Our guest for today is an attorney and a graduate of the University of Florida Law School. He has started his career with Advanta IRA in 2006. His experience with various investment types and their unique processes makes him an invaluable asset. He holds the designation of Certified IRA Services Professional (CISP) and leads engaging seminars and webinars that educate the public on the intricacies of self-directed IRAs.
Additionally, our guest also has assisted numerous clients with investments using their self-directed IRA accounts and is very familiar with the process involved for all types of investments.
Let’s dive right in and learn from Scott Maurer how to have more control over your IRA, 401k, or other similar investments!
New book LIVE! Passive Investing Made Simple: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income through Apartment Syndications
[00:01 – 07:22] Opening Segment
- We introduce our guest, Scott Maurer
- Scott talks about his background
- Scott goes over his bad investing advise
[07:23 – 17:16] Political Science 101
- Nick talks about a recent Bill that is being put together
- 2 hidden provisions that will impact average investors to invest
[17:17 – 26:12] The Government Making The Tax Code Fair?
- Why people look to invest outside the stock market
- The laws made for the average people are hurting the average people
[26:13 – 32:48] The 3.5 Trillion Dollar Bill Process
- Draft of the Bill
- Common provisions
- Voting majority to pass
- Educate your representative and be active
[32:49 – 38:01] Closing Segment
- Final thoughts
- Scott’s documentary recommendations:
The Vanishing at The Cecil Hotel
“People who’ve been successful on Wall Street did not just simply set it, forget it, and walk away from it.” – Scott Maurer
“The idea the IRA is really meant, I guess in some sense, a middle-class investment. Or it’s a way for the average person to sock money away on a tax-preferred basis and grow their retirement accounts” – Scott Maurer
“I just have to worry about if Dan and Anthony are doing what they said they were going to do, and if they do, the numbers are going to play out and I get a good return.“ – Scott Maurer
“If I have fifty thousand in my savings account, but I have one hundred and fifty thousand in my IRA, I’d much rather use money in my IRA account for an illiquid investment than tap into my own savings.” – Scott Maurer
Connect with Scott Maurer! See the links below:
Go to his LinkedIn page to connect with Scott Maurer. Visit Advanta IRA Website and Youtube.
ALERT! Breaking News About Your Retirement Funds with Scott Maurer
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:15] Hello and welcome to multifamily investing made simple, the podcast, it’s all about taking the complexity out of real estate investing so that you can get started today. I am your host, Anthony Vecino of Invictus Capital, joined as always by Dan. Oh, man, Kruger. And that’s a pretty good one. I’ll take that, I don’t throw an old man lightly, Dan, you know that I’m into it.
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:41] I’ll take that one. It’s one of your better ones. I’ll give you that.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:44] But listen, I had to I had to pull this one out because, oh man, is a lot like a swear word to me. Oh, man, yeah, today. Today we have. We have a topic to cover. We have. The doozy. We have a doozy, and we have a very special guest actually today is a very interesting episode for our very, very loyal, dedicated listeners. You will remember, you will know that this guest is actually the very first guest that we ever had on the show. Over he was episode eight. Did you know that, Dan? We’re on the episode. That’s probably like one. Thirty or so he was.
Dan Kreuger: [00:01:20] Episode eight got us one-thirty.
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:23] And unfortunately, we have to bring him on during these very trying times to discuss a topic that is going to affect a lot of people. It’s very popular. It’s a very hot topic right now. We’re going to dive into it, but let’s just not explain what that is quite yet. Let’s introduce Mr. Scott Mauer of Advance to IRA. How are you doing, Scott?
Scott Maurer: [00:01:41] Great, gentlemen. Glad. Glad to be back. Glad to return and come back. It’s awesome, you guys. I was episode eight Gary up to one 30, so you guys have been cranking them out and I said, Definitely happy to be back. I wish I was discussing a happier conversation. Maybe it’s some serious things that there may be a happy conclusion to what we’ll talk about. We’ll see. We’ll talk about ways that people can avoid nastiness. We’re going to discuss it today.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:06] Yeah. And it’s unfortunate that you’re joining us under these conditions because actually, you’re one of our favorite people to refer people to because you know, what we do as apartments indicators is that we bring in passive investors to invest in big multifamily assets. It’s awesome, but a lot of people don’t have the money just sitting around and so they can’t invest, right? No, they can invest in a lot of cases. They can use their retirement funds in the form of a self-directed IRA, like an old 401k. They just roll it over and then they can invest in these deals. And Scott, an advantage IRA. That’s what they do. They help facilitate that conversation and make that possible. And so we love referring people to you because it gives people an alternative investment vehicle for retirement.
Scott Maurer: [00:02:49] And we certainly love the referrals, and I think what you hit on already Anthony, and we’ll obviously get into more of the details of what we’re going to talk about, but you’re talking like your investors. Our clients are average people. These are not multimillionaires and billionaires that we’re talking to an average Joe’s average Janes that have a decent-sized IRA or 401k that they’re just looking to do something with that they can control. And that’s kind of what a lot of this. That’s what’s in jeopardy right now. What we’re going to talk about.
Anthony Vicino: [00:03:18] Yeah, and drive that point home, my girlfriend, Jamie, she this is she used a self-directed IRA for just this purpose, had an old I think it was like a 403 B because she was a teacher. So she’s not rich. Well, I mean, she’s rich in love because we have cats and dogs, but like monetarily, she’s no Peter Thiel. And so before we get to this, because now I think I think that we have our listener’s interests are like, What’s happening here? Let’s first pump the brakes. And Dan, what do you think about doing some bad investing advice before we get to some of the meat filters and the good stuff?
Dan Kreuger: [00:03:54] Yeah, I mean, I feel like we’ve got a lot of good advice coming up or at least good information, so we should mention bad stuff in there, right?
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:02] Yeah. So Scott, do you have your bad investing advice for this week?
Scott Maurer: [00:04:09] Well, we could say don’t invest in Wall Street, right? Maybe that’ll be part of it. Yeah, but I mean, part of it. Yeah. Don’t put your eggs in one basket and know what you’re investing in. I mean, that’s yeah. And I guess that’s not that.
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:22] Let’s reverse it. All your eggs in one basket.
Scott Maurer: [00:04:25] Right? I guess. Yeah, it is bad investing. I put all your eggs in one basket, put all your money with Wall Street, and just turn off your computer and check back again 30 years later.
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:35] Does that work?
Dan Kreuger: [00:04:38] Seems to be about every 10 years. So no, it’s not.
Scott Maurer: [00:04:44] They don’t have a good batting average, but the people who have been the people who have there are people who’ve been successful on Wall Street, did not just simply set it, forget it, and walk away from it. I mean, they are active and they’re following things. They’re doing things. The idea is that you should just put money away in your IRA or for one K and just set it into some kind of fund and just trust the market, it’s timing, right? It all depends. If you do that, if that next 30 year period is relatively good, then maybe you, maybe you end up in a good place at the end of that. But if it’s not and you’ve not paid attention to it, then you’re going to turn on 30 years later. That’s it. That’s what I got. I thought I thought I was supposed to put sock away a little money, and I’d wake up in 30 years and be a millionaire or a multimillionaire with my funds put away. But you have to pay attention to it.
Dan Kreuger: [00:05:29] Yeah, it’s unfortunate. The thing that I think people just don’t like looking at the downside. They like focusing on the upside and they don’t like looking at like, you know, what happens if this doesn’t work, right? Everyone just says, Oh, this, you know, this strategy works. You’re pretty much guaranteed to retire. Well, if you just follow these simple steps, siphon a little bit off every so often, do the match and you’ll be good. It’s like, No, that doesn’t always work. So people don’t have a contingency plan. So I don’t think they even realize that that’s an option that doesn’t work.
Scott Maurer: [00:06:01] No, it’s definitely a good start. I mean, I’m not telling people not to put money away for the future, but you have to take that extra step that people don’t do. They put it in. They’re told that’s what I should do and just put it this way over here. Yeah, you got to think about it. You got to think, what else? What else could I do? How else could I diversify? And it’s not diversifying among mutual funds. It’s not growth and risk and little different kinds of mutual funds. It’s classes of assets. Different hold, different is how you really need a truly diverse. But obviously, that’s what we’re huge proponents of are and you guys obviously are as well. And that’s where people lose it. And they think that they’re just they’re going to be set by just putting this money in this account because that’s what an adviser told them to do.
Dan Kreuger: [00:06:47] Yeah, yeah. It’s frustrating just to see us, you know, seemingly take some steps forward. Over the last several years, Jobs Act, things like that looked like it was getting a little bit easier for Main Street to get involved in things. And now it’s, you know, looks like things are kind of almost taking one or two steps back. It’s kind of frustrating.
Scott Maurer: [00:07:09] Yeah, I think I think that’s an excellent point. If we can get in, I can start to tell the specific provisions of what we’re going to talk about. But I think that’s an
Dan Kreuger: [00:07:17] Excellent, I guess for people. It’s like, what? What’s the blanket statement? The panic on the panic?
Scott Maurer: [00:07:23] Yes. So it’s so it’s political. It’s a little bit of political science, one on one-two, because I think that’s your kind of have to understand a little bit of that to understand the risk of what’s involved. So right now, up on Capitol Hill, they’re debating a number of things, but there are two particular bills that sometimes get intertwined, and sometimes they’re looking to pull apart. There was a bill that was passed by the Senate a couple of months ago on a bipartisan basis that beat the beat any filibusters that so they needed bipartisan support for infrastructure. It’s like, I think, a little over one trillion dollars for new roads, new bridges, kind of things you would associate with infrastructure at the same time, the progressives in the house and people house looking to put another three and a half trillion dollar bill through that address, a lot more social there, going like a social infrastructure bill. So it’s not really building roads or building bridges, it’s setting up other social constructs now to pass that bill in the House and then the Senate. They’re doing it via a process called reconciliation, which means they’re going to raise taxes and raise revenues of three and a half trillion to offset and pay for the three and a half-trillion dollars in spending that will also take part in the same bill.
Scott Maurer: [00:08:39] Now, this is a three and a half really ever even out. No, it never does. But that’s how they want to pass this bill. And if you pass a bill using reconciliation, you do not need to pass a filibuster or 60 votes or 60 vote threshold. You only need a simple majority with one party controlling both houses in Congress right now. This bill can pass with just a strict party-line vote. Now the hang-ups are that the bill is there are. Some people are on the Democratic side that is saying this is too much. Three and a half trillion is too much. It needs to be one and a half trillion at most. In addition to the other one trillion dollar infrastructure, the bill sets the background on the bills. Now hidden in this three-and-a-half-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill are two little provisions that would prohibit individuals from using their IRA accounts, so they’re owed for one case to invest in any investment that requires some type of accreditation based on either your income, your wealth, your educational level. It would also even prohibit people from just investing into an LLC, like if the three of us wanted to do a little joint venture and put our money together in an LLC.
Scott Maurer: [00:09:46] None of us could use our IRA to do it because we do hold more than 10 percent interest in it. So there are two provisions that are going to drastically impact the ability for average people to invest in multifamily syndications, start-up companies private hedge funds that typically they’ve been investing in the past. And I’m sure a lot of your listeners have already done using their IRA account that’s going to go away. And that’s the bulk of the debate of this three and a half trillion dollar bill is the corporate tax rate and the increase in the top income tax rate for high earners and some of the social programs. And this is one of those little things that’s buried in the bill they project. It’ll raise all of one point eight billion dollars. These two little provisions, it’s a fraction of a very small fraction of the. Tiny Bill or the entire bill, but it has a devastating impact, I think, on some self-directed investors who have planned for years that they want to. This is how they want to invest their money and it’s going to get taken away from them.
Dan Kreuger: [00:10:44] It sounded like you said in there that if a vehicle that someone’s invested in or if a product or equity that they’re invested in through you guys is has an accreditation requirement. That was the issue. So if someone allowed not accredited investors, that type of project would be allowed.
Scott Maurer: [00:11:06] Presumably, yes. And that’s one of the key things and it will be interesting to see. We’re hoping obviously this part of the bill at least is not going to pass. But if it did, I think people will start to get creative. I mean, I think that always happens in America. When you create a role, somebody then says, OK, now how do I get around that role now that I’m not allowed to do what I was doing? But yeah, that’ll be the issue. It’s not going to the one provision is that any it’s not necessarily accredited, investors. It says any investment that relies upon an individual’s income, wealth, or educational level to be able to make the investment. So it’s not just simply getting rid of, say, accredited investors, but I’m assuming like sophisticated investors where there’s a little bit maybe a lower threshold in different things you can do. I’m assuming some of those will be taken away as well, at least based on what we’ve seen so far of the bill in the language.
Dan Kreuger: [00:11:59] Yeah, and some of that language is just so nuanced, right? Because it’s like, are there really strict parameters for sophisticated or is it kind of
Anthony Vicino: [00:12:08] That’s always been a pretty great one too, you know,
Scott Maurer: [00:12:12] It is. And that’s and that highlights part of the problems in the bill, right? And so what I’m talking about, it’s the build back better act is the name of the bill and its sections one three eight three one-two in sections one three eight three one four that are going to having the impact. And they’re just it’s such a just general statement in the bill. It’s not, you know, it’s not you can’t do this if your income is over a certain level because we don’t want the uber-wealthy taking advantage of these investments or it’s just kind of just very simple language. And so it’s not fleshed out at all. It doesn’t say only accredited investors. It just says investors, where investments, where there are certain thresholds to entry, that’s the problem with the bill and whether that gets flushed out more in debate, whether it’s they pass it with that language and then in committees down the road, they kind of write the regulations a little more stringently. So to give us some guidance because the other interesting thing part of the provision is, as it stands now in the bill, anyone who currently holds these investments, not only will you not be able to invest in them going forward. Anybody who currently holds the investment that falls in these categories has to divest that from their IRA within two years. So if you can’t get your provider to pay out or you can’t and pay, you make you hold and you’re either going to take it as a distribution and pay a bunch of taxes and potentially penalties on it. If you’re under a certain age or you’re going to be looking to sell a private placement, say you own two percent in a private placement to a third party, they’re probably not going to give you what you paid for it, right? They’re going to say, Yeah, you’re $100000 investment. I’ll buy it from you for sixty thousand. So now you’ve just lost money within your IRA account.
Anthony Vicino: [00:13:56] Yeah, I want to drive that home because if our listeners, if they’re sweating on the treadmill, maybe the heart rate’s pumping in their ears and they’re not listening very carefully. But if you have invested, say, in syndication. And through a self-directed IRA, what this means is that you could have two years to liquidate and if you’ve invested in real estate, you know it’s illiquid by nature and that creates a lot of issues. And whether or not we’re talking about real estate or we’re talking about, you know, other types of private placements, operators aren’t necessarily keeping that kind of liquidity on the books just to go and buy you out, right? And so this creates potentially a really massive disruption in the industry for investors who are just chugging along, doing their thing. They’re already in a deal and it’s performing well. But now they have to panic sell like we always talk about you never want to be forced into selling scenario, and this is what that’s doing. It potentially doing is forcing people into a selling scenario, and that’s that should bring some alarm bells for everybody because it’s changing the rules retroactively and you’re going to it. It could be punishing.
Dan Kreuger: [00:15:09] It seems unnecessarily aggressive. Exactly. You know, it’s
Anthony Vicino: [00:15:14] One thing to change the rule moving forward and say no more, but to retroactively burn people, I don’t know like it. Just it’s dirty.
Scott Maurer: [00:15:22] Yeah, I think that’s Indiana, I think you said it’s an overreach, right? It’s, you know, Anthony mentioned Peter Thiel at the beginning. He’s, you know, for those of you who don’t know, he’s the founder of PayPal,
Anthony Vicino: [00:15:33] It’s all his fault. Yeah, yeah. Very well.
Scott Maurer: [00:15:37] He took seventeen hundred dollars in his Roth IRAs tax-free Roth IRA and bought some initial shares in PayPal at a deep discount. And when PayPal went bonkers, his Roth IRA when he turned seventeen hundred dollars into five billion dollars. So that’s always angered people, right? Because the IRA was. Yeah. The irony here is the CEO, right? So he is. And to be honest, I’m not sure why they didn’t investigate him further the how he was valuing his style. I mean, that’s a whole nother discussion, but I don’t know if they just didn’t want to fight a guy with that much money, right? Yeah. So so he does that. He gets the headlines and you know, the idea the IRA is really meant, I guess in some sense, a middle-class investment. Or it’s a way for the average person to sock money away on a tax-preferred basis and grow their retirement accounts. So they see, you know, people see that this is a really rich guy abusing a middle-class tax shelter. And so to fix it, they’re going to make some changes to it. Well, other parts of this bill are actually in the same and the same sections next to these self-directed provisions that are so damaging and unnecessary, there are provisions to cap I.R.A. accounts at 10 million or 20 million dollars. So that’s going to fix the Peter Thiel issue. If you have five, he has five billion in his Roth. Guess what? That provision passes. He’s got it. He’s got to take it out, right? So that would fix that issue.
Dan Kreuger: [00:17:04] So do you think the Peter Thiel scenario and those types of things is the issue? Or do you think it’s just a tax grab and like this would happen regardless?
Scott Maurer: [00:17:17] Ok, I think, yeah, it could be. I think I think the genesis behind it is, at least from what’s being told, is they want to make the tax code fair, right? They want it to be fair for the average person and like, have the rich get advantages that the others don’t. But again, as I talked about in the beginning, the people who invest in syndications are not Peter Thiel, they’re not. I mean, I guess he probably does, too, but they’re not. Most of the people do. They’re not multi-millionaires or clients. I don’t even think we have a client who’s got over 10 million in their account. These are people who are firefighters, their teachers. There are individuals who work for four companies for years built up a little nest egg. They save diligently. Yes, they’re accredited by virtue of either their income or the wealth they have created over the years, and they just want to invest in something different. They don’t trust the stock market. They see the market dip five or six hundred points because of something that happened in China, and that doesn’t sit well with them. That’s why they seek out investments like the things that you guys do because you guys know what you’re doing. You have you get a good return for your money. It’s a solid piece of real estate. I don’t have to worry about what happens halfway around the world that’s going to affect this particular investment.
Scott Maurer: [00:18:27] I just have to worry about if Dan and Anthony are doing what they said they were going to do, and if they do, the numbers are going to play out and I get a good return. And so again, these are average individuals that are taking advantage of these investments. And Dan, you mentioned a little bit a while ago, there was a job at Jobs Act, at twenty twelve. There was supposed to make these types of investments easier for the average person to invest in the SEC. Just change their definition of an accredited investor last year to make it easier for more people to access to access these investments. And the reality is a lot of the people that do the reason why they use their IRA is that that’s where their money is, right? So if I have fifty thousand in my savings account, but I have one hundred and fifty thousand in my IRA, I’d much rather use money in my IRA account for an illiquid investment than tap into my own savings. So again, it’s ironic that they’re trying to prevent what they want in their minds. They’re wanting to prevent people from only the rich from taking advantage of these investments. In reality, what they’re doing is preventing the people that are trying to help from being able to access it.
Anthony Vicino: [00:19:28] Yeah. And there are two things there. In particular, I want to keep hammering home is you mentioned the word fair about trying to like make the investing playing field fairer so that the rich can’t take advantage and the middle class. And presumably, the idea is if we were to take away this clause, which Peter Thiel and maybe some other, maybe like a very small percentage of people have ever truly taken advantage of and we want to punish them, but in the process, punish all the people. It was really designed to help. And one of the things that, like the more, I think about it over the last year or two is like the whole non-accredited accredited distinction is. I understand it from an intellectual level that the reason being that we need to. Sec or the government believes they need to protect unsophisticated investors from unscrupulous operators. But if you really think about what’s happened, but that distinction and having like it, be based on your income and your wealth is that people who maybe don’t have $250000 a year in income or a million dollars of net worth, they don’t get access to the best investment opportunities out there simply by the fact that they don’t have money. But they can go gamble, they can go to, they can go to Vegas, they can go and gamble in the lottery. But the government is telling them that they can’t control their own investments. And that’s that means they can’t angel invest in tech startups, which means they can’t take advantage of the best returns that anybody’s ever going to see. Yes, it’s a high risk, but presumably, there’s plenty of people out there who can, even without money, judge that risk for themselves. They can’t participate in these real estate private placements. So it’s just like this idea of fair, just like really annoys me because the people that are trying to serve are the ones that are being just bamboozled the most out of everything.
Dan Kreuger: [00:21:20] Yeah. And it’s especially ridiculous because at that point you made about the safety of these poor, stupid people, that stupid person. Yeah, they’re not smart enough to have two hundred thousand dollars of income, so they must be idiots, right? So we’ve got to protect them. Like, that logic is out the window because you can go, anybody can go open up an account to get like 20 to one leverage on frickin Dogecoin. And no one cares. That’s fine. That’s like a real estate syndication or a startup company. That’s that’s risky. You can’t do that. That’s silliness.
Anthony Vicino: [00:21:55] I think at the end of the day, it’s taking away the choice. I’m sorry to talk over you there, Scott, but taking away people’s options of what they can invest in and effectively, what they’re saying is the only thing you’re allowed to invest your retirement funds in is the stock market, which is like, I’m sorry, y.
Scott Maurer: [00:22:12] Well, that’s what I was going to say. Right? You’re trying, you’re trying to. So the SEC rules are to help protect people, right? So force them to put their money into a stock market that we all remember what we were supposed to rely on the stock market for safety. But we all know remember what happened in 2008 and 2009, those same products caused by 50 percent drop in the market.
Anthony Vicino: [00:22:32] We don’t talk about that, Scott.
Scott Maurer: [00:22:33] That’s safe, though, right? That’s according to them. That’s where your money should be. And you just suck it up and be happy with it. But yeah, but instead of if they want more people instead of getting rid of you, try and in theory, trying to get rid of the rich, being able to have access these investments and by default, not allowing the less wealthy, I guess, to have access, they could just open it up more, right? Like you just said, they could allow people more freedom too. Yeah, you don’t have to be an accredited investor. You should be able to take this and, you know, do your due diligence or make people sign something, an affidavit you signed to make this investment that they’ve done their evaluations, I don’t know. But there are other things. There are other things you could do to actually open up to more people as opposed to just shutting it down. Because you said, as I said, the people who are investing in the syndications, at least my experience, you know, ninety-nine percent of the people that we work with are people who they’re not. They’re not millionaires, right? They just have a decent retirement account. That’s where their money is and they want to take, yeah, they see the returns you guys are offering. I want to be involved in that. And the only way I can do it is by using my IRA for one kid because that’s where my money is. So if I can’t use my IRA, I can’t invest with you that
Anthony Vicino: [00:23:43] It’s I’ll die on this hill, which is like if I can go to Vegas and lose $10000 and nobody cares. Then why do you care what I invest in? That’s truly why you’ve already given me the ability to Russian roulette myself to death. Like, why are you now protecting me from the Fisker scissors? I don’t get it.
Dan Kreuger: [00:24:08] It’s a simple cap, honestly, right? I mean, if, yeah, if there’s actually any kind of issue that’s trying to be resolved as far as like people going crazy or something and just like getting exponentially wealthy because they found a really efficient way to do it like, OK, yeah, throw a cap on, as you said, it’s like simple and everyone, all the little guys can still do pretty well. No one’s going to get crazy rich and everyone’s happy.
Scott Maurer: [00:24:33] And yeah, and I think politically that to me, to me, that makes sense. I mean, I’m obviously biased, but the politically put the cap on putting the cap on the IRAS is supposed to raise, I think, around four points five or four-point six billion. So quite a bit more than the self-directed provision. That’s where you politically get your win, right? We stopped Peter Thiel and we didn’t stop Mitt Romney from doing this anymore. And you look like the hero for four for stopping things like that, but don’t like, as you said earlier, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? We just can’t allow this to happen anymore because one guy abused the system. Nobody can do it anymore. Just. Makes no sense, we don’t do that anywhere else in society, right? We don’t cut social programs because a few people took advantage of them. You continue, you tweak the system, you do little things here and there to prevent certain situations from happening again. But you don’t just stop it altogether.
Anthony Vicino: [00:25:26] And realistically, the other thing with Peter is like, honestly, even if you hadn’t been holding that in his IRA, he’s going to find other ways to avoid the taxation on it. Like he’s not an idiot. He’s not going to just cash out. He’s just going to take loans against it at a low percentage or like, find some way. So it’s not like this is actually going to get him. I mean, maybe it will this one.
Scott Maurer: [00:25:46] But and again, if the aim, if the aim in a sense is to become part of it, is because, hey, you know, people with less income don’t have access to these investments. Again, that’s their access is through their IRA accounts when you take that away. The uber-wealthy person says, Oh, I can’t use my ire any more. Ok, well, here I just write you a check, come over here and use a different tax shelter to do it. Like it’s not stopping them from investing. It’s only stopping the people who you’re purporting to help.
Dan Kreuger: [00:26:13] Yeah. So, Scott, I’m a little rusty like my political process and like how the wheels actually turn to get all these things done. Like, where are we at with the process, with these two bills? And like, is it possible for these things to get amended throughout the process and the resolutions go through? How does this work? And like, where are we at the process?
Scott Maurer: [00:26:33] Yeah. So right now this three and a half trillion build back better, at least as of a reported this has not been even voted on yet in the House. So there’s a draft of the bill within the House. So the House has to come to an agreement, pass their version. They then throw it over to the Senate. And Senate kind of comes up with their own version of what they’re willing to pass and get through their chamber. And then they kind of put the bills together, figure out the common provisions, and then they both vote on them, and they’re done. So this bill hasn’t passed the House yet at all. There’s the Democrats have a very thin majority in the House, and they need every single vote they have in the Senate to pass it. So it is. There’s definitely going to be some negotiations. I don’t think there’s any way it’s passing at three and a half trillion. I know pretty almost I’d bet my house on that. It’s the question of whether or not they’re going to be able to come to an agreement on a smaller figure and what cuts they’re going to make. So I think we’ve encouraged people to reach out to your, your senators, and representatives. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle or I’m assuming that if you have a Republican congressman, they probably have friends on the other side of the aisle and encourage them to go talk to their friends and say, Hey, here’s this.
Scott Maurer: [00:27:41] Here’s this little-known provision in this ten thousand five hundred page bill. When we’re all talking about corporate tax rates, you know, I’m hearing from my constituents that this little provision here is going to hurt them. And these are not the people that we’re trying to affect with these tax changes. So reach out to your congressmen and senators. I think for us, it’s just trying to raise awareness and think of enough people see it and kind of go, why am I hearing from my constituents? This is such a bad idea, and it’s raising all of one point eight billion dollars over 10 years. It’s really nothing in the grand scheme of things. So again, it’s still in the process. We don’t know exactly when the final votes are going to come. It doesn’t seem like the House is going to put it up for a vote until they have some agreement in the Senate. And there are people in the Senate saying they want a lot more time to deliberate it. So it’s something that could go on for a while. It’s also something you never know. It’s a little backroom deal. Next thing you know, it’s passed. So that’s why we’re encouraging people to reach out regardless and continue reaching out. Don’t just send one email and be done with it. Keep every few days, send something different just to keep it in front of them.
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:45] Yeah, and that’s a really important thing to know is that these bills, they’re massive things and not everybody. Unfortunately, not all our representatives know every single line of what’s going into it or what the consequence is. And so this is an opportunity to educate and to raise those concerns, not because they’re trying to necessarily do anything nefarious knowingly like they’re not a lot of cases. The representatives aren’t trying to screw over the little guy. They just don’t know. They just don’t know. And so that’s our opportunity to go in there and educate, send emails, give them a call, let them know, like walk them through like this is. This is why it’s such bad news. Bears for the people that you’re trying to help and so be active. Take it, take a stance. If you’re currently invested in anything with your self-directed IRA, then take note you should. You have some skin in the game here because if it passes as it currently stands, you might have to liquidate in two years and depending on which kind of deal you’re in. You might not be able to get all your dollars back. So, you know, don’t wait until it’s already done to look back and be like, I should have done more.
Scott Maurer: [00:29:51] And even if you’re forced to liquidate and you do and you get all your money back, you’re going to be forced to put your money back on Wall Street. Right. And the reason, you probably do not have this money in this and you have this money invested in the syndicates right now is because you don’t want all your money invested in Wall Street. So, yeah, definitely take action. And yeah, I mean, the congressmen, if they don’t really. They don’t have somebody if their office isn’t telling them they’re just like, what’s this provision? And somebody goes, Oh, that’s the Peter Thiel thing. Oh, OK. And they move on, right? But they need to understand that if you’re reaching out to them, I’m an individual. Here’s my situation. I don’t have tons of money. I just like these types of investments and I want the freedom to do it. Tell your story. From what we’ve heard, that’s what congressmen want to hear. They want to hear from their constituents. They want to hear the story behind it. They don’t know and who you are and where you came from and what you’re trying to do and why you want to be left alone, right?
Anthony Vicino: [00:30:40] Hey, listen, Peter Thiel, I know you’re out there listening to this right now. Do us a favor. Don’t make that call. Just maybe sit on your hands for now. Nobody wants to hear your story. It’s not going to help everybody else. All your firefighters and teachers and CPAs and just, you know, regular people. Yeah, go, go. Make some phone calls.
Dan Kreuger: [00:30:58] Everybody is other than Peter.
Anthony Vicino: [00:31:00] Everybody. Yeah. And Mitt, you can just go and sit this one out, too.
Dan Kreuger: [00:31:03] Yeah, Mitt should probably be stand up the whole. So we’re done.
Scott Maurer: [00:31:07] Yes, Mitt and I think the founders of Google also did something similar with their off. Yeah, they did.
Dan Kreuger: [00:31:13] That sounds kind of familiar. Actually, yeah. I mean, why not? I mean, if it’s already
Anthony Vicino: [00:31:18] I mean, maybe there is something questionable in terms of how they were valuing the stocks. And that’s the big question, but they didn’t technically do anything wrong from a purely technical standpoint.
Dan Kreuger: [00:31:30] It seems like a bit of a stretch to be a founder and throwing shares of the company you founded in your Roth. Because I feel like every time we’ve charged Scott, there’s got to be like a pretty clear distance between you and the thing like you can’t buy a B and B.
Anthony Vicino: [00:31:43] That’s the big question in my mind.
Dan Kreuger: [00:31:44] Yeah, it’s like I feel like there’s a lot of really clear conflicts in some of these big, big-name incidents.
Scott Maurer: [00:31:53] And absolutely, and if he did do something that is, you know, that technically it’s not illegal kind of thing, then just make what he did specifically outline instead of this provision says, Hey, you can’t do anything that’s accredited. Just say, you know what, if you’re, you know, figure out exactly how they were kind of structuring and say, this is what’s prohibited now like closed that loophole. Don’t just wipe it all off the board together, and that’s what they’re doing with these provisions. Again, one three, yeah, one three eight three one-twos and one three eight three one four of the Build Back Better Act is what you need to call your congressmen or your senators and say, Get these out of the bill. I don’t care about the top. You know, capping the top of the IRA is at 10 million or whatever. That’s fine. I mean, we can not go to hit bottom. Probably people can disagree with philosophies. Yeah, that could be a philosophical difference, right? But the grand scheme of things that’s not hurting ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the people who we’re talking about. So yeah.
Anthony Vicino: [00:32:49] Well, Scott, this was a killer conversation, unfortunately. Like, it’s frustrating that we have to have this conversation, but it’s also awesome that we have an excellent resource and you. And to be able to have this conversation and put some information in front of people who may be just wouldn’t have been aware of this.
Dan Kreuger: [00:33:04] So I appreciate you taking us like our correspondents in the field for this. Can I come back and do updates and like?
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:11] Well, I think I think we’re going to want to keep our fingers on the pulse of this one as it progresses. So definitely it’s got to keep in the loop. And if we have to bring you on for another episode and we don’t have to wait for another hundred and twenty, then that’s fine
Scott Maurer: [00:33:24] For the
Dan Kreuger: [00:33:24] Obituary episode when it gets amended.
Scott Maurer: [00:33:28] Or that would be nice. Yeah, breaking news. I’d love to do that. Yes. Yeah. Well, we’ll see. As I said, if it passes for some reason, I think there’s obviously that’s when people start getting innovative and say, Okay, here’s what the rule says, and here’s how we’re going to do something separately that doesn’t affect it. And hopefully, that’s something that occurs and people can continue to find out. You know, there’s no ban on lending money to syndication. So obviously that’s something that some people may explore in the future, right? How can I still make money from IRAS, but not do it to an accredited investor fashion? That’ll be something that gets explored down the line, but it’d be much easier. They just get rid of this provision because it’s overreaching. I don’t think the people, I mean, maybe the person who drafted it knows what they’re doing, and they’re the little nefarious trolling background like exactly like the leprechaun as we come up on Halloween here, right? But I got them. But I think the vast majority of the congressmen, I’m guessing actually, I’ll bet you most of the congressmen hold some of these investments inside there. I guarantee
Dan Kreuger: [00:34:29] You. I guarantee you. Yeah. Look, I feel like the people who pass in this are probably the
Anthony Vicino: [00:34:33] Ones they don’t like voting against me. Oh, damn.
Scott Maurer: [00:34:37] Yeah. Oh wait, wait. Quickly amend the bill and make none of this applies to me, right? That’s a
Anthony Vicino: [00:34:42] Yes. No, I didn’t know anybody. No, there’s
Dan Kreuger: [00:34:44] Got to be some sort of staff responsible for making sure they’re aware of stuff like that.
Anthony Vicino: [00:34:48] There’s somebody out there who’s like, Who knows? He’s the only one who knows this is one. He’s pissed at his boss and he’s like, I’ll show you. All right. So, Scott, before we let you out of the cage man, we either need a book recommendation or documentary recommendation. We make an exception because we know you’re not. You don’t love reading, but that’s OK.
Scott Maurer: [00:35:11] Something else? Yeah, yeah, I document. I don’t know. Maybe if anyone’s mentioned this before, but there was one on Netflix called The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. What have you guys?
Anthony Vicino: [00:35:21] Oh, I’ve never
Scott Maurer: [00:35:21] Heard of this. Have you guys heard it? Ok? I saw, yeah, the dancing scene, ever.
Dan Kreuger: [00:35:26] No, I haven’t. I like documentaries. I make a point to watch that kind of stuff. That was,
Scott Maurer: [00:35:31] Yeah, it was weird. And that’s one of that good one that’s only like three or four episodes. It’s not like to season long, whatever, like you, really got to commit to like three or four episodes about some lady advantage to this hotel just out of almost out of thin air. And it was really kind of weird and I won’t spoil any of the endings of it, but it was definitely, definitely entertaining and some interesting characters involved. Absolutely.
Dan Kreuger: [00:35:51] You find out where she went. It’s a good October documentary. I think it’s kind of cool how lenient you want something a little bit eerie, right?
Scott Maurer: [00:35:58] Yeah. And there is a yeah, A. There is a conclusion to it.
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:01] Ok, I need a resolution on something like this. It’s that one of those
Scott Maurer: [00:36:04] Ones at the end like, Oh no, we still don’t know. I never found out.
Dan Kreuger: [00:36:07] Yeah. Like making a murderer and kind of
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:09] Making a murderer. Oh, my God caused me like legitimate heart palpitations. I was like, What do you mean? We don’t need to know?
Dan Kreuger: [00:36:16] Yeah, it was like, That can’t be worth ends. Did you hear there’s a Tiger King two coming? I don’t know if that was on your radar.
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:22] Hard pass. Hard pass that. That was a twenty-twenty thing. I thought that guy was still even twenty in that dumpster fire in the past. Not going there.
Dan Kreuger: [00:36:30] Do you say that?
Scott Maurer: [00:36:32] I know. Probably that was the COVID, the COVID favorite. If COVID hadn’t existed with Tiger King has been as popular, who knows right now? The unanswered question
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:42] Do you remember when COVID like we first went into lockdown and everybody is like, Tiger King is getting me through this lockdown? And then there are so like four more months of lockdown?
Dan Kreuger: [00:36:52] Yeah. And Tiger King got going fast. It was great for a moment and then it was instantly old. It’s one of those things, I think, yeah,
Anthony Vicino: [00:36:59] These dark days of COVID quarantine dragged on. We needed something a little brighter and more uplifting. All right. So that’s going to do it for us here. We appreciate you taking some time out of your day. Hopefully, you took something valuable out of this. I encourage everybody, even if you’re not holding any investments currently through your self-directed IRA to reach out to your local representatives, make your voice heard because that’s the beauty of living in a democracy. And yeah, that’s all I got. I’ll see you guys next week.
