You have probably seen the video. Some supposed multi-millionaire explains how he bought a Ferrari using a tax strategy involving his house, and the comments are full of people who think they have just found the secret the IRS does not want them to know. That version is total nonsense. But buried underneath the nonsense is a strategy that is completely real, hard-coded into the tax law, and genuinely useful if you run it correctly.
Lease or Buy? The Answer Isn’t Your Monthly Payment.
Every year I see business owners make the lease-or-buy decision the same way: they tell a salesperson what they want to spend per month and let the salesperson engineer a deal around that number. The car dealership perfected this technique. It has since spread to equipment dealers, copier reps, and software vendors everywhere. ‘What does your budget allow per month?’ is a sales question. It is not a financial analysis.
Good Thinking Was a Bad Plan
Three Things Thursday | Episode 20 A Tax Court case from 2019 is worth your time this week. Not because the underlying law is complicated, but because the facts are instructive in a way that most tax cautionary tales aren’t. This one has a name for the scheme, a number you won’t forget, and a […]
The End of the Anonymous Cash Buyer
A practical explanation of the new 2026 FinCEN Residential Real Estate Rule and how federal reporting requirements affect LLC buyers, private financing, and investor transactions.
Law and Order, Tax Crimes Unit
In the criminal justice system, tax-based offenses are considered especially heinous. The dedicated detectives who investigate these costly felonies are members of an elite squad known as the IRS Criminal Investigations unit. These are their stories.
You Can Hate the IRS and Still Want it to Work
If you ever needed proof the IRS is held together with duct tape and caffeine, here it is. From a recent article in Government Executive magazine: “The Internal Revenue Service is asking seasoned employees without any direct tax experience to perform entry-level tasks of answering phones and processing tax returns, a step impacted staff call unprecedented as the agency scrambles to prepare for filing season.” These include employees from departments like human resources and IT, which means people who normally reset passwords and process onboarding paperwork will be untangling the tax code.