Shownotes
We had a fascinating discussion with Glenn Harper from Harper & Company CPA's on tax codes, strategies, and the importance of understanding the system.
Here are three key takeaways from our conversation:
1️⃣ The Tax Code is Complex: There are different tax codes for different individuals, particularly distinguishing between regular employees and self-employed individuals/entrepreneurs. Self-employed individuals have more flexibility in leveraging deductions and shifting income compared to regular employees.
2️⃣ Creative Tax Planning: As income levels increase, individuals may explore options to defer and manipulate the system to offset taxes. For example, real estate investments can generate cash flow while resulting in a tax loss due to depreciation. It's important to stay updated on the ever-changing tax provisions and seek professional advice to take advantage of legal provisions.
3️⃣ Accountability and Contribution: It's crucial for all individuals, regardless of income level, to uphold their financial responsibilities. Even low-income individuals who receive the earned income tax credit should contribute financially. Ensuring accurate and honest tax information is submitted is essential to avoid penalties and legal consequences.
Stephen Palmer is the Managing Partner for the law firm, Palmer Legal Defense. He has specialized almost exclusively in criminal defense for over 26 years. Steve is also a partner in Criminal Defense Consultants, a firm focused wholly on helping criminal defense attorneys design winning strategies for their clients.
Norm Murdock is an automobile racing driver and owner of a high-performance and restoration car parts company. He earned undergraduate degrees in literature and journalism and graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1985. He worked in the IT industry for two years before launching a career in government relations in Columbus, Ohio. Norm has assisted clients in the Transportation, Education, Healthcare, and Public Infrastructure sectors.
Brett Johnson is an award-winning podcast consultant and small business owner for nearly 10 years, leaving a long career in radio. He is passionate about helping small businesses tell their story through podcasts, and he believes podcasting is a great opportunity for different voices to speak and be heard.
Recorded at the 511 Studios, in the Brewery District in downtown Columbus, OH.
info@commonsenseohioshow.com
A Big Thanks to our sponsor, Harper Plus Accounting. They provide more than just basic transactions, offering expert business consultation as well. They go beyond the basics, providing comprehensive advice on saving, planning, and optimizing taxes.
Copyright 2024 Common Sense Ohio
Transcripts
The blogs are there. Brett's got 1. Norm's got 1. I got a big goose egg next to mine, but it's coming. I promise. It's coming. It's coming. And and for those who have been listening the last 3 or 4 weeks, we do have a sponsor.
Steve Palmer [:And if you wanna be a sponsor, a different segment, you can do that too. There's plenty of opportunity. Our sponsor is Harper Plus. And if you're watching on video as we now, as we now now do, now have. Anyway, we're on video now. You can see mister Harper right here at the table, Glenn Harper from Harper Plus Accounting, and I'll give my spiel so he can hear it live. He is my accountant, but he's not just an accountant. And, Glenn, you can help me if I get this wrong.
Steve Palmer [:You know, some accounts, you go to H&R Block. You go to the guy twirling around the big sign or you know, the the airman flying up and down, the little doll. You're gonna get a transactional type of experience. In other words, they're gonna get your tax return But it's garbage in, garbage out. And what do I mean? I mean, you don't know what you're doing with your taxes if you run a small business. How do I know that? Because I don't know what I'm doing with my taxes if I run a small business. And worse yet, I think that I do. And the the problem with all of that is when you send it when you send the garbage out to the garbage man, he doesn't take it away.
Steve Palmer [:He just hides it, and then the IRS comes back and delivers it back to you in the form of, like, a request, a an audit, or something else that's horrible that you don't even wanna think So we we work with a tax planner. We work with a with an accountant who helps you plan out what's going on. So in July, I know what I'm gonna owe hornado in in October. And then in October, I know what I'm gonna over not owe in December and just, you know, do the math from there. So, Glenn, welcome to the show. You know, this is what happens when people sponsor us. They get to actually appear and and and and broadcast live well, sort of live to the entire world. So but if you don't know this, the entire or listens to us.
Glenn Harper [:It's the only way to roll. I appreciate the opportunity to be on here, Steve o.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. And you got your own podcast. Yes. And where do you where do you do that?
Glenn Harper [:I do it in 511 South High. It's a pretty cool studio. Right? Right. You're here at Channel 511. Production people and video and producers. It's awesome.
Steve Palmer [:What we're gonna do what we're gonna do, Glenn, today is we're gonna talk to you a little bit about your business. I know Norm's got notes over there, and if you're watching on video again, did I say we're doing some idea. Okay. So we're doing some video now. Norm's got the notes cooking over there. He's gonna ask you some questions. See, I know too much about you. And and for those who haven't heard me talk about this, you've been my accountant now for the better part of 30 years maybe.
Glenn Harper [:Back in the day when we had not matrix printers, I think. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. And I think you came in my office.
Glenn Harper [:Machine. You're faxing over information back and orthist.
Steve Palmer [:You tried to sell me on your services back in, like, 19 November of 95, I believe. Maybe, December. Maybe spring of
Glenn Harper [:You you just came out of college.
Steve Palmer [:Just passed the bar exam. Yeah. And, you were, you were in my office. I had that little glass roundtable. It was pre Jovich and Palmer days. Now, of course, it's Palmer legal defense. But, anyway, been with me for, your entire career and almost mine, I guess. That's sort of the deal.
Steve Palmer [:But, without further ado, Norm, you I bet you got some questions.
Norm Murdock [:Well, I I just would like to open up with with a little story. I have heard that when he was still with us that, Donald Rumsfeld, you know, who was A White House chief of staff, secretary of defense, Navy aviator, pretty smart guy. He would always attach a letter to his tax return Telling the IRS that he did not understand, could not decipher the Internal Revenue Code, And so, therefore, he is submitting this return. He would staple it right to the return. He he's submitting this return with Complete and total reliance on the professionals that he had hired. So I'm just wondering if you have any if you have any clients that ever did anything like that, Or what do you think of that as an affirmative defense?
Glenn Harper [:I don't think that's gonna work very well, but it it that's the way it is anyway. So, ultimately, the taxpayer's Always responsible. But if you hire a non CPA, generally, they're not responsible for your tax return either, So it's all you as the taxpayer. If you're a CPA, you've got this standard where, they put this in quite a few years ago, but If you as a client do something wrong and there's a penalty on the return, they'll look to the preparer and say, oh, well, you should've known better, and we're gonna double that penalty for the prepare. Wow. So it
Steve Palmer [:Well, more than that, see, I it's a little known fact that you do federal defense work. Wow. And, And, there is a defense. So if I've had guys charged with, tax fraud, tax evasion, failure to file returns, whatever, it would be in federal court, one of the one of the prime defenses, we look at first is was my client relying on professional advice? So if I'm relying on the professional advice of a CPA, and that's the result that resulted in the mistake or the problem. That's theoretically a defense. Now rarely does it work because often, like I said, if I give you bad information or bad numbers, you're gonna just operate on that. But, you know, that that brings out a good question for you. It's like, how do you handle that? How do you how do you cipher through that? Because I could give you any number I want.
Steve Palmer [:And, you know, I guess, in my line of work, it's a lot grayer because I know you always say, well, we can just say it was this and categorize it this way instead of that way. Where I say, if you're turning a blind eye, like, if the accountant turns a blind eye to what is probably obvious bad numbers. Probably obvious. Anyway, you get what I'm saying. Then, you know, how do how do you deal with that concern?
Glenn Harper [:So what'll happen is, again, the rules changed Quite a bit and just that responsibility because, ultimately, we're we're gonna be liable. So if you hand me a handwritten piece of paper with some notes on it and say That's my schedule c for my self employment income way back in the day. Okay. Great. This is what it is. You're good on those. Yeah. You'd fill it out, and you go with it.
Glenn Harper [:IRS has said, you know, if you do that as a CPA preparer and you didn't do the diligence to go search for those numbers and find bank statements so get receipts and look at that to check the validity of that, then I'm kinda liable because I just took somebody's word on this.
Steve Palmer [:You turned a blind eye to what like, some red flags.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. Bob, Beth, you said it's 10,000? Okay. It's $10,000. You know, we we can't do that. Now, again, on the scope of whole return, there's reality. There's what things are and probably are, what people can't prove and can't prove if they have to. You gotta go through that. You just learn how that works.
Glenn Harper [:But, you know, Somebody can say, look. I I spent money on my cell phone, but I don't know what my business percentage use is. Right? Well, we know you spent whatever it is, $80 a month, and you'd say, well, Most people have to have a phone for business, so you don't take a 100% of that, but you could probably take 75% and be reasonable. Yep. But if you're gonna go for a 100%, well, you know it's gonna come back Because nobody spends it a 100% business on something unless it truly is a separate phone only for business.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Like, if I've got a PC sitting in my office. That's a 100% business all day long.
Glenn Harper [:If you got a bat phone that's strictly dedicated, then that counts. And and back in the day, you know, people would have home phones. Like, you couldn't deduct your home phone, But you could deduct long distance calls if you remember the day. Mhmm.
Steve Palmer [:You
Glenn Harper [:get your phone bill, and you can, this call was business. This call was itemizing that upper looking at it. Yeah. But you don't you couldn't do your phone, but you could do the actual calls. Now And
Steve Palmer [:guys would get second lines in their house, only quote business.
Glenn Harper [:For a fax line or something, and you could deduct it. But, again, that that's the misnomer about a lot of things about, deductions is that, You know, people think, oh, I I get a deduction. I wanna get deductions. Well, why would you wanna have any deductions? Why wouldn't you just wake up in the morning, get mailbox money, and go, wow. I just got a Check for $1,000,000, and I have no expenses. Now you can do some cool tax things to defer income, do those types of things, but who who wants to actually spend money to make money? You just would rather have income. But if you have to spend money, how do you get it to be a good deduction?
Steve Palmer [:Or worse yet, my my I remember my old uncle Ray, great uncle Ray. He I think he died without how much money in the banking account, but this is back in probably the late seventies, early eighties, maybe maybe early mid eighties. And, every single penny was in a savings account because he didn't wanna have to pay tax on the gains. And it was, like, I remember my dad just laughing about it thinking, yeah, that was the that was their old the all the Joneses, all the old Welsh, history. Like, they like, paying anything out was worse than making money. Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:The it's really hard. The 1st time you make money, most everybody pays tax on it unless you're putting that money somewhere else to try to offset it. But most everybody pays tax the first time. The 2nd time you make money on your money, that's when you gotta be smarter. It's in a deferred account. It's a tax free account. It's in a growth fund that's not paying tax until you cash it out. It's just being smarter with the timing of money.
Glenn Harper [:And, you know, there's really 2 sets of tax codes out there. There's for the normal working person has a real job. You you can't do really do anything. You make your salary, and you pay your tax. And they give you little stipends of which you can't dictate for standard deductions or whatnot, But just is what it is. There's really not a lot of wiggle room because you make it, you pay it. When you're self employed and you're an entrepreneur, that's what the tax code's really meant for, And you can participate at different levels based on how much money you make, the type of industry you're in, leveraging Kids and spouses and different endeavors, participation rules, and what's material and basis, you get To write off a lot of things that you otherwise would not get to even think about.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. But that's not fair.
Glenn Harper [:I you gotta talk to your congressman who
Steve Palmer [:wrote the facts down. Norm, did you see this, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez?
Norm Murdock [:Oh god.
Steve Palmer [:She she has this Instagram nonsense. And she's always, like, cooking or cutting. This time, I think she was cutting lemons or something. And she's wearing this shirt. Her shirt, by the way, the shirt the like, the sweatshirt that she sells on our website apparently for, like, 50 or the bucks, and it says tax the rich. And she goes, well, if we would just tax the rich, we would have, enough to fund schools, or we would have enough to do this. Well, she's calling for a ceasefire, of course, at the in Israel, but we'll get to that maybe. At any rate, she's saying tax the rich, and there's this notion going around, that the rich don't pay taxes.
Steve Palmer [:And I you know, here at Common Sense Ohio, this is sort of back to what we do at our roots. It's like, I try to take these things apart, figure out what the definitions mean, and then analyze them. So first, we'd have to determine, who are rich? Who is rich? And then do the rich people really pay tax? And what's the percentage of rich versus poor versus whatever. And maybe you can, help us sort of sort that out because, like, look, I amirich, and do I pay tax? Well, I mean, I know I pay a ridiculous amount of tax. So if anybody says if I if I if I'm in her rich category, then she's wrong. I pay a lot of taxes.
Glenn Harper [:So that is the the most misunderstood thing about the tax code of who actually pays the tax. And it's it's almost embarrassing that there's something like 60,000,000 people in the country pay no income tax whatsoever. Like, They're participating in the system, and they pay 0 because of credits, deductions. They don't claim it. That's all under the table, whatever. They just don't pay anything. And then so if you make, say, less than $50 a year, you're probably not gonna pay much income tax at all. By the time you get your standard deduction, a couple kids, the credits, You're you're really not paying anything.
Glenn Harper [:You might be paying Social Security tax, but that's something solely separate. So for purpose of income tax, it's income tax. Not Social Security, income tax. So income tax, if you make, say, less than $50, you're probably not gonna pay a lot. The top 5%, Literally, to be in the top 5% of wage earners in the country, you you as a household, you gotta be over a 125,000 a year.
Steve Palmer [:That's remarkable, isn't it? Like, so Wow. I mean, that that seems pretty ubiquitous. I don't mean to suggest that there aren't people suffering poverty and and and have their own financial stress, but, know, I would think the average middle income or what yeah. Middle class neighborhood has a combined income of somewhere around 125, $130,060 a piece, $70 a piece. Yeah. And
Glenn Harper [:you're in the top 5% at
Steve Palmer [:that point. So how much tax is that person paying?
Glenn Harper [:They're not paying that much. At that level, they're probably paying, like, you know, 15, 20, 25,000 depending on what they do in tax. So it's not a huge amount, but it's Significant.
Steve Palmer [:Make a 125, I'm paying $25.
Glenn Harper [:Give well, give or take, it's gonna be you're probably gonna be in, like, the 12, 15% bracket, some of that income. So, yeah, it just depends on all all those factors, child credits and all whatever, but it's it's not still not a lot.
Steve Palmer [:Well, Ocasio Cortez, she can't be wrong.
Glenn Harper [:Oh, she's she's
Steve Palmer [:She can't be wrong. So what does she like, how do we how do
Norm Murdock [:we square what she says?
Glenn Harper [:So then all of a sudden, you get up and you say, well, how do I get to the, you know, top 1%? Well, top 1% says you gotta make over 500,000 a year, say, 450, 500,000.
Steve Palmer [:Huge gap, though. So what's what's, like, you know, I think, like, you would say people who are wealthy, the people driving the fancy cars, not that that makes them wealthy, but you you sort of see that, I would think, somewhere around $300 combined income.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. But and that's the crazy thing. Once you start getting upwards of that 3, 400,000, your tax bracket with all the taxes you pay is right around almost half. You know?
Steve Palmer [:So if I make $300, I'm paying a 150.
Glenn Harper [:No. No. When you start going over that 300,
Steve Palmer [:the next over 300, I'm paying half.
Glenn Harper [:Because you got 37% top bracket, plus 3.9% extra Medicare, plus you got a little bit of Social Security you're paying, plus you got state, plus you got local. You're you're pushing 50. So if you make $1,000,000 a year, you're like, wow. This is great, but you're probably paying 450,000 tax, give or take.
Steve Palmer [:Alright. So it sounds like we're taxing the rich, in other words.
Glenn Harper [:Oh, boy. And if you make that 2nd million, you're you're literally losing you're you're giving half to the government.
Steve Palmer [:Half of the second. Half of
Glenn Harper [:the second million. So you're literally paying 50%.
Steve Palmer [:So say take the so somebody makes $2,000,000 a year. Mhmm. The first and the and and it's it's graduated. Right? So it's like you don't pay like, you you pay as you go up. So the 1st million is taxed at what rate?
Glenn Harper [:So it's at different brackets. Some's at 0, some is at 10, 12, 17, 24, 26, 31, 33, 37, whatever it is. So my Just to the feds.
Steve Palmer [:Just to the fed. So my combined tax obligation on $2,000,000, like, what's what do you think the guesstimate tax would be? If I make $2,000,000, if I put $2,000,000 in income. What do I pay in tax?
Glenn Harper [:Probably paying somewhere around 800,000 in tax, 850. If you got a good CPA that can plan, you can knock that down quite a bit.
Norm Murdock [:But It used to be a lot worse.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. Oh my god. Back when Reagan took over, I think the top bracket was, you know, over 50% itself. I mean, back in the in the twenties when they first started, the top rack was, like, 90%.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. But there was that's when that's when the shelters happened. Right? So that was back in the in the eighties of, like, the tax shelter. People were buying property. People were doing all sorts of stuff. So I know what the bracket said, but people weren't paying
Glenn Harper [:that much. So there's, Again, there's remember I said there's a couple different tax codes. So when you're an entrepreneur and you're making whatever and you have flexibility to shift income and and put bring deductions off your income, You have that, but most people you know, you have to make, you know, 600 500, 600,000 a year before you got enough disposable income, like, you really it's hard to spend that as a normal person. If you come out of college, you're making $50 a year, and all of a sudden you're making 500 a year. By the time you pay your student loan, 2 cars, a mortgage, kids, and private tuition, you don't have a lot of money, which is insane to even think that it takes that much. You're you're just you really can't spend it all. And at that point in time, you're probably not gonna make any more than that because you're good where you're at. But if you make more than that, now it's worthwhile to explore options to how to I don't wanna say hide money, but defer it, manip manipulate the system where you can offset certain things.
Glenn Harper [:Totally legal. I mean, it's in the code. You you can do these things, but change your entities, how you pay things, defer and define benefit on these types of things where you can kinda defer that down a little bit because you can't spend all that money. I mean, a normal person can. Now if you start buying your Lambos and you're buying 3 houses, You're gonna go the cost of an entourage is expensive, and you gotta do those things.
Steve Palmer [:Norm, you got an entourage over there.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, I do. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Everybody his racing team.
Glenn Harper [:Everybody should have one.
Norm Murdock [:For sure.
Glenn Harper [:So then when you start doing the the the the person on your shirt that's talking about tax rich, we're talking, like, if you're making More than $1,000,000 a year, you were in the, like, the top half a percent.
Steve Palmer [:And you're paying You're paying a lot. 3 or 400,000 in tax.
Glenn Harper [:But when you start making, say, 20,000,000, 50,000,000, a 100,000,000 a year, those people are under almost continuous audit because It's worth it for the government to look at it because you make a one change, you're gonna get a couple $1,000,000.
Steve Palmer [:Now there's a difference, though, between income and wealth. Correct. So it's like they're making 20,000,000 a year, but that's not coming as, like, a, like, a w two income.
Glenn Harper [:It it well, the the more you Elevate into your strata of income and wealth, the more diversified your portfolio comes. You're gonna get passive income from interest dividends and capital gains. You gains. You can have some real estate holdings of multi, LLCs that you're involved with, like venture capital things. You're gonna probably have some sort of real job that's tied to your your self employment income. You're gonna have all these things, but you're gonna have your fingers in a lot of things. And so you're gonna get different types of income, and all those incomes are taxed differently. You know, Capital gains is, you know, capped at whatever that is, 15% plus a little bit more.
Glenn Harper [:It goes up to 20% depending on your bracket. There's a little vague on top, so that's way better than, you know, 39%.
Steve Palmer [:But still, it's still a good chunk.
Glenn Harper [:Oh, it's a huge amount of money.
Steve Palmer [: be true that somebody making: Glenn Harper [:So remember, there's And those
Norm Murdock [:are after tax dollars to begin with.
Glenn Harper [:Well, there's 2 types of inc. Well, there's multiple there. But earned income is when you go out and you get employed and you get earned income, and you pay Social Security tax on that, and it's really hard to offset earned income because it just is what it is. You can get what's called then investment income, which is interest, dividends, and capital gains, and that's taxed at a different way. And then you have what's called, like, business income from different LLCs or s corps or even could be in a corporation where Money's being generated, but sometimes it may not be taxed because it's growing like a real estate investment. You might buy a piece of real estate and rent it out, And it's gonna generate a cash flow positive, but a tax loss because of depreciation. And if you do this right in the tax code again, it's changing as we speak. Everything's phasing out.
Glenn Harper [:But you go and make $1,000,000 a year, And that's your w two. And you could say you're gonna go buy a short term rental property down in Florida, in the beach, because that's what everybody does during
Brett Johnson [:the course
Glenn Harper [:of it. Whatever. Five of those. So you could go buy a $1,000,000 property, short term rental, which is less than 7 less than 14 day rental on average or 7 days. You provide significant services, and you can pay $1,000,000 for that. And then you can do a cost segregation study on this, and they will say, hey. Of this $1,000,000, Part of this for the business piece of this is $400,000, and you can accelerate. Instead of taking this normal property and Dividing it up over 30 some years, you can take that 400,000 today.
Glenn Harper [:So you have this $1,000,000 income. You take up you go buy this property. You put, like, $10,000 down because you bought it whenever, and you you're making payments, but you're getting rental income, so you're kinda cash flow neutral. Your out of pockets, you know, $50 or whatever, you get a $400,000 deduction today. It goes directly against your w two income. If you qualify, there's a lot of things to go through. Some people qualify, some people don't. But if you're a realtor, you're always gonna get into this game, but if you are a if you have a spouse that's not working that can put the time it needs for this, you can get into scheme, but $1,000,000 and remember we talked about if you're 600,000 to $1,000,000, you're gonna be paying right around that 50%.
Glenn Harper [:Round numbers. Everybody just don't hold me to that because there's a lot of functions there, but that saves you 200,000 in cash. I put $50,000 down on the property. It's cash flowing, and I'm gonna get a $200,000 tax benefit, raw tax dollars back. And that's how you can do it when you're an entrepreneur, and you can do it again in these types of things. If you have a real job and you make $1,000,000 a year, you just made $1,000,000, you pay your tax.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. But you're talking, like, the secondary type. Like, after you've done that for a few years, you can you can build up some wealth, and then you can start doing something else.
Norm Murdock [:What you
Glenn Harper [:what you just said, so the income, Again, most people America, we're great. We have a great ability to, we make what we make and we spend what we make, plus a little More. We're just good at that. I mean, we're just leverage. The government tells us how to do it because they do it very well, so we do it. But when you can stop that cycle where you can make money And you have money left over that you can accumulate and deploy that in a way that is not just throwing it to make some money or go blowing on a new car or something. You can put it tax efficiently for you, that's when you acquire wealth. It's not how much you make.
Glenn Harper [:It's how much you it's not for what you make on earned income. Much what you make on your passive income statement.
Steve Palmer [:Like, you know, you at at all levels, if you start look. When I was 20, I was at the poverty level. Mhmm. I had nothing.
Glenn Harper [:We all were.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. I had 0. So this is another sort of, Norm, interest on your take on this. Because everybody says that you're like, there's so many people in the poverty level, but not many people stay at the poverty level in our country. You know? It's like, I was at the poverty level. We all sitting at this table Yeah. Started with 0. I was actually started with less than 0.
Glenn Harper [:Negative.
Steve Palmer [:Negative. And, you know, I scraped and clawed. And next thing I know, I was even. Next thing I know, I had $10, and I was saving to buy my, you you know, whatever. And I had rent, and I was struggling. I had a car, and I drove a beater, whatever it would be.
Norm Murdock [:You mean you mean the government didn't, dismiss or forgive your college debt, did they? No.
Steve Palmer [:I got out of law school with a little bit of dedicated office.
Norm Murdock [:So that
Steve Palmer [:was the first thing I did. And and, you know, it's a funny story. Eric Jovich, God rest his soul. We had our first office in the basement of an office building, over on Third Street. I mean, literally, the basement is the furnace room. Mhmm. And we we sat both sat at a banquet table. So it was against the wall banquet.
Steve Palmer [:You know what I mean? But, like, the full the real heavy Those awesome. Board ones that weigh, like, a £100, not those cool plastic ones we have now. And we had 2 computers. 1st, we had 1, then we got 2. And so we just so we worked it up. And one day, Eric was sitting there. And I was like, what are you doing? He goes, I'm writing checks. Just paying bills.
Steve Palmer [:I said, what are you paying? All my student loans. And, so with your I think you were helping us this point. So every dollar I made, I put 33¢ in a savings account, like clockwork every week. And then I was, like, well, why don't I just put 50¢? And sooner after a while, we built built up a pretty good account. Like, I saved it. And we we still took home the same amount, but but we saved it. And Eric was sitting there, and he's as he's done paying my loans. Like, what is it? And he told me.
Steve Palmer [:It was, like, I don't know what it was. And I just said, well, pay it off, man. We got the money. He goes, we have it? I was like, yeah. We got it. I've been saving it every day or every week. I put this much away. And, you know, I talked to Glenn, and we have this much left for taxes.
Steve Palmer [:We've got our taxes. We have this much left over. Just write a check, man. Be done with it. And, you know, it was like a a lesson norm in, like, fiscal responsibility.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Sure.
Steve Palmer [:We didn't kick that can down the road.
Norm Murdock [:No. You signed a a loan agreement. And back then, it wasn't backed By the federal government. It was a local bank
Steve Palmer [:Yep.
Norm Murdock [:You know, that serviced that. And you had to pay it off.
Steve Palmer [:You had to pay it off. Yeah. He wrote the check, paid it off, and we were done. Then everything after that stacks up, you know, now and then, of course, he bought a house, and we do we eventually got into the same mess that the rest of us get into, but without student loans. I did the same thing with mine. You know, we just, like, alright. So we had it. We planned for it.
Steve Palmer [:We paid it. And I think nowadays, people, first of all, they borrow too much, and the price has gone up
Norm Murdock [:too much.
Steve Palmer [:Right. But even then, they think, like, I don't have to pay it. Right. So if you if you have that mindset, I don't have to pay it, you're not gonna save the money to pay it. Gonna just you're just not gonna
Norm Murdock [:3 years now, they've been hearing Santa Claus stories. The better. And and I know kids in college right now that think, You know, at the end of the day, they're gonna do something in DC to bail me out. Yeah. So they're just
Steve Palmer [:They're not saving the money today.
Norm Murdock [:They're not they're not even thinking they have to pay it back.
Steve Palmer [:So if everybody now say it's not, like, 30¢ on a dollar, but if you got a normal job they're withholding, say you just took 10¢ on a dollar. Mhmm. And I you know, look. I get it. I'm not immune, and I'm not callous to the idea that some people just live at a certain level of of of income that they couldn't do that. Sure. But I think most of the people out of college probably could. You know, instead of buying 5 beers at the bar, buy 2 and drink 3 at home.
Steve Palmer [:You know, whatever it is.
Brett Johnson [:Or the daily coffee
Glenn Harper [:that's $3, $3, $4.
Brett Johnson [:But that's but that's so good. I know. And I'm right there with you.
Glenn Harper [:I totally am. Hit your lips.
Steve Palmer [:Or the car. Yeah. Or the 5, $600 a month car payment.
Glenn Harper [:So I'll tell you so on this one, we we counsel clients on this all the time. When you come out of college, the premise is, Oh, I'm gonna be elevated to this job at this salary. And you think, oh, I'm a doctor. I'm gonna make a buck 50 a year. That's awesome. We don't really have a 150. The government's gonna take 40 some, 50,000 of that. Now you gotta pay a mortgage, 2 cars.
Glenn Harper [:Right. Your student loans back, you have no money. So we'll
Norm Murdock [:be medical malpractice
Glenn Harper [:premium for $40 saved.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Doctor. Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:So what we Always say is, like, you if you come out of college as a doctor, whatever that is, you still live like you're back in college. You don't spend a dime Because if you can just delay that satisfaction thinking, hey. I've made it. I'm gonna go spend all this money. Don't do it. Wait, say, like, 2 years to build up your powder and basically start chunking things down and understand what the tax man's taking first because you never wanna get behind in taxes. That's the worst place to be, so we always say, say 50%. Whatever you make, put 50% for taxes.
Glenn Harper [:We're never gonna use all of that. Brogan's a big chunk of it, and it gives you opportunity. And so if you can do that, all of a sudden now you've chunked this thing down where, hey. Maybe You can actually when you make a 150,000 a year, you can actually live that kinda lifestyle, but you can't come out of college. It's impossible. Right.
Steve Palmer [:If you just never do you're wrong footed to start. Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:You're doomed to failure. And that 2 year window will save you 20 years of absolute hell. That's amazing. Mistake. It's that big of difference.
Steve Palmer [:You know what? I've not heard one thing about yet talking to a tax accountant is how to fill out my 10.40. Or is that the right form, the 10.40 easy or whatever?
Glenn Harper [:They got different names now. I don't even know what they're
Steve Palmer [:Whatever it is. I've or how to fill up my tax return. The the point is is, like, what you guys offer over there is far more, It's it's a lot better. A lot more fun maybe is the better way to say it than just how to than than how to file a tax return.
Brett Johnson [:It's just like you said. It's planning versus reacting. So you're gonna get that. When because when I started using YouTube, I'm talking it was an exhale of, like, okay. Now I'm really planning versus reacting. I hated that Feeling every time. Going in, going, why are we paying this? Why are we paying that? Not knowing how to really plan for the year to Know that it's gonna happen. If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.
Brett Johnson [:Fine. Maybe if you can't do anything about it, but at least know, okay. I get it why this is always this.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. Christmas is coming regardless. God.
Brett Johnson [:I hate it.
Glenn Harper [:But you don't wanna be shopping on Christmas Eve. Exactly. It's just no that's not so much.
Brett Johnson [:Hated that.
Norm Murdock [:Can I, this might be a little bit policy oriented, but I'm curious, your your professional or maybe just your personal opinion? So you mentioned that 60,000,000 Americans that pay no income tax. Isn't it also true that I forget what what the program's called, adjusted gross income, or I I don't I don't know what it's called, or whatever that That that that tax scheme is. But they actually not only do they not pay taxes, but they actually, from The federal government get some kind of payment.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. That's the earned income tax
Norm Murdock [:cut.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's something that, again, The the essence of it makes sense if you look at it for the intent is, hey. I've got a single mom, a single dad out there, and it's it's hard to raise a kid single, and it's hard to have a real job when you got a kid Not in school. How do you navigate that? So if you're making 10, $12,000 a year,
Steve Palmer [:yeah,
Glenn Harper [:you don't pay any income tax, and they'll give you back a few $1,000.
Norm Murdock [:And that's really give it back, but, like, they just give it to you.
Glenn Harper [:Right. Right. You when you file your tax return, you'll get that as a refund, but you never paid anything and you get that back. Yeah. But You gotta figure somebody in that income strata, 2, 3, $4,000, that's a lot of money. That gets them through quite a bit, and it enables them to keep going and keep trying to be productive. Well, what's happened is everybody abuses that.
Steve Palmer [:Of course.
Glenn Harper [:And then you come over the other side, and it's like, well, I'm gonna have, you know, x amount of kids and do this and this. And what you can do, what people I've seen this happen. I've heard stories. It's crazy. But you don't even if you could be self employed as a somebody and say, look. I've got 4 kids, and I'm gonna be self employed. I'm gonna make $12,000 a year cleaning houses, let's just say. Your income tax credit is gonna be whatever, 5 grand.
Glenn Harper [:Well, you could say, you know what? Actually, I think I made 18,000. Oh, well, Well, your income tax credit's now gonna be $7,000. You know, actually, I think I made $22,000. Now there's a there's a level of changes, But this is the scam that people do. They understand. The taxpayer knows what that number needs to be. So when they go and report to, like, whatever tax preparer they use, whatever company that is, and they say, this is what I made. Here's all my kids.
Glenn Harper [:Well, nobody's gonna say if you made more money, they're not gonna, like, We're not really you're cheating the other way. Right?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:You're not saying I'm making less.
Steve Palmer [:People think they're just entitled to do it. It's like, I can just say this And, you know, as I like, you and I have argued forever. It's like when you just say this, it's a lie. You you know you're saying something that's false. And but they feel like, well, the government's sanctioning it. It's okay. I'm just getting this, this is just money that's mine. I see it all the time.
Norm Murdock [:So going my policy question is, why is essentially, that's welfare. I mean, let's call it what it is. It's it's it's support money or the dole, if they call it in England. Why is that built into our tax our taxation scheme instead of shouldn't that money like, if you have needs And you don't have enough income, that's welfare.
Glenn Harper [:But see
Norm Murdock [:Why is it built into the Internal Revenue Code?
Glenn Harper [:I'm gonna approach that from a different direction because everybody, When you look at the tax code, if it doesn't benefit you, it's not fair is a general rule. So if I have a house, a mortgage interest, and I'm gonna itemize deductions, I get subsidized for having a house. I get a deduction for that. If you're paying rent, You don't get a deduction for that. If you have kids, you get a deduction for that. If I don't have kids, I don't get a deduction for that. You have real estate. You get depreciation.
Glenn Harper [:If I don't, I don't. If you've got capital gains, you're gonna get a lower rate. If I don't have capital gains, I get a higher rate. So what happens is the code is written not to be fair, to extract dollars. Let's be crystal clear. They know again, 20 years ago, I filed a tax return. You've got, I'm making up a number. Twenty data points.
Glenn Harper [:Now there's 200 data points. They know to the penny when they say we're gonna raise the standard deduction or we're gonna reduced depreciation, or we're gonna give you a child tax credit. They know whatever that number is, they know exactly what that's gonna cause the budget to do, and they will take from here and give it over here. They'll take from here, give it over here. They get the same amount of money or more. So to your point is that's just politics. They're they're buying those votes because if you continue to get something free, you're gonna vote for that.
Norm Murdock [:Well, it dry it drives me crazy because it's Called a refund. And it's like, dude, you never paid any taxes to begin with. You're not getting you're not getting a refund. You're getting large. Yes. You're just getting welfare money, but they're it they call it a refund.
Steve Palmer [:And I'll bet you some people don't even know it's not a refund.
Norm Murdock [:Or they wouldn't care.
Steve Palmer [:Or just they call it a refund, so they call it their tax refund. Yeah. So that just becomes the new normal. And so this is my tax refund. Yeah. They can. I get it that there may be some value in doing that. There may be government policy, and then we can debate that.
Steve Palmer [:But at least call it what it is.
Norm Murdock [:Right? Right.
Glenn Harper [:It again, it's, as a you know, if they would, I know this is gonna sound really, really crazy, but if they would just say, hey. Remember, everybody looks at this as a tax revenue problem. It's not a tax revenue problem. It's a it's a spending problem by the government. Yeah. If we could just identify what as a country, Federal, state, local, what we're gonna spend. Yeah. We know that amount.
Glenn Harper [:Now we can find an equitable way to tax people, But they never talk about that. They talk about, I'm gonna tax the rich. I'm gonna give it to this person. I'm gonna take this in and put that out. They don't look at it the right way because, ultimately, It's not fair to make it so some people pay and some people don't. We all participate.
Brett Johnson [:We should
Steve Palmer [:pay some You know, nobody ever talks about cutting programs in order to No. Supplant it with another one. They just add it on top, and then they say, we don't have money for that. Well, that's because the rich aren't paying taxes. And it's like, look. False narrative. Your your your spending habits have changed, you know, uncle Sam. You know, it's like you're now spending more, and you need more money.
Steve Palmer [:So 10 years ago. If we had just frozen that in time, there's plenty of money. But you've added 10 more programs every year, and here we go. We can't afford
Glenn Harper [:But the the the complaint about that is they say, okay. This program's gonna cost a $100,000,000 a year, so our budget we're gonna put in, we need a 15% increase. So Then, like, everybody gets scared and goes, you know, we're gonna make it only that a 10% increase. Well, somehow, that's a cut. Yeah. It's still a 10% increase. So if inflation is down,
Steve Palmer [:it's only 7% instead of 10%.
Glenn Harper [:If that guy would've been paying more tax, we could afford this. We wouldn't have to cut. We're not really cutting. Nobody's really caught
Brett Johnson [:it since.
Glenn Harper [:Right? The hard part.
Steve Palmer [:Right. There's no cut. The inflation is still there. The tax is like, the spending is still there. You're just spending less.
Glenn Harper [:Hence, your name Common Sense. That It doesn't jive with me. A cut means I'm doing less
Steve Palmer [:than you are. This is Orwellian vocabulary. Alright.
Norm Murdock [:A reduction in the rate of increase is called a cut.
Glenn Harper [:Right. Right. Which is crazy.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. That's right.
Norm Murdock [:So I I detected a a little bit maybe I'm wrong. Okay? And this is what always drives me wild about talking to scientists or technical people like you. I mean, you're you're a scientist of of the tax code and and how numbers and and and math and and dollars work. And sometimes what I what I really wanna do is get somebody like you to talk a little bit about, policy, and and I appreciate that you're doing that. So I detected a little bit of maybe you think at least, I'll speak for myself. I think it would be good if even the low Dollar people. The people that are getting that earned income tax credit, quote, refund that's not a refund. Everybody should have skin in the game.
Norm Murdock [:Everybody should feel like something is being extracted from them In order for the government to go out and participate in wars or build bridges or pave roads or whatever it is, And at the retail level, at the gas pump, rich and poor alike are paying fuel taxes. Right? But in the income situation, there's a whole chunk, and I think I heard the statistic. We're approaching roughly 50% of people that work are not paying any federal income tax. It may be over 50%.
Steve Palmer [:And it's not the rich.
Norm Murdock [:And so, you know, he here's the thing. They don't have skin in the game. So when when they talk about, you know, sticking it to the rich or sticking it to you know, like, shouldn't somebody at least pay 1% Or something. I'm not I I know it's a policy question.
Glenn Harper [:It's a great question. I and so remember, whatever bracket you are in, Whoever makes more than you is not paying enough, and whoever makes, less than you Should be paying you know, is not is shouldn't be paying as much. Because it's just where we sit, it just doesn't, like again, when you put a real tax dollar on people of what they're paying under the percentage of their income. Again, I think it's it can't be it can't be The progressive taxes is what we have. The more you make, the more you pay. Yeah. In the purest sense, like, just forget about deductions. Forget about tax just talk about we're all just making x dollars w two.
Glenn Harper [:Like, we can't do anything with that. It is what it is. It is my opinion, it's unfair that somebody making $1,000,000 is gonna pay, you know, 400,000 in tax, and list making $10,000 a year, pays nothing, and gets back 4 grand. That's not fair.
Steve Palmer [:But there there's another part of this, Norm, that you made me think about, which is You have a you run a business. Yeah. So you have an LLC or an s corp, whatever you have.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:But immediately, that puts on you, the business owner, you're vested with knowledge that frustrates the crap out of you, which is you know how much you pay in tax.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:The and look, it sounds so ridiculous to say that, but I would say the average worker of all levels, like, you say a doctor, say, a lawyer who just gets a check, say, anybody who doesn't run a business.
Norm Murdock [:People subject to withholding, I think, is where you're going.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. It is done. It's like it's like the pickpocket by the government.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:It is done without their knowledge.
Norm Murdock [:They see the net amount of their check. They don't see behind it.
Steve Palmer [:And it's automatically deposited. It's automatically this. It's automatically withdrawn. Their employers take out most of the tax.
Norm Murdock [:I've long felt that withholding should be abolished. And as as messy as it would be, I'm sure the CPAs would freak out on this, as messy as it would be because a lot of people wouldn't do their quarterlies. Right?
Steve Palmer [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:A lot of people wouldn't They wouldn't stay with it. But if if Joe Sixpack if the UAW guy didn't have withholding, he's working for GM, makes $100 a year, He's at the top of his seniority. He's making really good jack. Right?
Steve Palmer [:Yep.
Norm Murdock [:And if he had to sit down, he and his wife, and write a check every quarter to the federal hurt. It would. It would. I'll tell you what. You talk about belt tightening in DC. Oh, yeah. Because now you'd have blue collar people saying, hey. I'm I'm not digging writing this Or $4,000 check every quarter.
Steve Palmer [:Another pet peeve. They get tax refunds in April or in May or if they file early, they get it in January. And
Norm Murdock [:they're happy about it.
Steve Palmer [:And they're happy about it. And I'm thinking to myself, look. That was money that they picked your pocket, and they were kind enough to give it back.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. And you gave them a free loan for a year.
Brett Johnson [:Right? To your point, though, of them literally having to write a check, they can do they can Actually, check and look at their stub every month and look where it's going.
Norm Murdock [:They could.
Steve Palmer [:But they don't.
Brett Johnson [:They don't.
Steve Palmer [:It's like Right. Don't look
Brett Johnson [:over here. Design, it's like it's over here.
Steve Palmer [:Pick your pocket, unicornshow.
Norm Murdock [:That's why the UAW is trying to get a 40% pay increase
Steve Palmer [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:Because they just consider that whole part of their paycheck.
Brett Johnson [:And and and I and if you really wanna learn the pain, then make an effort
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Glenn Harper [:For the next 6 months.
Brett Johnson [:Look at your pay stub and see where it goes.
Glenn Harper [:Me tell you some a great and most amazing thing ever. When you have a real job and you have withholding, I can ask 99 out of a 100 people, and they will have no clue What their total tax they paid for the year is.
Brett Johnson [:They know they're gross, though.
Steve Palmer [:You know?
Glenn Harper [:They know. They don't they don't even know that. Okay. They know what their refund or amount owed is with their tax return.
Steve Palmer [:That's
Glenn Harper [:They don't know. I'm like they're like, oh my god. I owe $1,000. Well, you know you already paid 90,000 in. What? Yeah. That's what they withheld. There's no way. They don't because you don't see it, you don't know.
Glenn Harper [:You just think that's the way it is. Now when you're self employed, most of those people know exactly because they're stroking the check.
Steve Palmer [:Well, look. I I've done this. I have brought friends, colleagues, clients into your office to say, look. Here's mister Jones. Mister Jones wants to start a business doing x y z, and we sit down with you and you go through this. They are blown away by the obligation of running the business from just the financial, the tax side of it, but also how much they have to pay. And, you know, it's like, look. You've got he's like, oh, man.
Steve Palmer [:I'm set. I got these. I'm a I'm a landscape. Already got 10,000 a month in contracts. I'm like, oh, that's great. You're gonna be broke. And they're like, well, wait a minute. It's 10,000 a month.
Steve Palmer [: you know, you're living on a: Glenn Harper [:Well, that's where That's right. Again, when you have a real job, you have And, again, w two, real job work for the man. You have some regularity, some stability, some, like, continuity. This is what I'm gonna make, and you adjust your budget accordingly.
Norm Murdock [:That's
Glenn Harper [:When you're self employed, if I had a nickel for all the clients I, engage with That if I coulda got with them before they started their business to modify that business plan to see what they're really gonna make if that would be affordable or not, They would've saved their whole life savings because they take all their money out of retirement. They fund this thing, and it's just not viable by the time you do expenses and taxes.
Brett Johnson [:I'll get my nickel Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:You can't you can't do it. You can't sustain it. And people don't realize it, and they don't also realize what the Overhead cost would be to get the legal advice, the accounting advice, the tax advice. Yeah. How the payroll. Do you have to do to run a business? They just don't know.
Steve Palmer [:And it's not easy. It's hard. Right? It's not easy. Now look. Most of us did it despite ourselves and or at least I'll say it for me. Like you said, I'll speak for me. I did it despite myself. I had absolutely zero idea what the hell I was doing.
Steve Palmer [:Had no clue what I was doing. And the only way it worked for me is because when I did it, I was broke. And that meant I didn't really have anything to contribute to lose, and, you know, my business was one of service. So I just had to eat, you know, ramen noodles and and and not do spend any money until it started to work. And, you know, fortunately, I had a long runway to start or unfortunately. You know, it's not like I took off and made a crap ton of money. I could slowly start and then figure it out as I went, with your help, really, on what to do. And I remember we you you had, Eric and me over for Thanksgiving dinner one time.
Steve Palmer [:It was like an early Thanksgiving dinner, and you handed me this. It was back before computers or before we like, it would have been a file.
Norm Murdock [:Right. But it
Steve Palmer [:was a spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet was a budget. And it was like, here's what you spend. So I know what you guys are making right now roughly, and you probably don't remember this. But I do. You you did, and you were making me eat cooked garlic with a turkey at the same time.
Glenn Harper [:That's only that's how you get get funded or get attention.
Steve Palmer [:Golf course, whatever that was. And and you were still living in a small house, and, like, we were both also starting out. You said, look. Here here's your key to success. Just do this. And I did do that. I did it for a long time, and I didn't get behind the 8 ball because of that. And, running a business like that, if people if if you think it's easy, it's not.
Steve Palmer [:And the only way you can do it is with help like what you provide. And, even then, it still takes tremendous discipline to get it done.
Glenn Harper [:Oh, you gotta be a psycho to Start a business and run it because it's you start every day negative, and nobody believes you knew you. You don't nobody to vent to. It's it's a really hard thing to do. And if you don't get good advice, at least financially in planning and making sure it's viable, and make sure you do all the things where you don't have a sin that's gonna cover later, lienie. I didn't know I had to pay sales tax. I didn't know I was supposed to do pay my payroll taxes. And those things come back. It's it's over.
Glenn Harper [:Org. You're
Steve Palmer [:done. You're done. People I've had this look. A a very good friend of mine is a drywall guy, and he, he went out on his own. He's gonna start his own drywall business, And, he just did it. You know? He didn't tell me. He didn't tell you. He didn't do anything.
Steve Palmer [:And next thing he knows, he's doing great. Right? He's got he's making a gross $100 a year in drywall contracts. He's got 0 at the end of every single month. Hasn't paid a penny in, in quarterly estimates.
Norm Murdock [:Didn't didn't know he had day.
Steve Palmer [:And it was like, god, it's no big deal. I'll deal with it.
Norm Murdock [:I'll deal with it. Right.
Steve Palmer [:And now he's now he's now he's beyond the radar screen. So he is forever off the radar and living this life of, holy crap. Sooner or later, the other shoe is gonna fall Right. And they're gonna ask. And so what do those people do? They still file tax returns, and, you know, next thing you know
Glenn Harper [:And remember, that's the the crime is not not paying your taxes. We don't test technically have to pay our tax. We have to file the tax return, and you had to file an accurate tax return. So there's a penalty for not filing, and there's a penalty for not filing accurately. You, the taxpayer, get the not filing penalty. If you don't file it accurately, you get that penalty too as well. But if I, as your professional, don't Followed accurately. I get double that penalty for just taking something they shouldn't take and and and to your your guy, when you don't pay taxes and you don't account for things.
Glenn Harper [:You pay for everything. You make a ton of money because you're not you're you're not paying half your income.
Norm Murdock [:I'm out here. You're alcaba. Great. You're alcaba. That's that's Elliot knows.
Glenn Harper [:So So what'll happen is the IRS, when you the second you file your tax return, they have 10 years to collect that money from you. And if they don't collect it in the 10 years, it just goes away.
Norm Murdock [:So, Glenn, I gotta ask you. Just let me jump in because I know our listeners are all chanting hunterbiden right now. So why after only I think it's only 5 years. What or or maybe maybe it was 10, but it just seems like The IRS is is compelled or the prosecutors are compelled to dismiss these charges because the statute of limitations has run out. Is is there a statute of limitations on paying your taxes? Because I didn't know that.
Glenn Harper [: for that. So if you file the: Steve Palmer [:But if
Glenn Harper [: you don't file your: Norm Murdock [:So if you
Glenn Harper [:go to jail for not paying
Steve Palmer [:your tax. Is there's a statute of limitations on a criminal activity for not filing Yeah. Or not reporting the income.
Glenn Harper [:Not reporting.
Steve Palmer [:But there's what Glenn is saying, I think, is that there's sort of an an effective 10 year statute of limitations on collection, which is not really a statute of limitations, but they have 10 years to collect it. And what I'm at what I'm curious about is if they're already engaged in the efforts of collecting and you're making payments, does it disappear after 10 years, or does that extend?
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. Well, They'll keep taking money as long as you keep paying them.
Steve Palmer [:But if I start saying I'm paying 1,000 a year on a a 1,000 a month on some obligation that I have with the IRS, and I get to the 10th year, and I still owe, you know, 10,000 more, and I just stop paying?
Glenn Harper [:Right. Allegedly, they can't collect it anymore.
Steve Palmer [:Budget and make
Glenn Harper [:you But most people that have the well so and most people that owe like that, they have multiple years, So there's always something rolling.
Norm Murdock [:Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
Glenn Harper [:So the most important thing to remember is the worst job probably to be I want you to, And, again, this is just from my side because I have to deal with the friends of folks at the IRS. And you got some good ones and not so good ones, but it is the most thankless job on the planet. They literally wake up in the morning, Thousands of forms, people with sob stories. It's all crazy, and they gotta go through this stuff, and they just gotta do what they gotta do.
Steve Palmer [:Yep.
Glenn Harper [:And to that point is our job as, you know, planners, preparers, whatever, is to give a good product to the IRS. So when they look at it, It's legit, and they don't have to spend that. They they love coming to my office because when they come in there, they know it's gonna be right. We go through the thing. We have some coffee. We shoot the bowl, And here everything is. We lay it out for them. We kinda do their job for them and say, here's everything you need.
Glenn Harper [:And they go through and ask questions, and it's like, yeah. That's that's great. They don't wanna come into a situation where you're hiding stuff and you did fraud because it's the worst feeling in the world.
Steve Palmer [:It's stress, anxiety, it's pain.
Glenn Harper [:Do it right the first time, and you don't worry about
Steve Palmer [:know what else I've noticed is because I've I've I've worked with, represented, no, been in the trades myself at various times in my life or or close to doing Andre, whatever it is. The people who don't pay any taxes are always broke, and they make them they make more money than everybody else who does pay tax. And there's something psychologically about this. When you live off the radar screen, you have only cash, people tend to blow it.
Glenn Harper [:Cash doesn't mean anything.
Steve Palmer [:Because and it's a weird so I don't know what the psychology is, but, an old lawyer once told me, he was, yeah. I've always noticed these guys who do, collect cash, lawyers who collect criminal defense, particularly. Mhmm. You know, somebody give them $1,000 at the courthouse, get it done or whatever, goes right in their pocket. Next thing you know, they're buying dinner for everybody that night because they had a big day, and the money's gone. If it goes in your bank account and you count it and you assign the dollars to different places, you tend to save it. And and, like, I you know, I I've never done that. I've never just, like, taken in the cash and not I've never lived the other way.
Steve Palmer [:But I know this, the people that do tend to blow that money, and it doesn't mean as much when I have it in my bank account and I account for it and I start to budget and put it in different buckets. I tend to have more than those who don't pay the tax in the 1st place. It doesn't in other words, you don't look. I'm not I'm not advocating for the tax code. But what I am saying is the people who don't play by the rules have to live off the grid. Now I would love it if I could just put all my cash in the bank account and not pay tax on it. But the people who don't put in their bank account and just spend it, not like it's sitting in a safe, and they've got it for a rainy day. It's gone.
Glenn Harper [:So here's a a funny thing about that. You can go make $100,000 in cash. Again, you the government knows if you buy a house, a car, a boat, travel, they can track your you know, they they know what you're doing. If it doesn't jive up, you'll get a a John Deere letter in the mail, and they'll come and look at you. And if it's really bad, you'll get a criminal CID guy come up with a gun and a badge and say, we need to talk to you. So you have a choice. You make $100,000 and you don't claim it versus if you make a 100,000 and do claim it. If you claim it and you use a Good professional that says, well, this is how you navigate the tax code.
Glenn Harper [:This is what your write offs are. This is how you can put money in retirement. These are the things you can do that are vanilla. Like, not it's it's totally black. You can do this. You just don't have the knowledge, most people. And if you just do these things, I will guarantee that that person is gonna have way more money at the end of x time period than the person who has the cash and tries to, quote, Stick it to the man's seat.
Steve Palmer [:Appointment. Yeah. Exactly.
Glenn Harper [:Don't stick it give Caesar his peace, but don't give him any more than you have to.
Steve Palmer [:But you quoted the bible. Render Caesar with a Caesar.
Glenn Harper [:Whatever. Whoever the caesar guy is. He's gonna get something. But if you do it the right way, you will you get in the system where you're like, okay. I'm gonna play by these rules. I'm then going to have knowledge to play by the rules better than the other guy. And if I have those rules that are I mean, the code's written in a way you can do these things, Then you're gonna have way more money left, and the people that have they never have any of them left because you can't do anything with it.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. You
Glenn Harper [:what you're gonna do with 500,000 in cash sitting You can't go buy anything. They they know you. And now
Steve Palmer [:They've got you.
Glenn Harper [:You didn't file, so now you're a criminal, and they can come back at you forever. And let's say you've, Let's say there's a statute out there that says, I say I make $100,000, but I got paid $20 in cash, and I don't claim that $20,000. Well, the rule is if you don't they can go back and audit your tax return for 3 years back as just the rule. And, usually, if they grab a year, they do the year before and the year after is because they make it a package deal, which is kinda fun. Right?
Steve Palmer [:You need
Glenn Harper [:to grab everything. If you're gonna do
Brett Johnson [:the anal probe, do the anal probe nicely.
Glenn Harper [:Get it done. And great is if you do things consistently, you do it right, like, okay. Great. It is what it is. But if you don't, then they got you. Right? But if you claim either overtake a deduction or unclaim income to the extent it's 20% of your income. That's tax fraud. They go back way back
Steve Palmer [:That's your call. Me.
Glenn Harper [:That's a criminal thing.
Steve Palmer [:So the statute of notation on that, just so everybody knows, is from the date of discovery, not the date of the conduct.
Glenn Harper [:Correct. So
Norm Murdock [:So this Hunter thing, I gotta keep going back
Steve Palmer [:to that.
Glenn Harper [:It's unbelievable. But remember, this that's a
Norm Murdock [:special millions from the Chinese, The Ukrainians, the Russians.
Glenn Harper [:That's a special deal. Right?
Norm Murdock [:How how in the world it does he have all of that dismissed because the Statute of limitations.
Steve Palmer [:Remember, the
Glenn Harper [:well, that's what they're saying. But remember, when you make the deals behind the scenes you know, Steve, you know, you you make deals all the time. Yep. All these things kinda go away. But the common guy out there, if you were to do this, Norm, you'd be in whatever Penitentiary, that is. I'm not sure where, but you're
Steve Palmer [:either plenty of them for a lot less money.
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. But if you're A lot
Steve Palmer [:less money.
Glenn Harper [:We call them there's always gonna be specials. And the specials are just special because they're connected somehow. And, again Wow. It it pisses you off, but it like, that's just the way that's always gonna be. It's then that way it's gonna be. All you can control is how you operate. And if you operate yourself and you follow the rules, you do what you can and can't do, and you run it that way, You go to bed and you sleep, and you sleep like a baby Yeah. Because you don't have to worry about anything.
Glenn Harper [:When you try to go cheat on that stuff, it'll haunt you forever.
Steve Palmer [:Getting into some common sense basic psychology. I
Glenn Harper [:love it. Sounds great. Because it's
Steve Palmer [:like, look. Control the things you can control, live in your own world, and don't externalize it by comparing yourself to everybody else because it's just a pathway to hell. And once once people start doing that with the tax code, with this, or with anything else, they're like, well, that guy's not paying. I'm not doing but if you can if you do if you like, I I love what you just said. Like, you get your own bases covered. You take care of what you gotta take care of, and then you get to sleep at night and wake up. And, really, the a huge part of that, from a tax and financial obligation is don't spend more than you make. Look.
Steve Palmer [:Just don't do what uncle Sam does. Do what you do.
Glenn Harper [: it a minute. I only got I got: Glenn Harper [:Well, they do every tax return is different. Right? They don't even know what's going on. I can adjust you with holding up or down. You might have a different thing that you have Well, people think it's the same, and
Brett Johnson [: se the government held on to $: Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:I don't want And they didn't
Norm Murdock [:pay you interest.
Brett Johnson [:I don't. I mean, I I'm even cool with paying a few bucks if I had to pay.
Norm Murdock [:But it was it was
Glenn Harper [:an interest free loan
Steve Palmer [:you was an interest free loan. I don't want money. Rather take the interest free loan.
Brett Johnson [:I don't want a refund at the end.
Glenn Harper [:I don't. So here's the tricky part. So when you have a real job, You can predict within, you know, $100 what you're probably gonna owe a refund, and you can adjust your withholding to the penny where you break even.
Norm Murdock [:That's called a w one. Is that that form?
Glenn Harper [:You ought to it's a w nine, but it it w nine. You get to pick it, but it's they change those things as Possibly, you need a doctorate in whatever in engineering to figure it out. But, ultimately, you can just say, here's the number I want withheld, and we're good. Okay.
Steve Palmer [:As soon
Glenn Harper [:as you have a start working now. We gotta tweak things, but that's just good planning. Yes. When you're self employed, who in the heck knows it's gonna happen? You could have a month's up and down. So What ends up happening is because the way the tax code is written, you have to pay your taxes as you earn the money. When you have a real job, they withhold every paycheck. When you're self employed, you gotta pay it every quarter. Now if you're have an s corp, whatever, you can pay your taxes through withholding because you're part of that, and you can do different things.
Glenn Harper [:But but, ultimately, You get to monitor when you're gonna pay your taxes, but if you pay too little when you make it, they'll give you a penalty for not paying your taxes timely and in the right amount.
Steve Palmer [:Wow.
Glenn Harper [:So when you're self employed, you generally have to kinda push and pay a little bit more than you'd want to because if you have spike, and you fill out the form, you're gonna get a couple
Steve Palmer [:1,000 penalties. Last year. Right? So if I made x money last year and I had a great year, that means I gotta do at least that much this year. Otherwise, face a penalty if I fall short.
Glenn Harper [:A 110% or 98% of the current year. Well, who wants to do the math at 98% 37 times a year? You pick a baseline, you go with it, and you monitor that. And you can go up and down, but that takes being proactive in your planning, not just picking up
Steve Palmer [:Like, for instance, this year, just to be to to disclose on the personal. I'd I had to sell some assets to, re to do some refinancing in different places. I had a capital gains event, so I talked to you. And now that money is sitting in my bank account waiting to pay the IRS as opposed to the opposite. Correct. Because I work with you and because we planned, I am saving, and we'll have that money in April, versus giving it now to the government and and, hoping for a return or worse yet having to pay in April not having it.
Norm Murdock [:Not having it. Crisis.
Glenn Harper [:A lot of it's funny the mindset of, our clients and a lot of entrepreneurs. Once they accept the fact that they have to pay the tax, it's easier for them to have it out of their bank account and pay it. They don't even care if the government has it because don't have to think about it. Because if it's sitting in your account, you think you have it. It just pisses you off when you're like, I gotta write that check to the government.
Steve Palmer [:I look at that bank account balance every single day.
Glenn Harper [:And it's horrible because it's not
Steve Palmer [:pay that.
Glenn Harper [:It's not my money now, so most people will send it off. But a lot of people again, for the last 7 years. The interest rates are so low. Who care? But now, hey. If I can get 5% of my money and I give them to government, why not keep it? But you're not surprised that you're gonna pay it. You can plan for it. You know it's coming. Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:And it's not a big deal. Yeah. It's gonna suck to write the check, but, you know, thank god you have it to write it. Imagine when you have to write the check, you don't have it.
Norm Murdock [:So, Glenn, I gotta ask you to To play Nostradamus here, or or, Kreskin.
Steve Palmer [:Noridanus.
Norm Murdock [: or a: Steve Palmer [:these wealth tax bills.
Norm Murdock [:That I have not I have not cashiered yet. And, of course, the next day that Tesla stock could go from a100 down to $5. And I don't think the federal government's gonna give me my money back, right, for the loss. What is this stuff gonna pass or what? How would you even account for any of this?
Glenn Harper [:It's it would be an absolute nightmare. So what you're talking about is we call recognized and realized gains.
Norm Murdock [:Thank you.
Glenn Harper [:A recognized gain is when I buy something When I buy something, I'm in the arena. Okay? Nothing happens with that till I sell it currently. That's a recognized gain. So as soon as I sell it, I have to record the gain or loss. If it's a gain, I pay tax on whatever that gain is. If it's a loss, I can offset my other gains and take an additional $3,000 loss, And the remaining of that loss is carried forward indefinitely for other future gains. So if I make $1,000,000 to today, I pay tax $1,000,000. Next year, I lose $1,000,000.
Glenn Harper [:I get to deduct $3,000. So that's unrecognized. Realize says, Hey. My portfolio is doing whatever it does, and it went up. I realized it because it's there, but I haven't recognized it. They want a tax to realize this, which is I don't even know how you report that because, again, that will change throughout the day. Yes. So what what day do you pick? It's a we just
Steve Palmer [:They were talking about a yearly wealth tax, and I think this has, like I think some of this other country Scandinavian countries, people have tried this, and it's an unmitigated disaster because people just move. What you you can't listen to leave.
Glenn Harper [: ar, and I bought the stock in: Steve Palmer [:Like You have to start using the fancy symbols on a calculator to figure out
Glenn Harper [:crap. Yeah. I gotta use, like, sine and cosine. I got people. Like, I can't get there myself. Now the brokerage house is now required to do that. Remember, they just started doing some Bitcoin. You know, last year, it was mandatory.
Glenn Harper [:They weren't even doing it. It was wild, wild west. So now At least we're getting some help. I remember I have to go to the library and find look up stocks because this was before the computer thing, and I had to go look in stock, see what people would've pay for these things because they know when they bought it to figure out the basis. So this is on a real recognized thing on a realized thing. Your portfolio, you might have, you know, 500 stocks in there. And you might have only sold 10. Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:But you've got 490 other Shares that are stocks that have gone up or down, how can you even track that? And then if you pay pay a tax on the realized gain, What do you do with the realized loss? Is you just gotta eat it Yeah. Which is I think what's gonna happen.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Glenn Harper [:Because remember This
Steve Palmer [:will never get implemented. I I I knocking on wood. I don't think this ever gets implemented for god.
Glenn Harper [:This is a great idea. Lots of revenue, generally.
Brett Johnson [:Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:I mean, it's, it's just insanity. Well, Norm look. I mean, we well, Norman and I talked yesterday how we're gonna handle Glenn, and we thought, oh, it's just gonna be some boring accounting, and, you know, we better just get get him over this and taxes. And do it. But, you know, it's it's eating up a good chunk of the time. So I think, you know, I could go on for another hour. I think this stuff is fascinating.
Norm Murdock [:Well, Glenn has to come back. Right?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. You're gonna have to well, he is our sponsor. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:He's gotta come back.
Steve Palmer [:Right. And right now, you got no competition. Of course, it's coming.
Glenn Harper [:Comin'. It's stunning.
Steve Palmer [:So let's hit some nuggets. Yep. Glenn, you can just sort of, join the show. Give us a common sense, comment on some of the stuff. We call these norms nuggets, and, we'll see what we got.
Norm Murdock [:Well, in 18/66, there was probably one of the best quotes of all time, If you're a common censor like we are, a judge named Gideon Tucker, who's also name. Gideon Tucker. 18/66. He he was a judge in New York and also a newspaper editor, but he, in writing an opinion, uh-uh, a judgment or an opinion about a legal malpractice case. He's the guy who put out the quote that says no man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Steve Palmer [:Oh, yeah.
Norm Murdock [:That's awesome. So I love that quote. Right? That's a
Steve Palmer [:good one.
Norm Murdock [:That's a good one. So, I am not exercise. I look. The Twitter world and and social media is all a under, both Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal. Everybody's upset that Congress is not in session, and they're doing the 3rd ballot today, maybe, on Jim Jordan and picking a speaker. I am celebrating the fact that congress is not in session. Guess what? Salutelybuffet.
Brett Johnson [:We came in today. We worked.
Glenn Harper [:We're gonna go home.
Steve Palmer [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:Life didn't stop.
Norm Murdock [:No. It did not. Wow.
Steve Palmer [:Remember the days of, of, Dan? Was it Dan? Not Dan's side. Who is Stockdale? Who is,
Norm Murdock [:James Stockdale.
Steve Palmer [:James Stockdale. Yeah. He was What's his name? His vice president.
Norm Murdock [:The the guy who owned DDS, perro ross perro.
Brett Johnson [:Here's the deal.
Steve Palmer [:Sucking sucking the jobs down in Mexico. Down.
Glenn Harper [:Here's what I can hear.
Steve Palmer [:I could hear it. But he used to he would stand up there in that vice presidential debate and like, gridlock. Gridlock gridlock.
Norm Murdock [:Well, his best was when they got to health care. What what should the federal government, you know, have for a health care policy? He said, well, I think we should have 1. And other than that, I'm out of ammo on
Glenn Harper [:that. Right. Right.
Steve Palmer [:Now this is
Norm Murdock [:now wait a minute. He was in the Hanoi Hilton. He was a medal of honor winner.
Steve Palmer [:No slouch.
Glenn Harper [:He's a stud.
Norm Murdock [:This was the he was a stud. That's right.
Steve Palmer [:But but I I disagreed with him on one major point. It's the point you're making. When we had gridlock back in the days of, Slick Willie, we got a balanced budget.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Him and Newt.
Steve Palmer [:When we couldn't get anything done
Norm Murdock [:Him and Newt. Our
Steve Palmer [:customers couldn't spend any money.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:They couldn't get it together. Yeah. So guess what? We just stockpiled cash. It's funny what happens when you don't spend it, you save it. Yeah. You know? It's like so you're right. It's like when when congress is gridlocked up, that's how it's supposed to work. People people get so upset about this, but the founders intended this.
Steve Palmer [:Right? They didn't wanna make it easy to dig into our pocketbooks and take our money and spend it on stuff.
Norm Murdock [:And to that point, the state of Kentucky, I think, still has this in their constitution. Every year, their legislative season is 60 days.
Steve Palmer [:Awesome.
Norm Murdock [:They get their legislature has if you can't do it in 60 days,
Steve Palmer [:bye bye. You got
Norm Murdock [:2 months To pass all the laws that you wanna pass or reform things or, you know, delete laws or whatever you wanna do, know, and then get the hell out of your go home.
Brett Johnson [:I think I think Indiana has
Glenn Harper [:a short term as well too. Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:I think they're it's it's not all year. They're there maybe 3 months. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Get out
Norm Murdock [:of here.
Steve Palmer [:And we were talking to JD Vance, and and we've talked to some of these people, and and we'll talk to more of them on the show as guests. But, you know, everybody all these politicians, they always run on this platform like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. I'm the presidents are the worst offenders of all. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, first of all, you shouldn't have any power to do this. Sadly, it looks like we're going to a direction where the president does have that power through the executive brand or through the administrative body of government. But, I don't wanna hear it. I wanna hear that you're gonna go solve some freaking problems by doing less, not more.
Steve Palmer [:Right. You know, it's like Right. The government always all these people always say, man, it would've worked if you just let me do more, instead of saying, what we tried to do is an abject failure, and we should stop and turn around. That's what, Glenn, I would have to do in my business. Alright. So I went down this marketing plan. It didn't work. Guess what I'm gonna do? Gonna stop spending the freaking dollars on it and go a different direction.
Steve Palmer [:And it's hard. It's really hard to look in the mirror and say, I pissed away that money, didn't work, gotta do something else. But when it's your money, you have to do it. When it's other people's money
Glenn Harper [:Yeah. When I'm president, I'm gonna say every new law, we're gonna have to repeal 5 laws. And eventually
Steve Palmer [:Love it.
Glenn Harper [:In a short time, it'd be it'd be nice because, again, when you're in in my line of work And and even as an entrepreneur or business owner, you need some certainty of what the rules are so you can forecast and plan out. And if you don't have, certainly, like, the the Trump tax code that was started in whatever that was 17, it expires at the end of next year. That was the biggest tax change we had in, you know, 30 years. When that goes back to retro what it was, it is gonna decimate a lot of small businesses because they're used to operating in this environment. And if you won't have certainty of what the rules are, You can't make bold moves because you don't know what's gonna happen. So people hold back, and that's not good.
Norm Murdock [:So to that point Yeah.
Glenn Harper [:Is that they could just, like, hey. Here's the set of rules for the next x years, and we promise, because I'm a politician, you can promise, after 15 years, we will have some clarity what this looks like going forward. Let everybody okay. Now we know the rules we can play, but when we don't know, it makes it very challenging.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Dana, the PPP Program is the one that drives me crazy. You have 2 similarly situated restaurant owners, let's say, or copy shop owners or whatever. You know? 2 2 people that are in the same trade, same business, maybe making the same amount, and along comes this PPP program. And neither one of them knows if they're gonna have to pay this back or not. And and one decides, I'm already in debt. I already have to lay off workers. I don't wanna go further in debt.
Norm Murdock [:No. Thank you. I'm not doing the PPP. The other person may say, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna gamble. I'm gonna take a chance. And there you go, Glenn. There's no clarity going into the loan about what the outcome will be. And so some people did well And had 10 thou we we had some rock stars that had concerts canceled, and 1 or 2 of them made, like, 10, 20, $1,000,000.
Norm Murdock [:That is forgiven. Whereas other people, even at the lowly retail level making, you know, $50 a year, they applying the PPP because they thought they were gonna have to pay it back.
Steve Palmer [:Or or to get it. Totally unfair. Like, it it was a paperwork. In it was insane what you request to do. Like, I would defy. I would love to send this off to the average, what do you call that, like, the regular real jobs. I would love to send off the application for the PPP to them and say, you tell me how easy this was. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Because you couldn't, like, I filled it out and screwed it all up.
Norm Murdock [:You know? Donald Rumsfeld letter. Right? Do y'all know how this works?
Steve Palmer [:They were asking for numbers that I'm like, I had to look up what every single thing meant and how to get it, what it was, and call my payroll company. And I'm trying to figure all this crap out, and you had, like, 24 hours to do it. Anybody who thought this was a was was a windfall for small businesses is sorely mistaken. And the wealthy people who had all that stuff, who didn't really need the PPP anyway.
Brett Johnson [:No. They didn't.
Steve Palmer [:They made out like bandits.
Norm Murdock [:Like Starbucks. They applied. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:I mean, they made out like bandits.
Glenn Harper [:And and that's the thing. And that's What again, we look at the tax code and how this thing works. You know, you can say anybody has the opinion. You can say, You know, I choose not to deduct my mortgage interest and take the tax credit. You don't have to take it. You can just not put it on your turn. You're you say
Steve Palmer [:yeah, live what you preach.
Glenn Harper [:You can choose to do yay or nay. And if you don't want the PPP, it's available. It's one of those ones where why wouldn't you try to get it if you could Because your neighbors get it, and now they're gonna be in a better position. But you don't know at the time, right, because you got this uncertainty. I think so. And it was more like, hey. Once we knew that you could always give it back, Our premise for our clients was, let's go get it. We'll sit on it, see what that looks like.
Glenn Harper [:If we need it, great. If we don't need it, we'll give it back, I don't know if we gotta use it, we can use it, and the rules will come later. But at least you had it. So it was about getting it first and then figuring it out later, which is in the Absolute backwards way to do something. Right. But it it was a limited pool of money. Once it was gone, you don't get anymore. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:It's such such a bad word.
Glenn Harper [:It's a horrible
Norm Murdock [:Which was also an unfairness.
Glenn Harper [:Absolutely not.
Norm Murdock [:Because they could have done a credit for for money that you would earn down the road.
Glenn Harper [:But see that's
Norm Murdock [:But they
Glenn Harper [:didn't do that either. But see, remember, the great thing about the tax code And all these things that were government programs is that once you play in that arena with free money from the government Oh. You're subject to that. We have quite a
Norm Murdock [:few clients fraud. Right, Glenn? I mean, the fraud is off the bucket on that person.
Glenn Harper [:I had client I have clients that they're like, you know what? I'm not comfortable with that program. I'm not doing it, and then let's see if I can make this go on my own. Because out of principle, they just didn't wanna do it. You get that the, the, the idle loan. Like, you're you're hooked up with SBA for the next 30 years. They own everything you have. The worst bull in the world to get. But at the time, if you're trying to survive, you'll sell your soul because you have an obligation to your team, your staff, your clients, your dream.
Glenn Harper [:You you'll do anything Yeah. To make that work. Yeah. And that is an uncomfortable position to put somebody in, dangle the carrot, and say, Iownyounow.
Steve Palmer [:That's right.
Glenn Harper [:That's that's a hard thing to be. But Well, look. It's it's the game.
Steve Palmer [: . So this day in history in: Steve Palmer [: here he was forced to flee in: Norm Murdock [:Well, he was in charge there before the war because we got the Philippines from the Spanish American War outcome. Right? And so he was governor general of the Philippines, and that's why he had such a passion, such a love for
Steve Palmer [:Maybe too close to it.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 2. After the war, of course, he he did that for Japan. Yes. He was the one that promulgated their constitution, gave women the right to vote in Japan. You know? Yeah. Pretty radical changes
Steve Palmer [:for Jim. There's a couple biographies out there on the he's a pretty incredible guy. I mean, he was
Glenn Harper [:Smart guy. Smart guy.
Steve Palmer [:Really, sort of a patent esque type of guy, cable, but a little more politically savvy than that.
Norm Murdock [:Old soldiers
Steve Palmer [:just fade away. That's right. So with that, we'll wrap up this weekly dose of Common Sense Ohio brought to you as it turns out by Harper Plus Accounting, Harper Plus Accounting right here represented at the roundtable. Glenn, if they wanna get ahold of you or or what's what's the best way to look you up or call you for advice? And, look, I I I take it you help people of all business levels.
Norm Murdock [:How do they make an appointment with you, basically?
Glenn Harper [: -: Steve Palmer [:Alright. So you also have a podcast?
Glenn Harper [:Yes. Empowering entrepreneurs. Julie Smith and I do that. It's awesome. Talk about how entrepreneurs, their journey, and the pros and cons, and it's it's a hoot doing that to help people understand what
Steve Palmer [:they're doing. With, right here at the table, Brett, Circle 270 Media. They'll produce that and get it done. I I will boast. My episode I was the first on his I was the 1st guest. It is the highest rated episode. Now you could say you might argue that's because it's the first, and therefore, it gets the most downloads. But I take issue.
Steve Palmer [:It is the best.
Glenn Harper [:It is the best. We had you I was I was asking all kinds of things out of school. That was great. We had a blast, and that was a great episode.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. So, anyway, this is, your weekly dose of commonsense ohio show .com. If you wanna go visit that, you can ask us questions, become a guest, learn to become a sponsor. Check out the blogs, all the regular stuff. But until next week, we are coming at you right from the middle at Common Sense Ohio, at least until now.
