[Podcast] Asset protection strategies to safeguard what’s yours, with Ken Raiss

One of the aims of my podcast is to help you become more financially successful and help you grow protect and pass on your wealth, and what we talk about in today's show with Ken Raiss, who is widely regarded as Australia’s leading property tax strategist is asset protection.

Now for people who don’t know, for many years Ken was an accountant and managing partner in a national accounting firm.

He’s still an accountant but doesn’t do regular accounting work – instead he gives high-level wealth advice to our clients at Metropole Wealth Advisory.

But he’s not a theorist, he’s a successful investor, business owner, and entrepreneur with accounting, financial planning, and real estate qualifications.

That's why he’s able to give a holistic approach to our clients and help them grow protect and pass on their wealth.

Today, Ken and I will talk about asset protection.

What is asset protection?

• Safeguarding your hard-earned assets from litigation whether eventually successful or not. Defending an action can be costly in time, money, and emotion.

Why should we be concerned?

• The world is becoming increasingly litigious.
• Many people are seeing the easier road to financial security is to sue someone for their wealth.
• Australia is the 3^rd most litigious society in the world.
• In these uncertain times and with no-cost legal services available many people are choosing to sue someone.

What do you say to people who believe this is just being paranoid?

There are many instances of both legitimate and unscrupulous litigations.

We should all do the right thing and have appropriate insurance in place but sometimes this is just not enough for example:

• You have a car accident before paying your overdue registration and insurance due to a busy work week. 
• Your house is underinsured, burns down, and destroys the next-door neighbour’s property. You are up for the underinsured payment
• Your child illegally downloads music or videos.
• You take on a new job with increased occupational health and safety responsibilities.
• You become a director in a business.

Sometimes you are called a director but not on the ASIC records.

You are responsible for all tax obligations plus the normal director responsibilities

I heard a story a few years ago when a thief while running from the police jumped a fence and fell into a hole that the homeowner had dug for the garden.

The thief injured himself and sued the homeowner

Safeguarding the family wealth for current use and passing it down to the next generation is not paranoid but prudence.

The older you get the harder it is to rebuild so why risk the twilight years after a lifetime of hard work

Typical strategies and mistakes

Typically, people go and see their lawyer for these strategies, but the lawyer does not understand the accounting, taxation, and estate planning intricacies that all must be built into the final solution.

Many people have transferred their assets to a trust, which for investments is reasonable, but there is a cost in relation to capital gains tax.

For property, there are also potentially increased taxes in relation to land tax and the foreigners’ taxes if they have overseas relatives.

They also ignore the impact on the family home.

In a trust, they lose the main residence exemption and will be subject to land tax.

How people should go about protecting their assets

You need an integrated approach that looks at the legal, taxation, accounting, estate planning and future changes to your life needs when looking at an appropriate strategy.

We have seen many clients implement strategies, but the majority have only looked at one aspect of the total picture and have therefore left holes that can be exposed which reduces the overall effectiveness of the strategy.

They have done the work to identify their concerns and have found a solution but are let down in the execution.

At MWA we have four different strategies that can help people; in all cases, no taxes are triggered.

You can also protect the family home and keep the main residence tax benefits in relation to CGT and land tax.

The most appropriate of the four strategies are identified for your specific needs and as your life circumstances change, they can be modified.

Each of the strategies builds on a solid foundation looking at tax, accounting, estate planning future flexibility and with the added benefit of adding a layer of asset protection for your family wealth in case of litigation. 

The benefit of the MWA way is we look at all assets including the value of wealth in your trusts or companies.

Typically, these are ignored due to the tax implication but there are solutions when taking an integrated approach.

The wealth in these structures is incorrectly perceived as being safeguarded.

This is not the case if the tenant in an investment property sues or a customer sues a business.

The value is protected if you are individually sued but the other risks within the structure can be greater.

It is like the trojan horse, if the attacker is inside the gates they can strike.

Links and Resources:

Michael Yardney

Ken Raiss, director Metropole Wealth Advisory

Have a chat with Ken Raiss to ensure you have the correct asset protection strategies in place – click here

In turbulent times like we’re experiencing why not get the team at Metropole on your side to give you holistic property and wealth advice– find out more here

Some of our favourite quotes from the show:

“A lot of people become directors of business, and now there are other responsibilities once you become a business owner or business director.” – Michael Yardney

“I think the problem here, Ken is that people see the accountant for accounting, and their lawyer for legal fees and their financial planner or property strategist, and the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” – Michael Yardney

“Gratitude’s something that most successful people practice.” – Michael Yardney

PLEASE LEAVE US A REVIEW

Reviews are hugely important to me because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes - it's your way of passing the message forward to others and saying thank you to me. Here's how