All Forum Posts by: Mike Harris

Just curious... has anyone tried to lease, rent, or resell data lists? I know that the commercial sites don't generally allow you to resell their data, but I generate my own data from public sources (eg: government web-sites).

I use the data personally to assess the market, generate trends/leads, etc, but I was thinking the other day that other people might be interested in the data.

Thanks!

Michael

PS -- here's a link: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/05/commonquestions.asp

The key phrase: "The rules regarding contribution limits for multiple plans for multiple businesses are different if the businesses have a common ownership or affiliation"

I know my way around taxes but am not an accountant. I encountered this scenario personally a few years ago. I read and decided the 52k limit as an absolute limit per person, irrespective of # of companies or company ownership.

If you think about it, it makes sense. If the IRS allowed you to deduct 52k per business, wouldn't everyone who wanted to deduct more just form series LLCs or multiple subsidiaries, and pay themselves accordingly?

Equally important, since the non-compliance penalties are ridiculously harsh, it tends to drive you towards absolute avoidance of compliance risk. And also since the numbers are provided to the IRS annually on your W2, there is no chance that the IRS would miss the data (eg: its not like you're playing against the 1% audit risk, there's 100% certainty of the computer seeing and interpretting the data)

That said, I think the root of your question is: "if I make enough money, can I shelter more than the max" and the answer is: "of course you can, you just do it in different ways."

Common methods to defer more income:
- employ your children or spouse. Note there are no social security/medicare taxes due on household employees, and they are ALSO entitled to 17.5k in individual contribution PLUS the company benefit.
- 401ks are defined contribution plans. You can also setup a defined benefit plan (eg: pension) and contribution limits are correlated to how much pension you grant yourself and your employees.
- change your business structure and earn dividends instead of salary income
- purchase life insurance
- shelter income through harvestable losses (eg: real estate or other investments that provide for accelerated depreciation)
- use traditional IRAs... either non-deductible versions or back-door conversions to ROTH iRAs.

Is there the added complication that you are attached to a 401k because you're using the money in your 401k to self-fund the business?

-mh

Just a quick reminder that the DC tax sale is this Monday. Is anyone else attending and planning to bid?

Anyone interested in the DC data set in Excel (not a PDF)?

Some experience, but there are a lot of people out there with more experience.

Upfront, I'll warn you that purchasing tax liens at auction is probably not a great way to start real estate investing. And also, that most properties redeem... so its rare to get a home-run ball advertised in get-rich quick schemes. Still, its plausible you can make a reasonable ROI.

High level, there are people who don't pay their property tax bill. DC needs the money, and rather than collect it themselves, they auction the lien to you. You aren't a collection agency per se, but you can file to foreclose if the owner doesn't redeem the lien. There are things you must do to comply with the law, and under some scenarios, you can lose your investment (eg: if you don't file for foreclosure on time).

It looks like DC finally posted their 2014 tax sale information... sale date will be July 14, 2014.

I get the sense they are running late this year. Normally, they advertise the sale in early June, this year late June. They usually give a 3-4 weeks notice before their "how to" seminars, this time around 7 days (already past), etc.

Anyway, for those interested:

DC Tax Sale Site

Anyone interested in a meet-up/planning session?

NOTE: There are new rules in place for both interest rate and abusive attorney's fees. I'm curious whether this will dissuade the big money buyers or not. 

Ultimately, the profits follow risk/investment. If you risk little, you return little. If you risk a lot (~$1.1m for your project), you'd expect a healthy return.

There's no shame to passing up the "bulk of the profits." Assuming you have a real good deal, you'll be able to wholesale it, and even if you are taking only a slice of the projected 250-400k in profit, you get it upfront, at closing, without waiting 3-6 months to get out.

Sorry to hear about the down year, but it basically describes the DC auction last year.

In DC, you overbid which impacts your yield. You are also able to collect reasonable attorney's fees. The smart-money substantially overbid, and I couldn't figure out why the big guys were willing to accept close to 0% yield.

The Post had an expose on this over the winter... these firms are farming the legal work to affiliated layers who were charging ridiculous legal fees, I presume for a kick-back. So I found the answer to my question: "they aren't making money off the yields, they are making money off fraud."

BTW -- the big money didn't show up until 20-30 minutes into the auction. Be the early worm.

Did anyone else goto DC's tax sale? I found the returns to be exceedingly low, interested in other opinions.

BTW -- DC posted their vacant land list
http://otr.cfo.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/otr/publication/attachments/TrueVacantPropertiestobeAdvertisedon7172013.pdf

Greetings!

For anyone interested, the DC tax lien auction is July 15-17th this year. DC is accepting registration/deposits starting on July 8th.

Anyone else here planning to attend/bid?

-Michael