[00:00:00] Welcome to Crypto Talk Radio, the podcast for everyday investors like you. Visit us on the web at CryptoTalkRadio.net. And now, here's your host, Leicester. Thank you for that, Bailey, and welcome everybody out there on Crypto Talk Radio found at CryptoTalkRadio.net. Somewhat sad news as Dolly Parton has left the world, moved on, passed on, and Dolly Parton, a legend of the 60s and the 70s.

[00:00:29] She was one of the characters that nobody hated, nobody disliked. I think she got a little bit of controversy at times. She was judged unfairly at times. I think most people liked, appreciated, and enjoyed what she brought. She didn't seem to dislike anybody, from what I could tell. Maybe she disliked Donald Trump, but I couldn't tell.

[00:00:54] The president ordered half-mast upon her passing. She had given kudos to 3-6 Mafia. She was an avid reader. She did all sorts of stuff. She was more than just her appearance, and more than just a country singer. And she will be missed. She was an amazing person, was Dolly Parton. Today's episode will be reasonably short. I've got a couple of updates I want to talk about quickly.

[00:01:22] But, I'm going to be focusing hot and heavy on taxes. Do-do-do! CoinMarketCap.com We will zoom out to the month chart with Bitcoin, which of course had a strong upward trend that started last week. Significant amounts of inflows coming into Bitcoin. Currently hovering just shy of the $80,000 mark as I recorded.

[00:01:50] With a, I would say a good trend. It is somewhat sideways, but it's still a good trend visually to potential future upside to come here soon. Ethereum had the same kind of run. Currently hovering just shy of the $2,500 mark. Remember, it was lower than... It was just shy of $2,000 last time I talked. Now it's just shy of $2,500. Good price movement all the way around.

[00:02:16] But many people speculate that while we think that there's some strong upward, there's a possibility we're due for one more drop. And that's simply based on profit-taking more than anything else. Not that anything's wrong, but that profit-taking might come into play and cause a dip before another run-up. And a run-up, if were to happen, would be somewhat sustained.

[00:02:42] Probably not to the degree of 2022, but keep an eye on Bitcoin. Bitcoin's price levels as it goes over the next week and a half-ish will tell you a lot about where it's going. It'll tell you a lot about whether it's going to sustain or if it's going to come back down. If you are one of those that lives in another country and you're sitting on Bitcoin, you probably ought to be aware.

[00:03:08] Things are changing and there's targets on people who like to pack up and leave and go to another country. In the past, people have gone to another country for haven, tax haven, or they've moved after they made a windfall, right?

[00:03:26] Keep in mind that some of these other countries, not named the United States, are starting to pass oversight laws where they're trying to treat your packing up and leaving as a taxable event. By taxable event, I mean they're treating it as if you liquidated, even if you didn't. So let's say you're one of those who bought Bitcoin when it was like $30,000.

[00:03:55] Right now, Bitcoin is just over twice that. Just shy of $80,000, right? Let's say you decide you're just going to pick up and move to one of these countries, Australia or Britain or somewhere else. Depending on where you go and depending on what the price was when you bought, you might be subject to a taxable event where you would be taxed on those proceeds as if you liquidated, even though you didn't liquidate.

[00:04:25] I'm simply sharing that so you're aware and do some research yourself because I'm not in those countries. I can't speak to it with more in depth than what I just shared. I'm simply bringing to attention in case you didn't know. So make sure you're in the loop about your tax obligations if you're one of those that bought Bitcoin when it was cheap and are considering uprooting and moving after its price goes up. What I don't see is whether or not the inverse is true.

[00:04:53] Let's say you bought you fumbled into Bitcoin and $100,000. Then it crapped down to remember $12,000 in the FTX situation. Came back up to like 30 40 some odd. Then you moved. Would they give you a break on that? You know, 80 plus thousand dollars. I'm assuming not, but I would like to hear crypto talk dot FM hit the contact form and let us know or comments where this post. But I would love to hear anybody from these countries.

[00:05:20] If the inverse is true, if you bought FOMO in which you shouldn't, but let's say you did it super high price and it crapped. Would they have a taxable event in your favor in your strong favor? Because if it's true that they do, that's a good opportunity to offset when Bitcoin craps again. It's not just Bitcoin, but I'm targeting Bitcoin system. Most infamous terms of price dollar amount. You could use that to your advantage to offset tax burden. Right.

[00:05:48] But the question is, is it true that it is inverted? I suspect that it's not, but I am curious. Recently, it turns out that there are people who got smart to the business with respect to taxes. I now am focused on United States folks. Got smart to the business with respect to taxes. And it turns out they found out Puerto Rico has some very unique tax treatment compared to other states in the union.

[00:06:16] What people found is that there are ways where you could, I don't want to say hide assets because that's not really fair, but just it's not that they're doing anything against the law, but the way that they're exploiting Puerto Rico's policy allows them to essentially duck capital gains taxes. Feel free to read into this, but the bottom line is that the IRS trying to get their money. They're trying to get there. They're trying to get what they think they're owed.

[00:06:44] And then the IRS is trying to go out to people for wire fraud, which is their go to when they don't have any other way to go after you wire fraud to try to get their money because they think that people are exploiting the policy. So what happens is in summary, the policy basically attributes to people that have been there and stay there the vast majority of a year. So they there's 365 days in a year.

[00:07:09] They want to make sure you're there for at least half the year and that you're tied in the community and you have a business or you work there or something that ties you there as a full resident. What they were finding was situations about people that were basically lying about the duration of time they were spending there where they were still living on the mainland, but they were telling the IRS when they were submitting paperwork that, yep, that's my house. And here's my address. And I, I had this local and they're just answering questions.

[00:07:38] Now, the reason that this came up and I laughed at it when I saw it some years ago, and I'm not going to get specifics, but some years ago, there was actually a question on the form 1040. That was ambiguous. It was very ambiguous. So ambiguous that essentially anybody in the country that understood what it was asking and encountered the question could make claim against the question and essentially result in no tax obligation.

[00:08:08] If you knew what it was because as written, it seemed like an oversight, but it's as written. Basically, anybody can answer the question. And if you did, you wiped out your tax debt. That's what it was. They fixed it later, but at the time, the way it was written straight made it to where pretty much you did not have a tax obligation. I'm not going to say any more than that. I suspect something similar is happening here where the way they wrote it on the form.

[00:08:35] They didn't dig deep enough into what they were asking to try to mitigate what they perceive as abuse of the system. I question, though, for those people that are doing this, why they wouldn't just full stop go to Puerto Rico. Like, what is it that's keeping you in the mainstream? United States. Maybe a job or something else. But if you have significant wealth, what does it matter?

[00:08:58] All they're asking, essentially, is that you live in Puerto Rico the vast majority of a year, which isn't a lot to ask. Puerto Rico is a nice place. Great women, great food. But live there the vast majority of the year, and you need to be connected with local things. And that's not that hard either. So, as an example, you set up, you get a house, get a rent apartment, whatever, condo, whatever you do. So, that's your residence.

[00:09:28] Mail is delivered there. Package is delivered there. And the close ties, for the most part, is you have a job there. You have an office there. You have something that physically would require you to be there, right? That's it. I mean, it's not that hard. So, I struggle why they wouldn't just commit to that and then just have that be your half-year residence. What's the problem? Because Puerto Rico is a protectorate.

[00:09:54] So, it's not like you can't, you know, you don't have to full expatriate or any of that kind of stuff, far as I know. So, I struggle why they wouldn't just commit at full stop and why they're allegedly defrauding. I don't know that they are, but that's the allegations being made. Suffice to say that United States citizens are being chased down by the IRS because of what they think is money that they're owed. Which, I'll share a personal story.

[00:10:18] I had filed my taxes and I knew I owed money, which wasn't the problem. I pay them every month. I pay them a lot every month. I pay enough every month that most people that work regular, you know, jobs like blue-collar jobs, they would cringe at how much I pay per month. I pay per month that some people make on their jobs, but I pay per month. It's a steady payment. It just goes. I don't, it's whatever. They sent me just recently a note, IRS.

[00:10:48] They sent me a notice just recently talking about, well, you filed and you owe money, which is, that's fine because I do, right? So, we're going to, because of the situation, we're going to hit you with a penalty. The penalty was essentially half of the amount owed, which is a joke. It was a straight joke. And we're going to charge interest, which was a joke for something I'll tell you in a second.

[00:11:12] So, it basically, it not fully doubled, but almost doubled the amount owed for one tax year because when this was due, okay, I was in the middle of the move, relocation. Everything was chaotic. I was fresh off my shingles bout. My brother passed away. The rat from hell showed up. I had all sorts of things that were hitting all at the same time. And I was still in financial recovery.

[00:11:41] I wasn't making significant money, but I was still on the rebound and I was still rebuilding from other stuff. And I had put the, I told the story, maybe that was casual, but I told the story that when I needed to relocate, I needed to get out of there because the rat from hell. I didn't have my car. I had given my car back to the bank and told him to kick rocks, right? I told him to just take the shit, right? And they sent me a check for, I think it was like four to $6,000.

[00:12:09] It's like a check because when you give the car back, they have to sell it fair market. And my car, that model was in high demand. I still have one of the same model. That's, so it's in high demand is what it is. It's in good shape the whole night. So I didn't have a car. So I had to get another car because I wasn't going to, I was not going to get on the plane. Screw that. So I had to rent the van. I had to get a new car. I do this. So I bought a car from a guy. I'll do the short version. Bought a car from the guy.

[00:12:39] He told me it's as is. That's fine. He lied about the state of the car. Get there. I had to spend $4,000 on a new cat converter for the car. After that, the car ran like a dream. That was a little green dude. Then that's not the car I wanted, but I had to get some transportation just to buy time. That was when right around then I got news. My brother passed away.

[00:13:03] I was on route and the, where he is would have been, you know, in where I was going, I would have, I could have detoured easy and gone to see him. But, unfortunately, after I was trying to get everything settled with like registration, all that, it was a fiasco. Registration was the nightmare. And that had to do with the fact that the guy who bought the car, he bought it from an auction.

[00:13:32] The auction was out of California. The original owner had reported the car stolen. The insurance company reported it total loss. It was not total loss because the police got it back or, and then they, because it went to insurance, they put it to auction, right? So it was not total loss because the car was drivable. It was not salvaged, nothing. It was, it was damaged, but not to the point that it was not drivable or salvaged. But the insurance company screwed up and they never cleared it.

[00:14:01] California, for whatever reason, still registered it. Arizona, which is where the other guy lived, registered it. So they didn't care about this fake thing about the insurance deal. Nevada, I go to register it. They're like, yeah, it's the salvage date. Like, what are you talking about? Total loss date. It's not total loss. What are you talking about? I have a clean title from Arizona. Total loss date. And I'm, I'm arguing with it. So I called the insurance company. Now this is four years before.

[00:14:29] I called the insurance company saying, I need you to clean this up. I don't know what they're looking at. They seem to take a total loss. They cleaned it up. They sent me a letter saying they did it. I took both those, sent it to Nevada and said, you need to fix this. But they're telling you they made a mistake. It's wrong. Total loss date date. They would not do it. The new location that I was going, they were willing to do it over the mail. They didn't see an issue. They didn't see a total loss. They said it was clean. So they got me titled, clean title, clean registration.

[00:14:59] I'm good to go. I'm ready to go. Okay. I couldn't go right away. And I forget the specific situation of what was happening. I think it wasn't even the cat converter. There was something else that was happening, but there was a bunch of stuff that was happening in this where I was delayed getting out of there. I'd plan to go right at January. This green car, the one that I got fixed was the second I tried to buy. The first was a Cadillac CTX or something.

[00:15:28] And that was 14 grand. Supposed to show up January 1st week. I would have had the car and then gone. She shows up, drops the, drops me a call saying, okay, I'm in the area. Then I get another call. Well, just check engine light and they didn't want to deliver it. Never got delivered. I had to fight get my money back. That was $14,000. Then another $17,000 on this green car to get it, you know, get it drivable, get it registered, get it. I had to do a smog check. I did all these things for that one.

[00:15:58] Then I needed to get the car I really wanted, which is the car I still have, but I need to get the car I really wanted. That one, I forget exactly how much I paid. I think it was, I think it was $13,000, $14,000, whatever. Get that car, that car, the previous owner didn't know how to handle plug-in electrics because the battery, the high voltage battery was jacked up. So I had to replace that. Got a nut. That was significant, significant. So it was like $18,000.

[00:16:27] So the point is that I spent a lot of money just to get out of Nevada. It took a lot to get out of Nevada. That's not even counting the van. That's not even counting the hotels. That's not even counting. I was paying for the new apartment, which I had booked in December and couldn't even go there. I didn't get out of Nevada. So I had planned to go in January. I didn't get out until Labor Day weekends. That's September. Those pay attention.

[00:16:54] I didn't get out to Labor Day weekend because I couldn't because all these things kept hitting. Again, the, my brother passing, the shingles, the everything, everything was just hitting, hitting, hitting. When I finally got clean and I finally, and then the clean out was a nightmare. The, the old place that the rental company, everything was just nightmare, just nightmare. I finally get on the road.

[00:17:18] I finally get on the road.

[00:17:45] I finally got on the road. I finally got on the road. I finally got on the road. I was just kidding. I was just kidding.

[00:18:12] The move from Washington to Colorado, not as bad, but there were a lot of things lost that shouldn't have been, but it was the company I was working with. Unfortunately, they would not let me work remotely and that's all I needed to help clean my stuff out. They wouldn't do it. I had to be there and they were starting a project that would have gone South. If I hadn't been there, they were already starting to go screw it up and I had to stay, but that's where I left my car at the park at the airport parking for a month, that kind of stuff.

[00:18:40] There was a lot of fiasco with that terrible Colorado to Oregon. The move wasn't that bad, Colorado to Oregon, but Oregon is probably the worst state I think I've ever lived near in or around. Just, we don't believe in air conditioning. The heaters are just little wall, small garbage units. They had a spider problem. There was really bad spider problem.

[00:19:07] Like they would, they would come in through the door gaps and you'd see dead ones all over the floor. Just, it was, it was bad, like really bad. At least 10, 20 of these little dudes. Horrible. The company I was working with when I interviewed, they were telling me, the guy was telling me here's what it is, here's what we need. Tell us what your price is. And initially they lowballed me a little bit. I asked for this. They gave me what I wanted.

[00:19:34] I gave my other place three weeks notice, but I was trying to get away from that idiot director. That's the only reason I left. If it wasn't for him, if he had never come, I would have still been at that other in Colorado. I would never love Colorado. Even though I didn't really, I didn't mind Colorado the place, but I didn't like him at all. And I didn't like having to go into the office, not be able to work from home. It bothered me, but this new one, I figured, okay, they're going to pay me what I want. I get away from this idiot. It's a brand new setup.

[00:20:02] I can help do it right from the jump. I don't have to worry about the nonsense. And he's selling me on this. He's telling me all this stuff, right? Trust me, it'll all get back to the IRS. Well, I, so I'm like, okay, I don't know how I can help, but sure. I accept the deal. Now that hotel was a nightmare. Other things around, this is where I understood. Okay. You guys are just racist bastards out here. I started to, I started the job and apparently this idiot that I'm, that's my manager.

[00:20:31] He, now I'm reporting to this other chick. She doesn't know what she's doing. This wasn't divulged to me. He said I was going to be reporting to him. That wasn't true. I'm ending up reporting to this other girl who doesn't know what she's doing. They won't let me work from home. There's everybody else works at 6. A.M. They do a team standup meeting exactly at 8. A.M. So I got to fight traffic to get in there. Cause I'm not starting at six. That's crazy. Cause I shouldn't need to. He said, I can start whenever I feel like it, but then you can't. Cause you got to stand up that they force you. I'm telling them, call me.

[00:21:01] I'll, I'll be on the phone. You don't need me physically here. No, you have to be in the room. Why? Just because the way they work, they do lean. If anybody knows lean, which is basically anybody could just suggest a thing. Okay. So despite people not knowing what they're doing, they can suggest these changes, even though they don't know what they're doing. The team that was currently managing the outbound tool, two of the three of them were nice people. The third, I could swear as a porn star, but I can't prove it. But two of the three of them were really nice people.

[00:21:30] But the issue is the new tool coming in is my specialty. The outbound tool is not what's logical. The logical is you put the, the specialist on the, on the new tool. You take the old team, you team, you ramp them up on the new tool, but they're going to support the old tool. I don't have anything to do with the old tool. I'll help you if I can, but my focus should be the new tool to do it right. They wouldn't do it. I'm offering and I'm telling, I'm suggesting they're not hearing me. So I'm wasting my time. Essentially.

[00:22:00] I go and I escalate it to one of the bosses. She doesn't do anything. Next thing I know, I get called in. Basically they're writing me up for attitude and they're telling me, okay, sign this as a warning. And I signed it, took my, I walked right out of her office, took my badge, dropped it on the idiot's desk and walked out. And I shook my, you know, my colleagues hands and said, thank you, but I'm not staying here. Screw that. I just left. I just dropped the badge and left. I didn't care.

[00:22:30] They tried to, so they did me a, done a relocation bonus. The relocation bonus got taxed. It got taxed because of the tax cuts and jobs act, which came from the, the first Trump administration. When they passed that, they basically made those kinds of, you know, signing bonuses. They made them taxable where they weren't before. So I didn't get the full amount upfront. The company, they tried to actually reclaim it. They tried to claw it back.

[00:22:59] And I'm like, I'm not paying you Jack nothing back because I, I complained to you. I did all these things to try to get this on track and you turned on me and then basically screwed me. And I'm telling you, screw you. I'm keeping this money. I earned it because I stayed there. There were other issues. The point is that Oregon was probably the worst experience I had. Even now, even giving Nevada as bad as Nevada was, it wasn't as bad as Oregon. Oregon was horrible, horrible. The only thing good about Oregon.

[00:23:30] And of course, remember Oregon, you can't pump your own gas. They'll yell at you. I know you can't pump your own gas in Oregon. So I was like, dude, come on, man. But the only thing good about Oregon, the only thing good about Oregon, it had a better tax climate in what it was doing like Nevada did for at least local taxes anyway. It had a better tax climate, but that's it. Everything else was terrible.

[00:23:57] I didn't relocate it because I got, I started my business in April slash May of, of that year. Got a client, clients in California. They don't care if I work from home. However, I got to go once a month, which isn't too much to ask, but I'm now that I've left this company, I ran, I ran near broke. I was, I was on the borderline of broke when I signed the client and they needed me to come there on site. So I took a train down. I wasn't going to fly, took a train down, rented a hotel.

[00:24:27] The hotel screwed up the booking. Did Uber. Did Uber. I remember that girl. She's the one with the seat built, whatever. And I remember I got there that Thursday. I got Monday and I was there Thursday and I'm like, I'm not going to have enough money to get back home. Probably got to pawn something. That's how bad it was. I was broke, broke. And they're like, yeah, just go on home. It's fine. You're good. As long as you come out, it's fine, but you can go on home if you need to. So I got back home because I had to return train, but I didn't have enough for the hotel

[00:24:56] for the next two days because it was screwed up. Hotel booking was screwed up. Okay. I got the train back home, got back home again. I'm essentially broke. So I got to pay rent again, but then I got the first payment. So now I'm back stable ish. And then I got in a groove. Then I decided because the client was in Southern California, Irvine-ish area. Okay. I need to, the train I'm cool with, but I don't want to have this day and a half train ride like I got. And you're like, but that's just Oregon. Yeah.

[00:25:25] It's a day and a half of a train because it has to slow down a lot between Oregon and California Northern. That's slow down. And then that's a slow down in different city parts. It just, it's, it's, it's a visually amazing experience, but it takes earthly forever. I just wasn't going to get on a plane. I refuse. Certainly not at that time. I was done with planes after so many, after that other company in 2014 that was shipping me all over the world or the country on planes.

[00:25:55] I was done with it. So I wasn't going to do it. The train, I liked it. It's just how long it took. The nice part of the train is I had the room, my private suite. Sometimes I got the larger one just because you get full meals. They're included with the meals, peace, quiet, the whole nine loved it. You don't, there's no TSA. You're not groped. It's just amazing experience. It's just, it takes longer. So as long as your patient, which I was, it's fine.

[00:26:20] But I decided, well, what if I just moved to California or excuse me, Nevada rather, then I can train from Nevada, California. Turns out the train's not there because these, they shut down the train years ago. They're trying to get a high speed train. They can't get it set up because they're idiots, but I can drive there and it's only like four hours. It's to get to the client and then, so I could theoretically drive back and forth without ever, you know, spending significant money because I had a hybrid. It was fine.

[00:26:50] So that was what encouraged me to rent something in Nevada and then just drive to the client. So I rented the house in Nevada. There's a lot of story about the house. I won't bore you with suffice to say, got to Nevada. Now my financial situation is a little bit better because Nevada is a tax friendly location. I'm saving on the train. I'm saving on the hotels. Everything is getting better than COVID hits. Okay.

[00:27:16] So once COVID hits and I think I might've caught it right when I got there, just based on how I was feeling, but COVID was brutal because the client, I had just signed my second client. They're out of Texas. I had just signed my second client. They had to shut it down two weeks after I started because the budget, because when COVID hit hospital, they had to constrain all the budgets for it. Then the first client started doing the whole stupid, uh, unconscious bias and other garbage.

[00:27:45] And I'm like, you're not going to put your plumber through unconscious bias training that it doesn't make that I'm a contractor. This doesn't make, and I was trying to get them to stop. I tried to find them. I did everything possible. I'll give you my policies, whatever. I'm not doing your shit. And they wouldn't stop. So I had to cut them. They're like, what can we do to keep you? It's easy. Tell them to stop and they wouldn't do it. So I had to let them go. So now I have no clients. When COVID is going, most of the companies, all they were doing, the vast majority, it's

[00:28:14] like, well, we need you to come in and work in the office. They wouldn't do remote work. Even though the feds were encouraging remote work, none of the businesses would do it. So I'm trying to, it's like, I found, I found at least 10 clients that were, they needed and they wanted, and they were willing to pay, but we need to be in the office. So you're clear does not require to be in a single room whatsoever. All it requires is a laptop and internet for me to do stuff.

[00:28:38] But there are companies, there are people who are still from this mindset of, I got to see you sitting in a cubicle in order to feel good that you're effective when it doesn't do anything. Like, I don't even mind going to an office. If I'm in an office, my own office, I can close the door and focus on the work. They don't do that. They're all about cubicles. I'm not doing the cubicles again. I'm old as shit. I'm not doing that. Like I was in my twenties. I'm a grown ass fucking man. I'm not doing that crap. It's stupid. And in this case, it's COVID.

[00:29:07] All you're doing is infecting people, forcing them to come in there. When the feds say, don't do that, you're still doing it. So I was, I had a moral objection to doing it. Well, because I'm in this situation, my tax filing got dirt simple because it's like, well, shit, I ain't got no money. I made no money. I got nothing. I made nothing. Got nothing. And then I had small little one-off jobs like customer service and things. And I told the story that at one point between this, I was mining. This is when Ethereum's proof of work.

[00:29:35] I was mining and that was all the money I could make in a day. And that was covering what food and drink I could get, which is like maybe a hot dog and, you know, a basic drink or something from the seven 11. That's all I could do because I couldn't get clients that were smart enough to just let me work from home to work what they needed. I got my current client got finally got them signed. That was, you know, four or five years ago, got them signed. It's remote. It's fine. Don't have to go through the nonsense. You're all good.

[00:30:05] There was a point when I was going to work for MGM Grand and they screwed me and I'm glad dodged the bull on that one. But this, this client, I've been working them for years and they, they need me. So I'm okay, fine. It was lower than my normal rate, but I was willing to work with them because I needed the money, but also I wanted to help them out and get them up. I make way more than that now. But at the time I was in this middle ground where I was, again, I was broke at this point. I'm broke. I have no money whatsoever. I'm about to get evicted.

[00:30:35] I did not have a car because I let it go. I had no choice. So I was close to homeless and there would have been no way for me to do a hotel or a rental car or nothing. I had nothing. I had no credit cards, no nothing. So after I signed the client, I get, I'm starting to get stuff back up to back up to snuff. I get caught up on some things. Finally, after I got stable, that's when again, I'm now coordinating because the client needed me to move. And then I'm finally getting everything situated.

[00:31:02] Now we get into the whole, you know, my brother passing in February that year. So now tax filing gets a little bit more sticky because my money increased. But after I physically moved full move, so I had rented the apartment, didn't get there until Labor Day, but I still was technically, I still was technically renting in the old place because it didn't expire yet. It didn't expire to the end of the year because when I signed it, I think I signed it in

[00:31:33] December or something. So I was still officially over there. I didn't, I was not a full residence point. So once I moved now, so this is a rental place. I established new residency January. This is now 2024 rent. January residency. Okay. So I do the driver's license. I do the whole nine residency 2024. This is when I'm a resident. Okay. Nobody seemed to care.

[00:31:59] Well, again, I didn't get a chance to get the apartment till Labor Day, but I had been renting. I had been paying for it since December all the way up. So that's essentially half the term, half the lease term. So now we're getting close to that coming up for renewal and I figure I'm just going to renew it again. They sent me just to give context. There's a girl across the hallway, young college gal or whatever. And I know how much her rent was. Okay.

[00:32:28] They sent me my renewal. They want me to pay. I'm pretty sure it was like $500 more a month. And I'm like, screw you. We're not doing that. They only pinged her $50 more. And she was, she was lower than mine to begin with. So she's, it's the same size unit. She's lower than mine. She came in after me. I know she did. And they only pinged her $50 to the increase. So I already know what the game is. They're just trying to get rid of me. Even though I hadn't done anything.

[00:32:57] I was not a bad tenant. I'd never had a complaint, never anything. But what I did do, they wanted me to do electronic payments. I didn't mind that if I do straight routing number, you know, bank account number, whatever. Fine. They don't do it. They force you to use Plaid, which basically is a online FinTech type deal that only works for the most part with personal accounts. And it doesn't negate you having to give that information. You still got to give the information. Plaid doesn't just automate the full.

[00:33:25] It just gives them, it just validates it. That's all it really does. They could still do validation by just sending a small amount to the account. They don't want to do that. They're lazy. So I said, I can't make Plaid work. It's a business account because I have my business account. Plaid won't work. I need you to go back to the old where I can get the routing transit. They refused. Okay. Then I got to give you a check. So I had to keep writing them checks. Then like a month before, I think it was a month before I told them I'm not renewing.

[00:33:54] They sent a letter out saying, all right, well, we're no longer accepting checks. After this, we're no longer accepting checks. So I'm like, okay, I get what you bastards are doing. You're trying to get rid of me. It's what you're doing. Cool. You're making it easy. Now the problem, it was hard to find another place to rent out here because all of them discriminate. And I'm not even talking race specifically. I'm talking just in general. What I want for renting, if I was going to rent, it's like, if I'm going to pay you a full year's rent, so you don't have to worry about getting paid.

[00:34:24] I'll pay you up front. And they refused. I had that twice. I had it in pocket. I'll give you the full year's rent. And they refused it. They refused it because of what was going on post COVID after I hit a situation. That's all they cared about. So it wasn't my ability to pay them back. That's not what they cared about. All they care about is their computer telling them that I'm a risk, even though I'm offering to pay them the full lease term.

[00:34:51] I gave them the bank statement showing this five figure number is yours. All you got to do is give me keys and they wouldn't do it twice. Okay. I got you bastards. But yet I was able to buy a house. Why? Because I had money. I had significant amounts of money. I had. $60,000 just sitting there ready because, again, I had recovered. Everything was recovered from the bank account side.

[00:35:19] I still had recovery on like credit and other because of COVID. But it shouldn't matter if you got money in hand was my thought process. Okay. Well, I'm forced to now buy something. I didn't want to buy, but I had to. I didn't have a choice. Do I buy a condo? Do I buy a house? I, if I bought a condo, I'm sharing parking. I'm sharing walls. Do I really want that stress, that smoke? I don't really want it. So I decided to buy a house despite not wanting to. I eventually bought the house.

[00:35:45] But now that I'm dealing with this, that I'm describing, this fiasco is going on. It's, I've got a place I was renting. I spent nine months and never really lived there because I didn't have a choice. My brother passed away. I was fighting shingles immediately after he had passed. So I had to deal with that. So I can't drive because I'm in excruciating amounts of pain. If you don't know shingles, it's more pain than anything I've ever experienced in my life. I didn't have a car. I had to figure out the car.

[00:36:13] I had to get back on my feet, get fully recovered, get the rent caught up, get everything to the point that I could go. And then I had to do the move. Then I had to get my stuff out of storage. Then I had to get my cars out of storage, get those here. I still have not been able, years later, put all the stuff away because the house was not in a situation. It doesn't have a lot of storage space. It's a decently large house, but it's compact in what it's doing. So I wasn't able to get everything situated, but it's the search for the home.

[00:36:43] It's the offers. It's the paperwork. It's the bank stuff. It's the walkthroughs, everything that took place. All of that took place right during the tax due period. I didn't have a place to sit down and do the fucking taxes. That's the problem because of these jackoffs at the rental place. Okay. Well then I asked for an extension on the year. It's auto approved. Sure. I get to the point now I'm like, okay, I think I'm settled. Let's go and get this thing knocked out.

[00:37:11] I missed the timing off the extension by one day. The IRS, cause these jackoffs, they locked down the fricking online filing when it's been, you know, even if it's just one day after the extension period, you no longer can file online. I'm like, bro, are you serious right now? So I can't file the extension online. I still have to now do the next year, which is 2025. So I've got to do two filings. It's fine. I know I owe.

[00:37:40] I already have an installment plan because I was paying for the other years. So I figured I sent them a letter. I wrote up a letter and I said, these are past due because I could not file online. If I could file online, I would have done it. I couldn't adjust the installment plan because you don't let me update the plan. If I haven't filed, it's a chicken and the egg. That's stupid. And your developers should fix it. But whatever, just change my installment plan.

[00:38:08] And I told them to basically triple the monthly. Okay. Take three times what I'm currently just, just change it. Go into the computer, type it, change one to three. That's all you got to do. Just triple it. It's fine. I'm fine because I knew there would be a crude interest. I knew there'd be some penalties and that would have all said it if they had done it. I mail those in because I have to mail them in. I have no choice because they don't have the ability to do it online. I can't do it online. I've got to mail the shit. So I mail it in there. Okay. It takes months.

[00:38:38] I just now got acknowledgement that they processed it. Two weeks ago, I got a message saying, well, we haven't finished processing the 2044 yet. Two weeks ago. Yes. Two weeks ago. I just got that acknowledgement that we had not, that they hadn't finished doing the 2044. And then just today I got the one saying, well, we're going to nail you with a crazy penalty. They did not do the installment change. I couldn't do it and they didn't do it. And there's interest.

[00:39:05] The interest is sky high, but the penalty is a bunch of nonsense. Just a bunch of crap. So I went to the advocate service. Cause I'm like, look, I understand there should be a penalty because I missed the cutoff, but this is punitive. For no reason. If you go back to my entire lifespan from when I started filing taxes, the first time you'll see, there's been two times that I've ever been late on filing. And one of those times was in COVID.

[00:39:29] This one is because I was moving and I told them, I can't get in to change anything because you lock it down a day after the extension period, which is stupid. Go ahead and increase the installment agreement amount. I'm approving you doing it in a letter. So I proactively told them to do it. They didn't do it. I don't think it's right. You apply penalties on something where I proactively reached out to you. That's the kind of stuff I was dealing with. I don't know what's going to happen with that. Who knows? It's not even about the money.

[00:39:59] It's the principle of, I told you in the letter what to do. I told you, yes, there's going to be an amount owed. Go ahead and do the installment payment now. Cause it all said it while I deal with a different one, which is state level. I deal with that one. It's not going to be a lot. And then I'll spin back over here and I'll gradually increase this until it's whatever they have. And there's other little fines and things that they do and that's whatever. But I just felt like the dollar amount was punitive for what they're doing.

[00:40:26] My summary of everything I just described to you, everything. And, and mind you, none of what I'm describing had anything to do with cryptocurrency. None of it had nothing to do with crypto games, had nothing to do with any of that. It's all about just a lot changed. The only reason it wasn't higher is because I had a lot of the green energy credits that expired. I, I maxed those out. I did as much as I could when I first moved here.

[00:40:52] Cause the energy bills were sky high and that money that was saved in order to, because I knew this was going to come. But none of what I described to you was crypto related. None of it was. And I'm not ducking any of it because again, I paid them every month. I've been able to have a crazy amount every month. It doesn't really matter in their mind. They don't really care. They want the money that they want. If you file, they mostly leave you alone. But then you got to keep an eye on the penalties and the taxes and the interest and everything else that they try to hit you with.

[00:41:22] Cause it's nonsense. Now, if you're, if you're one of those who did not miss the last three. So 2024, 23, 22. If you didn't, you're on time. You filed on, you filed on time. You're on time. You're, you didn't miss her late or any of that kind of stuff. The messaging was that they're going to automatically, allegedly automatically allow for an abatement. For penalties. If there were penalties.

[00:41:50] Now there were, this type of abatement was allowed in under the COVID situation, but this is a different type of abatement where they're trying to say, as long as you did the last three, good. We'll go ahead and debate the penalty automatically. Cause normally you have to ask for the abatement. Not only do you have to ask for the abatement. It's one of the few types where you cannot request online. You have to call them. Anybody that's tried to call the IRS will understand you're sitting on the fucking phone for who knows how long waiting for a representative. And you can only do it during work hours.

[00:42:20] So you're not able to work the job that helps pay you for the money you need to pay the IRS in the first place. Cause you have to sell on the phone because they don't have an online form. These are the struggles. These are the things that this is why, this is why cryptocurrency missed an opportunity. It missed a key opportunity. It had an opportunity to change the game and get us away from this nonsense that we're subject to with the tax system. But instead it was taken over by children.

[00:42:48] When it got taken over by children, then oversight came in. The oversight basically locks down what it could have been that rhymes. Because if we had done cryptocurrency correctly, the IRS stuff wouldn't really matter. In the broad spectrum, think about it. What is it the IRS really cares about? They care about your income. They care about how much money you make. They care about money that you actually did make. If you had something with cryptocurrency where it was not directly tied to fiat itself,

[00:43:18] but instead was an enabler of wealth in ways that was not directly attributed to the dollar amount, it would negate it for each and every other person. I'm just being honest, which is why I stopped significant investment in it. Because although I could take the losses and claim the losses as deductions, my losses are nowhere near high enough to offset what it was. I'd have to have invested. You're talking like it's funny.

[00:43:47] When you look at what the IRS does with crypto claims, you would have to be dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars and losing even more than that in order to make it worth the while. So even on the crypto side, it's still catered to the super wealthy. It's not catered to the regular person. So the regular person who's just doing basic trades, one-off trades, you're not going to benefit from those losses at tax time. If you make big wins, they're going to nail you.

[00:44:16] They're going to punish you because that's what they do. That's the situation. That's what it all is. And it sucks. It just really sucks. I'm not saying everything that I just said to freak people out. That's not it. I'm simply telling the story. I went from, because I literally did, I went from a theory and proof of work, making a little bit of money that fed me during a period where I didn't have it otherwise to a period of recovery where I have a job

[00:44:45] and I'm doing everything I need to do. I would argue I'm financially better off than I was back then by far. But at the same time, there's a lot of different things I got to take care of now, but I'm still better off. Like I'm situational. I'm better off than I was. I just have to handle it in a different way now because everything's settled down and I got everything pushed in there.

[00:45:12] I just think it's a scam, frankly, that the IRS does what they do, which is they'll disregard your instructions that would help avert everything. And then they force you to sit on the phone for two hours to ask them for an abatement they already know you're eligible for. Instead of just doing it for you, forcing you to fill out a 1040, despite the fact they have the vast majority of the numbers. Now I'm a business owner, so they don't have all my numbers, but they have most of the numbers.

[00:45:40] If we were in a sales tax world, they would have all the numbers. The refusal to change the system to where we don't have to request the privilege of not having to be charged or something. That's like it's a whole punitive system, which is what the inspiration was and the push for cryptocurrency to kind of take over that it never will and never can because they've changed the system in a way that makes it where crypto won't get you out of the hole. If you make a significant amount profit, they'll nail you on it.

[00:46:10] If you duck it and don't report it, they'll find it and they'll come after you. If you make significant losses, they're not going to benefit you to the major unless you dumped hundreds of thousands in there. And it had to significantly crap, which most of them don't. You could gamble on a bunch of stuff, but then you're putting your house and your kids, your spouse at risk, et cetera. It's all a trap. Everything's a trap unless you simply play it by the books and then you play it by the books and you're still back in this circle of having to ask them for permission

[00:46:39] not to be penalized. So that's your choice. You can ask them for permission not to be penalized or you can gamble on crypto and take the risk you don't get penalized. No matter what, the tax man tries to come after you and they're going to try to do what they're going to do to get the money off you. However, they do it. But the irony of it all, as I close, I'm in a better position now than I was. I'm in a better position now than I ever was. I'm in a better position now.

[00:47:08] Ever, ever in my entire. I'm in a better. I would argue, even though I make more money now, and even though I like my house, the house, I would argue my situation up in Washington after I bought the house there, if that had worked out, I would have been even more. I'd have been better off because that house, it multiplied by 4x, the value of it. Easy. Just because it was underdeveloped.

[00:47:36] And if I had stayed there, I'd have been a millionaire. I'd have been easily a millionaire. Easily. I would not have been making as much in terms of salary, but in terms of net worth, I'd have been a millionaire if I had stayed. I'd have been miserable if I'd have been a millionaire. And the tax climate would have been better, but I'd have been miserable. Or do I come here? I'm not miserable, per se. Do I like it here? No, but I like my house.

[00:48:06] You know, and I like chatting with you guys, and I'm in a better situation financially. It's an oddball situation. And the IRS hasn't nagged me. It's just they did a BS penalty out of nowhere that I think is BS. But other than that, they haven't really nagged me. Everything else is decently good. I guess the moral of my story is to say, cryptocurrency right now, let's say it does run up. If it does run up, there will be people who will be happy about a $20,000 client.

[00:48:36] To me, it's kind of like an eh. I kind of just look at it and say, what's whatever, but I don't. I'm eh. But the IRS is going to come after it no matter what happens. It goes up, it goes down. They're going to come after you anyway. Be mindful of what that means. Be mindful of how you handle it. Make sure you're on top of it. People get in trouble when two things happen. And this is IRS, so it's really US.

[00:49:03] One, you don't file at all. Two, you don't make some arrangement to pay them. You don't communicate to them. You don't do something. If you do those two things, they mostly leave you alone. Unless it gets out of control. You do have to get it back under control. This goes to like quarterly payments, estimated payments.

[00:49:29] But the problem with quarterly estimated is that if you already have an installment plan, you can't do that plus the quarterly estimated puts you broke. And they know that. And they actually will ask the question, how much can you afford to pay without going broke? But they still want to get as much as they think they can get out of you. Which for the most part, like in my case, it's like without the deductions, it's probably like a good 40% ish, 30, 40%.

[00:49:57] Without the deductions, I'm going to guess that. So it's a lot. And then you're still, there's stuff, you know, your house, things break. You got to repair stuff, whatever. You got security stuff. You got internet stuff. You got utility stuff. You got school stuff. You got work stuff. You got other stuff that you're doing, food, everything. The IRS doesn't really account for those things, right? So then people declare bankruptcy. Even if they're not broke, they just declare bankruptcy to kind of get a handle on it.

[00:50:25] And so then you see celebrities filing bankruptcy left and right. They do it because of what I described. It's like the IRS will just come after you with some penalties on some stuff. If in their case, some of them don't file or they under file or they underpay. There's something where the IRS thinks that they're ducking, right? If you're not ducking, they mostly leave you alone. It just means that you may never get out of the hole and you have to figure something out. Even if it means take a loan, which is not ideal, which could I do that? Yes, I could.

[00:50:54] Right now, I could do a HELOC, a home equity loan, home equity line of credit and pay off every debt I have. But at that point, you're just transferring debt, which I don't think is very smart versus take that same home equity deal, improve the value of the home and then sell it. That's kind of the thought process. But if I could improve it without taking the loan, I get more out of it because there's equity, right? And less of a loan if I were to sell it, which I've thought about.

[00:51:24] I've thought about, I know I just moved here, but I thought about selling it, go somewhere else. That's more my speed. I'm dying, folks, without having a local jack-in-the-box or something handy.