Hope Springs Eternal – 2024 in Review | From the Trenches with James Boyle and Martha Kern (We’re The Brits In America S1:E38)

2024 was a year of volatility. Despite this, the S&P 500 finished the year 28% up – that’s on top of a 70% gain from the 2022 low. As always, the learning from this is that you just need to stay invested. Nobody knows what 2025 has in store but avoiding attempts to time the market will save you a lot of headache. To speculate on 2025 and wrap up the year that was 2024, Richard and James are back in the trenches, this time with CCO at Plan First Wealth Martha Kern.

Together they discuss the ‘Santa Claus rally’ often predicted for the holiday season, the complexities of Medicare and how to avoid expensive mistakes in your pre-retirement planning. Plus, tax compliance and ‘reasonable cause’: it was a big talking point this year, but what does it all mean for you?

We’re the Brits in America is affiliated with Plan First Wealth LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Plan First Wealth.

Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Plan First Wealth does not provide any tax and/or legal advice and strongly recommends that listeners seek their own advice in these areas.

About Richard

Richard Taylor is a British expat, dual citizen (UK & US). Originally from Bolton, he now lives in Greenwich, CT, where Plan First Wealth has its head office.

As the firm’s leader, Richard launched Taylor & Taylor, now Plan First Wealth, and continues to fuel the firm’s growth. Richard is a Chartered Financial Planner (UK – CII) in addition to holding the IMC (CFA UK) and Series 65 (US – FINRA).

Connect with Richard on LinkedIn

About James

James Boyle is the lead financial planner at Plan First Wealth. He is going on ten years in the industry on the American financial planning side, including having certification as a financial planner in the States. James is also CFP level four UK cross-border certified, making him exceptionally qualified in the niche in which he works.

Connect with James on LinkedIn

About Martha

Martha Kern is Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) & Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Plan First Wealth. She oversees and maintains the operations and compliance programs at Plan First Wealth, while also supporting client service. She is a Certified Financial Planner™ and Global Financial Planner (GFP US) and holds the Series 6, 7 and 63 (US – FINRA).

Connect with Martha on LinkedIn

Transcript:

Richard:

[00:00:00 – 00:00:51]

Welcome to a very special episode of From The Trenches, the show where myself and my colleague James Boyle bring you behind the scenes at Plan First Wealth and tell you what’s going on in the world and in our life and in our business. Hopefully you get some value from it. And this is a very special episode because this is our first in person podcast. We met up yesterday in New York and overindulged a little bit. And it’s also extra special because we have Martha Kern with us. Those who don’t know, Martha Kern is the CE COO and CCO of Planned First Wealth. She’s the longest standing employee. She makes the whole thing tick. James and I do our best to blow it up. Martha keeps us on the straight and narrow and we’re all together in person to gallivant around New York for a couple of days and we thought we’d do a podcast in person and here we are. So, Martha, tell everyone you introduce yourself.

Martha:

[00:00:51 – 00:01:25]

Well, sure. My name is Martha Kern. I’ve been in the financial services industry for it’s now actually over 20 years, which I did realize until sitting here doing the math right now, which is a bit shocking. By and large, most of that was client facing. And really in the past three to five years, I’ve kind of moved from the front of the house to the back of the house, making sure that these guys can meet with clients, do financial planning, manage investments and then the back end, the compliance. The operations run smoothly and they don’t have to worry about it. And it’s handled and it’s in good shape.

Richard:

[00:01:25 – 00:01:37]

Right. So let’s do this usual agenda. We’ll cover what’s going on in the world. We’ll have a little look back at the year because this is going out just before Christmas. I think we’ll look forward and then we’ll see where this takes us.

James:

[00:01:37 – 00:01:37]

Excellent.

Richard:

[00:01:37 – 00:01:40]

James, what have you got for us?

James:

[00:01:40 – 00:02:13]

Well, we’ve had an incredible year in the S and P. We use that for shorthand. Right. We know that people are in diversified portfolios, but S and P is a useful shorthand. Up 27% on the year. Now again, as Richard said, this will come out in Christmas. We’re recording a couple weeks before, so things may have changed by then. Maybe we’ll see a Santa Claus rally here in the last few weeks of the year. But we ring this bell often about staying invested, not trying to time the market. The S and p is up 70% from that October 2022 low. 70%.

Martha:

[00:02:13 – 00:02:14]

Oh my gosh.

James:

[00:02:14 – 00:02:15]

And if you remember it was down.

Richard:

[00:02:15 – 00:02:17]

About what, 25 at that point?

James:

[00:02:17 – 00:02:51]

I think so, yes. So the 20, 22. The year ended about 20% down. It would have been lower in October. All the conversations we were having with our clients centered around, there is this massive recession coming up. I’m worried, what should I be doing? Should I be going to cash? What’s the action here? What’s the plan? And it’s just again, this resounding endorsement for the idea of not trying to time the market, not giving in to what is a very valid human emotion. And if you did that, you’re up 70%.

Richard:

[00:02:51 – 00:02:56]

So down 25. Down 20. 25. Up 70.

James:

[00:02:56 – 00:02:57]

Yep.

Richard:

[00:02:57 – 00:02:57]

Wow.

James:

[00:02:58 – 00:02:59]

A lot of volatility.

Richard:

[00:02:59 – 00:03:00]

Right. Yeah. I’ll take that deal.

James:

[00:03:00 – 00:03:01]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:03:01 – 00:03:03]

Right. Wow. Wow. What a year. What, another year.

James:

[00:03:03 – 00:03:03]

Yep.

Richard:

[00:03:03 – 00:03:05]

But what, what about next year?

James:

[00:03:05 – 00:03:06]

We’ll see what happens.

Richard:

[00:03:06 – 00:03:12]

Yeah, well, half the country thinks that everything’s going to blow up and go to hell in a hand basket. The other half thinks we’re going to.

James:

[00:03:12 – 00:03:13]

It’s.

Richard:

[00:03:13 – 00:03:14]

It’s game time.

Martha:

[00:03:14 – 00:03:18]

And some of those people are right and some of those people are wrong and we haven’t figured out which ones are right.

Richard:

[00:03:18 – 00:03:22]

Yeah, we have no idea. But it’s going to be interesting.

James:

[00:03:22 – 00:04:12]

It will be. I think we’re in for more volatility. Right. We talk about that election coming up or, excuse me, inauguration coming up, which will, you know, we’ll see what happens. Economically with policies that have been proposed, we don’t tend to make predictions or have price targets or an outlook. Obviously we have the message of staying the course. I alluded to this idea of a Santa Claus rally. I’ll just dive into that. So, Callie Cox over at the Ritholtz Group, we quote a lot, put out a great article about what the Santa Claus rally is. It’s the idea that at the end of the year there tends to be a fairly significant rise in prices from the last five trading days of the year. So it’s the final three days of the calendar year and then the first two trading days of the new year. Okay.

Richard:

[00:04:13 – 00:04:14]

So it really is right at the very end.

James:

[00:04:14 – 00:05:10]

Yes, very end. And it actually bridges that gap, which I never knew the idea of the rally. So I’m going to, I’m just going to read the stat here. S&P 500 has risen in the last five trading days of the year through the first two trading days of the following year about 80% of the time. So that’s a fairly statistically significant stat there. Usual seven day period, it’s up about 59%. So a pretty big bump. Like I said, we’ve had a great year. 2024, up 27%. In years when the S and P has been up 20% or more through November, the index also rose in December 75% of the time. Now that sounds incredible, but normal stat is probability of a rally in December is 74%. So probably not statistically significant, but we could see that there’s an argument to be made that we have seen all the growth that the market is prepared to accept for the year. That could turn out to be true as well.

Martha:

[00:05:10 – 00:05:20]

Is there a reason behind that? Is it good market sentiment at the end of the year? Is it the retail boom that just happens over the holidays? I’m just speculating because I have no idea.

James:

[00:05:21 – 00:05:52]

Those are two of the topics you’ll hear talked about frequently. There’s also some idea about mutual fund managers and fund managers looking to capitalize on what was a good year and squeeze out any kind of returns that they can at the end of the year. Retail activity. People are out and spending money. I just saw something. There was a quick headline that said they expect expect 2024 holiday season to be 14% more sales. You know, net sales for the year. So as it stands, the economy feels like it’s still strong. People are working. And as we know, if people are working, they’re gonna be spending.

Martha:

[00:05:52 – 00:05:54]

And Black Friday hit records this year.

James:

[00:05:54 – 00:05:55]

Yes, absolutely.

Richard:

[00:05:55 – 00:05:55]

Absolutely.

James:

[00:05:55 – 00:05:57]

And it’s sort of expanded as well, right?

Martha:

[00:05:57 – 00:06:04]

Yeah. Oh, it’s so many days now. It’s not just Black Friday. Yeah, it’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday and charitable Giving Tuesday.

James:

[00:06:04 – 00:06:12]

It’s like a two week vacation for spending. But yeah, all that activity begets a lot of economic conf. Going into the new year.

Richard:

[00:06:13 – 00:06:22]

The economy is humming. Yeah, it is humming. It’s. It’s remarkable, really. Yep, it really is. And it’s also remarkable given how many people think it’s not right.

James:

[00:06:23 – 00:06:29]

The vibes check. As the kids say, vibe session, vibe session. That’s it. That’s it. Yep.

Richard:

[00:06:29 – 00:07:29]

So it’s been a. It’s been a pretty wild year, really. It’s been elections everywhere. You know, incumbents have been deposed globally, including in the good old US of A. And I think it’s just worth touching on what I said before. Half the country really does think that we’re about to implode and the other half thinks it’s game time. And whichever side of that you’re on, you’re probably wrong because no one has a clue. And I just Temper it. Whether you’re scared stiff that people in a position of fear are liable to make a. A wrong move, but also if you’re overconfident, that can also lead to making a wrong move. So we just caution, calm and steady. Slow and steady wins the race. You know, stick with your plan, stay invested, keep doing what you’ve always done, try and tune out the noise, and this too shall pass.

James:

[00:07:29 – 00:07:30]

Yep.

Martha:

[00:07:30 – 00:07:51]

I would guess that part of the reason that most of those people are wrong also is because of the number of scenarios in the middle. Some of the policies are going to be positive economically. Some of them are not. Some of them will be rolled out at the same time and will maybe even have a neutralizing effect. But the number of scenarios that are both bad and good are much higher than just, oh, my gosh, everything’s amazing, or oh, my gosh, we’re crashing into the river.

Richard:

[00:07:51 – 00:08:02]

Yeah. One. One commentator referred to the coming four years. I think it was Yardini. So a legit commentator. We could be in for an economic Lollapalooza.

James:

[00:08:02 – 00:08:06]

Lollapalooza. Great word. Yeah, constantly.

Richard:

[00:08:06 – 00:08:13]

So. Yeah. Right. Anything else? Well, so as well as the Fed.

James:

[00:08:13 – 00:08:50]

Right. It’s probably worth just mentioning that the Fed is meeting this week. We’ll get a decision on rate cuts or potentially pausing. We do get the CPI tomorrow morning. It’s creeping up, right? It is, yeah. So that, to me, sentiment feels like they may pause this meeting and then revisit in the new year. We’ll see what happens. Right. I think the CPI will be demonstrative tomorrow if they’re going to actually cut again or not. But we’re in this sort of downward trajectory. Inflation has come down very significantly over the last year, so I don’t see any major reasons to worry or panic right now.

Richard:

[00:08:50 – 00:09:00]

We need prices to come down. I know it’s not going to happen, but I think everyone wants prices to come down. Yes, it has got expensive. And we were in New York, where it is particularly expensive. I was going to say.

James:

[00:09:00 – 00:09:24]

Yeah, we had a tour of the Met yesterday, which was great. Excellent. There was a young. There was a lot of students there. Martha, I’m sure you noticed that. You know, teenagers. I saw a kid in front of us get a sandwich and a soda and it was like $24. And I thought, well, it’s an expensive education at the Met here. Well worth it. But, yeah, prices are.

Richard:

[00:09:24 – 00:09:29]

What a place of the Met, eh? Beautiful spend. Beautiful. You could just lose yourself forever in there.

James:

[00:09:29 – 00:09:30]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:09:31 – 00:09:49]

Anything else to say about this year? So we obviously had the elections. We’ve had another year of hurricanes and climate change, you know, climate disasters. That is going to be a feature, I think, for the foreseeable. And it’s going to be very interesting to see how places, Florida handles this.

Martha:

[00:09:49 – 00:09:50]

Tell me about it.

Richard:

[00:09:50 – 00:10:15]

Yeah, but particularly, you know, the barrier islands. I saw someone bought a $20 million house on a barrier island today. I’m like, really? You’re buying property on barrier islands now? Like, did you not just see what happened this year? I guess when you got that much money, you don’t need. You. Yeah, you don’t need. You’ve got other properties to go to. But still, it’s gonna be interesting to see how the world we’re gonna have to adapt. You know, there’s gonna be more floods, there’s gonna be more fires.

James:

[00:10:16 – 00:10:32]

Yeah, we had a period. So we’re in the Northeast, Connecticut, Philadelphia. We had, I think it was something like 38, 39 straight days. No rain in the fall, which is very hot for this area for this time of year. But, yeah, I think we’ll just have to see what happens.

Richard:

[00:10:32 – 00:10:38]

Anything else to this? I was, when I was thinking about this episode, I can only remember the election.

James:

[00:10:38 – 00:10:38]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:10:39 – 00:10:41]

Yes. Yeah. It’s like crowded everything else out.

James:

[00:10:42 – 00:11:13]

It’s, it’s, you know, it’s. A lot can happen and obviously things are top of mind for everyone, given, given November. But I know from a business perspective, we have a lot to be excited for next year in 2025. Our clients, you know, there have been some jitters here and there, but, but certainly I think there’s, there’s a lot to be hopeful for. We’re going to talk a little bit about Virginia’s EP in a few minutes, but she had a turn of phrase that I really enjoyed. Hope springs eternal. You know, that could be the mantra of 2025 for us. So.

Richard:

[00:11:13 – 00:11:32]

Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. Yeah, no, I’m excited for this coming year. All right, so should we talk about the last two episodes? Yeah. We had Misty Kimber on to talk about Medicare and pre retirement healthcare, and then we had Virginia to talk about reasonable calls. Let’s start with Misty. So Medicare, wow.

James:

[00:11:32 – 00:11:33]

Complicated.

Richard:

[00:11:33 – 00:11:34]

Really complicated.

James:

[00:11:34 – 00:11:35]

Really, really complicated.

Richard:

[00:11:36 – 00:12:04]

And what I took from that is I think a lot of people just get to Medicare, age and think, all right, that’s it sorted. You know, that’s. I don’t need to think about anything else. And you really do. 20. If you’re on med, just original Medicare, you’re on the hook for 20 of the costs, 20 copay, no cap, you know, and you’re going into retirement, you’re. You likely to have procedures and hospital stays and that can get very expensive very quickly.

James:

[00:12:04 – 00:12:05]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:12:05 – 00:12:18]

So it’s complicated. It’s ever changing. That’s another thing I took. It changes every single year. But there are solutions and you need to, you need to give it some real thought. You need to make sure you’re covered.

James:

[00:12:18 – 00:12:56]

In retirement and ideally working with someone who’s knowledgeable in that area. You know, it’s something we build in the plans and we’re looking at, but we’re not signing people up to Medigap plans and supplemental plans and things. I think there’s a lot of value of having someone who is steeped in that world and can help you navigate. It’s also very state dependent as well. Right. Which people don’t realize. So it can vary depending if you’re in Florida or Maine or Texas or California, it’s an easy area to overlook. I think you have a good point there. So navigating and knowing your options is very important and provides a lot of peace of mind. Right?

Martha:

[00:12:56 – 00:13:32]

Yeah. And I think there’s no downside to getting help, you know, the way that the industry works. And when Misty talked about it, nobody’s paying her a flat fee. If you go at it alone or if you go at it with her, you’re going to pay the same for the insurance plan. You end up whatever that, you know, specific plan details are. But there’s not an extra cost to get advice. So get advice, get help, get someone who knows the landscape and frankly you might need it more than once. You know your medical needs change, you know your prescription that you’re taking on a regular basis changes. So use the people who are in the industry and get the best information. Let them do the work for you so you don’t have to.

Richard:

[00:13:32 – 00:13:36]

I got the impression it was an annual thing. Like you’re really annually.

James:

[00:13:36 – 00:13:37]

I think you’re right.

Richard:

[00:13:37 – 00:13:51]

The drugs change, what’s on the list changes and you gotta constantly be on top of it. And when she was talking about the pre retirement healthcare, because this is something we come across a lot, Europeans often just think, I wanna retire early, I’ll retire at 55, 60.

Martha:

[00:13:51 – 00:13:51]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:13:51 – 00:14:08]

And you don’t. We don’t think about healthcare in the same way in the UK and Europe. And then when they come and sit down with us, we’re like, oh yeah, have you factored in 15 grand a year for healthcare? Like, no. And that conversation, I think that’s about 12 to 15 grand for a couple.

Martha:

[00:14:08 – 00:14:09]

It could be 24.

James:

[00:14:09 – 00:14:11]

It could be $2,000 a month easily.

Martha:

[00:14:11 – 00:14:11]

Yes.

Richard:

[00:14:11 – 00:14:27]

Did you hear, did you remember the story? Someone was diagnosed with lung cancer and wasn’t covered. They hadn’t. They just. There was a gap in their insurance. They hadn’t. They just hadn’t taken it out. That is awful. Yeah.

Martha:

[00:14:27 – 00:14:28]

You can’t have a gap.

James:

[00:14:28 – 00:14:28]

No.

Martha:

[00:14:28 – 00:14:31]

You have to figure out how to patch it together.

Richard:

[00:14:32 – 00:14:57]

I don’t know how people let themselves get into that situation. It made me chuckle when she said to people, I don’t plan on getting sick. This is why. This is why we’re needed, because we get in front of people. You can’t, you can’t have that broke. It’s like when we’re, when we’re doing financial planning and we project someone living to 95 or 99. Oh, I’m not gonna live that long.

James:

[00:14:57 – 00:14:57]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:14:58 – 00:15:05]

I don’t think that’s how it works. And I tell you what, when you’re 90 years old and you’ve got money left, you know, you’ll be thanking us.

James:

[00:15:05 – 00:15:22]

Yeah, yeah. There’s this idea, I’m sure we’ve talked about it before on the podcast of the retirement smile. Right. And it usually is focused in part at least, on medical spending, healthcare spending. The idea, in short, is that early part of your retirement, you’re active, you’re still healthy.

Martha:

[00:15:22 – 00:15:23]

Your go go years.

James:

[00:15:23 – 00:15:59]

Your go go years. Exactly. You know, you’re taking trips and you’re doing all those things you waited for while you were working. That tends to trickle off a bit. You reach your 70s, late 70s, maybe early 80s, you’re not as healthy, Your slow go. Your spending starts to drop a bit. Now, of course, we know that can be a pretty temporary period because later on in life, now all of a sudden you have these medical charges that make up for it. And Richard, to your point, you know, if you get to that 85, you know, 86 years old and your spending on medical starts to skyrocket, you will be very thankful that you had a plan in place that acknowledged.

Martha:

[00:15:59 – 00:16:00]

For the no go years.

James:

[00:16:00 – 00:16:02]

Exactly. You do not want to be.

Richard:

[00:16:02 – 00:16:02]

Right.

James:

[00:16:02 – 00:16:07]

The no go years. You do not want to be planning on that not happening. Right. So that’s important.

Richard:

[00:16:07 – 00:16:14]

I do. I really like that. The framework Martha is putting on it there, the way people should think about their retirement. What was it? Go.

Martha:

[00:16:14 – 00:16:15]

Go slow.

Richard:

[00:16:15 – 00:16:16]

Go slow. Go.

Martha:

[00:16:16 – 00:16:33]

No go, no go. That. What. What are you doing? How much are you doing in retirement? What is your travel? What is Your social activities, what’s your leisure, High in the middle, low, maybe potentially not at all at the end. But that’s when the health care expenses pick back up. That’s the other end of the smile.

Richard:

[00:16:33 – 00:17:13]

I don’t think people realize just what an opportunity they have when they retire. Especially now we’re retiring at 65, you’ve got 10, 15 years of like rope, hopefully robust health. They could be the best years of your life. That might be the one time you have the trifecta of health, wealth and time. And you’re only going to get one shot at this. And you don’t know when your, your health’s going to give out. Hopefully it won’t, but you don’t know tomorrow’s not guaranteed. And I really want people to make the most. Those go, go years. Yeah, they could be, you know, if you spent 40 years working, saving, particularly expats, you’ve moved away from your family, you’ve raised your kids, you’ve sent them off into the world. What an opportunity.

James:

[00:17:13 – 00:17:13]

Yep.

Richard:

[00:17:14 – 00:17:17]

Those, those that 10 year. Do it all.

Martha:

[00:17:17 – 00:17:43]

Yeah, do it all for my. I remember hearing a speaker or a trainer in my previous job and, you know, we were talking about life expectancy and how we’re adding to that and it’s getting longer. And the comment was, you’re not adding the best years of your, of your health. You know, the years that you’re adding on, you’re tacking on at the end. You know, it’s 95 or 98 or 100. Those aren’t your best health years. Your best health years are always going to be that first portion that when you’re immediately retired.

Richard:

[00:17:43 – 00:17:46]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make the most of it, people.

James:

[00:17:46 – 00:18:19]

Absolutely. You know, I’m grateful that we, the people we work with are globally mobile, they’re adventurous, they have plans in place. And if they don’t, those are the conversations we love. I won’t speak for you, Richard, but that’s the really rewarding stuff because in those last few years, call it the pre retirement, the red zone, really sketching out a detailed plan of what do I want this next phase to look like. Everyone says travel, right? That’s number one. But what does that mean? Where are you going to be spending time? How long Are you taking cruises? Are you flying? Are you slow traveling? Is it an rv?

Martha:

[00:18:19 – 00:18:21]

Are you taking the whole family?

James:

[00:18:21 – 00:18:36]

The whole family, exactly. Are you seeing grandkids? I mean, those little details that are the fun bits of planning. Right. And financial planning and, you know, could be argued is even more meaningful. Than the math and the boring stuff that we have to also look at.

Richard:

[00:18:36 – 00:18:42]

Anything else on Medicare and healthcare? Missy’s episode?

James:

[00:18:42 – 00:18:45]

No, I think that was, that was good.

Richard:

[00:18:45 – 00:20:46]

Good. Right, let’s talk about Virginia and reasonable cause. So I had Virginia on because, well, she’s a fantastic tax attorney for a start. She’s very big in the international market. She has this widely read tax blog that is just a wealth of information. But I particularly wanted her to come on to talk about reasonable cause. Right. Because this is when the IRS asserts penalties and the people we work with, experts are at risk of penalties because penalties can get applied for underreporting income and oftentimes expats might have unwittingly underreported income. But also for not filing information returns on your non US assets. You know, catches so many people out and in the US they don’t mess around with these penalties. This is not HMRC’s 100 pound slap on the wrist. This is starting at 10 grand a pop. I think that’s even more now when you factor in inflation. And I think people have an understandable but very naive idea of what happens when they get a penalty and they can just call up the IRS and be like, oh, sorry guys, I didn’t know. And the IRS will abate it. And that is not how it works at all. You have to, hopefully you can assert what’s called reasonable cause. And it’s a standard, it’s a legal standard that you had literally reasonable cause for the mistake that you made. And if you can demonstrate reasonable cause, they will hopefully abate your, abate your penalties. But it’s a process again, you don’t just call them up and assert it. Yeah. And you can, you know, you could write a couple of sentences, but really it’s a, it’s a proper, you know, written document that goes into great detail about how you ended up, how that you made this mistake. And to do this properly, I think I would always use the services of a tax attorney who’s got experience with it. That’s going to cost you time, it’s going to cost you money, thousands of dollars to do it properly. And it’s going to cost you an awful lot of stress.

James:

[00:20:47 – 00:21:11]

Yeah, a massive headache. What struck me in part was just that level of detail, the robustness required a timeline of activity. When did you speak to your tax advisor? When did you file X, Y and Z? What was your mindset? What were you thinking? Why did you miss this? It’s not like you say, an informal sort of, hey, put My hand up, you know, I didn’t plan to get sick. I didn’t plan to be in compliance. That doesn’t work.

Richard:

[00:21:11 – 00:21:11]

Right.

James:

[00:21:11 – 00:21:25]

You have to have the services of an attorney. And really it’s almost a defense. Right. I mean it’s, it’s a timeline of, here’s the missteps we made, here’s what we try to do to correct it. She used a term and I might be fudging it here.

Richard:

[00:21:26 – 00:21:32]

Was it ordinary business prudence, Ordinary business prudent care and prudence care.

James:

[00:21:32 – 00:21:44]

Right. And the idea is that you took all the necessary or reasonable steps to try to do things the right way. And it seems like it’s a fairly high level of, you know, it’s a threshold that’s fairly high.

Richard:

[00:21:44 – 00:22:05]

I mean, did she get, she gave an example, a real life example where someone with non US businesses had not been filing 5471, but they had, their tax advisor had advised them as such. And the IRS initially rejected that. So this person had to go and fight this. More money, more time, more stress and.

James:

[00:22:05 – 00:22:07]

The penalty has to be paid first. That was another.

Richard:

[00:22:08 – 00:22:25]

No, it depends. So I think it’s a 35, 20 penalty. I can’t remember which one. Some of them you can, you know, they get assessed and then you can enter into a dialogue with the IRS before you pay it. Some of them though, and I think it’s 35, 20, but I’m not entirely sure you have to pay it up.

James:

[00:22:26 – 00:22:29]

Front, then you have to sue basically to try to get it back.

Martha:

[00:22:29 – 00:22:49]

There does seem to be a sentiment of presumed guilty and having to prove your innocence. It seems like you’re always at this, this position of deficit where you have to go, you know, it’s not just prove it. You know, you’re not assumed that you’re starting out innocent. You’re assumed to do something wrong and you have to unwind that and prove, you know, reasonably that you didn’t know or that you should not have known.

Richard:

[00:22:50 – 00:24:18]

And then there’s the, the three part test for if you use a tax advisor. And actually, no, I want to make something very clear here. There is a world of difference between having a tax preparer and a tax advisor. And what we see is nine times out of 10 our clients, people come to us, have tax preparers and they’re just, this is someone who’s just filling out the forms and not give them proactive strategic tax advice. And it’s very, very different. But when you do have a paid tax preparer or a tax advisor, there’s a three part test to establishing reasonable cause. The first one is, did they have or does this, the person you’re employing to do your taxes, do they have the relevant knowledge and experience? So for, for us it would be does your tax advisor have experience and knowledge in international matters? And again, nine times out of 10 our clients are going to someone local and they don’t have that experience. Therefore, can you say reasonable cause? If you’re not filing these forms and you say I use a tax advisor, does your tax advisor have any experience in international matters? Oh, I, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Well, you know, I think that, I think that would qualify, you know, by my standard. But it might not meet the IRS’s test. Your tax preparer doesn’t have the knowledge, the relevant experience and knowledge. And then, but then if you do want a cross border person, that’s going to cost a bit more money. Yep, I think it’s worth, I think it’s a price worth paying, but it is going to cost a bit more money.

James:

[00:24:19 – 00:25:14]

It’s the idea of mitigating, preventing, you know, not being reactive to something but being proactive and getting out in front of it. And, you know, we’ll keep ringing that bell for sure. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, I’m sure we’ve made this point many times, but I wanted to circle back to something you said, Richard, which is this idea of informational reporting, which doesn’t necessarily mean that there was even tax due. Right. It could be as simple as disclosing a foreign account. And there are cases, I think you mentioned this in the episode, where people just say, oh, I haven’t taken any income for that. I haven’t taken any distribution. So I didn’t tell my tax advisor. I didn’t even bother to tell them I have this pension or this account. And that’s not a good excuse. Right. I mean there’s, there’s, now we know that, that the proper way to go about it is to be proactive and to address these things. If you find that, you know, you haven’t, you haven’t disclosed all that you needed to. And that’s a very common misconception. Right? This idea of I haven’t taken any money out, why, why should I disclose?

Richard:

[00:25:14 – 00:26:37]

We get that all the time. There’s no taxes, you know, I report it here. You do, you do. Maybe on more than one form as well. So back to that three part test. So the first part is, does your tax advisor, who you relied on for this, do they have cross border experience, expertise? Okay, yes or no. The second test is did you tell them? Because we’ve had it with clients before where we found out, oh, they haven’t been filing, they haven’t been report doing the informational return for their pensions. And when we ask them, do you have a tax advisor? And the answer is yes. And then we say, well what, how, how come they say well I didn’t tell them about it, I didn’t, I didn’t because there’s no tax was due. So again under that, the IRS’s test, you can’t really rely on reasonable cause if you didn’t tell the tax advisor about it. And then there’s a, there are some gray areas because often a tax advisor will give you a, an organizer and people misconstrue what’s meant by foreign financial assets, does it include pensions, all this sort of stuff, does it just mean bank accounts? So there’d be some gray area then. And then the third part is did you rely on the advice? So if you, if you take advice and the person tells you to file it and you don’t, well obviously you can’t rely on reasonable calls. So it’s, you know, once you break it down, the three part test makes sense to me. But I fear people, there are landmines in there that can trip people up. Well, meaning people, people who aren’t hiding anything.

James:

[00:26:37 – 00:26:42]

Right? No malicious intent, it’s just an oversight that should be corrected.

Martha:

[00:26:43 – 00:27:34]

Well, I feel like so many areas of this, of international taxes, you don’t know what you don’t know. You know, if you don’t even know that this can be an issue, you’re not even going to ask the question. And this happens with the client, but it also happens with the tax preparer. You know, oh, this is how this sort of thing, a gift is dealt with in the US Oh, I’m assuming that it’s going to be the same way if it’s international. Well, no. And if you don’t have experience in international affairs, you’re not going to know that it’s going to be treated differently if it’s foreign versus if it’s us. And that’s the problem. If they don’t have the experience, they could give you a very confident answer. That’s based on tax law, but it’s based on the wrong tax law. So if you don’t know that, you don’t know, you don’t even know to ask the question. You don’t know something’s going to be an issue or has a variant that is going to be treated differently. And you’re starting at a disadvantage if they don’t have, if the expert doesn’t have that experience.

James:

[00:27:34 – 00:27:50]

It’s a good point. And you see it on the client side too. I think it’s almost insidious in a way. And it’s many times our clients are coming from a country that treats taxes much differently than the U.S. right. We know the U.S. is idiosyncratic and sort of unique in the way.

Martha:

[00:27:50 – 00:27:51]

Complicated.

James:

[00:27:51 – 00:27:52]

Yeah, very complicated.

Richard:

[00:27:52 – 00:27:53]

So complicated.

James:

[00:27:53 – 00:28:05]

So if you’re entering the country, that’s your frame of reference. That’s how you’re approaching this. And it’s not, again, not this malicious intent or anything, but you have one frame of reference and the IRS usually has a very different one.

Richard:

[00:28:05 – 00:28:05]

Right.

James:

[00:28:05 – 00:28:14]

So you try not to let that color how you approach these things or address them. It is, it’s a problem for a lot of people.

Richard:

[00:28:14 – 00:28:18]

She also said it makes a difference whether you’ve been here two years or 20 years.

James:

[00:28:18 – 00:28:18]

That was interesting.

Richard:

[00:28:18 – 00:28:23]

If two years you can say I’m brand new. I don’t know. 20 years.

Martha:

[00:28:25 – 00:28:26]

Just doesn’t fly.

Richard:

[00:28:26 – 00:28:29]

Yeah. Should you know by now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James:

[00:28:29 – 00:28:40]

The level of detail that she was sharing that they will look at, I mean it is a full on investigation and every aspect of your profile, who you are, how you’ve approached this is examined and investigated.

Richard:

[00:28:40 – 00:29:05]

But we’re talking serious money for the penalties like 10 grand perform per year. I think it’s much more than inflation. I think that $10,000 number was set, you know, year like 2010 or something. So it’s much, much higher now. And this is all, this is all for what I call innocent non compliance. You know, you’re not non purposeful, you’re not trying to hide anything. But if you are doing that, that’s a whole different ball game.

Martha:

[00:29:05 – 00:29:06]

That’s a different podcast altogether.

Richard:

[00:29:06 – 00:29:49]

Whole different ballgame. Yeah, you don’t want to be going there. So I thought it’s super interesting. I just want to, I want people to understand that there’s much, much more into it than just a phone call. Sorry guys, I didn’t know. That’s not going to fly. So yeah, as I said a million times, it’s better to prepare than it is to repair. And you’ve got to, you’ve got to try. And we want people to be in compliance so they’re not, they don’t have to go through these trials and tribulations. And you know, that’s just one of them reasonable call gonna have a back on. We’re gonna talk about statute limitations. People don’t realize when you don’t file your, when you don’t file these forms that potentially it leaves your tax return open indefinitely. You don’t have the three or six year statute limitations.

James:

[00:29:49 – 00:29:57]

She, I think she mentions it specifically. Yeah. Where it was, you know, it was many years later and those years are all open.

Richard:

[00:29:57 – 00:29:57]

Right.

James:

[00:29:57 – 00:30:22]

That’s the term they use. And that literally means if that spotlight comes down on you and they find any other issues in any of those years, which if there are already issues that need to be addressed, chances are there could be something else. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But that’s scary, right? That’s a sort of scary prospect. And part of the reason of doing this podcast is to get this information out there and share resources that can be.

Richard:

[00:30:23 – 00:31:17]

On that note, if we just. I kind of like to do, start thinking about like reviewing the year in this podcast. We’ve started to hear from people and people are taking action based on this podcast, which is pretty gratifying. Yes, absolutely. I’ve met with someone who has taken proactive steps and as a result has dodged really common landmines that people move to the US and basically have undetonated lurking there. But because he’s listened to this, he’s taken steps and he’s just avoid. He’s just saved himself a massive headache and possibly quite a lot of money as well. And we’re hearing people are reaching out or asking questions and which we love. So please, you know, we’ve got. You want us to talk about anything, if you want us to have a certain guest on topics, questions, just send them in and we’ll, we’ll see what we can do.

James:

[00:31:17 – 00:31:19]

Don’t be shy. We love the feedback, but I think.

Martha:

[00:31:19 – 00:31:43]

That’S an incredible point. You know, the Ask an Expert podcast, it’s not to teach you how to do your tax returns and to identify your own errors and you know, try to be in compliance. You know, create your own compliance when you’ve been out of compliance. It’s just to say, hey, this is a red flag. This is an issue. You might want to do more. You might want to ask a question, you might want to do some research and if we can have that as a positive effect, that’s incredible.

Richard:

[00:31:43 – 00:32:33]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really gratifying. Really gratifying. Because I enjoy this. There’s going to be more podcasts coming next year because I quite enjoy it. Today is a bit of a struggle Honestly, because of our adventures last night and my 5am wake up call for my, for my 2 year old this morning. But we enjoy it and I enjoy it because I actually feel that my knowledge base is expanding and I hope it is for you guys listening as well. So we’re getting better as a company and I’m meeting some really good people as well and strengthening relationships. And I’ve done this for 10 years in the US now I realize that my network is incredibly valuable. Just knowing who to go to with certain problems and having a good relationship there initially already in place is worth a lot of money.

James:

[00:32:33 – 00:33:08]

That is a key point, I think because very often what we find has happened in the past as a client or a prospective client says, oh, I heard of that and I started looking into it and I didn’t know who to go to and I couldn’t understand it so I just let it go. And if you can find the right professional or network of professionals, that can make a huge difference because then it’s not just you and Google and trying to go at your own. And to your point, Martha, earlier about working with the right professionals, if you have someone that has a network that we can leverage and use those resources and apply them where it’s needed, that’s enormously valuable.

Martha:

[00:33:09 – 00:33:36]

I had the exact same thought, you know that analysis paralysis, like I think there’s something fishy going on, but I don’t even know where to start. And if you start googling tax topics, you’re just going to get buried and you might very well just shut down. I mean, I’m sure I’ve done that on occasion, but if you mention it to your advisor and they say, oh wait, I’ve got a person for that or I can, you know, I can narrow that down for you and point you in the right direction, that just, it just brings light into the room. It just allows you to take another step and not just be guessing.

Richard:

[00:33:38 – 00:34:45]

We’ve had, we’ve had a good year at Plan First Wealth, a lot behind the scenes like putting in some foundations. We changed custodians, we brought some more investment tools and sophistications and a layer of tax more optimization over the top of it. So we were really excited to roll that out earlier this year. We’re hoping to finish the year with texting, which, you know, listening is like, yeah, what? So this is not 2002, but it’s financial in what we do. Everything has to be recorded. Texting is, it’s quite the operation to add it and we’re very close. So hopefully we’ll have the option to text by the end of the year. Lots planned for next year. Podcast, business proposition, more tax tools, more investment tools, more planning stuff. Really. That’s what we’re all about. Plan first. Well, having people lead better, more fulfilling lives. Make the most of that trifecta. Health, wealth and time. Best years of your life, hopefully. We want that, we want to make that come true for people. So exciting times, good year and excited for next year. I’m about as excited as I’ve been since I set the firm up, I think.

James:

[00:34:45 – 00:34:45]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:34:45 – 00:34:49]

Heard you last night. Like when I set the firm up, I was excited, but I was also kind of terrified.

James:

[00:34:49 – 00:34:51]

Yeah, yeah. It’s a scary leap.

Richard:

[00:34:51 – 00:35:50]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Whereas I’m less terrified now and just quite excited because I’ve got, you know, the right people on the bus as well. So exciting times. Personally, I’ve had an interesting year. Ruptured my Achilles at the very, very start of summer. I was going to make a triumphal return to golf this summer while my kid was at camp and that didn’t happen. And my 2 year old recently had his adenoids and tonsils out and the recovery from that has been brutal. Just like we are operating on no sleep, so. But he’s already like the, the, the, the, I don’t even know. It kind of chokes off your breathing. And he was waking up through like 10 times an hour. Apparently did a sleep study and you know, we’re like five or six weeks post surgery now and you can almost on a daily basis see a change in it. Wow. Yeah, it’s quite remarkable.

James:

[00:35:50 – 00:36:04]

If you’re not getting sleep. That is brutal. Right. And at 2, you don’t have the ability to explain or, you know, give some context for how you’re feeling. I can’t imagine waking up 10 times in an hour and you’re trying to get through the next.

Richard:

[00:36:04 – 00:36:06]

Stuns your growth. Yeah, yeah.

James:

[00:36:07 – 00:36:11]

Do they have a timeline for sort of full recovery? I’m sure it takes.

Richard:

[00:36:11 – 00:36:26]

I actually don’t know. I know two to three weeks was like the really hard time. Constant pain meds. He was in a lot of pain and now he’s just, he’s not in any discomfort or pain. He just wakes up a lot and comes in our room now and.

Martha:

[00:36:26 – 00:36:34]

Well, he hasn’t had regular sleep. Like his body doesn’t know what a normal sleep looks like and probably needs to figure that out. There’s no routine to go back to. He’s gotta form a new one.

Richard:

[00:36:34 – 00:36:44]

Yeah. So It’s a wild time. It’s, you know, my wife and I, no family here, obviously. We both work. Two kids under five and a dog. It’s.

James:

[00:36:44 – 00:36:45]

And a business.

Richard:

[00:36:45 – 00:36:52]

And a business. And a business. Yeah, it’s. It’s great fun. It’s complete mayhem. It’s exhausting.

Martha:

[00:36:52 – 00:36:53]

But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Richard:

[00:36:53 – 00:37:00]

No, no, no. Everyone’s doing well, which is the main thing. Everyone’s doing well. Anything else to add from year in review or looking forward?

James:

[00:37:01 – 00:37:27]

No, I think, you know, the feedback I think is excellent. You know, it’s very gratifying. We encourage you, if you have any questions, or if you enjoyed a guest and like to see them back, or if you have. If you have someone in your network that you think would be a benefit, reach out to us. You know, you have all our email addresses. James at PlanFirst Wealth, Richard at Plan First Wealth. We also have info at Plan first wealth that we all will see. So keep them coming. It really is encouraging and I’m glad to see it’s finding an audience.

Richard:

[00:37:27 – 00:37:28]

Yeah, good.

James:

[00:37:28 – 00:37:29]

We’re enjoying it.

Richard:

[00:37:29 – 00:37:31]

Good, good, good. Right. Should we do a show and tell?

James:

[00:37:31 – 00:37:32]

Yeah, Pick a mix.

Richard:

[00:37:32 – 00:37:34]

Pick a mix. Is that what we call that? I can never remember.

James:

[00:37:34 – 00:37:38]

That was my. I threw that out because I hear it on the British podcast. I listen to it.

Richard:

[00:37:38 – 00:37:42]

So over the weekend we watched the Apprentice. Have you seen the movie about Trump?

James:

[00:37:43 – 00:37:45]

I’ve heard, yes. He’s a good actor.

Richard:

[00:37:45 – 00:37:46]

He’s really good.

James:

[00:37:46 – 00:37:46]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:37:46 – 00:38:31]

He played Tommy Lee, you know, in the. Pamela Anderson. Yes, he’s good as that. And he’s really good as Trump. And you’ve got Kendall Roy from succession. Yes, he’s very good. He’s playing Roy Cohn. Do you know Roy Cohn? Have you heard of the lawyer famous. You need to go and watch the documentary about Roy Cohn. He’s like Trump’s fixer, and he basically taught Trump a way to operate, and you see that today. But he’s a very interesting, slightly terrifying character and you should definitely go and learn about Roy Cohn. You will find him fascinating and kind of terrifying.

James:

[00:38:31 – 00:38:33]

Yeah, yeah. Sort of deeply unsettling.

Richard:

[00:38:33 – 00:38:40]

Deeply unsettling, yeah. So that we just watched out the weekend and it was. It was. We really enjoyed. It was good. It was really good.

James:

[00:38:40 – 00:38:48]

Is it streaming on something or maybe. Yeah. Did you ever finish the. What was the Jake Gyllenhaal one? Where is the.

Richard:

[00:38:48 – 00:38:50]

Oh, Presumed Innocent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James:

[00:38:50 – 00:38:51]

Do you like it? Yeah, that was good, right?

Richard:

[00:38:51 – 00:39:15]

Yeah, that was good. Yeah. I’m Reading the Power Broker, which is shaping up to be a simply astounding book. You understand, I think it won the Pulitzer Prize. You Wonder. It’s like 50 years old and he’s writing about stuff in the 30s and. Which seems to us forever ago. And you realize that, you know, we’re further away from when he wrote this book.

James:

[00:39:16 – 00:39:17]

Oh, wow.

Richard:

[00:39:17 – 00:39:20]

Yeah, yeah, it’s fantastic. Get it on ekindle.

James:

[00:39:20 – 00:39:21]

I was gonna say, you get the E book.

Richard:

[00:39:22 – 00:39:22]

I got it on the ebook because.

James:

[00:39:22 – 00:39:24]

For a long time it wasn’t available.

Richard:

[00:39:24 – 00:39:42]

It’s so big. Yeah, it’s so big. I think I’m like 25% way through. I’ve been reading it for ages. But my book of the year was this Life and Fate, the Russian book about Stalingrad, and basically a commentary on Soviet Russia. Life and Fate was a spectacular book.

James:

[00:39:42 – 00:39:46]

I had to check that out. That one. You are done? You finished that one?

Richard:

[00:39:46 – 00:39:47]

I have finished that one, yeah.

James:

[00:39:47 – 00:39:49]

Was that another doorstop or like.

Richard:

[00:39:49 – 00:39:54]

Yeah, yeah. And it’s obviously. It’s a translation.

James:

[00:39:54 – 00:39:55]

Oh, right.

Richard:

[00:39:55 – 00:40:22]

You gotta be careful when you read translations, you know, you gotta. Well, I think I enjoyed it, let’s put it that way. And podcasts. I’ve got two recommendations for podcasts. So first of all, Compound and Friends, we listened to that week in, week out, right? It was fantastic. And Pivot. But British listeners might be familiar with a guy called Dan Snow, son of Jon Snow, not Game of Thrones Jon Snow, but Channel for News.

James:

[00:40:22 – 00:40:25]

The prince who was promised was that, you know nothing.

Richard:

[00:40:26 – 00:41:38]

Jon Snow, you know nothing. And he’s a history TV history guy. But he’s got this podcast called Dan Snow’s History here I’ve been listening to for a long, long time. And he’s got a whole media platform of, like, documentaries. It’s great, but it’s a wonderful kind of podcast that goes in some episodes of 20 minutes, some are 45 minutes, and it’s all sort of history. But then from that has spawned specialist podcasts. So there’s the one on the Ancients, which is a history hit podcast. There’s one on the Tudors, not just the Tudors, but all, you know, that time. And now the one that I’m currently latched onto is American History hit. So I’m. I’m going deep into American history, and it’s. So anyone who’s interested in history there is. The history Hit itself is a fantastic podcast, and it has spawned some fantastic podcasts, if you have a particular area of that you enjoy. And another one, the last one is There’s a podcast called Slow Burn and they. They pick a topic every. So every once in a while and then go deep on it. Slow Burn. And one of the earlier. It’s on season 10. Now that’s what I’ve just listened to. Excuse me. About the rise of Fox News. Very interesting.

Martha:

[00:41:38 – 00:41:38]

I bet.

Richard:

[00:41:38 – 00:41:49]

Very interesting. Imagine again, slightly terrifying, but very interesting. And one of the earlier seasons is about Biggie and Tupac. So as someone who was, you know, very into that.

James:

[00:41:50 – 00:41:50]

Excellent.

Richard:

[00:41:50 – 00:42:01]

Yeah, I learned so much. It was so interesting. There’s one on David the Rise of David Duke, also very interesting. So Slow Burn. Check it out. History Hit and its siblings.

James:

[00:42:02 – 00:42:03]

Do they have guests on or do they.

Richard:

[00:42:03 – 00:42:04]

How do they.

James:

[00:42:04 – 00:42:04]

How do they.

Richard:

[00:42:04 – 00:42:22]

Slow Burn? Yeah, it’s like there’s one guy who mainly, you know, is a journalist who mainly narrates, but then the most of them have guests on. Or it’s more like interviews. They’ll have snippets and so on. Not or, you know, different people might be on. It’s not like this where we sat on a table kind of thing. It’s like a.

James:

[00:42:22 – 00:42:24]

Because I. Is history hit the same way?

Richard:

[00:42:24 – 00:42:35]

Is it history hit. No, history hit. Occasionally, Dan Snow will. If it’s a topic he wants to do, he’ll just, you know, it’ll be him talking, but most of the time he brings a guest on someone’s book or got documentary out.

James:

[00:42:35 – 00:42:47]

Okay. There was a podcast, I think it’s called Hardcore History Dan Carlin. And it was just him presenting. I mean, he was great at it. But I found that it was harder to. To stay engaged when it’s just one person, you know, lecturing to a microphone.

Richard:

[00:42:47 – 00:43:01]

So I like when they, you know, they are. That is a hard thing to do when you are doing the prep that goes into. Yeah, the BTS people, they script this stuff out. I don’t just sit down and start waffling into the mic. It’s a lot of work goes into it.

James:

[00:43:01 – 00:43:06]

It reminds me of, like, you hear stories about recording audio books. That’s apparently very difficult.

Richard:

[00:43:06 – 00:43:07]

Yeah, I can imagine.

James:

[00:43:07 – 00:43:07]

Very hard.

Richard:

[00:43:07 – 00:43:08]

Yeah.

James:

[00:43:08 – 00:43:10]

Yeah, good. I have to check them out.

Richard:

[00:43:10 – 00:43:14]

All right, that’s me done. What have you got for us, Martha?

James:

[00:43:14 – 00:43:15]

Jump in.

Martha:

[00:43:15 – 00:43:27]

Well, I think I figured out yesterday I needed something for pick and mix. So instead of many categories, I’ll just share one. I have to confess, I don’t really listen to podcasts much. Except for this one.

James:

[00:43:27 – 00:43:29]

Yes, that’s the right answer.

Martha:

[00:43:29 – 00:43:41]

But I read a lot of fiction, and one of the standouts this year that I’ve been recommending to anyone who will. Who’ll take. My recommendation is a book called the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

Richard:

[00:43:41 – 00:43:42]

This has been.

Martha:

[00:43:42 – 00:44:41]

Yeah. Yes. It’s not a new. I mean, 10 or 15 years old, perhaps. And it’s written from the point of view of an autistic teenager who comes across a dead dog in his neighborhood, and he decides he wants to investigate and figure out what happened. And it’s. The storytelling is very interesting and different. It’s a point of view that I wasn’t used to seeing. It kind of gave you this extra understanding behind the scenes of what can happen in an autistic mind and how someone who has that condition is dealing with and interacting with the world and can even explain things you’ve experienced when interacting with someone. Like, well, why did they do that? Or why was this different? Or why is this sort of situation really challenging for them? So I really liked it. It was just really different storytelling. And. And it was a quick read. You know, it was one of those you just couldn’t put down. You kept wanting to know what happened. And the story itself was really good. You know, what happened to the dog and all the things that the. That the gentleman discovers during the course of the book. So you strongly recommend.

James:

[00:44:41 – 00:44:49]

I haven’t read it, but you always see that pop up on, like, top 100 of the 21st century or 20th century or. Yeah, that’s excellent.

Richard:

[00:44:49 – 00:44:56]

You don’t listen to podcasts. I just listen to podcasts constantly. I love them. Yeah.

James:

[00:44:56 – 00:45:05]

Yeah. I have been on, and I think I talked about this author before, maybe on this podcast, A guy named Erik Larson.

Richard:

[00:45:05 – 00:45:07]

Oh, yeah, right. Fantastic author.

James:

[00:45:07 – 00:45:15]

I only just learned that the genre is usually referred to as narrative nonfiction. So it’s like nonfiction works, but it almost reads like a novel.

Martha:

[00:45:16 – 00:45:16]

Interesting.

James:

[00:45:16 – 00:45:19]

Incredibly engaging. Super good.

Richard:

[00:45:19 – 00:45:20]

Did he do a Churchill book?

James:

[00:45:20 – 00:45:24]

He did, yeah. I read that one around this time last year called the Splendid and the Vile.

Richard:

[00:45:24 – 00:45:25]

Yes. Five days.

James:

[00:45:25 – 00:45:29]

I think it was one year. I think it was one year in Churchill’s life.

Richard:

[00:45:29 – 00:45:33]

I just read that ends with Roosevelt coming into the war.

James:

[00:45:33 – 00:45:33]

Yes.

Richard:

[00:45:33 – 00:45:34]

Yes.

James:

[00:45:34 – 00:45:34]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:45:34 – 00:45:35]

Fantastic.

James:

[00:45:35 – 00:45:37]

And it gives you a good insight into.

Richard:

[00:45:37 – 00:45:38]

Winston liked to drink, didn’t he?

James:

[00:45:38 – 00:45:39]

He was like.

Richard:

[00:45:39 – 00:45:40]

He was champagne and branding.

James:

[00:45:40 – 00:45:43]

And he took. He was a bath guy. He would take, like, four baths a day.

Martha:

[00:45:44 – 00:45:44]

Oh, my goodness.

James:

[00:45:44 – 00:45:45]

Scotch or whatever.

Richard:

[00:45:45 – 00:45:46]

He was a character.

James:

[00:45:46 – 00:45:54]

He would dictate to his secretary. So, like, he would be in the bath and have a drink that’s uncomfortable. He’d be shouting out, you Know this.

Richard:

[00:45:54 – 00:45:55]

Wouldn’T be getting away with that in the.

James:

[00:45:57 – 00:45:58]

Absolutely not.

Richard:

[00:45:58 – 00:46:03]

I hope rightly so. Okay, let’s make that clear. I’m not lamenting that fact.

James:

[00:46:05 – 00:46:09]

So I’ve just read. I actually read three more by him recently.

Richard:

[00:46:09 – 00:46:10]

Have you read the lucid scene there?

James:

[00:46:10 – 00:47:12]

So that one dead wake, probably his best. And I enjoy all that one. It is fantastic. It goes almost on a minute by minute recounting of the journey of the Lusitania and eventually the sinking of it as part of World War I. You learn a ton. He kind of like profiles 10 or 12 passengers on board and you really get to see, I mean just the story of like the German government had put an ad in the newspaper the week before and said do not travel on this. No, really, it was like almost. He doesn’t quite delve into was there an open conspiracy? Because there’s a lot about. In the UK there was this, I think it was called Room 40 and they were code breakers and no one outside of this 10 or 12 people in this room knew anything about what they had, the intel they had. So is it possible, did they know something was going to happen? Potentially, but the German government was shouting it from the rooftops essentially. And just a mix of hubris and it won’t happen to me. And they set sail.

Richard:

[00:47:12 – 00:47:19]

Getting on a boat. I know knowing that the government that you. You’re not at war at this point. Right. But they are sinking ships.

James:

[00:47:19 – 00:47:21]

They’re not at war, but they’re sinking ships. Yeah.

Richard:

[00:47:21 – 00:47:24]

And think, I mean that’s just breathtakingly dumb.

James:

[00:47:25 – 00:48:03]

Yes. And there were passengers that decided a handful, surprisingly less than you’d think or fewer than you think that decided the day before the morning of. I’m not getting on this ship. You know, whether it’s intuition or what. There were people who had meant to be on the Titanic and wound up being on the Lusitania. There was a ship that got docked. There was some mechanical issue and they put. There was like 30 or 40 people on that ship. They moved them to the Lusitania. So that was unfortunate. Just an incredible retelling. Again, very engaging fast read. Happened 10 miles off the coast of Ireland, which I didn’t realize. A town called Kinsale, which I’ve been to. Beautiful sunny day and just sunk in like 17 minutes.

Martha:

[00:48:03 – 00:48:04]

17 minutes.

James:

[00:48:04 – 00:48:06]

Rapid, rapid sinking.

Richard:

[00:48:06 – 00:48:10]

Okay, so when. In three years, when I finished the Power Broker. I know, I’m reading next.

James:

[00:48:10 – 00:48:11]

There you go.

Richard:

[00:48:11 – 00:48:23]

You know, so my five year old is starting to read and write and it’s. I’M so excited for him because reading is. It’s just amazing. Just opens up, you know, you just said it just opens up this whole world.

Martha:

[00:48:23 – 00:48:23]

Yeah.

Richard:

[00:48:24 – 00:48:40]

And he’s. I’m already getting the vibes that he’s going to love it. I think both of them, because, you know, Kate and I read a lot, so I think they see that. But it’s just. It’s really exciting to just, just this whole. This unlock that’s going to. That’s gonna come for him and it’s cool to see.

James:

[00:48:40 – 00:48:48]

I think it’s important. I mean, he’s fine. That’s a great age too, to get it, you know, because that’s. If you enjoy reading and it’s something you do, you always have that, right?

Martha:

[00:48:48 – 00:48:48]

Yeah.

James:

[00:48:48 – 00:48:58]

It’s almost meditative and you can go away from the world for a bit and learn and, you know, it’s just. You read about anything, anything. So many books. You just could.

Martha:

[00:48:58 – 00:48:59]

Yeah. Dive right in.

Richard:

[00:48:59 – 00:49:00]

Anything else?

James:

[00:49:00 – 00:49:01]

Yeah, that was it.

Richard:

[00:49:01 – 00:49:16]

Okay. Right. Well, this has been odd, hasn’t it? Yeah. We’re a fully remote firm. We’re remote from each other. All our clients spread out across the US So it’s great when we get together, but this is. All the podcasts we’ve ever done have been remote. I’ve never done an in person one.

James:

[00:49:16 – 00:49:23]

And we want to do this more often. Oh, yeah, right. As an idea, it’s always good to see you guys and I think there’s something to the energy in a room when you’re together.

Richard:

[00:49:23 – 00:49:27]

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So. All right. Well, thanks, guys.

James:

[00:49:27 – 00:49:27]

Yep.

Richard:

[00:49:27 – 00:49:40]

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks to everyone listening. We’re going to be doing much more of this. We appreciate you listening, we appreciate your input. We hope you find them valuable. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

James:

[00:49:41 – 00:49:47]

Have a great holiday season. Take some time to reflect and I hope our listeners are as excited for 2025 as we are.

Richard:

[00:49:47 – 00:49:49]

Absolutely. Happy holidays, everyone.

Martha:

[00:49:49 – 00:49:50]

Happy holidays.

Richard:

[00:49:50 – 00:49:59]

Ciao.