Right About Now with Ryan Alford - How the Rich Use Tax Strategy to Build Long-Term Wealth | Mark J. Kohler

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Taxes are the single biggest expense most Americans will ever face—and yet almost no one is taught how they really work. In this episode of Right About Now, Ryan Alford is joined by Mark J. Kohler, renowned Main Street tax attorney, to break down how the tax code is designed to reward certain behaviors—and how everyday entrepreneurs can legally take advantage of it. This conversation covers: Why side hustles unlock powerful tax advantages How small business owners can dramatically reduce their effective tax rate The difference between delegating taxes and leading your tax strategy Why depreciation, real estate, and alternative investments matter How wealthy individuals think differently about money and taxes Why the tax code incentivizes entrepreneurship, housing, and investment Mark explains that the tax system isn’t broken—it’s behavior-based. Those who understand the rules use them to build wealth, while everyone else overpays out of fear or ignorance. If you’re a business owner, investor, or building a side hustle, this episode will change how you think about money—and what you keep. Guest:Mark J. Kohler – Tax Attorney & EntrepreneurWebsite: markjkohler.com  

Stop delegating your destiny and start documenting your empire because the secret to the 1% isn't just making money. It's keeping it through high-level tax strategy. In this episode, we talked to Mark J. Kohler, the Main Street tax attorney who's demystifying the tax code to help you turn side hustles into seven-figure wealth machines. Get ready to stop being a sheep, start acting like a lion, and learn how the rich get richer by geeking out on the rules of the game. That starts right about now. This is hard-hitting. People that don't make a lot of money don't want. want to look in the mirror and own that, whether it's lack of determination, laziness, or just

knowledge, they'd rather blame or put this wealthy person in a box and say, oh, they're unethical and bad. Rather than look in the mirror and go, you know what, I could learn a few things. Maybe I'm not going to watch TV every night for three hours and I'm going to learn how to digitally market online. This weekend, I'm going to drive Uber for seven to eight hours and take that money and go buy a rental property next year. Can we get off our ass and do something rather than blame the rich for being determined? This is right about now with Ryan Alford. A Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month.

Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Write About Now. We're always talking about how to get right and what's working now. I can tell you about what the future is. I can tell you about the past is, but we want to tell you how to get ahead now.

We're going deep today in business. We're dealing with a one-percenter. I'm telling you, we got both a rare breed and we got the main street coming right to you. It is Mark J. Kohler. He is a tax attorney. He is the main street tax attorney. And he's going to tell us today how to get it all right. You've got to put more money in your pocket, baby.

That's what we're here to do. What's up, Mark? Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan. This is awesome. And love that your focus is on this. So important. We want to give actionable advice, ultimately. We have a lot of people on, and our focus is how to get ahead in all things.

Small business is the fabric of the U.S. We can talk to the high end, we can talk to the low. That is what drives America, is small business. How the hell does you get to one percent? Lawyer and a tax guy, all I want. I was always an entrepreneur. I was the kid with the lemonade stand. It had a small business in high school and hiring my brother's friends and screwing things up.

And, I mean, it was Tom Sawyer, painting white fences, whatever it was. but I just loved entrepreneurship and when I went on to school, I went into business and then I thought, hey, this accounting thing, no offense to anyone out there, marketing class, finance is tough, sure, but I don't want to work for Wall Street. I'm going to go accounting because I can stand out there. If I can just get a C in accounting, all the other, hire all the other A accountants. Sure enough, I stood out in the accounting group as the party planner. It was super fun. And then I had this teacher who was a lawyer and an accountant. And I was like, holy crap, this guy can take over the world. So you had all the benefits of understanding the numbers sitting in the the table in business and then I could freaking file a lawsuit, fight the IRS, do whatever. I want to be that guy. So I went on a law school. Come to find out of a hundred lawyers, one of them has any tax background. And I freaking said, I'm going to Main Street, screw Wall Street, and here I am. You know how many times I've asked the question of my accountant.

You'd have to consult your lawyer on that. I like to push the limit. I can admit it. It doesn't take long to figure that out about me. But I want to do it legally. I want to get all I get out of it. The moment you said that, I have heard that a thousand times. Consult your lawyer.

Taxes are law. It's tax law and understanding it. And only the big dogs or big companies have been able to afford tax dollars. So I've worked really hard over the last 25 years building a model based on volume and a boutique where we can help clients around the country and been doing that. But the important thing here is the number one cost in our lives are taxes. And people don't want to talk about it. It's too boring.

It's too complex. What the hell do I do? Well, we're going to freaking demystify that. That's my whole career is to say, it's not that hard. And you're the captain in your ship. Quit looking for an accountant to do it all for you. You can freaking run the ship. hire the first mate and you can control your destiny what's the most common thing you deal with mark

working with main street working with small businesses what are some of those key things that you're always tackling or working with clients on since COVID we've had the great formation we're pushing up to almost 45% of working Americans have a side hustle and that's a small business that's a gateway drug it's not a burden we should look at us an opportunity to use those funds to get out of debt build wealth create assets and one and five Americans own a rental property in some form or fashion. If I've got a rental property in a little small business, people, you're not quitting your day job. Let's just tap into that. And so a common, common theme and what we do every day is meet with that community, those people that are the backbone

of this country that are starving for simple answers to get their kids on payroll, save some taxes right off their auto. And I love that bread and butter stuff. There's no mystery. It's not like there's this secret thing like, Mark, how do I save tax? It's just doing the basics and knowing it, understanding it, owning it. And there's no sexy secret there except that you really can build wealth that you maybe never imagined with just those simple base hits. It's not about getting rich quick. It's not getting rich slow. I want to get rich slow. Adding them on and saving the most with that extra time. If you're going to moonlight over and above the daytime job, it's keeping as much of that as possible, correct? Oh yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that W2 day job, work corporate

America. That's cool. It's great. Let's go to your taxes. Bend over. I can't do anything. You're screwed. But if you've got that small business, Now that little 1099 some of you were getting, that's a golden ticket. Now I'm riding off home office, auto, dining, computers, electronics, your cell phone, family members, I'm funding a Roth IRA. You can set up your own damn 401k. Now we're going to take all that money and start deploying it and we're going to be fission. We're going to be lean and mean.

You can pay 30% less in taxes on that money than your day job. Your day job, you're screwed. Let's go get this other money that's a lot cheaper to get. Everybody wants to talk about making money. Why don't we talk about saving money? It's easier to save money than make money. Yeah, that's true. not always easy to make it.

For the average small business guy, and even the WTO, because we have people that listen to our show that are small business owners and that maybe are W2 thinking going small business, what's the least you could truly get away with legally, you know, doing it the right way? What kind of tax brackets should the average small business guy be in? There's seven tax brackets out there and the highest being 37 and a half. No one pays in total 37.5% in federal taxes because it's graduated. When we have brackets, that's our bracket.

on the next dollar after a certain limit. Once everybody kind of gets that, that this is a graduated bracket. That's point number one. Then what we want to look at is, what is your effective tax rate? After we take all the killer right-offs we can think of, lots of options,

what's that effective rate? And for some people, it could be zero. For others, it could be 35%. Now, it is generally true. The more money you make, the more tax rate you're going to pay, a larger percentage of your income and taxes. But then we've got strategies and tools.

For example, why Trump was such an anomaly, and he really wasn't, it's just the Wall Street Journal wanted to point this out, is that he is a real estate professional. I've got his tax return here on my laptop. I got Joe Biden's and his from 2016. He was a real estate professional. Now, you talk about it here on your show all the time. If you want to invest in short-term rentals, long-term rentals, do real estate and deploy money in real estate. It's not for everybody, but we have depreciation strategies and investment strategies that can offset my income over here. Trump had so much in depreciation from his hotels and real estate investments. He was able to wipe out his income from the apprentice

and his retail. His effective rate at the end of the day was very low. Now, someone else that just works a day job, has no write-offs, makes $500 grand a year at Verizon as a VP. Okay, you're going to be paying 30% or more in an effective rate because you're not using the strategies in the best way. We're talking about, hey, don't hate the player. Just hate the game. If you don't like the Trump paid 6%. Don't be pissed at Trump. Just learn the rules. And so when you understand the rules, okay, I could invest in oil and gas. I can invest in a little solar. Oh, I'm going to build a Roth I rate. Peter Thiel's got a $5 billion Roth. It's a tax-free ATM. Oh, I'm going to invest in my health savings account and never pay tax on health care again. And these little tools that are out there are amazing. And they're not complicated. There's last point. Rich people geek out on tax strategies. If you want to be rich, start geeking out on some of the stuff and it'll blow your mind because this is where the rich get richer. Here's what I don't like. And that's why I really love your energy and your passion around this because it's so real and raw and true. The rich geek out on it. And everyone else, almost criminalizes right-offs.

You'll be talking to someone unethical, and why the hell does that proliferated? This is hard hitting. People that don't make a lot of money don't want to look in the mirror and own that, whether it's lack of determination, laziness, or just knowledge. They'd rather blame or put this wealthy person in a box and say, oh, they're unethical and bad. Rather than look in the mirror and go, you know what, I could learn a few things. Maybe I'm not going to watch TV every night for three hours, and I'm going to learn

how to digitally market online. Or I'm going to this weekend, I'm going to drive Uber for $7. seven to eight hours and take that money and go buy a rental property next year. Can we get off our ass and do something rather than blame the rich for being determined? I tend to do that. You went right where I wanted you to go because it's the truth. The truth hurts sometimes. You got to talk about these things and I know that a lawyer is going to tell me what's legal, what's not legal, is cheating the system and using the system. Yes, dude, you just hit the word I wanted to say, I got to dive in here because this is exactly

the word you say. The tax code, this is so important. You want to get theoretical. The tax code is built to motivate people to do things. Get married, pay less tax. A married couple will pay less tax than a single or married filing separate. Go put handicap access in your business, get a tax credit. Go buy a solar water heater or efficient water heater at Home Depot. Get a tax credit. Go buy an electric vehicle, get a tax rate. Go buy real estate and help others have affordable housing take depreciation. Go do this. Go do that. The tax code, all you're doing is using it to help America get better and we'll give you a tax break. You get a tax break for doing good things to help the economy.

And that's the mind shift. The rich are figuring out, hold on, I can make money doing this, save tax, and make Main Street America better. Holy shit, sign me up. It's not what we've been conditioned by media or whatever else, which is, when for me, lose for the government, breaking law, pushing the limit. No, like you said, it's set up because people smarter than me knew that we needed action to make this country run, everything that you named Mark actually drives an action that keeps the

economy and everything else moving, doesn't it? Yeah, there's another classic one right now. It's the oil and gas tax credit and there's depletion credits and all this. If you want to go drop at any income level, you don't have to be materially participating, you don't have to be quit your day job. There's funds you can invest in for oil and gas, royalties, depletion, exploration, and invest 100 grand and probably get a $90,000 tax write-off, make cash flow, and resell it for 150 grand four years from now. The government needs drillers to go get natural gas and oil in the United States on U.S. sell oil and we'll give you a tax credit and all of a sudden your effective tax rate goes from 25% down to 10%.

You're making money. You're helping America be self-reliant on natural resources and everybody wins. And you're the bad guy because you found this kick-ass tax strategy, you know? Yeah. But it's right. I'm not crazy. Proliferation of the wealthy getting ahead, that's a real thing. And that drives me crazy.

Dude, you're a lion. You're not a sheep. You're lying. That's it. I love it. I'm going to ask you two questions. Small business owners. One thing, they should stop doing the most.

Stop thinking you're going to find an accountant to do all of this for you. Stop thinking that, oh yeah, as soon as I find that account, I don't have to worry about this anymore. I'm going to find that perfect account that speaks Mark Kohler. You're not going to find someone that's going to carry a. as much about your finances and future than you. Now, you need a good accountant. They're your first mate. But where are you steering the shit? Are you do understand what strategies they're doing? Are you understanding what structure you are and why? You don't have to know how to do an effing tax return people. You need to know what numbers are on it and how to read it. A rich person

knows their tax return. See, just start doing what rich people do. It's super easy. And they work with their advisor. They don't have an account that just plugs all that crap in and you pick it up two months later. They have meetings with their accountant throughout the year, at least quarterly, and going, hey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to start that. I'm going to sell this. And it's synergistic.

So stop thinking you're going to hire someone to take all of this off your plate. You're taking the number one thing you should be doing and thinking you're going to delegate it. It doesn't work. You need to be the CEO of your tax team that you start building today. And so your accountant is on the team, but you're the CEO of the chief or CEO of both. Yeah, both of the team. And you have to think about it that way because just like your own business. I'm after I own five companies now.

I've gone down this road. I've tried to delegate the business away. It doesn't work. Good luck. No. It doesn't. Yeah, right? You know.

That's what you're in trouble. Yeah. Got all the scars. I've done it too. You cannot delegate. And the taxes, you need to be the CEO of your own tax team. And it might be a two person, three person team, but that's what I just heard you say. And I think we try to delegate the taxes away.

And you lead right into my second point. And it's so easy people, this mind shift change. Number one, you're not going to delegate away this tax. tax and legal topic, although you're going to build a team. So I love the way you said that, CEO of that team. What you are going to do, that's a little different, though, is I need you to treat your side hustle, your business like a business. We've got to start knowing there's a set of books. There's a methodology here. I've got to put in tax deposits. I've got to be engaged in the process. So many people that have a side hustle, they get this mysterious 1099 from selling

something on, got a 1090 from Etsy or eBay or whatever. They're getting a little 1090 for side hustle somewhere. And they see it as a burden. No, no, no, no, that's a business. Treat it like that. Treat your rental property like a business. When you start to treat your operation like a business, it now starts to work for you. And the profit from it can be redeployed into assets that work for you while you're asleep. And that money can be used to expand and scale. But if you don't treat your business like a business, it does you no good. It's just a noose around your net. The opportunities for the write-offs and other things, there's just things that the account is not going to know. They're not

in your business every day. They don't know how this was used or that was used. And a receipt's not going to tell them that. You have to be involved. All of you, at the very least, should have a spreadsheet where you track all of your expenses. Number two, use a credit card or debit card exclusively for your business. If you got an Amex, use it for business. Use your visa for personal.

Try to start separating your accounting. If you're using QuickBooks online or some of the easy software platforms, great. But just start tracking your expenses. You don't know if they're a write-off or not. But if you don't track them, you can't meet with your accountant at the end of the process and carve out the ones that are really work for you. Bad bookkeeping loses money. So start with some decent bookkeeping. Stop delegating, start documenting. Ooh, dude, dude. I got to write that down. I got to write that down. Stop delegating, start

documenting. Ooh, that's good. Hey, Mark, work everybody, keep up with what you're doing. Everybody, easiest place in the world, Mark J. Kohler.com. Jay is in Jolly, Kohler, K-O-H-L-A-R.com. And if you're a tax advisor out there or want to be a tax advisor, I'll equip you right now, holy crap, to go out and make money. The industry needs you. The tax industry is on fire, Ryan.

It's just really ugly right now. And people need good tax advisors. So we're out there. Business owners, my podcast is there. Our law firm, you can get a consult with one of our lawyers right now to help build your plan, very affordable. We'd love to be a boutique for the small business owner across America, directed IRA. Anyway, all the resources are at Mark J. Kohler.com, workshops, the social media.

I'm just honored to be here, Brian. Thanks so much for having me. Hey, Mark. My pleasure, man. We'll do it again if you're up for it. And we'll have show links to all of Mark stuff. Mark J. Coler. We need more Mark.

We appreciate your brother. Thank you, man. Hey, guys. You know where to find us. Ryan is right.com. You'll find highlight clips links to Mark stuff. Of course, social media. That's where we're growing.

That's where we're blowing up. And check us out on YouTube. You've got to watch this episode. Mark looks so good. We'll let them forgive the rock star. But we'll get them on the exponent. We'll get them switched. But we appreciate Mark for bringing it from Main Street to your home.

We got you next time, any time, right here on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.