The End of Small Business Financing with IRA and 401k Funds? (Part 3) October 21, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401, 401k, agency, audeo, benetrends, business startup, ersop, esop, financial, financing, funding, government, guidant, ira, irs, law, plan, president, profit sharing, QES, qualying employer securities, rainmaker, regulation, robs, rollover, ruling, scheme, self directed, small business, strategy
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Ok, now it’s time to solve the mystery. (Final Post) [see previous here]
In 1978 Jimmy Carter reorganized the government with this order, and this took the issue of retirement account prohibited transactions away from the domain of the IRS and gave it to the Department of Labor (DOL).
This fact was unknown to (or possibly ignored by) the ROBS promoters who claimed the IRS ROBS letter confirmed the validity of the ROBS strategy. The truth is that the IRS letter did not say whether or not the ROBS strategy creates a prohibited transaction because the IRS didn’t have the authority to say it. It was the authority of DOL. Ah, what fun bureaucracy can be.
Speaking with the Proper Authority
Now, I’ve known about this transfer of authority ever since the creator of the IRA LLC (late attorney Debra Buchanan) told me about it back in 2004. So I’ve been in close contact with DOL employees for several years. Here’s where the bureaucracy gets funny (or scary, depending on how you look at it).
A couple of weeks after the IRS ROBS letter came out, I called my friendly DOL contacts to ask, “What do you (more…)
The End of Small Business Financing with IRA and 401k Funds? (Part 2) October 19, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401, 401k, agency, audeo, benetrends, business startup, ersop, esop, financial, financing, funding, government, guidant, ira, irs, law, plan, president, profit sharing, QES, qualying employer securities, rainmaker, regulation, robs, rollover, ruling, scheme, self directed, small business, strategy
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[This is a continuation of a previous post. You should read that one first so this makes sense.]
The IRS Responds
For the first time ever, the IRS actually addressed the “financing a small business with an IRA or 401(k)” strategy. They called it “ROBS” for “roll over business startup,” and issued a letter on October 1, 2008. This letter basically stated:
- We know about the ROBS strategy
- We are concerned about it for several reasons
Celebrate and Ignore
Most ROBS promoters spun the IRS ROBS letter as a long-awaited government blessing for the strategy. They said that the concerns that the IRS listed were administrative errors, such as (more…)
Hiring new liberty-oriented PR specialist immediately! August 18, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in Money, Personal Enjoyment, Personal Productivity, real estate, Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401k, economics, freedom, hiring, investing, ira, IRA Association, jeff nabers, job, job opening, jobs, liberty, Nabers Group, pr, public relation, publicist, real estate, ron paul, self directed, solo, Solo 401k, staff, staffing
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Our publicist has done a great job getting the word out about Self-Directed IRAs, and my various writings and products related to independence, economics, investing, and freedom.
But, alas, the time has come to replace our publicist. So here’s what we’re looking for:
- Very freedom/liberty-oriented and passionate
- A basic understanding of Austrian economics and the free market
- An unlimited mindset—one that fully accepts that anything is possible and our results are up to us… only we can decide what we CAN and CAN’T accomplish together
- A realistic understanding of our world today and the terrible direction our country and our society is heading in—politically, financially, emotionally, etc. We have to be able to acknowledge and observe the problems in order to be a part of providing solutions.
- Results-oriented. We aren’t just trying to get the word out to see what happens. We are getting the word out! We set goals and then achieve them :-D
- Experience preferred, but not required. If you have experience in public relations, awareness campaigns, or dealing with the media, that is great and will be helpful. Buuuuuut, the above requirements are much more important. The actual procedure of how to promote and make contacts and pitch ideas can be learned. Being a freedom-loving, free-market-loving, truth-knowing, positive-thinking passionate person ready to change the world cannot be learned—it’s just who you are. So that is most important, and for that reason, experience isn’t required, but it is preferred.
- Start immediately!
- Monthly salary. This doesn’t have to be a full-time job, but we will pay a substantial salary.
Be a part of a team that’s changing the world! We’ll be working to promote my book (5 Steps To Freedom) as well as my companies (Nabers Group and IRA Association). Some past exposure and events have included:
- Speaking at FreedomFest
- Writing for Forbes.com
- Contributing to articles for mint.com, realtytimes.com, Entrepreneur Magazine, LA Times, and Chicago Tribune
- Featured in trade journals
- Appearing on TV shows such as Good Morning Arizona and The Pat McMahon show
..these are just a start as we’ll be working together to continue to expose people to self-empowerment, liberty, financial freedom, Austrian economics, and similar ideas.
LIVING IN DENVER IS NOT NECESSARY. We are open to remote working arrangements. If you think you might know somebody who would be great for this position, please share this opportunity, especially on Twitter and Facebook:
Applicants, please send resume to prjob@jnabz.com and include a cover letter summarizing why you think this would be a great fit. I look forward to connecting with our new PR specialist!
Is the Departure from 401(k) Perks a Bad Thing? June 17, 2009
Posted by reformedinvestor in Money.Tags: 401k, investing, self directed, Solo 401k
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You can’t pick up a newspaper today without hearing bad 401(k) news:
- Companies have cut their 401(k) matches, lessening incentives for employees to make contributions.
- 401(k) fees are confusing and exorbitant.
- Employer-sponsored plans are filled with nothing but dog investments packaged for layman investors.
With the glory days of the conventional 401(k) coming to an end, it’s no wonder that many investors have ditched or are considering ditching the 401(k) altogether.
But I ask, is the end of the 401(k) – as we know it – a bad thing?
I’m sure people like Suze Orman would (more…)
Are We Putting All Our Eggs in One Basket? June 10, 2009
Posted by reformedinvestor in Uncategorized.Tags: 401k, investing, stock market
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The Wall Street Journal reported on a study that $14 trillion dollars were being held in retirement assets in 2008. Sixty-five percent of that total was in employer-sponsored defined contribution plans and about 25% of those assets were held in IRAs. Now don’t you think that is a lot of dough entrusted into an institution that has royally failed us?
How to break America’s 401(k) addiction May 19, 2009
Posted by reformedinvestor in Money, Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401k, investing, ira, retirement, self directed, Solo 401k, wall street
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[Contributed by reformedinvestor]
This is my favorite excerpt taken from the interview between Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes and Brooks Hamilton, who Kroft interviewed in his expose on 401(k)s. Hamilton is an expert in designing retirement plans for large corporations.
“The fact is that the typical 401(k) investor is a financial novice. They don’t know a stock from a bond. And we give ‘em a list of 20 or 30 mutual funds with really, really powerful names, you know, they sound like, ‘Gee, that’s where I want to have my money,’” Hamilton said.
“What are the, generally, the quality of the mutual funds in 401(k) plans?” Kroft asked.
“Mediocre,” Hamilton replied. “I’m being real honest with you, with half the funds on the list really dogs, what people would characterize as dogs shouldn’t be on the list to start with.”
So many Americans believed that the 401(k) would be the sure-fire way to safely save for retirement. In fact, it has been reported that 401(k) plans that have become the primary source of retirement income for 60 million Americans. Companies would match our contributions making it irresistible to sock away money in these mutual funds. But the truth is, as exposed by 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, that companies turned to 401(k)s as a cheap alternative to offering costly pension plans. This decision created millions of new employee investors in Wall Street – creating a boom on Wall Street and putting trillions of dollars of investable cash into the hands of unsophisticated investors.
In the 60 Minutes piece, however, experts in the field say (more…)
Who will arrest the investment police? May 17, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in real estate, Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401k, attorney, fraud, invest, ira, laws, regulation, regulators, SEC, securities, securities and exchange commission, wall street
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An unsurprising story surfaced a couple of days ago… SEC attorneys are under investigation for insider trading!
If you can’t truly value that exclamation point I just used, let me help you. The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is a government organization that was formed to convince us that investing in the stock market was safe. Part of their role is to make sure people don’t use their non-public knowledge to make profitable investments in the stock market (yeah, right). This is called “insider trading”. In business, this is known as “doing business”. In real estate, non-public knowledge can turn a peon into a mogul overnight. But in the stock market it is a crime and we give the SEC billions of our dollars to make sure it doesn’t happen.
But, whoops, SEC attorneys are doing it themselves. And a lot. One of the two SEC attorneys currently under FBI investigation made 247 stock (more…)
Is my home an investment? March 18, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in real estate, Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401k, bernanke, builder, buyer, clinton, consumer, fannie mae, fed, finances, financial, FNMA, greenspan, home, house, income, invest, investing, investment, ira, ira llc, llc, planner, primary, property, real estate, realtor, recession, residence, self directed, seller, solo, Solo 401k, spending
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Recently I received a question from somebody looking into self-directed IRA/401(k) investment for themselves. They said, “I ran this by my financial planner in New York who said to roll over my IRA to put some of its money into my home is illegal.” This statement is technically correct. Putting IRA money into his primary residence would be a prohibited transaction. The disturbing thing about the situation is that these three people (a person, their realtor, and their financial planner) could all be on the same page about something so fundamentally ridiculous.
The misconception
In the past 10 years, many people think “real estate investing” equals “putting money into my home”. Their home can’t be an investment in the first place because they are paying for it rather than having it paid for by a renter.
When somebody wants to help people rationalize buying the stuff they sell, they often call it an “investment”. Bill Clinton started changing the way people thought about government spending (when he was increasing it) by calling it an investment.
An investment or a consumer product?
Selling a primary residence to a home buyer is selling a consumer product. It’s for their use. They can buy what they really need. Or they could get extravagant and buy the Lexus/Mercedes version of a home and spend more. Either way, it’s a consumer product if they are paying for it and using it themselves.
But realtors followed Clinton’s spin move and started calling home buying an investment. This really caught on once Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Fed all took actions to artificially inflate home prices in order to defer the recession of 2002. Once you could buy this consumer product (the home) and then have it rapidly increase in value (supposedly) and realize this value by selling it or doing a refinance cash out, then the talk about the home being an investment seemed to make sense.
Today, the bubble is over, and the illusion that your home is an investment should be easy to correct. If it was an investment, then somebody else would be paying the mortgage. If somebody else was paying the mortgage, they’d probably live in it instead of you.
It’s not to say that buying a home is a stupid thing to do. That can only be decided on a case-by-case scenario that depends on the buyer and the home in question. Buying a home can be a financially beneficial thing to do in some cases, but it hardly could be truthfully classified as “real estate investing”.
Back to basics: real estate investing means buying properties that produce income. And, yes, real estate investing can be done inside an IRA or 401(k). :-D
Eric Wikstrom does not work for Nabers Group March 12, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401k, book, career, employee, employment, eric, eric wikstrom, integrated wealth strategies, ira, Nabers Group, pensco, presentation, recruit, recruitment, self directed, solo, Solo 401k, webinar, wikstrom
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Just a quick announcement: Eric Wikstrom doesn’t work for Nabers Group. In December an employment agreement was reached for him to work for Nabers Group starting January 1, and the news was leaked to a few people – I’m not sure how many. But, ultimately, the employment was not followed through with, and Eric never came to work for us.
I’m making this announcement because there have apparently been cases of Eric being booked to do presentations and seminars as an employee of Nabers Group.
To refer business to Nabers Group or to book a presentation for your group, please always call our main office number at 877-903-2220. :-)
S&P Price-to-Earnings Ratio Says Market is Still 70% Overpriced March 3, 2009
Posted by Jeff Nabers in Money, Self Directed IRA/401k.Tags: 401k, bail, bailout, buy, crash, dow, dow jones, government, invest, investing, investment, ira, market, obama, out, P/E, panic, price-to-earnings, ratio, S&P, s&p 500, self directed, sell, solo, Solo 401k, stimulus, stock market, timing, wall street, when
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If you are choosing to stay in the stock market right now because of any of the following reasons…
- It is poised to bounce back
- You don’t want to close out losing positions
- Stocks are cheap right now
…then the simplicity of the following information may shock you.
Last week (more…)
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