BOI Filing and Government Overreach – Episode 597

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, we’re going to be talking about the BOI filing, which stands for the beneficial ownership information filing. If this doesn’t make you want to either, one, start a fight with someone in Congress or go to sleep, I don’t know, because this is not interesting, but it’s actually really pertinent to our lives and some of the freedoms we’re losing. Kim, will you fill in the gaps and then we’re going to riff on this for a moment? Absolutely. I’ll fill in the gaps the best I can because I’ll admit when it came out, I took one look at that, handed over my bookkeeper and said, just make sure we do this by the deadline, which, of course, was like a year later.

[00:48] This is the best example of government overreach that I can think of, although I’ve got plenty. And it is interesting because there are a lot of things that we can do in the personal finance space to keep information private. And we work on that, think it’s important to all humans. I’m not a hugely fearful person. I don’t really care if some stuff is out there in the public, but there are aspects of our lives that we shouldn’t have to put on a filing that we set up on purpose for protection of our information. And so for them to, you know, whoever the powers that be are, and it will be interesting to see if it changes. I guess the ball’s already rolling, but doesn’t mean it’s got to keep rolling.

[01:39] It is a, I think, sad statement of what America brought to the table, which was freedom and capability and the ability to own your own life and to own and control, because to me ownership goes with control, your information and the type of information that you put out there and the whole reason that things like limited liability companies were set up is so that information could be owned and controlled by the people that want to own and control it and not shared with people that they don’t want it shared with no matter who the quote people are. So, you know, I’m a rule abiding citizen. We’ll do what we’re supposed to do. And I think it’s a wake up call. It’s absolutely a wake up call to give context for anyone that started a

[02:33] company this year, you had to file this within a short period of time. Anyone that had companies before this year, they have until December 31st. And it’s a very simple form to fill out the reason why it’s the wake up call. And I see it is because when the noise and the information goes to this side, it makes patriots and those that like freedom look for the areas where they still have protections and where they can keep. So let’s take the opposite and look at where does life insurance and family trusts and things like that come into play because we still have some freedoms. Let’s talk about that. Absolutely. I think the life insurance industry is one of the last spaces where privacy truly exists.

[03:28] So, for example, if you own a life insurance and you have cash value, that amount of money is not reported on a form anywhere. And because the growth of that cash value is not taxed, there’s not a 1099 that while 1099s don’t report the value of assets, they certainly report the income that those assets generate. But that also is not the case in the life insurance cash value space if your cash value is inside a mutual company. And this is something that there are just not a lot of people talking about these days. So a mutual life insurance company is owned by the policyholders. Think Guardian Life, New York Life, Mass Mutual, Lafayette, Penn Mutual, Northwestern Mutual. Sometimes they even have the word mutual in their names.

[04:22] Sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t really matter. And those entities, as I stated, are owned by the policyholders. There are not public stockholders that own them. It cracks me up when I see somebody talking about, oh, you should buy a stock in the life insurance industry. Well, yes, you could. And when you do, you are purchasing it in publicly held companies like Prudential, John Hancock, Transamerica, et cetera. Some of those companies used to be mutual. Some of them never were. Nevertheless, it’s a very important dividing line. And you could liken it to credit unions, if that’s something that helps you learn, if you like analogies, life insurance companies are like credit unions as they relate to banks.

[05:15] So a mutual life insurance company is like a credit union is to a bank. The mutual life insurance company is to the public life insurance company in the space. So these arenas, credit unions owned by their members, mutual life insurance companies owned by their policyholders are a space where privacy still exists. Good. So the, this is a small, a splintered group that has been unaffected. There’s always the phrase that pops up for those that are on the opposite side, meaning those that don’t care about freedom and they go, well, I have nothing to hide, so why not? And then we take fundamentally based people and they go, well, we have the fourth amendment of the constitution, no unlawful searches and seizures.

[06:11] So chem, where do we sit with those two islands? What does that look like? Well, it’s a very good question. I think something that everybody needs to answer for themselves, because while you can say that there are no unlawful seizures, there is still a thing called a bank forfeiture. And I know we’ll do some further conversation around this civil forfeiture is another term for the same thing, whereby the powers that be that can have the abilities can come in and frankly, I don’t know how they get away with it when you think about the fourth amendment. So it’s just something for all of us to be aware of, to make sure that we’re voting not only in literal terms, but that we’re voting with our feet and our dollars and our attention, because that sends

[07:06] a very loud message to everybody, to ourselves, to the people that we’re doing business with, to the powers that be that run the country, et cetera, and I think it again is something that everybody needs to just be aware of and then make their own decisions about, but make them be conscious and purposeful, not default. Absolutely. So I think where this is where I sit and I’m curious as we do a wrap up on this is there are certain rules, regulations, laws, whatever word we want to use that we have to follow. So for the BOI has to get filed. Now, every time something like that happens, it’s the speed bump. To stop and look and say, where do I have my freedoms, my privacy, and what am I willing to fight for?

[08:02] So that doesn’t go away. How about you in the wrap up? Well, let’s answer a question that you might know that I don’t. And that is the BOI, does it have to be filed for trusts? I don’t know about that. I don’t think that it does. And you mentioned that earlier, the trust space. So the trust and the life insurance space, which often go together, that will be an interesting question for us to do some research on and figure out. And again, it’s just a wake up call, a good thing for people to be aware of, even if you don’t own a company and for you to make your own decisions about have good conversations with your children, you know, inside our prosperity parents community, we have 200 money questions that you

[08:48] can converse with your children about. This one’s not on them, but it should be. That’s a good one. Good. So for any of you that are ownership, some form of ownership of a corporation, talk with a professional that’s going to help you or take the necessary actions. For any of you that have a life insurance policy, and you’re trying to figure out and navigate what that future looks like, send an email to hello at prosperity thinkers. If you don’t have that and you’re wanting to find some of the last threads of freedom, you got to take action. So again, send an email to hello at prosperity thinkers.com and we can get those questions answered for you. So, Kim, I appreciate it. It was a really helpful up episode for all of us, business

[09:40] owners and those aspiring to be. Thank you for listening to the prosperity podcast to take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit prosperity thinkers.com.