blog isn't going to do it. Your book isn't going to do it. Your real estate, none of those things are truly passive. But Walmart dividends being paid to me can be truly passive.

00:46:25.240 | All I got to do is once a year pull out my little annual report, read it every year and just make sure we're not heading down the tubes and if we do, I sell. Coca-Cola and living off of Coca-Cola dividends, that is truly passive.

00:46:38.240 | So, let me stay on track here. The problem with this – so, we view investing in public trade securities and we have this option in the United States that is a competitive option.

00:46:51.240 | This is a benchmark against which to compare other solutions. But the challenge is that has become the language that's applied to investing. So, the whole point of managing large investment portfolios, that's all pension management.

00:47:10.240 | And so, this language of essentially pension fund management has been applied to what everybody thinks of as investing. So, asset allocation, people say asset allocation or diversification, they immediately think, "Well, I need to put 30% of my money into large cap US stocks, 20% into mid cap, 10% into small cap, 10% into international, blah, blah, blah."

00:47:33.240 | Or if they think diversification, "I need to own 167 different firms," and we immediately think in terms of pension portfolios. That's valuable. But that's not so useful to somebody like you who's building a business and trying to say, "What asset allocation do I focus on?"

00:47:48.240 | I do want to correct – I just want to clarify one thing. The reason I say all stock for young people is simply due to the fact that over time, being an owner of businesses, I believe, will have a higher total rate of return than being a lender to businesses.

00:48:04.240 | But it's not a blanket statement. It's just simply that for that section of my capital, I want to be the owner of businesses and not the lender. So, it's not a blanket statement, but that's why.

00:48:15.240 | What would I do in your shoes? Well, if I've got $20,000 sitting around, I'm just simply looking to invest it wisely. And based upon what you described to me, I wouldn't be putting a Sri Lankan index fund or probably a Sri Lankan mutual fund of any kind at the top of my list.

00:48:38.240 | You're right. I don't know anything about investing in a Sri Lankan context, but I'm certain that the market is not as efficient or as well-regulated or as transparent as is the US stock market.

00:48:54.240 | So, I wouldn't start there. But what I would say is I would say, "What are my best opportunities right now?" And I would be open to any and all opportunities.

00:49:07.240 | But you've got to filter them through saying, "What can I do and what are the risks and what are the rewards of each one of them?"

00:49:15.240 | And I'm going to come back to the asset allocation question in a second and talk about how we apply the principles in your context.

00:49:21.240 | But if I've got $20,000, I would start by just looking around and try to figure out who are the wealthy people where I live?

00:49:32.240 | Who are the wealthy people in my town, my city, my country? And try to figure out what did they do to get wealthy? And then decide, "Do I want to follow or am I equipped to follow a similar path?"

00:49:46.240 | Now, in the United States, we have a well-worn path to wealth which involves entrepreneurship.

00:49:52.240 | This is how people in our culture get wealthy. Go to any elite private school, any elite boarding school, and the majority of the families there –

00:49:59.240 | I was looking through my high school yearbook pictures the other day and I was just struck by how – you do these ads in the back.

00:50:08.240 | In the United States, we have these yearbooks and they sell ad space in the back.

00:50:12.240 | And I was just struck how many of my classmates in high school, their parents were business people.

00:50:19.240 | And it was Joe Smith's exterminating company and it was Jim John's painting company and it was Karen Jones' drywall company.

00:50:32.240 | And it was just all of these companies and these are the people who are spending the $15,000, $20,000 a year to put their kids in private school.

00:50:40.240 | That should be the indication. It wasn't necessary – and it was in the professions as well.

00:50:44.240 | So, in the United States context, we look at entrepreneurship as a business owner and a high-paying profession – medical specialty, architectural specialty, law specialty, engineering, things like this.

00:50:57.240 | Now, in your culture and context, I don't know what it is. It might be a similar thing.

00:51:02.240 | So, you might look around and say, "Well, all the wealthy people in my town are here because they are – because they're business owners."

00:51:11.240 | Or it might be that you look around and say, "All the wealthy people in my town are wealthy because they're in the mafia."

00:51:16.240 | I don't know if there's a Sri Lankan mafia, but there certainly is in many countries.

00:51:20.240 | And that becomes how you get wealthy is with corruption, being a member of government.

00:51:24.240 | The way to get wealthy in some places – if you follow the Soviet Union, the way to get wealthy was be in the government and take all the government – all the stuff that was from the dissolving government.

00:51:32.240 | That was how you got rich. And so that's a way of life in some sectors of the world.

00:51:37.240 | And you've got to decide, "Am I willing to play that game? I wouldn't. I'd leave. I'd go find somewhere else where I could do it with my own ability."

00:51:46.240 | So, look around and just see what is working already. What are the wealthy people doing here? And then do you want to do that?

00:51:54.240 | Wealth leaves clues. If you follow those clues, unless something substantial has changed, there's no reason why you can't – why you have to reinvent the wheel.

00:52:05.240 | You can just simply follow the same process that has worked for other people.

00:52:08.240 | Now, for you, it sounds to me like isn't the best place for you to invest simply the business that you're already investing in and what you're already doing?

00:52:20.240 | Aren't there some massive opportunities for growth there in your specific business?

00:52:25.240 | Frankly, I don't know what the scale is of your business, but $20,000, at least to me, doesn't sound like anywhere near enough to where I'd consider investing in anything except just keeping it in cash or some sort of cash equivalent.

00:52:39.240 | If you could find a cash equivalent that can maintain pace with inflation, that would be ideal.

00:52:43.240 | So, maybe that's your term deposit system. I don't know.

00:52:46.240 | But if I were 20 years old and running a tech business, it's hard for me to imagine wanting to try to look and say, "How can I own shares in the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund through some sort of foreign account?"

00:52:58.240 | I would be just saying, "How can I use this $20,000 intelligently?"

00:53:02.240 | It's tough for me to imagine a business that couldn't use an extra $20,000 intelligently on some aspect of helping that business grow.

00:53:10.240 | I don't know if that should be spent on training for your employees or buying the office building that right now you're just leasing or maybe upgrading all of the office equipment and computer equipment so that your employees can be more efficient.

00:53:22.240 | Or maybe you need to spend it on marketing.

00:53:24.240 | I don't know if you need to fly to India to meet a couple people in the tech space in which you're operating and make some connections for some business contracts and maybe subcontract some work that they're doing.

00:53:37.240 | I don't know if you need to fly to London or San Francisco for a conference to establish some connection somewhere.

00:53:44.240 | I don't know if you need to lease out the space on the first floor of your office building and set up a Western-style internet cafe or an Eastern-style internet cafe or a Sri Lankan-style internet cafe.

00:54:02.240 | I don't know, but I'm sure you must have a ton of ideas that you can personally focus on and you should be just focusing on your ideas because then you can have the confidence of control.

00:54:13.240 | Don't get involved in a stock market that you don't trust where it's manipulated and you say, "Well, the blue chips are highly overvalued."

00:54:20.240 | Look for the need that you have and then conduct it in an intelligent way.

00:54:24.240 | If you're going to set up a string of internet cafes – the reason I use that example is I had a friend of mine that was from the Congo in Africa.

00:54:32.240 | I don't know what the formal name of the country is, Democratic Republic of the Congo or something like that.

00:54:37.240 | He invested most of his money in setting up internet cafes.

00:54:41.240 | It was an extremely profitable business.

00:54:43.240 | He was living here in Florida, but he was investing there in the local infrastructure.

00:54:52.240 | It was an extremely profitable investment for him.

00:54:54.240 | So I don't know if that's the idea for you, but apply all the business principles that clearly you're learning about and that you're studying.

00:55:01.240 | Make sure that you're working your way through not just personal finance information but also business information, that you're starting slow, that you're building your cafes and testing the concepts, doing your market tests in a slow way, diminishing your risk, all of those types of things.

00:55:17.240 | Make sure that you're being careful.

00:55:19.240 | But something like that is probably going to be a better solution for you.

00:55:24.240 | I love the idea of your making private loans and private investments in early-stage startups there locally.

00:55:30.240 | That gives you multiple benefits.

00:55:32.240 | It strengthens your social capital there in your community.

00:55:35.240 | It allows you to build a network of people with whom you can work together to improve your community.

00:55:42.240 | And so by being known as the person to go to for money, people are going to bring their ideas to you that are going to need to be funded.

00:55:51.240 | You have the opportunity to do a little bit of small-scale angel investing and maybe really help.

00:55:56.240 | And regardless of whether the investments work out massively or not or even profitably, at least that's going to build your social capital and you're going to have a team and you're going to be well-networked there in your community.

00:56:08.240 | So that's really great.

00:56:10.240 | Hopefully – I mean even that, it's just you'll learn a lot through that process.

00:56:18.240 | And I just – I don't know.

00:56:22.240 | I just don't get too excited about trying to say how can I deploy my $20,000 in some other scenario.

00:56:26.240 | Maybe you need – I don't know.

00:56:29.240 | Make sure – hopefully those term deposits are useful.

00:56:31.240 | But I would assume in – I don't know if – I don't know how similar or dissimilar Sri Lankan culture is to Indian culture.

00:56:41.240 | I know you're near.

00:56:42.240 | I had one friend from Sri Lanka but I was never that well-versed in what his culture was like.

00:56:46.240 | But in India, you have a culture surrounding gold.

00:56:51.240 | Gold is highly prized in India.

00:56:53.240 | So maybe you should be keeping some of your backup reserves in gold.

00:56:57.240 | And that's the way that you preserve the purchasing power of your wealth or your reserves and your safe assets.

00:57:03.240 | I don't know.

00:57:04.240 | You got to – I don't know what it would be in that context.

00:57:07.240 | Now, what could you apply from the asset allocation theories that you read in all the Western finance literature to your personal scenario?

00:57:17.240 | Well, first, apply the concept of which capital towards which goal.

00:57:23.240 | You need to be establishing a specific goal.

00:57:26.240 | The way that portfolios are run effectively and successfully is when they are goal-focused 100%.

00:57:32.240 | So the investment manager who's in charge of running the California pension system, CalPERS, or the person who's in charge of running the Harvard or Yale endowment fund, they have a clearly defined goal.

00:57:45.240 | And they are investing exclusively according to that goal and are ignoring everything else.

00:57:50.240 | Each one of us should have the same thing.

00:57:53.240 | I don't have any reason to pay attention to what the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average does on a day-to-day basis because those are not my goal.

00:58:03.240 | My goal is not to beat the S&P 500 or to somehow invest in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

00:58:10.240 | I have a goal of building wealth for my family so that I can fund my lifestyle, the needs of the things that are close to me, and fund the business enterprises that I believe are important to make an impact in the world.

00:58:23.240 | And at different phases of my life, that might look differently.

00:58:26.240 | Excuse me.

00:58:27.240 | That might look different at different phases of my life.

00:58:30.240 | So all of these external ideas about my investment goal is to get this certain rate of return, why?

00:58:41.240 | What's that funding?

00:58:42.240 | Money is to be spent.

00:58:44.240 | It's not just this arbitrary idea.

00:58:47.240 | The reason that the Harvard endowment fund, they have a goal of growing their endowment to fund their programs.

00:58:53.240 | We have needs as individuals of funding our lives and our lifestyles.

00:58:57.240 | So if your goal for your portfolio is this is the money that I need to – it's profit from my company and I see some shaky times on the horizon for a small tech company and I don't need the money here but I do want to segregate this money aside and this is going to be my backup stores of wealth.

00:59:14.240 | Well, then apply that goal to this $20,000 and say this is the goal for the $20,000.

00:59:20.240 | And then that's naturally going to lead you in a certain direction.

00:59:24.240 | It's probably not going to lead you to be involved in a manipulative stock market.

00:59:28.240 | It might lead you to keep $10,000 in gold coins in a safety deposit box three towns over or in the next country over.

00:59:37.240 | It might lead you to investing – buying a little farm in the country as your backup place in case you're – I don't know.

00:59:45.240 | It might lead you to keeping the money in cash.

00:59:47.240 | It might lead you to investing it in a real estate opportunity in India.

00:59:52.240 | Again, I'm so limited as far as my knowledge of that aspect of the world.

00:59:58.240 | I'll come visit you when I come to Sri Lanka.

01:00:00.240 | I'd love to come.

01:00:01.240 | But think through the goal.

01:00:04.240 | Now, if the flip side is this goal is – this is the wealth building for my retirement years and I just want to tuck this money away so that I can be free to focus on my business, which is what you said in your question.

01:00:16.240 | Now, in that scenario, I might look for a different option.

01:00:19.240 | You might look for and see is there anything available to me within my local cultural context?

01:00:24.240 | No.

01:00:25.240 | Well, in that case, how can I set up an international brokerage account and how can I just simply tuck the money into a diversified index fund using a subaccount, a shell account in the United States or in one of the offshore entities in which you could do this and invest through into an index fund?

01:00:45.240 | You're tucking the money in there and you're ignoring it and that's just the backup of the backup of the backup that's there for your long-term retirement in case your business implodes, your internet cafes burn down, the real estate shopping center that you developed completely fell apart, and your hotel business was hit by the mafia.

01:01:00.240 | Well, that's simple.

01:01:01.240 | That makes sense.

01:01:02.240 | And so now you've got your goal and now that will guide you to the proper investment decision.

01:01:09.240 | My issue with using the well-taught asset allocation systems as a method for personal finance is that they are applicable to running pension accounts.

01:01:21.240 | So the modern portfolio theory and well-developed models of asset allocation, the kind of stuff that Paul Merriman is talking about, about how do we tweak a portfolio to give us the highest rate of return over time and the kind of stuff that I used to do and get involved in, that's really useful for pension accounts.

01:01:42.240 | But the reality is we need to apply asset allocation and diversification to every aspect of our life and that's not well done, I don't think.

01:01:49.240 | I don't get it if it is.

01:01:51.240 | Maybe someone can explain it to me.

01:01:52.240 | But I don't think that's well done when we just apply pension techniques to everything else because the idea that we should own a diversified portfolio is true.

01:01:59.240 | But the reality is we're always a little bit out of whack with regard to an ideal diversification when you look at our life in totality.

01:02:07.240 | If, for example, you are a US-based high school senior and you're graduating, you don't have a lot of money, and you are going to college.

01:02:17.240 | Well, now you are extremely out – you're extremely undiversified and you're putting all of your time, focus, energy, attention, and money into a college degree.

01:02:27.240 | And you are hoping that this investment of four years of your life and into this academic degree has a long-term payoff.

01:02:34.240 | But the reality is you're not exposed to other alternative asset classes and you're putting all your hope in the academic value of that degree.

01:02:41.240 | So you're way out of whack as far as a diversified strategy.

01:02:44.240 | Now, you graduate from school and you go and you get a job.

01:02:47.240 | You get a nice corporate job.

01:02:49.240 | Well, now you're completely out of – you're completely undiversified that you only have one source of income and it's based upon your job.

01:02:56.240 | So if you're in the oil business and oil takes a dump in oil prices, that's going to affect your industry and now you might be out on the streets.

01:03:03.240 | As a refinery pulls back its production and your little middle management job was changed.

01:03:10.240 | So you're – we're always out of whack a bit with our diversification.

01:03:15.240 | So in some ways, you've got to apply the principle of it and – but into an individual situation.

01:03:24.240 | It's not as neat as a fancy little pie chart.

01:03:27.240 | But it can be applied.

01:03:29.240 | So if you're working as a corporate worker, I wouldn't be putting all of my money into the stock of that company because if I'm working for, again, an oil company and I'm putting all of my investment into the stock of that company and my job, I'm woefully undiversified.

01:03:47.240 | So I need to – I would be investing in other sectors of the market.

01:03:54.240 | But at a young age, we're going to be underdiversified.

01:03:58.240 | We're going to be everything on our – it's going to be all be based upon our one income.

01:04:02.240 | I feel like I'm struggling to get this concept out.

01:04:05.240 | My point is take the principle and then look at what are the risks that I face.

01:04:10.240 | What are the risks of the portfolio of my life?

01:04:15.240 | So take the principle of diversification from a well-run pension portfolio and apply that to my life.

01:04:21.240 | You need to capitalize on the tech business at this stage to grow your wealth.

01:04:26.240 | But then as you're doing, you would want to diversify your wealth out of your business into other businesses and into other investments.

01:04:34.240 | That might be purchasing a farm.

01:04:37.240 | That might be purchasing an apartment building.

01:04:39.240 | That might be doing more term deposits.

01:04:41.240 | That might be investing in other companies.

01:04:43.240 | So apply that principle that you read about, not necessarily worrying about the 60/40 split.

01:04:49.240 | Other principles of – well, I talked mainly there about diversification.

01:04:55.240 | The other principle, asset allocation, what are the best asset classes that I should be investing in right now?

01:05:00.240 | So in life, we apply and we say I'm going to invest in the asset class of my human capacity and in my education.

01:05:07.240 | Education is a well-paying investment.

01:05:10.240 | So that's why we invest in education, whether that means informal schooling or whether that means an alternative education.

01:05:16.240 | Education is a high-producing, high-performing asset class.

01:05:19.240 | So especially in the early years, we want to focus on investing into our education.

01:05:25.240 | And then over time, we're going to diversify out because if I'm 50 years old, I've got less time for my education to pay off.

01:05:32.240 | Now it might be time to switch to other things.

01:05:35.240 | Something like building out non-correlated asset classes, that's one of the – so the whole feature of the way that portfolio management works,

01:05:42.240 | you are sitting there and saying what percentage in stocks, what percentage in bonds, what percentage in real estate,

01:05:47.240 | what percentage in large-cap stocks, small-cap stocks.

01:05:49.240 | The whole point of that, what modern portfolio theory is based upon is the idea that by owning different non-correlating asset classes,

01:05:58.240 | we can increase the overall returns with decreasing the risk of the portfolio.

01:06:03.240 | That's the fundamental principle of asset allocation planning.

01:06:08.240 | So think about that in your life.

01:06:11.240 | If you're in the oil business, then I would be considering, okay, if my oil business goes down in value,

01:06:17.240 | what are the non-correlating asset classes to oil or tech or real estate?

01:06:28.240 | And apply them to our own life within the context of scale.

01:06:32.240 | Diversification is important.

01:06:33.240 | We look at it within the context of scale.

01:06:35.240 | We're always going to be a little bit out of whack with our diversification plan.

01:06:41.240 | If I live in the United States and I invest in the United States, well, I'm undiversified when it comes to dollar diversification.

01:06:47.240 | So all of my money is earned in dollars.

01:06:50.240 | All of my expenditures are in dollars.

01:06:51.240 | So what happens if the dollar strengthens?

01:06:53.240 | What happens if the dollar weakens?

01:06:54.240 | What happens if there's inflation of the dollar?

01:06:56.240 | What happens if there's deflation of the dollar?

01:06:58.240 | So over time, I might need to diversify.

01:07:00.240 | But like I said the other day in the show on scale, that's a waste of time to even think about.

01:07:04.240 | If I've got $5,000 or $20,000, it's completely meaningless.

01:07:08.240 | Why should I worry about that?

01:07:10.240 | Now if I've got $20 million, I'm going to be thinking about that.

01:07:13.240 | So apply it within your context.

01:07:16.240 | Just look and say, "What are my risks?

01:07:19.240 | What risks am I exposed to?"

01:07:21.240 | So ask yourself good questions and clearly label your money.

01:07:26.240 | What's my safe money?

01:07:28.240 | What's my risky money?

01:07:30.240 | What's my investment capital?

01:07:31.240 | What's my cash reserves?

01:07:33.240 | Why is this amount of money being allocated towards investment capital?

01:07:38.240 | Why is this amount of money being allocated towards reserves?

01:07:41.240 | Why these amounts?

01:07:43.240 | What's my goal?

01:07:44.240 | What's my goal for what I'm doing anyway?

01:07:46.240 | Am I trying to build up and at 22, I'm going to go travel the world for a year?

01:07:50.240 | Or am I trying to build this company for the fun of it?

01:07:53.240 | Or is there a number that I'm targeting, a net wealth target that I need to maintain my lifestyle?

01:07:58.240 | What are my risks?

01:07:59.240 | Where are they coming from?

01:08:01.240 | What risks am I comfortable with?

01:08:02.240 | What risks am I uncomfortable with?

01:08:05.240 | What can I actually afford to diversify away from?

01:08:07.240 | What can I not afford to do yet?

01:08:10.240 | So ask yourself these questions, and just by asking these questions and then considering them,

01:08:16.240 | consider what answers emerge for you.

01:08:19.240 | That's the best idea I've got for you.

01:08:23.240 | Let me see if there's anything I didn't answer.

01:08:24.240 | As far as the all-seasons portfolio, you can copy that portfolio if you want.

01:08:28.240 | I didn't make a big deal out of it.

01:08:30.240 | I didn't actually even talk much about the portfolio construction of it.

01:08:35.240 | One of the concerns about that portfolio is just be aware and do some research.

01:08:41.240 | Other people have written well about this online.

01:08:43.240 | Just do some web searching.

01:08:46.240 | One of the concerns is it's coming off a 30-year bull market in bonds, and so it's pretty heavily weighted to bonds.

01:08:51.240 | Is it as good as anything?

01:08:53.240 | It's probably as good as anything.

01:08:55.240 | But just do a little research and understand the theory behind it,

01:08:58.240 | and then you'll have to figure out how you could actually set it up in your context.

01:09:03.240 | And then share your knowledge.

01:09:05.240 | Start a website for Sri Lankan investors looking to implement an all-seasons portfolio strategy

01:09:12.240 | to build their wealth and help your other fellow investors out.

01:09:16.240 | I think that's all I wanted to cover on today's show.

01:09:19.240 | I thank you all for listening.

01:09:22.240 | Dude, Vanaka, thank you so much for getting in touch with me from Sri Lanka.

01:09:26.240 | And for those of you who are in international audiences, I thank you for listening.

01:09:31.240 | I never even dreamed when I started this show that I would have an international audience.

01:09:36.240 | It makes me just think a little bit about how can I--

01:09:41.240 | I feel a little bit bad that so much of my content is so U.S.-centric.

01:09:45.240 | And I think about, well, how could I provide more value to an international audience?

01:09:51.240 | I guess it's hard for me to know how to do that.

01:09:54.240 | I'm an expert on the U.S. context, but I'm just so limited as far as my knowledge of anything outside of the U.S. context.

01:10:05.240 | So I hope that I'll keep trying to bring value of some of the general ideas.

01:10:10.240 | And if I can think of a way to serve the international audience more effectively, I would love to do that.

01:10:15.240 | I just don't know how to do it.

01:10:17.240 | But it's so humbling to think that there's a listener in Sri Lanka.

01:10:22.240 | I never dreamed that when I was starting the show.

01:10:25.240 | That's pretty humbling.

01:10:27.240 | So thank you all so much for listening.

01:10:29.240 | As I close today, I just want to redo some iTunes reviews.

01:10:33.240 | If you like today's show, make sure if you're not subscribed that you subscribe to the show in iTunes.

01:10:38.240 | I want to ask you for a favor.

01:10:40.240 | If you haven't left a review for the show, would you take a moment and leave a two-sentence review for me?

01:10:45.240 | That would mean the world to me.

01:10:46.240 | You can find it very easily right in iTunes.

01:10:49.240 | And at the moment, I have a total of 60 written reviews for the show.

01:10:54.240 | And I would love to get that number to 100.

01:10:57.240 | That would just really, really help.

01:10:59.240 | Reviews matter when people are looking through shows and they look and they read a few reviews and they see the number.

01:11:04.240 | And so even if your review is only a couple of sentences, I would appreciate it.

01:11:08.240 | It can be good. It can be bad.

01:11:09.240 | It can be one-star, five-star. Read every one of them.

01:11:11.240 | As we go today, I want to read another one here from Zikarik.

01:11:14.240 | It says, "This podcast is incredible.

01:11:17.240 | I discovered this podcast about two weeks ago and I was instantly hooked, packed with useful and informative information.

01:11:22.240 | I'm fairly new on my journey to financial independence, and Joshua has been able to provide shows that are thought-provoking and extremely interesting,

01:11:28.240 | keeping ideas simple and adding technical details simultaneously.

01:11:32.240 | I've discovered a vast amount of additional useful resources through his discussions, interviews, and the show notes.

01:11:42.240 | His shows do not provide answers.

01:11:44.240 | They present multiple sides of financial issues and give the listener ideas and resources to discover the right path for themselves.

01:11:50.240 | A wealth of knowledge. Incredible. Keep it up, Joshua, and thank you."

01:11:53.240 | Thank you for that review. I appreciate that.

01:11:56.240 | If you'd like to get in touch with me, email me, Joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

01:11:59.240 | And if you would like to support the show, please do so by joining the Irregulars program.

01:12:05.240 | That is the way that you can support the show and allow me to keep doing this.

01:12:08.240 | I'm out. Cheers, y'all.

01:12:09.240 | Thank you for listening to today's show.

01:12:11.240 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.

01:12:19.240 | Your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.

01:12:27.240 | This show is not, and is not intended to be any form of financial advice.

01:12:35.240 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy.

01:12:45.240 | And consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.

01:12:56.240 | Hold them accountable for your results.

01:12:59.240 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes.

01:13:06.240 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together.

01:13:12.240 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

01:13:15.240 | This holiday, instead of giving them something nice, why not gift them somewhere nice?

01:13:21.240 | During the IHG Hotels & Resorts Cyber Sale, you can do just that and save.

01:13:26.240 | Shopping is easy in the IHG One Rewards app, where you'll save 20% on travel across 6,000+ global destinations.

01:13:34.240 | And if you want to gift yourself somewhere nice, go ahead. You'll earn more and save more during the Cyber Sale.

01:13:40.240 | Check out all the deals at ihg.com/cybersale. Terms apply.

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