Hi All,

Nobody likes taxes. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to reduce your tax burden. The right way to cut your taxes is to take all legally allowable deductions, the wrong way to do it is to engage in fraud. Here eight signs that indicate someone might be cheating on their taxes.

1) Understating income by denying its receipt and then not being able to offer a satisfactory explanation for the omission.

2) Concealing accounts with banks, brokerage firms or hiding ownership of property.

3) Repeatedly failing to make deposit receipts into business accounts.

4) Manipulating personal expenses to appear as business expenses.

5) Taking excessive religious and charitable donations.

6) Showing substantial unexplained increases in net worth over a period of years.

7) Showing a large excess of personal expenditures over available resources.

8) Failing to file a return, especially over several years , while receiving substantial amounts of taxable income.

Tax evasion is a serious crime. Billionaire Leona Helmsley the “Queen of Mean” spent 19 months in federal prison for claiming personal expenses as business expenses (here). Mobster Al-Capone was sent to Alcatraz Island, as he could not account for the source of his $100 million dollars in illicit income- that’s 1.2 Billion in today’s money with inflation factored in (here).

Best,

James

MANAGE YOUR MONEY TOGETHER

Here are some simple guidelines for DINKS to build wealth:

1) Collaborate: Meet regularly to talk about money, set goals together, track and monitor them.

2) Understand and respect your partner. Take time to understand your partners values about money.

3) Watch the numbers. Get a budget, monitor your spending and track your net worth.

4) Max your retirement. Maximize contributions to your tax deferred retirement accounts.

5) Invest in stock. Stocks perform better than bonds or cash.

6) Avoid high interest debt. Credit cards and title loans are financial cancer.

7) Diversify. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

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