“I think first and foremost, you’ve got to get out in front of it with a plan. So the pre-planning part is extremely important as far as creating wealth.”
Matthew Chancey helps clients by the creation of Tax Alpha. Tax Alpha is the ability of an investor to outperform by taking advantage of tax-savings strategies. Tax Alpha strategies are largely esoteric. He has been featured in many national media outlets, including Orlando Sentinel, The Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNBC, Digital Bloomberg, and Investment News.
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Importance Of Tax Planning with Matthew Chancey
Brett:
This guest has spent the last 15 years in the financial services space helping clients solve big tax problems with advanced strategies around income and capital gains taxes. He has been featured in many national media outlets, including Orlando Sentinel, The Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNBC, Digital Bloomberg, and Investment News. Check him out on LinkedIn, it’s probably the best way to actually connect with him. It’s Matt Chancey, CFP. Hey, Matt, welcome to the show.
Matt:
Hey, thanks for having me, Brett. I really appreciate it. Your introduction was awesome and made me sound way better than I actually sell myself. So, hey, thanks for that.
Brett:
Hey, if you can help someone save a million dollars in capital gains taxes, I’m sure they would approve of the description. And that’s really what we’re focused on in the show is bringing on experts like yourself who’ve actually been in the trenches with their clients to do just that. So would you give our listeners maybe a little bit about your story and then sort of your current focus now?
Matt:
Sure. Not a problem. I’ve been in the business for, like I said, about 15 years, and I probably started off on my journey a lot like other financial advisors, so to speak. You get the top designations and you go out and you’re helping clients plan, and originally I was planning around what’s the primary liquidity event as a 401k rollover. And it just wasn’t ultimately as fulfilling as I wanted it to be. It wasn’t intellectually and it wasn’t stimulating for what I want to do and I was like, “I got to find something more interesting,” right? So for me, it all came down at the end of the day as we all want to work with larger clients along the way. And the gateway to larger clients, I feel like, really is taxes. So its investments, insurance, retirement estate, taxation are the five core pillars of planning, but the only one that provides instant gratification to a high net worth client, it speaks directly to them is tax planning. And once you do that effectively, it opens up opportunities to have conversations around their insurance investments and retirement. And for me, that was kind of the path that I started walking down. It started putting me in front of the clients that I wanted to talk to, working with their current strategic centers of influence. It just created a practice around the liquidity of selling big assets as opposed to 401k rollovers which I feel allowed a lot more planning opportunities. And that’s kind of where I’ve settled.
Brett:
Excellent. Before you succeed in helping all these high net worth individuals and being on all these major media outlets and really educating a lot of people on these strategies. I’m curious, who was Matt growing up? In other words, not just who you were, but more so what strengths or gifts were you given and how is that connected to how you help others today?
Matt:
Okay, fair. Wow, okay, we’re getting deep, deep, deep, deep. So I grew up pretty normal, I mean my parents, I’m not even sure they both graduated high school. Just very simple, but I was always decently athletic. I ended up getting a football scholarship which got me to college, the University of Central Florida, go Knights. Finally, now people know who we are, it only took 20 years for me to wear my letters to an airport, have those letters be recognized. So that’s kind of a blessing these days to be relevant. But I think when I got into college, I realized that athletics is what got me there, but academics were going to open the next chapter and it was really what was going to take me to that next level. And so I changed my focus from a competitive nature from the athletics, more so to the academics, and kind of really tried to find a path that made sense for me. My undergraduate degree was in legal studies. I thought I was going to go be an attorney, which makes me good at reading legal contracts today so I do get to use some of that skill set. But it kind of took a pivot along the way and ended up kind of going in a different direction with a different path. And I think in primary schools, we don’t teach enough about fundamental finance, especially in my household, we didn’t teach anything about fundamental finance because we didn’t have money. So you don’t have to worry about finances if you don’t have money per se. So it’s been a journey with my kind of learning that and then how to transition that to my clients and in the relationships, just helping people make good financial decisions one step at a time, don’t overthink it. And I many times tell clients, clients think it’s a what, it’s always a what. “What do I do? What do I buy? What strategy are we going to implement?” And I say, “It’s never a what, it’s actually a who. Who am I going to partner with for the rest of my life to help me make good financial decisions,” because a good financial decision isn’t a one-time event. So that’s kind of the path for me. And then it’s just, I have that personality, I’m a natural self-starter and I’m intellectually curious so I’m constantly consuming information and going to different conferences pushing the limits of things that I can learn so that ultimately I can better serve my clients.
Brett:
Love that, yeah. It’s not a what, it’s a who, and it’s the relationship that’s going to help you bring you to whatever next level you’re trying to achieve. Another way I’ve heard it put it’s don’t be the how hire the who, right? Or partner with the who. Or get coached or mentored by the who to reach your vision because your vision is here and you’re here and if you always just try to be how yourself, you’re going to get stuck in procrastination and frustration because you’re not an expert there. But if you can find that who to achieve that bridge to your vision, you can get there much faster and probably more successfully as well. So before your success as an athlete, and then as an educator, you became a financial planner, but you touched on this in the beginning, you were more focused on let’s say the traditional way of financial planning, which is the 401k and some general tax, people kind of know this. But the capital gains tax deferral part, I’m curious, at what point did you say, “Okay, I’m all in on helping people with capital gains tax deferral.” Walk us through that transition.
Matt:
So I guess where that came from was trying to get in front of… you want to work with bigger clients. Bigger clients typically have assets. Those assets are typically accumulated due to the restrictive covenants of qualified plans, you can only shove so much money inside of a 401k or an IRA. So when you look at larger clients, they tend to hold most of their assets outside of qualified plans, therefore when you’re selling them, you’re getting a more favorable tax treatment over ordinary income as capital gains through a liquidity event, and you would think that your tax attorneys and your business brokers and your commercial real estate consultants and your CPAs would have specific knowledge around those parts of the tax code to help mitigate that but they really don’t. It’s just not the way they’re trained. My first tax training came with H&R Block. Years back, when I wanted to dive into it, I was just like, “Okay, how do I learn the language of tax?” Because that’s really what I considered it, a language. To be, and kind of tell this in a funny way, but I don’t mind sharing it, if I walked into a restaurant and there was a really pretty girl at a bar and I wanted to talk to her, but then realized she spoke another language, I would be super frustrated if I couldn’t talk to her. Well, the pretty girl’s in the financial services relationship or the CPA standing in the way of the really good clients. And so until I learned their language and how to communicate with them, there was really a barrier there. And so getting on their page of that fundamental training and then being able to advance that even farther to be able to find the pieces of the code that help work around that piece of the solution was where I really started to fixate my education and my learning. And it made a big difference. It’s frankly not stuff that the big wirehouses or the big brand brokerage firms focus on. So it creates a blue ocean opportunity. I went to grad school with 19 people and they’re all with big firms and none of them use these types of strategies, they are more than happy to let their clients pay full capital gains taxes or depreciation recapture and everything else and they celebrate a liquidity event even after paying millions or tens of millions of taxes, and then they’ll diversify it into a stock and bond portfolio and I’m just like, “If you knew there was a better way and you’re not doing it for your clients, what are you doing?” But the firms just don’t allow it. So it is what it is.
Brett:
Yeah. I have a similar story with Marcus & Millichap and it was a big investment real estate company, helping people buy and sell commercial real estate properties and kind of face this similar, I would say, more sort of neutral to negative. Some people are more positive, but for anything that’s outside of the traditional 1031 exchange being that this is the primary way in which commercial real estate brokers earn income through not only commission sales, but on the next deal, right, when you get the next up leg. And it wasn’t only a few of us, although I was actually introduced to this for the first time through our manager who was ahead of the office in Marcus & Millichap in Northern California in the first place, but being the deferred sales stressor or alternative tax referral strategies. But in your experience, what is the biggest reason? Because I think that’s really a big elephant for a lot of people. They say, “Hey, this sounds too good to be true, whether that’d be a deferred sales trust, whether that be sometimes even charitable remainder trust, sometimes it’s Oz, qualified opportunity zones. Some people are still learning about the 1031 exchange who are not in the world. What are the biggest reasons why some of these either larger wirehouses or larger institutions, in your opinion, are resistant to it?
Importance Of Tax Planning: “You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.” – Dave Ramsey
Matt:
Well, I think everybody has a unique reason for why they’re resistant to it. And I would say that from a commercial real estate space, they feel like using a tax mitigation strategy could potentially, number one, slow down their potential closing and cost them the commission on this transaction, number one. Number two, it might cannibalize the asset from them so that there’s not anything remaining for the upper leg of the next transaction. So they’re not looking out for the best interest of the client, they’re looking out for the best interest of themselves in that particular deal. I think that’s very common in the business brokerage world and in the commercial real estate space. From the tax attorneys and the CPAs that I’ve worked with and trained on these types of strategies, that’s just not the way they were taught. They focused on structuring and the billable hour components of it. Is there entity shifting that can potentially be done? Any discounts we might be able to establish? I mean, they’re looking at it from a completely different perspective. They are unfamiliar with these pieces of the code and/or other products. Timing, shifting IRS code, tax advantage products, and discounts are the ways that you reduce taxes. And all those other types of professionals really lack knowledge in the tax advantage products space because that’s not frankly how they’re compensated. So if there’s no way to generate revenue there, why would they know? And for me personally, I’ve become successful because I figured out the way or learned the way that they were all compensated and they were all paid because I asked them. And then when you understand how they’re scratching their itch, then you can understand why this isn’t something that they’re interested in. And I do have a little bit of a unique perspective. My dad was a contractor growing up, and so I’ve actually been a general contractor for 20 years. So with an undergrad and legal studies, a graduate degree in finance, a general contractor, I understand how real estate gets built, I understand how it gets paid for, I understand how it gets sold, I understand the taxation because of the tax training and stuff that I have. So I never knew what I was going to be when I grew up, but my skillset kind of lends me to really understand this space in a way that most people just can’t.
Brett:
So a unique perspective and background and experience of the real estate world, the finance, and now the taxation. And you’re right, if a CPA or a professional is not trained, whether it be a business broker or a 1031 exchange, a commercial real estate broker if they aren’t seeing it being done, and they’re not seeing people making money on it, then they’re going to keep doing what they’ve only been seen to do. And I imagine that’s perhaps how a lot of commercial real estate brokers started out in the ’80s, right? When the 1031 exchange started to get popular in the ’90s, when it really picked up and the 2000s. Some jumped on and some understood it and some ran with it and some delayed, but until someone models and shows it and shows the closed deal spaces on really helping the clients and then second, of course, putting the client’s interests first above your own, it’s hard to get motivated to move to the next step. So I’m curious, maybe we could share a couple of real stories that you’ve done and maybe some recent ones and some creative ways that you’ve helped people defer capital gains taxes. Maybe share one or two that come to mind to inspire our listeners and kind of give maybe some structure and some ways to do just that.
Matt:
Sure, sure. And it’s funny, I’ll start with the one that I did not get to work on, but just recently was working with a tax attorney who also owns a title agency and was closing a transaction, the sale of a Marina that a family-owned. It was $37 million that they sold this Marina for. They did absolutely zero tax mitigation on that whatsoever. Potentially cost that family close to $10 million in taxes, and I don’t know about you, but $10 million doesn’t grow on trees, right? So to be able to preserve that and build additional family wealth from it, I feel like it… But the tax attorney was completely oblivious to the types of strategies that we’ve discussed here today and highly respected in their community, everybody knew who they were but unfamiliar with these types of transactions, it’s just not the type of work that they do. But the way I kind of explained what I do.
Brett:
Let’s dig into that a little more. Let’s dig into that a little more. So I found that too, it’s the trusted advisor who’s been in the community, and in other words, it’s been the general practitioner. They’ve helped them along their whole entire, call it wealth plan, but using the health plan, they took their blood, right, they gave them the general medicine. They help maybe help a broken bone their kids broke. And so there’s this level of trust and emotional connection that if they don’t know then, A, maybe doesn’t work or it’s not legal, or maybe I shouldn’t do it. And then you couple that with an emotional state of, “I’m selling my biggest deal, probably ever in my lifetime, and I’m afraid of the taxman in case I do something off.” And that’s kind of the perfect storm for people to have fear and let the fear grip them. But what walks us through is perhaps what’s the best way to educate and get these CPAs, knowing these things and get them comfortable with it. Are there any things that you’ve found that either A, the high net worth client who’s listening right now, what you would tell them to do to at least have their CPAs, the strategy, who you are, and what you’re doing? Walk us through maybe some tips on that?
Matt:
Well, I think one of the biggest issues is so if you look at the professional landscape of comparing and contrasting the skillset and the credibility of an attorney and a CPA and a financial advisor, right? CPAs and attorneys both have undergraduate and graduate degrees. They both have passed a very rigorous exam that says, “Hey, I’m qualified to do this thing.” Whereas financial advisor is technically a generic term, and we have guys out there running around in our industry that have 30 days’ worth of licensure holding themselves out there as experts. And I think that damages the credibility of people that actually can execute what they’re doing because we don’t have a higher minimum standard. And so when a CPA has heard a financial advisor knock on the door before and say, “Hey, I can help you with tax strategies,” well, unfortunately, he might’ve said, “Hey, did putting money into an annuity is tax deferral?” That’s a true statement, but that’s not the type of thing that’s really adding value to the clients in our scenario. And if a CPA or an attorney has heard those stories too many times, the next time when a guy walks in can add real value, they look down upon it. “Oh, I’ve heard. I’ve had financial advisors come at me before.” So I frankly feel one of the things that hold us back is being framed or pre-framed as a financial advisor, it almost is negative. Because financial advisors tend to be viewed as not problem solvers, but product pushers more times than not. And if you’re not coming in with a holistic solution, so the way I’ve explained what it is that I do is, yes, to some extent I am a financial advisor. I have way more credentials than most, but I still look at liquidity, I still look at cash flows, I still look at legacy concerns. Is this live on money? Is this leave on money? And what are we trying to accomplish? And I go, “But now I solve those problems using much more sophisticated tax-focused tools than nobody else is going to bring to the table because I understand how they work. And so I’m solving the same problems that somebody else would solve for, I’ve just got a more sophisticated toolbox because I’m better trained.” So I think that those CPAs and those tax attorneys along the way frankly run into so many low-caliber financial advisors that they’re at the point where it’s almost like a cry Wolf scenario. They’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it before,” and they’re not willing to listen. So for me, I speak nationally at conferences all over the country, and that changes the paradigm because if I’m in front of a room full of a whole bunch of people that are considered professionals and I’m speaking, and I’m educating on this, that’s elevating my status and then I’m teaching the whole room. So at that particular time, they were like, “Well, maybe there’s something I don’t know here and I need to find out more about it,” and that’s what’s made a big difference for me. I know everybody hasn’t been afforded those types of opportunities, but that’s what’s kind of worked for me.
Brett:
Yeah. I love it. And that’s really what it comes down to is being in a position to close deals and speak and educate and build a network of satisfied clients who can ultimately share the successes and hopefully the CPS are open to it. I would also add, if you’re the high net worth client to actually just be early on these things, right? The toughest time to close deals, especially presented with new opportunities is let’s say the last 30 days or deal is about the close, right. You’re so caught up in the emotions of the sale and making sure you get the high price, let’s say the $37 million Marina Deal, right? They’re so focused on that, it’s hard for them to get outside emotionally for something that’s so brand new that maybe sounds too good to be true. Why didn’t I know about this $10 million tax savings? So be early. Pre-plan before you even go into escrow what your tax deferral strategy is going to be, and then present that there and make that almost like a separate escrow. That’s your first escrow. Go figure that out before you go into contract and execute on that high price in the best terms with that buyer. In fact, we’re doing a deal this recently, it’s actually, I don’t know, a $40 million deal for a business sale and it’s exactly that. They preplan and the first buyer wouldn’t cooperate for some reason. So they just dropped the first buyer and went to the second buyer, but before they went into contract with the second buyer, they said, “Hey, look, we want to make sure that you’re okay with this tax planning that shouldn’t affect the sale whatsoever. All the warranties and everything will be the same, but it’s going to help us tremendously to build wealth and to defer tax.” And they said, “Yes, no problem.” That was the choice there for them. So curious now, on the next step, Matt, after helping countless investors, educating CPAs, business brokers, commercial real estate brokers speaking, what are some of the top one or two ways that you found is the best way to create and preserve wealth?
Matt:
So I think first and foremost, you’ve got to get out in front of it with a plan. So the pre-planning part is extremely important as far as creating wealth. So I would say engage with your business broker, your commercial real estate person upfront and say, “Hey, are there tax mitigation strategies we can use? Let’s put those on the table, let’s discuss them now.” And if they’re using it in their listing presentation, you’re going to get more listings, you’re going to get bigger listings and you’re going to close sales faster, right. So get out in front of it with your listing presentation, that way you’re not kind of ambushing the client coming back later saying, “Oh, hey, by the way, we’ve got some tax mitigation strategies. Just put it right on the table when we start. This is part of what we do. This is part of who we are, right? It’s just more value that you’re driving to the client. So I would say, the earlier in the process, the better. And I’m a big fan of stacking different strategies together. I do 1031s, I work in the Delaware Statutory Trust space or DSTs. So if I’m working on a business owner sale and there’s a real estate component to the sale, I absolutely don’t mind bifurcating and pulling that piece out of it and using that potential piece of the code, the Delaware Statutory Trust. It’s a great tool for cash flow, if that’s what they’re looking for that best fits their scenario, preserving their step up. Great tool. Big fan of using opportunities zones. If somebody needs it, you’re allowed to bifurcate and pull your basis out of that deal. So if a client needs cash now in their hand and they have some basis in the asset, from a planning standpoint, it carries a lot of value, right. And then 453. Under 453, the installment sale code, there are a few different structures out there, but if you’re looking to, defer that tax, and if you understand the concept of time, the value of money, and net present value, then it’s much easier to pay for those taxes in future dollars at a discounted rate. So look at the 453 strategies and see how those might work for you, they can let you potentially diversify into some different asset classes if you’re looking to get out of real estate because sometimes people have been in real estate and go, “Hey, I just don’t want to mess with this anymore. I want to be in something else.” So there’s a lot of tools out there and they can be used together in an additive fashion and you get way more bang for your buck that way. But it takes some training and it takes some learning and sometimes, I hate to say this, but there’s an old expression, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Well, many times, the clients that we’re working with that own highly appreciated real estate or businesses, frankly speaking, ‘re old dogs. They’ve been doing this one thing for a long time, they’ve created a massive amount of value in their business. But at the 12th hour right here, we’re coming in and they’re just unfamiliar with this type of planning, even though based on the code, statutorily, they’ve been around for a long time on the books. And I get a lot of pushback today about opportunity zones, not being around on the books for a long time, but let me tell you something, it’s built on partnership law. Partnership law has existed for a long time, and it was piggybacked off the other types of programs that have been around in existence for a long time. So it’s not like it’s completely new and completely foreign, just the way that they put that together is a little bit new. But partnership law has existed, limited partnership structures in past new tax benefits have existed for a long time. So it’s not really as new as people would make it out to be, it’s just a lack of understanding.
Brett:
Yeah. I couldn’t agree with you more and those are some really good insights. And I liken it to sort of like a CEO or founder of a company who takes it to the first $100 million for, let’s say, five, 10, or 15 years of blood, sweat, and tears, and has been able to get to the $100 million that he’s kind of capped out and he’s got to step away or take a different role to take it to $1 billion company, right? And it’s hard because in a sense, “This is the way I’ve done it for these past… What are you telling me? I’ve succeeded?” No, no, you absolutely have succeeded. But now that you’re exiting, or now that you’re looking to make a shift or a change or a lifestyle change or more liquidity or less debt or more diversification or whatever it might be, you may need to take a different role and use a different team. That’s the other thing, too. Sometimes these CPAs help them to get to the $100 million levels. So they have a lot of credibilities and a lot of clouts, but they’ve been helping with, let’s just say, the general part of the business, not the brain surgery, right? And this is where the brain surgeon who’s the CPA, tax attorney, who specializes in that part of the brain because a CPA can be very different. Each can have its own niche and its own ways of doing things. And just like a doctor, there are general doctors and there are surgeons. So you’re not going to have your knee surgeon do your brain, and your brain does your knee. So figuring out and getting out of the way of one size fits all approaches for my financial advisor, my CPA, and more so who is the specialist that’s going to help me based upon the needs and goals that I have. Any other thoughts on that, Matt?
Matt:
No, I 100% agree. I don’t think… It doesn’t mean the attorney you’ve worked with or the CPA you’ve worked with all these years to help you build your business is bad. It just means you’re an anomaly, you’re an outlier and you grew your business or whatever it was so successful that you basically outgrew them. That’s not how they make their money, by helping businesses structure properly to be able to sell to minimize the tax effect. It’s the billing, the reporting, the compliance work, the accounting, the payroll. That’s how most of them are making their money on the singles and doubles in the businesses. They’re not structured in a way to really add massive value to a client relationship through a liquidity event. That’s just not their business model. But I think trust and sticking with who got me here sometimes has a lot to do with it. It’s kind of funny, it’s easier to talk about deals that I’ve lost than deals that have won sometimes because I try to learn from all those scenarios, right. And I lost a client recently in Atlanta who was selling a business for $41 million. And his objections were that nobody on my team’s heard of this. I’ve interviewed three other big, big brand name firms. My presentation was hands down in his word 300% better, but he found it impossible to believe that those other big firms didn’t have talented people that didn’t know what I knew. And he goes, “I can’t risk it. I have to play safe here. This is my life savings, my life work. I’m 64 years old and I’ll pay an unnecessary $10 million in taxes just to know that everything’s going to be okay.” And I’m like, “I get it. I understand.” That’s a big price to pay for ignorance, I guess, but I understood. And so you get these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and if the people around you, aren’t giving you the best advice, if that’s not your area of expertise, it’s hard to tell. This guy was in the software business. I would’ve never known if somebody comes into my house or my office trying to sell me software, I wouldn’t know if they’re telling me the truth or not. They can be pulling the wool over my eyes and charging me 10 X on something because I don’t know anything about software, just like this guy didn’t know anything about finance and tax, but getting to the point where you can have a $40 million exit doesn’t make you a financial expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Brett:
Absolutely and well said. That’s so much wisdom there and encourages the listeners to do due diligence and be early and ask the tough questions. And the other way I say it too is, Matt, someone needs to pay down the 23 trillion. So we’ve got to have a lot of good Americans to pay that down. I just hope it’s none of my clients and none of my friends or family so we can give more to local things that help us or more to charity if you want to, right? Versus the government kind of wasting that wealth away pretty quickly, but someone needs to pay down that 23 trillion so. But no, that’s a little bit facetious, but at the same time, it’s serious, right? Because that’s serious wealth that can help a lot of families and a lot of people, whether it be their own family or our future generations. But sometimes you’re right. It’s the fear or the thought of not knowing that other people don’t know about this, or didn’t tell me about it overcomes that total amount of tax which is absolutely their decision to make, but it is one of the toughest ones to face when you put your best foot forward, they love what you say, but they just can’t quite get over the fact that they hadn’t heard of it or their other advisors don’t say yes to it. So shifting there a bit, you’re obviously a wealth advisor, you’re a tax expert. I’m curious, some of the other professionals that you work with, right? Business brokers, commercial real estate brokers, realtors, what have the best ones have done to work with you to leverage their business so that they can grow their business in their influence?
Matt:
Sure, sure. I would say kind of back to a previous comment that made it part of their process from the beginning. That way it doesn’t feel like you’re kind of baiting and switching the client, you’re telling them upfront. I mean, listen, if you’re on a listing presentation, your listing presentation, they all say the same thing. They all say the same thing. “Hey, guess what? We’re going to term in fair market value for your asset whether it’s real estate or a business. Number two, we’re going to bring you a bunch of highly qualified buyers.” And then they make the biggest mistake ever, number three, by saying, “You should go back and talk to all the other professional advisors you currently work with to determine what your net proceeds from the sale are going to be because that’s not what we do.” And that in and of itself right there is where they make the biggest mistake. If they would just say, “Listen, we have some professionals that work on our team as part of a capital asset transaction to help mitigate taxes.” They can work in tandem with your current professionals, or maybe you realize that these people need to supplant some of your current professionals because they can add more value. That’s something you need to determine on the front end when you’re going through the transaction, and they will be more than happy to give you a free consultation. So my phone rings all the time with phone calls and text messages saying, “Hey I’ve got an owner that’s thinking about selling, can you give them five minutes on the phone and introduce the concept to them?” And I absolutely don’t mind making myself available because if they’re doing it in the front, they’re winning those listing presentations because it’s clear that they’re going to add way more value. And at the end of the day, we can take less on the ultimate sales side from an offer standpoint, because if we’re mitigating the taxes out of the deal, the client is still ultimately going to walk away with more. So it allows us to not have to fight for every last penny in that contract which sometimes causes a deal to go South.
Brett:
Yeah, I couldn’t say it better myself. That is great advice. Be early and add value, really. That’s at the center of everything we’re doing as financial professionals who are trying to help people create and preserve more wealth, is adding value and what is your value proposition as a business professional and how you’re actually going to help somebody save a failed 1031 exchange, defer hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars of capital gains tax, gain liquidity, pay off debt, fund charitable charity that you have a passion for. Whatever it may be, present some of those ideas upfront early so give the client time to actually pick and choose or kick the tires on them and then make a decision versus throwing on until the last minute. So this is great advice. We’re going to do a lightning round and then have one last question. Are you ready for the lightning round, Matt?
Matt:
All right. Boom, lightning.
Brett:
Here we go. Tell me your favorite book you’ve read over the past six months.
Matt: 
Favorite book that I’ve read over the past six months. You know what? I read a book recently called The Miracle Morning, and it was about setting your mindset and your tone first thing in the morning, building in time at the beginning of your day, before you get buried, and building a structure, whether it’s meditation or gratitude or going to the gym and just getting in those things that are good for you mentally, emotionally, and for your soul, and build that in, and let it set the tone for your day. And I think maybe we do some of those things subconsciously, but creating a blueprint for it where you can almost follow through, was maybe very fundamental stuff, but it was a good takeaway for me.
Brett:
Excellent. The favorite podcast you’re listening to now.
Matt:
Impact Theory. So I like it. The guy that runs it, his name is Tom Bilyeu. He’s constantly interviewing a bunch of great people there. In all different phases of business people, different types of entrepreneurs. They also crossover and go into a little biohacking and stuff because, hey, if your health and your wealth are directly correlated, right, you’ve got bad health, it’s going to negatively impact your wealth. And if your money goes bad, it’s going to definitely destroy your health. So he looks at it holistically from both sides. So Impact Theory, I’m a big fan of it.
Brett:
Excellent Miami Beach or Clearwater Beach?
Matt:
It depends on how much nudity you want to see first and foremost. Miami Beach is kind of a freak show, but it’s fun. But if you want to chill and you want to relax, I would say Clearwater Beach. And it’s an easier commute, I’m closer.
Brett:
There you go. Business sale or commercial real estate sale, best one for your services to defer capital gains tax, what’s your favorite?
Matt:
You know what, I think you can add value equally in both of them, so I don’t want to necessarily ride the fence, but the business owner or the real estate owner is the one that really makes the difference, because those are the people that we’re working with, those are the people that we’re serving. And if they’re open-minded, and I think, like you’ve said the whole time, we know that we’ve got a major tax or debt problem in our country, but we also know that local state and federal governments are terrible re-allocators of capital. So high net worth clients want to have more control over where their dollars and specifically their tax dollars go, and this is a way for them to be able to do that. So people that want to plan around that, are great people to work with.
Brett:
Excellent. Hey, that concludes the lightning round and we’re going to finish with this last question right here. And it’s actually probably the most… my favorite question, I think our listeners’ most impactful question too. And you may have answered it in your favorite book you’re going on right now, but how do you, Matt, stay centered in your values and then stay encouraged to charge forward, to reach new goals?
It's been a journey with my kind of learning that and then how to transition that to my clients and in the relationships, just helping people make good financial decisions one step at a time, don't overthink it. Click To Tweet
Matt:
I feel like sometimes when you have to figure out what your higher purpose is, or I think it’s real estate analogous, right? The highest and best use is a concept that you hear used all the time in the real estate space. And I think as humans, we have to figure out what’s our highest and best use. Whether we look at that from a spiritual standpoint, obviously you see guys standing out on the corner every once in a while with a megaphone holding a sign saying John 3:16, they feel that’s their highest and best use. That’s their calling, that’s why they’re doing it. Or it’s with your family, right? If that’s your highest and best use, being a great husband, being a great father, right? So you have to figure out what your highest and best use is, and then tap into those skills that allow you to be able to deliver that to whoever it is. If it’s to serve your faith or serve your family or serve your clients professionally, or take more of a balanced approach. I struggle with balance. I’m really good at filling up one cup at a time. I’m terrible at trying to fill all cups at the same time, but I’m working on that. And so we all have strengths, we all have weaknesses. So I work on that every day just like everyone else.
Brett:
That’s a great answer and I appreciate you sharing that. And so I want to thank you for being on the show, Matt. Again, you can find Matt Chancey, just go to LinkedIn, search Matt Chancey, CFP, Certified Financial Planner, but to CFP by itself and he’ll pop up and you can add him and connect with him there. Matt, any last words for our listeners before I let you go?
Matt:
I tell people, I get asked all the time by professional colleagues in our space, so I volunteer some time in the criminal justice system. I’m with the department of corrections, I’ll go in and I teach finance to pre-release felons. And I go back and I teach at universities for the kids and stuff all the time. They are getting finance degrees and don’t know what they want to do with it when they grow up. And I always tell them, the more you learn, the more you can earn, right? Because you’re driving value. And I think that statement is simple, and I think it’s also applicable to clients, right? Don’t stick your head in the sand and act like what somebody’s telling you doesn’t exist, because if you stick your head in the sand, don’t forget, we can still see your butt. So go out there and learn something.
Brett:
I love it, I love it. Yeah. Stay humble, stay hungry and stay open-minded to learning something new so that you can create and preserve more wealth. Well, Matt, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure having you on the show. And I want to thank our listeners again for listening to another show of Capital Gains Tax Solutions Podcast. As always, we believe the highest net worth individuals struggle with capital gains tax when they go to sell their highly appreciated business, primary home, commercial real estate, or another highly appreciated asset. Having a clear plan such as a 1031 exchange, a deferred sales trust, a qualified opportunity zone is the best way for you to create and preserve your wealth. So until next time, go make it a great day, go learn a little bit more, and connect with Matt when you get a chance to on LinkedIn. Thanks so much.
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About Matthew Chancey
He works with high-income and high net worth clients nationally to legally reduce taxes on income or capital gains.
He starts with tax reduction strategies to determine which best fits the client’s unique situation and often leads into a more comprehensive financial planning or investment management solution that looks not just at what his clients make, but how they keep more of it.
Matt has been in the finance industry for over 15 years and as well as working directly with high-profile clients, he is highly sought after for education, teaching, and guest speaking within the industry.
