EPISODE 449: Tax Savings and Asset Protection for Doctors with Christopher Gandy

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] All right. Excited to have Christopher Gandy on the line here to talk about tax reduction in asset protection. Uh, was recommended by a few of our mastermind members and has done some great work with them. And so we're gonna dive into that stuff. But before we do, Chris, uh, tell us a little about yourself personally, professionally.

We'll, we'll dive into it.

Chris Gandy: Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate it. So, I'm a recovering athlete. My previous life I played professional sports and played sports in college. So if you Google me. Christopher or Chris Gandy, I'll pop up and you'll see that in my everyday life. I'm a professional financial advisor, uh, financial coach.

Um, but in my practical life, I help people do three things. Help them protect their assets, help them grow their wealth, and help them mitigate taxes over the course of their life. So that is what I coach my clients and coach our clients to do.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Love it. And where are you based out of?

Chris Gandy: So I'm based outta Chicago.

Uh, we have an office, satellite office in Fort Lauderdale, one [00:01:00] in, uh, California and Newport Beach. And we're continuously working to grow that platform. Uh, you know, a couple a advisors in Atlanta. But we're trying to get our best and try to make sure that our platform is a national platform, but we go wherever planes go, Kim, you know?

Yeah,

Dr. Kevin Christie: that's, that's right. Well, I know you've got a few of our mastermind members that are in different areas, Texas, Florida, um, just outta the gates, what are some of the things you've been doing without naming them, but just some of the things you've been doing for, for their practice or their, I guess we call it personal financial situation.

Chris Gandy: Sure. Well. Kevin, what we've, what we've figured out over the years, you know, I've been doing this now for 26 years and I, my previous life, if I rewind the tape, I worked for a lot of the big companies

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Where they, they limited the access of products and resources to our, to our clients. And so since we came out and we built a, a boutique mm-hmm.

Uh, uh, firm that allows us to work with [00:02:00] all the companies, one of the most important things that we've established is understanding. First things first, which is lots of times with, with practitioners, it's organizing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: The things that they've done up until now and trying to figure out what are long-term assets, what are short-term assets, what are mid-term assets?

Trying to make sure they understand the, the accumulation phase of building wealth. Mm-hmm. Not only themselves, but in their practice. You know, I know that's always a challenge is. How do a, how does a practitioner optimize and get the most out of their practice with paying the least amount of taxes? I mean, that's always the name of the game, right?

And so how do they do that? What are the techniques to doing that? But there's some unique ways of doing that, both after tax and pre-tax. So we, we, we enjoy sharing with them and guiding them to help them accomplish those things. [00:03:00]

Dr. Kevin Christie: Let's go down the path of, of the tax reduction for a little bit. Um, what are a few things that, that a practice owner could do to, uh, you know, obviously ethically and legally mitigate some taxes?

Chris Gandy: Well, the key is, you know, let me, even before we get there, is Yep. The structure.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Joe, here's an example. A lot of practitioners will have their, their say, chiropractic practice where they see patients.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: But perhaps they're not making. The most capital there a lot. So a lot of times there other capital will be coming from, uh, other things they're doing around chiropractic services.

Mm-hmm. Whether it's rehabilitative services or it's regenerative medicine services, or it's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What most mistakes that I, I see. Is that they've just picked up resources and piled them all into one company, and then there's no way to separate the owners and all the [00:04:00] employees.

Okay. What we've actually seen is that when that happens, a lot of times it makes sense to talk about are, is there a management company that charges fees for source, for resources, or is all the money coming into one? So sometimes it makes sense for us to actually help them look at structuring. That is the most important thing to make sure the other pieces work.

So gimme an example. Uh, one of the chiropractors we work with all the monies coming into one company, and then what they're doing is, uh, they're taking some of the capital, and this is none of your, this is not nobody on your mastermind, but mm-hmm. They're taking some of the capital and they're actually paying rents to their rental company in which they're building.

In which they own the building, okay? Mm-hmm. That's 1 0 1. But then you have the other resources. Like example is we'll move, if it makes sense, we'll move billing outside of the main practice and have it be a third party [00:05:00] resource company also. Because at that point then you can have different ownership structure versus the original structure.

Um, so you can move billing, that's another resource. And then for all the modalities that come out of that, you can have those be separate companies. Also. Mm-hmm. If you do that, what you find is that if you just create another company for the purpose of creating a company to reduce the taxes, the IRS can come back and say, well, that's not really a company.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: However, if you have these other companies, these other companies functionally operate differently. And the actual key to this is the ownership structure is different. So I love all your people who are in this Mastermind, but let me, I wanna be clear. You gotta take your name off of all the stuff. I understand the A personality and you want to be like, this is mine.

I get it. But if you own a hundred percent of this company, you own a hundred percent of the marketing company. You own a hundred percent of the billing company. You own a hundred percent of all the other companies, and [00:06:00] then you try to create some tax reduction programs. Whatever you do for yourself rolls up through all those companies.

Yeah. Because it's considered a controlled interest group.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: So many a times. We'll have a spouse own one of the management companies. Mm-hmm. We'll have a spouse or someone own one of the regenerative companies or one of the other companies at the majority share 51%. And the purpose of doing that is because the IRS treats that as a completely separate company, even though it's making money from the main company.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: You can do that. And now all of a sudden, whatever I do in that company that does not have the majority ownership for you. I do not have to do for all my employees. Gotcha.

Dr. Kevin Christie: So theoretically you got a billing company that's its own LLC spouse owns 51%. That is now a different entity, different structure than say the chiropractic practice.

Uh, you could [00:07:00] offer something through that billing company, uh, 401k or insurance or anything like that, that you wouldn't necessarily have to offer in the main chiropractic practice. Is that correct?

Chris Gandy: Correct. Correct.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And then you could probably, that's just one example of other things that could probably benefit.

Correct?

Chris Gandy: Correct. The big one is the, uh, building their own pension plan or defined benefit plan. So, so, so let's get into the, from 50,000 feet to have a company at the end of the day, and a chiropractor is making about 700 to a million bucks call. It is what it is. When net profits, after all the expenses are paid, they feel pretty good.

They're comfort, they're comfortable paying 30%. They're 32, 30 7% in taxes. 320 grand is gone. They hate doing it, but it is what it's in doing this, what happens is that we now have the ability over here. To set up a way which we can defer depending on their age, and because actuarial age, we can do a 401k, which is [00:08:00] limited up to 50 or 60,000 a year.

But then on top of that, we can add a defined benefit plan. A defined benefit plan is a form of a pension plan. Okay? That layers on top of a qualified plan or replaces one where you can put up to 280,000. Dollars on a pre-tax basis. And if design rate, you can actually overfund the defined benefit plan multiple times over.

So essentially we, we have the ability to make the majority of income disappear because it's redirected into a qualified plan. Now we can't do it all through a four through a 401k, but you can do it through those other plans. And some of those other plans are a little more flexible, so a lot more.

Different investments and things you can have inside of those, but effectively you can take your effective tax rate on the left side at like 30, 35, 30 2%, and you can potentially bring your effective tax rate down to 12 to [00:09:00] 15% if you do it right. Yep. Now the key to that is cashflow, because you gotta put the money in.

Yeah. You know, which is sometimes of a challenge.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: But that defined benefit plan is the only plan. Which you have until with full extension. Mm-hmm. You have until the following year to make contributions to it. So, so Kevin, let me rewind the tape. Yep. Your 401k, you gotta make contributions into it during the calendar year.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Okay. During, from January 1st of say 2025 to December 31st, 2025. Okay. If you don't have the money in by then, the company then can do profit sharing to a certain point, and then that's it. Yep. The only plan where you can put significant chunks in, so let's say you, you, you found yourself and you did a million bucks, but now all of a sudden with the accountant comes back, was like, actually you did 2 million.

Sorry. Oops. And now all of a sudden you're looking at like a $600,000 tax bill. Mm-hmm. That [00:10:00] defined benefit plan allows for you to put in so much of that excess that you can bring your tax number back down and you have until September with extension, September of the following year. Gotcha. To make the contribution.

So for many of your, your people listening to this call, it's a way for them knowing what they paid in 2025 and 2024, what they paid in 2024, to say, I don't wanna, you know, I did pay 150, 200,000. How do I get that number down to like 50? Yeah. What do I need to do? So then next year. I'm taking full advantage of that.

So that becomes part of the conversation and everything's an exploratory conversation with us. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, um, you explore it, you see if it makes sense, if it makes sense. We involve your accountant, involve your accountant, a couple other people on your team, if it makes sense. We implement the plan and strategy.

And Kevin, here's what I'll, I, I will say to you, [00:11:00] what's the downside

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: To exploring it, because at the end of the day, it's. We can either A, make the money and pay, give it to the IRS. Mm-hmm. B, we can give it to the people we love and care about, including ourself.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Chris Gandy: Mm-hmm. C we could give it to charity.

Mm-hmm. Right. Or we can destroy it, take it outside, burn on fire, but then we still the tax on it. Right. So, so third, the last logic is not logical. So given the three choices, the IRS people we love and care about, or a charity. Most of your listeners on this call would say, who would you like to leave the least?

Who would you like to give the least amount of your hard earned assets during a 12 month time? To typically, they'll say, well, the IRS. Yeah. Right? And so what do I need to do so that I, I can explore that or look at that, those type of things. So when it's that simple, it's. Does it make sense or doesn't it make sense?

Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I wanna tease it out a little bit to make sure that we're, uh, audience is, is is getting it too. So you mentioned cash flow [00:12:00] earlier, so obviously there's gotta be healthy cash flow. And then I would say, and, and correct me if I'm wrong in any of this, you also have to be paying yourself a certain amount.

To live your personal life, like whether it's kids' school or grocery bill and all that. So there you gotta fund that. Obviously there's certain things you can legally run through a business, but let's say you gotta have the cash flow. You gotta be a person, you know, paying yourself, uh, to, to live and maybe your living somewhat, moderately.

Now, would this need to be kind of a, a higher revenue, higher margin? Practice for this to, to really make sense to where there's just a, a lot of profit that's, that's, uh, sitting there.

Chris Gandy: Well, you need to be profitable. Yeah. That's the most important thing, right? Mm-hmm. If you're like, you're like, I don't know how I pay my bills.

Right? You know, that, that becomes more difficult to do because there's just, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, right? Mm-hmm. So I would tell you that most of your. Well, let me, [00:13:00] let me go back for a moment. Most of your practices should be, make sure they're set up in a, as a form of a corporation.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Yeah. Not just set up as sole proprietors and 10 99 and everybody, I mean, come on, we can professionalize the service. Okay. Yeah. So once they get to that point, then I would, I would say that they need to be, you know, decently profitable.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Um, they don't even be making a million dollars excess a month, but they need to be decently profitable where they're like, okay.

If I don't bring in the same amount next month, I still can live my same quality of life and pay my and, and pay my overhead and my, uh, and my staff. Right? Um, and at the end, when they add all the stuff up, there's a profit. Right? I would say it makes sense if your profit is over after you've paid yourself.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Yeah. A hundred thousand dollars or more. It makes sense to explore other options. Perfect. That's what give it, give it that space. So it makes sense. Yeah, [00:14:00]

Dr. Kevin Christie: no, it does. And it's um, you know, knowing some of the mastermind members that have, have utilized this and have worked with you and then some other chiropractors, I know there, there are, you know, there's some out there that they, they are very profitable.

They are. Uh, running high, high revenue, high profit, uh, practices, which are awesome. Um, but then yeah, if you're not careful, a lot of that's gonna go out the window and we don't, we don't want that. Um, and so, uh, are, are you seeing a lot of, are you working with a lot of, um, practices that are, say integrated clinics medically integrated a lot of different types of services outside of just chiropractic?

Chris Gandy: Well, yeah. Yeah. You figure that now chiropractic. Care is really whole body care. Yeah. Right. And, and, and holistic care. Right. Um mm-hmm. Everything from, from, from, from peptides to nutrition to, you know, there's, there's a [00:15:00] whole there, whole platform. Yeah. And process for people to. Be the best version of themselves.

Mm-hmm. And so a lot of the practices that I've seen are super successful, integrate a lot of other mod, I gotta call 'em, modalities for their clients to use, even all the way down to plunge and red light therapy. Right. And it's all succinctly wrapped into one, you know, organization. Mm-hmm. Even though it still may be separate.

Um, they're creating the experience. For those, for those for those clients where we come into play. I think that makes sense and I want your listeners to hear this is 90% of the people we've worked with, even in your mastermind, they have other, they have other advisors. And so people are like, well, I have an advisor.

And it's like, okay, okay, I understand, but I played sports. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna reverse engineer this. Can you imagine me going to play against the bulls and saying, I got one player, all that has [00:16:00] Michael Jordan. You can line up all your other five players, but at the end of the day, I have Michael Jordan.

At the end of the day, Michael Jordan's going to lose every single time. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And the reason why he is going to lose, even though he's the most talented, is simply because he can't do all the things.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Mm-hmm. Right? And so. Um, well, Disney said, you know, and Apple said, you gotta think like a big business before you become one.

Right? That was a Steve Jobs, uh, quote there. And so lots of your mastermind members are saying, I'm not there yet. I'll wait till I get there. But it's like waiting to go on vacation and pack. You gotta pack before you go. So some people are a little ways away before they can, and some people they need a little bit of runway to get that airplane off the ground, you know, because that restructuring part.

If it's not structured correctly or even streamlined correctly, then we may have to create those other entities and enterprises get 'em up and running with the idea that 2026 we're going to do a plan and a [00:17:00] strategy versus in 2025 when we're just picking up the pieces of what was already there. Does that make sense?

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, definitely. And then I guess you have until, you'd have until September of 2026 to get 2025 squared away.

Chris Gandy: Right. And so imagine the lookback, right? Imagine saying if I knew this, 'cause a lot of people get to the end. They're like, if I would've knew this, I would've did this differently.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Chris Gandy: Well, here's the opportunity.

You can't do it unless you have the plan open and you build a plan. Now the plans can be built even all the way until September 1st, 2026. So for 2025, I'm telling all your listeners it's not too late to explore. Does it make sense? To help reduce my overall taxation in which I'm giving to the IRS each year.

That doesn't hurt. I mean, if we take the math on, say your average practice that you coach or that you work with, or that are in your mastermind, that are, that, listen to this podcast, let's say for an average, they pay somewhere between 70 and a hundred thousand dollars a year of taxes.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm. And

Chris Gandy: let's say their [00:18:00] longevity of being in practice is 20 years.

You figure over a 20 year period of time, they're going to give away over $2 million mm-hmm. Of capital to an enterprise or an entity, or an organization or a government process that the rate of return is zero. Mm-hmm. For all right? Uh, yes, we have the schools, the roads, but at the end of the day, we understand that we want to pay our fair share, but not more.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Imagine if they could say, okay, if I can keep a million of the 2 million. And put it in something and it grow at 8% a year mm-hmm. For the next 20 years. Right. That at 2 million that I would have spent and gave to the IRS, that my million now has turned into 3 million because of the way I had put it away.

And so that's the concept is why not take a portion of what we know you're gonna give away anyways.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: And redirect. [00:19:00] Into something that's going to benefit you, your family and and the future generation of, of, of your, of your legacy. And that's the idea. That's the concept. That's where our company comes from.

Legacy Wealth Group, is leave the world a little better than we found it through intentional work and purpose. That's where it comes from.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Love it. And then, um, do you also work with the, the client, let's say again, higher, higher revenue high profit. They're, they're, they're doing well. Uh, but they also have some other desires for capital expenditure within the business to grow the business.

Maybe it is buying office, real estate, maybe it's, uh, uh, capital for equipment, things like that. Do you work with 'em to say, okay, let's put this amount into the, uh, into the defined benefit plan? Let's. Put this amount, reinvest it in the business, help them out with that type of stuff.

Chris Gandy: Yeah. I mean, we're a coach.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Right. What does a coach do? Help draws plays. Right? What do you do? Help execute the plays, so, so a lot of times it's, and and again, a lot of times, a lot of times as entrepreneurs, [00:20:00] myself included, how often do we get a chance to talk to someone and tell people what we want? Yeah. Right. Very rare.

Right? And, and, and the reason why is because everybody's coming to us telling us what we, what they want, right? Our employees, right? You got this vendor, whatever, here's what they want. Right? And we're having to actually constantly react. There's very few times people get a chance to say, here's what I want.

Help me, help me envision how to do it, and the strategy. And so that's, that's what we, that's who we are. That's how we, how we help people.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Now if you could for us, um, I just want to define a little bit what the defined benefit plan is.

Give our audience a little bit of a, an overview there.

Chris Gandy: A defined benefit plan is a fancy way of saying a pension plan. Mm-hmm. Right. And so. If we think about the most successful people in the world as it deals with never running outta money. Yep. They are people that have guaranteed income for the rest of their life.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Right. Most entrepreneurs don't have that. Yeah. [00:21:00] So firefighters, police officers, or civil servants. Then you have the military. You have that university, uh, professors, things like that. They have pensions. Why were pensions so great. If we rewind the tape back to the 1970s where our grandparents were so amazingly successful financially, they used to buy the, you know, grandparents used to buy Cadillacs all.

How did you get a good new Cadillac? Well, at the end of the day, they never ran outta money because guess what? The checks kept coming regardless of how much they saved. So there was three legs of the stool in retirement. Back in the 1970s, the first leg was how much money they saved and put away and pillaged and, and, and saved on their own.

Mm-hmm. The second were retirement plans that they put their money into like a 401k or plans like that. And the third one was a pension plan. Mm-hmm. That their company And because most of your people own companies, right? Yeah. Their company put money into for the benefit of them.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Allowed for them to say when they [00:22:00] retired.

Here, this amount of money I'm going to get every month mm-hmm. For the rest of my life. And then when I die, 50% of that is going to my spouse for the rest of their life. Right? Yeah. And so those three things combined mm-hmm. Allowed for people to never run outta money. Gotcha. And then you dump in social security.

And social security was a gap filler, not a, not a actual hardcore leg. It was a gap filler that filled the gap between what we saved and what we didn't. So if we go back and just rewind the fundamental part of it, most people have relied on saving a little bit of money. Mm-hmm. We hope social security is going to be there and all the pensions have basically, essentially dried up because at the very large companies, yeah.

The crafts. The apples, those type of companies, there's too many people to be able to do that with. And so the pension strategy is still there. [00:23:00] Mm-hmm. Especially for smaller, more entrepreneurial businesses and the, and the tax reduction part of it is so large. Mm-hmm. That people can really get. I say wild and crazy with it, and I'll give you a great example of this.

I have a practice that sold for $17 million in Los Angeles about three years ago. Mm-hmm. Well, if you know anything about California, California likes the state tax, right? They like to make up the difference in state tax. So, uh, his effective tax rate was 47% on his 17 million bucks. So if you, if you do the math on that, let was just say 50, just to keep our life simple.

'cause we don't want to, you know, break out the calculator here, but on 17 million you figure that we're gonna have an eight, eight and a half million debt dollar tax bill. That was not copacetic for him. Mm-hmm. So knowing that the sale was coming, we took part of the shares and we put it in a separate company.

Mm-hmm. [00:24:00] We then took part of the shares, kept it in the main company where he received that, and then, uh, part of the, part of the buyout was paid over a course of a two year period of time versus one. Right. So we were able to separate it into two years. So the 17 million became eight. We paid 8 million in December and 8 million in January, right?

Mm-hmm. Still the same money. Yeah. So we were able to separate it over a course of two years. What we were able to do with the 8 million is now we had part of the shares go over here, so we set up a, a defined benefit plan over here. Remember the 401k was only 50,000, so it was negligible. But we were able to advance, pay the defined benefit plan, almost $2 million a piece.

Mm-hmm. So we essentially took his, call it $8 million and on paper made it look like four. Yep. Now he's got access to those assets. 'cause he was over 60. 'cause all he had to do is be over 60 so he can take those assets out in the future. [00:25:00] Yeah. And now he paid taxes on 4 million. We effectively took his $8 million tax rate and say 4 million in taxes.

And we brought it all the way down to about 1,000,003, 1,000,004 when it was all said and done, $2 million on the total amount when it was all said and done compared to what it would've been. So there's a great example of planning. No understanding and understanding how to really take advantage of it.

And we took full advantage of it. And now those assets are in his portfolio versus in the IRS's, uh, you know, portfolio and doing whatever it's doing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: I love it. And so, uh, obviously for our audience, you know, the 401k has got a lot of limitations on how much can be put in there. Uh, the defined benefit plan is more of like a pension that ultimately down the road will, will pay you, is it age 60 when it would, uh, start paying you?

Chris Gandy: You can set it up, you can set it up for 55, 60, 65, or. And at the end you can roll it over in a lump sum. You can, you know, just like pension options, you can roll it [00:26:00] over in a lump sum, you can take it over 10 years, you can take it over 15, you can take it over 20, you can take it over a lifetime. You can take it over your lifetime of you and your spouse.

You know, there's multiple ways to take it. Mm-hmm. Um, but the fun thing that your people are, are, are, are liking. Mm-hmm. And I know specifically the, the couple that are in your group right now mm-hmm. Is we learned a way. Through a platform that we work with of how to take a chunk out of it tax free later on in life.

So the ability to put in money. Mm-hmm. 60% of it's still gonna be taxed in normal income when you pull it out. Yeah. But 30% of the money that comes out will come out in a tax free basis later on. So we figured that out too. And they love that. They're like, why can't we put more money in that bill? 'cause the IRS specifically says, in documentation you could only have 30% Yeah.

In some of those tools. So, but. It's still a win. It's, it's still a beautiful thing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, I love it. And so [00:27:00] that's kind of the, the tax reduction side of things and obviously there's a lot more to it and that's what you help people with. Um, when you structure folks and kinda get their organizations really on point, um, is there an asset protection aspect to that as well?

And, and if so, what is that?

Chris Gandy: Yeah, well there is because. Think of it, you know, I like to talk about things in a way where people can understand it, even if they're not talking to me or someone in my business. Just think about it. If we're gonna go build a castle. Over in England.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: And we're gonna go back to when there was wars and people were taking castles.

And they were taking kingdoms. Are we gonna build that castle with no, no, no gate around it, or no mode around it, or no nothing to protect it so they can come in and take the queen. That's not what we're gonna do. We need to protect our assets. We live in a world, and I want your people to hear me. We live in a world where litigation is silly.

Even if it's not you. It's [00:28:00] silly, right? Mm-hmm. It's, well, you know what? I know, I understand. I Googled you and you are, you, you're, you're a, oh, you're successful. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna throw a frivolous lawsuit towards you. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, at the end of the day, it costs to get rid of the litigations.

Yes.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Right. And and lots of times it's not what you're doing in your practice. 'cause people are like, I got insurance in my practice. No, it's the things that happen outside of your practice. You got a text message from me saying, look, we got 20% on our money. Yeah. And you're like, oh my gosh. And now you hit some.

Now you know what they're like. It exceeds your umbrella or exceeds your limitations, and now all of a sudden there's a liability on your assets. We want to make sure everybody on here, your assets are contained in structures where they cannot be pierced. Yeah, that is critically. Important. Litigation liability, same type of thing.

Your ability to protect your assets from the things that we don't know out there that exist, whether it's [00:29:00] from living too long, dying too soon, someone else trying to make sure they take advantage of you, litigation, like those are things that we need to protect assets from. So I believe that trust are super important.

Mm-hmm. Now with that being said, the right. Kind. I was gonna say it one more time. The right kind of trust are the most important. Mm-hmm. Uh, the trust is not the tool to say, I'm gonna reduce my taxes. A trust is designed to protect assets from outside influence. That's what they're designed to do. Are there some with tax advantages?

Yes. Um, but the idea would simply, think of it like this. All your people should not own much of any of it. They're either corporations, their trust and or their, their, their structure should own most of it. Mm-hmm. And so if you're listening to my voice and you say, well, I own my house. I own, I own everything, I'm the king.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, the [00:30:00] easiest way for you to lose that is a litigation liability and or taxation. And it makes more sense for if you own things. For you to have trust to own them versus you. The trust is more powerful anyways. Yeah. It could live through one generation, not just one your lifetime, our lifetime, but also two, three lifetimes.

So it's, it's a very powerful tool if you understand how to use it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And I think that's a big thing that people don't realize. As you start to build out assets, you know, you definitely have to get someone in your corner to, uh, protect that. And so, um, protect the money you got coming in from a tax standpoint, protect it from an asset protection standpoint.

Make sure your organizations are, are on, on point there. And I think that's something that not enough doctors are realizing these days.

Chris Gandy: Yeah. And even, even the idea of, you know, it used to be really awesome for us to own things. Yep. Right. But it's fair to say some of the most successful people that I know own very [00:31:00] little.

Mm-hmm. Now they control a lot, right? Yeah. Because of, you know, they control their trust or the beneficiary of their trust, or they control their company, but they've given away the ownership mm-hmm. Of a lot of things, like I've just said to you. Yeah. If you don't own 51% or 50%, people are like, I split it with my husband 50%.

No, no, no.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: You cannot own the majority shares. Mm-hmm. 50 49 is okay. Yeah. Or if you own 1%, it's okay. Right. It, it's okay at times. Right. And I think there's a, you know, there's, part of that is the psychological part, especially people that build businesses, right. Is that I'm gonna take over the world and I'm gonna kill it, I'm gonna crush it, I'm gonna do amazing things and I'm gonna take, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave my indelible mark on society and it's gonna be the most amazing thing ever.

And so there's that a personality. I was a former athlete, not only a college athlete, but a professional athlete. Mm-hmm. I can, I can do anything and everything. Right. And so that, that ego part of it [00:32:00] is what's stopping some of even, and your listeners from actually moving to a place where they're like, I understand I can have the wealth without having my name on the door, my name on all the stuff, right?

Mm-hmm. To, to, uh, to be successful. Yeah. The definition of success is not who has the name on the door. Definition of success is who has the most at the end.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And, and I would say, you know, it's something I see down here in South Florida a lot is you'll hear, uh, of, you know, residential real estate being purchased.

Like, you know, high net worth individuals are buying third, fourth, 5, 6, 7, you know, eighth home, whatever it is down here. Uh, but it's not bought under their name. It's typically, you'll see it bought as like an LLC or, or some kind of corporation is buying it. That's essentially what you're saying on a big scale, right.

Chris Gandy: Yeah. Like my ho my home is, I, I bought it in a blind trust.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Because I didn't want people to know who loaned it. Right. And so, um, and when I bought it, the, the lady had [00:33:00] decided I, I had actually made an offer. It's kind of a funny story. I had the lady, I had made an offer on the house and the lady was like, no, I'm not selling it.

I don't care how much you offer me. And I'm like, okay, fine. So then I made my blind trust to actually make an offer at $10,000 less. And she took it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Chris Gandy: Not sure why. Mm-hmm. But she took it. And so you don't know who actually owns the blind trust until we show up at the closing. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I remember that the look on her face when I showed up at the closing mm-hmm.

She's like, well, what you doing here? I, I didn't sell you the house. And I was actually, no, you didn't, you sold it to my trust. I was, it was kind of funny. But there are ways for you to actually mm-hmm. Be able to have corporations. Not only that. Corporate corporations like Delaware. Mm-hmm. You know, also, Florida's a very, very nice state, but there's certain states in Nevada, there's certain states and corporations are incorporated at, where they're more taxed advantage than if we, we, we don't have that.

So just understanding that I didn't, I [00:34:00] don't have, I'm not an accountant. I'm not an attorney, I'm an advisor, but I work with accountants, I work with attorneys, I work with those people. And if sometimes people have people like that

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Chris Gandy: Um, then we ingratiate, we ingratiate, we integrate with them to make sure that we have, and again, you don't have to fire your advisor.

Sometimes they need to be fired 'cause they don't know what they're doing. But that's a different, um, you know, they've gotten lazy to the point. But, you know, sometimes it makes sense for us just to enhance or compliment. Some of the things that are already there, um, and to make sure that it's done the right way so that, uh, you know, it's, they can build another pile of wealth for themselves.

Yep.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Well, Chris, this has been informative and very helpful. I know it could probably be a four hour episode to dive into it, but that's why they can reach out to you and, and have the conversation and I think it's, it's definitely worth having the conversation. Uh, how can they find your information and reach out?

We'll put it in the show notes.

Chris Gandy: Sure. Well, they can reach out to me on email. [00:35:00] Mm-hmm. Uh, and or you can call my, my, uh, I'd say my scheduling person and we also have a Calendly mm-hmm. Link where I can present that too. So if Perfect. You would like, I can give my phone number and email on here, or you can place it wherever you want.

Yeah, do

Dr. Kevin Christie: just do the email and then we'll put all the other threes. We'll get a separate, uh, from you on an email to get it from you and we'll put it in the show notes.

Chris Gandy: Okay. Great. My email is c. Gandy, G-A-N-D-Y, like candy with a GC Gandy at Midwest legacy LL c.com. C gandy@midwestlegacyllc.com. And if they say that they were, uh, heard you, you know, on the title mm-hmm.

You know, they can say, you know, podcast, um, you know, interview. Define benefit, something along those lines or your name, if they say your name mm-hmm. [00:36:00] Um, or your podcast name and the title, it'll allow for us to be able to pick it out and be like, okay, we need to schedule a time with them. And I'll give you the Calendly link.

You can go direct, perfect. Press the button, boom, you're in our calendar. And, uh, again, in the title, if you just press, you know, say the name of the podcast, define Benefit Inquiry. I, I'm more than willing to have conversations along those lines.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Sounds great. Well, this was, uh, informative and I, uh, it didn't disappoint.

I hadn't heard about this from a few of our members for a while now and been wanting to get you on, so thanks for your time today.

Chris Gandy: I appreciate it, Kevin. Thanks.