Mastering The Art of Doing Nothing | From The Trenches with James Boyle

There’s a well-known fable told within the investment industry that claims Fidelity conducted an internal review of customer performance from 2003 to 2013. The wealth management firm wanted to see who their highest performing investors were, so they trawled through a decade worth of investment returns. Who do you think were the best performing customers?

The highest performing accounts were those whose owners had died. The accounts that accumulated the most wealth over time were not actively managed – ‘dead accounts’. Despite questions around the legitimacy of the claims, the lesson – and it’s one we at Plan First Wealth talk about every week – is that trying to time the market is impossible, and you just need to stick to your plan, and buy and hold.

That’s especially true at the moment: so much happened in March, and yet it seems as if nothing happened in April; month-on-month, minimal changes in the markets. The S&P fell less than 1%. The NASDAQ closed up 1%.

So what are the lessons for your portfolio management and retirement planning in these times of volatility followed by relevant calm? To find out, Richard Taylor and James Boyle are back in the trenches, showing you behind the scenes at Plan First Wealth and analysing the market movements (and lack thereof).

This week you’ll hear how:

• You can ignore the short-term noise
• You can manage the emotions that influence your financial decisions
• The major tax implications for expats around PFICs (listen back to the previous episode with Brian Dunhill for more on this)

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:

 

Richard:

[00:00:09 – 00:00:46]

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. And 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.

 

Welcome back to another episode of From The Trenches, the show where my esteemed colleague James Boyle and I bring you behind the scenes at Plan First Wealth as we build this business and work with our clients. Right. Hi James.

 

James:

[00:00:46 – 00:00:47]

How’s it going, Rich?

 

Richard:

[00:00:47 – 00:00:58]

It’s going well. It’s going well. May is a little calmer than April and I’m here for it. Very here for it. April was, I mean, I think the technical term is nuts.

 

James:

[00:00:58 – 00:01:12]

Yeah, everyone has a whiplash. I think after April, I thought, isn’t the saying out like a lion in like a lamb or opposite of that? That’s supposed to be March. Right. But this applied to, to April this year.

 

Richard:

[00:01:12 – 00:01:22]

I don’t know. I don’t know. But I do know it was, it was a pretty savage month to be a financial advisor, be a financial planner. It was one of those months where.

 

James:

[00:01:22 – 00:01:23]

To be an investor.

 

Richard:

[00:01:23 – 00:01:31]

Of course. Of course. Yeah. Where the vix, which is for anyone doesn’t know, a measure of volatility, flies through the roof along with our blood pressure. Yes.

 

James:

[00:01:33 – 00:01:42]

You could probably map those. I know, you know, correlation is not causation and all that, but you could, you could overlay blood pressure over the VIX and probably see a pretty one to one correlation there.

 

Richard:

[00:01:43 – 00:02:03]

I went away for a week, Spring break went away. I think it was like a week after Liberation Day or something. And honestly it kind of, I wouldn’t say ruin my holiday, but it really had an impact on it because I was anxious about what was going down and I was checking the news way more than I would do normally. I normally pretty good at checking out on holiday.

 

James:

[00:02:03 – 00:02:21]

I think I sent you a note 5 Friday at 4:59 right before your holiday and I said do what you can to try to tune this out and get some time with the family and you know, try to get some rest. And you, you responded. Appreciate the, the sentiment but I just know I’m not going to be able to.

 

Richard:

[00:02:22 – 00:02:23]

Yeah, not even gonna happen. I didn’t even Try.

 

James:

[00:02:23 – 00:02:25]

Yeah. Which is understandable.

 

Richard:

[00:02:25 – 00:02:25]

Right.

 

James:

[00:02:25 – 00:02:26]

It was, it was a.

 

Richard:

[00:02:26 – 00:02:50]

But crazy. You know what we’re going to talk about in a second is just that the futility in that. I mean, I was checking the markets because, because I was anxious, but I wasn’t anxious about. This is the irony and I think you’re the same. I’m not actually anxious about what’s going down any more so than usual, although it was kind of crazy. This is all so self inflicted. I’m anxious about other people’s reactions to what’s going down because that’s what we’re managing here.

 

James:

[00:02:50 – 00:02:51]

Y.

 

Richard:

[00:02:51 – 00:03:06]

And ultimately, what can I do by checking the. What, what, what, what can be achieved and which we’re going to talk about in a minute. The, the, the utter futility, the pointlessness of checking. Let’s segue straight into this. Do you have any stats for us?

 

James:

[00:03:07 – 00:03:21]

Well, I know you mentioned the vix. Right. So, yeah, if this is not yet obvious to anyone listening and, and we should say for context, we’re recording this on the morning of May 8, so there could be craziness having happened between us.

 

Richard:

[00:03:22 – 00:03:27]

Well, there is a UK trade deal being announced as we talk. It’s on the screen in front of me.

 

James:

[00:03:28 – 00:03:30]

I’m sure we’ll talk about or.

 

Richard:

[00:03:30 – 00:03:35]

First of many, no doubt first of many fantastic deals. Winning deals.

 

James:

[00:03:36 – 00:04:19]

The showman himself. So, you know, we talk about a month within which could have some of the most intense volatility we’ve seen since COVID Right. Since the worldwide pandemic. And how did we exit the month? We basically wound up flat. Now, this is not to be glib or dismissive about what an emotional roller coaster it is in the moment, in the storm, but for all that bluster and talk and fear and terror of what’s coming up so far, the market is completely flat on the month. The S and P fell less than 1%. Nasdaq actually closed up about 1%. So.

 

Richard:

[00:04:20 – 00:05:24]

So let’s just take a minute to digest this because I think this is so important in, in this month. This month in which I ruined a holiday. Let’s not beat around the bush. There were other factors at play. My kid had an ear infection, which was nasty. But my wife has not been shy in telling me I essentially ruined this holiday. I went in a bit of a grump and I didn’t come out of this jump and it was compounded by my kid having a bit of a nightmare as well. And I only get so many of these holidays with these kids and I essentially. And Then I came back and I didn’t, and, and she said I didn’t improve much and for what in that month, that extremely volatile crazy month and who knows what’s to come? Because it’s not about trying to predict what’s coming next. It’s about the, the wider point we’re making here. So much happened and yet nothing happened. If we’re just going off measuring the stock market, which is just the stock market, which is what we’re caring about here, which our clients care about, is what happened to the stock market, my wealth, month on month, nothing. A huge amount. But if you’d gone to sleep on the 1st and woken up on the 30th, you’d have been like, oh, that was quiet. Not much happened then, guys.

 

James:

[00:05:25 – 00:06:44]

That’s a great way to put it. I think that image of if you had just, let’s say you’d been away on a month long holiday and you didn’t, you were in, you were in a, you know, a remote outpost on an island somewhere with no Internet connection, you would come back and think, oh yeah, no, that, that one will, that one will stick hopefully. And to your, you know, I know you, you’re not, you’re not in need of defense of yourself, but I’m sure you, you know, it’s hard when you’re dealing with the emotions of your clients, of investors. When you’re seeing a media that is predicated upon the most attention grabbing headlines they can muster, right? And, and designed in some ways to stoke that level of emotional response, it’s hard to turn that off. So I don’t, I don’t, you know, I know I can imagine how difficult it would be. And you know, it’s, it’s. As an investor, this is why we talk about zooming out, right? And now I know the one thing I’ll say here, we’re looking at the stock market here. Obviously the stock market is not the economy. We’re not making any predictions about where things go from here. But if there’s one thing you can take away from this is that despite an immense amount of volatility, you could wind up in the longer term. Fine. Now I know that’s ironic, right, because we’re looking at a month here. But like you said, you fall asleep March 31, wake up May 1, you would think, I guess not much happened.

 

Richard:

[00:06:45 – 00:07:13]

It’s so glib, it’s so oversimplified, it’s almost trite. But tune out the noise, I’m going to butcher this. Isn’t there A well known study that one of the big custodians, I think Fidelity conducted, where they looked at probably millions of investors and they looked at like who did the best over time. You know, you got active people who trade a lot, people who don’t trade a lot, people who look at how often people log in. You know, who the best performing investors were over the period of the study.

 

James:

[00:07:14 – 00:07:17]

Let’s let the listeners guess, we’ll give it a couple seconds.

 

Richard:

[00:07:19 – 00:07:50]

The dead ones. I, I’m not joking, I’m not being silly. Obviously sometimes people, well, it happens to us all people die and it can take a while for accounts to be sorted out. Sometimes again, I think it can take years. And the accounts that did the best in this study out of all investors were accounts where the investor had died and the account yet hadn’t been sorted out, so no one had touched it. Isn’t that just such a lesson in investment management?

 

James:

[00:07:51 – 00:08:32]

There’s many lessons in the. I’ve seen a similar one. I think that was, the one you’re referencing was either Fidelity or Vanguard. Now that I know we said Fidelity or it might’ve been Vanguard. There was a similar one they were looking at active. This was more focused on actively trading and investments. Right. They sign up a bunch of people to this study. You’re gonna pick a bundle of stocks to start with. You can trade throughout, at the end of six months or a year, whatever the time period was. We’ll see how everyone did. The best performing investors in that study were the ones who signed up, signed in, picked a bunch of stocks, immediately forgot their login information, couldn’t be bothered to log back in. And then, you know, at the end of 12 months, they’re holding whatever they held and. And that was that.

 

Richard:

[00:08:33 – 00:08:52]

And a lot of the time it comes from a place of like real learning. We will really try and master this, but this isn’t something that people can master really. Warren Buffett has. But I don’t think you’re gonna be the next Warren Buffett. So there’s just so many lessons there in, in successful investment management, which is investing is like a bar of soap. The less you touch it, the longer it lasts.

 

James:

[00:08:52 – 00:09:37]

Perfect. Speaking of Buffett too, he just obviously announced he’s stepping down at the end of the year. I should have pulled the exact quote, but he had some, some really good pull quotes from his most recent. It was a collection of shareholders meetings in this exact vein. Essentially saying, look, I don’t know what the headline is going to be tomorrow, next week and next month and quite frankly, I don’t care. It’s about when you’re investing in stocks, when you’re investing in equities, it’s about not only removing the emotional element to the extent you can, we know it’s impossible to do that completely. Right. But to the extent you can, not letting emotions, not letting reactivity drive those decisions. That is the most critical point to success in long term stock investing. And there’s no way around it.

 

Richard:

[00:09:37 – 00:09:48]

But if you’re a long term diversified investor, these periods are not fun, they are still scary, but you have to tune them out. Trade at your peril.

 

James:

[00:09:49 – 00:10:29]

We talk a lot about recessions, right. That becomes the new sort of bell that everyone’s ringing, right. Are we going to see a slowdown this year? And we’ve talked to, we’re blue in the face about not trying to time the market in general, certainly not trying to time when a recession is going to happen, if it does, and the severity of it all. I’ll point back to and I know we’ve brought this up many times, 2022. I was just reading an article that had a collection of all the headlines in 2022. Later part of 22 after what was a pretty challenging year, especially if you were holding a mixed allocation rate. Stocks and fixed income both had a. Had a really challenging. It was, it was rough. Yep, yep.

 

Richard:

[00:10:29 – 00:10:30]

It was a grind.

 

James:

[00:10:30 – 00:10:35]

It was a grind, a slow grind down throughout a year and no safety.

 

Richard:

[00:10:35 – 00:10:35]

Right.

 

James:

[00:10:35 – 00:11:22]

It didn’t feel like, well, my stocks were down. So fixed income, we didn’t see that. Obviously every single pundit, every analyst, every bank was calling for a certain recession starting early part of 2023. Now if you had taken those warnings as gospel and you had sold out or made the wrong decision trying to be reactive to something that you couldn’t predict, you would miss out on what is still a 60, 65, 70% run in the S and P since then. I mean we’re sitting down 8% from all time highs right now. Again, zero prediction about what’s going to happen. But think about all the noise that you as an investor, if you’re listening, you survived in April. You have the fortitude to do it. Hopefully everyone did. That’s listening and you can do it again. No matter what kind of uncertainty we approach.

 

Richard:

[00:11:23 – 00:11:57]

Hopefully everyone listens. Did, but everyone in the world definitely didn’t. Did you see there were. We were sending them around. There were Wall Street Journal articles or New York Times articles about saying about investors are capitul. These investors held on through Covert. But they’ve abandoning ship now. Like people wrecked their financial futures again. Every single time it happens. 2020, it was the COVID people who thought the world’s endings were covered. They may have sat through this, but this time I think politics comes into it. Obviously they’re convinced that this guy is gonna end the world order as we know it.

 

James:

[00:11:58 – 00:12:45]

Your relationship with your money, I know this is also something we talk about, but your relationship with your money changes as your time horizon changes, as your life changes. So if you’re approaching retirement, talk very often about how when selling feels the best, it’s the most dangerous. Yeah. So if you join me on this strenuous metaphor here that also applies to your life cycle, so to speak, your investor life cycle, that when you feel like you need to sell or when you are most vulnerable to those kind of impulses, usually for an investor is right in or right after retiring, which can really have long term detrimental. You could blow up what would have been a successful retirement by one mistake.

 

Richard:

[00:12:46 – 00:13:20]

You know what’s been useful this time because you absolutely bang on there. What’s been useful this time compared to 2022 is the diversification has worked. So you’re able to say, yes, yep, this part of your portfolio is hurting, but this, your international stuff’s not. In fact, it’s doing pretty well. Oh, and also if you look at your fixed income exposure, that’s holding its own quite well as well. So that has been helpful to be able to reframe the thinking because it’s also dominated by America. America. America. Fairly and unfairly. Diversification has absolutely helped these conversations this time.

 

James:

[00:13:20 – 00:13:49]

Absolutely. It’s one of those things they say, you know, in an up market, you know, when things are going well, diversification means always having to say you’re sorry. Right. People look at S&P 500 or the Mag 7 and say, why aren’t we invested in that fully? It’s in a down market. It’s in an environment like this of uncertainty and investors fear and doubts creeping in that all of a sudden you see the benefits of diversification. I’m glad I’m globally diversified. I’m glad I had some fixed income. I’m glad I have xyz. Right. Whatever those tools.

 

Richard:

[00:13:49 – 00:14:04]

This is why it’s so important to get your asset allocation right, particularly going into retirement, because this is going to happen. And when it does, you need to know that you’re positioned appropriately for it. And that’s why it’s absolutely critical.

 

James:

[00:14:04 – 00:14:47]

Part of that may be a sort of adjacent idea or pillar. There is income planning, right? Knowing. Okay, let’s say we do have some uncertainty. Let’s say we have a. We go into a recession and there is weakness in the latter half of the year. Where is my income coming from? Do I understand where I’m pulling from? Am I doing it in a tax efficient manner? Is there any opportunity here for things like tax loss harvesting, rebalancing that I know we’ve talked about tax coordination between accounts. Am I utilizing all the tools available at my disposal or is my advisor doing that so that I can feel confident even in an environment like this where obviously fear, doubt, uncertainty is trending high, potentially trending higher.

 

Richard:

[00:14:48 – 00:15:48]

So I had Brian Dunhill, the Brian Dunhill of the famous Dunhill Financial on the podcast last week we were talking about Pfix the scourge any US connected expat globally. But we see it with Brits all the time with their in their ISAs or in their GIAs. Non US investments as a US person become very very costly both literally in terms of taxes and possible penalties. But taxes, interest and reporting requirements and quite possibly having to go back and do fix and reporting non compliance as a result of having the non US investments. I reckon still the most common mistake is probably not reporting missing off assets from informational returns. Even if there are informational returns FBAR has been submitted other, some forms might be missed and, or some accounts might be missed off the FBARs. And so I still, I still think that’s the number one problem. I’m interested to know what you think. But number two, two very very closely behind this is Pfix.

 

James:

[00:15:49 – 00:17:04]

I would agree 100%. The, the non reporting is pervasive to the point of almost 100 of the cases we, we talk to or people we work with. There is something missing. Now if, if you have a good tax team in place then those are the cases. You know, if you, if, if someone is coming to us already with a good cross border US UK qualified tax advisor in place then then they’re probably in compliance and that’s great. But non reporting is super, super common and there is a tendency of defensiveness of saying oh I have this pension but I haven’t taken any money out. I don’t need to report that. Well we’ve talked about in the past that’s not the case. Second, with a bullet Pfix foreign investments that do not play nice in the U.S. i was appreciative. Of course we love what Dunhill does. We look up to them as a firm helping Americans abroad. And you know, I was, I was happy to see and hear Brian talk through Pfix and be, you know, unequivocal. Obviously there’s always, there’s always nuance to these things, but almost across the board, PFICs are just an area that you absolutely want to avoid. Right. If you have them, take steps to get rid of them and if you don’t have them, make sure you know what the rules are so that you don’t, you know, unwittingly walk into a trap like that.

 

Richard:

[00:17:04 – 00:18:09]

And you know, it’s particularly brutal with ISAs because people come here with ISIS, they’re not sure they’re going to stay forever and you don’t want to, you don’t want to give up an isa. It’s like having a Roth. It’s a really great benefit. So they maintain their ISAs and little do they know by the sooner they step on American soil, they’ve gone from having a highly efficient, tax efficient account to having a highly tax inefficient account. Not, it’s not just taxed at capital gains rate, it’s going to be taxed at PFIC rates which are much, much, much higher. Back of an envelope, we always just, I just use 50 as a starting point. Yeah. Especially if state taxes involved maybe a little bit less, but we just start 50 on any gains and then if they’ve had it for a while, they’re going to be in some form of non compliance. So you’ve got a historic problem. So they’ve gone from, they’ve gone from having this super regular, super like, you know, mainstream tax efficient vehicle to. Oh, by the way, it’s not only is it not tax free now, it’s punitively taxed. Oh, and by the way, you’ve also got a compliance problem that you might want to sort out. It might cost a lot to sort out. It’s a double whammy. It’s horrible.

 

James:

[00:18:10 – 00:19:34]

Yeah, it’s a massive headache. It’s certainly not welcome news when you know someone is like you say, certainly was using the vehicle as it was designed and had very valid reasons to doing that. It’s just that unfortunately by, by the US’s idiosyncratic rules, they, they, they’re not good and in fact they can cause massive headaches. I’m hesitant to share, to share too much in the way of specific cases. But what we find now, we’re putting out a lot of content right across all different channels, podcasts, YouTube. We are getting a lot of interest from, from Investors earlier on in their careers, earlier on in their, in their time spent in the U.S. i find that these types of investors, almost 201 have an ISA that is invested. And I think that is because the isa, you’re probably more familiar with the history than I am, but a fairly newer account type similar to a Roth in the States. It takes some time. Generally there’s a life cycle to these things. It takes some time to get people active and using them and opening them and investing in them. The younger someone is, in my experience, the more likely it is that they have an ISA and the more likely it is that they’re investing in that isa. And unfortunately it’s something that the good thing is if they’ve only been here a year or two, okay, well then maybe the damage is limited and we can, we can address it and fix it and it’s not too much of a headache to get out of it. But the bad news is it is an issue. Right. And it needs to be addressed.

 

Richard:

[00:19:34 – 00:20:55]

It’s still brutal. I, I know someone who had a substantial amount in an ISA and he’s not been here long and he moved here with the ISA and he went from being tax free to being punitively taxed. It’s costing tens of thousands of dollars that would have been avoided. How do you liquidate it before he came? And that is a real bitter pill to swallow. Do you know something? I’m surprised about the amount of times people, people listening to this podcast, which is great and we love that. So please keep listening to people and then people, sometimes people reach out to us and inquire about how we can help and I’ve been surprised by the amount of people who have definitely listened to the podcast but then who have got some of the landmines. I’m specifically thinking about Pfix that we talk about but who it hasn’t clicked that what we’re talking about now is lurking in their affairs. Everyone wasn’t expecting that. I thought people be listening to this going oh that’s me, oh dear, I need to fix this. And that’s not the case. I’d also say the amount of times the people we encounter who have, who have got these problems, who have got a wealth manager or a financial planner and have had for decades and this festering problem which only gets worse as time goes on because of interest has just been left to grow and metastasize. This cross border world is so, so specialized. They have no idea, no idea about trust reporting for you didn’t before you Joined. Right. And did your qualifications.

 

James:

[00:20:55 – 00:21:24]

I was here, I was just going to say everyone, you know, you’ve heard my, everyone listening has heard my voice on these things maybe, but obviously I’m American. I came up on the American financial planning side, was a US CPA in the us If I had come across someone with a foreign account and I probably have, honestly in 10 years of doing this, it was just, oh, you know, we can’t help you with that and you know you’re going to have to address that separately. And that was truly the end of the conversation. Right. Because you just don’t have the, the expertise.

 

Richard:

[00:21:24 – 00:22:12]

But James, here’s the point, right? Best case scenario for the client, that’s an opportunity cost. You are aware, they’re aware there’s something you can’t advise on, you can’t help here. And that’s just, that’s just abandoned. We see this with UK pensions all the time. It’s just abandoned. Okay. Best case scenario, there’s an opportunity cost to not dealing with that. Now worst case scenario and in fact more common is you’ve actually detonated a landmine or you’ve identified a landmine but not dealing with it because maybe that, maybe that account that you’ve just said I can’t help with that is Pfix and that gets worse and worse and worse over time or maybe it’s a foreign pension and it should be reported on all these different forms and it’s not and that has compliance issues attached, limitations issues. So best case scenario, there’s opportunity cost, more common, it’s worse.

 

James:

[00:22:13 – 00:22:53]

And part of that, this is good because we’re really getting into kind of the business side of things. Right. Part of the areas I think we want to expand and we had a conversation recently with a fellow advisory group. Part of that is advisor education. Right. Is trying to get the word out and part of that is this podcast and our YouTube and our LinkedIn and all the content we produced. Trying to let not only investors but also other advisors understand that you can’t just turn a blind eye to these things. There are problems there there be dragons. Right. As a, as a US based advisor working with US people they are not going to have the first clue. I certainly would have that this could cause an issue.

 

Richard:

[00:22:54 – 00:22:58]

Amen. Okay. Did you have something to share regarding Social Security?

 

James:

[00:22:58 – 00:24:22]

You know that I was going to have something to share that turned out to be a misunderstanding. But just for everyone, it’s worth touching on. I know we mention mentioned it in the past. Windfall elimination provision was a was a part of the Social Security code that essentially meant you, you could suffer a reduction in your Social Security benefit because you’re eligible for a foreign state pension. That was repealed in December of last year. It was retroactive to January of last year. So if you’re collecting Social Security, if you’ve been collecting it throughout 2024, you will be eligible for a lump sum of those essentially back paid benefits. The Social Security Administration has said those would start being rolled out in April of this year. We thought we might have had a case where our client actually received it. I haven’t heard of that yet. That was a misunderstanding. But if anyone listening has received their, their, their lump sum, their back pay from Social Security from the, from wep, certainly reach out and let us know. I’d be really interested to hear a. The form it came in, I’m sure it gets direct deposited or you know, however you receive your benefit. And I’d be interested to hear the timing. I’m curious how they’re going about who gets these things quicker. There’s all kinds of language on the, on the SSA.gov website, all kinds of caveats about oh, more complex plans or more complex benefit situations will require further study. So it’ll take more time. So curious to see how that, how that rollout comes through.

 

Richard:

[00:24:22 – 00:24:24]

Must be a massive logistical.

 

James:

[00:24:24 – 00:24:26]

I can’t imagine job that huge.

 

Richard:

[00:24:26 – 00:24:37]

Yeah. A time when the government, I mean it’s very quiet in the government, I believe, you know, so someone rampaging through with his, with his chainsaw. So that must have been perfect.

 

James:

[00:24:37 – 00:24:39]

Perfect timing. Yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:24:39 – 00:25:40]

Joe, should we just say next on the podcast as well? We were talking then about all the issues with pfix and compliance and I think quite timely. Then we have Dan Price on the podcast next. Dan is a attorney, a tax, a tax attorney in Texas, but prior to that he spent over 20 years at the IRS in the Office of Chief Counsel and he was involved in designing, building and monitoring some of these compliance programs, specifically the streamline program, which is the one we’re most familiar with and I think we spend most of our time talking about. So he is in so many respects he is just the perfect person to come on and talk about this. He was designed in the implementation of this, the scheme, he was designed in the monitoring this. He has seen all sorts of submissions, good, bad and ugly. Perfect person to come on and talk about. If you find yourself in non compliance and you want to take proactive steps to come into compliance for international or offshore reasons, this is how you do it. Perfect person to carve on and pfix and reporting on all this stuff we talk about on the show all the time. These are. This is offshore non compliance.

 

James:

[00:25:40 – 00:26:12]

That is both. If you haven’t listened to Brian Dunhill’s the Last Episode in the feed, definitely go ahead and listen to that. Dan Price, I also consider an absolute must. Listen. We had a. I won’t step on toes, or I don’t want to spoil anything, quote, unquote. But we had a conversation with Dan a couple weeks back about a specific issue. And just hearing him talk from a perspective of having been in that seat. Right. Is so incredibly inform and illuminating about what the processes are, what the mindsets are, what the, you know, how it actually unfolds these things. So. Absolutely. If you’re an expat in the States.

 

Richard:

[00:26:12 – 00:26:27]

Listen, you know, Chris McLemore, Virginia La Torre, Jaeger, Dan Price. Like, we have some, like, serious tax attorneys, heavy hitters, talking about. Yeah. Talking about important stuff. Like, I’m really. I’m really proud of some of the content we’re putting out.

 

James:

[00:26:27 – 00:26:50]

I know we have. We were chomping at the bit to. To. To talk about this. I saw a movie in theaters recently that I thought was one of the best theatrical experiences I’ve had in, I would say, years. A movie called Sinners by director Ryan Coogler. I don’t want to step on your toes. You had a very different opinion.

 

Richard:

[00:26:50 – 00:27:03]

I hated it. I hated it, and I don’t want to. I was with my wife and she loved. She loved it. And we would normally get on with it. We only agree with this stuff. I had to read it halfway through to see if I was the only person in the world who thought, because it’s mega hype.

 

James:

[00:27:03 – 00:27:04]

It’s huge. Yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:27:04 – 00:27:13]

And I just thought it was. And I love his. I love, love Black Panther, love Michael B. Jordan. Right. I went into this thinking, oh, I love. Can I do a spoiler?

 

James:

[00:27:13 – 00:27:15]

I was gonna say Dawn, I think.

 

Richard:

[00:27:16 – 00:27:33]

I think that’s enough. Okay. So Dust Till dawn, another. Another movie from the late 90s or mid-90s maybe even. Which is kind of normal. Then goes a bit. Again, goes a bit nuts with vampires. That kind of. That kind of love that movie. Went in thinking I was gonna love this and hated it, frankly.

 

James:

[00:27:33 – 00:27:33]

That’s a shame.

 

Richard:

[00:27:34 – 00:28:00]

The first half, it was just so slow. It was. And it felt like. It just felt over stylized. It felt over style, over substance. I. I did not like it. I did not get it. I did not enjoy it. The story was kind of for me, non. Existence. And I know. I know it was making a point about ownership and stuff, but it just didn’t. Just didn’t do it for me. It didn’t do it for me. You know, it got me quite angry.

 

James:

[00:28:01 – 00:28:09]

Everyone has those things that we talked about. You know, there’s always pop cultures like Geist things that just don’t land right. I’m sorry to hear that.

 

Richard:

[00:28:09 – 00:28:10]

You calling me old?

 

James:

[00:28:10 – 00:28:50]

No, no, no. There’s always things that people rave about that, you know, you just don’t. Don’t get it landed for me. I’ll say this, and I won’t spoil anything, but there is a scene, and it is arguably a slow start. Right. I think it’s about halfway through 60%, arguably, interminably, this scene. I’ll just tell you. I was basically hovering in the theater. It was. It’s a. If I think I can say it’s. It’s around. Music sort of talks about the interconnection. No, no, no, not the jig. I mean, I enjoyed that, too, but the. The other one with the inside. I’ll say. But now. Now we’re getting. And I’ll say, if that doesn’t.

 

Richard:

[00:28:50 – 00:28:51]

They’d already lost me at that point.

 

James:

[00:28:51 – 00:28:55]

Yeah, yeah. And if that. If that didn’t help. Help, then you’re not gonna. You’re not gonna.

 

Richard:

[00:28:55 – 00:28:58]

I respect what they were trying to do there, but I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t like it.

 

James:

[00:28:58 – 00:28:59]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:28:59 – 00:29:03]

I just really didn’t do it for me. You. What are you reading at the moment?

 

James:

[00:29:03 – 00:29:10]

Oh, that’s a good question. I did read. What. Can I share a new fiction book? I’m in the middle of.

 

Richard:

[00:29:10 – 00:29:12]

My gosh. What do you. What do you read?

 

James:

[00:29:13 – 00:29:22]

Oh, it’s. It’s. I don’t want to die. You know, we tend to stay pretty neutral politically, so I’ve been reading some nonfiction that I think could be misinterpreted for.

 

Richard:

[00:29:23 – 00:29:24]

Pique my interest there.

 

James:

[00:29:24 – 00:29:24]

Yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:29:24 – 00:29:25]

Offline.

 

James:

[00:29:25 – 00:30:27]

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe a future episode. I’ll dive into it, but it’s an author called Charlotte McConaughey. I want to say. I want to make sure I get that right. She wrote a book. She deals with sort of climate change in a fictional setting, usually near future, very near future, you know, And. And looking at it through the lens of, you know, fallout of a change incline, and what does that look like? And how does society adapt? And what can we do? The book is called Wild Dark. Sh. I think it came out either earlier this year or late Last year and her name is Charlotte McConaughey. Set on a remote island, it’s sort of a contained mystery. There’s. There’s a woman washes up on shore and we don’t know where she’s coming from. There’s a family living on the island and there’s people maybe missing and trying to figure out what’s going on. So I’ve been really. Also really beautifully written, so I’ve been enjoying that. I haven’t finished it yet. I have one more shout out. David Attenborough turns 99 today as of record. Legend, yes. Absolute legend. So happy birthday to the man himself, I think.

 

Richard:

[00:30:27 – 00:30:46]

True. I mean, that term’s overused, but he is truly a legend. I’m of probably many generations of Brits who. His voice is just a Nate nature. Programs aren’t quite the same when it’s not narrated by David. They can be great, but they never can be quite as good.

 

James:

[00:30:46 – 00:31:05]

Yep, yep. A national treasure. That’s a UK term. Yeah, absolutely. I think his health is pretty good. Seems like it’s. I mean, it’s amazing that he’s 99. Happy birthday to him. Like you said, just a body of work that’s hard to sum up, but such an important voice over decades and decades and decades through his work.

 

Richard:

[00:31:05 – 00:31:08]

So, you know, his brother was a famous actor.

 

James:

[00:31:09 – 00:31:12]

He was the. He was that. Would you call him the bad guy in Jurassic Park?

 

Richard:

[00:31:13 – 00:31:16]

Let’s call him. Let’s call him. Let’s call him the grandfather.

 

James:

[00:31:16 – 00:31:19]

The grandfather, yeah. I think he was related.

 

Richard:

[00:31:19 – 00:31:20]

Yeah.

 

James:

[00:31:20 – 00:31:22]

Yeah, the bad guy was, I guess the Raptors. Right?

 

Richard:

[00:31:23 – 00:31:23]

Yes.

 

James:

[00:31:23 – 00:31:24]

Yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:31:24 – 00:31:26]

You scapegoating the poor Raptors.

 

James:

[00:31:27 – 00:31:30]

He was great, too. He’s great now. Was he Richard. Richard Attenborough.

 

Richard:

[00:31:31 – 00:31:36]

Richard Attenborough. Is Philly on fire? Can you hear someone kicking off outside you. Yeah, of course. It’s Philly.

 

James:

[00:31:36 – 00:31:44]

I’m sure there’s a fist fight outside the Philly anthem. Come and knock on the door soon, okay?

 

Richard:

[00:31:44 – 00:31:53]

All right, mate. Good to. Good to chat with you as always. I will see you. I’ll see you in a month’s time. If I don’t see you before then, I hope I do, seeing as we work together very closely.

 

James:

[00:31:53 – 00:32:15]

Thank you everyone, for listening. I know we don’t always say this, but if you are enjoying the podcast, make sure you follow us wherever you’re listening. Get in touch. Certainly. You know, all the emails come back to us directly. We’re happy to answer any questions you have or have a conversation about the topics we cover. And if you could. If you’re enjoying it, leave a 5 star review. Really helps with the algorithms which are all important as we know. Thanks again.

 

Richard:

[00:32:19 – 00:33:18]

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. 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. 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.