A Story Of Good Intentions, Bad Investments, And Why Doing “Some Research” Isn’t Enough When You’re Living Between Tax Systems | From The Trenches With James Boyle

Richard and James are back with more cautionary financial tales. Richard Taylor, founder of Plan First Wealth, recently spoke to a connection who “had done a bit of research, learned that mutual funds were a problem, hadn’t learned what PFICs were, and switched out of a mutual fund into an investment trust… thinking he’d dodged the problem, but in fact he’d gone from one PFIC to another.” What was the result? And why is it such a problem? You’ll find out in this episode of From The Trenches.

Richard and James share real-world stories that highlight how easy it is to fall into tax traps when dealing with cross-border investments, especially for UK expats living in the US. You’ll hear how well-meaning financial decisions can backfire without the right context or professional advice, particularly around things like ISAs, investment trusts, PFIC reporting, and the long-term implications of missing forms like 3520 and 8621.

Plus, expert advice and insight into retirement readiness. Richard and James explores what changes when you stop earning, why even successful DIY investors often hand over the reins, and how complex planning becomes when you’re managing assets across two tax systems. If you’re a Brit in America navigating retirement, tax compliance, or residency decisions, this episode will help you avoid costly mistakes, understand the emotional weight of retirement planning, and see the real value of cross-border financial advice.
If you’re a Brit in America considering a return home, or even just thinking of spending part of the year working in the UK, this episode could save you a lot of money, time, and stress.

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

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Richard Taylor: So this person had done a bit of research, learned that that mutual funds were a problem, hadn’t learned what PFIs were, and switched out of a mutual fund into an investment trust and, and if, and if thinking he’d dodged the problem, but in fact he’d gone from one PFI to another.
[00:00:18] James Boyle: There’s so much to unpack here that it’s a great example of the conversations we have.
[00:00:23] James Boyle: This is almost, I don’t know, more heartbreaking, right? Because there was some level of action taken. There was some advice received and digested, but the inherent complexity of these things means that at the finish line, there was a stumble and unfortunately. It’s gonna cause issues.
[00:00:44] Richard Taylor: Welcome to the We’re the Brits In America podcast, a Plan First Wealth podcast dedicated to helping ambitious expatriates and first generation immigrants thrive in America.
[00:00:54] Richard Taylor: I’m your host, Richard Taylor and Plan First Wealth is the business I founded and run today, and we work with successful American and international families living across the us, helping them to make the most of their opportunity living and working in America. However, while Plan First Wealth LLC is an SEC registered Investment Advisor.
[00:01:12] Richard Taylor: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of Plan. First Wealth information presented is for educational purposes only. All right, let’s get back to this week’s show. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of From The Trenches.
[00:01:31] Richard Taylor: This is the show where my esteemed colleague James Boyle and myself, we bring you behind the scenes at Plan First Wealth as we are working with our clients and building this business. Uh, hi James. How’s it going, Richard? It’s, it’s baking hot. I was gonna say same thing is
[00:01:45] James Boyle: we are in the middle of a hot and humid heat wave.
[00:01:49] Richard Taylor: here we are trapped in the heat dome apparently.
[00:01:53] Richard Taylor: Yes. And boy does it feel like a heat dome so thunderstorms tomorrow. So hope I’ll clear it. Mm-hmm. Anyway, James, we are going to slightly change things up a little bit, rather than leading with the Marcus. This time we’ve had a conversation. We’ve decided to lead with some of the stories that we’ve. F uh, accumulated as we last spoke on dealing with clients and prospective clients.
[00:02:12] Richard Taylor: And the reason we’re doing this is because the whole point of this show is to bring some of the more technical aspects to life. So the other show formats that I do, which is I call ask an expert, where I bring a technical expert, a tax advisor, a tax lawyer, an insurance person, whoever it might be, I bring someone technical on to share some information with us that we think is valuable for.
[00:02:36] Richard Taylor: Expats and and Brits in America. But then you and I are really at the point where the rubber meets the road. We are often the people who spot these issues, who encounter them for the first time, who make people aware of them for the first time, or just help people get, you know, get organized and maximize their opportunity.
[00:02:55] Richard Taylor: Here, it’s not all landmines. There are also opportunities, and the whole point of this show is to kind of bring that part of it to life. So what have we encountered? And, and how does that relate to some of the topics we go through? So we’re gonna, we’re gonna switch up the order here and we’re gonna start with some of our client stories.
[00:03:11] James Boyle: Yep.
[00:03:13] James Boyle: We want to make sure it’s as relevant as possible to our audience. Right. And, and having real stories. Right. We’re doing this day in, day out, week in, week out. We hope that helps bring it to light. Sometimes we’re the translator, right? You, you mentioned the ask an expert. Perfect. It’d be very technical, obviously really good, high quality information, but with that comes some level of complexity that to the extent we can, we’ll try to translate, make it a bit more palatable.
[00:03:38] Richard Taylor: I, I’m acutely aware of it. Some of it’s heavy. Yep. And, you know, sometimes I’ll be in the middle of an episode and I, I know it’s getting heavy. I’ve just, I’ve just recorded another one with a tax attorney, Virginia Latoya Yeager, and at the point I’m at points where I’m like, this is too heavy, but I can’t stop asking questions because I do find it kind of both fascinating and sometimes utterly demoralizing.
[00:03:59] Richard Taylor: That tends to be the pattern. Welcome to Cross, cross-Border world. Yeah. But it, it’s heavy and. I guess it’s quite abstract as well to people sometimes. Yep. And the, the, a big part of this show, which I think maybe we’ve, we’ve moved away from, is to try and bring it into the real light so people can say, ah, you know what, that’s me.
[00:04:16] Richard Taylor: Maybe that, maybe it’s spotting a landmine, which sounds scary, but it’s good because that gives you the opportunity to clean it up mm-hmm. Before it becomes a bigger problem. Or maybe it’s, ah, you know, I’m not taking advantage of all the opportunities because no one is, um, there’s an opportunity cost to leaving that there, and maybe we can help people that way as well.
[00:04:34] Richard Taylor: So that’s, that’s the
[00:04:34] James Boyle: objective here. That’s what we’re trying to do. Yeah. And we’ll keep saying this throughout the episode, we want this to be a dialogue with the audience. So if you like the new format, shoot us a message and if you think we could be improved or you have ideas what we should be covering, we always wanna hear the
[00:04:46] Richard Taylor: feedback.
[00:04:46] Richard Taylor: Yeah. Okay. Good. Right, so I will start with a story I’ve had recently, an encounter, shall we say. Uh, I met with a prospective client. And they had moved to the US three years ago and as lots of Brits coming to America or lots of Brits full stop do, they had a UK pension that’s that’s in a sip and they had an ICE portfolio.
[00:05:11] Richard Taylor: A substantial I portfolio. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds in an
[00:05:15] James Boyle: I portfolio now that when we hear that, we hear red flag. I won’t step on your story here, but immediately start, I’ll start. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:05:23] Richard Taylor: Yeah. And yeah, long story short, no surprise at all. I don’t think 35 20 and 35, 20 A has being filed for the sip.
[00:05:33] Richard Taylor: Extremely common. There’s Pat, there’s penalty issues with that, but there’s no actual tax issues possibly. It’s mainly about, it’s it’s penalties. The ICER though, and this is where it gets interesting, they had spoken to Swan before they left the UK or done some research and they had learned that. Mutual funds, non-US mutual funds were a problem.
[00:05:57] Richard Taylor: non-US ETFs were a problem. So they weren’t, they didn’t know what a PFIC was. They hadn’t heard of, they hadn’t heard of PFIs, but they were aware that they couldn’t have mutual funds. So what they did was they sold, before they moved to America, they sold out of their mutual funds. And they reinvested in, in the UK what we call listed investment trusts.
[00:06:18] Richard Taylor: An investment trust is simply a collective investment. It’s a mutual fund, but rather than using a mutual fund wrapper, it’s a company, uh, it’s, you know, it’s a limited company basically, or a PLC, whatever. But still, you know, they’re, they’re in the business of buying and selling. Securities to make a profit.
[00:06:35] Richard Taylor: It’s a collective investment. It doesn’t go by nav. It goes by the, the market price of the company and that most of those, as I understand it, still fall. Under the PFIC classification. Pfic, for those who are not listening stands for Passive Foreign Investment Company. Did a podcast on this with Brian Dunhill.
[00:06:53] Richard Taylor: Not so long ago. I can’t remember what the episode number is, but if you look for Brian Dunhill, essentially the US does not like U non-US mutual funds, ETFs, what they call collective investments. And to discourage investment in them, they, there are the PFIC rules and they make. They, they, they add reporting requirements, like owner reporting requirements, and they let the tax burden is significant.
[00:07:17] Richard Taylor: Harsh tax and interest burden. Way higher than capital. Yeah. Way, way higher. So this person had done a bit of research, learned that that mutual funds were a problem, hadn’t learned what PFIs were, and switched out of a mutual fund into an investment trust. And, and if, and if thinking he’d dodged the problem, but in fact he’d gone from one PFI to another.
[00:07:36] James Boyle: There’s so much to unpack here. It’s a great example of the conversations we have, but. This is almost, I don’t know, more heartbreaking, right? Because there was some level of action taken. There was some advice received and and digested. But the inherent complexity of these things means that at the finish line, there was a stumble and unfortunately it’s gonna cause issues.
[00:08:00] Richard Taylor: And well, the add to 50, a 50 piece, it’s a 50 piece jigsaw. Mm-hmm. And he had five pieces and he put ’em in the wrong and he put two of ’em in the wrong place. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, and do you know what? It sounds awful, right? Because now what? Right? He ha has an icer and bear in mind, he’s, there’s no need to have the icer.
[00:08:17] Richard Taylor: This guy is not going back to the uk. Yeah. There’s no need to have the icer, there’s no benefit to it in America. So it’s taxable. In America, it would’ve been, if he’d got it into, into a tax threat, you know, non pfic investments, it would’ve had a lower tax rate. But, you know, it still was not, not tax free.
[00:08:33] Richard Taylor: So there’s, there’s not even any purpose to it. Mm-hmm. And people might be thinking, oh, this is terrible. Like, I don’t even wanna know if I’ve got this problem, but. Trust me, you do because this, this person’s three years in and now there’s a problem to solve. You’ve got a tie, tiny, about 35, 20. You’ve gotta get into compliance with the I ia, the, the PFIC reporting.
[00:08:51] Richard Taylor: And you, I would urge them to just, just clean that up, pay whatever taxes during the last three years and, and clean up probably means getting out the ISA and bring it into the US and then moving on. That is a. Infinitely better situation than realizing in 10 years time, in 15 years time, or heaven forbid, the IRS realizing in coming to them with a letter saying, we think there’s a, you think there’s some, a reporting issue here and, and an underpayment of tax, what, what are you gonna do about it?
[00:09:19] Richard Taylor: So unpleasant. But it’s better to know, it’s better to be able to repair, proactively repair this than as soon as possible, than have it fester
[00:09:28] James Boyle: three years. I, i agree completely. Three years in the States for the conversations we’re having is relatively, it’s a newcomer, right? For the people we tend to, to meet and talk with.
[00:09:36] James Boyle: So in a way that’s, you know, that’s the silver lining, so to speak, is an opportunity to, to be proactive and, and clean this up. Not a pleasant surprise. Right. What a, what a welcome to, to the united. States and our idiosyncratic tax system as it as it is. But I think you’re right. The, the course of action here is to tidy it up.
[00:09:56] James Boyle: You, you do not want that hanging over your head. We use this term landmine. You know, not to be fear mongering, but this is a perfect example of something that if left unchecked. Could blow up or could have blown up in 10, 15, 20 years in the middle of retirement when you have less resources to, to, to pay for it and penalties and fees and headaches and, and all of the, the badness that comes with that.
[00:10:19] Richard Taylor: It’s just a shame. And these, these, these forms missing, the, the, the 35 20 and the, the 86 21 for the pfi, they. Likely means the statute limitations clock’s not ticking, which means the, if the IRS do pick up in 10 years time, they can’t just go back three years or six years. They can, they can if they want, go back 10 years.
[00:10:35] Richard Taylor: Yeah.
[00:10:36] James Boyle: There’s
[00:10:36] Richard Taylor: no
[00:10:36] James Boyle: real protection. Right. You’re, you’re kind of at the mercy of the IRS of that stage and
[00:10:42] Richard Taylor: Yeah. That’s what I was talking to Virginia about. Mm-hmm. That’s what the, the podcast that’s coming out in, in a few weeks is about how missing off these forms, not only ops, opens you up to penalties, but also.
[00:10:53] Richard Taylor: Needs statute of limitations clock likely remains open indefinitely. Yep. Which is a frankly terrifying thought.
[00:11:00] James Boyle: I can almost tie it back to how we open today’s episode, right? This idea of these are inherently. Extremely complex, sometimes dry, sometimes burdensome conversations, right? And, and the knowledge required is incredibly technical and complex, but the reality is these have real world consequences, right?
[00:11:21] James Boyle: Mm-hmm. So even though it’s unfortunate, and even though it’s technically complex, it’s important that either you understand these things and are prepared to take action, or you find the right advice to do so. This is such a perfect example because. I’m sure in this person’s mind, they had resolved it, right.
[00:11:37] James Boyle: They had understood there was an issue. Right. Maybe sort of amorphous, this vague idea of this is a bad thing. These, these mutual funds didn’t quite know all the technicalities, but thought they had taken actions to resolve it. And unfortunately in this case, the, the reality is that they hadn’t, they, the issue still is there.
[00:11:55] James Boyle: They’re
[00:11:55] Richard Taylor: literally gonna out the frying pan into the fire.
[00:11:57] James Boyle: Yeah.
[00:11:58] Richard Taylor: You know, I’ll add something as well. I, I don’t even know what, what the point of saying this is, but I want, it’s a point I want to make anyway. This is uniquely American. Yeah,
[00:12:05] James Boyle: yeah.
[00:12:06] Richard Taylor: That is complex. It’s idiosyncratic and it is uniquely American.
[00:12:11] James Boyle: I don’t expect things are gonna change anytime soon. I mean, our tax code is sort of by design unfriendly to offshore investments, I think is a polite way of putting it and punitive, right? I mean we use that term a lot, but it is compared to, to other tax systems worldwide and that’s unfortunately just the way it is.
[00:12:29] Richard Taylor: Okay. Anything else you add
[00:12:31] James Boyle: to that? No, no. That was, it’s, it’s an unfortunate story, but you know, they have a path forward at least now.
[00:12:37] Richard Taylor: Yeah, I have another one. That, um, it’s completely different, honestly, but, uh, I, I, I, I, I wanna raise it because I think it’s got value and that is, we’re a, we’re a full service wealth manager, right?
[00:12:50] Richard Taylor: We manage assets, but we are, we are core pun first, wealth for a reason. We build financial plans, we manage retirements, we map out into the future. We take care of it all. Uh, US UK and US UK and, and other stuff as well. And that’s what we do for, for, for most of our clients. But for some clients we do just manage a one-off asset.
[00:13:10] Richard Taylor: And, and, and that’s typically when it’s something that they need our help with, like a UK pension. So they maybe have a longstanding advisor, uh, elsewhere. And or they might do their own thing elsewhere, but they need help with this particular asset. And because we can, we often do, not always, but, but we often do.
[00:13:29] Richard Taylor: And I had a client like that, or I have a client like that got a great relationship with him, but it’s been limited to this one significant non-US asset. And that asset is basically coming to an end for good reasons. It’s coming to an end and I assume that would be the end of our. Working relationship and so did he.
[00:13:49] Richard Taylor: Honestly, this is a very successful guy. He’s built up a sizable, I mean really sizable investment portfolio, partly through earning and saving and partly through making some pretty astute investments in the last 15 years. He’s ridden the tech wave, let’s say, and he the, we both expected that he was gonna retire, he was retired this year.
[00:14:07] Richard Taylor: He was gonna retire and self manage his investments. And I spoke to him recently. He said, look. We should talk about, I wanna, I wanna understand more about what you guys do for clients in retirement, because, you know, I’ve retired and I just assumed I was gonna carry on doing this. And frankly, I don’t want to, I, I don’t want to spend my time thinking about this.
[00:14:31] Richard Taylor: I don’t want the worry. I have done really, really well, but I also recognize I’ve had a, a hell of a, a prevailing wind in the last 15 years. Uh, and I want, I don’t want to jeopardize this now. I’ve, I’ve turned my income off. Frankly, bottom line, I just don’t wanna do it. And I’m sharing this because this is really, really common.
[00:14:50] Richard Taylor: Yeah. We have lots of, we know lots of people who. We actually say accumulation is pretty easy. Can it, can you, can you optimize it? Absolutely. You can always optimize, but it’s, it’s pretty easy. You try and save as much as you can into your various pots and you keep working and then you are earning and your pots are over here going up and down and it doesn’t feel good when they’re going down.
[00:15:10] Richard Taylor: It feels great when they’re going up, but you, it’s okay ’cause you’re earning and that’s paying for your lifestyle. You switch that off and that those pots of money became, become your front and center, your lifeline. Your relationship to this change is completely, enormously, completely. Mm-hmm. And the stakes are so much higher, and we call it there’s no plan B.
[00:15:28] Richard Taylor: You know, you’re not making this up if, if things go awry, you’re going back to work or something. So this guy had felt it immediately and he just said, look, I’m, I’m, I’m not feeling this. I don’t wanna do it. So we’re having a conversation and I, and I share it because I, I wanna give people always permission.
[00:15:43] Richard Taylor: To, it’s okay to, this is really
[00:15:44] James Boyle: common. Yeah. This touches into so many different topics that we talk about with our clients. You’re talking about accumulation versus decumulation also, you know, not leave aside the complexity of it, the time commitment, the pressure of it when there’s, when there’s no plan B.
[00:15:58] James Boyle: Right. When all of a sudden that income stream, that spigot turns off. A lot of people just don’t enjoy it, right? We, we, we do this as a profession. I think both of us could say pretty confidently that we really enjoy doing it. We’re, we like the numbers, we like putting these plans together. I, I would say we’re in the minority of, of the general public, right, that has any interest or inkling or enjoyment, particularly when you make.
[00:16:22] James Boyle: Flip, right? When you go from that accumulation where you’re just kind of shoveling coal into the fire, and like you said, the furnace is on and you’re not really worried about what’s going on because you’re working, you have income. All of a sudden when you enter retirement, these decisions take on a whole new world of, of burden, of responsibility.
[00:16:39] James Boyle: And at the end of the day, a lot of people say, look, I don’t want to be doing this. Uh, I’ll, I’ll mention something else that we hear fairly commonly is. A partner, a spouse, right? If something, if the worst were to happen, right? We, not that we’re hoping for this, but very often one person in a relationship, if you’re a couple, handles the majority of these things and the thought of something happening to that person, and then the other partner or spouse being.
[00:17:08] James Boyle: Without any kind of guidance, right? Or, or, or help or knowledge of, of what to do here. That is a pretty enormous burden as well. Emotionally, psychologically, and as you approach retirement, as you enter retirement naturally, your priorities are gonna shift. This idea of longevity, of protecting your family, your heirs becomes, takes primacy, right?
[00:17:28] James Boyle: It, it starts to take that center stage and say, what can I be doing to make sure that. All of my ducks are aligned, all my assets and affairs are, are organized. That’s another common piece that people just say, look, delegate. Right. I, I’d rather have someone in my corner helping me do this.
[00:17:44] Richard Taylor: You know? It also gets more important that all the pieces, the jigsaw have come together.
[00:17:47] Richard Taylor: Yes. So, I mean, it’s always important to have an estate plan, but the order you get for obvious reasons, the more important it becomes. The older you get, the more likely something is to happen, and obviously the more wealth you have. So there’s that, and then there’s the tax piece. Which is always tax planning, but really tax compliance.
[00:18:05] Richard Taylor: Mm-hmm. Like you don’t want to go into retirement with. Un what, what I would refer to as undesignated, landmines lurking in your affairs, because that’s, if they blow up, that’s the same thing like cashing out, going to cash in the down market and, and not getting back in and missing a recovery. Like you can blow a hole and you, you have a retirement plan very quickly and there’s no plan B, there’s no recovering from it.
[00:18:29] Richard Taylor: Yeah.
[00:18:30] James Boyle: This idea of income planning, right. Sometimes refer to it, and that’s, that can be its own topic, and I’m sure one of these episodes will have a more deep discussion about income planning for our clients, but it touches on so many pieces. Again, leave aside the added responsibility, the complexity, but there is very likely a case for our clients in particular, and this might describe you, if you’re listening, you’ll have multiple different tax.
[00:18:58] James Boyle: Vehicles, right? In the US call it, you might have a pre-tax account like your 401k or an IRA. You might have a post-tax account, like a Roth account. You might have a non-tax advantage account, a brokerage account, all of these things. How are they interplaying, how are you determining where to take income from, how to structure the investments in each of those accounts?
[00:19:19] James Boyle: That’s, that’s US only right now for our clients. Add complexity of, of cross-border accounts. So you have UK pensions, you might have UK income streams, you might have assets or income in different currencies, GBP or Euros. All of these things are now adding to this sort of swirling pot of decisions to be made, critical decisions in retirement to make sure that that’s spigot we turned, we talked about, right?
[00:19:43] James Boyle: That income that you are used to, how do we replicate that into, into retirement to satisfy the lifestyle you’d like to live? A lot of people look at that. Approaching retirement or at retirement or just after sometimes and say, I need some help here. I do not wanna be solely responsible for this.
[00:19:59] Richard Taylor: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Richard Taylor: Abso And it’s okay. Yep. It’s natural. Yeah. It’s okay to think, you know what? I’ve done this for 30 years, but it’s, and I want some help now. For a variety of reasons.
[00:20:10] Absolutely.
[00:20:11] Richard Taylor: The game. The game changes. The game totally changes. The, the stakes get higher, but also the game changes. There’s more to think about in income planning is its own thing altogether that you’ve not had to think about.
[00:20:22] James Boyle: You know, I’ll, I’ll make another comment here and I’ll mention to hear your, your experience with this. So most of the time, in fact, I would say the vast majority of the time people are coming to us pre retirement. Yeah, usually, you know, we like to say ideal time three, five up to 10 years, maybe prior. Um, occasionally we do get people who come to us at the cusp.
[00:20:45] James Boyle: Either they’re retiring in a month or they just retired three months ago. And in my experience, there’s almost this sense of shell shock because they just hadn’t, and you can’t, right? I mean, we do this professionally. You haven’t retired yet. I certainly haven’t, but there’s this sense of. I didn’t realize not only the psychological shift, lifestyle shift, but also all these decisions that would or fall into each other that need to be made that are critical for all the reasons we just discussed.
[00:21:15] James Boyle: And it’s almost this. Panic is too strong a word. Right. But maybe some level of desperation or, or something where Overload. Overload. That’s a, that’s a great, yeah. It’s just decision.
[00:21:25] Richard Taylor: Decision overload. Like important decision overload, decision fatigue. Yes. Yeah, a hundred percent happens. And also I don’t think people are fully.
[00:21:34] Richard Taylor: Uh, fully, um, emotionally aware of just what a significant switch like retirement is. Yeah. I mean, it’s a life event. It’s something you’ve been working towards for 40 years and it kind of like weighs on people. It’s very exciting. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna detract from that, but it’s, it’s a, I think it’s a bigger event than most people.
[00:21:53] Richard Taylor: Realize it is, you
[00:21:54] James Boyle: know, I think we’re now brainstorming ideas for future experiences we’ve had or client experience, but that that idea of the, the emotional shift right, is, is enormous and, and something that, I think you’re right that number one, it’s really difficult to anticipate that or, or know what it’s gonna be like.
[00:22:10] James Boyle: And then when you’re in the throes of it, when it’s, when it’s put upon you the stress and, and again this, this kind of burden. Is magnified that, you know, you see these studies every once in a while, and I don’t have one at hand here, but the most stressful events in people’s lives, right? And then, and there’s kind of the common ones that everyone knows.
[00:22:27] James Boyle: Having a child moving house, job change, retirement is always in that top five area, right? Mm-hmm. That, that level of seismic shift, you’ve been working 30, 35, 40 years. You know, you might have a nine to five that you’re used to doing for all that time to then remove that structure. It’s, it’s a big life change to say the least.
[00:22:48] James Boyle: Should we talk about what’s going on in the world? Let’s do it. Get everything for us. Let’s do it. Markets. Where are we at? Well, everyone knows Fed meetings. Who I should say we’re recording this on the morning of July 30th. Fed Meets today. I think it’s pretty much unanimous that rates are gonna stay the same.
[00:23:04] Richard Taylor: We’re in a weird time though, where rates are staying the same. The Trump, uh, the Trump administration ought. Trump himself is pushing hard. I mean like really hard. Uh, I mean, you’ve seen the video at the, uh, fed the building site, right? That was a piece of, that was a, that was something sick. That was, Trump wants rates to come down the, the, the housing market.
[00:23:27] Richard Taylor: Certainly he rates comes down, but now. People are also starting to worry. Inflation’s going up and interest rates might even go up. Mm-hmm. I, and, and you know, I
[00:23:36] James Boyle: think
[00:23:36] Richard Taylor: we, we’ve, they need to come down.
[00:23:37] James Boyle: I think. Yeah. Well, I, I think it’s pretty obvious. We’ve seen some softening in the labor markets. Not yet tipping over, I think, into flashing red signals, but a, but a trend of, of lower jobs, openings, lower jobs.
[00:23:50] James Boyle: Created. But on the flip side, consumer spending has been strong. Obviously we’re in, we’re in the midst of earning season here and, and a lot of major companies still get to report, but it seems okay right now. I mean, GDP came in stronger than expected, so I think you’re right that the Fed is kind of between a rock and a hard place and waiting to see what.
[00:24:10] James Boyle: The impact of, of tariffs are versus a potentially softening labor market. The the, the s and PI know everyone uses that as a bellwether is at all time highs, right? We’re up eight point, I think it’s 8.32% on the year after all of the volatility that we saw on April. Yeah.
[00:24:28] Richard Taylor: All. And let’s be honest, Trump is kind of getting what he wants right now.
[00:24:32] Richard Taylor: There’s been deals announced U deal with the uk, deal with Japan like. Uh, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I’ve, I can’t say I’m a fan of the fan of it, but it’s, it, he’s, he’s getting what he wants. It seems, it seems, um, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s remarkable. But, uh, this interest rate, I, I, I tend to think, um, Powell’s term runs out next year.
[00:24:58] Richard Taylor: Mm. Uh, we’ve got, let’s just assume Trump can’t get rid of him. I, I would therefore imagine. Uh, even that’s a, um, let’s assume that Trump, sorry, let’s assume that Powell concludes his term next year. Mm-hmm. Uh, you’ve gotta think that whoever the incoming Fed chair is for who will be appointed by Trump unless things are dire, which is we can’t see right now.
[00:25:25] Richard Taylor: Then you’ll put rates down. Yeah. Whatever’s going on really subject other than it being utterly dire. So interest rate, so that, so that just suggests interest rates are coming down within, you know, the foreseeable future. Yeah.
[00:25:39] James Boyle: And, and we may find that we’re in this strange stasis until then. Right? Or until something breaks.
[00:25:44] James Boyle: Yeah. That, that famous saying, which, who knows what it will
[00:25:46] Richard Taylor: be, but, but, but also Powell, Powell was late on. Mm-hmm. On inflation and interest rates, then somehow managed to thread the needle. Yeah. And get, get, get it, get it down without a, a recession. He is not gonna blow that legacy by pushing to bring interest rates.
[00:26:04] Richard Taylor: It’s not just his decision. Bear in mind he’s not gonna blow that legacy by pushing for interest rates to go down to prematurely. Yeah. So. You know, I can see a situation where they stay here for the foreseeable and, but then a new, a new chairman is gonna come in and Trump is gonna make it very clear.
[00:26:19] Richard Taylor: Yeah, very clear what he expects for such an appointment. I think
[00:26:23] James Boyle: that’s for sure.
[00:26:25] Richard Taylor: But you know, I know we’ve hogged this dead horse, but here we are. Eight, uh, seven months through the year SB hitting in new hives and the, the, the horror show that was earlier in the year. We won’t, we won’t belabor this point for once.
[00:26:40] Richard Taylor: We’re trying to get away from it, but this is why, this is why you get the asset allocation right at the outset. You get invested and then you stay invested. Mm-hmm. It’s all you have to do. It’s so hard. It’s all you have to do. Simple but not easy. Right.
[00:26:53] James Boyle: I think that’s something you mentioned simple with not easy.
[00:26:56] James Boyle: You see that segue work? It’s pretty
[00:26:59] Richard Taylor: good.
[00:26:59] James Boyle: Okay. Yeah. Right.
[00:27:00] Richard Taylor: Okay. Well, let’s, let’s go there then. Let’s go there then. So the next segment we’re gonna, we will talk about, uh, let’s, let’s review my last episode with Aiden, returning Champ back on the podcast for the fourth time. Aiden in live from New York City.
[00:27:15] Richard Taylor: First of all, it’s great. Uh, Mr. Aiden Graham. Yes.
[00:27:18] James Boyle: If, if for anyone listening on, on the podcast format, obviously we post these episodes in full on YouTube. Uh, so if, if you’re a YouTube watcher, uh, they are available there. Aiden, it was great to see the two of you together in person that that’s always cool to see and he’s great.
[00:27:32] James Boyle: Quickly becoming a fan fan, such a classic, like
[00:27:35] Richard Taylor: just, well, he’s such like a classic, like UK, British, I mean, he’s actually American as well, but a British like raconteur, like he’s, so he’s.
[00:27:43] James Boyle: And that, I think that comes across very thorough and, and uh, uh, extremely knowledgeable in these areas. So we’re never very thankful to have him, and he always gives us a lot of content to discuss and, and
[00:27:54] Richard Taylor: yeah, the great thing is he’s a, he’s very British, but his mum’s American, so he was born, I think he’s actually born in America as well.
[00:28:00] Richard Taylor: And he’s gone through the whole accent, American pronouncing sisters and ship, I think. I’m pretty sure. Uh, so he’s really has done, he has walked the walk. He has, if now he’s uk I wonder how, do
[00:28:12] James Boyle: you know if that’s how he got involved in, in. The cross border? No, I think he was already in the,
[00:28:16] Richard Taylor: I think, I think he was already in the cross-border world.
[00:28:17] Richard Taylor: Mm-hmm. I’m sure I’ll have to ask him. Uh, he has told me, but I I’ve got mixed up. Uh, he, he, uh, so he, he really has lived it. And now he’s a, he’s a British lawyer, but he specializes in working with, uh, expats, uh, sorry, Americans or people in American Connection. And he has his own podcast as well, UK US Podcast.
[00:28:34] Richard Taylor: So he’s a perfect guy to come on. And we were talking about the UK’s statutory residency test, IE how long you can spend in the uk. Without triggering being a tax president, and if you do inadvertently or invert or intentionally become a UK tax President, what are some of the consequences of that Incredibly
[00:28:55] James Boyle: relevant to our audience?
[00:28:56] James Boyle: Right. I would say that the majority, we, we, we sometimes say our clients tend to be staying in the us, which which does describe the majority, but. Almost all of them expect to spend some time in the uk, right? Whether a family is there or they have a home there, or you know, any number of reasons. And then there is a not significant or or insignificant portion of our client base who is gonna go back to the UK or wants that option available to them, right?
[00:29:21] James Boyle: And, and wants to understand what is involved, what do they need to worry about, what do they need to be thinking about and critically. What kind of planning needs to be undertaken to avoid the most sort of onerous, uh, impact of, of becoming a UK tax resident again in retirement?
[00:29:38] Richard Taylor: Yeah. We have this right now, don’t we?
[00:29:39] Richard Taylor: We have. We have some clients who are looking to go back permanently or if we have some clients who are looking to go back temporarily with a view to maybe permanent TBD, and we have plenty of clients who intend to buy a house in the UK and split that time. Not realizing that that increases, that creates connecting factors, which reduces the days they can spend there.
[00:29:56] Richard Taylor: Mm-hmm. You gotta be really careful with this. So I think some people just think, oh, it’s 183 days. Mm-hmm. And it’s not, that’s one part of the rule. There’s, there’s a lot more to it than that. And it’s different by every country. So you gotta, if you’re, you know, if you’re thinking I’m not going to the uk, I wanna go to France, I think lots of Americans are, are eyeing up France right now with good reason.
[00:30:14] Richard Taylor: You’ve gotta be careful of, uh, how long you spend, what their rules are regarding residency. Mm-hmm. And one, the great one, something you gotta be so careful with the UK is if you in the inadvertently trigger a residency in the uk, you, it’s then for the entire tax year. So if you, you, you could, you could inadvertently trigger residency towards the end of the tax year, but it’s then backdated all the way to the beginning.
[00:30:37] Richard Taylor: So any transactions that you did. Early, you know, while, while you were very much a US resident subject to only, to US tax could retro get pulled into the UK net as well. You gotta be really careful,
[00:30:48] James Boyle: you know, that, that point we should say. So, um, and again, another thing that I guess arguably some of these rules are simple but not easy to understand.
[00:30:57] James Boyle: They’re, they’re, they’re black and white. Some of these rules, right? That, that Aiden describes and if you want to get, that’s the real detailed. Deep dive. Aiden does a fantastic job. So we’re not gonna, we’re gonna kind of summarize this, but um, something you just mentioned there reminded me when I was listening about this idea of protections that are in place but need to be invoked or need to be reported.
[00:31:20] James Boyle: So in this case in particular, for HMRC, the default position is that they backdate. To the beginning of the tax year. Right. So there are protections there where you can, to me it sounds like you can essentially petition or report that Actually, no, I was a, I was a split year resident. Right. I didn’t You come in September, I think was the example given for the kids to start school there.
[00:31:42] James Boyle: You can then. Go ahead and tell HMRC, you know, I started my residency in September 1st of, of this year, and protect yourself that way. But that is not the default assumption, right? HMRC doesn’t just say, oh, okay, they probably came in the middle of the year and, and they’re good to go. The default assumption is that it’s gonna back date to April 6th of, of that tax year, and potentially getting you into some trouble depending on what kind of transactions were undertaken, you know, in that kind of time slot there.
[00:32:10] James Boyle: I thought that was very interesting that we see those kind of. Behaviors from the IRS, you know, we see those kind of more harsh, um, assumptions, call it. Uh, but they do exist in the UK and HMRC as well, and you have to be aware of them.
[00:32:25] Richard Taylor: Imagine moving between e either of these countries with assets, you know, with, with affairs.
[00:32:30] Richard Taylor: You know, if you’re a 25 year old’s got nothing, I can completely understand it, right? If you’re a 55-year-old with a few million, just imagine moving without taking. Tax and immigration advice. I just, maybe it’ll be, maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe. But in reality, you will probably designate some sort of a alarm.
[00:32:50] Richard Taylor: You did not wanna roll that dice, and this is, gosh, no. And this is before you even get into like, there are real opportunity arbitrage opportunities. Mm-hmm. The one, the one that immediately springs to mind going from the US to the UK is like Roth conversions. Mm-hmm. Especially if you’re in a, in a, in a low tax state like Texas or Florida, no tax state I should say.
[00:33:09] Richard Taylor: Um, Roth conversions can be a massive arbitrage opportunity for you. So, so there’s op, there’s opportunities, but putting that to one side that you can really, really. You know, inadvertently mess up moving
[00:33:23] James Boyle: without taking advice. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it goes back to the points we made earlier where you do not want that hanging over your head.
[00:33:29] James Boyle: You know,
[00:33:30] Richard Taylor: that’s the Isaac that the guy, you know, coming to the America with the ice that, that, that’s, that’s a classic. But they, there’s loads more and there’s loads going the other way as well. Yeah.
[00:33:37] James Boyle: And, and more and more common, I think we’re seeing certainly amongst our clients, um, moving back or.
[00:33:45] Richard Taylor: Oh yeah.
[00:33:47] Richard Taylor: I mean, I mean, look, we are seeing, we’re talking to more people who are, who are looking to go back. I don’t know if there’s an exodus yet of Americans going to Europe, but there is certainly, uh, an enormous increase in, uh, in, uh, in request for information in research being done that I suspect is already turning into, uh, an exodus or is on its way to, it.
[00:34:10] Richard Taylor: It, it, the, the, the, uh. There’s a variety of factors. It’s not purely political, but that’s a big part of it. But the, the interest in moving abroad is. Spite and
[00:34:20] James Boyle: we’re seeing it. Yeah. It, it’s, it is apparent. Oh yeah. Just to highlight one other thing here that we didn’t specifically call out, but inheritance tax obviously in the uk, which is an enormous part of your discussion with Aiden.
[00:34:31] James Boyle: Um, if you do trip up these rules, and again, we won’t get into the specifics of, of what they are, but if you do. There is a chance that that HMRC will be going after your worldwide assets, uh, for inheritance tax, which we know is much higher obviously than the us And the exemption rate or exclusion rate or nil ban rate is much
[00:34:50] Richard Taylor: lower.
[00:34:51] Richard Taylor: Inheritance tax is the same level, 40% as the state tax. It’s that it’s that nil rate ban that you’re referring to In the us. In the US it’s like 15 million or something. In the UK it’s 340,000 pounds. Everything after that. Yeah. Okay. You might be able to inherit a Neal rate band from your wife, that kind of thing.
[00:35:07] Richard Taylor: But broadly, stealing is much lower. Everything above 300. Yeah, it is gonna get taxed at points. Yeah. Yeah. Worldwide, worldwide
[00:35:16] James Boyle: people. Mm-hmm. So that is critical. I mean, you did not want that bomb being, being left there for your, HES no, no. Uh, one, one piece I thought was interesting if we kind of step back from, from the, the.
[00:35:28] James Boyle: Technical area of the discussion. I think you had asked Aiden, and this will tie into some of the earlier points, are clients surprised by the complexity? And I think he answered surprisingly, somewhat, um, the real. Area of confusion from, from clients he works with or, or the people that he’s speaking with, is that there is such wide reaching and persistent gray areas in all of these things.
[00:35:57] James Boyle: I think, and, and, and he had a great way of wording it, but I think the, the assumption is something like, and, and we see this right in our own kind of domains, the financial planning, some of the tax optimization pieces, but people come to us expecting there to be crystal clear answers. On all of these things, yes or no on yes, yes or no on how does this interact in the US with the uk?
[00:36:18] James Boyle: How does this interact in the UK with the us and the unfortunate answer, and sometimes people get. Really reluctant or, or almost angry in some ways, or dismissive. This aggravates people. Yes, it is aggravating. Yeah. This
[00:36:30] Richard Taylor: aggravate, this actually aggravates people that
[00:36:32] James Boyle: many, many times in this space, and part of you know, why we do what we do is that there is gray areas to navigate.
[00:36:38] James Boyle: There are many, many areas. Where there is not gonna be a yes or no. It’s gonna be pros and cons of different paths forward, and where are you comfortable and where do you understand what, what kind of the paths are to resolve or plan for these things. I, I thought that was a really telling point because it’s interesting to see Aiden, you know, in, in his domain and hearing very similar assumptions, concerns, frustrations from his client base as the conversations we have, you know, day in, day out.
[00:37:03] Richard Taylor: So it’s, I guess it’s kind of gratifying. Look, human beings. All of us, we crave certainty and we live in a gray area. We live, we live in between. And it, do you know, when you think about it, it actually makes sense. Congress sets laws for American products and stuff. And there are gray areas there. And because there’s like nearly 400 million people here, it gets settled in court pretty quickly.
[00:37:29] Richard Taylor: HMRC, the UK government, sorry, parliament sets laws for UK and UK products. And then yeah, if there’s gray areas, it gets settled, uh, in, in court pretty quickly. ’cause there’s also however many million people in the uk. We live a lot of the time by the tax treaty. And the tax treaty has vague categories. It doesn’t deal with stuff usually by name.
[00:37:51] Richard Taylor: So that creates loads of gray areas. And because there’s far fewer people affected, there’s far, it’s far fewer likely to go to court and get settled. Although when it does that’s, that is, that’s welcome. So we live in this gray area where you can ask a simple question and there can be different answers and no conclusive answer.
[00:38:06] Richard Taylor: And it, and it’s literally, it depends, and it depends how you want to file it, how you want to treat it, the risks you want to take, the steps you want to take. And yeah. That, that, that frustrates people. It is frustrating, but it is also reality. Yeah.
[00:38:21] James Boyle: So part of, if we can do anything with these episodes and, and that will become a, a theme and I’m sure it has been, is there’s almost two steps to, to resolving some of these things or planning.
[00:38:31] James Boyle: For some of them it’s getting over that initial hump of there is not an answer, and then coming to terms of, okay, like you said, it depends. Here’s some, here’s pros and cons of each of these approaches,
[00:38:41] Richard Taylor: and frankly, sometimes that works in your favor. Yeah, absolutely. There’s a position to be taken. Mm-hmm.
[00:38:46] Richard Taylor: It’s a legit position. Absolutely. And the fact that it’s not settled and there is a gray area means you can take it. There’s opportunities. That’s good opportunities. There are folks, and that’s why, I know I’m biased, but paying for good advisors in this area should more than pay for itself. Yeah. Uh, it will pay for itself in, in, in, uh, landmines dodged, uh, I believe it will pay for itself in opportunities taken.
[00:39:10] Richard Taylor: And this is without any of the emotional. Uh, benefits of working with people knowing that it’s taken care of. And if it’s not, you can point the finger at people who will helping you. Yep,
[00:39:20] absolutely. Pick a mix. Pick a mix.
[00:39:21] James Boyle: What
[00:39:21] Richard Taylor: you
[00:39:22] James Boyle: reading? Uh oh. You know what? I had the bit of an echo of the last. Episode we had done, we got into some dinosaur talk, I think, which made me seek out, um, I’m a real fan of these, I don’t know what you would call this genre of, of nonfiction, but almost like a micro history.
[00:39:40] James Boyle: So there’s a book out there called The Dinosaur Hunters by a writer, Deborah Cadbury, who I take it, has written some of these sort of micro histories. But it is a fascinating look at essentially the origins of. Of paleontology, the discovery of dinosaurs in the 19th century, which reading this, you kind of just assumed Recent.
[00:39:59] James Boyle: Yes. Very recent. Yes. Yes.
[00:40:01] Richard Taylor: I, so when the, when the Declaration of in Independence was signed, they had no idea that dinosaurs had rub the earth. No clue.
[00:40:07] James Boyle: It’s, it’s hard to, like, it’s hard to really is, isn’t it? And a lot of the discussion in the book. So it, it, it really centers on the story. Uh, a rivalry of two scientists in this area.
[00:40:18] James Boyle: A gentleman, Gideon Martel and another guy Richard Owen, who wound up there was a lot of politics and intrigue behind this fascinating read, um, that he wound up getting a lot of the credit and maybe he didn’t deserve so much of it. But, um, yeah, it’s so interesting to think that, you know, this is less than 200 years ago and a lot of the science was driven by not.
[00:40:39] James Boyle: You know what, what we would think of as a modern scientific process, but more about, you know, what. Religious texts were saying, or, or how to approach these things to fit a certain narrative. So I found that part really, really interesting. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:40:53] Richard Taylor: Um, Jim, did I get that right? 1776 was Declaration of Independence.
[00:40:57] Richard Taylor: So had they discovered dinosaurs by then or no? No. They, they, no. Okay. So the, the, this
[00:41:01] James Boyle: term dinosaur, which is, which I think was coined by this Richard Owen, who really, they started to look at these as separate species. Um, it was like 1820s, I wanna say 1830s. And yeah. Wow. It’s, it’s pretty,
[00:41:16] Richard Taylor: you know, I’ve never thought that, how I bet people were then accusing of being heretic.
[00:41:22] Richard Taylor: Oh, oh. Literally just heretic, you know, I can imagine it causing all sorts of trouble. It was
[00:41:26] James Boyle: like a decades long furor, not only about what these creatures were and, and what, you know, was this some kind of step in, in the elu, uh, evolutionary ladder to the ultimate pinnacle of mankind, as we all know we are.
[00:41:41] James Boyle: Um, but also the age of the planet. There was no radio topic aging. Right. They didn’t, there the assumption from the book, uh, essentially that it’s 4,000 years old. Um, and when you’re uncovering fossils that that are clearly sediments in the rock, rock layers, that, that obviously make the planet much older than that.
[00:42:00] James Boyle: It led to a lot of big questions and a lot of pushback from, from certain sectors of society. So I can imagine really interesting I show. Yeah. Very, very, very engaging too. You know, quick, quick
[00:42:11] Richard Taylor: read. So, you know, when I was young, obviously I was into dinosaurs, like every kid. And then you grow out of it.
[00:42:16] Richard Taylor: And then I’ve now got kids and they’re really into dinosaurs. And I’ve gotta tell you, as an adult, it’s fascinat hat. Love it. It’s, it’s, it’s funny because it’s absolute So, I mean, this is a while ago, but I’d completely forgotten about, I don’t even if I ever knew it. But you, you’ve heard of the Katie boundary.
[00:42:31] Richard Taylor: Is that when the,
[00:42:33] James Boyle: the
[00:42:33] Richard Taylor: essentially
[00:42:34] James Boyle: the asteroid hit and it transferred from Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
[00:42:38] Richard Taylor: Yeah, so the asteroid hit it, sent this huge cloud of the reason everyone died. Everyone all creatures died. Well, the vast majority of creatures died is because asteroid hit in, in just off California or Mexican, California, and you know, a lot of animals were killed immediately in the fallout from that, in the tsunami, it sent this huge, huge card of Ian to the sky that basically went around the world and blocked out.
[00:43:02] Richard Taylor: The entire mm-hmm. Skies choked out the, the sunlight and everyone basically asphyxiated I, I believe, or starved. Um, and when this ash came to ground. It’s settled over the entire Earth and, and you and then, and then new life sprung up on top of it. And they call this a Katy boundary and it’s a few inches thick, but you can, there’s places in Colorado you can go and at, or Utah, I’m not even sure where, but you can literally see in the stone where you know, it’s where you can see the Katy boundary.
[00:43:32] Richard Taylor: And below that is pre, pre dinosaurs and above it it’s post dinosaurs. And I just found that. Unbelievably fascinating. Amazing. The idea of
[00:43:40] James Boyle: this sort of apocalyptic global event. There is some level, I mean, it’s fascinating, right, that the forces involved and, and the other thing that struck me in that discussion, you know, we talk about 200 years, right?
[00:43:52] James Boyle: The, the. Ecological timescales involved, like you can say, okay, the last dinosaurs KT boundary was 65 million years ago. Well, dinosaurs had already been around for hundreds of millions of years at that point. I know. So it’s, I know. Trying to wrap your head around the, the timescales involved. It’s
[00:44:08] Richard Taylor: just the, you know, uh, I, I’m kind of, I love the period, the fall of the Roman Republic.
[00:44:15] Richard Taylor: Mm-hmm. Like the end of the republic, start of the, the empire. So Caesar time in the last a hundred years, it’s 2100 years ago. That is nothing. Yeah. I, the, the, the, the, the, um, the recent history is, so it’s a blink in the, in the, in it’s a blink of an eye. It’s not even a blink of an eye. Yeah. It’s, it’s kind of it, uh.
[00:44:36] Richard Taylor: It’s impossible to actually run, play around. You can’t. Yeah, you can’t. It’s,
[00:44:39] James Boyle: you know, they’ll sometimes do those metaphors of like, if you, in a 24 hour day, if the, if the history of the earth was, you know, 24 hours, humans would be the last millisecond, you know, of, of, of, and, and even those metaphors fall short of what is truly incredibly long span of time.
[00:44:58] Richard Taylor: I don’t wanna be super negative, but also think about the damage we’ve done in our time as well. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:45:02] James Boyle: So I promise I’ll, I’ll get all dinosaurs for next episode, but I, I wanted to tie that, ’cause that was directly inspired by our, uh, Jurassic Park. You
[00:45:09] Richard Taylor: gave me an opportunity to talk about the Katy boundary and I’ll, and I’ll take any opportunity I can to talk about the Katie boundary.
[00:45:14] Richard Taylor: It’s still resonate. If I had a fascinating, I wanna see it. Um, I’m reading team arrivals. A famous book from, I think it’s about 20 years old now. Yeah. About Lincoln. Lincoln Lincoln and how he won the Republican nomination against much better known and more experienced, uh, rivals, uh, Seward, uh, Solomon Chase and Edward Bates.
[00:45:39] Richard Taylor: And then I think, I think I’m really, I’m partway through, I think I assume it then how he then took those rivals and incorporated ’em into his cabinet. And, uh, it’s just, it, it, it’s, I can see why it’s so popular. It’s, it’s fantastically written. It’s, yeah, it, it’s, it’s a fascinating insight into these, these four players.
[00:45:58] Richard Taylor: I, I find Lincoln endlessly fascinating. Yeah. It, it really is. It is just, and I think the reason being is, you know, we have all these great men of history and you learn about Caesar and Napoleon and these were like outstanding humans, particularly Caesar. They, they really were exceptional and. Lincoln was in many ways, but also in many, in some ways, he wasn’t like, obviously his appearance and his, uh, demeanor.
[00:46:20] Richard Taylor: Uh, and he, he also came from very, an auspicious background. And, and I think the other thing with Lincoln is, is he was undeniably great, but I think he was also undeniably good. Not perfect, not perfect, right? So I’m not, I know there’s some people take on bridge with some of his, uh, earlier. Uh, he wasn’t vehemently against slavery.
[00:46:43] Richard Taylor: He, I mean, he was, but he wasn’t like, um, outlaw it in every single territory or state from the, from the get go. It was kind of a, a progression and there’s some other stuff as well. But, but he, he was, I think he was under, I be a good man. Uh, and we don’t often associate people at the very, very top with being good.
[00:47:01] Richard Taylor: Mm-hmm. And I think that’s another reason why history is so obsessed with him. Mm-hmm. He’s a fascinating figure. He was. He was a great leader and he was a, and
[00:47:11] James Boyle: he was a good man. That, it’s funny you, you, you say that I had been gifted that book probably when it came out thinking if it was 20 years ago, and I, and I bounced off it.
[00:47:19] James Boyle: I might’ve been a bit too young at that stage, but I should, I should revisit, uh, that I know that that’s held up as, you know, one of the sort of definitive recounting of, of that era.
[00:47:31] Richard Taylor: Yeah. Great. And as we wrap up, I’ll also offer, you know, I’m a Dan Snow fan boy, anyone who loves history hit, uh, anyone who loves history podcast.
[00:47:37] Richard Taylor: There’s a history hit podcast from the UK run, uh, by this guy called Dan Snow, and I think he’s great. And they recently did a 10 year celebration and he, they’ve revisited the first. Episode from 2015, cleaned it up a little bit and it’s him and his dad and British people will, will recognize his dad, uh, Peter Snow, and they talk about the Battle of Waterloo and that it’s just, uh, that’s a fascinating battle, uh, narrated or talked through by two people who are obviously, love the subject, have a wealth of knowledge, uh, have father, son banter and, and, uh, back and forth.
[00:48:15] Richard Taylor: I’d, I’d suggest people go and find that episode and give, it’s cool. Awesome.
[00:48:19] James Boyle: Good. Well, I think that’s this week’s from the trenches,
[00:48:21] Richard Taylor: right? We should preview, uh, who’s coming up next? Okay. Is it, uh. I think it’s Virginia. I think, uh, it’s the talk I had with Virginia the week talking about statute limitations, how missing these offshore forms for retire for, for non-US bank accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, missing.
[00:48:40] Richard Taylor: Any one of a plethora of these forms can leave the statute of limitations open indefinitely and, and the repercussions that can. Result from that.
[00:48:50] James Boyle: Good. Excellent. So if, if our starting conversation today about PFI and all those good things resonated, make sure you tune in for Virginia’s episode. Uh, next episode.
[00:48:59] James Boyle: And obviously I, I mentioned this, but we want this to be a dialogue. Our email address is James at Plant First Wealth, Richard at Plant First Wealth. Send us feedback if you’re enjoying it, and obviously if you are, follow us wherever you’re listening to the podcast. Follow us on YouTube. We always appreciate that.
[00:49:13] James Boyle: Alright, thanks everyone. Cheers. You.