359: A Tax Update with Tom Wheelwright

If you want to build wealth quickly, you have to learn as much about tax mitigation as you can. Most of these mitigation opportunities are in the world of real estate and business. However, there are creative (and legal) ways to mitigate taxes for W2 employees as well—just not that many. And sometimes it's not obvious that, despite a very attractive tax benefit, you should probably stay away. I learned that the hard way by investing in oil and gas multiple times. Oil and gas drilling comes up often for high-paid W2 employees because of the compelling ability to deduct most if not all of the investment in the first year. The problem is that oil and gas investing, by nature, is quite risky. After all, you're essentially a speculator hoping your team hits a well. Oil and gas is also ripe with fraudsters and charlatans I have learned. Unfortunately, after multiple investments in oil and gas almost a decade ago, I have yet to get even close to recovering my money on any of the investments. I stopped investing in oil and gas years ago and now have stopped even interviewing anyone in that space. You're better off paying the tax in my opinion. Fortunately, there are a hand full of other opportunities available that don't rely on speculation or trusting PT Barnum types. For example, recently I interviewed a guy on short-term rentals. If I was a W2 guy, I'd be all over that. Ultimately though, you've got to figure out a long-term plan that potentially can transform your W2 income into non-W2 income. We've talked about this on the show before. In order to accomplish a complex strategy like this you need a good CPA. Tom Wheelwright, as you may know, is a great CPA. So, while you figure out who's going to get your tax plan together, take time to listen to this week's episode of Wealth Formula Podcast where Tom will update us on important new tax laws and give us some free tips on how to lower our tax bills. Listen now!