Diane Kennedy's blog

The most popular thread we’ve had at the First Class Forum is “What’s Your Biggest Personal Expense?” It’s funny how a thread could launch a whole new company. But, that’s exactly what has happened.

The exercise is to look at your biggest expense. This is something that you currently can’t get a write-off for from your business. It could be a luxury car, designer clothes, or European travel. It could be anything!

Think about your biggest expense. What would you love to write-off?

My son David has been researching a new idea that he presented this past weekend to a gentleman who has made tens of millions of dollars developing Internet companies and then selling them. This is one David did all on his own. And, at the first meeting, he convinced the gentleman to partner with David on this new project.

So, now my son is asking me the questions that a lot of people ask when they start a business and need a business structure fast. What is the best business structure? What state should we incorporate in?

I absolutely love getting the chance to interact directly with my TaxLoopholes clients (and some Diane’s Mastermind clients and my tax firm, Diane Kennedy’s Tax Services clients) when there are new tax issues happening.

And that’s exactly what happened this past weekend. We spent a lot of time going over the Real Estate Professional audits and the distinctions that the IRS is making. There is a lot of confusion among tax professionals as well on this one.

There are TWO requirements to taking the real estate passive loss deduction against other income if your income is over $150K:

On Saturday I start a brand new seminar. Most of my seminars are about tax strategies. This one is part tax and part about creating passive income.

And, for once in my life, I’m not highlighting real estate as the best strategy for everyone. This isn’t going to be a post about why real estate is a bad investment or why anyone who invests in it is a loser. Real estate investing works, but it’s not the only game in town and I think we’ve lost sight of that.

I had some comments and questions that came in after my email yesterday about what to do after the IndyMac failure. I thought it would be good to put the questions and answers in the blog. I’ve also got some very good information from a former FDIC employee on how the insurance works.

First question: I am trying to find the list of 100 banks on the current watch list, as Diane mentions. Where can I get this list?

You might have seen the “no money down” real estate deals. But, what if your issue is “no time”? Learn how investing in a Real Estate Investment Trust can be a simple way to real estate wealth.

There are a growing number of states looking at the gross receipts tax as an option for collecting tax from businesses. Why? That’s the easy part to answer. States need money. Some states such as Texas have a state constitution that forbids taxing income at the state level. So, how do they raise needed money?

The answer is the gross receipts tax. There are currently a handful of states that have a form of this tax. These include Arizona (only for 16 industries), Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, MIssissippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and Washington.

IndyMac has shut its doors, leaving depositors with a very stressful weekend as they try to find out whether their deposits are secured by the FDIC. And, even if they are, how soon before they can get to their money.

And, in the wake of that, there are rumblings that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae may be next. If that happens, it will be very very difficult to get a mortgage loan for at least a few months. I talked to Aaron Van Trojen (Morgan Financial) two days ago and he said that there would likely be NO stated income loans available by the end of the month.

If you have a business and you have kids, have you discovered how many benefits there are to putting them to work in the business? Pay them for work they legitimately do and you have a tax deduction. Up to $5,450 per year won’t be taxable to them.

There are three rules to this: 1 - Have a written job description. 2 - Make sure you (or rather your child) keeps track of the hours they work. 3 - Pay a reasonable wage for the work done.

I recently learned that the average American that loses everything (house, car, etc.) is actually upside down an average of $500 per month.

That number just rocked me because I know that there has to be a way to get that money for the average American. Please click through to read this whole post, because I’m going to ask you to join with me in brainstorming some solutions.