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Leaha Crawford and Rhonda Nolen are business consultants that discuss the current struggles of small business owners and entrepreneurs. Each episode covers steps necessary for smaller businesses and business owners to grow and prosper.
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You're listening to locally produced programming created in
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KUNV Studios on public radio. KUNV 91.5. The following is a paid
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program sponsored by Crawford Management Group and Smart Time Consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you hear do not represent the views of 91.5 Jazz and More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the of higher education.
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Hi Leah, how are you doing? Happy Saturday morning.
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Happy Saturday morning.
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It is such a beautiful, warm morning, but I'm happy to be here. I know you are and I am happy, happy to see you.
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Happy to see you too.
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What are we doing today?
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Oh my God, we are talking about everything that's been going on. It's been an eventful week in Las Vegas. Lots of people coming to town, hanging out, having a good time conventions are back up people are moving and shaking and spending money but entrepreneurs out there did you exercise today you know I was gonna ask that question yeah I'm just gonna tell y'all she was exercising there she limping now I am she was limping I am but not because I was exercising or hard or anything like that I slipped and fell and I sprained my foot. So I'm just getting back back to back to business Well, we wish you well Rhonda because we know you are out there encouraging us. That's right it out and exercise just walk That's right. So don't be careful. Watch your step when you're walking. Watch your step Watch those five things in once like I was just if you walk and walk Don't walk talking to bubblegum because you might trip and fall.
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That's right, that's right. But we're so excited today because we're going to talk about money. And we have an expert in the building today. We have Uncle Dan from Uncle Dan's Consulting. Hi Uncle Dan, how are you doing today?
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I'm just blessed, happy to be here, happy to be with you lovely ladies on a Saturday
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morning.
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Good, good, good.
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For all you entrepreneurs out there, Uncle Dan has information that you may want to know about. Yeah, you want to know what Uncle Dan, we were just having a conversation and we were talking about crypto. And crypto is a conversation that a lot of us don't have because we don't know. But you were sitting here, you, baby, you were really dropping some knowledge. Like if I, I'm just going to jump right in. If I wanted to start trading or buying crypto, first of all, what should I do first if I'm even interested in crypto? I'll tell you exactly what you do first. You start
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doing your research and you start really trying to just understand everything because there are so many scammers and people out there ready to steal your money. You don't just jump in the crypto and say hey I'm gonna start doing crypto. No, what you do is you take your time, you go in there's a lot of free courses on YouTube, but I just found a Really free site. It's the cash to crypto society cash to crypto society Just as a sound yes, and they have everything laid out to you If you're a beginner and you want to learn you're right if you want to learn this take your time Don't try to jump in I'm gonna get rich real quick. No you have to know what you're doing. Say that again. No, say that again. If you jump in and you think you're going to get rich real quick, I got news for you. It's not going to happen. Don't listen to all the stories out there. This person did this. You know what? It happens very rarely. OK, but if you do your due diligence and consistent and consistent, now you do have the opportunity to possibly do that. But you got to learn the ropes first.
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Now do you invest in crypto?
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I do.
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Now have you lost in crypto?
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Of course. I've lost and I've gained and I've lost and we just went through the crypto winter.
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That sounds like the stock market. It sounds very similar to the stock market. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
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You know what it is? It's almost identical to the stock market. It really is. It's the trading, the up, the market goes up, the market goes down. But it's like being in the beginning of the stock market, when it first started. And it's all about the technology. It's not about this coin, that coin, crypto coins. People need to understand that the technology behind the blockchain is what makes crypto go. And what I mean by that is blockchain technology is almost impossible to hack. Okay and just imagine when I do workshops, which I haven't done in a while, but when I did my last one, just imagine instead of on a football field, instead of all those football players out there, times those football players by ten. And instead of them being a football player, they are computer programmers. And what they're doing is they're creating this massive maze. So when you purchase a Bitcoin or whatever, you know they're different blockchains, but just assume it's Bitcoin. When you purchase it, it's gonna go from one of those computer programmers to the next one, to the next one. It's like a giant maze that is going to get confirmed. And then that transaction that you did with crypto is now on, it's on the blockchain where you can see it. And again, blockchain technology, and people, if you're thinking about this, look it up, because it's just a more efficient way to do business. And the key to it is if you're ever going to get into it, do your research, you want to take a look and see the people that are going to get rich are the people that figure out, okay, what is being done right now, how is that being done, okay, and then how is blockchain technology going to do it better, and when you find the coins that are backed up by that, those are the ones you want to find. So that's as a result, like I said, you know, it's a learning experience, but we need to know it.
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So you don't like Joe blow mining over there. You might not just want to buy his coin. You just want to make sure that the coin has to have utility. Got to have you.
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OK, it has to do something.
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What does it do?
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How does it affect what we're currently doing right now? If you can answer that question, then, you know, if you pick the right one, there's a possibility it could be life changing for you.
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Life changing.
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Does anybody really know what the right one is? I have an idea of several, but you know, it's like you're probably looking at the next.
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So it's like trying to pick the AT&T 50 like 60 years ago. Absolutely right. Because the people that bought AT&T stock in the beginning had no clue. They were just, you know, we're going to buy this. We're not using telephones yet. You know, we're using something right because I remember when we were talking about it and people saying you know the coins, coins are coming because we've been talking about Bitcoin now for like a decade or so now. But just where we're going with it. I'll tell you not
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right now what's gonna happen in the next three to five years that's that's what you want to look at, right? What I'm talking about doing a due diligence and finding the technology behind it. What is it going to be if you pick the right one in, you know, three to five years? There are some some predictions out there that are just mind blowing. But again, they also say the experts now that probably 98 percent of the crypto currencies out there, and there are over 20,000 of them right now. Yes, are going to be done.
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They're not going to be able.
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The government is going to say, look, you don't do any technology. You're just a... just like nothing. There's nothing behind what you're doing and a lot of people think that they're going to shut those down. So that's why you have to do
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your due diligence. Have to do your due diligence. Yes. All right, so we are listening to Uncle Dan educate us about Bitcoin and I know for me it's learning because I have a few... I know a few people that deal in it. I know some that really lost big and it was devastating, but I know some that have gained and they were, you know, super excited.
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You know what happens? People, people don't know, just like in the stock market, people don't know when to sell, right? The market goes up and you just think it's going to continue to go and go and go. Then, then the, uh, what they call them, the whales, right? You know, they have bought, they bought it say really cheap less than a penny you know it's like those going you guys remember that those going those coin went up 50 cents plus but people were buying that when it was like not even a quarter of a penny super less a lot of the celebrities were buying that like real cheap and then when it got up I think I think it was around 55 cents a coin what happened was the whales took their profit so that means that they started they probably started selling right around 40 cents or so a little bit here and there because they didn't want to market the crash at one time but as they start everything starts going and they start making that money guess what happens all the people who heard about those going and start cash still buying into it the coin just
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scheme? Well, yeah, it does. It's like a stock. It's a stock though. They do the same thing in the stock market. In the stock market, because you got to think about it, you know, when, and I, well I'm not going to use that example, but just think about it. You've got the stock that's out there and why it's hot, you know, because you have your IPO, your initial public offering. So before they even hit the market, they're trying to buy, get investors or whatever so they can have their IPO. And most people make money off the IPO because when it hits the market, that's when the price goes up, right? So if I was an early investor and whatever it is, right? I make my money then now I might choose to stay in or I might choose You know to sell on that day and take my winnings and go and the thing with the stock market at is taxable Okay, cuz it's very well documented and I was like I was telling uncle Dan I was like y'all think the IRS is bad, try the SEC. Mess with the SEC. Something told me, and we use an acronym, either the Internal Revenue Service or the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'll take my hat with the IRS.
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I'll take your chances with the IRS.
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I'll take my chances with the IRS.
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That's saying something.
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I'll take my chances.
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I will. I'll take my chances with the IRS. The SEC is a whole different animal. It is. But it is the thing about it is even as an accountant, when you talk about CPA, public accounting, that's SEC, a lot of times when you're dealing with the big firms, and you just really there are a lot of rules in place because they are the ones that put out the financial statements, right, that investors look at. So they want to make sure because look at like remember Enron, you know, a big firm went down because of Enron nationwide. You know so you really have to look at their they want to make sure that we as accountants are you know just what we're saying that they're doing is true. It's true. It's true. You know we give Peloton. Right. You know they had a material weakness. A material weakness and what that means and it's only one material weakness and you get a not so good opinion.
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Right.
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That can change the life of a company. And it's huge. So you have to really understand, you know, understand. And that's a lot of pressure because, you know, I got to go in there and tell you, OK, you know, you're not doing that right. You know, I remember when I was taking the exam and the woman was saying, you know, there's God and then there's the auditor. Right. And I was like, oh, that's deep.
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That's real deep.
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That's deep. But when she was laying out just the responsibility of the profession, when it comes to, especially public companies, it's real. And when we talk about blockchain, because we had to talk about that too, it's like, you know, right now it's not regulated.
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And that's the thing. A lot of people, when that regulation comes, we don't know when that's going to happen.
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You don't know when that's going to happen.
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That's when a lot of the, when it's like mainstream, then that's when people are going to, it can be life changing for a lot of people. But right now that hasn't happened yet. So everybody's kind of, you make a little, you lose a little. It's not a big deal. Don't go in there again thinking you're going to get rich all of a sudden, because this is just not going to happen. Because you don't know when regulation comes, but when it does come...
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When it does come, and we just had that conversation about the court case that XRP and Ripple just won against the SEC, which is huge.
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It's very huge.
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That's huge.
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unprecedented and it's the only regulated coin in the entire crypto industry. Because you know everybody looks at what's going on in the United States. Right. And that being the case, you know, the powers that be are not in favor of crypto because you know it's affecting the traditional dollar. And again, that's why they're regulating all these exchanges. But again, it was really when this first came out, it was unregulated.
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And I wouldn't say regulating, I would say monitoring. There you go. Because they're not regulating it. Right, correct.
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They're monitoring.
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Correct. And they're looking at what is going on, right? I know even when preparing taxes this year, one of the questions is, do you operate in Bitcoin?
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I've seen that.
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I'm sorry, do you operate in virtual, they don't call it Bitcoin, they call it virtual currency.
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I've seen that.
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Do you operate in virtual currency? Because they're asking the question. They get a feel for how many of us are actually starting to operate in virtual currency. Yeah, for sure. It's definitely
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different. Yeah. That's very interesting. But Uncle Dan, I want you to tell our entrepreneur listeners today about the ERC credit. Because I think there's a lot of folks out there that have not taken advantage of that. Tell us a little bit about the ERC.
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Well, the ERC credit was part of the CARES Act, which was passed by Congress.
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And what does ERC mean for us?
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That is your employee retention credit. When they first came out, it was their employee retention tax credit. But basically, they called it a credit. But you're basically if you're a business owner, and you were able to survive COVID in 2020 and 21, and you had W-2 full-time employees who worked at least 30 hours a week, the government is basically rewarding you for staying in business. So when that CARES Act was signed by Donald Trump in March of 2020, it was a that's when everyone got the PPP loan and all of the individuals we got money right? Well at that time ERC was on the table, but the way that Congress wrote the law, you were not eligible if you received a PPP loan. And it was so easy just to go get the PPP loan. We just went to get the PPP loan. All business owners did, right? Right.
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Or the majority of them.
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Right. And so, you know, they're sitting there with over a trillion dollars sitting there and nobody's taking the ERC. So what they do? Change the rules.
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They change the rules.
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They said, you know what, now, because we got to, the way that they wrote that bill in Congress, it was earmarked specifically to give the money to the business owners. Now Congress likes to go in and raid different things that they have, take that money and use it for something else. Well, they can't do that with this. So as a result, they got to get this money moving. And that's when they changed the law. They did. They also what they did is at the time you could have in 2020, you had between one and 100 employees were eligible.
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Well, they've expanded it.
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2021, they made it one to 500 employees. But then the other thing that they did as well is in 2020 you were eligible up to It was like five thousand dollars per employee Well, then again that money sitting there so they changed the rules and they upped it to seven thousand But what they did is in addition to that they said we're gonna give you that seven thousand per quarter Wow Yeah, three quarters. They're eligible. It's a total of six quarters that you can get that, they call it a credit, but it's really a refund. Okay. So you know that's money sitting on the table for business owners and a lot of business owners don't even know it or they hear about
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it. But the hard part is just finding somebody that's credible. Absolutely. That's it right there. I think that more so is the issue, is finding somebody credible because the rules have changed.
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It scares a lot of people as well. You know, I'm doing one right now for a CEO of a non-profit in the Bay Area. She's got like 30 employees and I just called her up. We were going to talk about ERC and she said, because I haven't talked to her for a while, she said, I mentioned ERC to her and she said, well, I thought that was a scam. Exactly. And I hear that a lot.
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Well, I've seen that.
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Well, you know, it's interesting because some well, first of all, it's public knowledge. If you received a PPP loan number one. So what people are what companies are doing is they're going through lists of people who received the PPP loans and they're calling them saying hey, you're entitled to this ERC. Can you send us your information? We'll file it for you. And I'm like, I don't know you like I would I I was like, I don't know
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you.
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I don't know where you got my information from, why you're calling me.
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Just be clear though, and this is what PPP didn't do, because PPP was for a variety of people. Right. So you could have employees, you could be a Schedule C. It was so many things that you did to qualify for PPP. What ERC is saying is, if you had to have employees in 2019, meaning that you had to have filed 941s, you had to have filed W-2s, because that part of the law hadn't changed. And they're basing that payroll in 2019. So you look at your payroll in 2019, see exactly where it was, and then they look at different factors from 2020 going forward. But you have to have 941s and W-2s. So people are like, well, I got 1099s. They don't qualify. You can't get it. They don't qualify because I have a few people that got PPP based off of 1099. Right. And got some calls and I was like, I kind of told you when that happened, it wasn't eligible for PPP as an employer. It was eligible because the 1099 people could have gotten their own PPPs individually. So it was a good conversation, but I'm glad to hear that they've expanded.
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They have expanded.
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And apparently they can't get the money spent because they're still advertising for it.
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75% of business owners across America have not taken the ERC.
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Because they don't know. Because we, yeah, because we're skeptical. Because we're like, hey, wait, I don't know. But I do feel comfortable having that conversation with my tax person, my accountant, you know, whoever is helping me with my numbers. So let me say this. Most accountants, well, I'm not going to say, the ones that I'm familiar with haven't really been. It's a lot of work. Oh, really? It's a lot of work because there's some it's a lot of work, a lot of documentation and what some of the companies that are doing it, they're not collecting their fees and they're doing percentages back in on, you know, whatever you receive. So because people don't have the money up front to pay you. It's a lot of time in that. And then there are
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a lot of companies out there that will charge you up front. I appreciate that. They do and it's like it could be considerable. It could be five hundred, a thousand dollars, two thousand. The highest I've heard was like
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three thousand. Oh wow. And I've heard one like five percent, ten percent. Up front.
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Yeah. Up front. And if that's the case, don't deal with that company. Yes. There are other companies that don't charge. That's the one I'm affiliated with. We don't charge. We charge zero up front. We just do the audit, make sure that your numbers are correct.
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Make sure you qualify.
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Absolutely. And then the IRS is actually closing down some of these companies. They're coming in, getting some accountant and just say, hey, just, you know, do what you do and to get us the money. And wait a minute, you're not being compliant. So IRS has actually come into a lot of shops that are doing that because they start seeing their 941s coming in they're not correct and they're coming back at those companies and the thing that that a business owner has to be careful about is if you deal with one of those companies that may cause an audit for you for you
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absolutely oh wow oh yeah oh yeah cuz I know when we were um it's funny cuz when we were filing the 941s for 2020 because you know normally you can find all the information out there on the IRS website. We couldn't find them. They like took them down. Do you know there's over
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580 pages of IRS code regarding ERC? Oh wow. Do you think all these newbie companies are coming into the space now have read 580 pages? I doubt it. I doubt
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it. But Uncle Dan I want to give you contact information. It is area code 415-756-6007.
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So, is that right?
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That is my direct line.
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Oh, okay. I thought we were going with the direct line. I'm giving you the direct line. The direct line.
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You know, Uncle Dan likes talking to people.
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Okay, I like that.
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I'm old school, you know.
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I'm not the text guy, you know. The only time I text you, if I don't pick up, that means I'm on the other line.
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Let me do that again. 415-756-6007. And ERC, if you were open in 2019, entrepreneurs, and you had the W, hear me when I say W-2 employees, meaning that you filed 941s and you filed W-2s at the end of the year, please
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contact Uncle Denton to see if you qualify for this money. Well the thing that's great about the way we do it is a lot of the companies probably about 90% of them don't want to talk to you unless you have 10w2 employees because it's not profitable for them. Right. And then the other maybe another 5% will do down to 5% but the company I'm with we've done over 60,000 of these and we've gotten you know several several several hundreds of millions of dollars back. Legitly. Legitly. Correct. And we're going we go down to as little if you got one W-2 employee now the rule is it cannot be the business owner or their family. These are legit W-2 people outside of I don't know why they did
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that to the business owner I mean they paid. Because they and that was the other thing too right so it's the business owner so I'm like oh my god. Yeah so I
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Oh my God.
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Yes. So I didn't qualify.
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Yeah, they resent your your your.
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Yeah, but did it matter if you were a S corp?
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I guess you still would be the business owner. Yeah, still the business owner. But how about if the trust owned the business? That's it. Well, you know what? If they paid if they paid the 940 ones and they paid payroll taxes, they're going to
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be eligible. Yeah. Because you think in this in this strategy. So if the truck is a trust can own an escort, right?
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So if you have a trust set
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up to trust owns the escort but you an employee at I'm just saying same same
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thing with a nonprofit church uh-huh a church a lot of churches shut down and then the other thing a lot of people don't know is if they were say you survived it and you ended up going out of business okay it's gonna do it
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anymore couldn't do it anymore you can still get that money Wow
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Say that again Uncle Dan.
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You went out of business.
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I need some hands. I need some hands clapping.
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You know, yeah.
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I need some hands clapping.
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Now there's a little trick to it because they want to make sure, hopefully you did not close down your corporation, which most people don't.
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Right.
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Okay, even if you close down your bank account, there's no rules that said you can't reopen a bank account.
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Right.
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Got it. And so a lot of those people are eligible. The other thing that a lot of people don't know is it's only like a one question application if you were able to start a business in 2020 and 21 and you you know if you know you started probably with by yourself but you would have bring on two three four or five employees guess what that's a startup there's you can get up to $50,000 per year yes we need to talk Uncle Dan. Absolutely.
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That's it.
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If you were able to do it in 20 or 21 and you start, look, you did that 941 and you were able to do it. Two, three, four, five employees. There's money on the table. It's not as much as you'd be if you were in business. But you can still get it.
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A little bit there. Every little bit helps.
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Every little bit.
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You want to know what every little bit helps. But I guess, and I guess the reason why 75% are skeptical is because they don't want to be scammed. They want, I mean, time for an entrepreneur is everything. And where I want to do something like that, I want to make sure that it's somebody that I trust.
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And the other thing that they're scared of is they're scared of an audit. What they don't understand is that it's a whole separate division that's set up within the IRS that only does ERC.
0:25:34
Got it.
0:25:35
Because it's overwhelming for them, and they had to do it like that so they're not mixing the normal income tax division now when might there possibly be a audit if you do something fraudulent if they see that the 941, wait a minute you never even filed a 941 now you're trying to get this money that's a big, if they red flag you then they're going to probably turn it over to the other divisions and then you got to look at an audit. Well I hope people are a little smarter than that.
0:26:01
Thank you.
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And if they did not do things properly, then they should not be signing up for this.
0:26:05
Absolutely.
0:26:06
We always say, have your paperwork together.
0:26:08
Leah and I preach this all the time. But having employees as an entrepreneur is expensive. It is. It is. It is. It's very expensive. And when you're talking about paying somebody even down, let's call it $15 an hour, you're actually paying them like $18, $19 an hour.
0:26:24
Right.
0:26:24
And you really have to plan for paying them that type of you know You have to plan for that right and then we're talking about the cost of everything going up here Because I remember even giving bonus, you know giving checks out and when you gross it up It's like oh wow and you but you have to be prepared for that. Yeah, exactly. So, you know again
0:26:44
You know just just if you're doing the right thing You have nothing to be afraid of. Right. The one other thing that I like with the company I work with, because we're like the Rolls-Royce of it, is each one of the businesses that do business with us gets a $1 million errors and omissions policy. Nice. Which is great. That protects them. And then, we've been around for 20 to 40 years. We have ERC Specialists been around for 40 years. We've been around for 20 years. So that a lot of these companies say yeah, we're gonna give you auto protection And you know when it's over with they're gone. They're gone
0:27:17
And that's the other thing too because you know you can't handle auto protection if I can't find You are not protected if I can't find you and not but I tell you I'll take my chances with the IRS I will you know because I Understand how to document. I even understand how to document for the SEC right but But with the IRS, it's documentation, and you can explain what you did on that tax return. Right, correct. Just being able to explain it. But Uncle Dan, again, I want to give you contact information. So if you know someone in business, if you didn't think you qualified for this ERC, just have the conversation. Have the conversation. Let Uncle Dan review your paperwork and he can let you know if you and your company qualify for the ERC tax credit.
0:28:04
And we can do it within five, no, it takes us no more than 10 minutes to see whether
0:28:08
you qualify or not. Even if your CPA told you you didn't qualify. I know and I did. I told some people, but again, the rule was different.
0:28:14
It was different. The rule was different. It's changed. Well, and I, because in 20, I was like, no, y'all, you don't qualify because you made
0:28:19
no losses.
0:28:20
But since they expanded the rules and I haven't looked at it again for that reason.
0:28:27
It's actually changed nine times in the last year and a half. They have nine changes.
0:28:31
So, I write so and that's what remember when PPP was out we were like yeah, no, but it's going to change that tomorrow. So, you know, by the time you hear us and you really get your documents in order, well, that's not the rule no more. But see what had happened was, right now, now you need this, now you need this document. It does change. But what I can say is it's time to revisit it yeah because if the money is out there it's time to revisit it and entrepreneurs this could be a way for you you talk about the grants yeah looking for grants looking for stuff that's out there well it's not a grant it's a credit it's a credit change the language it's a credit and I am local here in Las Vegas I just
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my 415 I got to keep my Bay Area identity but that's all I'm keeping I do
0:29:10
have a local number as well you're with the 702-900-5905. But if you really want to talk to him, you dial the 415-756-6007. I'm not going to lead you wrong now. 415-756-6007. All right, so that ends our show for today. Uncle Dan, it was a pleasure. I look forward to bringing you back. Oh, you guys are fun too. Until next time Las Vegas, if you've been listening to Let's Talk with Lea and Rhonda, I am Lea Crawford.
0:29:45
I am Rhonda Nolan. We enjoy speaking with you.
0:29:47
See you next week.
0:29:48
See you next week. See you next week.
0:29:49
you
Transcribed with Cockatoo