Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Terry Register- CEO of Capsur Tax and Estate Planning-Mastering Tax Strategies for Retirement

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

As President of Capsur Tax and Estate Planning, Terry Register leads with a clear and focused mission: to help business owners, high-income professionals, high-net-worth individuals, and closely held corporations navigate the complexities of tax planning, retirement strategy, estate structuring, and legacy preservation. Through personalized service and strategic insight, Terry delivers solutions designed to build long-term financial confidence and multigenerational impact.Terry began his distinguished career at Fidelity Union, earning “Rookie of the Year” honors and qualifying for the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) in his first year. He later joined American Defender Life, where he consistently ranked among the top ten producers nationwide and earned annual recognition in the President’s Cabinet.He founded Capsur with a vision to offer programs and planning strategies that empower individuals and businesses to reach their financial, retirement, and legacy goals. Today, he continues to work collaboratively with professionals and clients across the country on high-value joint cases that demand tailored and sophisticated solutions.Terry’s leadership and production achievements have earned him national recognition, but his commitment to service goes beyond the business world. He has served as a trustee on the Endowment Committee at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, a Corporate Board Member for G.R.A.C.E. Christian School in Raleigh, and an active supporter of charitable missions, including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Zachary Taylor Orphanage in Kenya, and Uttermost Ministries.A devoted husband, father, and grandfather, Terry resides in Raleigh, NC, with his wife. He is a longtime member of Bayleaf Baptist Church, where he has served on the Personnel Committee and continues to invest in his faith and community.Learn more: https://www.capsurtaxandestateplanning.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-terry-register-ceo-of-capsur-tax-and-estate-planning-mastering-tax-strategies-for-retirement

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Terry Register, and he is the CEO of Capture Tax and Estate Planning, and we'll be talking about mastering tax strategies for retirement. Terry, welcome to the program.

Hey, Mike, thank you. Thank you for having me on. You are welcome. I want to dive all into tax strategies, which I'm certain could be a three-day weekend seminar, but we want to hit the high levels. But before we do that, give us a little bit of your story and background. How did you get into the financial services industry?

Well, you know, the thing is, that's very interesting. And I'll make it fast because, you know, I do like to talk. You know, at 12 years old, I read a book, They Can Grow Rich. And so it wasn't to make money, but I read that book. And then my mother worked for Bank of America, and she worked for the president of Bank America for the whole United States. So I grew up a little different. So I went to college, got my degree in business management and marketing, started working.

I played trumpet for about 15 years. I thought it was going to be a music major. but after hanging around the bank and meeting the president, he gave me some insight on financial futures, and I saw how many people died and did not leave a will, didn't leave insurance, didn't leave a lot of things. And so I have dedicated, you know, my career to working with families and individuals. And, you know, I've tried to build a standard of strategic planning,

you know, so that people could allow. their important goals, whether their goal is optimizing tax outcomes, protecting their assets, funding their retirement, or leaving a lasting legacy. You know, so I work with attorneys, CPAs, and other financial professionals all over the United States and help them design and implement high value of, you know, joint case strategies. So it's interesting that, you know, from a small child and getting exposed to the financial, you know, in banking and you noticed things and you probably as you got more and more aware of the industry, you started noticing that there were gaps, you know, and it sounds to me like you take a 360 degree

approach to serving your clients versus I just sell X product or service. You make sure that they've got every single aspect of your clients needs financially for retirement taking care of. And I'm sure you're not an attorney. You're not a CPA. You don't do all of those things, but you bring a team together. Is that right? Exactly right. We use a team approach. And even on our first appointment, Mike, we don't, we tell them to leave your checkbook at home because our whole goal is to help you to plan.

And we need the information from you. You don't need to hear it from me. I need to hear it from the person. Yeah. That sounds awesome. Well, I know we want to talk about mastering tax strategies. And boy, taxes is quite the topic. And I know that people have.

heading into retirement. There's a lot of things that they need to be thinking about. How is understanding tax strategies, how does that empower people in their retirement when they fully understand it ahead of time before they make any of those pitfalls and mistakes? You know, most of the people, you know, they don't think about it, but, you know, taxes can create a rule's brain on your retirement income because, see, I tell everybody, you have a partner and your partner's Uncle Sam. For example, I have a lot of people that will come in and they'll say, hey, look, I got a million dollars in my retirement plan.

And yes, you do have a million dollars, but a third of that's going to go to Uncle Sam and taxes. And so what we try to do is get you to create a tax-free income, you know, that can eliminate, you know, some of these variables, and that will reduce but actually increase your net income that you're going to receive. And, you know, Mike is easier, you know, to plan for income if you don't have to worry about what the government taxes are. And I don't know if you will agree with me,

but I really believe deep down inside that taxes are going to be higher going in the future. They may not, but the thing is, is that Texas could really hurt us in the long run if we're not prepared for it. You know, it makes me think about the proverbial bucket. You know, you got your bucket and all your money in the bucket and you don't want any holes in it. Well, invariably, there's going to be a hole or 10. So you can't plug them all up. You know, you can't eliminate every dime of taxes. You can't eliminate every expense that could come out of your bucket, but you can be aware

and mitigate them as much as possible. And I agree with you 100% about where taxes probably will go in the next 10 to 20 years because you look at just even inflation and you look at the cost of living. You look at the deficit. And that big number is driven by, in my opinion, and you, you will know better, two things, taxes and government spending. Well, we know all about the ups and downs of government spending, and that's a big beast that probably can never be tamed.

But we also know that the only way to kind of close the gap in that deficit is taxes. So do we feel like taxes are going to go up or down in the future? And I would check the box up. And if that's the case, how do we plan for it? And if taxes didn't go up and you plan for them to go up, guess what? You're ahead of the game. Yes, you're exactly right. You're the winner. Yep. So what do you do? When you start talking to your clients about, you know,

we feel like taxes probably are going to go up in the future and they agree. What do you start talking to them about? Because I feel like when you hear the word tax-free income, that sounds pie in the sky. You know, tax deferred, you well know what that is. And maybe we should clarify it for the people that don't. But that's like your 401k, your IRA, where money goes in and it's never been taxed. So the government hasn't gotten the hooks in it yet. So talk a little bit about the differences between tax deferred and taxed income. That's a great point.

And so I tell people this, let me just say this one statement. You know, tax planning, you know, it can create a lot of certainty so that you know what you're going to pay and know what's not going to pay. And so with tax rates, like you just said, we don't know what the future is for the tax rates. But I tell you what we do know. I always ask people to think about that. When you look at tax deferred and tax free, we think about what happens. And we look at the tax bracket that we're in.

And see, Mike, when you say to yourself, you know, I am wanting to get tax free. I ask people just one question before I answer your question. I want to say just one question I asked them. I will say, hey, look, which would you rather pay tax on? A smaller contribution or a larger distribution? Let's think about tax deferred for just a second. Most of us are going to think 401k IRA,

some kind of retirement plan. So we put the money in. So let's think about you, Mike, and you put $2,000 a year into your IRA and you did it for 30 years. So you put $60,000 in. Let's say it grew to $100,000. And so then you started taking out $15,000.

thousand dollars a year. So in four years you would have pulled out 60,000. So you've got a $2,000 deduction for all those years to go out and pay tax above and beyond that. So everybody thought that that was a great idea. But see, when we look at tax deferred and we look at tax free, there's a code of the IRS, and I don't like to give codes, but it's section 7702. It's in the same book that the 401k and the sup and everything is in. Section 7702 says that, you know, under current tax law, I always want to say that because we don't know if they'll change anything, but under current tax law, there's vehicles that we can actually put dollars in today that will accumulate income tax free. You can pull it out tax free, and when you die, it goes tax free.

and you know I want to tell you something about tax deferral that we really need to think about. You know, when we start deferring this, who are we deferring it to and what are we deferring it to? So the next thing, whether it's tax deferred or tax free, how is it going to be paid out to the people that we wanted to go to? Yeah. You know, I think that what you just said there reminds me of the old saying, the only thing constant in life is change. so the tax codes can change. Whoever's in office or Congress or all the policy makers, that can change. And one group might like to do taxes one way or the other.

So we have to just bob and weave as we go. But I know that you also mentioned the example, would you like to pay this or that? And I've heard it said, would you rather pay tax on the seed or the harvest? Well, if you scatter some seeds, you know, I'd rather pay tax on the seed. That looks like a little bit. but that harvest could be acres and acres and acres of a harvest. I'd rather pay it on the seed. So talk a little bit about that tax on the seed and the harvest comparison.

The thing that we look at, I helped the gentleman and his wife this past week on that exact topic. So they were looking at all the money that they were putting into their pension plan. And so as they put money into that pension plan and kept doing it, I want you to think about something. You might not have heard about it. The Secure Act 2O. We gave up some things to get these tax deductions. One of the things that we gave up is that we gave up, and this is a great illustration, I think, we gave up if you have an inherited IRA.

I just had a man that his mom and dad had worked their whole life to save money, and they had saved $5 million in their retirement plan. when they both died my friend the prospect that i worked with he ended up inheriting five million dollars well so he thinks that he's got plenty of money so i sat down and met with him i said you do realize that you got to pull that five million out over the next 10 years so that's 500,000 dollars that he's going to have to pull out and pay taxes on had his family did a little bit of preparing they could have done some things. One of the things that they could have done is they could have set up a trust. They could have took that $500,000 and that $5 million, and periodically, this person just

happened to have five grandchildren and a husband and a wife. You can actually gift dollars out at the tune of $19,000 a year. And so let's say it was 10 recipients. They could have took $190,000 a year and put it over into a trust for their sales. and then they could turn around and set up a wealth replacement trust to buy a $5 million account there. And so it did cost them a little bit of money. But now that $5 million is going to go to his kids income tax free. Wow. Good gracious.

And now let's think about something. That person didn't know that that strategy existed. You did. You explained it. and they felt like, okay, that makes some sense and they took action. They didn't go Google. What should I do? Because you would have gotten 3,427 probably confusing responses.

They came to someone that can look at their situation and make some recommendations. How far ahead of retirement was that couple so that that strategy would benefit them? Because I feel like some people put things off and then they go, oh, this would be a good idea. But it's like you waited too long. Great question. He was 56 years of age. Yeah. And so the thing is, is that his exact statement to me was, had I known you 10 years ago, I would have told my mom and dad some of these things to do.

You know, Mike, people spend more time planning their vacation, you know, than they do planning their financial affairs for things like this. And see, it's really hard to talk about because, see, a lot of people, you know, I'm married, I've got kids. You know, most people don't want to talk to their kids about what they're going to them. And see, I want to ask one other question that you got to really think about. And those of y'all are listening to this, think about this. If you were that person and you left your son or daughter $5 million and they had to take it over the next 10 years, you really wanted them to make that money

last a lifetime. Now, you've got to remember, you're gone, you're not there, your wife is not there. what goal would you have to make sure that it went to it would go forever? So would you go? Well, see, I don't know, even my own children, if they got $500,000 a year for the next 10 years, I'm not sure how much money they'd have it in a 10 years. Yeah, because human nature takes over,

and you hear about the lottery winners that end up going into bankruptcy in a period of time, and you're like, how could that have happened? So you need to have a combination of good, strategy and then good self-control and budgeting and have some people help you with your money and you don't just plop down a big chunk of change to people. So I think that's a huge part. And, you know, it sounds to me that you take a unique approach than traditional retirement advisors. What are some of the ways that you're looking at tax planning differently in addition to what

we've talked about about here? My biggest issue is the, the, my, my biggest issue is the speak to them about their whole plan and what they want to do. You know, I've spent a lot of time building a team. You know, so when we talk to people, we talk a lot of things about different strategies and different services. So, you know, one of the things we're just talking about, you know, retirement right this second, but there's other things that we want to talk about. We want to look at their income.

We want to look at their assets. We want to look at tax mitigation. We want to look at their business planning. We want to look at their wealth management. And see, the thing is is that when people get through looking at all this stuff, we want to make sure that their planning with their income planning creates what they want. And that's the retirement plan they can rely on. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help you set up a plan that you can rely on,

whether it's for yourself personally, whether it's for yourself business-wise, whether it's turning age 65 and what you want to have happened because of your health. And then how do we move it to the next generation? And so sometimes I'm not fortunate enough to talk to the whole family. So I have to start with the, you know, I've always heard the longest journey starts with the first step. And I also say a body in motion stays in motion. So once you get to moving, you can't procrastinate. You've got to get this thing done and start with it.

I like to eat steak. And I tell people doing this plan is like eating steak. We cut off a little piece and eat it. Then we cut off another little piece. we could have threw the whole steak in our mouth and swallowed it at one time. It's still the same steak, but it wouldn't taste as good, right, Mike? And it might upset your stomach. That's a good analogy.

I love analogies. You know, let's talk a little bit about one of the things you mentioned, too, about tax deferred versus tax-free income. And I know a lot of people, when they get their first job, they sign a bunch of papers with HR. And a bunch of them are, oh, let's set up your 401K. and they have no clue what that is and allocations and all of that. And it starts growing and they start thinking like the example you gave, you know, over the decades, look, I got a million dollars. Well, yeah, it's in there.

But, you know, your uncle, your partner has got their claws into it. So one of the strategies is to either convert some or all of those kind of accounts that hasn't been taxed into a non-taxable account like a Roth IRA. Talk a little bit about that concept. and I know it's not right for every single person out there, but how can someone evaluate if that strategy would be beneficial to pull money out of that account and put it into an account that's going to grow tax-free?

That's a great question. I could spend all day on it. But what we do is this. There's different terminologies, and I don't like to apologize, but some of the things you just hadn't heard of. And, you know, a guy told me a long time ago, You don't know what you don't know.

One of the strategies that you could do for what you just talked about is called a pulled income fund. So I want you to think about something just for a second. Everybody is talking about, oh, I'm going to take my Roth now. I'm going to take my Roth and I'm going to start converting it. Okay, so let's look at that. We got a doctor right here. He had $300,000 that I just worked with. And so he has a million and a half dollars in his IRA.

Okay, now what are most people going to do? They're going to leave, Mike. They're going to leave that million and a half dollars in the IRA. They're going to start taking their contributions. And if you go look in Google, the guys that like the Google, you go look at Morning Star. Morning Star says you can't show more than 4%. So if a person has a million and a half dollars, he's going to get about $60,000 in pay income tax. Okay.

Now, if you were talking to me and you say, hey, look, can we convert that raw? Okay, well, you could convert the Rawls, but let's think about, let's think a little bit outside the box. And this is where I come in and I'm a little different. I told this doctor, I said, yeah, we can do that, but you're in a 50% tax bracket. So if you give me 300, you're going to have 150. So in five years, when you want to retire, and this man happens to be 68, he wants to retire at 73, and I'll use him as an example, he's going to give up half of his money. So at the end of five years, instead of having a million and a half, he's going to have 750 and whatever it grew to.

So now he's going to have to take his income for the rest of his life off of that, let's just say, $750 to $800 to a million. Okay. So that's going to give him approximately at 4%. It's going to give him $48,000. I can do what we call a pulled income fund, and I'll make it real fast. But this is a program where we work with a group called Legacy Planning. I'm a partner in that company, and so we set up a 501C3, and so we have a nonprofit that we work through,

and we put the monies into that. So let me just give you a little, I keep this in the back of my mind. So instead of giving the 300 and having 150, he donates the 300 to us, he gets a tax deduction. So that tax deduction that year, he saved $73,318 in taxes.

Okay, now he's still got the $304,000 in the account. And so at the end of five years, he's took a tax deduction for a million and a half dollars. We've saved him $75,000 a year for the next last years. And so instead of paying taxes, I took the $300 that he was going to give and lose 50% off. I gave him the whole $300. So at the end of five years, he had $1,573,000 and some change inside his policy. Now, he don't own that. He has given that away and took a tax deduction.

So I wrote all that business off. And so at age 73, he's going to get $87,181. The next year it's $89. At 7080s, at 96,000 of income. And in five years later, at 85, he's had $109,000 of income. And here's what the beautiful thing is about that, right? is that that check goes to him. And so when he dies, his wife's going to get that check.

And then the second generation is his children. So his children are going to take, if he died at 85, he's got approximately $106,000. And let's say he has two kids. Those two kids are going to get $106,000 the rest of their life until they die. And then the other kid that, if they had two kids, they would split it.

get 50,000, but here's the beautiful part. When those kids die, that money that was left in that account, let's just say that happened 27 years later. That money he left of a million 500,000 would be approximately $2 million that he's going to leave the charity. So instead of taking that Roth money and pay a third of your money in taxes because you never can get that money back, I'm going to take it from the left pocket and put it in the right pocket, and so you're still going to have all your money and then you're still going to draw your income because let's face it, there's people to listen at this that'll never pull their money out. If you go look at the people to have annuities, go check it out. 90% of people die with the money in there. I've had people

tell me to my face, hey, look, I'm just going to leave this to my children. And if I have some extra time, I'd love to tell you about that, maybe later on in the interview. Yeah, I think that legacy planning is super, super important. Well, I tell you, Terry, we have, just covered a whole lot of, you know, high-level ideas for tax strategies. I'm sure that you could have kept on, gone for about three more hours and just covered the first, you know, the first part, right? Because the thing that I think people don't realize is there are so many things out there that, like you said, you don't know what you don't know.

And secondly, if you hear that one of your friends or relatives did a certain thing or one of the examples you gave in our conversation, don't think that it's, It's the best thing for you specifically because everybody is different. Everyone has different needs. Every strategy works for one person differently than the other person. You have to properly put it together in the right timing. So it's so important to sit down with someone like yourself that has that knowledge to look at the big picture. So if someone has heard some things that makes them curious here in our conversation,

what's the best way they can learn a little bit more and then also reach out and connect with you? Well, the easiest thing is, is that I tell you to go to our website, capture tax and estate planning, because there's some things on there. And the things I like about it is that it shows our team. So we've got about 14 or 15 people to do different things. We also have a video category that we talk about for life insurance, ad duties, legacy planning, trust, and what business owners can do. so that you can actually start doing things.

I have found that if you give people to tools, they like to see some of those things. And what I suggest to people is give me a 30-minute consultation. And let me just show you some things. And my name, and I call it, is rapid fire. And so what rapid fire is, is that if everybody on this call listens to this, you might want to go to a buffet.

So if me and you went to a buffet, we can see the whole buffet, but we might pick a salad. Somebody else might pick a steak. Somebody else might pick chicken. Somebody else might pick, you know, fish and so on and so on. Well, see, that's what everybody listening to this should sit there and think about. Take that 30-minute consultation. Go to Web Start.

Start doing some education to yourself. But see, then look at that buffet. And then, as I tell you all these things, you don't have to do any of them. But you might pick one. The last guy I talked to before we had this interview was 75 years of age. He lived in Tennessee. His net worth was $2.8 million. His kids were wealthy.

He said, they don't care about this. But he did have a Roth, I mean, a Roth, but a 401K. And when I told him, hey, look, how are you going to give it to your kids? He said, they won't spend it. I said, yeah, but what if they had to spend it over the next 10 years? See, he did not know what he had to do. So you've got to get somebody that you trust. that you go out and look at.

Being quite honest, you know, I wouldn't still be working today. I reckon if everybody ever talked to did something. See, people are different. People move at different paces. That's why I like my buffet example. Hey, look, when I go up there, I don't have a hidden agenda to do anything or sell anything. Leave your checkbook at home. The second meeting, leave your checkbook at home.

I don't have to worry about trying to sell something because I'm covering needs. if I help you to plan a need and you see that that's a need for you, then you can sit there and say, Lord, I'm glad that I talk to you, Terry. Well, Terry, you're just a wealth of knowledge, and I will make sure that we've got your website in the show notes, capture tax and estate planning so they can go visit and reach out and connect with you. And I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing your wisdom. I really appreciate it.

to the, and so I thank you for having me on as a guest. You're so welcome. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.