Optimize Your Business Taxes and Credit With Tommy Thornburg

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is the List Building Lifestyle the podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, the List Building Lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire at igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details, and now it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Igor  0:52  

Welcome back to the List Building Lifestyle, I’m your host, Igor Kheifets, and today I’m hosting Tommy Thornburg. Now Tommy is the president of primecorporateservices.com, a company that helps people and business owners set up entities, set up proper tax structures, estate planning and a lot of that stuff that nobody likes to talk about, but everyone should do. Now, as somebody who has gone through the journey of being an employee, and then self-employed, and then a business owner, and today I want to think of myself as a business owner and an investor, although, you know, probably one of the worst investors you’ll ever meet. I thought it’d be a good idea to invite Tommy over and discuss some of the things that are important for when you’re setting up your business, as far as your taxes, your liabilities, your estate planning and your business credit, this is going to be a very interesting episode to those who are not only concerned with making money, but also keeping what they make, because, as I’ve discovered the hard way, keeping what you make can sometimes be as hard as making it, especially if you don’t have good help, helping you and assisting you in setting up all the necessary structures about which, by the way, you did not learn in school.

Igor  2:01  

This is one of the biggest things, I think one of the biggest issues with the education system today, not only don’t really teach how to make money, but they also teach you nothing about taxes, liabilities, legal structures or anything like that, the very things that are in the backbone of society and the backbone of commerce that are important to know, that all the rich people know, but we really don’t get taught about this in school. So that’s why I welcome Tommy from primecorporateservices.com to the List Building Lifestyle. Tommy, welcome and thank you for taking time to do this. of course. 

Tommy 3:11

Of course, thank you so much for having me. Anyone listening? I gotta tell you, Igor cares about what you’re listening to, because there’s been a list of questions that have been put together, and we’ve gone back and forth about making sure that the listener you get the most out of this call. And Igor ended by saying, You better not bore my people. 

Igor 3:20

So we gotta admit, it’s not the most exciting thing to talk about. You know, taxes and legal entities, by the way, speaking of legal entities, just to kind of set the groundwork, can you walk us through what is a legal entity?

Tommy  3:24  

Yes, a legal entity is a thing with distinct independence. So what that means is whether it be you as an individual, whether it be your church, whether it be your business, it’s completely separating with formality in the form of a business structure. So I, a lot of times will tell people, you work so hard to build your personal identity, do the same thing for your business, and you have the ability to do the same thing for your business, right? 

Just like me as a person, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve had some cool wins as a business, it’s the same thing. And what we really try to do is we try to help people understand that personal is personal. Business is business. And when you establish an LLC, a corporation, limited depending on where you are in the world, that’s what you’re doing, is giving yourself formality for asset protection, tax benefits and the ability to show yourself as a business. 

Igor 4:44

Yeah, we’ll dive more into all the different benefits of why. You know, I believe you should definitely set up at least some sort of entity depending on your situation. And most of what we’re going to be discussing today probably applies more so to the United States. As far as legalese is concerned, probably a little bit to Canada as well, because they’re quite similar, but there are some distinctions. Obviously, none of what we’re discussing today should be considered legal or financial advice. That goes without saying. I hope my lawyer is happy with that brief disclaimer. 

So let’s, let’s talk about, why would someone want so, you know, to set up an end like, in other words, let’s say I just started my business. Let’s say I started offering consulting of some sort, and I got my first client, and I got paid a little bit of money. And why? What’s the benefit of setting up a legal entity, such as an LLC or a corporation? 

Tommy 5:00

Yeah, great. Great question. So I think what I tell people is, whenever you set up a business entity, and this goes for everyone, whether you are in the States or whether you’re International, the three things that I feel are most important to be able to take into consideration. Number one is privacy and protection. How much privacy do you want? Right? I don’t want my name and my address listed where my wife and my baby girl sleep. That’s not going to work for me. How much protection you need is going to change as you continue to build wealth. So that’s number one. 

Number two is tax benefits, profit or loss. One of the things that I like that you said, sometimes it’s making money is a good problem to have. Keeping money becomes more difficult if you don’t have a solid foundation in the beginning and a game plan on how you’re going to do it. If you’re just getting started, you can still save 1000s of dollars in taxes because you’re showing yourself as a business owner. And number three is credibility, right? And what I mean by credibility is everyone has imposter syndrome. To a certain extent, everyone has doubts. Can I do this? Is this for me, as opposed to hoping that you make it happen. I think legitimizing and saying that my name is Tommy Thornburg, I’m the president of primecorporateservices.com. I’ve been able to say that now for 13 years. 13 years ago, Prime was not what it is now. I still remember, when I was 18, leaving the bank with this folder. There was no money in the account, but I did have a bank account, and for whatever reason, that felt good. So credibility for your clientele, credibility for yourself. If you treat it like a hobby, it’s going to cost you money like a hobby. You treat it like a business, and you give yourself the ability to reap the rewards of what businesses have to offer. So those would say that those are the three most important advice. 

Igor 7:43

You know, I felt quite a few of these benefits, like the opposite of not having this in place, I felt what it’s like to have to deal with life without them. For example, remember, it was a few years ago when I was still living in Israel, but I was already making money online. I was already like, semi famous in my niche. Although I’m probably like, the most famous person no one knows, because, you know, there’s only a handful of people in very narrow circle somewhere online, and they’re really tiny little tribe, or a subsection of that tribe who know my name, but there’s enough people to know my name, to have for me to have had enemies, or people who don’t like me. Because I think there’s even a saying that says, like, until there’s someone out there who hates you, you’re not trying hard enough, or something like that, right? Yeah, anyway. 

Tommy 8:42

The more successful you become, the larger the target on your back becomes. That’s a lot of times the way that we look at it on this side. 

Igor 8:56 

Yeah, and it’s true. And so I remember on one of my websites, I had a contact form, and somebody submitted a contact form with a fake information, like fake name, like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and stuff like that. And towards the end of it, there is a field where they could have just wrote anything. And, you know, they wrote, I am sick and tired of seeing you online. One of these days, I’m going to jump you and your wife and your daughter when you’re out in the shopping mall, basically referring to one of my last social media posts, you know, when I was in the shopping mall with my wife and my daughter, who was, what, I think, like five at the time. So, that was, like, scary, like I was genuinely concerned, I was genuinely afraid. And you know, if my address, my personal address, would have been out there.

I mean, can you like, I can already see all kinds of scenarios in addition, though, in a more practical sense as far as, like, the things that you will actually have to deal with, such as taxes. I think the first time she went to see, like an accountant, what should I do about my taxes? Was the first year I started making money online. And, you know, I basically showed up at his doorstep and I said.

Hey, I made, I think I’ve made some, like, $70,000 up to that point. And the accountant was shocked. It’s like, Do you Have a registered business or business, self employed? It was like, no. It’s like, they have a separate bank account. No, they have any receipts that we can write off. It’s like, the hell’s write off. Like, what does that mean? So all of a sudden I’m discovering that, you know, I have to, like, show expenses, and that expenses go against my profits, and I don’t have to pay taxes on the entire thing, but rather on the difference between the two. Then I had to learn what the difference between different expenses was and what is deductible was not deductible.

So it got me into that world where I started trying to figure out, like I was clearly seeing the distinction between the Make Money processes in the in the in the real world, where it’s all about marketing, products, funnels, getting in front of an audience, offering value, exchanging money for value, versus this other world, in the underbelly of commerce, where the taxman is going after your money, and you’re trying every which legal way you know to prevent him from doing that. And that, as it turns out, is a whole other world. But it starts with setting up an entity, with setting up either an LLC or a corporation, or if you’re really, really wealthy, then you probably talking about, like some sort of trust. Then there’s a whole subsection, which is asset protection, you know. Do you do it in the US, outside the US, you know? So there was, like, quite the journey to try and understand all of that. And I gotta say, having had a really good, really good mentor in that sense, you know, the person who was helping me out with all my taxes and filings. I mean, they made me do all kinds of different things that I’m so grateful to them for making me do right now. I mean, they made me set up pension plans, TFSAs, or SPs, which is what they call them in Canada, where you can, you know, basically, set a portion of your money aside and you defer taxes on it until, like, you’re ready to retire. There’s, you know, different accounts you can set up for your kids.

Igor  12:24  

There’s write offs you can make. I mean, I was even shocked to discover that a third of my internet bill, I could write off, some of my rent, some my mortgage interest rate can be written off. So all of a sudden, all these different things, and I’m already, like, spending money on every month, like my car, gas, internet bill, phone bill, equipment. You know, it’s so deductible because you use it for your business when you structure it right, and that made keeping the money a lot easier, a lot easier. I can’t even begin counting how many 1000s of dollars I would have. I would have to just give up just like that if I didn’t have an entity. So Tommy, what would you say then? Is the perfect time to set an entity up? Like, when do we know that? Okay, it’s time. 

Tommy 13:00

Yeah, there’s two things I want to just add to what you just mentioned, because I love it. My mom always said you can’t choose your family, right? That’s something that you’re born into this family, and you create friends and you create other families, but you can’t choose your family. And where that hit me in business is we all have this one business partner US based that we also cannot choose. That’s Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam is coming for that tax dollar, whether we like it or not, right? And not only do you have to pay taxes, but there’s no tax code that says you have to be good at business. No one would be in business. It’s hard, it’s difficult. There’s always challenges. There is a tax code that says, if you have the intent to generate income, you can take business related deductions. So with your question being, when should I structure my business? This is a very biased opinion. I’m going to start with that right? Because I think what’s very important is that you work at a pace that you’re comfortable with, but from a very logical standpoint, you should set your business up once you have the intent. We had a client last year in the month of December, and when they came to us, “Tommy, I’m not going to do anything this year. I’m not going to make any money. And I was on a webinar setting, he said, “I make $55,000 a year W2”. 

Tommy  14:51  

I said, Let me tell you what. I’m going to give you an LLC for free. I’m going to pay for it, I’m going to file your taxes. I’m going to use you as a case study. So, this gentleman that made $55,000 a year didn’t make any money. We wrote off startup expenses, we wrote off organizational expenses, and we saved him $5,400 in taxes that he wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Off $55,000 a year. That’s a big deal. It’s 10% so I think the sooner that you have the idea, the larger it is going to benefit you that you can track your expenses. I’ve got a three and a half year old little girl and a 10 month old little girl, and I kind of joke about this.

I pay both of them. They’re both on my payroll, and I pay them for activities they do within the business. They don’t pay taxes on it, I get the write off. As soon as they can compose and hold a lemonade stand. We’re setting up an LLC because we specifically, are very favorable to business owners internationally. I could see why you would want to wait a little bit to make some money, unless you’re doing business in the US.

Tommy  16:09  

So, it comes down to, what are you comfortable with as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, but remember that, logically speaking, the sooner the better, so that you can game plan for the future, when you set up a proper business entity. 

Igor 16:20

You know, I want to throw something in there and tell me if I’m getting this right or whether this is completely off. But many years ago, I had a coaching client, somebody who wanted me to coach them privately on affiliate marketing and internet marketing. So this guy’s name was Oleg, and he lived in LA, and we’re really connected, because he’s Russian, I’m Russian, etc, etc, etc. I think he was Ukrainian, like I was born in Ukraine. But two Russian parents anyway, so, so this guy… 

Tommy 16:30

Igor, I gotta tell you, rope. My wife is from Belarus. My daughter speaks Russian. My wife, My in law…  

Igor 16:36

Do you speak Russian yet? Or no. 

Tommy  17:08  

But matter of fact, my three and a half year old the other day, she’s like, Dad, where’s my top keys? And I’m like, I don’t that’s,

Igor  17:12  

That’s good. That’s a good one.

Igor  17:15  

So, me and Oleg, we got chatting, and I’m still, I’m in the mindset of making money like I still am not aware of the certain things you can do again, legally, perfectly legally within the tax code. And I lived in Israel at the time, so I’m not familiar with the US side of things, but he lives in the US, and he’s very shrewd. He’s started and closed a bunch of different businesses, and we’re having this call. He’s having it at 8am his time. I’m having it at 8pm my time, because the 10 hour difference between LA and in Israel, and he starts telling me about this thing that he’s doing where, you know, he formed like an LLC, like a business entity, and but I was like, Yeah, but this thing we’re doing, we’re only started coaching, like, you’re not making any money yet. It’s like, Yeah, I know. And I don’t, you know, even if I don’t make any money this year, I’m just going to show a loss. And I was like, you can do that? He’s like, yeah, I don’t have to actually make a profit to have an entity. You can show a loss. And then what happens is, not only you’re showing a loss and you don’t pay any taxes this year, but this loss carries over to next year and for however many years. 

So even if you start making money next year, the year after that, it gets offset by your losses. And I found out that it’s true in Canada. I’m not sure if it’s true in the US still, but that’s what he did. And he was like, he wasn’t even upset about not making money, because he knew that he was saving on taxes, and because he had several LLCs, I believe it also had an effect on his overall taxes, where his income and then he was able to make some deductions. So does any of that? Does any of that apply?

Tommy 20:00

It’s 100% correct. And I love that he did it. I love the way that you now explain it, because when I say it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep. The second component of that, that we really preach from a tax standpoint, is being proactive, as opposed to reactive. If you are waiting until a month before you file your taxes to get all your information to your tax professional. It’s too late. The year’s already over, but when you proactively, are planning and writing off phone, internet, power, advisory, the cost of you being able to teach him one on one, statistically, most businesses don’t make money in the first year. So you can take that loss in the first year, apply it to what benefits you against your traditional income, or your W2 and absolutely carry it over to the next year. So the more that you’re tracking, the more that you’re Organizing another thing, the tax code in the US is over 70,000 pages. It’s a joke, it’s ridiculous. 

Igor 20:10

One would almost think that they wanted to be complicated.

Tommy  20:14  

I couldn’t agree more. And people will ask me like, Who are you going to vote for? Right? Let’s get political here for a second. I don’t care if you’re Republican, I don’t care if you’re Democrat. What I do know is it’s expensive to run a campaign, and so every year when these tax code changes come out, last year, they called them the inflation act adjustments, and there was over 70 changes, and most of them benefited entrepreneurs. So whether you’re Democrat or Democrat or Republican, I’m an entrepreneur, and I know that no matter what happens, there’s still going to be benefits for people that provide jobs and for people that stimulate the economy. I’m not going to let that take up my headspace. I’m going to focus on what it is that I’m trying to build. Because to me, that’s out of my control, and it’s not worth focusing on. So as much as I can have an opinion, there is absolutely truth and benefit to taking deductions even before you’re profitable, and that’s why I think setting up a business entity in the beginning is so valuable. So thank you for that. 

Igor 21:47

Yeah, and you know, it got me thinking when I started my business, and even to this day, although I do it less today, because I think I know everything you know, I was buying coaching and ebooks and courses and trainings. And today I more often than not, I either get private mentoring or go to seminars, but I buy fewer courses, just in general, but I still buy books and stuff like that, software. So when I started my business, just to get going, I needed all of that, just like anyone, right? Mentorships, courses, trainings, etc, software, traffic generation, advertising, so which expenses from all of these, especially relating to the internet marketing space, which is most of my listener base, which fall under the deductible category, like, which ones can we write off? 

Tommy 22:19

Phenomenal question. So back in the 1970s there was a group of amazing accountants that went to the IRS and they said, listen, the tax code is a joke. This is getting ridiculous. Help us, help you understand what we can and what we can’t write off for our clients, right? So the IRS puts together this ridiculous tax code, 70,000 pages. They get their most brilliant minds together, and they come back with two words, I kid you not, two words. So we got ordinary and necessary. So the accountants go and they’re like, that wasn’t helpful at all. Let’s go see if they can give a little bit more guidance. So the IRS gets together, they come back with two more words. So we’ve already got ordinary and necessary, now we’ve got helpful and appropriate. So those are the four words for anyone that’s got the ability to take notes or just remember this is $1 spent, ordinary, necessary, helpful or appropriate for you to make money in the future? 

An example, if you’re putting money into your future self by buying a course or buying a mentorship or being a part of a community with Igor, that is a deductible expense. That’s not education, because now we’re limited on deductions, but that’s advisory, that startup, can you run this business without marketing, phone, internet, all those things where you start to get more creative is as you start to generate income. For instance, I told you earlier, I pay my daughters, they are models. My daughters look like their mother. Lucky for them, they don’t look like me. They’re lucky, but both of them get paid to model on a website that I have for consulting and for real estate properties that I own. So if you and I were to go to lunch, Igor, that’s not necessary, but it’s ordinary, you better believe that we’re going to be talking about business. 

We’re going to be talking about strategy, and that is going to help me generate income in the future by taking your knowledge and implementing it into my business and vice versa. So ordinary, necessary, helpful, appropriate. A lot of you listening to this are considered self employed, home based entrepreneurs, that title alone has over 250 different deductible expenses, so the list is endless. How do we tie it back together to benefit your business? And the more successful you become, the easier that is to justify. Like Igor Kheifets, tying expenses back into the business, I’m sure, at this age of your life.

Igor  25:00  

So I mean, I mean to be fair, like, if I’m flying out to seminar, that’s a deductible expense, which means the hotel, the plane ticket, even if I’m traveling business class, which most of the time I do meals that I’m taking there, if I’m taking anyone there out to a meal, if I want to, like, be generous, all that stuff, that’s deductible expense. Now my wife is also working in the business, so you know, if she’s coming along with me, that’s a deductible expense as well. So we can, you know, basically, deduct our plane tickets. But that’s just part of it, of course, any, any kind of expense of my business, any kind of investment into future profits, if you will. 

And in Canada, they have a different word. It’s actually one word in Canada, I’m not sure if that makes the Canadian, you know, taxman smarter, or anything like that. They have this, they love this word. It’s called reasonable. So is it reasonable investment in your business? So, yeah, you know, my biggest beef with the Israeli government, with these Israeli taxman, which is, I mean, they’re just evil over there. I mean, the tax rate is pretty crazy, even if you do have an entity. But, I mean, they go, they pretty much take you for everything you have. So my biggest beef with them is that they wouldn’t allow you to write off things like your gas, or portion of your gas, like portion of your car payment, like, you know, the launch. There’s no such thing in Israel as you taking out a business partner or potential client or an existing client for lunch, and, you know, paying for it with the business’s credit card just ain’t happening.

Igor  26:54  

So, so moving to Canada, it’s like I I went into easy mode, you know, because Israel was so much harder and wouldn’t allow us to write any, write off anything at all. Now I do want to talk about, man, I had this great question I forgot, right? Let’s, let’s, let’s move to a different one. So speaking in the context of the internet business again, which is most of the people who listen to my podcast. What are some particular and specific, I guess, entity types or particular tax saving strategies that can be utilized in this case?

Tommy  27:38  

Yeah, I mean, with internet businesses in general, the first thing that I’ll say is, what is the most beautiful part of the lifestyle of an online business? It’s a travel, the freedom, but anywhere, right, exactly to your point. So that makes for a lot of easy deductions. There’s one that’s called a wraparound or a weekend deduction that we try and strategize with our clients, and I implement this one myself. But for example, if you are going on a family vacation, and you leave on a Thursday, and then on Friday, you’re looking at research, you’re doing development in another area, the IRS doesn’t consider weekends business related days. So if you work on Friday and maybe come home on Monday, Saturday, Sunday, you can go to the beach. You can enjoy time with your family, and a lot of that trip becomes deductible. 

Tommy 28:39  

But from an entity standpoint, what we will usually recommend is starting as an LLC, a limited liability company. They are simple. They are easy. We even help people decide on addresses, between virtual address, Registered Agent, your own address. What I love about LLCs is they flow through to your overall return. Now, once you’re making $20, 30,40, $50,000 and above, we probably are going to want to change that LLC so that it’s taxed as an S-corporation. And the reason for that S-corp election is then you’ll pay yourself a salary or a distribution it allows you to avoid half your self employment tax, which is Medicare, Social Security, saves you about 7% so you make $100,000 it’s 7000 that you’re keeping, as opposed to just giving to good old Uncle Sam, right? 

For international clients that are Going to be doing business in the US or need a US presence for whatever reason, whether or not your listeners do or don’t need that. C corporations are oftentimes great because there’s a flat 21% tax rate. You don’t have personal tax because you don’t live in the States.

So you can pay yourself into the organization. So for Canada, Australia, UK, any of these countries that have tax treaties, you don’t have double taxation in that setting. So it is not one size fits all. 

Tommy  30:17  

And I think this is really what made primecorporateservices.com so special. When we first started, our goal was to provide education and information to startup business owners so that they can grow and they can scale without hiring high power CPAs and attorneys. But 13 years later, we’ve got some people making 10s of millions of dollars, and we’ve had to evolve throughout the process. So there’s a lot of entity types internationally, sole traders, limited corporations and corporateds. I’m not as well versed internationally, but what I can tell you is talking to a professional, having a team that can help you understand the pros and the cons. There’s not one way that fits all, and I think that’s what people really struggle with, is if you go to YouTube University, it’ll make your head spin with everyone’s different thoughts and ideas. But what are you looking to do? What are you looking to accomplish in 5 years, 10 years, and how can you reap the rewards and the benefits now? And I think that’s what we really try to help people understand how to do. 

Igor  31:27  

Yeah, you know, you’re still right about YouTube university, because, you know, I’m part of the generation that grew up with YouTube. So I learned to Google stuff and to do my own research and go down different rabbit holes, but some things, you just have to go talk to somebody who understands and who can diagnose specifically what you need in your situation, depending on your state, your income, your existing liabilities or assets and so on and so forth. Because, for example, I don’t know if you knew this, but for many, many years, I suffered from back pain, and I’ve had this problem for like, a long time, to a point where at some, at some point, I couldn’t walk, I had to stay on bed leave, and I couldn’t really get up. I mean, just everything was difficult to do. And I was pretty young at the time. I was thinking, like, something like 25 at the time. So for many, many years, I took on the habit of, you know, just researching, you know, reading books, going to YouTube University, watching different channels of different chiropractors, showing different stretches you need to do. But, you know, like, if there was only one good expert who knew what they were doing, because, just so it happens that I also spend a lot of time and a lot of money going and talking to experts who really didn’t know what they were doing, like either they just didn’t care so they didn’t diagnose me correctly, or they just, you know, knew one like way to fix things, and it just didn’t apply to me. 

Igor  33:02  

But it was only when I finally got to sit down with a good expert who ran a bunch of tests on me and really looked into what’s causing the pain, etc, and was able to diagnose the situation and tell me that the issue was in my glute muscles. They were way too weak. My hip flexor muscles were way too weak. You know, I was able to go and fix that, but I probably still be going down different rabbit holes if I didn’t meet that particular guy who was able to diagnose me. So I can relate when you’re saying that people start going on YouTube and all the other sites, and they start following advice it doesn’t really apply to them, and that’s bad, alright? Well, let’s, let’s shift gears a little bit. 

Tommy 34:00

I want to add one thing that’s something that’s similar to what we so a lot of people will ask me, Tommy, how do I know if I have an accountant that’s truly helping me and your example, just barely, you were obviously going to back specialists, but you would have never gone to a brain surgeon for your back certain for your back problem, right? And there’s different specialties in every industry. And we work with a lot of online businesses. We work with a lot of real estate investors, a lot of consultants and how many, how many returns is your accountant filing for the type of business that you are doing? To your point, they’ve got to care. They’ve got to want to help you. 

I would pay $10,000 for tax returns, $100,000 for tax returns, if it means I’m getting a 5, 10, 20x multiple on a return. That’s a good business decision for me, but having someone that cares about you, having someone that you relate with and you can emotionally talk to, I think that goes a really long way as well in being able to trust and build a long term relationship. So I just wanted to add that I’m happy that you said that. I hope your back’s feeling better.

Igor  35:06  

Yeah, it’s much better. Now I’m even back to playing football, which is great, nice. So I’m like, back to being active, and that feels amazing. You know, it feels like I regained my freedom again. I want to shift gears, and I want to talk about credit. So one thing when seven years ago I came to Canada, and I brought in with me some cash, and I went to the bank, and I was like, can you guys give me a credit card? They’re like, Ah. I was like, What do you mean? Look at my bank balance, plenty of money there. They’re like, No, but you don’t have credit. It’s like, credit. I’m sorry, that’s what I need the credit card for. I need the credit there’s like, no, no. You need, like, a credit score. It’s like, unless you’re looking into that, and all of a sudden there’s this thing called credit score. You have to build it over time. And it was like, a whole thing, which, of course, I mean, governs, like, a big part of your life here in the West, because that’s how you get the mortgage, that’s how you get your credit cards. That’s how you get a good, you know, low interest on your car payment and a bunch of other stuff in between.

Igor 36:10  

And so what I that was hard enough, but then I ran into the challenge of getting and building up credit for my business, because, you know, I came here and already had a big operational business that I built out of Israel, and so now I needed to kind of transition and shift paperwork, and, you know, kind of have it set up over here. And, you know, I had like, a $20,000 credit card bill, just for software and the bank was like, well, we can give your business a credit card, but it’s going to be a $500 per month credit card. I was like, Dude, that’s not even going to cover my, you know, my Infusionsoft bill. What are you talking about? So as far as I know, when you do it right, when you set up your entity, right, when you do it early, you can start it can really tremendously help with your credit, personal and business. So can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Tommy 36:59

Yeah, having no credit truly is worse than having bad credit, and it’s such a crazy dynamic on the personal side, at least US based. This goes back to creating the identity and separating your personal and your business, right? So you have a legal name, you have a social security number or an ITIN and you have a personal FICO credit score. And with the US specifically, they start judging you off that credit history right off the bat. You get a credit loan, a car loan, a student loan, a credit card, and your score constantly is changing.

On the business side, you can do the same thing. So we want to make sure you have a legitimate business name. We want to make sure you have an EIN or an employer identification number that’s like the social security number for your business. You can also build what’s called a paydex score. It’s P-a-y, D-e-x, and it ranges from 1 to 100

so the way that you build up this credit profile is you get a couple of those starter accounts. That’s like $500 a month, right? And we’ve got a list of all of these that we help our clients with. But you gotta start somewhere. You had to get that $500 card to prove that you’re good for paying back the debts. Making money and paying back debts, two different things, making money and saving money in taxes, two different things. And banks are a business. I cannot say that enough. They are very calculated businesses. They don’t care about us. They care about their interest, and they want to get their payments. So you’re using them as a business partner by building up the credit and having additional credit opportunities, I have never met an entrepreneur that says, Tommy, I wish I had less money.

Tommy  39:11  

She had to happen, right? So I think the beauty of business credit, and the importance is you can start to build it from the very beginning, even before you’re making money one year, five year, 10 years down the road. I don’t know what it’s going to help you with, but what if you have an opportunity for a marketing spend? What if you need new software? What if? What if? What if having additional funding options, having more capital has never hurt business owners, because it’s easier to scale and grow, it’s easier to help more people, or it’s easier to do things that you want to do. So that is one of the things that we do, is help them go through starter accounts, get actual credit cards.

Eventually, put them in a spot to get lines of credit, and it’s all with the goal of being able to generate more revenue. So I’ve got stories for days on what to do and what not to do with business credit, but the bottom line is, give yourself those additional funding options long term.

Igor  40:18  

Yeah. Okay. Now, Tommy, we are coming up on time. Unfortunately, I know there’s a lot more to unpack, so I want to spend a few minutes talking about prime and specifically how you know, how can one benefit from working with primecorporateservices.com and or even just doing like a consult that you guys offer. Now, we do have a special link that allows you guys to claim a free consult with primecorporateservices.com. So if you want to ask questions about whether or not you should form an entity, how to deal with your taxes, or maybe you just want to go ahead and form an entity of some kind, just don’t know which one if you want to help with your business credit and everything between everything we’ve talked about today, then you can head over to igor.top/prime, and on that page you’ll be able to book a call. It’s a free, no obligation call that you can talk to their team about your taxes, your entity, your estate planning, your you know, asset protection and all the different things that you know. To be honest, you really want to be talking to somebody who understands it and who knows it. So, Tommy, can you talk a little bit more about sort of people in businesses you help and what? What do you do for people? 

Tommy 41:45

Yeah, for sure. So as, as I mentioned earlier, I mean, prime corporate. We’ve been in business now. We were established in 2012 we’re coming up on our 13 year anniversary, and we have helped set up over 150,000 businesses. Now I share that with you, because when we have a relationship like this, like we do with Igor, our goal is to provide value to you.

Tommy  42:04  

I am a long term type of person. I just I want to be able to help, and I never want to forget that. It goes back to my mama saying, treat people the way you want to be treated. So with that free consultation, I think it’s crazy not to take advantage of it, right? Now, obviously, we’re a company, and we have services, and being very, very transparent, transparent, those services have a cost, but the reason that I still offer the free consultation is because I believe in my heart, if we can provide you value, if We can help you understand the proper business entity. You’re going to need it if you want to build business credit, which you’re crazy not to. We’re going to help you with it. At that point, you’re going to need to file your taxes, and we hope we’ve built enough trust to earn that business now you’ve built a legacy. Let’s protect it in the form of estate planning. So my piece of advice to you would be schedule that call, and when you have the one on one call,

Tommy  43:07  

that advisor that you are going to speak with is going to do what they can to help you, but what you give them is crucial. If you’re brand new, let us know you’re brand new. If you’re like Igor, and you’ve been in business for a long time and you’re making a lot of money. Don’t go into that call to test that person, because they’re going to bore you half to death assuming that you’re newer. So are you brand new? Have you been in business a long time? What type of business do you have currently? What are your goals going to be for the future? They’ll ask these questions, but the more honest that you could tell them the answers, the more value that you’ll get out of that free call. So once again, I hope that we can earn your business. I hope we can build your trust. I hope that this was helpful for everybody, but if you can set up your business the right way, build business credit, keep more money in your corner from a tax standpoint, and protect the legacy to give it to your friends, family and loved ones. The sky’s the limit plan, profit, protect it is not what you make, it’s what you keep. And we’re here to help. We’re here to serve.

Igor  44:14  

So guys, the link is igor.top/prime again, it’s a private link that was set up specifically for my listeners and friends and customers. You can go and claim a free consult. There’s no obligation. Just talk, you know, talk to them, ask questions. All advisors are trained and professional CPAs, so you’ll be talking to an expert. Now, one thing I want to specify is that this is, if you’re an existing business owner who’s already making money, then it’s a no brainer for you to go and talk to them, because they can show you how to save money, and even if they show you how to save only, and I really see only in, you know, in quotes, only 5% 7% or 10% you know, even if you’re only making 50 grand a year or 70 grand a year, that’s enough money to pay for a nice vacation that you can take, right? It’s enough money to go buy your spouse a nice gift, or take your family out, or just put it away for a rainy day fund, which is what I would do be because, you know, I believe the rainy day is coming. 

That’s how I was brought up. But if you’re brand new, literally brand new. You just started out online less than few months ago, still not making money, but you’re already invested in some programs, maybe even invest in some of my programs. You’re buying some kind of software. If you’re building a list, you’re probably paying for email sending tool, maybe a tracking tool. So all that stuff might not be a lot of money, but you’re still paying for it. Then all of this, you can write it off, which will have an effect on your tax bill in a good, meaningful way. 

In addition, besides that, of course, you’ll be able to start building your business credit, which I think is another important point that a lot of people miss, because sooner or later, you might need funding. I don’t know what for. Maybe you’ll have a project you want to do. Maybe there’s a startup idea you have. Maybe you’re launching an AI software. Maybe you’re going to be working with somebody. Maybe there’s going to be a seminar that you’re going to go to, like a Tony Robbins event or something, and then, but you didn’t, don’t have the money right away you need, like, some cash or some credit, whatever the case may be, you can never go wrong living in America or the West and having good credit just doesn’t make any sense. You should always have good credit so you can start building your business credit, not only your personal credit. And I think that’s a big benefit that’s worth exploring because as somebody who just seven years ago had no credit history, because it just arrived in Canada, it’s difficult. It’s really hard when you when you have either bad credit or worse, no credit at all. 

Igor  46:59  

So again, the link is igor.top/prime. The link is available to you, it doesn’t expire, so just write it down somewhere, save it, bookmark it, and then go talk to the folks at primecorporateservices.com. I trust them. They are professionals. They’re hardcore. I vetted them for two years. Many of my online friends who’ve got their own like courses and platforms and communities, recommend them highly and send their people to prime I don’t know any other company who offers this service who is recommended so consistently across the whole industry. So you’re going to be talking to real experts who actually give a damn about you, know you as a human being. Okay, so, Tommy, we’re literally out of time. So one last question, if you can go back in time 13 years and talk to your old self, what would be the one piece of advice you would give yourself? 

Tommy 47:43

My one piece of advice is what I live off of day to day in my business right now, and that is tweak, test and track. I think that a lot of people, myself included, get the shiny object syndrome, and you’re chasing every penny every which way. The main thing keep it, the main thing in your relationships, in your business, tweak. There’s not major changes, there’s tweaks, and then you do it, you test it, and then you track the results. If I did that more consistently 13 years ago. I think that I would have been able to expedite the success that we’ve had a whole lot sooner. So I that’s a really good question. I like that a lot.

Igor  48:32  

Awesome. Awesome. Noted. Thank you, um, guys, so there you go. This was Tommy Thornburg from Prime, Corporate Services. If you want to explore working with prime, or maybe you just have some questions about taxes and whatnot and liabilities and estate planning, etc, then by all means, head over to igor.top/prime, take advantage of the free, no obligation consultation call that they’re offering specifically to my friends and customers and listeners, of course. So yeah, I’ve had a good time, actually surprising. We spoke about taxes, and I had a good time. Thank you for taking the time to do this, and until next time we’ll chat. Have a good one. 

Thank you for listening to the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to the previous episodes, transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content atlistbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my best selling book at www.igorsbook.com it explains how I made millions with list buildings starting from scratch, plus I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com now to claim your free package.