Episode 52: How To Protect Your Economy

Announcer:                  

This is the WealthAbility® Show with Tom Wheelwright. Way more money, way less taxes.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Welcome to the WealthAbility® Show where we’re always discovering how to make way more money and pay way less taxes. All right, this is Tom Wheelwright, your host, founder and CEO of WealthAbility®. These are challenging times, particularly when it comes to your economy. So yeah, the global economy is crashing. People are getting laid off. The question right now, and what we’re going to discover over the next few minutes is how to protect your economy during this recession. It could be a depression. Some people like Ben Bernanke think that it’s going to be a sharp recession followed by a quick recovery. Yeah, not so sure about that because I think everybody’s going to completely change the way they do business and so many businesses are just crashing.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Sure, people who have deferred hip replacements, they’re going to be getting those hip replacements done. People who have deferred transplants, if they don’t die, and that’s a serious issue, apparently that is considered elective surgery. They’re going to do it. So this idea of pent up demand, there is some of that. On the other hand, if you normally go out to eat at a restaurant on a Friday night and you haven’t done that for the last month, next Friday night you’re not and then all of a sudden they open, you can go to a restaurant. You’re not eating five meals. So, and people are completely changing the way they do business.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

In fact, to me, one of the most important things we can do right now, we have, interesting enough, people seem to have more time. They’re not commuting to work. Some people aren’t working as much. They may not have been laid off, but they’ve got their hours reduced. My son has his hours reduced at work. So it’s an opportunity to do some things that you might not otherwise have had time to do, okay. Now your CPA is going to be busier than they normally are because we’re struggling to keep up with all these new regulations and new rules and new stimulus packages, et cetera.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

What I want to do with you today though is talk about how to stay financially strong for the next few months because I think that’s really crucial. I know some of you probably are waiting for that $2,500 check or $1,200 check or whatever it is from the government that unfortunately probably won’t be there till May. That’s what I’m hearing. So I would not be depending on that, okay? There are some things that I would be doing, okay? First of all, the good news is that not only have they deferred the tax deadline and the tax payment deadline to July 15th of this year, they have also in the new bill, the $2 trillion bill would postpone estimated payments. All of them. So your April, June and September estimate payments, it does postpone them until October 15th. So that gives you a little bit of time.

 

Tom Wheelwright:      

There are some things that are coming down the pike in this stimulus package that will be helpful. However, they are not going to come as fast as we had hoped. I was talking to my banker just this morning and I was asking him about the new small business loans, right? There’s $350 billion for small businesses. There’s both the SBA express loan, which I want to talk about and then there’s the regualrs, what they call the 7(a) loan, which I want to talk about as well. Those are not going to be readily available through banks according to my banker until May at the earliest, because of the bureaucracy. They have to write new rules rather than tack this on to their current program, now, some of it is current.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So for example, the express loan, the SBA express loan, they already have SBA express loans. All they’ve done is increase it $2 million. However, that’s only a 50% guaranteed loan. So banks have to decide, are we going to do that? Then the question is, are they going to come out with new regulations by the SBA saying how much you can… Do you have to audit? How do you verify? How do you verify need? How do you verify what it was used for? I mean, all of those things, they’re actually looking to the banking system apparently to make sure that people use the money for what it’s supposed to be used for, which just puts a huge burden on businesses. It puts a huge burden on banks.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

My banker said, “If you don’t have an established relationship with a banker, you’re probably in trouble.” So that would be one of the first things I’d be doing is I’d be establishing relationships. I think that, I believe that relationships are the basis of all good business. I think a contract is fifth on the list of what makes a good business deal. First on the list is doing it with a good partner, right? That would be very first. Second would be making sure you do do your due diligence. Third and fourth are making sure you have a good relationship. So a good partner goes with a good relationship, but you can have a good partner and you could be the bad partner, right? So you have to be a good partner.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So I would actually say, so if I’m going to put these in order, I’d say you need to have a good partner. Next, you need to be a good partner, okay? Then you need to make sure that you have developed that relationship, right? Yes, you need to do your due diligence. Last and I think least, make sure that you have a good contract. My best deals have been handshakes, I will tell you right now, and here’s why. Because, okay, so let’s say that right now you’re struggling to pay some of your contracts and we’re going to do a whole show on this, okay, how to deal with this within the next week or so. But let’s say you’re struggling right now and you’re going, “Look, I can’t even do it. I can’t even pay next week.” You have a couple of options here. The first is just not pay. It’s a legitimate option. Just let it go late, okay.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Now, that will destroy your relationship. So I don’t recommend that one. My recommendation is call him up. I talked to one of my relationships this morning. I said, “Look, we need your help in deferring this.” We, with our CPAs and our… Both my CPA firm and for our clients and our member networks of WealthAbility® network, we have discussed that we know we’re going to have clients we’re going to have to take payments on. We’re offering payments, okay? We’re not even waiting. We’re going. We know for some people they have… I have a client who laid off 200 employees just the other day and took a huge salary cut, an 80% salary cut just so they could keep their doors open, and that’s a big lifestyle cut.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

I told him and I said, because I talked to him the other day and I said, “Look, we will take payments on your tax returns.” He has a lot of tax returns. We have to charge him for that because we have to pay our employees. We do have to live right now. So CPAs can’t just say, “No, I’ll do it for free,” because they have to live too. At the same time, I think that as an industry, I think we’re really recognizing that we’ve got to reach out, particularly our network members are recognizing that, and that we’re going to have to take some payments and we’re going to have to tighten our own belts, okay, even though we’re super busy right now.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So I would not hesitate and I would do it now. Call your vendors, call the people you have a contract with. Call your relationships. Say, “We’ve got to postpone.” Very few are not going to understand. There are going to be a few, there are going to be few and you’d probably know who they are, you can anticipate right now who are going to be the difficult people, and those people, let’s say you have no relationship, okay? I mean, you entered into a contract and it’s a contract, but you have no… The relationship has gone sour or it’s not a good relationship for whatever thing. Those, you may just decide not to pay and just wait. Let them try to collect.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

I’m a big believer that you pay your debts. However, I’m also a big believer of businesses staying in business. So I would rather see a business work with a vendor, work with a partner and say, “Look, what can we work out?” Or if you just can’t work anything out, just say, “Well, see in court with everybody else.” You have to pay attention to your cash flow. Now, here’s the biggest challenge, and then I’m going to go to the SBA loans. But here’s the big challenge I have right now. Where do you cut and where do you spend and maybe even spend more? I think that is a really big challenge right now.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So for example, let’s say you have salespeople and they’re commission only. Why would you cut them at all? You want them to sell more. So what you might want to do is actually give them bonuses for selling more. Your salespeople should not be cut. Now, let’s look at your advertising, your marketing expenses. If it’s producing revenue now, not it produced revenue three months ago, but it’s producing revenue now, you may even want to increase that expenditure because if you’re spending $2,000 and it produces 10,000 and you could spend $5,000 and it produces 15,000, that’s an easy call, or 20,000 or 25,000, that’s an easy call.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

You spend the more money, if, if, test it first, if it really is going to produce more revenue now. Just because it produced more revenue a month ago or two months ago, it doesn’t mean it’s going to produce more revenue now. People are, the first hoarding we saw was toilet paper. Then we saw hand sanitizer. Then we saw a paper towels. Then we saw baby wipes. Then we saw a ground beef. Then it was chicken legs. Then it was pasta. Okay, people at this point now are hoarding cash. So when you look at it, you go, “Okay, I don’t want to hoard. That is, I think, frankly challenging for me, morally challenging, people hoarding. Was thrilled when Costco announced they would not accept returns of toilet paper, hand sanitizer or paper towels or baby wipes because they’re saying, “Look, you hoarded it, it’s yours. We’re not going to take it.”

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Of course Amazon won’t let you resell it. So you’re stuck with it and good. You should be. I think that frankly is immoral to take stuff. I mean, for example, baby wipes, are you kidding? I have employees that they can’t find baby wipes and they have babies. So we don’t want to hoard. At the same time, we want to protect ourselves and our families. That comes first. We immediately go to our reptilian brain that says, “I need to have food and shelter and safety. So we’re going to protect ourselves.” I get that, okay. So do you want to have some supplies on hand? No question. I mean, even the government authorities suggested, “Well, have three months of toilet paper in hand. That’s fine.” Don’t have three years of toilet paper on hand, please, okay?

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Think about, frankly, think about the people on fixed incomes that can’t stock up at all. I’m thinking we have millions of people on fixed incomes that cannot stock up and most of them are elderly. I mean, I just found out the other day on elderly, but these people know they’re elderly and so it’s risky for them to even go to the store in the first place with this virus. So again, don’t hoard. Be careful, but think about what should I be spending my money on? I’m really fortunate, I have a wife who’s… People, she would say she’s a cook. She’s really a chef. She’s really, really good. People, I’ve had people on stage with me brag about her crabcakes for example.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

She told me the other day, she said, “Tom,” because she can’t go out, she’s at high risk for this virus. So I go out with my mask and my gloves and so that I won’t bring it back to her. She says, “Look,” she goes, “Whatever you find, I’ll make it work.” So that’s an example of preparing and getting educated to solve not just the short term issue, but the longterm issue. Remember, right now, your short term issue is I’m worried about how long my cash will last. Your short term issue is I’m worried I’m going to have toilet paper in a month, in a week. I’m worried that I’m going to be able to feed my family, okay?. Those are the short term issues.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

The longterm issue is what if this thing lasts a year? You’re not going to be able to stock up on everything. I mean, some people have. There are the preppers, right? But most people are going to rely on the supply chain and we’re going to basically trust our government. We’re going to presume that when we turn on the tap, we’re going to get water, that when we turn the lights, we’re going to get light. That we’ve got electricity, we’re going to depend on it, okay? Very few people are off the grid. So preparing includes I think more than anything the education, and it means, here’s a question about where to spend money. If I were spending money right now, let me tell you where I’m spending money right now. I’ll be totally honest where I’m spending money right now. I am spending money on my garden and irrigation in my yard.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

You’re going, “What?” Well, wait a minute. First of all, we are restricted to home so I want it to look… I want it to be nice. Okay, I want look good. I want to be comfortable. But more importantly we’re building vegetable beds. We’re building beds to grow anything that we might need, even down to certain spices or anything. I mean, we have sweet potatoes. Let me tell you, boy, there is a good one. You want to really know that you’re always going to have some food to eat, plant sweet potatoes. You can never get rid of them. Just make sure you put them in some kind of an enclosed space because they will take over your entire yard. This is personal, firsthand knowledge, I will tell you, that they grow really well, really, really well.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So get that education. I’d rather spend some money getting my garden prepared than spend money buying ground beef because I want to be… We’ve got more fruit trees. First, we’re in an area that has lots of fruit trees and our neighbors have all said, “Take whatever fruit you want,” because they can’t eat it all. So one of the things we did was, one of the preparations we made was to be in the right neighborhood. Frankly, we love our neighborhood. That’s something Chris Martenson talks about, right? Chris Martenson, if you haven’t read his stuff, absolutely read it. Because he talks about the community you’re in is very, very important.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Let me tell you the other education though, and this is education… I was on the Rich Dad Radio Show the other day with Robert and Kim and we don’t always share the same views. Sometimes I feel a little bit like the Anthony Fauci to Donald Trump when I’m with Robert because we’re definitely good cop, bad cop, and I’m not the bad cop, okay? I would be the good cop. It’s different personalities, different styles. I love Robert and Robert is brilliant. We’re talking about financial education and we’re talking about, look, do you learn? Do you go buy the fish or do you learn how to fish? Now if you’re talking about being fed for a week, you go buy the fish. But if you’re talking about being fed for a year, you’d better learn how to fish.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So I’m looking at this and I’m going, “This thing maybe peaks and fades out during the summer. I think come September, October, it comes back with a vengeance.” Now that is my personal opinion. I just know, that’s [inaudible 00:18:55] with the flu, flu is a virus. How would this be any different? Flu A, we got vaccines for flu A. It didn’t go away. Even people who got the vaccine didn’t not get it. They just got a lower dose of it. Now, I was stupid and I didn’t get the vaccine for flu. I ended up in the hospital. My wife who’s highly at risk, she got the vaccine. She gets like barely sick for four days, right? Well, okay. Shame on me, so burned me once, that’s my fault, okay. If I do this again, I’m just an idiot.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So let me tell you, you anti-vaccinators, think twice. You’re going to want a vaccine for this virus as well as for flu A and other flues. I’ve become, through my own stupidity, I’ve become a big believer in the vaccines. I had the great fortune of meeting Dr. Salk who invented the polio vaccine, and when I was a kid, I had friends with polio. Polio is, for the most part, eradicated. It’s coming back because frankly of anti-vaccinators and I think that’s a problem. Anyway, off topic. Let’s go back to the financial education. So if you think this is only going to last a month, just then you should be acting like it’s only going to be last month. So know that, okay, well then in a month from now, I’m going to have money. I’m going to be fine. So you don’t have to worry about protecting your money.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

If you think that this could last longer, get the financial education. So we have two opportunities here. One is financial education around taxes. Now, I’m going to be doing lots of podcasts. My whole life right now is revolved around communication with clients and our WealthAbility® community. So I’m going to get you all the information I can, okay? Still, you’re going to want more than that. So make sure that your CPA, your tax advisor is up on every day on the law. I literally got up at 4:00 this morning believing that we would have a stimulus package and read the law. So let me give you some tips out of that law.

Tom Wheelwright:        You’re going to be able to take your IRA out and spread it over three years of tax and not have to pay tax on all of it this year. I can’t remember if they waived all the penalties, but I’m pretty sure they did. On top of that, you’re going to be able to, instead of taking a $50,000 loan from your 401(k), take a $100,000 loan and they’re going to defer the repayment of that loan. So there’s a couple of things right now that I can tell you because I read the bill this morning. So I’m sharing this with our network members. They know this. So if your CPA, I’m going to tell you right now, your CPA is at the forefront. Every single state that has kept people away from work except for essential services had said, “CPAs are essential services.” Why? Because who’s going to interpret that law for you? How are you going to know what stimulus is available to you? You’re going to go read the law?

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

I would hope that you’d be calling your CPA or your CPA would be calling you. I’m talking to all my clients right now. We send out an almost daily newsletter to our clients, okay, to let them know what’s going on. So let’s talk real quick. So there’s two tax provisions. Let’s talk about the two SBA loan provisions. First of all, my bankers suggest that if you need a loan for your business, get on the SBA website and get it now. Don’t wait because he said, “It’s not going to be till,” like I said, it’s not going to be till end to may before we start seeing that money break free, so get on the SBA website. It’s hard to get in. Once you get in, don’t get out, keep going, okay?

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

The two new loans, they have the SBA express loan, which is already available at 350,000. They’re moving it to a million. That one does not appear will be forgiven. It just is easier to apply for and you don’t have to necessarily pledge your house and your right arm and your firstborn. The other SBA loan is called the 7(a) loan. That one, they are pushing from a $5 million limit to a $10 million limit. Now, it can only be used for certain things and there’s a very specific calculation of how to do it. Now that’s way too much detail for a podcast. But sit down with your CPA and talk to them about, okay, what might I qualify for and how do I get this stuff, all this information together and can you help me with it? Because your CPA should be helping you with these loan packages.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Now for our clients and only for our clients, so don’t be calling me, for our clients and only our clients, we are not charging to help them with the loans. So if you’re one of Wheelwright Manahan clients, then you just saved a bunch of money because we will help you any way we can and we will not charge you for helping you with those loan packages. I know that our network members are quite familiar with it. Now, they’re going to charge some because they need to charge some. But they’re not going to charge a lot. We have decided to charge a pretty minimum fee as a network. So I would be calling WealthAbility®, go to wealthability.com and have a consultation. Consultations are free. I’m really pushing consultations right now.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

The reason is is because we have so much going on that we need to know. So have the consultation, make sure you got the right CPA. But second of all, because these taxes… So here’s thing that happened in this new tax bill. So we know that taxes for 2019 are postponed until July 15th, right? But taxes for 2020, which normally are due April 15th, June 15th, September 15th and January 15th, those first three payments, April, June, and September will not be due until October 15th, which means you have a window of opportunity to get with a tax advisor who can create a tax strategy to permanently reduce your wealth. Yes, I am harping on this. This is a bit of a soapbox for me because, folks, what are you going to do in October? Are you really going to make three payments all at once and have that money available? Do you really believe this economy recovers and all of your money you get back by October?

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

If you do, I have a bridge to sell you in South Florida because it is not going to happen, folks. It’s not. This economy is going to be challenged for the next year to two years. Absolutely. So you got to prepare right now for the next year to two years. The first thing you have to do is reduce your taxes so that you’re not having to make a big tax payment in October. You got three to six months to do this. Take advantage right now. Our members, they’re busy as can be. They are going to take whatever clients come in because they want to serve you. They want to take care. I’ve never seen a profession step up.

 

Tom Wheelwright:      

  Now, the doctors have stepped up, the nurses have stepped up, the medical community stepped up. Let me tell you out who else has stepped up. I’ve seen CPA community step up here. Absolutely. The AICPA, that’s the American Institute of CPAs has absolutely been pressuring congress to give more relief. They’re the ones who pressured Treasury to push the tax out to July and they pushed for October and they got it. So this CPA community, I’m very, very proud to be a CPA right now, very proud of it and want to help. We want to help any way we can. So go to wealthability.com. Click on a free consultation. We’re not going to solve all your problems in a half hour or hour consultation, but we will be able to direct you on what we can do to best serve you, okay?

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

We’re going to roll out in the next week some opportunities that once they’re formalized, I’m going to announce. We’re going to do some amazing deals and I didn’t mean to sound like Donald Trump, sorry. We are actually going to… We’re going to add more to what we normally do for the month of April because we want to make sure that people get educated. Now here’s the other piece of that. That’s the tax piece. You also have the wealth piece. You have an opportunity folks to get educated so that you never again have to worry about are there enough fish in the water. You don’t have to worry about enough fish in the water. You know where to find the fish. You know how to bring the fish in. You know what the fish are biting on. That’s called a wealth strategy. You’re not reliant on the stock market. You’re not reliant on a single client called an employer.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

What a risky position to be in. How everybody now realizes, wow, what a risky position. I only have one client. What if that client can’t pay me? Well, then you’re toast. I learned that sad lesson in 1990. I left Ernst & Young, one of the big four accounting firms and I went to work for Pinnacle West, which is at the time was a Fortune 500 company. Now, they’re not quite that big, but they’re big, big company in Arizona. I was the only hire during that six month period of time because they had a hiring freeze on. My very first job was to cut 50% of my staff. My very first job is to cut 50% of my tax staff and it just hit me. I’m going, “Oh my heavens. I have one client. Ernst & Young, I had hundreds of clients.”

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

All of a sudden at Pinnacle West I’m going, “Wait a minute, I’m at risk here.” So I lasted four years. It was great experience, and then I went back into public accounting. Why? Because I have lots of clients now. I’m not dependent on a single client. So being in business means you’re no longer at risk for a single client. Now, are you still at risk? Absolutely. Absolutely. There are businesses that are less at risk than others. So CPA profession, fortunately is one of those right now. But I’ll tell you, I see doctors who have had to let go their staff because it’s elective, right? So you think that you’re in a recession proof business, you may not be. So get the education and those who are really good at what they do, they’re always going to be successful because they’re professionals.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

So I know that was a lot. I want to give you as much as I can. I’m going to be podcasting just like every day or two. If you have any questions, please contact us at wealthability.com. Schedule an appointment with us. Our people are just happy, happy, happy to help. I mean, we have an amazing team of people who want to serve you. They want to serve you. So final words, don’t hoard, okay? Number one, don’t hoard anything, okay? Number two, be careful. Be careful. Don’t be wasting food. Don’t be wasting toilet paper. We’ve actually had to teach our granddaughter how to not waste toilet paper. This has been interesting.

 

Tom Wheelwright:       

Don’t waste money. At the same time, if money that you spend produces more money, spend the money because there aren’t investments out there right now that are producing income, like having a team. We’ll do a whole nother podcast on team. I’ll do that next is a podcast on team because I think right now your team frankly is your number one asset. With that, I want to thank you. Remember that you’re listening to the WealthAbility® Show. Please subscribe on iTunes. Leave a five star review, not a five minute review, a five star review if you enjoyed the show. Let us know. Give us your feedback. We want to hear your comments and we want to know what do you want to know about and what we always want to do is make sure that you’re always making way more money and paying way less taxes. Hang in there. We’ll see you next time.

 

Announcer:                  

You’ve been listening to the WealthAbility® Show with Tom Wheelwright. Way more money, way less taxes. To learn more, go to wealthability.com.