Are you aware of how the tax bracket creep affects your brand?
As a business owner, you’re working hard and taking time to build your business. The last thing you think about is how the more thriving and successful you become, the more the government wants from you. When your company grows, the tax bracket seems to rise continuously with your cash flow, making you wonder whether all the extra effort for success is worth it.
It’s not just enough to have a thriving business — you must also learn how to safeguard and protect your money. Wherever you are on your business journey, here are two things you can start doing today as part of your money strategy:
- Learn from others how to leverage your money to sustain itself.
- Make intelligent decisions that multiply your money.
If you’re looking for inspiration to grow your business and your wealth, you’re in for a treat. Tony Palmer’s inspiring story of building a side hustle into a successful company, making smart business decisions to save taxes, and leveraging private lending in the property market to multiply his money has lessons for us all.
Who Is Tony Palmer?
Tony Palmer hails from the Bay area, moving to Roseville, California, almost 30 years ago, and resides there with his wife and children. His move was prompted by the entertainment company he worked for needing him to be the general manager of a newly opened waterpark.
The move prompted Tony to draw on his previous experience and have a life-changing idea.
“I said, ‘Hey, I used to work for a sign company when I was a kid – why don’t we get our own sign equipment?’ … I started making signs and that exploded for me. I had my side hustle going at the same time I was working for the waterpark and within six or seven years, I had more income at night than I did during the day.” – Tony Palmer
Today, roughly 50% of Tony’s business comes from vinyl signage, the kind you see on cars and buses. Another 30% of his business comes from apparel, t-shirts, embroidery, and screen printing. Instead of sending customers away because he doesn’t specialize in their desired branded merch, Tony expanded his product offering to cater to a broader market.
“We wanted to be a one-time shop so people don’t end up going to 50 different places trying to get things done. We would have their logo, we knew their colors, [and] they didn’t have to worry about things… our business has been very successful [and] it’s afforded me opportunities to do other things.” – Tony Palmer
With his increased business success, one of Tony’s current goals is to transition out of the industry over the next ten years — which led Tony to consider joining PMC. One major draw for Tony was to explore how others in the community make deals that help them protect their finances and successfully navigate their tax quandaries.
Tony’s Journey to Make His Money Work for Him Through Private Lending
As Tony’s sign business grew and he gained surplus money, he began to search for ways to grow his money and reduce the amount the government took in taxes as he climbed into higher tax brackets.
“My whole thing is how do I legally shelter the most money as possible? I’ll pay [the government], but I’m not paying them a nickel more than I need to. I have been working on finding out different tax strategies, different ways of taking the money and making it work the best for us in a tax-free shelter or tax growth.” – Tony Palmer
To protect his business from increased taxes, Tony started to offset the profit by purchasing property through his company. He joined forces with others to minimize his risk and has equity shares in several properties thanks to a partnership with First National Realty Partners.
“It’s usually a three-year hold. We are part owners or equity partners in three properties and they’re big mall centers. [FNRP will] buy mall centers, keep them funded, and then we move on to something else. [We partner with] First National Realty Partners [and I’m in] three different properties. It’s about a quarter of a million dollars within them.” – Tony Palmer
Tony is happy with how the deal is doing, yielding him a return, which he gets in the form of a quarterly dividend. Tony can either put that money back into the portfolio or wait until the deal closes and pull the money. Additionally, he is able to assess the depreciation on these properties and use that to help shelter Tony’s company from higher taxes.
“One of the things that I was attracted to is that we can do advanced depreciation on it so we can depreciate those properties and help offset taxes. That was another thought that was behind that, more so than the growth that we receive.” – Tony Palmer
Besides the strategies he already had in place before finding Private Money Club, what stood out for Tony was the valuable way he can use [PMC] to educate himself on learning strategies to help shelter his business. Being part of the [PMC] community has enabled him to connect with other members with the ability to offer deals to help him protect his business from tax bracket creep.
Tony’s Money Strategy with Private Money Club
As someone who built his empire by simply seeing an opportunity while working in corporate, Tony doesn’t try to put all his eggs in one basket. By becoming a member of the Private Money Club community, he’s gained plenty of opportunities to meet other members with various specialties.
“I’ve connected with [Rob and] Nicole Fuller. [We connected because] my thought was, why would I do other [real estate] deals if it’s about making percentages off your money when I can set up with [Nicole] and the percentages are done? We’re in the process of [setting] that [up now].” – Tony Palmer
Rob and Nicole are amazing people to connect with because of how they structure their deal-making process, especially with Tony’s background in collaborative real estate acquisition. It’s a terrific matchup for Tony because he has to do less homework with the land development based on their experience and the properties they’ve developed.
Tony is also setting up a self-directed retirement account (SDIRA) with Horizon. An SDIRA allows you to save for retirement on a tax-advantaged basis and has the same IRA contribution limits. The difference between self-directed and other IRAs is the types of assets you own through your account.
“We can take some of our money in the IRA and move it over into [the SDIRA]. We’ll put anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000 into that and then take the dividends and use [them] elsewhere. We’re trying to create different cash flows coming in.” – Tony Palmer
Tony’s deal-making strategies also accelerate his retirement plans because his self-directed IRA allows him to grow his retirement savings more quickly. With an understanding that he plans to retire in ten years, it’s essential to have options to ensure their cash flow is livable.
How Tony Is Working Towards His Dream Retirement
Tony wants to ensure that most of their debt is knocked off before they retire, and he is currently well on his way to making that dream come true.
“Our home is almost paid off. Our building will be paid off before our home. We set a bunch of refinances up a few years ago, which we are really lucky because we got our home at like 1.9%, and this building is at 3%. The building [we own] will be paid off in five years, and then our home not far off that. It doesn’t make sense for us to pay [our home] because [the interest rates] are so low. But our other debts that we have, that’s what we’re knocking off.” – Tony Palmer
By connecting with other PMC members, Tony can match his private lending preferences with other members looking for funding for their projects. It’s a perfect match!
Tony has a very clear understanding of what he wants to achieve with PMC members, and he’s excited to see how the deals he makes through those connections will continue the growth of his retirement funds.
Additionally, Tony feels blessed to love what he does at his signage company and enjoys it immensely. So retirement for him is less about not working as it is about being able to do more things that he and his wife love.
“My wife is from Canada, we lived there for a few years when I was younger. We would love to buy a home up there and then transition up that direction and kind of flip flop between. The winters in Canada were a little bit colder and so we will probably stay in California. We do have kids here as well [so] we would be bouncing back and forth between.” – Tony Palmer
Tony is especially proud that his retirement is one hundred percent what he has created. It takes a great deal of self-knowledge to know what you want to do in your retirement and implement the plans today that set you up for success.
That’s probably the number one concern people have about retirement — peace of mind, spending more time doing what you love rather than counting pennies and constantly wondering if your money will last.
Lessons Tony Learned from Other Private Money Club Members
One of the best ways to learn is through other people. You can have someone write theories on a whiteboard and tell you how things work in a class — but Tony wants to hear what you are doing because that’s the proof to him.
“That’s something that I do love about Private Money Club too, is that everybody is sharing the stuff that they’re doing besides just the lending back and forth on real estate. There’s a whole lot more that you can learn from people in there. To me it’s hearing it over and over again until it completely gels into my system. What I want to do is listen to it, really understand it forwards, backwards, all the different ways of doing it. Then I have an ability to adapt it into something else.” – Tony Palmer
In one meeting with other PMC members, Tony walked away with a new way to think about using money from his business for luxury items he’s always wanted — like high-end cars.
“In one of the discussions, [I learned about] the ability for me to loan the company money and then let the company pay that back. We [want] a high-end car; I need the company to have an expense. I thought, Why don’t I use the insurance policy, pull the money out, take that money, pay the loan off on that vehicle, then make a loan from personally from me to the company. The company pays me, then I get the deduction of the interest that I can write off, but it’s paying me, so it doesn’t matter.” – Tony Palmer
What an excellent example of making your money work. Here Tony gets the benefit of cheaper interest rates and saving himself on taxes because he can turn a loan he was already paying into a business expense. Understanding how to apply these insights is one of the main benefits Tony feels he gets from meeting with other community members at Private Money Club.
You Can Learn More from Other PMC Members
Through the Private Money Club, Tony has continued learning and expanding his knowledge about his money. Going from having a mini signage empire that started as a side hustle to creating real estate deals has helped Tony create his ultimate goal of financial freedom, especially for his retirement.
If you’ve read Tony’s story today and thought to yourself, I want to take control of my finances and learn about taxes in the same way. You’re in the right place!
Private Money Club has a wealth of resources for those looking to create a more secure future, connect with other like-minded individuals, or learn the ropes of real estate from other community members. If you’re curious about private finance and looking to find exciting projects, work out deals easily, and make magic happen, it’s time to get involved.
Visit the website today to become a club member and start turning your dreams into a reality!