A Real Doozy | From The Trenches with James Boyle

The market has rebounded from a rough April, but that period caused significant emotional stress for both clients and advisors. In these market downturns it’s crucial to put your emotions to one side and stick to your plan.

What’s happened in June? And we’re only a few days into July but so much has happened there too; Richard Taylor and James Boyle go back into the trenches to unpack it all.

Plus, a few cautionary tales: Richard has a friend who – for years – has been constantly predicting a catastrophic market crash. As a result his investment plan is needlessly conservative. Another acquaintance tells of his experience with the 2008 market crash; panic selling resulted in the loss of huge returns over the decades.

Richard and James discuss another investor who made a common mistake, siloing US and UK tax advisors and not giving his advisors on either side the full picture. Despite investing in cross-border advice from one of the better-known tax advisory firms in the business, the client might now face PFIC tax issues in the hundreds of thousands.

The bottom line: ensure you have the right advisors and they are working together. The unique workings of the US tax system and its state-based rules are confusing for expats – make sure you get the right advice.

If you’re enjoying the show, please consider leaving a 5 star rating and review to help the mission, which is to help expats and immigrants thrive in America. Visit planfirstwealth.com to learn more about our services and connect with Richard Taylor on LinkedIn.

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

Richard Taylor:
[00:00:12 – 00:00:41]
Welcome to we’re the Brits in America, a Plan First Wealth podcast dedicated to helping ambitious expatriates and first generation immigrants thrive in America. I’m your host, Richard Taylor and Plan First Wealth is the business I founded and run today.

We work with successful expatriates, immigrants and internationally minded Americans living across the US to make the most of their opportunity and avoid the expat landmines. Okay, let’s get back to this week’s show.

Richard Taylor:
[00:00:41 – 00:00:55]
Welcome back to another episode of From The Trenches – this is where myself and my esteemed colleague James Boyle get together to bring you behind the scenes at Plan First Wealth, as we build this business and we work with our clients. We want to share what that’s like with you. So James and I are here in New York today.

Richard Taylor:
[00:00:55 – 00:00:57]
Once a quarter, we get together in person.

James Boyle:
[00:00:57 – 00:00:58]
Live from New York.

Richard Taylor:
[00:00:58 – 00:01:00]
Live from New York, where it’s pretty darn hot.

James Boyle:
[00:01:01 – 00:01:06]
Had a 10 block walk from Penn Station and I was sweating immediately – it’s soupy out there.

Richard Taylor:
[00:01:06 – 00:01:17]
It’s a bit of, it’s a bit of a respite because it rained. It’s been brutal last few days. Anyway, people aren’t here to, for us to talk about the weather in New York, but I am British so we have to talk about the weather. But let’s get into this. Hi, James, how you doing?

James Boyle:
[00:01:17 – 00:01:19]
Good. How are you? Cooling down now?

Richard Taylor:
[00:01:19 – 00:01:26]
Yep, yep. Good, good. And just came back from a week away, which was both wonderful and terrible. Two young kids.

James Boyle:
[00:01:26 – 00:01:27]
I was gonna say. This is with the kids.

Richard Taylor:
[00:01:27 – 00:01:40]
Yeah, they’re. They’re amazing, they’re epic. But the travel day back, six and three years old and the three year old has. He’s, he’s found the word no and he’s embraced it. Dangerous.

Richard Taylor:
[00:01:40 – 00:01:49]
Oh, he has embraced it. And the travel day back was just one of the longest days of my entire life. And. And then it kind of. We were discombobulated for the whole weekend.

James Boyle:
[00:01:49 – 00:01:50]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:01:50 – 00:01:52]
So what a great holiday.

James Boyle:
[00:01:52 – 00:01:54]
What kind of flight is that from?

Richard Taylor:
[00:01:54 – 00:02:03]
No, you’re long. It’s four hours. We had a great holiday. Mosi had a great holiday and then he just broke us on the flight back and he excels at breaking us.

James Boyle:
[00:02:03 – 00:02:07]
What’s the strategy? Is it like iPad time or. Yes, whatever you can do. Right. Just for the fun.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:07 – 00:02:21]
Well, we’ve had a number of challenging flights with the kid. So we travel with a FDA approved car seat now for him. We’re strategic with the seats we pick. And we now do have iPad. We have embraced the iPad for these.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:22 – 00:02:24]
You just, you just. Yeah, no judgment, people. You just have to.

James Boyle:
[00:02:24 – 00:02:25]
Yeah, yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:25 – 00:02:30]
You just have to. But we still had high drama on the way back. And he is loud.

James Boyle:
[00:02:30 – 00:02:34]
How about his ears? Like, I know with younger kids sometimes the ears.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:34 – 00:02:43]
Well, he’s also prone to ear infections. And so we actually traveled with amoxicillin ready to go because of what happened last time we went. Which was. Turned out to be a. A winner.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:44 – 00:02:49]
He’s okay now. We know how to manage it. We travel with. With sweets for them to soak. And that helps.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:49 – 00:02:53]
Yeah, my wife’s got a whole go bag. Yeah, Yeah.

James Boyle:
[00:02:54 – 00:02:58]
I remember gum, too. They used to say that helps you with the. I don’t know, they might be too young for gum, but.

Richard Taylor:
[00:02:58 – 00:03:00]
No, but I’m recovered now.

James Boyle:
[00:03:00 – 00:03:01]
Good, good.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:01 – 00:03:02]
Dreading the next one.

James Boyle:
[00:03:02 – 00:03:05]
I’m recovered from my holiday. That’s always good.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:05 – 00:03:13]
Yeah, yeah. You know, you got it all to come. But raising small children is. It’s, it’s, it’s. It’s an experience.

James Boyle:
[00:03:13 – 00:03:16]
I’ll be thinking about these stories. I’m sure at some point in the.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:16 – 00:03:18]
Future I’ll be going the other side of it.

James Boyle:
[00:03:18 – 00:03:19]
Yeah, that’s true.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:19 – 00:03:22]
Which is good. I’ll have some sympathy for you. I’ll also have some shodding for you, I’m sure.

James Boyle:
[00:03:22 – 00:03:24]
Yeah. They’re still having trouble on planes at like 18.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:25 – 00:03:34]
That’s good, right? So let’s get into this. What do we start? We start with a recap of markets and investment situations since we last.

James Boyle:
[00:03:35 – 00:03:43]
For the listeners, we’re recording this on the morning of July 2nd and June was. Was a pretty good month. Continued recovery from the lows of April.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:43 – 00:03:47]
That was my last break. That what happened in April ruined my last.

James Boyle:
[00:03:47 – 00:03:48]
I remember this. Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:03:48 – 00:04:03]
Because we were right in the thick of it. And we’ve talked about this before about the, the emotional way of this job has. You know, not, not complaining. It’s just, it’s just a part and parcel of it. And I took that emotional weight with me on this vacation and it was just a cloud over the whole trip.

James Boyle:
[00:04:03 – 00:04:04]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:04:04 – 00:04:20]
And to what end? Yeah, it’s. What’s so frustrating is it, you know, we practice, keep the faith. You ride this out. And because we fundamentally believe in it, as we’ll talk about later on, but because of the job we do, we kind of take on the weight for, for other people.

Richard Taylor:
[00:04:20 – 00:04:27]
Hoping they will grasp that. And yeah, just. It just pointlessly wasted a week in Mexico.

James Boyle:
[00:04:28 – 00:04:28]
But not this time.

Richard Taylor:
[00:04:29 – 00:04:30]
This time was great.

James Boyle:
[00:04:30 – 00:04:58]
It’s, it’s, you know, I won’t belabor the point here, but we’re almost, we’re feeling those emotions by proxy. Right. Because we understand our investment philosophy, we understand why we’ve constructed the portfolios the way we have. But we also understand that someone who is not in this day to day is going to have an inevitable and valid emotional reaction. Not to say that you want to take action and things like that, but it is tough to segment mentally those two things.

James Boyle:
[00:04:58 – 00:05:20]
The, the logical response of I know this is going to be fine, it’s going to bounce back as it has, which we’ll talk about touching all time highs in the S and P and the Qs. But also that, you know, non logical, the irrational part of our brain that we all have, you and me and our clients and making sure that, you know, to the extent we can, segmenting those things and unfortunately sometimes that means a holiday goes awry.

Richard Taylor:
[00:05:21 – 00:05:37]
We’re stewards for our clients future. You know, we’re not, you know, we’re not responsible for it, but we’re partially responsible for it. That’s why they hire us. And it’s a responsibility we take very, very seriously. And I live in fear that on my watch someone will make a catastrophic mistake.

Richard Taylor:
[00:05:37 – 00:05:48]
One of our main reasons for existing is to prevent people, is to stop people making catastrophic mistakes which we’re all prone to as humans. And it’s, it’s not happened, it’s never happened, but it’s a constant fear.

James Boyle:
[00:05:48 – 00:05:49]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:05:49 – 00:05:51]
And when things kick off like that and it really kicked off.

James Boyle:
[00:05:51 – 00:05:51]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:05:51 – 00:05:54]
God, that was, it was a crazy month.

James Boyle:
[00:05:54 – 00:05:55]
It was rough and we’ve had a.

Richard Taylor:
[00:05:55 – 00:05:58]
Few crazy months last few years. Yeah. It weighed very, very heavily.

James Boyle:
[00:05:58 – 00:06:07]
Most volatility since COVID obviously. So down. I don’t know where the bottom was. It was right around 20%. I don’t know if we actually touched that recovery was more than 20%.

James Boyle:
[00:06:07 – 00:06:18]
Obviously again all time highs on the S and P and the Qs, S and P is up five, five and a half percent year to date. It seems bizarre. I know when you think about where we were on January 1st, the insanity.

Richard Taylor:
[00:06:18 – 00:06:20]
We went through and it happens like that.

James Boyle:
[00:06:20 – 00:06:20]
Yes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:06:20 – 00:06:40]
And do you remember at the time we posted about this, other people posted about this, a spate of articles came out in the Journal and the Times who had decided this time it’s different and had sold out and they won’t got back in, they’ll be waiting for the next shoe to drop. Right? And this is the problem. This is how you end up doing. Lasting damage, destroying futures.

Richard Taylor:
[00:06:40 – 00:06:41]
Some of these people were retired.

James Boyle:
[00:06:43 – 00:06:43]
No plan B.

Richard Taylor:
[00:06:43 – 00:06:44]
What do you mean, no plan B?

James Boyle:
[00:06:44 – 00:07:06]
Yeah, in a kind of a strange way, you can’t blame them. Once that first mistake is made that you can, you know, blame. We know that in retrospect that’s, that’s a bad move. But once that mistake is made, you almost can’t blame them for hesitating and not getting back in. I mean, again, we think about this from a logical perspective and then the illogical or the irrational.

James Boyle:
[00:07:06 – 00:07:34]
I don’t know if I had made that error when I would have gotten back in, and we know now that was clearly the wrong move now. Not to say it couldn’t continue to be volatile going forward. And who knows what the next three, six months, who knows what the next three weeks are going to bring. But suffice it to say that all of that emotional drama, the chaos, the volatility of April has been wiped away as if it never existed. Now, you could say, you could have opinions on what the outlook looks like right now and is that, is that valid or not?

James Boyle:
[00:07:34 – 00:07:42]
But the truth of it is we are now at all time highs. And if you made that error, you can’t really. It’s difficult to come back from that.

Richard Taylor:
[00:07:42 – 00:08:04]
Let me tell you two things. So first of all, I moved here in 2015 and I had no clients. I was prospecting a lot. You know, I was shocked, honestly, at the amount of stories I heard in 2015 of people, or more often, not friends of people I was speaking to who had panicked out in 2008, 2009, and were still in cash.

James Boyle:
[00:08:05 – 00:08:08]
It’s like heartbreaking, you know, you get that. You get like a goosebumps.

Richard Taylor:
[00:08:08 – 00:08:17]
Imagine sitting out there, the tens. Oh, having. No, wait, it’s worse. Don’t just imagine sitting out the tens. Imagine sitting out the tens.

Richard Taylor:
[00:08:17 – 00:08:31]
Having sold out when you were 20, 30, 40 down in 2007, 2008, 2009. Right. So the second thing, talking about as an advisor, things that like, physically hurt you. We will talk about this later, but I’m going to bring it up now.

James Boyle:
[00:08:31 – 00:08:32]
I have an anecdote too.

Richard Taylor:
[00:08:33 – 00:08:50]
Do you remember? I was. Remember I’ve told you before about I’ve got a friend, our kids were at the same nursery and see him from time to time because our kids now go to the same camp. Good guy, works in Gold Gold in New York City. And Very knowledgeable.

Richard Taylor:
[00:08:50 – 00:09:06]
Very, very knowledgeable. Cludin, sort of guy who works in gold, which I think is kind of important to the story. Him and I kind of default every time we see each other. We immediately start talking about markets and clients and outlooks. You know I don’t have an outlook, I take a 60 year outlook, a 50 year outlook.

Richard Taylor:
[00:09:06 – 00:09:21]
I’m equities. He’s much more like this is going to happen and that’s going to happen and then we’ve got this coming. Anyway, to cut long story short, the entire time I’ve known him he has been predicting a coming super crash.

James Boyle:
[00:09:22 – 00:09:23]
Super crash.

Richard Taylor:
[00:09:23 – 00:09:34]
Super, super crash. Worse than global financial crisis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like his words, a real doozy. And he’s been saying this constantly and, and at the same he’s been preparing for this by.

Richard Taylor:
[00:09:35 – 00:10:00]
He was an early adopter of private credit but this is when he was doing the deals himself. So he’s. So he was doing a huge amount of work to avoid the stock market to invest in things like private credit and real estate deals and that kind of thing. And I’ve continuously said to him I think what you’re doing is a mistake, you should invest for the long term, you don’t need to be doing all this. And he’s constantly been predicting this crash.

Richard Taylor:
[00:10:00 – 00:10:14]
Right. And this crash as we know hasn’t come. Yes, was a bip in 2022 but that’s not the, the doozy. He was, he was. So as far as I can tell he has been expending huge amount of effort to essentially keep pace with equities which would have cost him nothing and no time.

Richard Taylor:
[00:10:14 – 00:10:36]
And then I saw him on the weekend and see him in a while and we immediately slipped back into the old routine, right into and he’s like I think the S P is going to get 6,7000 then we’re have this huge crash. I actually think what everyone should be investing in right now is dated bonds. So I’ve been, I’ve been getting 25 of my portfolio into that. I’ve been getting my mums as well. I said how old are you?

Richard Taylor:
[00:10:36 – 00:10:54]
He said 42. I said it. Honestly, it hurts me that we’re here having this conversation and at 42 years old you are 25 in long term bonds and you know, God knows what else. You should just be in a diversified portfolio of equities and write it out. Let’s cost you.

Richard Taylor:
[00:10:54 – 00:11:08]
It’ll cost you very little money, it’ll cost you no effort and I reckon it’ll do. There’s no way for us to track this. Right, right. But it’s. I bet that because you’ve got a 60 year horizon, I bet if you just bought a diversified portfolio of equities, that would do better than all this effort.

Richard Taylor:
[00:11:08 – 00:11:12]
You’re expending and having money in bond and trying to time it and things dress right.

James Boyle:
[00:11:12 – 00:11:13]
The stress of keeping up with this.

Richard Taylor:
[00:11:13 – 00:11:33]
And he was talking about a new. He’s now diversified and he’s now early into a particular niche within private credit itself because he’s got. And I just said it pains me to hear this and I think ultimately you will destroy more of your wealth than you will build and you will, you’ll work damn hard to do it. Mm. So that’s a long story.

James Boyle:
[00:11:33 – 00:11:34]
Maybe a future guest.

Richard Taylor:
[00:11:34 – 00:11:54]
But my point here is we’ve had five years of been predicting, yeah, the doozy that’s coming is gonna be bigger than global financial crisis. And I said to him, look, so what you’re saying is within the space of like 30 years, we’ve had the dot com bubble, which was three down years, we’ve had the global financial crisis which was the biggest thing since the depression. And now we’re gonna have something even bigger than that in the space of 30 years.

James Boyle:
[00:11:54 – 00:12:23]
And like that’s, that’s pretty dire prediction. Pretty dire, pretty grim. And then you have to hope that, you know, the specificity of these kind of predictions or assumptions always surprises me too because like, I don’t know. Yeah, like the sort of real targets there. And then you have to hope that whatever these, you know, sort of more exotic avenues that you’re investing in, you have to hope that they outperform or somehow, you know, insulated from a world shattering depression.

James Boyle:
[00:12:23 – 00:12:26]
I just, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t see it certainly.

Richard Taylor:
[00:12:26 – 00:12:39]
But no, I don’t. And he’s got, he’s got a good answer for everything. But in the end I just think he’s going to hurt himself, harm himself, and he’s going to spend a lot of time and effort to do that.

James Boyle:
[00:12:39 – 00:13:02]
Gold has its own philosophy, I would say people who invest in gold investors that we don’t necessarily align with all the time. I’m sure there’s valid points and like you said, he’s got answers for everything. And I’m sure in some ways maybe his portfolio served him well. But it is always interesting to see the other side of the table, so to speak, someone who takes such a, you know, drastically different approach to investing.

Richard Taylor:
[00:13:02 – 00:13:13]
But you know, in, in two years Time. I’ll see him again at camp, we’ll have the same conversation and he’ll be predicting a big doozy in two or three years time. And it just keep going and keep going and keep going.

James Boyle:
[00:13:13 – 00:13:31]
You know, it brings up another point that sometimes we, we feel these questions, especially when there’s volatility or there’s some shakiness in the market about. I’m seeing headlines, I’m seeing headlines that the next big ones come and the depression’s coming, the financial crisis, all this is going to come crashing down. And maybe it does, right? Who knows? Right.

James Boyle:
[00:13:31 – 00:13:44]
No one can really predict. Number one, do you want to base a 30, 40 year investment portfolio on that? We would say no. Number two, you have to remember that. And I don’t want to get to talking about the media, but those headlines grab attention.

James Boyle:
[00:13:44 – 00:14:13]
There’s a reason why they say economists have predicted 11 of the last three recessions. Right. Because there are going to be people who are banging that drum and have been banging that drum since 2008, 2009 have been wrong effectively since then, but it still garners eyeballs, gets attention. So be careful. I would say to any investors out there who are prone to think in that more, you know, I don’t want to say pessimistic, but are worried about this idea of the other shoe is going to drop any day now, the other shoe is going to drop.

James Boyle:
[00:14:14 – 00:14:17]
We are optimists at heart too, so that, that plays well.

Richard Taylor:
[00:14:17 – 00:14:27]
You know, optimist is at heart. But wonderful quote I heard recently, optimism isn’t naivety, it’s realism. It’s strategic. It’s not just plucked out of thin air. Pollyanna.

Richard Taylor:
[00:14:27 – 00:14:40]
Ish. Right. It’s looking at the last hundred years and much more recent history and extrapolating from that, we have reasons to be positive. Just as we’re talking yesterday, the, this new tax bill has gone through.

James Boyle:
[00:14:40 – 00:14:40]
Yep.

Richard Taylor:
[00:14:41 – 00:14:55]
Reignited a new war between our president and the world’s richest man. Which is interesting to say the least. This tax bill, it’s a scary amount of debt that’s going to be adding to the, to the already scary amount of debt that we have.

James Boyle:
[00:14:55 – 00:15:01]
And you know, if we’re thinking of this in market terms, it’s, I would say it ties the Fed’s hands a bit more.

Richard Taylor:
[00:15:01 – 00:15:02]
Right.

James Boyle:
[00:15:02 – 00:15:17]
Understanding that this could have inflationary impacts, it remains to be seen. Right. Job numbers came out this morning from adp. Private payrolls was weaker than expected, much weaker, which I know a lot of eyes are on the labor market right now. We’ll see what happens.

James Boyle:
[00:15:18 – 00:15:36]
It’s been fairly consistent, fairly steady. I don’t know if we’ve seen the full impact of tariffs on the inflation numbers. I know Powell was just out recently, said they would have cut by now without that inflationary pressure. So, you know, it, it remains to be seen. I think, you know, we won’t see anything until September.

Richard Taylor:
[00:15:37 – 00:15:49]
You know, it’s such a difficult balancing act. I think the UK and Europe demonstrate the high tax isn’t the answer. High tax, high spending. But at the same time the debt can’t just expand.

James Boyle:
[00:15:49 – 00:15:50]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:15:50 – 00:16:07]
Add infinitum. At some point that bill is going to come due. I do think less tax spurs innovation. But the UK the problem the US is really is low is lower tax. I don’t think the US is low tax, especially not in a lot of the states where we are and where our clients are.

Richard Taylor:
[00:16:07 – 00:16:16]
But lower tax and higher spending, which they is kind of where the US has been last few years with the ballooning debt. I don’t know where we end up with that.

James Boyle:
[00:16:16 – 00:16:20]
Certainly a more divided nation. Right. That’s one thing we can, we can count on.

Richard Taylor:
[00:16:23 – 00:16:41]
Okay, moving on. Next thing is we want to talk a little bit about anything we see going on in our business, client wise, that we think is worth sharing, prospect wise. You know, we encounter a lot of people on a day to day, week to week basis. We hear a lot of stories, we hear a lot of good stuff. We also hear a lot of mistakes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:16:41 – 00:16:47]
And you know, we heard another one recently that we think is worth sharing because we think it’s quite common. So take it away.

James Boyle:
[00:16:47 – 00:17:08]
Yep, yep. So part of this too, you just alluded to it. These are common mistakes. These are things we, you know, we’re having these conversations day in and day out and we hear these things so much. A part of the remit of this show, I think, if I’m not mistaken, is to get this knowledge out there to make it clear that not only do these things exist, but if you are in them or you think you might be, you’re in good company.

James Boyle:
[00:17:08 – 00:17:38]
So I say that because I had a really nice chat with a gentleman a few weeks back and he had some concerns about tax questions. It was actually a blog we had published recently about Pfix. So anyone listening? These are essentially non US investments outside of the states and the tax landmine that can create in someone’s financial plan. So this gentleman, the important thing here and sort of the interesting thing is he had done to his mind all he could do.

James Boyle:
[00:17:38 – 00:18:09]
Right. And to be Frank, he had been very thorough in his preparation on both the US side and the UK side. He was working with a local tax adviser in the States who did have some international knowledge. We’ll see that, you know, likely there were some gaps there, but did have international clients had been reporting on FBAR 8938, you know, invoking treaty positions and things like that. He also had a separate team, and this is the kind of key point here, a team in the uk, very renowned, big name team.

James Boyle:
[00:18:09 – 00:18:16]
I would hazard it guess that anyone listening to this podcast would be familiar with them. So it wasn’t a case of, you know, oversight.

Richard Taylor:
[00:18:16 – 00:18:28]
Not just a big uk, but a UK us. Yes. I mean they have a bit, they’re both UK specific, but they have a big UK US arm. Very well known. Yeah, one of the best ones in my opinion.

James Boyle:
[00:18:28 – 00:18:29]
Absolutely.

Richard Taylor:
[00:18:29 – 00:18:34]
So we see that name and we’re like, oh, great, you’re taken care of. Yeah, nothing for us to worry about.

James Boyle:
[00:18:34 – 00:19:10]
This is not some fly by night, you know, someone in a shed somewhere. This is a, you know, they do this, they do transatlantic cross border tax preparation. Now the concern or potentially the flaw here is that this person, whether intentionally or just general oversight, had kept those two teams fully siloed. So in other words, he had his US CPA laser focused on the US side with some international experience. He had the UK team solely focused on the UK and never the twain shall meet.

James Boyle:
[00:19:10 – 00:19:14]
Now I really was worried about my pronunciation there, I think.

Richard Taylor:
[00:19:16 – 00:19:23]
So wait, so he, he had them completely siloed? Yeah, but not only that is he didn’t. He kept information from them as well.

James Boyle:
[00:19:23 – 00:19:25]
Right, yes. And that is that, that is so.

Richard Taylor:
[00:19:25 – 00:19:37]
So what I mean by he told the US person everything he thought was relevant from the us he told the UK everything he thought was relevant for a UK perspective. But critically, he didn’t share the full picture.

James Boyle:
[00:19:37 – 00:20:09]
Exactly. Right. To the uk, no one had full oversight, no one had the comprehensive sort of, you know, I can see everything from, from a 30, 000 foot view. Now it turns out that he has some old policies from the UK that potentially, and again we would defer to a tax advisor in this position. And in fact the recommendation was to talk with their cross border team that can handle the US uk, but very likely, unfortunately there will be PFIC issues and then it’s a question of how do we go about resolving this.

James Boyle:
[00:20:09 – 00:20:27]
Now, again, this is someone that has been very thorough, has researched this on his own, has been reaching out for help, follows our blog. All those things Thought he had done everything, thought he had ticked all those checkboxes. And unfortunately it has turned out that there might be an issue here with pfix.

Richard Taylor:
[00:20:27 – 00:20:53]
You know, one of the defenses against tax penalties which in America are obnoxiously high, is this defense of reasonable cause that you had reasonable cause to make this mistake. That’s actually quite a high bar. It’s not a case of oh, sorry gov, I didn’t know. It’s a, it’s a quite a high legal standard. If you don’t work with a professional, it’s harder to justify reasonable cause.

Richard Taylor:
[00:20:53 – 00:21:15]
If you work with a tax professional, it’s much easier to establish reasonable cause. But there’s a three part test. Number one, does your tax advisor have the necessary experience and knowledge? If you, if you’re a complicated cross border person and you’re going to John around the block, around the corner, who charges 200 for a 1040, that’s not suitable.

James Boyle:
[00:21:15 – 00:21:15]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:21:15 – 00:21:41]
Okay. So number one, number two, did you share everything with that tax advisor? If you’ve missed something, if you’ve not reported something, if you’ve got your whatever, if you made a mistake, you can’t say oh, but I work with a tax advisor. If you didn’t tell that tax advisor about said income, asset, whatever it is. And third, assuming you’ve worked with a professional who’s qualified, you told them everything.

Richard Taylor:
[00:21:41 – 00:21:47]
Did you act on their advice? As in if they told you to do X, but you did Y, you can’t rely on them. Which, that’s such an obvious one, but.

James Boyle:
[00:21:47 – 00:21:48]
I guess you’d be shocked.

Richard Taylor:
[00:21:48 – 00:21:56]
Yes. And the case in point here is you had the right people, but you didn’t tell them everything.

James Boyle:
[00:21:56 – 00:21:56]
Yep.

Richard Taylor:
[00:21:56 – 00:22:03]
Therefore, I’m sorry, it’s kind of on you. I don’t mean to be like, think that’s how the IRS would look at this.

James Boyle:
[00:22:03 – 00:22:04]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:22:04 – 00:22:05]
You didn’t share everything with them.

James Boyle:
[00:22:05 – 00:22:17]
And it’s such an easy, easy thing to miss because these are, you know, in some cases we’re talking with people who, these are policies or accounts or bonds that they took out, you know, 35 years ago. 40 years.

Richard Taylor:
[00:22:17 – 00:22:19]
Yeah, yeah. And I’m totally benign.

James Boyle:
[00:22:19 – 00:22:19]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:22:19 – 00:22:46]
There was no reporting in the uk. There’s no funny business going on. I’ve said it a million times. If you’re serious about this, if you’re serious about making the most attacks about opportunity, you need a cross border financial planner, you need a cross border tax advisor, you need a cross border estate attorney and you need them to be communicating and to have a relationship and someone to take a big picture of you, which honestly is generally us. I find the other two are fantastic, but they’re quite myopic in focus and, and, and detail.

Richard Taylor:
[00:22:46 – 00:23:01]
Focus on specific stuff and sometimes completely miss the, the wood for the trees. Whereas we see the, we see that, we see the bigger picture and, and I think we play that role very, very well. But you. That you need, that you need them all communicating, you not be in silos.

James Boyle:
[00:23:02 – 00:23:02]
Yep.

Richard Taylor:
[00:23:02 – 00:23:03]
That’s how you do this.

James Boyle:
[00:23:03 – 00:23:17]
It’s critical. And it’s such a, you know, it feels like when you’re looking at this sort of philosophically or from a, you know, bird’s eye view, that could be such an easy piece, a small piece to miss. But sometimes in a case like this, it is critical.

Richard Taylor:
[00:23:17 – 00:23:17]
Yeah.

James Boyle:
[00:23:17 – 00:23:23]
Because essentially it’s almost like you’ve gotten all the way to the finish line and then you stumble and you didn’t quite make it.

Richard Taylor:
[00:23:23 – 00:23:41]
So a good team will save you multiples of any penalties that could be avoided. God knows what they’ll save you in emotional stress and time as well. And a good team will, by taking advantage of opportunities, will make you multiples of any fee you pay over the life of a relationship. A good team, the right team and.

James Boyle:
[00:23:41 – 00:24:03]
The, you know, not to be too glib about it, but the mental peace of mind, you know, the idea that I have people in place looking out for this. I have, you know, if the IRS comes knocking, which, you know, you never know if they will or not, and people are, you know, have a sort of intimidation by the irs, rightfully so, because in these cases, they are not going to take a kind view. And it’s unfortunate, but it’s the system you’re in.

Richard Taylor:
[00:24:03 – 00:24:07]
They do always seem to take the. The most draconian.

James Boyle:
[00:24:07 – 00:24:07]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:24:07 – 00:24:25]
View of it, which is a shame, is an opportunity to tell my favorite Pfix story. I’ll try and do an abridged version. The worst Pfix story I’ve ever had was this is, I think back in the days of the COVID crisis. Took a call from someone and they opened with, I’m an accountant. I was like, oh, there’s trouble here.

Richard Taylor:
[00:24:25 – 00:25:01]
The moment someone leaves them an accountant, do my own taxes, I know where there’s something lurking. And lo and behold, this guy had moved here in the 80s with hundreds of thousands of pounds in a portfolio of Pfix, you know, mutual funds, and had held them for 30 plus years and had been filing F bars and H938s and all that thinking they were Just regular old mutual funds, which they are, but didn’t realize they were counted as pfix. In a conversation with me, turns out these, this was now worth over a million dollars. And when he found out that the US would, would look to tax him as Pfix. There’s no regime that can save you from this.

Richard Taylor:
[00:25:01 – 00:25:02]
There’s no streamlined or anything.

James Boyle:
[00:25:02 – 00:25:02]
You.

Richard Taylor:
[00:25:02 – 00:25:22]
He’s got to go back to the beginning of these PFICs. He was in a state with tax, so he’s going to have highest federal 37, 39.6 whatever it was at the time, each year, state capital gains and then interest in some cases going right back to the 80s. That was the whole of his gains gone. Brutal, you know, within 15 minutes of a conversation with us. And that is this.

Richard Taylor:
[00:25:24 – 00:25:32]
If you’re an expat here and you’ve got means and you don’t have advisors, you know, you’re just asking for trouble. Yeah, you really are.

James Boyle:
[00:25:32 – 00:25:50]
You know, not to make a haphazard attempt at a segue here, because I’m sure we’ll get to it. But there is also a business case for the irs, right. In these kind of situations where some of these are. So the IRS would view them as egregious. I don’t use that word lightly.

James Boyle:
[00:25:50 – 00:26:31]
But where the penalties, the interest, the fees are going to be so lucrative from a tax collection standpoint that there is reason for the IRS to be particularly aggressive in pursuing these types of things. Holly in the last episode mentioned something like a pension rollover, where if it wasn’t properly reported or if it wasn’t done correctly, you’re looking at penalties potentially, you know, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And there is a reason why the IRS would be more interested in pursuing something like that, especially from a foreign account, then you know, you’re kind of bog standard. 1040 tax reporter in.

Richard Taylor:
[00:26:31 – 00:27:00]
In my conversation with Dan Price, an ex IRS attorney, I asked him, because he’s now on the other side, he’s now helping taxpayers. And I asked him, like looking back on your 19 years, the IRS, is there anything that now you work in with. With people rather than kind of against them, is there anything you wish that you had known and the IRS had known? He’s and I, and I’m, you know, paraphrasing his answer here from, from my memory, but he basically was like the IRS and myself, we. You kind of take the position it’s the law.

Richard Taylor:
[00:27:00 – 00:27:22]
You, you’ve not filed this return. You, you should know the law. It’s easy to follow. The law, you’re not following the law, therefore you’re in violation of the law, therefore we’re going to penalize you. He said, on the other side of this, I realize just how challenging it is for regular people, even regular tax advisors to keep up with the myriad laws and requirements relating to offshore.

Richard Taylor:
[00:27:23 – 00:27:35]
So I thought that was very interesting. It reminds me of one of my kids friends, his dad was an ex prosecutor, a state prosecutor in, in New York, you know, so southern districts New York. So the financial stuff.

James Boyle:
[00:27:35 – 00:27:36]
Yeah, right.

Richard Taylor:
[00:27:36 – 00:27:53]
Big, big department. And now he’s on the other side, now he’s a law in House at J.P. morgan. And I said to him, now you’re on that side of it. Is there anything that you, you realize that. Oh, I, I wish I’d realized that as a, as a, as a prosecutor.

Richard Taylor:
[00:27:53 – 00:28:24]
And he said, yeah, the volume of emails we get, it makes me realize that stuff can get missed. Whereas when I was a prosecutor, if someone said I don’t remember that email, we never honestly believe them. We’re like, how can you not remember? How can you, how can you, you don’t get that many emails and you think, have people like lost careers, lost livelihoods because you didn’t believe they had missed an email. And now you’re on the other side of it and you realize that in a big corporate like that you get hundreds of emails a day.

Richard Taylor:
[00:28:24 – 00:28:26]
You’re like, oh yeah, emails do get lost.

James Boyle:
[00:28:26 – 00:28:39]
Yeah. It’s so hard to balance those two things. But you know, the point stands that you have to take these things seriously. I know, we bang on about it and we’ll continue to do that. Right.

James Boyle:
[00:28:40 – 00:28:53]
In these episodes and in our content and when we speak with people. But these are easy things to overlook. It is an incredibly complex system, like you say, for regular people. Right. For Americans born, born and bred.

James Boyle:
[00:28:53 – 00:29:01]
To try to juggle two different systems in a lot of cases without the right advice in place or people in.

Richard Taylor:
[00:29:01 – 00:29:04]
Place, it’s just, it’s just not realistic.

James Boyle:
[00:29:04 – 00:29:05]
It’s impossible. Right.

Richard Taylor:
[00:29:05 – 00:29:18]
Not realistic. And the repercussions make it not worth it. Right. Yes, you can save a couple of grand a year maybe, but the, the repercussions of you getting that wrong are extreme. And you’re in America.

Richard Taylor:
[00:29:18 – 00:29:29]
You know, the chances are that you’re earning substantial amount of money more than you were. You can. Most people we, we encounter can afford a couple of grand a year for a good cross border tax advisor. It’s worth it.

James Boyle:
[00:29:30 – 00:29:31]
Yep, Absolutely.

Richard Taylor:
[00:29:31 – 00:29:35]
Okay. Should we have a quick chat about my last episode with Holly Pensions, We’ve.

James Boyle:
[00:29:35 – 00:29:36]
Touched on it, so it definitely is connected.

Richard Taylor:
[00:29:37 – 00:29:49]
Yeah. So we had Holly from Buzzercart, one of the best, the top firms. Not a cheap firm. But then even I learned to me I didn’t know about their system. Their setup is every single client has three people on it.

Richard Taylor:
[00:29:49 – 00:30:14]
Wow, three cross border experts. So I already knew they were expensive. But then when she explains that like every single client we send to them or, you know, or the many clients of theirs that aren’t ours, they have three UK and US cross border tax advice attached to them. So there’s always someone on hand to answer and then you have a team of 80 level of knowledge and experience they have across that team is fantastic. They are one of, if not the top firm in this space.

Richard Taylor:
[00:30:14 – 00:30:43]
I think we had her on to talk about UK pensions specifically. Most of our clients have, most of our clients moved to the US mid career y. So they, they had UK assets, all of them had UK pensions. And we were talking about what you need to do reporting wise, what your options are when they’re just legacy pensions, what your options are if you move them into a sip. Reporting requirements, treaty interactions, claiming treaty exemptions, all that good stuff.

James Boyle:
[00:30:43 – 00:31:14]
It’s one of those things where, you know, we think of this as a spectrum. Some people who come to us and they’ve been, they’ve been doing everything and they’re reporting everything and they’re being very thorough on the other end of that. And I don’t know if you guys commented on this directly, but sometimes we hear, yeah, I have a pension, but I haven’t taken any money from it, or I have a sip, but I haven’t taken any money and that means I don’t have to report it. Now we know that that is not the right. There exists pretty cut and dry reporting requirements and Holly got into the forms required and the reasoning behind them.

James Boyle:
[00:31:14 – 00:31:28]
But you know, if you’re listening to this and you have a pension that has sat in a drawer or you have a sip that you took care of in the UK and then thought you were fine, you absolutely want to be making sure that you’re, you’re doing everything you can to report those correctly, take the treaty position if needed.

Richard Taylor:
[00:31:29 – 00:31:38]
What’s more frustrating though is when someone comes and like, oh, you know, I’ve had this pension, it’s been sat there for 15 years. Oh, we could have done so much more with that.

James Boyle:
[00:31:38 – 00:31:57]
You know, I think about this a lot and there’s something, I don’t know, there’s some kind of Mental disconnect we have where we call it recency bias or something that, you know, in that vein, where people are very, very focused and passionate or their interest is on what is right in front of them or right in the recent past.

Richard Taylor:
[00:31:57 – 00:31:58]
A human thing. Right.

James Boyle:
[00:31:58 – 00:32:31]
What is my 401k done? You know, have I was. What’s the S and P doing all those kind of things that we talk about all the time. There is some disconnect where they won’t think twice about a pension that sat in a drawer for 20 years, that they don’t know what the fees are, they don’t know how it’s invested, they don’t know if it’s invested, they don’t know if they report it. You are Talking about a 20 year gap in your financial plan or your portfolio that is going to have a massively more impactful influence on your overall success, on your financial success than whether I did 8% this year or 10, or whether I did 4% or 3.

James Boyle:
[00:32:31 – 00:32:47]
I mean there’s varying magnitudes here and some, sometimes our job is to redirect people’s attention to issues that either they weren’t aware of at all, right? That’s, that’s a big part of it. Or maybe they’re not affording the proper amount of interest or focus.

Richard Taylor:
[00:32:47 – 00:33:12]
Isn’t that the, the great challenge of our role though? People are focused on the tangible. What they can see the fee I pay you or someone like you, x thousand dollars a year. And what they miss are the almost endless intangible ways that we add value. The, the opportunity cost not lost, the returns, the not bailing out when it was down, the tax stuff that we get involved in.

Richard Taylor:
[00:33:12 – 00:33:33]
Roth convert, you know, we, I fundamentally believe, fundamentally believe we deliver over a client lifestyle multiples, many multiples of our fee across money, saved money, added tax, all these different things. But it’s, it’s, it’s intangible. You, you don’t really have a tally. You can’t say we’ve charged X and you’ve received Y. It’s.

Richard Taylor:
[00:33:33 – 00:33:35]
We’ve charged X and this is unquantifiable.

James Boyle:
[00:33:35 – 00:33:36]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:33:36 – 00:33:36]
Yep.

James Boyle:
[00:33:37 – 00:33:52]
And to your point, you know, talking about the tax conversation with the in house versus prosecutor and how those roles differed for that gentleman, we are laser focused on this. Right. We do this day in and day out. So obviously we are across this. It does make you think and all these things because these are human foibles, right.

James Boyle:
[00:33:52 – 00:34:00]
No one is immune to them. So it does make you think about where else in my life Am I doing that? Am I making that mistake? And I’m sure I am. And it’s so easy to.

James Boyle:
[00:34:01 – 00:34:15]
Those blind spots, we all have them are ever present and so incredibly difficult to diagnose for yourself. So it’s one of those areas where part of it is education. Right. Part of it is doing this show, part of it is. Is having conversations with our clients.

James Boyle:
[00:34:15 – 00:34:16]
But it’s easy to make those mistakes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:34:16 – 00:34:31]
It’s actually something I struggle with because I am someone who maybe is because of this role. Maybe if I didn’t do this job, I wouldn’t be like this. But I always pay for. I don’t. I don’t DIY anything because I don’t know what I don’t know.

Richard Taylor:
[00:34:31 – 00:34:42]
And it’s hard for me to understand how people can be so blase about it. But again, maybe that’s just because I’m. I know the repercussions and not just. I don’t just mean in our field, but like, legal. I don’t.

Richard Taylor:
[00:34:42 – 00:34:52]
I don’t DIY anything there because I’m scared of. Of what can happen. And we meet so many people who just are not scared about what can happen.

James Boyle:
[00:34:52 – 00:34:52]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:34:52 – 00:35:00]
And I can’t. I try, but I truly can’t understand, especially when for some people, we have, like, millions of dollars on this at stake.

James Boyle:
[00:35:00 – 00:35:25]
Yeah. I’ll say this to try to add a positive sheen on this. Most people that come to us are trying to do the right thing and are trying. You know, there is a segment of people who, like you say, are just either outright dismissive or hostile or just, you know, for whatever reason, aren’t ready to take that step and address some of these. Some of these issues that we deal in day in and day out.

James Boyle:
[00:35:25 – 00:35:31]
Out. Anyone listening? If you haven’t listened to Holly Calder’s episode from buzzcats, definitely go check that out.

Richard Taylor:
[00:35:31 – 00:35:37]
You know, one thing I liked about this episode was we really put a spotlight on. It’s not the same in every state.

James Boyle:
[00:35:38 – 00:35:38]
Yes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:35:38 – 00:35:53]
So there are some states that don’t follow the federal tax treaty. Blows my mind. Will do till the day I die. How can the federal government go to the trouble of establishing all these treaties and then states are just able to opt out? And of course, California is one of them.

Richard Taylor:
[00:35:53 – 00:35:56]
You know, it’s just mind blowing that that’s the case.

James Boyle:
[00:35:56 – 00:36:12]
I. I always not laugh. I. I think it’s fascinating to watch your reaction because it’s. It is obviously coming from the American side. It’s something that we’re just. We take for granted that, oh, yeah, it’s, it’s one country, but there’s also like these little fiefdoms and they all have their own little rules and things like that.

James Boyle:
[00:36:12 – 00:36:13]
It wasn’t until I started traveling, you.

Richard Taylor:
[00:36:13 – 00:36:17]
Know, I understand that. But there should be some things that you just can’t override and it should be one of them.

James Boyle:
[00:36:17 – 00:36:41]
I agree, I agree. It’s just funny that, you know, so that’s such an easy thing to overlook as an American. And it makes me think of. It wasn’t until I started traveling 20s Europe and things like that, where you meet people from other countries and this question of statehood and the interaction between states and the federal government was always a topic of fascination of like, do you need a passport, do you need an ID to cross borders? Things like that.

James Boyle:
[00:36:41 – 00:36:59]
Where as an American, obviously you don’t even think about that. But then seeing how other countries operate now with that different lens, you’re like, oh yeah, this is really bizarre. And going back to our point about complexity, how could you ask someone to, to, to manage this on their own or to understand all the new.

Richard Taylor:
[00:36:59 – 00:37:04]
So, so not all states follow the federal tax treaty. And that creates issues when you’re rolling pensions over.

James Boyle:
[00:37:05 – 00:37:05]
Yep.

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:06 – 00:37:23]
And when you’re taking or taking the PCLS, the 25 tax free lump sum, which, you know, that’s a whole topic federally in itself, but at some states it’s not, it’s not the same. So Connecticut, California, Maryland, Arkansas. I think a couple more. Hawaii. Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:23 – 00:37:26]
And I think this is something that’s widely, widely misunderstood.

James Boyle:
[00:37:26 – 00:37:26]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:26 – 00:37:35]
Or just not even. People aren’t even aware of it. Okay, pick a mix, Pick a mix.

James Boyle:
[00:37:38 – 00:37:39]
What do you got?

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:39 – 00:37:40]
I finally finished Silk Roads.

James Boyle:
[00:37:40 – 00:37:41]
Ah, nice.

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:41 – 00:37:51]
Phenomenal. Phenomenal book. It’s made me. It offered me new perspectives on history. It’s a intellectual, it’s a, it’s a feat.

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:51 – 00:37:57]
It is a feat that someone has managed to. I’ve not actually seen the physical books I read on a Kindle, but it must be enormous.

James Boyle:
[00:37:57 – 00:37:58]
It’s like a thousand pages.

Richard Taylor:
[00:37:59 – 00:38:15]
It is enormous. And the, the breadth, depth, the span of time that it covers is staggering. And it really helped me better understand how Europe was a, was a backwater for a long time. And then. So you had Roman, Athens, obviously Rome.

Richard Taylor:
[00:38:15 – 00:38:23]
It was pretty important. Then it was a backwater for a long time. And then the. Which we got very good at fighting ourselves internally. Yes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:38:23 – 00:38:26]
And then when it was discovered that it was a globe.

James Boyle:
[00:38:26 – 00:38:26]
Right.

Richard Taylor:
[00:38:26 – 00:38:50]
When you had Columbus going that way and Val Rama or whatever, the Portuguese guy going that way and they basically went around the world. Suddenly Europe went from being in the. A backwater at the edge to the center center. And with the Spanish getting all the silver and also Europeans being very good at fighting and killing, that kind of set off that, that’s. That that’s when Europe started re becoming the center of the.

Richard Taylor:
[00:38:50 – 00:39:08]
The world again. He’s got. I think he’s done a couple of follow ups. The first one, okay. And then the recent history, the, the kind of 19th, 20th century history about the UK and then America and the Middle east and oil and Iran and the Soviets going into Afghanistan.

Richard Taylor:
[00:39:08 – 00:39:21]
These are all things that like would happen just before I was born or when I was born. So I was very aware of them. And then obviously both Iraq wars. You hear about our history in the Middle east, but you don’t really know that history. You’re just aware that it’s got ramifications today.

Richard Taylor:
[00:39:21 – 00:39:31]
But I’ve got a much better understanding of how, of how all that played out. So that was it. That was a fantastic book. And now I’m reading. I’m reading a book on Henry V. Oh, nice.

James Boyle:
[00:39:31 – 00:39:33]
So another tome, I bet.

Richard Taylor:
[00:39:34 – 00:39:51]
I don’t think it’s. I don’t think it’s anything quite like that. But there’s. There’s a string of Kings in the UK in England, the Plantagenets, which from about 1200 to I. I take it right into the Tudors, but they’re, they’re. The Tudors aren’t officially Plantagenets, I don’t think.

Richard Taylor:
[00:39:51 – 00:40:06]
Related, but not officially anyway. It’s very interesting history. Lots of wars with France, Henry V, of the famous Shakespeare, which was a fantastic adaptation on film, which. Timothy Chamele played Henry V and he was magnificent in that role.

James Boyle:
[00:40:06 – 00:40:09]
Was it. I think it was just called the King, right. Or something like that or.

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:09 – 00:40:10]
I think so. Yeah.

James Boyle:
[00:40:10 – 00:40:11]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:11 – 00:40:15]
Fantastic. Rob Patterson plays Mad King Charles. Brilliant.

James Boyle:
[00:40:15 – 00:40:15]
Nice.

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:15 – 00:40:20]
It’s really good. And, and this author has written a whole series of books on the Plantagenets and the Tudors.

James Boyle:
[00:40:20 – 00:40:21]
Who’s the author of this?

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:21 – 00:40:26]
He’s called Dan something. It’s great. But it’s written, written. He’s actually. And in this forward explains like, bear with me here.

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:26 – 00:40:35]
It’s written in like the current tense. Not, not this happened and that happened. It’s written as if you’re there alongside him. And he says this is experimental. But bear with me.

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:35 – 00:40:37]
And I’m really quite enjoying it.

James Boyle:
[00:40:37 – 00:40:45]
Would you call it like. We, I know we’ve talked about Eric Larson’s books on here. They call that sometimes they call it narrative non fiction, where it kind of reads. No, it’s more, more.

Richard Taylor:
[00:40:45 – 00:40:49]
It’s historically definitely non fiction. Yeah, yeah. 100% non fiction.

James Boyle:
[00:40:49 – 00:41:03]
Yeah. When you, when you read these tomes, are you reading other things in between? Because I always struggle with this. Yeah. I, I find I sometimes I will have a fiction book and a nonfiction book side by side and I can kind of keep those separate.

James Boyle:
[00:41:03 – 00:41:08]
But I find if I start to veer into historical and then nonfiction, it becomes hard to keep.

Richard Taylor:
[00:41:09 – 00:41:12]
My problem with fiction is give me a good fiction book I can read.

James Boyle:
[00:41:12 – 00:41:20]
Till three in the morning that’s funny fiction. For whatever reason, like before bed, I’ll read fiction and that puts me out. I will.

Richard Taylor:
[00:41:20 – 00:41:29]
If I read like a page turner, I will, I will, I will. I’ll be bags under my eyes. I won’t be able to sleep. Whereas non fiction book, I can thoroughly enjoy it and fall asleep reading it.

James Boyle:
[00:41:29 – 00:41:45]
That’s funny because now I have a tag on to this one. So I mentioned this in last week’s newsletter, but I just finished up a pretty fascinating book called Chasing the Scream. I had talked about one of this author’s previous books. His name’s Johann Hari. He’s actually, I think he’s British Swiss.

James Boyle:
[00:41:45 – 00:42:08]
So he, he’s cross border in his own way. So this was kind of a historical. Well, it started in the early 20th century through to modern day. Started with Prohibition, the policies around Prohibition, and then got into the drug war and different models around the world and how that’s impacted societies. Not exactly light reading, I wouldn’t call it, but really fascinating.

James Boyle:
[00:42:08 – 00:42:40]
And Hari, he’s actually got another book too that I haven’t read that I want to check out. But he’s got a really readable, approachable, where he’s distilling fairly complex, wide reaching issues and concerns and things in a way that’s approachable and readable and never walk away from one of his books without at least a few new ideas or looking at something like, wow, hadn’t considered that. So that’s one. Speaking of fiction, on the train ride up, I just started Jurassic park by Michael Crates. I know that there’s a new movie coming out.

Richard Taylor:
[00:42:40 – 00:42:42]
Yeah, it’s never occurred to me to read it.

James Boyle:
[00:42:42 – 00:42:55]
I’ve never read it. That was one of the, As a, as a. And I’m aging myself here, but as an early 90s kid, as a millennial, I’ll say Jurassic park was enormous for me in my childhood. Of course, dinosaurs, it’s massive in my.

Richard Taylor:
[00:42:55 – 00:42:57]
House now with My six and three year old.

James Boyle:
[00:42:57 – 00:42:57]
Good.

Richard Taylor:
[00:42:57 – 00:42:58]
Huge.

James Boyle:
[00:42:58 – 00:43:00]
Now they can’t. Are they watching? Because it’s scary.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:00 – 00:43:05]
We’ve watched. We’ve watched the. Yeah, we’ve watched 1, 2, 3, and we’ve watched the more recent ones as well.

James Boyle:
[00:43:05 – 00:43:05]
Nice.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:05 – 00:43:12]
But it’s always okay, right? One is always great. Two is good. Three is kind of a disaster. Yeah, Yeah, I think that’s.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:12 – 00:43:12]
That’s played out.

James Boyle:
[00:43:12 – 00:43:14]
And I think Chris Pratt. 1. This one has to be.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:14 – 00:43:15]
What number this one?

James Boyle:
[00:43:15 – 00:43:16]
Well, seven.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:16 – 00:43:18]
Well, yeah, but you know, it’s always like one, two, three.

James Boyle:
[00:43:19 – 00:43:19]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:19 – 00:43:23]
Chris Pratt was what? One was good. Two was okay. Three was. I don’t.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:23 – 00:43:26]
I think I saw three. I heard such bad reviews. Yeah, this one. This looks good.

James Boyle:
[00:43:26 – 00:43:30]
I’m in. I’m gonna watch. Yeah, it’s one of those things where.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:30 – 00:43:31]
Charlotte Johansson as well. She’s always good.

James Boyle:
[00:43:31 – 00:43:37]
Yeah, yeah. Paige Turner. Because I read a couple of Michael and I always. Am I mispronouncing Michael Crichton?

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:37 – 00:43:38]
Crichton. I think. I think. Yeah.

James Boyle:
[00:43:38 – 00:43:40]
He’s really like.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:40 – 00:43:40]
Is he.

James Boyle:
[00:43:40 – 00:43:45]
If you want a popcorn summer beach, read where you’re tearing through. He’s great.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:45 – 00:43:46]
Have you ever read the Godfather books?

James Boyle:
[00:43:46 – 00:43:48]
No. I’ve heard they are. Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:48 – 00:43:51]
I mean, the Godfather films are magnificent. The books are even better.

James Boyle:
[00:43:51 – 00:43:58]
Yeah. I should check it out. I have a really good buddy who I think listens to this, so shout out to you know who I’m talking about. But he read them all and loved them.

Richard Taylor:
[00:43:58 – 00:44:06]
Yeah, I do enjoy reading. I think it’s never occurred to me to read the Michael Crichton one. Right. Yeah.

James Boyle:
[00:44:06 – 00:44:19]
And he wrote too, which I didn’t realize he wrote the original was Jurassic park and then I think the sequel was Lost World. Oh, yeah. Now, I don’t know if the movie adapted the first one seems so far. You know what I read on the train. Pretty movie.

Richard Taylor:
[00:44:19 – 00:44:19]
Is still.

James Boyle:
[00:44:19 – 00:44:20]
It’s incredible.

Richard Taylor:
[00:44:20 – 00:44:24]
It still stands up so well. We must have watched it in the last three or four weeks.

James Boyle:
[00:44:24 – 00:44:32]
The way that it has aged. It’s. It’s like it could have come out this year. It feels like it’s so amazing the way they. Spielberg, obviously.

Richard Taylor:
[00:44:32 – 00:44:39]
Yeah. We watched a magnificent film that weekend. Just wonderful watching the Ballad of Willis Island.

James Boyle:
[00:44:39 – 00:44:45]
I am not kidding you. I was gonna add that incredible movie. Incredible movie.

Richard Taylor:
[00:44:45 – 00:44:47]
Just. I just loved it.

James Boyle:
[00:44:47 – 00:44:48]
Yeah. I just.

Richard Taylor:
[00:44:48 – 00:44:56]
I enjoy, you know. You just enjoy sitting here, just taking it in. Taking in a very, very British humor. Yes, there’s a physical British humor.

James Boyle:
[00:44:58 – 00:44:59]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:44:59 – 00:45:03]
I just. I can’t. I just, I can’t really express how much I enjoy.

James Boyle:
[00:45:03 – 00:45:04]
Yes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:45:04 – 00:45:05]
That movie.

James Boyle:
[00:45:05 – 00:45:18]
I have a funny story. So not only I listen to a few British podcasts and he’s been making the rounds. I think it just got released in the uk. I somehow stumbled upon free screening tickets in Philadelphia. And this was like two months ago.

James Boyle:
[00:45:18 – 00:45:24]
So I went to see it. My wife was supposed to join me. She had. Unfortunately, something happened with the family, so she couldn’t make it. But I said, it’s a free screening.

James Boyle:
[00:45:24 – 00:45:29]
I’m gonna go check it out. I walked out of theater like, this is. This is one of the best movies of the year, easily.

Richard Taylor:
[00:45:31 – 00:45:44]
It was so uplifting to your spirit. I feel strangers talking about it. We watched over two nights and I was buoyed by. I was so excited to finish it on the Sunday night, and I was really buoyed by. It was just.

Richard Taylor:
[00:45:44 – 00:45:45]
It’s a feel good movie.

James Boyle:
[00:45:45 – 00:45:52]
Yeah, we should say so. Tim Key, I think, wrote and directed alongside Tom Basin, I think his name is. And then Carey Mulligan.

Richard Taylor:
[00:45:52 – 00:45:53]
Always great.

James Boyle:
[00:45:53 – 00:45:55]
Incredible. Yeah, always incredible.

Richard Taylor:
[00:45:55 – 00:46:03]
But the Tim Key character, the way it was written, the way it was acted, it was just such. It was just such a pleasure.

James Boyle:
[00:46:04 – 00:46:14]
The trick they pull. And I don’t want to spoil too much, but so I’ll just say sort of early in the movie, you’re not quite sure. Like, you can’t really get a read on this guy. And is he strange or is he. And the.

James Boyle:
[00:46:14 – 00:46:21]
The arc that he goes. Yeah, yeah, it’s. It’s really, really well done. Really well done. I’m smiling.

James Boyle:
[00:46:22 – 00:46:27]
Yeah. It’s funny because now if you’re in the States, it’s streaming on, I think Peacock or one of them.

Richard Taylor:
[00:46:27 – 00:46:29]
It’s HBO Max.

James Boyle:
[00:46:29 – 00:46:30]
Okay.

Richard Taylor:
[00:46:30 – 00:46:31]
I think I could be wrong.

James Boyle:
[00:46:31 – 00:46:38]
Whichever one I’ve been. I’ve been now telling my wife, I’m like, we have to. Because she missed the screenings. I said, we absolutely have to sit down and watch this. It is.

James Boyle:
[00:46:38 – 00:46:42]
It is. And I’m not one that really rewatches movies, but that’s one that I will.

Richard Taylor:
[00:46:42 – 00:46:42]
I will.

James Boyle:
[00:46:42 – 00:46:44]
Yeah. Happily. Jump.

Richard Taylor:
[00:46:44 – 00:46:46]
Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great. Well, it’s not that high.

James Boyle:
[00:46:46 – 00:46:54]
Yes. Yes. First of all, everyone listening. Thank you for listening. Follow us wherever you’re enjoying the podcast.

James Boyle:
[00:46:54 – 00:47:04]
If you can leave a review. Five stars. That really helps with the almighty algorithms. And as we always say in these things, get in touch, send us an email. We want to make sure this is interactive and dynamic.

James Boyle:
[00:47:04 – 00:47:05]
And we’re answering your question.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:05 – 00:47:08]
And we should just say next up, I believe is Aiden.

James Boyle:
[00:47:08 – 00:47:08]
Yes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:09 – 00:47:15]
A few weeks ago, Maybe a couple of months ago now, maybe a month or so ago, I sat down in this very. No, in the room over there.

James Boyle:
[00:47:15 – 00:47:15]
Yeah.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:15 – 00:47:26]
Aiden was in New York. For those who don’t know, Aiden is a US Well, a UK US Estate planner in London. He’s been on the podcast three times already. He’s fantastic.

James Boyle:
[00:47:26 – 00:47:26]
Yes.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:26 – 00:47:27]
He’s a raconteur.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:28 – 00:47:36]
He’s great company. He was in New York. We took the opportunity to get together in person, do a podcast that’s coming out two weeks.

James Boyle:
[00:47:36 – 00:47:39]
Excellent, excellent. Looking forward to that. Perfect. Thank you all for listening.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:39 – 00:47:40]
All right, thank you. See you soon.

James Boyle:
[00:47:40 – 00:47:40]
Cheers.

Richard Taylor:
[00:47:40 – 00:48:02]
Ciao. All right, folks, that’s another episode of we’re the Brits in America Under Our Belts. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it and I appreciate you. If you’re enjoying the show and would like to support the mission, which is to help ambitious expats and immigrants thrive in America, I’d ask you to subscribe to the POD wherever you listen and also consider leaving a rating and review.

Richard Taylor:
[00:48:02 – 00:48:24]
This stuff really does matter. Please help us get this information to the people who need it. That is your fellow expats. Just a quick reminder that this show is brought to you by Plan First Wealth. We are a US Based lifestyle financial planner and wealth manager and we help successful American and international families living across the US to make the most of their opportunity and ultimately to retire happier.

Richard Taylor:
[00:48:24 – 00:48:43]
If you’d like to know more about how we might be able to help you, you can find us on our website, planfirstwealth.com or you can look me up on LinkedIn. Do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you. As always, thank you to the podcast guys for their help producing this episode and the entire show. See you next time.