Trusts 101: Legacy Planning and Domestic vs. Offshore, with Yonathan Amsalem

SPEAKER_04 0:00 Asset protection is really the byproduct of good legacy planning. It's important to have an attorney or a team that is familiar with asset protection because one does not necessarily follow from the other, but it should. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos to have asset protection. If you think you have a holding company with two subsidiary companies, let us take a look at the documents. Maybe you don't have what you think, which happens quite frequently with people that set up companies themselves. They assume they have this org chart. I have a lot of clients with a beautiful org chart. They go, These are my assets. I look through everything and I say, Well, that's a beautiful org chart, but none of your documents match what's on your org chart.

Maggie Pierce 0:45 This is Keep What You've Built. Every week I sit down with my dad, attorney Mark Pierce, and we break down the asset protection strategies nobody talks about publicly. Today, we're joined by attorney Jonathan Amsalum. His practice focuses on the intersection of international tax law, cross-border estate planning, and global wealth structuring. If you've ever been curious about the details of offshore planning and you want to keep and grow what you've built, we are recording this episode for you. Alright, well, thank you so much for joining us, Yanni. I'm happy to have you here and I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think to get started, can you introduce yourself and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_04 1:24 Sure. I'm uh Jonathan Amsalem. I usually go by Yanni. I'm an attorney. I run a law firm, Calvary International Law. And what we do is really build the legal architecture that holds people's assets, holding companies and trusts, and you know, where it makes sense, potentially overseas. Um I'm licensed in DC, but uh I of counsel with Mark Pierce in Wyoming. And I also work together with people's attorneys, and uh I have multiple co-counsel relationships that uh are appropriate in certain cases where people need estate planning in their home state.

Maggie Pierce 2:00 Awesome. Uh, what is the profile of client that you typically work with?

SPEAKER_04 2:06 Business owners, real estate investors, anybody in a high liability profession, really people that have built something and then realized that it's really all in their name and it's not protected from creditors, probate, divorces, uh all the snags that can happen to somebody in their life. Car wrecks, yeah. Children, children's spouses, irresponsible children, yes. Uh all sorts of things.

Maggie Pierce 2:37 Great. Uh so I would like to get both of your thoughts on this. How would you each define legacy planning?

SPEAKER_04 2:45 I would say if we're gonna boil it down to the bare essentials, what legacy planning is, is deciding in advance, in writing, who gets what, who's in charge, and when. If you don't make those decisions, a judge somewhere is gonna make that decision for you.

Mark Pierce 3:02 Yeah, and I would just add to that that um, you know, I I don't really trust the judicial process to affect what your wants and needs are because they're expressed statutorily and they might vote directly against what you want. So if you want something to happen, you have to put it down into writing, make it a legally efficacious document, and publish it to everyone in the family, including your attorney, and then you get what you want. And if you don't do that, you leave it to the family to squabble over. The family goes out and engages attorneys, and in my experience, you settle about the time you run out of money in the estate because the attorneys lose interest in what's going on in the estate if they're not going to get paid from it. So I've seen a real dissipation of values of estates that end up in litigation because people didn't express or plan for a legacy.

Maggie Pierce 3:45 So it sounds like it's important to make sure that your wishes are respected uh instead of the government's wishes, basically. Uh are it's critical.

Mark Pierce 3:54 It's critical, you know, because no one's gonna protect and plan for your estate like you're going to. And you know all the players. So why would you not put something in writing into effect? And you know basically within your family how things fall, and they're gonna fall a certain way, and you know how that's going to be. The judge may not follow that because he has a differ or she has a different set of rules that they have to follow. And I have seen, particularly in the agricultural context, a lot of times the person who stays on the ranch is probably the individual who's least fitted to run the ranch. So what ends up happening is that after the ranch falls down to the least fit person to run it, it goes into all kinds of financial troubles. The other four or five kids have to come back to the ranch and they end up selling the ranch rather than maintaining that as a legacy for their family, just by way of example.

SPEAKER_04 4:41 Yeah, I would say a lot of small businesses are ripped apart by poor planning from the business owner. Yeah.

Mark Pierce 4:49 Yes, by not taking into effect, not taking into account what they know about their family, you know, and failing to express it because you might hurt someone's feelings. And that's why, you know, when it comes to small business in particular, getting it from that first and second generation is a very small percentage. Getting it a second and third is a very small percentage. If you can get it to that third generation, now you got people who are experienced at running in a business and will run that business for the benefit of the family if that's what you want to have happen. That's what you need to do. You have to provide for secession planning. And I think that's where most people fail in their legacy.

Maggie Pierce 5:22 So some of the issues that people might run into if they fail to plan might seem a little abstract for people listening now. Do you have any specific examples that you've run into uh that have stuck in your mind?

SPEAKER_04 5:34 Yeah, I'll I'll answer that. I would say probably the most common is corporate governance for small businesses. Uh, a lot of the time, a business owner will die, and the shares or the membership interest of that company, unbeknownst to them, gets probated, just like any other asset. And that is brutal for a business. Lack of management, there's no success or manager, there's no clear uh path on the existing corporate documents as to what happens next. And this is a tragedy for many types of businesses, particularly those with maybe one owner, right? Which is a lot of businesses in America. I mean, that's a very real specific example that could be avoided easily with a trust or any kind of practical estate plan.

Mark Pierce 6:24 Yeah, it doesn't even have to be a trust, but you have to set something down to writing how this thing goes. And if you've got a business wallowing around for a month, you've got problems. You wallowed around for a year and you don't have a business anymore. And that's what happens in the probate process is you you you go in front of a judge to try to determine who should be running a business. Well, who's running the business while you're in front of the judge? And that's what you run into. And I think that that's exactly right. You just wallow around and the business fails while you're in probate.

SPEAKER_02 6:49 Yep.

Maggie Pierce 6:51 When would you recommend people get started with legacy planning?

SPEAKER_04 6:55 Sooner rather than later. Uh obviously.

Maggie Pierce 6:59 That makes sense, but I think maybe some people are just getting started and kind of to your point where who's running the business if you're in front of the judge, who's running the business while you're trying to get this stuff figured out. So I think some people might have a tendency to put it off because it seems overwhelming or just like it's going to take a lot of time. So maybe speaking to those people when should they really consider getting started? What's the barrier to entry?

Mark Pierce 7:26 What? It's like the Buddhists say the best time to plant planted a tree was 20 years ago, but you didn't, so let's start now. And if you're not going to invest the time on making sure you have a legacy, then why did you start the business in the first place, other than to make a meal for your family? Why wouldn't you continue making meals for your families as the generations come along? So why not put some time into it? It's not that time consuming compared to the complexity and time that you put into this point. So why would you not invest that additional amount of time right now? And it shouldn't be all that expensive either in comparison to whatever it is as you've got in the bank.

SPEAKER_04 7:59 Yeah, and life is unpredictable, and you never know what's going to happen today or tomorrow. And as Mark was saying, with the right team, it really is not that complicated. Amending a few documents, drafting a trust, these things for for somebody that's committed to getting it done quick can be done quickly. Uh, it doesn't have to take forever.

Maggie Pierce 8:20 So a lot of people when they think of legacy planning think of asset protection. Can you explain how that fits into a legacy plan?

SPEAKER_04 8:29 I'd say a asset protection is really the byproduct of good legacy planning. You know, it's legacy planning doesn't always involve asset protection. You know, a living trust isn't gonna provide any asset protection. But structured properly, a DAPT or even for some clients, an offshore trust in select situations will provide asset protection on top of the legacy planning. And it's important to have an attorney or a team that is familiar with asset protection because one does not necessarily follow from the other, but it should.

Mark Pierce 9:07 Yeah, I I I would just, you know, with the the modern exemption on a state taxation right now is $15 million for an individual, $30 million for a family or for a husband and wife. So most people don't have estate tax issues, but they do have other issues that come in front of them, and you're exactly right. If you're not working to provide a legacy for your family, what exactly are you working to provide for? So you've got to protect that legacy with a minimal amount of planning upfront. That's what you end up doing. And I have perpetually people come to me about taxes, taxes, taxes. Well, if you're not making any money, you don't have any taxes to worry about. So your legacy says, hey, I'm gonna give you something worthwhile. Make sure you do.

Maggie Pierce 9:52 What are some other common concerns that people have when they come uh to you uh uh to initially discuss their legacy plan? It sounds like taxes is a big one. Or is there anything else that stands out?

SPEAKER_04 10:05 Control? I would say a lot of people are concerned. They hear the word irrevocable trust, and I think a lot of people are concerned that they will lose control over their assets. I would say it is very rare. Maybe clients with enormous estates, well over $30 million, maybe in those cases there might have to be some loosening of control to deal with some estate tax issues. But for most people that don't have a taxable estate, there's uh you can maintain control, significant control over your assets through LLCs, manager positions, things like that, um, investment advisors in the trust. Uh there's a lot of ways that a a grantor, a settler of a trust can retain control over their assets during their lifetime and still have asset protection.

Mark Pierce 10:51 Yeah, I'd agree with that. I had a gentleman from a bank one time, his head of the trust department called up and said, you know, Mark, just thinking off the top of your head, you know, revocable to an individual means a lot more than it means to you, or irrevocable means a lot more to an individual than it means to you. If you have an irrevocable or irrevocable trust, how many ways do you have for a grantor to get into those assets, legally get into those assets to do what they want? I said, Well, I can think of 14 off the top of my head. Well, if you have 14 ways that you can get into that trust and manage those assets to the benefit of yourself and your family, well, what do you think irrevocable means? It's a legal term. So we make an irrevocable trust, but you know, you wouldn't, as a as a layman, would not really consider that to be irrevocable. So just throw that out there.

Maggie Pierce 11:42 I think that's a pretty natural segue into talking about the different types of trusts and how they actually work. So you've talked about revocable versus irrevocable. Can you give kind of definitions for each of those, how they're structured, and who like what types of situations each is for?

SPEAKER_04 12:00 Yeah, I would say revocable trusts are probably the most common. Those are trusts in which the grandor can revoke the whole trust, change it as much as they want, whenever they want, basically at their own whim. And really that revocability is why it doesn't provide any asset protection. Irrevocable trusts are a little bit more interesting. I would say within the irrevocable trust bucket, there are many, many, many different types. Um, and some are right for certain clients depending on what we want to achieve. Intentionally defective, irrevocable trusts, DAPTs, um gift trusts. There's a whole world, cruts. There's uh many different types.

Mark Pierce 12:47 CRUTS, CRUTS, CLTS, CLUTS. All the acronyms that go with it. Basically, what you're doing is it just gives you a variety of different ways in which you can maximize the benefit to your state. And uh a lot of times in taking charitable distributions as a way to get your estate down is a you know a very interesting way that people entertain to teach their kids to give something back to the community. I've left you 10 million, you know, and this is going to provide for your family, but why don't you go to work providing for your family to make something out of this business? And when you do, give back to the community when you're in the process of doing it.

SPEAKER_04 13:21 Yep. I I would agree with that. Uh and you know, really it's just about finding the right team to tell you what kind of trust you need. You know, there's not really a one size fits all. It's really case by case dependent on if you need an irrevocable trust, what flavor of it.

Maggie Pierce 13:42 Are scared by the word irrevocable but think that that might be what's best for them. Is there a similar way across the irrevocable trust that people are still able to maintain control over their assets that you could speak to, or is that very distinct from trust to trust?

SPEAKER_04 14:02 It is distinct from trust to trust, but I I would say that the way most grantors retain control over the assets is usually you are not dumping all of your assets directly into a trust, but rather you've got holding companies and subsidiary companies that while maybe the grantor is not the owner, they are the manager of these companies and can continue to operate their businesses in that way.

Mark Pierce 14:29 Yeah, and I think that's that's absolutely critical to maintain that continuity of owner uh continuity of management within those LLCs that you have underneath that trust. And then within the trust itself, you have what you call an investment committee. So all the investment decisions within the trust are delegated to a committee that's generally populated by the person who established the trust and that person's family to begin with. So you're controlling the investments at the trust level and you're controlling the operations of the businesses at the LLC level. The only thing that you're not controlling are distributions of cash out of the trust itself. You can have distributions out of the LLC to yourself in exchange for wages without any without any affirmation from the trust. But as to the trust itself, where you've got your piggy bank, if you're making distributions to beneficiaries out of that trust, you have to go to an independent distribution committee, and that's typically populated by our structure by your law firm. So, you know, you call up your attorney, say, hey, I need uh I need a distribution. Here's what it's for. And I've been doing this, what, 10 years now, acting as a distribution committee. And the only time I said no to a distribution, it was a gentleman, and he and his wife had established a trust, and he wanted to make a distribution out of the trust without his wife knowing about it to his mistress. And I said, No, I'm not even gonna look at the law on this. I'm not getting involved in your marital spat. And that's been it. And that's the only time. Ten years.

SPEAKER_02 15:52 Right, right. Good choice.

Maggie Pierce 15:54 Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:55 Yeah, yeah.

Maggie Pierce 15:56 That sounds reasonable.

SPEAKER_02 15:59 Yeah.

Maggie Pierce 16:00 Um, so I would like to talk a little bit about jurisdiction of the trust and how you decide when a certain jurisdiction makes sense for somebody. I think this applies like domestically, which state you have your trust in, but also offshore versus domestic. So I know this is a very broad question, and that obviously it depends on the specific circumstances. But in general, how do you approach that conversation with clients?

SPEAKER_04 16:26 Well, number one, most US-based clients with US-based assets are probably going to be a good fit for one of several US jurisdictions. In my opinion, the best is usually Wyoming, nine times out of ten. Maybe that would change depending on a few factors that could affect that. But for most domestic clients, I think the case law and the statutes in Wyoming are really the most favorable. For those clients that need overseas structures, I think the variability there is quite expansive. You know, for clients looking for raw asset protection, probably the Cook Islands is the best jurisdiction. For clients that have companies looking to go public and they're looking for outside investors and things like that, probably the Cayman Islands is a better jurisdiction or BVI, or clients running high octane international businesses, you're probably going to have better banking options with a BVI or Cayman entity. But raw asset protection, you know, with private Swiss banking and a managed account, Cook Islands is really the best player in that game. So there's quite a bit of variability overseas, but stateside, most clients that are looking for complex legacy planning or asset protection are probably better off in Wyoming. Mark, what do you think?

Mark Pierce 17:50 Yeah, Wyoming not only gives you privacy, it gives you anonymity. And you're just going to have a hard time finding out who's doing what within those trusts because you got to go to Wyoming to litigate it. And if you were to sue us as the individuals who put a trust together in some place like Arizona or California or New York, we're not subject to that court's jurisdiction. The Wyoming court would quash those subpoenas. So you got to go to Wyoming to litigate it. We have a chancery court that's dedicated to dedicated to that, and those records are sealed. So at the end of the day, and the LLCs are private and anonymous. So the basic tack that Wyoming takes is that your business is your business. And unless you're doing something that's criminal, you know, you just have to come to Wyoming and litigate it, and we can pretty well do what it is that we need to do in a business context and not be liable for it, other than contractual remedies, that sort of thing. We're not trying to get away with something, but you've got to come to Wyoming to litigate it. And I think that gives it a hue that most people would find to give them the benefit and the protections that they need.

Maggie Pierce 18:54 Do people typically have a jurisdiction in mind already when they come to you, or is that something that people typically take your advice on?

SPEAKER_04 19:03 I think a lot of people, uh there's a lot of content out there uh uh from a lot of different providers, uh, some of whom are sort of attached to a particular jurisdiction, or they're a salesman in a sense for a particular jurisdiction. So yeah, I think people have a lot of um ideas in their head when they come talk to us, and maybe it's like that for a lot of advisors about what's the right strategy, but we always talk clients through that and uh why something might be a good idea or a bad idea. Not all information out there is wrong, but some of it is just wrong for you. And so it it really just depends on what's going on with you and your situation, and we can help you sort through the noise because I know there's a lot of it online.

Maggie Pierce 19:47 Yeah, I was curious if there's any particular jurisdiction that you find gets a lot of hype and reasons why you would or wouldn't recommend that for a particular client.

SPEAKER_04 19:59 Probably the Cook Islands uh gets a lot of hype, and I think it is a great jurisdiction. I've set up lots of Cook Islands trusts. Um I do think, though, it is a jurisdiction that can be abused. There's a a lot of clients that, you know, really, not necessarily anything wrong with the Cook Islands, but they're just not a good fit for an offshore structure, period. I think these are trusts that are very powerful but need to be used on a case-by-case basis. So I would I would say that probably the Cook Islands, Nevis, these jurisdictions get a lot of hype online, Belize write for certain clients, but maybe talk to us and we can give you the uh the pros, cons when it's appropriate, when it's not.

Mark Pierce 20:41 Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I sometimes get calls from people who are looking at Cook Islands and Nevis, the Caribbean Basin, whatever. And I said, look, they're not a panacea for all of your problems. You need to address sometimes you need to address these problems here instead of addressing a problem that's already risen. So I think Yanni's right on the track with that.

SPEAKER_04 20:59 Yeah, just to give you one example for you know uh uh for discussion, there there's a commonly used strategy with idits in the United States to freeze people's estates using a promissory note sale. There's very popular mechanics, lots of estate planners do it. I think Wyoming is a great jurisdiction to set up that trust. But you know, those mechanics don't work with an offshore trust. You would recognize capital gains on that sale. So that's critical for a lot of people with huge estates. I think an offshore trust can play a role in the planning, but it really shouldn't be the trust that the client is relying on to do most of the heavy lifting, uh, particularly for estate tax planning.

Mark Pierce 21:42 Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And you know, there's a level of complexity there that Yanni's talking about that we can't get to in a in a 30-minute or 45-minute uh conversation. And I think one of the one of the real hurdles that you have to get people over is the level of complexity that goes into the formation and running of these things. And so You know, we we talked earlier about when's the best time to do it. And it's, you know, now. And I I've, you know, I've talked to people, said, you know, you're going to make money. What you need to do is you need to get the trust, you need to understand how it works, you need to spend some time working with it, so that in four or five years, when you start making real money, you know exactly what you're doing and it makes it easier. So, you know, just the the wording that goes with it, that sort of thing, getting used to the nomenclature, that's why you do it now. You get to the point where you're comfortable with it, and then you can begin to see how robust this thing can be as you get into your 30s, 40s, 50s and the way it works for your family.

Maggie Pierce 22:34 Speaking of the estate tax issues, I know we wanted to talk a little bit about estate tax planning without getting too far into the weeds on it, because it could probably be its own two-hour episode. So, what are the main things you wish people knew about estate tax and how to think about that? I know that's a general question, but just kind of to let you guide the conversation on what you think is important.

SPEAKER_04 23:04 The estate tax, if you're unmarried, as Mark said earlier, is $15 million. If you're unmarried, unless you've got assets over $15 million, the IRS is not going to tax your estate when you pass away. If you're married, exemption goes up to $30 million.

Mark Pierce 23:20 Yeah, that's net.

SPEAKER_04 23:21 Yeah.

Mark Pierce 23:22 Net income, you know, you might have a $30 million business with a $24 million mortgage. Well, you got a six million dollar estate tax issue, which is well within the exemption amount.

SPEAKER_04 23:32 Right. And obviously some states have their own estate tax that we need to contend with, but most of the time, trying to deal with the local state's estate tax like Illinois or New York or something like that, the economics don't work because you are also going to miss out on the step up and basis. So this is probably maybe too much into the weeds for this particular conversation, but I would say generally speaking, most people don't need to worry about the estate tax. It's a fraction of 1% of taxpayers that need to worry about it. But if you do need to worry about it, it is a serious problem. Um, and for particularly, or maybe especially for your beneficiaries. And getting started on mitigating that tax now is critical because that tax is only going to get worse. Guys that make money keep making money, and that estate tax problem is just going to get worse and worse, and the measures to mitigate that estate tax will be will become more and more limited as time goes on, especially if you've got an estate tax problem. You can you can afford it. Uh get started sooner rather than later, but most people don't need to worry about it.

Mark Pierce 24:48 Yeah, I don't really have anything to add to that. You know, if if you're that 0.1% that has this as an issue, you should address it and address it fairly quickly because it will get to be a very big issue. Because Yanni's exactly right. Money's sticky, and some people are a lot stickier with money than others. And my experience has been some people do their estate tax minimization and then five years later come in and say, Oh my goodness, I should have taken more of your advice because now I have a real problem. You know, if you're gonna do estate tax minimization, you should start now because it's gonna take you a while.

SPEAKER_04 25:17 Your kids will thank you for it.

Mark Pierce 25:19 Oh boy, 40%, right? So everything over $15 million, a single guy, you know, let's say you have a $25 million estate, that $10 million is taxed $4 million right off the top.

SPEAKER_02 25:33 Yep.

Maggie Pierce 25:34 That yeah, sounds like a big issue for people who have it as an issue, but it does sound like more often than not, people are more worried about the estate taxes than they should be. What's something that people are not worried enough about in general that you wish they would put their focus toward?

SPEAKER_04 25:53 That's a good question. I think um one that I see it we touched on it briefly earlier, is the liability of your children after you're gone. Uh a lot of people think, well, I'm in a pretty low-risk profession. I don't need to think about asset protection too much. What about your kids? They could marry the wrong person. This happens all the time. Uh, you know, I'm sure everybody's got uh divorce horror stories they've experienced themselves or with family, friends. This is something that people don't think about. It's, you know, I'm I I know me, I'm I'm the safest driver in the world, and you know, I I do right by everybody, and I'm never gonna get sued. Maybe you're right, maybe life is unpredictable. But can you really say the same for your the generations that come next? I mean, you could potentially you could have a trust for hundreds of years, right? If you've got the assets for it and you plan ahead, that we need to we need to consider those liabilities too, not just your own.

Mark Pierce 26:57 Yeah, I yeah, exactly. Your kids, that's what you got to worry about because you don't know anything about your kids or what's gonna happen to them over the next 30, 40, 50 years. And I had a client of mine that came in one time who said his son was 15 and had just gotten his driver's permit, and they went out on a joyride with his buddy driving the car. And so they took the car out of the garage, went down the road, crashed the car, killed his buddy. And so there was a real problem as to whether or not there was any coverage to begin with on this, let alone the extenuating circumstances that arose where they would have gone over the limit on the insurance anyway. It was a really just a horrific case. And there was an example where his businesses were protected by a trust. They were not going to get into those trusts, but it was still a real personal problem for them because not everything had put into that trust, and all those assets were subject to forfeiture to the parents of that kid who was killed. So, yeah, just by way of example, things can go horribly wrong.

SPEAKER_02 28:00 Yes, God is horrible.

Mark Pierce 28:02 Oh god, it was terrible. I just I read the report on that, and it was like, oh, I feel you know, I still to this day think about it. It's just horrifically stupid. It's something that a 15-year-old boy would do.

SPEAKER_04 28:15 Yeah. I had a client that had a lot worth $20,000. He said, I don't need to do anything with this, this is not worth anything. Obviously, the client had lots of other money, but he didn't think about that lot, and somebody got killed on the lot, of course. And you know, a $20,000 asset turned into a multi-million dollar liability. So things can happen. And uh having you will never be more thankful than when some errant, aberrant event like that happens, and you've got all your stuff in a trust or structured properly, you've got all your ducks in a row, everything's signed, your operating agreements, your trusts. Um life, life can be unpredictable.

Mark Pierce 29:02 Well, yeah, that's right. I was driving down driving down the highway the other day, and there were these uh there's a these ads for this uh individual. It was a personal injury firm. And so it came up and this ad over here, and then drove about a mile, and then the same person had an ad for a different kind of an injury, and then drove a mile. Every mile, there was a flashing billboard saying, Call us now, we'll get you a recovery. It's where the money is, they come after you.

SPEAKER_02 29:27 Yep.

Maggie Pierce 29:28 Well, I think on that note, it makes sense to transition into how people can actually get started on their legacy planning and asset protection journey if they haven't already. And I wanted to go back to something you had mentioned earlier, Yanni, which was that there are a lot of people online who have certain agendas and are basically just salespeople for a specific type of structure, independent of whether it actually fits the person. So I'm wondering if you have any red flags you notice with people who are just bad practitioners of this, so that the people who are listening to this can avoid that and find somebody who will actually represent them properly.

SPEAKER_04 30:09 Yeah, yeah. I I think I think to a certain degree, uh, if you're not if the person you're contacting is not an attorney, you need to make sure they know what they're doing. Um and it does take a little bit of homework on your end to ask the right questions. And you need to make sure that whoever you're talking to is actually listening to what you're saying. Because people's families and situations and assets are very unique, actually. It's not, I think a lot of people have a sort of blanket approach just throwing you into a structure. No matter what you tell them, no matter the details that you give them or the concerns, the pain points that you have, it seems that always the same structure fixes all those problems. That is never the case, almost never. I mean, maybe there's a unicorn structure out there that solves every problem, but I haven't seen it yet. I think most attorneys I work with haven't either. So I I think, you know, there's a lot of good providers out there, good people that uh providing a good service, but you really need to make sure that they're listening. Make sure that what you're saying is getting addressed and not just talked over. I would say that's probably the biggest red flag is a provider that is not addressing your specific concerns in a way that makes sense and passes the sniff test. And I would say, you know, reach out to us. We have a lot of experience. We'll give you uh the honest read on anything that uh that is being pitched to you.

Mark Pierce 31:43 If you have anything to add to that, you're right on the money with it.

SPEAKER_01 31:49 Great. Then uh if somebody is starting from zero today, what are the first steps they should take?

SPEAKER_02 31:58 Starting from zero planning?

Maggie Pierce 32:01 Yeah, zero planning wise. If somebody has no plan in place, they maybe have a family business, or they're a solo entrepreneur, they don't really know anybody in the legacy and asset protection space, but they are worried about some of the horror stories that you've told today and want to protect themselves.

SPEAKER_04 32:21 Uh create a bullet point list of your assets, how you have them titled and what they are, and reach out to us and we'll walk you through it exactly where the uh pitfalls are, and um, you know, we'll give you a consult and really give you a diagnosis of your situation and what might be some of the tools to address the problems, let's say.

Mark Pierce 32:44 Yeah, and I'd add to that, you know, give me a schematic of who your family is and uh where they fit within the structure of your businesses and what you want to see happen in 10, 20, 30 years.

SPEAKER_04 32:53 Yeah. We can give you the solutions. You just need to give us the information and we can provide the path forward. Very efficient at that.

Mark Pierce 33:01 Yeah, we've been doing this a long time. And as a result, you know, if if you're honest with yourself and you're honest with us, we can come to a solution pretty quickly for you. And we can fine-tune it over time. But the idea is to impress a schematic onto your family to start with. And then as things evolve in your family over the next five, ten, twenty years, we'll just keep amending or restating or adding to the trust depending on what your family does over that over that period of time.

SPEAKER_04 33:29 Yeah, I just to add to that, that's a that's a good point. This is a long-term relationship. We have long-term relationships with our clients because life is the theme of this uh podcast, can be unpredictable, and things can change. And then legal documents have to be amended to reflect those changes. New assets, business sales, new children. Children may pass away. Life can change, and with that, you need to have a dynamic structure. That's really where we provide a lot of value to our clients, is just being there as really a partner, helping the family navigate life.

Mark Pierce 34:04 Yeah, and I I I just got an email from a guy I hadn't heard from in 20 years, and he needs some advice. And, you know, we're here, and um, I'm gonna give him a call when we got off of here. And there's never a stupid question. The only stupid question is the ones that you don't ask, because we need to get these resolved. We need to fit it into the fabric of what you got going on, and your family evolves. We don't know how that evolves, so it doesn't hurt. Like once a year call up and say, hey, here's what's gone on, or here's what's going on. And to get a little advice, a little advice goes a long way. It might give you a different perspective of how we would look at it and would help you the way in which you're looking at it. And when you talk about kids being a downside risk, one of the issues that you have are drugs. And every family, if you have more, if you have four, five, six kids, odds are against you that you're gonna have a drug problem at some time. And I think it's the most pernicious liability that most families face, and it has to be dealt with in advance. And paradoxically, the law has a solution for that sort of issue. And so you don't cut the kid out, but you minimize the risk that the kid has on the estate. And that's just one example of the things that we can provide to you. And a lot of people hesitate to bring that sort of thing up because they think it's a failure of their family. It's not, it's a disease. Drugs are a disease. You know, if you had tuberculosis, what are you gonna do? So I look at drug planning, drug behaviors being a real difficult subject to address, but one that can be addressed in advance.

SPEAKER_04 35:31 Yep, I couldn't agree with that more. Drugs will rip a family and an estate apart if not handled appropriately ahead of time.

Mark Pierce 35:39 Yeah, yeah. And you've got the legal mechanism to do that. You know, with these these these trusts that Wyoming have, there are specific provisions built into the trust code to deal with that so that the trustee doesn't have liability and the individual has a means of support in a way that supports them rather than being used for uh drugs. I I think one of the things that I run into that might be interesting that you you could discuss sometimes is, you know, when you grow up without any money, when you have money, you still feel as though you don't have any money. So when you say, Are you a wealthy individual? And you say, No, no, no, I am I'm I'm not. I still shop at Kmart or Walmart, I guess these days, that sort of thing. Then you realize you got $5 million or $3 million in the bank. And I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and and we laughed. And I said, So, Nick, if you took every time that you had, invested into an annuity that paid you 6% a year, and in 20 years, what would you have? And he says, I don't know. I said, Well, let me run the number for you. You'd have 2.5 million, you don't even spend what you make off of this thing after taxes. So you're keeping even with inflation, you're leaving a legacy, and you're taking a 6% distribution every year. And if you asked him, it's like, you know, I've been debating as to whether or not I should buy a new pair of socks. So, you know, that's that's one of the things that you run into as well, is that people you know when you're brought up and you're you're struggling for lunch money, you're not thinking about going to Roos Chris for dinner.

SPEAKER_04 37:04 Yep. Yeah, I'd say, you know, if you've got something to protect, protect it. You know. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos to have asset protection. And sometimes, yes, it will be a more simple plan. Whereas somebody with many different types of assets that maybe has an estate tax plan, tax issue, I should say, they might need something more complicated than you do, but you should still get something. Um, something in place, even if it's just making sure that your existing companies are all lining up. If you think you have a holding company with two subsidiary companies, let us take a look at the documents. Maybe you don't have what you think, which happens quite frequently with uh people that set up companies themselves. They assume they have this org chart. I have a lot of clients with a beautiful org chart. They go, these are my assets. I look through everything and I say, Well, that's a beautiful org chart, but none of your documents match what's on your org chart. And that's really the that's the critical piece. So definitely, even if you think you already have something set up, let us take a look at it. We can always improve it and make sure you have what you think you have.

Mark Pierce 38:14 And it takes such a small amount of time for us to do that. You know, and you look at it and you say, Okay, let me see your operating agreement. They send it to you, you review it for 30 seconds, you go, hold on, here's what you have. Well, you know, my accountant put that together for me. Well, I don't know what your conversation was with your accountant. So let's get your accountant on here and let's all get on the same page and getting it straightened out because I want your 1040 or 1120, whatever you're filing, I want it to match what's in paper here because I can tell you the IRS is gonna look at it. You know, better say what you've reported.

SPEAKER_02 38:46 Yeah.

Mark Pierce 38:47 Yeah. So it's not that hard. It it takes what about to review an LLC document? Takes maybe 10 minutes, do you think? If they get you the stuff.

SPEAKER_04 38:56 Sometimes less.

Mark Pierce 38:58 Yeah, sometimes less.

SPEAKER_04 38:59 I've been with clients on a video call and I've just, you know, I told them, why don't you just send it to me right now? We'll take a look at it together. And uh, you know, it really doesn't take much. But you know, a lot of people have documents they've never looked at once. They've got corporate governance documents for an LLC or a corporation, some S-corp that was set up years ago, and nobody's taken a second look at those documents. There's been new directors, new shareholders. Uh, oh, I gave my kids a few shares of the company. Okay, well, let's take a look and make sure that's the case.

Mark Pierce 39:31 Yeah. No, I always start with, did you actually sign these documents? Because the one I have have a blank signature page. Yeah. Yeah, I forgot to sign them. Well, you gotta sign them. And I sent one over to you to review. What do you have? 28 or 32 LLCs, right? The first thing I did is says, concentralize the registered agent into one place. First of all, you're gonna get a discount on it. Second of all, second of all, why don't you have somebody look at it and say that it actually puts that into place? And you got back to him, I think, in 30 minutes on 30, 30, well around 30 LLCs. 30 minutes, and he'd been putting this off forever. That I think that was pretty easy, wasn't it? You got it straight, everything's fine with him now.

SPEAKER_04 40:11 Yep. Exactly right. Exactly right. Yeah. So reach out to us. We're nice, we're friendly.

Mark Pierce 40:20 The only sin is not calling.

SPEAKER_02 40:23 Yeah.

Mark Pierce 40:24 You know, and given the price that we charge for the amount of time that it is, you know, it's lunch in LA. It costs you lunch.

Maggie Pierce 40:32 Yep.

Mark Pierce 40:33 Anyway, we're good.

Maggie Pierce 40:35 Thank you for listening to Keep What You've Built. If you're interested in speaking with Mark, you can schedule a meeting with him through the link in the show notes or by visiting WyomingTrustAttorney.com. If you've enjoyed the show, please rate it five stars or give us a like. We'll see you next time.