March 14, 2026 • 52 mins
Lynn Woolley welcomes Kristine Stevenson of Proverbs 16:15 LLC to discuss the Internal Revenue Service, how it operates and what to do when you owe money to Uncle Sam. Kristine is a personal and small business financial coach who specializes in cases involving the IRS. How do you get out of trouble (or stay out of trouble) with the agency, and what about people who haven’t filed a tax return in years? We’ll also discuss the right and wrong ways to use credit cards, and when to avoid taking out a student loan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Planet Logic. I'm Lynn Woolley, the podcast pilot here,
so to speak, and my guest today is Christine Stevenson.
She's an author, personal and small business finance coach. We're
going to talk a little bit about the IRS today
and some of the things you may be doing right
or wrong in your personal finance. Today's episode how to
avoid trouble with the IRS, because that's our main thrust today. Christine,
(00:24):
Welcome to Planet Logic.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thank you, Lynn. Great to be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So glad to have you. You know, three little letters
that appear in everybody's life is IRS, the Internal Revenue Service.
And it's always interesting when you get up in close
to April and people start dealing with this. How many
people end up having some kind of a major problem
with the IRS that is so difficult that they have
(00:50):
to call in an expert.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Oh, I would literally say thousands, if not tens of thousands,
which is really unfortunate. Part of that's due to the
complexity and craziness of the tax code, but thousands easily
every year and for many years have problems with the IRS.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, what do they do wrong?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, sometimes it's not what they do wrong. It's what
the IRS does wrong, their interpretation of something on a
tax return, or they just screw up the processing of
a return or information, and now the person is caught
and they know that there's something wrong with the IRS
and they're trying to figure it out. So sometimes it's
(01:30):
the person, sometimes it's the IRS.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Here's what I want to know. If it's a problem
you said, sometimes the IRS interprets things wrong. But that
problem that the IRS interpreted wrong then becomes your problem.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It becomes your problem, right, and it's super hard to
deal with anyone in the government to get a problem fixed.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, let's say I've got a problem and I don't
want to call an expert such as yourself, so I
just pick up the phone. I call the IRS helpline.
Is that going to do me any good? Hmm?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Depends on what the problem is. But in most instances, no,
it's not. Because eight hundred and eight two nine, ten
forty is you know, someone.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I don't even know my own phone number.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Is someone that you know they're following an internal revenue
manual script And if it goes outside the script, well
let me transfer you to that other department. And I'm
sure they can.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Help you, then an AI would be almost as well.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
They are going to some AI. They have implemented that
already in some in some departments.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
You know, it's interesting, and I'll throw out just my
own thoughts about the Internal Revenue Service. I know we
have to have a way to run the country, and
I know that what was it that was it the
thirteenth Amendment? I believe to the Constitution that gave us
the IRS an income tax or income tax which led
to the IRS. The New York Times editorialized at that time,
(02:48):
The New York Times, of course, a paper of record,
wasn't what we have now right New York Times, but
the Gray Old Lady editorialized that once the government gets
its hand in your pocket, that hand will never come.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's pretty much.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Is it true? Because I've heard Donald Trump say this,
Is it true that we ran the country with tariffs?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Initially? Yes, I think way back in the in the twenties,
tariffs is what funded a lot of government. I mean,
I don't know the history and the research well enough
to definitively say yes, but that is my understanding, and
he would like to.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
See that work today. I don't know if it can
what do we have in the country about three hundred
and forty million people people ish and take away the kids. Yes,
And I suppose do the homeless file tax returns?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, some of them do, and some of them file
multiple times? Wow, but for refunds, helping for refunds, and
there's always scammers and things like that. But yeah, there's
a lot of people that have little to no income
that do file. And whether they're technically homeless, I mean,
if they're really homeless out on the streets, they're not filing.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
All right. You and I were talking as a little
pre call friends wish always do before a podcast, and
I was lamenting my ignorance of the of how to
even use turbo tax or one of the programs. Yeah,
I mean you've got all this stuff like depreciation, what's deductible,
what isn't, what's part Yes? Uh, why is it so
(04:20):
necessary for the income tax code to be so complicated?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well my opinion, and no one asked for my opinion.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But it's well, now, hold on, that's not true. I
just ask for it.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It's too it is too complicated, it's been it's been
made too complicated. I was all about a flat tax myself,
I think that is quote. If you want to talk
about fair, I think a flat tax is a better
idea and more fair. But it is too complicated, and
it's become a whole industry. And there's lots of you know,
(04:54):
tax professionals out there preparing returns, and we've this whole
industry has has come up because it it is too complicated.
We don't have a tax problem in this country. We
have a spending problem in this country. And that's why
the code has gotten more complicated in part in my opinion,
and all the people that have to be hired to
file this document.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
To sign with this something I've learned writing columns for
WB Daily, which is our sister website to Planet Logic
dot us. If you want to list on a piece
of paper the national debt, Oh, we're pushing forty so
you're right.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Down there, number trillion or something.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yes, yeah, we're at thirty eight. Now are thirty nine? Okay,
but you would put that number down is say thirty eight.
You write the number thirty eight and then twelve zero zeros. Yeah,
that is just unbelievable that that's just not even comprehensible
to both people.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, yeah, and I mean, I mean, I can look
at a number and I don't have any grasp of
what it is. You know, how high would you have
to stack the dollar bills, you know, to equal thirty.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Eight trus It would probably be past the moon maybe so.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But and again I'm no policy expert or anything like that.
But you know the tariffs that Trump has, you know,
brought back. There he not to you know, get into
politics and whatnot. He's very clever, and I think there's
an end game he has in mind with part of
why he's bringing back tariffs. That's a lot of money
(06:18):
that comes in with tariffs. So what is that money
going to be used for? Could it be used to
maybe pay down some of this debt? I don't know
that's a possibility. I'm not a big deep thinker on that.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
But well I've thought about that too. You know, there's
a couple of things just in my own life that
I have always realized. I can pay down my own debt,
which now is nonexistent.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I don't have any Yes, that's a good place.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
To be other than having loan to friend some money.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yes, And that's that's a nominal.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
That's nominal. But not only do you have to pay
down debt, but you have to stop spending so that
the debt doesn't continue to balloon. Correct, And that's in
your personal life as well as the life of the country. Absolutely,
we could talk about this, but I want to go
more into the IRS first. But you know, this is
(07:16):
what Trump's problem is. It's what Speaker Johnson's problem is.
What do we cut because somebody screams and hollars and
yells at the Congress if they cut a penny from anything.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Right, and too bad. We couldn't cut just a penny.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You're talking about the penny thing, penny plan. Yeah, the
penny plan would be great. I'd like to see us
do the Nickel plan. You're talking about very small amounts
of money, but multiplied over three hundred and forty million peace.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It's a lot of money. It's the political will to
do something or not. I think that's what it comes
down to with a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
All right, I want to ask you this, what is
the number one problem that people have when they come
to you and say, Christine, I'm getting nasty letters from
the IRS. What typically is it?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Well, for most people, actually they've ignored a series of
letters from the IRS, and they finally get this final
notice that says we're going to levy you, which means
freeze your for most people, freeze the bank accounts, or
we're going to put a lean on your house, and
that becomes hugely problematic, and that gets most people's attention.
(08:27):
And so the problem is pretty much one of two things.
They've filed tax returns, which is great, so they're in
compliance with that, but they haven't paid the tax that's due,
or they've not filed tax returns, and the IRS has
finally caught up with them, and they got this letter
that says, hey, you need to pay US fifty thousand
dollars for this particular tax year. They didn't file returns.
(08:50):
They certainly didn't pay any tax, but the IRS has
caught up with them.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, and how do you help them?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So there's a process, of course, as in many things,
the very first thing is analyzing what's gone on, and
that's done through a power of attorney or what's called
a taxpayer Information authorization. I have to get into their
IRS account, so they give me permission to do that
on a form and I send it to the IRS.
Now I can download tremendous amounts of information in someone's
(09:17):
IRS account, and I can look at it and see
what the IRS perspective is. What does the IRS say
is going on? May or may not be accurate, may
or may not be true. But I have to start there.
And so that's the process. Analyze the account. And then
over on the side, I'm doing another thing, and people
are giving me their personal household budget information. What do
(09:38):
they pay for rent or mortgage, come to spend on groceries,
what's your light bill? You have life insurance, you got
to pay on your term life You know what's going
on in your financial life. I have to have that
in order to know is there going to be any
money to pay the IRS? And so then I have
to figure out what's going on with the IRS and
work a deal.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
All right, I've always wondered, you go through all this,
you do all these things, and let's say that you
discover that instead of owing the IRS ten thousand dollars,
the person only owes the IRS seven thousand dollars. Yes,
and the person doesn't have seven thousand dollars, and yet
the IRS bill for the next year is already already coming,
(10:16):
already forming.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
What do they do?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
What they do.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That's a great question. I was just talking to this
yesterday with someone. It's called what I have termed the
Bermuda triangle of the irs, and I see this. It's
very very common. They owe will say the IRS says they, oh,
ten thousand, but really at seven? Okay, Well we're gon
We're gonna focus on the seven and that's what we're
going to deal with. And then we also have to
(10:42):
figure out, Okay, the current year tax return is due too,
and you might know some tax on that, and oh,
by the way, the new year has started, and now
what are you going to do with your paychecks? Or
if you're self employed, how are you going to figure
out how to pay the current year tax? And so
what we do is we always start with, let's look
at what's going on most currently. Let's get solid with
(11:04):
the current you're twenty twenty six, and then we can
figure out a plan for twenty five and maybe all
those other prior years. We'll figure out how to deal
with the seven thousand. And I'm gathering all this information
to figure out how to deal with it while coaching them.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And the personal is this like the country, if we
really wanting to pay off the national debt. Step one
would be to start making payments, but step two would
be we got to keep built. We've got to stop
building it.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yes, cascading out, I've got.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
To figure out what are we doing it? Yes, that
we cannot do. I want to ask you that I'm
obsessive with mostly guitars. I would like to have fifty
of them, but I only own three, and I'm thinking
there's room for at least a couple more in my life.
But you know, the ones I have are really nice.
(11:55):
I don't need anymore. What do you find most people
spend money on that increases their debt, and that eventually
that's where the money's going that they could be using
to pay their taxes.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Americans love to eat out. We spend so much money
eating out, and a lot of us do it with
credit cards. So we're financing McDonald's. You know, the kid's
soccer game is done, everyone piles in the van or
the suv. Hey, let's go to McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I want to ask you this, how much do you
see in your career? How much interest? Oh are the
average customers of yours paying to say visa or Chase
card or City card or whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Over over the course of many years. It's ten it's
tens of thousands of dollars at what twenty one percent
nineteen twenty. Yeah, it's pretty high. And when and people
don't necessarily realize the totality of how much interest they
have paid. I will go through that exercise with some
of my clients, not necessarily people with IRS issues, but
(13:04):
in my coaching, and let's let's get out the bank statements.
Let's add up how much interest you've paid. And most
people are sick to their stomachs when they realize how
much interest they've paid to the banks. And banks are smart.
They spend billions on marketing every year to get their
credit card in your hand.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I'm going to give you a personal experience and tell
you something that's happened and something that has surprised me.
I can't remember what happened, but somebody hacked my cell
phone and was using my phone number. Well, my phone
number is kind of out there, I mean, you know,
it's not hard to find. And so I went to
(13:46):
a couple of it friends I work with, one certainly
at the radio station where I work, and he said, well,
why don't you just do a temporary freeze on your
credit reports, and you'll be oh, yes, okay, Yes. So
I joined Experience, TransUnion.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
EFax, and Equifax, and this.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Is really not as hard as I thought it was
going to be. You just make yourself an account and
then I went in and I just freeze my credit
reports and so that's fine. The weird thing about a
month after I did that, I started getting regular emails
from all three of the credit unions saying, Lynn, you're
(14:26):
eight hundred and fifty credit rating. You can get this
credit card. You can get this credit card, and you're
eligible for it. Not a day goes by. Congratulations, Lin,
you can get this new credit I don't want a
new credit card, no, But so they actually encourage you, yes,
to do that. Yes.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I mean you go on any airplane ride that's you know,
two hours or more, and the flight attendants are walking
down the aisle. Oh yeah, yeah, here's and it's a
deal because you get an extra five or ten thousand
frequent flyer miles if you use today's deal on this one.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, I'm susceptible to that. I'd say six months ago,
maybe a little more. Sam's Club get a big promotion.
Yes they did, and it was five percent. Now I
looked at it, I had I had two credit cards
only for the reason that if I'm on a trip
and for something happens and one of my credit cards
gets locked, I would have a second one. Sure, And
(15:23):
I thought five percent doesn't sound bad. So I got one. Okay,
So I got a Sam's credit card, and about once
a month, I'll go to Sam's with a basket day
of groceries. That's one hundred and twenty bucks yep, and
it will pop up on the screen. Would you like
to use forty dollars in Sam's cash? And I will
(15:45):
do that. Would you like to guess how much interest
I've paid on that card?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, knowing you, my guess is very little.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
You would be wrong. I know the answer is zero.
I cannot remember. I have a Chase card, I have
a City card, and I have a Sam's card. I
can't remember. I can't remember ever paying any interest. I
paid the Sam's card off.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
See, and you are the exception to the rule. For
most people, no one gets a credit card with Oh wow,
I can't wait to make minimum payments on my things
that I'm buying.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
That's the way it works out.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
But that's the reality of it, because you know, we're
swiping the credit cards, you know, and we're not really tracking,
not really. Oh I think I have enough, and then
the bill comes like, oh my gosh, I spent this much.
I can't pay this all off. Oh, I'll just make
the minimum payment this month. Next month, I'll pay the
rest off. And this is the behavior next month and
the next month, same cycle. It's an endless cycle. And
(16:40):
people rack up, you know, six figure credit card debt,
and then I've seen that and it's paid.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
If you like the idea of the person who has
a Dillard's card and a Sam's card and a Chase
card and a City card and a what are some
of these things the ladies buy online?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I don't know. I don't buy online very much, but
are you?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And let's say all of those cards, each one of
them has five to ten thousand dollars on it. Is
it a good idea to go to your bank and
try to get a five percent consolidation.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Loanly well on paper? Yes, because the math will you know,
work in your favorite Oh, get a loan. You're talking
about debt consolidation. Go get a loan, pay this all off.
That works for about half a minute.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
For most people, you're saying, because they keep loading up the.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Car, because they keep loading up the card.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
It's not if they stop loading up the cards, yes.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And that's the behavior, then it would work if you
could cut up those cards. And a lot of people
are very reluctant to cut up the credit card because
I want to use it in case there's an emergency.
And this is kind of what we talked about this.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I had a friend in Dallas when I worked it
their years ago, Brett Lewis his name, and Brett was
a sports guy. Ended up doing sports on k NBC
in Los Angeles, so he was pretty good at what
he did. And Brett didn't have any credit cards. And
Brett was buying Krueger ends go Kruegers back in the day.
(18:17):
This is my first experience with somebody actually trying to
buy something for future use, you know. And he was
such a good guy. But he came in one day
and he was all upset, and I said, what's the problem.
He says, I'll have to fly out to the Cowboys
training camp. And he says I can't And I said
why not? He says, because I can't get an airplane
ticket or a rent car because I don't have a
(18:39):
credit card. Yes.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yes, The industry, our world, the way we live revolves
around oh, you got to have that credit if I
go to enterprise, yeah, car rental. It's pretty hard to
use a debit card and I don't have a credit card,
it's not impossible.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What if I want to pay with good old, hardcold cash.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Some places are eliminating cash, restaurants eliminating that. I disagree.
I think we should keep the cash going. And there's
all sorts of theories about money and cash.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And but it's backed by the full faith and credit
of the United States government, not like a silver certificate right,
which was backed by.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Gold way back when. So you can live your life
without a credit card. You can use just a debit card.
Sometimes you have to be more particular and how you're
going about doing that. And again, credit cards aren't bad.
They're a more tool, their tool, like any other tool
in your tool belt.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
They do two things for me. They're very convenient, yep,
and I don't have to carry a lot of cash.
There you go, and number two iron points with you.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yes, And so again you are the exception to the rule.
No one ever got rich off of points or frequent
flyer miles or anything like that, and those aren't bad things,
but the statistics tell you you are likely to spend
much more with a credit card than if you are
paying with cash.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I want to tell you something I did. Dave Ramsey
would he'd be rolling, he'd be rolling, he'd be rolling
on the floor, and we'll we need to talk about
our Dave Ramsey encounter. But I had a situation two
years ago. I'm driving off the parking lot at the
radio station. It's terribly foggy day light and missed and
(20:24):
you can't see it foot in front of you, and
there were a set number of cars illegally parked because
a lot of kids from Westwood.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
The west Lake, the High school down there.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Parked along the street. You couldn't see anything. And I
eased out into the street and got hit.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's a busy street.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Got hit by another car and it damaged hers. She
was a student at the school. Total to mine, all right,
So here's what happened. That's so funny, and I just
want to see what you think about it. I got
eight thousan dollars from the insurance company and I decided
that I was going to buy a cheap used car, okay,
(21:07):
all right? And so I looked around and somebody at
the enterprise place where I'd gotten my rent car through
insurance said, it's too bad that there's not an enterprise
lot here in Temple, Texas where I live, where you
and I live, and we take pretty nice cars out
(21:29):
of service and then we sell them. And I said,
oh really, I said, well, where's the nearest one, she
says Austin. I said, well, that should not be a problem.
So I actually drove over there in my rent car,
and I looked around at I wanted I love Malibus,
and I wanted another Malibu. And I drove a couple
of Toyotas and other things, and decided I wanted a Malibu.
(21:50):
And they had one fairly low mileage when it was
a really nice condition, and I committed to buy it.
So I had the eight thousand, and I can't remember
what happened, but I ended up needing another fourteen or
fifteen thousand dollars, okay, And so I pulled out a
check book. Oh and the guy looked at me, how lovely?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Well, he said, we don't take checks.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Scrooge make duck here. Yes, he said, you know you
can charge this if you want sure? And I said,
charge at how? He says, on your credit card? I said, wait,
you're saying I can buy this car on my visa
or master card.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
He's had enough debt limit?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Sure, Well, I have ten thousand on one and five
on another and ten on another. So he said yeah,
and I said, what's the up charge? He said, there's
no up charge. I said, okay, I want to make
sure I understand what you're saying. I can buy this
car on my credit cards and it's not going to
(22:53):
cost me an extra cent. And he said he said, nope,
won't cost you an extra cent. I said, we'll put
one thousand on this and put the rest on this.
I waited two weeks and I paid them both.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Off, turned around, paid on.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And I got a lot of points.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yes, yes, yes, that yeah, And again you're the exception
to the rule. You had the discipline, you had the money,
you knew how to plan, you were going to do this,
So in that instance it worked out fine for you.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Well, the car that I totaled I had purchased new
in twenty sixteen, and I had purchased it.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
New and you only got eight thousand.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I might have gotten No, you know what I think.
I think I did get more than that.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I wouldn't lose that much.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
No, this has been a long time ago. Okay, it
was more than that. But they asked me. It was
pretty funny that at the dealership he says, well, all right,
so you're going to buy the car, let me go
check your credit rating. He comes back and says, anything else?
Something that? Right?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
What else you like to buy? Exactly? Yes, I'm sure
you were.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Having a good credit rating is a nice thing. It
is a nice thing thing, and I like to protect it.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yes, And a lot of people will I want to
interrupt you REQUI but a lot of people that I
come to me that I work with, their credit rating
becomes like their identity. They put so much stock. Oh
my credit score is only six hundred and fifty, and
that's like, oh man, you are not your credit score.
There's so much more than this is true.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
So much is true. And I don't worry about mine, right,
I just I just live life the way that I
was brought up to do. My father was a dead
hawkyep and reading Uncle Scrooge comics is.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
How that you were set on an early path and
you you know.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I've never liked to have debt. And then there was
another thing I was going to tell you.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I have a great enterprise car story to tell.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
When I bought the first Malibu in twenty sixteen or seventeen,
and after the credit check, he says, what company would
you like to finance it through? And I gave him
an answer he had never had before, and he didn't
understand it. And I said I don't care. And he said, well,
(25:13):
we can do a bunch and I said, I'll use
my bank. He said, is there an interest rate target?
I said no, I don't care what the interest rate is.
He said, you're weird.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
You're weird, right, Yes, yes, So.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I got this thick coupon buck.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I mean, yes, back in the days.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yes, big thick coupon buck. And I paid it off online.
I bought the car in November and I made one
payment of what four sixteen something like that. My second
payment was ten thousand, okay, and my third payment was
whatever was left. And I called the guy in February
(25:50):
and I said, the car's paid for it. That's why
I didn't that's why yes.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
And some dealers, some dealers will actually give you a
slightly better rate. I've been told this. If you finance
the car, they'll give you a slightly better interest rate
versus paying out.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Well, they would prefer you to do it through finance.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
They're through their GMAILTM or four or whatever. They're making
a they're making a proble right now.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
What is the second biggest problem people have.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
With the I R s with the irs? The well, so,
lack of tax returns?
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Oh, my gosh, that's a great one. So do people
come to you and say I'm having a problem with
the IRS, and you say, what is it? Well, I
haven't filed a return four years?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Oh, four years? Four years would be easy.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
I've had people, are you serious?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Very much?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
So.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I've had people come to me. They haven't filed in
twenty years literally modern times, last year. No, let's say
twenty six, Chris years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
How are they not in jail?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It is they? Well, I don't know, but they are
what is considered an egregious non filer. Technically, the criminal
Investigation Unit would be pursuing them because they haven't filed
their tax returns. You don't go to jail for not
paying tax. You go to jail potentially for not filing
your tax return. And every year, if you look in
the big statistics books that's printed, there's usually maybe one
(27:13):
hundred two, one hundred and fifty people that you know
are in really bad spots, and maybe twenty might actually
go to jail. So that's you know, it's a very
small number. But the biggest issue. You know, they come
to me twenty years of no filing. They've just got
they've skated, they fell off the IRIS radar, and they
haven't come back up. And a lot of those cases
I won't I won't work with them because I don't
(27:36):
want to be on the hook. Potentially, if I have
power of attorney now I represent them, I could be
on the hook how.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Many people after they come to you? And then there's
a lot of people that do what you do. In fact,
there's huge national companies that.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Have Yes, there's very few people that do the representation
work that I do well.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I was going to say if I were to go
to and I'm not going to name the companies, I
don't want to get in trouble with anybody, but there's
at least two or three that advertise on the radio regularly.
I would assume that your attention to detail on a
person to person basis is probably a little bit higher.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
There's no comparison, because when you call the bigger companies,
you're getting the guy or gal, the sales rep that
wants to make the sale, and it's very impersonal and
they're just you know, taking down the information and you know,
we'll start you off and we'll do this and that
and the other. They promise them the sun, the moon,
and the stars. They get their eight or ten or
twelve thousand dollars and then I have a lot of
(28:39):
people to come to me that have done just that
and it just ends up in this black hole.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Before we go any further, I want to get some
personal stuff here. You have a website.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I do Proverbs sixteen sixteen dot com.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Now you're going to make me look that up, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I'll give you the short version. You know, wisdom is
better than gold. In sight, it's better than silver.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
You know. It's funny. At the bottom of my website,
WB Daily stands for World Beat Daily. There's also a
Bible verse and I'm thinking it's from Proverbs, but I'd
have to actually look to see.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well. Proverbs is full of versus about money.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And it says you shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
And I know where why I know that one so well.
I used to walk by it several times a day
because that is carved in stone on the UT Tower.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yes, and the UT Tower has something biblical. Three They haven't,
you know, grind it out, grounded out of the stone yet.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Nope, nope. And I've been kind of proud of my
alma mater lately. They have done a lot of things
that are not far left and woke right.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
And they have hired a phenomenal new guy that runs
all the grounds now down there, and it's really improved.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Oh oh, I love the turtle. But that's another day,
all right. Now your website we've got, Yes, you have
a book. I do.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Actually, I literally get to say I wrote the book on.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
How to avoid free written book, and that the company
puts your name on it, like a lot of lawyers do.
I'm sorry, lawyers do that. And I won't name any names.
But I had a lawyer for and who did that,
And I found forty other lawyers who had written the
exact same book.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It's all my IP. What's in the book is it's
all available out anywhere you can go find it.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
But it's got.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Personal stories Amazon Barnes on Amazon Barnes and Noble. It's
an audiobook, it's professionally recorded. I recorded it. It's on
a lot of audiobook retailers. It's a kindle version as well.
But it's how to avoid trouble with the I R S.
And it's primarily for those that are the small business owner,
the self employed like you would be my target audience
for the book. Someone that has a side hustle of
gig and it's.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Just to do at least half of my income, has
no withholding. Yes, the music I play, I get paid.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
And you are responsible to make sure that gets.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
In all right, let me tell you something that I
did differently last year from the year before. I had
to write a big check. I don't know if I'll
have to write a big check this year. I don't
have return back yet from the professional that I hired. Yes, right,
last year, I made quarterly payments.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Excellent. Good. That will help you this year on.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Your text because that's you know, when I was thinking, gosh,
I don't want to make these quarterly payments. And then
I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, that's basically my withholding.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
It is and it's the law because we have a
pay as you go tax because they can charge me. Yes,
they will penalize you potentially if you don't pay tax
during the year. You'll get a bill. You'll get a letter,
not a bill, well, it is a bill. You'll get
a letter from the IRS. I can't remember the letter
number that says we are penalizing you for underpaying your
tax throughout the year. And it's not even about the
(31:58):
tax that's due. It's about the fact that you didn't
hey the tax during the year.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Well, there is that, all right? To put a bow
on the IRS? And I want to go into some
other issues. Yes, what have I not asked about dealing
with the IRS that I should have asked?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, I would say, if you get a letter from
the IRS, open it. I mean it sounds intuitive, but
you would be shocked. Wow, And how many people don't
open it? And they don't open that one, they don't
open the next one and five letters into it, which
is you know, maybe a year or two has gone by,
they get that big letter that oh we're going to
(32:35):
file a levey or lean on your property, open the letter,
open it.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Okay, all right, now let's have some fun. Yes, A
couple of years ago himself came to town. Dave Ramsey, Yes,
who has done what few people have been able to do.
He doesn't do politics on the radio. He doesn't do sports,
and those are the two categories that most talk show
hosts do. Dave, of course, is the guy who says
(33:03):
cash is king and dead is stupid. Did I get
that is dumb? Dead is dumb? Okay, Cash is king
and dead is dumb. I have always thought that. And
when I was sitting in a position at a radio
station in Austin Talk thirteen seventy where I do the
Cardle and Wooe show Monday through Friday from seven until ten,
Dave Ramsey was sitting apart from me, kind of like
(33:24):
you are now just to my right, and.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I've been in that hollowed studio you have.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Actually you have. It is quite impressive, is it not?
It is? And we're just you know, talking, because Dave
was in town for some promotions and we had dinner
with him that night. I won't say I had dinner
with him. Yeah, And Dave and me in about four hundred.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Of our best friends at friend dinner together.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
And he is a delightful guy. And I asked him
a question. Now, I have paid off my house. I
had not paid it off then, but I had enough
money to pay it off. Yes, So I said, Dave
a house, I said, I believe I owed ten fifteen
thousand dollars on it. And I said, I'm making payments
(34:10):
my interest rate And he looked at me and I said,
two point seventy five percent under three percent? Am I
wise to keep my money liquid? Or should I go
pay it pay it off? And he said, if you
don't go pay it off, you're an idiot.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yes, Yeah, that sounds like Dave is.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So what does Christine Stevenson say about that?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I would agree, uh, pay it off?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He had an interest rate was almost non existent.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yes, because unless you've actually experienced this paying off, like
owning your home, paying it off, the immense psychological value
and practical value of not having a house payment all
of a sudden, all that money is yours again, and
(34:58):
it's a It's a tremendous benefit to own your house
because nobody can take it from you. It's not going
to foreclose. If something untoward happens, you lose your job,
you know something terrible. Things happen to people all the time. Yeah,
and they don't have reserves enough to make the house payment.
Maybe they've got a month or two saved up. So
owning your home is a huge benefit in current times
(35:20):
and certainly as you go into the sunset years, no debt,
own your home, it's a great way to start.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And then we all went over to a mega church
in Georgetown where Dave was actually speaking. We had a table.
You came. It was fun.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
It was a lot of fun. I was a volunteer
at that event. And I actually had a client, a
couple from Waco. They were at that same event, and
they found me. I had been We didn't. We worked
to We had some free coaching young couple going to Baylor.
They were about to get married when I met them.
He was all day, she wasn't, and she kind of
came on board to his way of thinking, and they
(35:58):
paid off all their debt. They cash flowed through wedding.
They were like two or three into their two or
three years into their marriage and they found me and
they oh Christine, oh my gosh, so great to see you,
and they shared their story and we took a picture
and I actually wrote a little article on it for LinkedIn,
where I where I post a lot of things. But
it was a great little microcosm example of a success story.
There at a Dave conference.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Oh ye, Dave gave us all a really nice leather
bounds yes, tablet. I do.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I have a couple of those, Colonel, Colonel little.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
John or mine is on the shelf right behind where
you're sitting. Very beautiful. All right, well, let's let's talk
about some other things. I'm going to ask you a
three word question. Three.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Okay, I got the pen out. I'm writing this down.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
You'll think be able to remember it. Okay, what is money?
Speaker 2 (36:49):
What is money? Oh my gosh. Money is a means
to transact between two people. You have something I want,
and I'm going to give you money for the thing
that i want because this money has been deemed to
have some value.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I have a piece of gold or a piece of silver.
Is that money?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
It is not money in the traditional sense of a
green paper dollar bill that we're looking at, but yes,
it's got value to it. We have assigned value to it.
So that's money.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
All right now. What is money going to be in twenty.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Years depends on who you talk to. It might be
all digital.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Well, okay, we don't make pennies anymore.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I know I've saved my pennies. I have a big
five ballon jar of pennies.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Look around the room.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I know, I know, I see something over there.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah, and now some places are having to go to
the nearest nickel, you know, to make change that sort
of thing. But it costs more than a nickel to make.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
A nickel, right, and a nickel isn't even nickel anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
No alloy, I guess, I guess I don't know. I'm not.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I'm not a metarologist wherever the word is people that
deal with metals and things.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yes, that's true. I'm not either, Nor am I ma
newest summatist or whatever, which is a collector of coins.
But I do know that if I have a coin
higher than a nickel, that would be a dime, a
quarter of fifty cent piece, or a dollar a dollar
and it's got nineteen sixty four on.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It, yes, or earlier, I have some of those.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That's ninety percent silver, and that that dollar is probably
at silver dollar sixty four earlier is probably worth about
fifty bucks right now.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yes, I have a few John F. Kennedy ones.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
What do you think about silver, gold, platinum, precious metals.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I think they're fine, and they're particularly fine when they're
sitting on the ring finger designed with some other sparkly
jewel in them. I think those are great. I'm not
any expert, but I think those can be good investments.
I remember when I lived in New York, gold was
about three hundred dollars an ounce.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I think, wow, what is it now? Four thousand?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, it's you know, a bazillion times more than that.
So they're good investments. I think that you have to
know what you're doing with any investment, whether it's gold
and silver, or EFTs or your commodities. You've got to
understand what the thing is that you have.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I have one piece. I have one piece of advice,
and that is you see all these big gold and
silver companies advertising on television. Do you know what those
commercials cost?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, commercials aren't cheap.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Do you know what it costs to hire Martin gen
or somebody like that?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
It's at least a minimum five figure in.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Every city of size, certainly Austin, Temple, Waco. Any city
of size is going to have a local coin dealer. Yes,
find out if your city has one, and if the
person that is the proprietor is a honest is an honest,
trustworthy person. If so, buy your gold and silver locally,
(40:16):
you don't pay you you will pay far less yes
on the up charge for the silver, yes, which is
called the premium. Yes, you will pay far less on
the premium. And you will pay no shipping charges.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yes, I can, and you will.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Get better service because you can walk in and.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
And that's true with a lot of things by local.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, it's just I laugh when I see these commercials.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
On the marketing works. That's why it's.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Out there, because you know, I buy from such and
such gold company because I trust them.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Well, well yeah, because you're getting paid to read the script.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I trust Troy Emmelson, who has a place called Emmeilson's
Coin Shop over across from the courthouse in Belton. He's
a great guy. He's as honest as the day is long.
And I walk in sometimes and say what's my best
deal today? Yeah, and he'll say, buy some junk silver today.
You know that's a better deal. Than buying a point
nine nine nine, which is your nearest pure silver you
(41:13):
can get.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
And I'm going to just dial this back because you
asked about, you know, some of these bigger companies that
do this same type of work that I do. I'm
I'm like the local gold guy. You know. You come
to me and your service is going to be excellent.
And I have a long list of testimonial and personal
and personal and you literally are, especially if you're local.
(41:34):
Sitting across the table for me, I have clients all
over the country, but I'm the small business, that local
person versus the big, the big one out well, I've been.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
A believer in precious metals for a long time. I
don't have any gold, but I have a lot of silver.
And the reason for that is that, let's say you
your budget for the week is two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay,
you can come out with a little bit of silver,
or at least you could a few months ago. You
can't buy a gold cow. You cannot buy a gold
coin for that right, certainly, not an.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Ounce and right. And I will say this because a
lot of people do like to hedge their future bets
buying by buying gold and silver coins. But if the
you know, zombie apocalypse comes, one of the things that
I tell people is, well, you can't eat your gold
and silver coins. You might be able to trade them
(42:25):
with someone for chickens or a cow.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Well the answer to that is, ammo.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yes, there's many skills of thought. Have a lot of bullets,
have a lot of bullets, yet we have a but.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's that's called I believe from my past reading, that's
called utility. Yes, like if you have a piece of wood,
you have a piece of wood, but you can turn
around and make a something or something. Silver, of course,
is different from gold. Gold only has two uses that
I know of. One is dental and the other is.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Is round kular objects that go on the finger.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Well, jewelry, Yeah, yes, all right, so jewelry and dental.
Silver is used in dentistry, but it's also in every cell.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Phone, and it's got much more utility, Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
More utility, absolutely, So silver is good from that standpoint.
I don't know. Platinum is pretty good. I've always wanted
some rodium, but it's like rodium is what like fifty
dollars an ounce or.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Something outside above my pay grades.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
And people even steal the catalytic converters off of cars
because they have. Yes.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
That actually happened to my brother out in California.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Palladium in Yes. But trust me, it's not enough to
go to the trouble. All right. I want to ask
you about a couple of other things here before we
end Yes. One is student loans, student loans, student loans,
colleges that give degrees.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
In women's studies. We used to make fun of underwater
basket weaving.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Underwater basket weaving, And I'll tell you a funny story
about this. I wrote a song recently. I like to
write novelty songs sometimes, and I wrote a song called
the Student Loan Blues.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
And I've heard this.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
It had laughlines all through it, Okay, And I'm playing
at these senior communities and they're looking at me with
deer in the.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Headlight that oh, they're not going to get it.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They did not get it, especially the line where you know, uh,
I got the student loan Blues. Somebody helped me. Please.
I'm eating crackers and cheese and I'm suffering by degrees.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Oh and they're supposed to be laughing at this, and
they're not laughing.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
At it.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, that's that's a know your audience thing there.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Okay, but let's say women's studies, black studies.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Anything and any degree ending with.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Studies, studies or weaving.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Or weaving right.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yes, uh, you walk out of college with those degrees
and you're.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Talking about lack of utility, Well.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Lack of utility your only option is to try to
get a job teaching the stuff to somebody else. Yes,
and you end up with one hundred thousand, maybe two
hundred thousand dollars in student loans. The decision making I
have made the step and fallen into that trail.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Oh absolutely had a I have tons of client stories
of people my age, your age, slightly older, with student
loans hanging around their neck, and they're talking about, well,
I want to retire next year or within five years.
I say, okay, well, let's look at that. You've got
a six figure student loan hanging out there, and you're
(45:34):
sixty five years old. You know what's that about that?
Speaker 1 (45:38):
And when they were young that would have bought a
starter house?
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Easy, exactly, it's a house you'll never own, right, your
student for from many people with student loans.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
What what would you say to the eighteen year old
who wants to be I don't know. I guess if
that eighteen year old wants to be a doctor, you
have to go to calle yeah, st law.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yes, certain things you must go to school for. And
those kinds of investments will actually have an investment, like
getting the student loan, will actually have an opportunity to
pay it off.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
But if you want to be a CPA or a
plumber or to trade school, can you be a CPA
without going to college?
Speaker 2 (46:23):
You need an accounting degree generally speaking, and then you
have to sit for the exam. So the accounting degree
is helping you prepare to sit for the exam, but
you do have to. And most eighteen year olds really
don't know what they want to be when they grow up.
And I would actually throw this back on the parents
in part, and certainly on the universities, because when you're
(46:43):
an eighteen year old kid and you're going through your
financial aid portal, you put in the FAFTSA and everything's
going along and up pops your student aid. There's a
little round button to press that button to get oh,
student loans. That's part of how I'll pay for college.
And it's just a click of the mouse, and before
you know it, you're twenty five thousand dollars in debt
and you really don't know what that means at.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Eighteen and when correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going
to make a statement. When the when Barack Obama decided
to nationalize the student loans, especially, yes, the colleges and
universities said, boy, what a great opportunity to just double
or triple the tuition, yes, and pay the Let's see,
the president of the college probably makes over a million,
(47:27):
and they had a football coach.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah, yeah, depending on the school, And what a great
time to jack up tuition.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yeah. Head football coaches are making upwards of sixteen million
dollars right now. So that's just.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Basically and they if they don't do so hot in
their contract time period, they get let go, but they
still get the balance of that contract they get to
get paid.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Are you familiar with something and we'll wrap this up
with this. Are you familiar with something called the fair tax?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
A fair tax?
Speaker 1 (47:55):
No, the fair tax. It's a specific version of a
sales tax. It has it's basically well in the old days,
and I have a couple of books on it, and
I used to be a real big proponent. But of
course the country has changed. But it was about a
twenty three percent sales tax on pretty much everything. There
was a prebate for poor people who could prove they
(48:19):
were poor because you know, not through laziness, but but
you know, health issues, whatever, being elderly, whatever it was.
But April fifteenth would come and you do nothing. Your
taxes are done automatically. There's not a vat tax. That
taxes scared the hell out of Yes, yeah do not.
(48:39):
That's where they just put a yeah, that's European stuff.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Or they experienced that in Ireland back in December.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
They put another tax on it at every step of
the way, and you end up paying through the nose
for it. The fair tax to me, seemed like the best, easiest,
most carefully worked out way to in the in the
in the in the income tax, but instead of paying
a dollar for something, you'd pay a dollar twenty three
(49:04):
for it, and that would be for everything. I don't
remember how that worked on mortgages and things like that.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I have now that you're talking about. I have heard
of it. I'm not particularly versed in it, but I
can see the utility in it. To borrow that word,
because people are going to be buying goods and services
at the level of income that they have, and there's
your you know, unless you are definitively poor by whatever
(49:30):
that standard is determined to be. But if you are wealthy,
have more money, you're going to be buying the goods
and services you want and you're paying that twenty three percent,
so it kind of balances out.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
All right, I'll ask you one final question, and this
is one place where I disagree with Dave.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Okay, Oh, yes, I don't always agree with everything dave' said.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
I don't agree with everything, but this is me being
more Dave than Dave. Okay, Oh, Dave says, you have
to put a little money back for a rain Yes,
the state of Texas has a rainy day fund. Yes,
I think the United States needs a rainy day fund. Instead,
we have a nearly forty trillion dollar debt. But what
(50:12):
was Dave, I believe Dave said? Was it five hundred dollars?
I can't remember, Oh it was.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
If you're single, have a five hundred dollars emergency fund
set aside, and if you're married a thousand. Okay, it's
not going to solve everything.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Well, my answer to that as I think, I think
the minimum rainy day that you ought to have is
ten grand and if you I don't care who you are,
you got to have that ten grand. There is nothing
that can happen to you that you can fix for five.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Hundred dollars, right, And it's not the point to cover everything.
The point of it is is to keep people from
using their credit card in this emergency like, oh my
kid spikes a fever in the middle of the night.
I got to get to the dock in the box
or the emergency room, and it's going to cost me
three hundred and seventy five dollars. I got to meet
my co payment. Oh I don't have three seventy five.
I've swiped the credit card. So now you've you're handling
(51:03):
any emergency, whatever the situation is, and you're going into
debt to do it. So if you had five hundred
bucks cash saved up, you can pay cash and just.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Have the we're doing we're doing lunch, right, Yes, we're
doing it. If I use a credit card, is that.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
I will turn a blind eye.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
I mean it's not going to it's not going to
bother me. You're not gonna make You're not gonna make
a scene there in the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Scene in the restaurant, and lunch will taste just as good.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Christine Stevenson, I've known you for a long time and
I ask you a couple of times, and so we've
got to talk about some of this stuff that you do.
That was a lot of fun. Yeah, yes, one more time.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Your website www dot Proverbs sixteen sixteen dot.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Com and the name of the book how.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
To Avoid Trouble with the Irs, and that's.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
The name of the episode of Playing It Logic. Christine,
Thank you, Thank you coming by. It was a lot
of fun.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Great to be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
I'm Lynn will let you. Our website is wbdaily dot com.
I put a new column up typically every Friday or Saturday,
and would love for you to read it comment on it.
I have a number of books out too. You can
find them at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever
better books are sold. Until next time, be logical, and
(52:19):
this is Planet Logic. We'll see you next time.
Welcome to Planet Logic. I'm Lynn Woolley, the podcast pilot here,
so to speak, and my guest today is Christine Stevenson.
She's an author, personal and small business finance coach. We're
going to talk a little bit about the IRS today
and some of the things you may be doing right
or wrong in your personal finance. Today's episode how to
avoid trouble with the IRS, because that's our main thrust today. Christine,
(00:24):
Welcome to Planet Logic.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thank you, Lynn. Great to be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So glad to have you. You know, three little letters
that appear in everybody's life is IRS, the Internal Revenue Service.
And it's always interesting when you get up in close
to April and people start dealing with this. How many
people end up having some kind of a major problem
with the IRS that is so difficult that they have
(00:50):
to call in an expert.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Oh, I would literally say thousands, if not tens of thousands,
which is really unfortunate. Part of that's due to the
complexity and craziness of the tax code, but thousands easily
every year and for many years have problems with the IRS.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, what do they do wrong?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, sometimes it's not what they do wrong. It's what
the IRS does wrong, their interpretation of something on a
tax return, or they just screw up the processing of
a return or information, and now the person is caught
and they know that there's something wrong with the IRS
and they're trying to figure it out. So sometimes it's
(01:30):
the person, sometimes it's the IRS.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Here's what I want to know. If it's a problem
you said, sometimes the IRS interprets things wrong. But that
problem that the IRS interpreted wrong then becomes your problem.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It becomes your problem, right, and it's super hard to
deal with anyone in the government to get a problem fixed.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, let's say I've got a problem and I don't
want to call an expert such as yourself, so I
just pick up the phone. I call the IRS helpline.
Is that going to do me any good? Hmm?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Depends on what the problem is. But in most instances, no,
it's not. Because eight hundred and eight two nine, ten
forty is you know, someone.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I don't even know my own phone number.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Is someone that you know they're following an internal revenue
manual script And if it goes outside the script, well
let me transfer you to that other department. And I'm
sure they can.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Help you, then an AI would be almost as well.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
They are going to some AI. They have implemented that
already in some in some departments.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
You know, it's interesting, and I'll throw out just my
own thoughts about the Internal Revenue Service. I know we
have to have a way to run the country, and
I know that what was it that was it the
thirteenth Amendment? I believe to the Constitution that gave us
the IRS an income tax or income tax which led
to the IRS. The New York Times editorialized at that time,
(02:48):
The New York Times, of course, a paper of record,
wasn't what we have now right New York Times, but
the Gray Old Lady editorialized that once the government gets
its hand in your pocket, that hand will never come.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's pretty much.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Is it true? Because I've heard Donald Trump say this,
Is it true that we ran the country with tariffs?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Initially? Yes, I think way back in the in the twenties,
tariffs is what funded a lot of government. I mean,
I don't know the history and the research well enough
to definitively say yes, but that is my understanding, and
he would like to.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
See that work today. I don't know if it can
what do we have in the country about three hundred
and forty million people people ish and take away the kids. Yes,
And I suppose do the homeless file tax returns?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, some of them do, and some of them file
multiple times? Wow, but for refunds, helping for refunds, and
there's always scammers and things like that. But yeah, there's
a lot of people that have little to no income
that do file. And whether they're technically homeless, I mean,
if they're really homeless out on the streets, they're not filing.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
All right. You and I were talking as a little
pre call friends wish always do before a podcast, and
I was lamenting my ignorance of the of how to
even use turbo tax or one of the programs. Yeah,
I mean you've got all this stuff like depreciation, what's deductible,
what isn't, what's part Yes? Uh, why is it so
(04:20):
necessary for the income tax code to be so complicated?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well my opinion, and no one asked for my opinion.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But it's well, now, hold on, that's not true. I
just ask for it.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It's too it is too complicated, it's been it's been
made too complicated. I was all about a flat tax myself,
I think that is quote. If you want to talk
about fair, I think a flat tax is a better
idea and more fair. But it is too complicated, and
it's become a whole industry. And there's lots of you know,
(04:54):
tax professionals out there preparing returns, and we've this whole
industry has has come up because it it is too complicated.
We don't have a tax problem in this country. We
have a spending problem in this country. And that's why
the code has gotten more complicated in part in my opinion,
and all the people that have to be hired to
file this document.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
To sign with this something I've learned writing columns for
WB Daily, which is our sister website to Planet Logic
dot us. If you want to list on a piece
of paper the national debt, Oh, we're pushing forty so
you're right.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Down there, number trillion or something.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yes, yeah, we're at thirty eight. Now are thirty nine? Okay,
but you would put that number down is say thirty eight.
You write the number thirty eight and then twelve zero zeros. Yeah,
that is just unbelievable that that's just not even comprehensible
to both people.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, yeah, and I mean, I mean, I can look
at a number and I don't have any grasp of
what it is. You know, how high would you have
to stack the dollar bills, you know, to equal thirty.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Eight trus It would probably be past the moon maybe so.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But and again I'm no policy expert or anything like that.
But you know the tariffs that Trump has, you know,
brought back. There he not to you know, get into
politics and whatnot. He's very clever, and I think there's
an end game he has in mind with part of
why he's bringing back tariffs. That's a lot of money
(06:18):
that comes in with tariffs. So what is that money
going to be used for? Could it be used to
maybe pay down some of this debt? I don't know
that's a possibility. I'm not a big deep thinker on that.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
But well I've thought about that too. You know, there's
a couple of things just in my own life that
I have always realized. I can pay down my own debt,
which now is nonexistent.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I don't have any Yes, that's a good place.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
To be other than having loan to friend some money.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yes, And that's that's a nominal.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
That's nominal. But not only do you have to pay
down debt, but you have to stop spending so that
the debt doesn't continue to balloon. Correct, And that's in
your personal life as well as the life of the country. Absolutely,
we could talk about this, but I want to go
more into the IRS first. But you know, this is
(07:16):
what Trump's problem is. It's what Speaker Johnson's problem is.
What do we cut because somebody screams and hollars and
yells at the Congress if they cut a penny from anything.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Right, and too bad. We couldn't cut just a penny.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You're talking about the penny thing, penny plan. Yeah, the
penny plan would be great. I'd like to see us
do the Nickel plan. You're talking about very small amounts
of money, but multiplied over three hundred and forty million peace.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It's a lot of money. It's the political will to
do something or not. I think that's what it comes
down to with a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
All right, I want to ask you this, what is
the number one problem that people have when they come
to you and say, Christine, I'm getting nasty letters from
the IRS. What typically is it?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Well, for most people, actually they've ignored a series of
letters from the IRS, and they finally get this final
notice that says we're going to levy you, which means
freeze your for most people, freeze the bank accounts, or
we're going to put a lean on your house, and
that becomes hugely problematic, and that gets most people's attention.
(08:27):
And so the problem is pretty much one of two things.
They've filed tax returns, which is great, so they're in
compliance with that, but they haven't paid the tax that's due,
or they've not filed tax returns, and the IRS has
finally caught up with them, and they got this letter
that says, hey, you need to pay US fifty thousand
dollars for this particular tax year. They didn't file returns.
(08:50):
They certainly didn't pay any tax, but the IRS has
caught up with them.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, and how do you help them?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So there's a process, of course, as in many things,
the very first thing is analyzing what's gone on, and
that's done through a power of attorney or what's called
a taxpayer Information authorization. I have to get into their
IRS account, so they give me permission to do that
on a form and I send it to the IRS.
Now I can download tremendous amounts of information in someone's
(09:17):
IRS account, and I can look at it and see
what the IRS perspective is. What does the IRS say
is going on? May or may not be accurate, may
or may not be true. But I have to start there.
And so that's the process. Analyze the account. And then
over on the side, I'm doing another thing, and people
are giving me their personal household budget information. What do
(09:38):
they pay for rent or mortgage, come to spend on groceries,
what's your light bill? You have life insurance, you got
to pay on your term life You know what's going
on in your financial life. I have to have that
in order to know is there going to be any
money to pay the IRS? And so then I have
to figure out what's going on with the IRS and
work a deal.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
All right, I've always wondered, you go through all this,
you do all these things, and let's say that you
discover that instead of owing the IRS ten thousand dollars,
the person only owes the IRS seven thousand dollars. Yes,
and the person doesn't have seven thousand dollars, and yet
the IRS bill for the next year is already already coming,
(10:16):
already forming.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
What do they do?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
What they do.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That's a great question. I was just talking to this
yesterday with someone. It's called what I have termed the
Bermuda triangle of the irs, and I see this. It's
very very common. They owe will say the IRS says they, oh,
ten thousand, but really at seven? Okay, Well we're gon
We're gonna focus on the seven and that's what we're
going to deal with. And then we also have to
(10:42):
figure out, Okay, the current year tax return is due too,
and you might know some tax on that, and oh,
by the way, the new year has started, and now
what are you going to do with your paychecks? Or
if you're self employed, how are you going to figure
out how to pay the current year tax? And so
what we do is we always start with, let's look
at what's going on most currently. Let's get solid with
(11:04):
the current you're twenty twenty six, and then we can
figure out a plan for twenty five and maybe all
those other prior years. We'll figure out how to deal
with the seven thousand. And I'm gathering all this information
to figure out how to deal with it while coaching them.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And the personal is this like the country, if we
really wanting to pay off the national debt. Step one
would be to start making payments, but step two would
be we got to keep built. We've got to stop
building it.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yes, cascading out, I've got.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
To figure out what are we doing it? Yes, that
we cannot do. I want to ask you that I'm
obsessive with mostly guitars. I would like to have fifty
of them, but I only own three, and I'm thinking
there's room for at least a couple more in my life.
But you know, the ones I have are really nice.
(11:55):
I don't need anymore. What do you find most people
spend money on that increases their debt, and that eventually
that's where the money's going that they could be using
to pay their taxes.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Americans love to eat out. We spend so much money
eating out, and a lot of us do it with
credit cards. So we're financing McDonald's. You know, the kid's
soccer game is done, everyone piles in the van or
the suv. Hey, let's go to McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I want to ask you this, how much do you
see in your career? How much interest? Oh are the
average customers of yours paying to say visa or Chase
card or City card or whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Over over the course of many years. It's ten it's
tens of thousands of dollars at what twenty one percent
nineteen twenty. Yeah, it's pretty high. And when and people
don't necessarily realize the totality of how much interest they
have paid. I will go through that exercise with some
of my clients, not necessarily people with IRS issues, but
(13:04):
in my coaching, and let's let's get out the bank statements.
Let's add up how much interest you've paid. And most
people are sick to their stomachs when they realize how
much interest they've paid to the banks. And banks are smart.
They spend billions on marketing every year to get their
credit card in your hand.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I'm going to give you a personal experience and tell
you something that's happened and something that has surprised me.
I can't remember what happened, but somebody hacked my cell
phone and was using my phone number. Well, my phone
number is kind of out there, I mean, you know,
it's not hard to find. And so I went to
(13:46):
a couple of it friends I work with, one certainly
at the radio station where I work, and he said, well,
why don't you just do a temporary freeze on your
credit reports, and you'll be oh, yes, okay, Yes. So
I joined Experience, TransUnion.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
EFax, and Equifax, and this.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Is really not as hard as I thought it was
going to be. You just make yourself an account and
then I went in and I just freeze my credit
reports and so that's fine. The weird thing about a
month after I did that, I started getting regular emails
from all three of the credit unions saying, Lynn, you're
(14:26):
eight hundred and fifty credit rating. You can get this
credit card. You can get this credit card, and you're
eligible for it. Not a day goes by. Congratulations, Lin,
you can get this new credit I don't want a
new credit card, no, But so they actually encourage you, yes,
to do that. Yes.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I mean you go on any airplane ride that's you know,
two hours or more, and the flight attendants are walking
down the aisle. Oh yeah, yeah, here's and it's a
deal because you get an extra five or ten thousand
frequent flyer miles if you use today's deal on this one.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, I'm susceptible to that. I'd say six months ago,
maybe a little more. Sam's Club get a big promotion.
Yes they did, and it was five percent. Now I
looked at it, I had I had two credit cards
only for the reason that if I'm on a trip
and for something happens and one of my credit cards
gets locked, I would have a second one. Sure, And
(15:23):
I thought five percent doesn't sound bad. So I got one. Okay,
So I got a Sam's credit card, and about once
a month, I'll go to Sam's with a basket day
of groceries. That's one hundred and twenty bucks yep, and
it will pop up on the screen. Would you like
to use forty dollars in Sam's cash? And I will
(15:45):
do that. Would you like to guess how much interest
I've paid on that card?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, knowing you, my guess is very little.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
You would be wrong. I know the answer is zero.
I cannot remember. I have a Chase card, I have
a City card, and I have a Sam's card. I
can't remember. I can't remember ever paying any interest. I
paid the Sam's card off.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
See, and you are the exception to the rule. For
most people, no one gets a credit card with Oh wow,
I can't wait to make minimum payments on my things
that I'm buying.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
That's the way it works out.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
But that's the reality of it, because you know, we're
swiping the credit cards, you know, and we're not really tracking,
not really. Oh I think I have enough, and then
the bill comes like, oh my gosh, I spent this much.
I can't pay this all off. Oh, I'll just make
the minimum payment this month. Next month, I'll pay the
rest off. And this is the behavior next month and
the next month, same cycle. It's an endless cycle. And
(16:40):
people rack up, you know, six figure credit card debt,
and then I've seen that and it's paid.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
If you like the idea of the person who has
a Dillard's card and a Sam's card and a Chase
card and a City card and a what are some
of these things the ladies buy online?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I don't know. I don't buy online very much, but
are you?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And let's say all of those cards, each one of
them has five to ten thousand dollars on it. Is
it a good idea to go to your bank and
try to get a five percent consolidation.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Loanly well on paper? Yes, because the math will you know,
work in your favorite Oh, get a loan. You're talking
about debt consolidation. Go get a loan, pay this all off.
That works for about half a minute.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
For most people, you're saying, because they keep loading up the.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Car, because they keep loading up the card.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
It's not if they stop loading up the cards, yes.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And that's the behavior, then it would work if you
could cut up those cards. And a lot of people
are very reluctant to cut up the credit card because
I want to use it in case there's an emergency.
And this is kind of what we talked about this.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I had a friend in Dallas when I worked it
their years ago, Brett Lewis his name, and Brett was
a sports guy. Ended up doing sports on k NBC
in Los Angeles, so he was pretty good at what
he did. And Brett didn't have any credit cards. And
Brett was buying Krueger ends go Kruegers back in the day.
(18:17):
This is my first experience with somebody actually trying to
buy something for future use, you know. And he was
such a good guy. But he came in one day
and he was all upset, and I said, what's the problem.
He says, I'll have to fly out to the Cowboys
training camp. And he says I can't And I said
why not? He says, because I can't get an airplane
ticket or a rent car because I don't have a
(18:39):
credit card. Yes.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yes, The industry, our world, the way we live revolves
around oh, you got to have that credit if I
go to enterprise, yeah, car rental. It's pretty hard to
use a debit card and I don't have a credit card,
it's not impossible.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What if I want to pay with good old, hardcold cash.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Some places are eliminating cash, restaurants eliminating that. I disagree.
I think we should keep the cash going. And there's
all sorts of theories about money and cash.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And but it's backed by the full faith and credit
of the United States government, not like a silver certificate right,
which was backed by.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Gold way back when. So you can live your life
without a credit card. You can use just a debit card.
Sometimes you have to be more particular and how you're
going about doing that. And again, credit cards aren't bad.
They're a more tool, their tool, like any other tool
in your tool belt.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
They do two things for me. They're very convenient, yep,
and I don't have to carry a lot of cash.
There you go, and number two iron points with you.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yes, And so again you are the exception to the rule.
No one ever got rich off of points or frequent
flyer miles or anything like that, and those aren't bad things,
but the statistics tell you you are likely to spend
much more with a credit card than if you are
paying with cash.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I want to tell you something I did. Dave Ramsey
would he'd be rolling, he'd be rolling, he'd be rolling
on the floor, and we'll we need to talk about
our Dave Ramsey encounter. But I had a situation two
years ago. I'm driving off the parking lot at the
radio station. It's terribly foggy day light and missed and
(20:24):
you can't see it foot in front of you, and
there were a set number of cars illegally parked because
a lot of kids from Westwood.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
The west Lake, the High school down there.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Parked along the street. You couldn't see anything. And I
eased out into the street and got hit.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's a busy street.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Got hit by another car and it damaged hers. She
was a student at the school. Total to mine, all right,
So here's what happened. That's so funny, and I just
want to see what you think about it. I got
eight thousan dollars from the insurance company and I decided
that I was going to buy a cheap used car, okay,
(21:07):
all right? And so I looked around and somebody at
the enterprise place where I'd gotten my rent car through
insurance said, it's too bad that there's not an enterprise
lot here in Temple, Texas where I live, where you
and I live, and we take pretty nice cars out
(21:29):
of service and then we sell them. And I said,
oh really, I said, well, where's the nearest one, she
says Austin. I said, well, that should not be a problem.
So I actually drove over there in my rent car,
and I looked around at I wanted I love Malibus,
and I wanted another Malibu. And I drove a couple
of Toyotas and other things, and decided I wanted a Malibu.
(21:50):
And they had one fairly low mileage when it was
a really nice condition, and I committed to buy it.
So I had the eight thousand, and I can't remember
what happened, but I ended up needing another fourteen or
fifteen thousand dollars, okay, And so I pulled out a
check book. Oh and the guy looked at me, how lovely?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Well, he said, we don't take checks.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Scrooge make duck here. Yes, he said, you know you
can charge this if you want sure? And I said,
charge at how? He says, on your credit card? I said, wait,
you're saying I can buy this car on my visa
or master card.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
He's had enough debt limit?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Sure, Well, I have ten thousand on one and five
on another and ten on another. So he said yeah,
and I said, what's the up charge? He said, there's
no up charge. I said, okay, I want to make
sure I understand what you're saying. I can buy this
car on my credit cards and it's not going to
(22:53):
cost me an extra cent. And he said he said, nope,
won't cost you an extra cent. I said, we'll put
one thousand on this and put the rest on this.
I waited two weeks and I paid them both.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Off, turned around, paid on.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And I got a lot of points.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yes, yes, yes, that yeah, And again you're the exception
to the rule. You had the discipline, you had the money,
you knew how to plan, you were going to do this,
So in that instance it worked out fine for you.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Well, the car that I totaled I had purchased new
in twenty sixteen, and I had purchased it.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
New and you only got eight thousand.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I might have gotten No, you know what I think.
I think I did get more than that.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I wouldn't lose that much.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
No, this has been a long time ago. Okay, it
was more than that. But they asked me. It was
pretty funny that at the dealership he says, well, all right,
so you're going to buy the car, let me go
check your credit rating. He comes back and says, anything else?
Something that? Right?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
What else you like to buy? Exactly? Yes, I'm sure
you were.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Having a good credit rating is a nice thing. It
is a nice thing thing, and I like to protect it.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yes, And a lot of people will I want to
interrupt you REQUI but a lot of people that I
come to me that I work with, their credit rating
becomes like their identity. They put so much stock. Oh
my credit score is only six hundred and fifty, and
that's like, oh man, you are not your credit score.
There's so much more than this is true.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
So much is true. And I don't worry about mine, right,
I just I just live life the way that I
was brought up to do. My father was a dead
hawkyep and reading Uncle Scrooge comics is.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
How that you were set on an early path and
you you know.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I've never liked to have debt. And then there was
another thing I was going to tell you.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I have a great enterprise car story to tell.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
When I bought the first Malibu in twenty sixteen or seventeen,
and after the credit check, he says, what company would
you like to finance it through? And I gave him
an answer he had never had before, and he didn't
understand it. And I said I don't care. And he said, well,
(25:13):
we can do a bunch and I said, I'll use
my bank. He said, is there an interest rate target?
I said no, I don't care what the interest rate is.
He said, you're weird.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
You're weird, right, Yes, yes, So.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I got this thick coupon buck.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I mean, yes, back in the days.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yes, big thick coupon buck. And I paid it off online.
I bought the car in November and I made one
payment of what four sixteen something like that. My second
payment was ten thousand, okay, and my third payment was
whatever was left. And I called the guy in February
(25:50):
and I said, the car's paid for it. That's why
I didn't that's why yes.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
And some dealers, some dealers will actually give you a
slightly better rate. I've been told this. If you finance
the car, they'll give you a slightly better interest rate
versus paying out.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Well, they would prefer you to do it through finance.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
They're through their GMAILTM or four or whatever. They're making
a they're making a proble right now.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
What is the second biggest problem people have.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
With the I R s with the irs? The well, so,
lack of tax returns?
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Oh, my gosh, that's a great one. So do people
come to you and say I'm having a problem with
the IRS, and you say, what is it? Well, I
haven't filed a return four years?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Oh, four years? Four years would be easy.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
I've had people, are you serious?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Very much?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
So.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I've had people come to me. They haven't filed in
twenty years literally modern times, last year. No, let's say
twenty six, Chris years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
How are they not in jail?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It is they? Well, I don't know, but they are
what is considered an egregious non filer. Technically, the criminal
Investigation Unit would be pursuing them because they haven't filed
their tax returns. You don't go to jail for not
paying tax. You go to jail potentially for not filing
your tax return. And every year, if you look in
the big statistics books that's printed, there's usually maybe one
(27:13):
hundred two, one hundred and fifty people that you know
are in really bad spots, and maybe twenty might actually
go to jail. So that's you know, it's a very
small number. But the biggest issue. You know, they come
to me twenty years of no filing. They've just got
they've skated, they fell off the IRIS radar, and they
haven't come back up. And a lot of those cases
I won't I won't work with them because I don't
(27:36):
want to be on the hook. Potentially, if I have
power of attorney now I represent them, I could be
on the hook how.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Many people after they come to you? And then there's
a lot of people that do what you do. In fact,
there's huge national companies that.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Have Yes, there's very few people that do the representation
work that I do well.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I was going to say if I were to go
to and I'm not going to name the companies, I
don't want to get in trouble with anybody, but there's
at least two or three that advertise on the radio regularly.
I would assume that your attention to detail on a
person to person basis is probably a little bit higher.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
There's no comparison, because when you call the bigger companies,
you're getting the guy or gal, the sales rep that
wants to make the sale, and it's very impersonal and
they're just you know, taking down the information and you know,
we'll start you off and we'll do this and that
and the other. They promise them the sun, the moon,
and the stars. They get their eight or ten or
twelve thousand dollars and then I have a lot of
(28:39):
people to come to me that have done just that
and it just ends up in this black hole.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Before we go any further, I want to get some
personal stuff here. You have a website.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I do Proverbs sixteen sixteen dot com.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Now you're going to make me look that up, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I'll give you the short version. You know, wisdom is
better than gold. In sight, it's better than silver.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
You know. It's funny. At the bottom of my website,
WB Daily stands for World Beat Daily. There's also a
Bible verse and I'm thinking it's from Proverbs, but I'd
have to actually look to see.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well. Proverbs is full of versus about money.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And it says you shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
And I know where why I know that one so well.
I used to walk by it several times a day
because that is carved in stone on the UT Tower.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yes, and the UT Tower has something biblical. Three They haven't,
you know, grind it out, grounded out of the stone yet.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Nope, nope. And I've been kind of proud of my
alma mater lately. They have done a lot of things
that are not far left and woke right.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
And they have hired a phenomenal new guy that runs
all the grounds now down there, and it's really improved.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Oh oh, I love the turtle. But that's another day,
all right. Now your website we've got, Yes, you have
a book. I do.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Actually, I literally get to say I wrote the book on.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
How to avoid free written book, and that the company
puts your name on it, like a lot of lawyers do.
I'm sorry, lawyers do that. And I won't name any names.
But I had a lawyer for and who did that,
And I found forty other lawyers who had written the
exact same book.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
It's all my IP. What's in the book is it's
all available out anywhere you can go find it.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
But it's got.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Personal stories Amazon Barnes on Amazon Barnes and Noble. It's
an audiobook, it's professionally recorded. I recorded it. It's on
a lot of audiobook retailers. It's a kindle version as well.
But it's how to avoid trouble with the I R S.
And it's primarily for those that are the small business owner,
the self employed like you would be my target audience
for the book. Someone that has a side hustle of
gig and it's.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Just to do at least half of my income, has
no withholding. Yes, the music I play, I get paid.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
And you are responsible to make sure that gets.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
In all right, let me tell you something that I
did differently last year from the year before. I had
to write a big check. I don't know if I'll
have to write a big check this year. I don't
have return back yet from the professional that I hired. Yes, right,
last year, I made quarterly payments.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Excellent. Good. That will help you this year on.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Your text because that's you know, when I was thinking, gosh,
I don't want to make these quarterly payments. And then
I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, that's basically my withholding.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
It is and it's the law because we have a
pay as you go tax because they can charge me. Yes,
they will penalize you potentially if you don't pay tax
during the year. You'll get a bill. You'll get a letter,
not a bill, well, it is a bill. You'll get
a letter from the IRS. I can't remember the letter
number that says we are penalizing you for underpaying your
tax throughout the year. And it's not even about the
(31:58):
tax that's due. It's about the fact that you didn't
hey the tax during the year.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Well, there is that, all right? To put a bow
on the IRS? And I want to go into some
other issues. Yes, what have I not asked about dealing
with the IRS that I should have asked?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, I would say, if you get a letter from
the IRS, open it. I mean it sounds intuitive, but
you would be shocked. Wow, And how many people don't
open it? And they don't open that one, they don't
open the next one and five letters into it, which
is you know, maybe a year or two has gone by,
they get that big letter that oh we're going to
(32:35):
file a levey or lean on your property, open the letter,
open it.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Okay, all right, now let's have some fun. Yes, A
couple of years ago himself came to town. Dave Ramsey, Yes,
who has done what few people have been able to do.
He doesn't do politics on the radio. He doesn't do sports,
and those are the two categories that most talk show
hosts do. Dave, of course, is the guy who says
(33:03):
cash is king and dead is stupid. Did I get
that is dumb? Dead is dumb? Okay, Cash is king
and dead is dumb. I have always thought that. And
when I was sitting in a position at a radio
station in Austin Talk thirteen seventy where I do the
Cardle and Wooe show Monday through Friday from seven until ten,
Dave Ramsey was sitting apart from me, kind of like
(33:24):
you are now just to my right, and.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I've been in that hollowed studio you have.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Actually you have. It is quite impressive, is it not?
It is? And we're just you know, talking, because Dave
was in town for some promotions and we had dinner
with him that night. I won't say I had dinner
with him. Yeah, And Dave and me in about four hundred.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Of our best friends at friend dinner together.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
And he is a delightful guy. And I asked him
a question. Now, I have paid off my house. I
had not paid it off then, but I had enough
money to pay it off. Yes, So I said, Dave
a house, I said, I believe I owed ten fifteen
thousand dollars on it. And I said, I'm making payments
(34:10):
my interest rate And he looked at me and I said,
two point seventy five percent under three percent? Am I
wise to keep my money liquid? Or should I go
pay it pay it off? And he said, if you
don't go pay it off, you're an idiot.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yes, Yeah, that sounds like Dave is.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So what does Christine Stevenson say about that?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
I would agree, uh, pay it off?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
He had an interest rate was almost non existent.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yes, because unless you've actually experienced this paying off, like
owning your home, paying it off, the immense psychological value
and practical value of not having a house payment all
of a sudden, all that money is yours again, and
(34:58):
it's a It's a tremendous benefit to own your house
because nobody can take it from you. It's not going
to foreclose. If something untoward happens, you lose your job,
you know something terrible. Things happen to people all the time. Yeah,
and they don't have reserves enough to make the house payment.
Maybe they've got a month or two saved up. So
owning your home is a huge benefit in current times
(35:20):
and certainly as you go into the sunset years, no debt,
own your home, it's a great way to start.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And then we all went over to a mega church
in Georgetown where Dave was actually speaking. We had a table.
You came. It was fun.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
It was a lot of fun. I was a volunteer
at that event. And I actually had a client, a
couple from Waco. They were at that same event, and
they found me. I had been We didn't. We worked
to We had some free coaching young couple going to Baylor.
They were about to get married when I met them.
He was all day, she wasn't, and she kind of
came on board to his way of thinking, and they
(35:58):
paid off all their debt. They cash flowed through wedding.
They were like two or three into their two or
three years into their marriage and they found me and
they oh Christine, oh my gosh, so great to see you,
and they shared their story and we took a picture
and I actually wrote a little article on it for LinkedIn,
where I where I post a lot of things. But
it was a great little microcosm example of a success story.
There at a Dave conference.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Oh ye, Dave gave us all a really nice leather
bounds yes, tablet. I do.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I have a couple of those, Colonel, Colonel little.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
John or mine is on the shelf right behind where
you're sitting. Very beautiful. All right, well, let's let's talk
about some other things. I'm going to ask you a
three word question. Three.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Okay, I got the pen out. I'm writing this down.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
You'll think be able to remember it. Okay, what is money?
Speaker 2 (36:49):
What is money? Oh my gosh. Money is a means
to transact between two people. You have something I want,
and I'm going to give you money for the thing
that i want because this money has been deemed to
have some value.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I have a piece of gold or a piece of silver.
Is that money?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
It is not money in the traditional sense of a
green paper dollar bill that we're looking at, but yes,
it's got value to it. We have assigned value to it.
So that's money.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
All right now. What is money going to be in twenty.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Years depends on who you talk to. It might be
all digital.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Well, okay, we don't make pennies anymore.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I know I've saved my pennies. I have a big
five ballon jar of pennies.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Look around the room.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I know, I know, I see something over there.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah, and now some places are having to go to
the nearest nickel, you know, to make change that sort
of thing. But it costs more than a nickel to make.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
A nickel, right, and a nickel isn't even nickel anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
No alloy, I guess, I guess I don't know. I'm not.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I'm not a metarologist wherever the word is people that
deal with metals and things.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Yes, that's true. I'm not either, Nor am I ma
newest summatist or whatever, which is a collector of coins.
But I do know that if I have a coin
higher than a nickel, that would be a dime, a
quarter of fifty cent piece, or a dollar a dollar
and it's got nineteen sixty four on.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It, yes, or earlier, I have some of those.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That's ninety percent silver, and that that dollar is probably
at silver dollar sixty four earlier is probably worth about
fifty bucks right now.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yes, I have a few John F. Kennedy ones.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
What do you think about silver, gold, platinum, precious metals.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
I think they're fine, and they're particularly fine when they're
sitting on the ring finger designed with some other sparkly
jewel in them. I think those are great. I'm not
any expert, but I think those can be good investments.
I remember when I lived in New York, gold was
about three hundred dollars an ounce.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I think, wow, what is it now? Four thousand?
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, it's you know, a bazillion times more than that.
So they're good investments. I think that you have to
know what you're doing with any investment, whether it's gold
and silver, or EFTs or your commodities. You've got to
understand what the thing is that you have.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I have one piece. I have one piece of advice,
and that is you see all these big gold and
silver companies advertising on television. Do you know what those
commercials cost?
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, commercials aren't cheap.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Do you know what it costs to hire Martin gen
or somebody like that?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
It's at least a minimum five figure in.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Every city of size, certainly Austin, Temple, Waco. Any city
of size is going to have a local coin dealer. Yes,
find out if your city has one, and if the
person that is the proprietor is a honest is an honest,
trustworthy person. If so, buy your gold and silver locally,
(40:16):
you don't pay you you will pay far less yes
on the up charge for the silver, yes, which is
called the premium. Yes, you will pay far less on
the premium. And you will pay no shipping charges.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yes, I can, and you will.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Get better service because you can walk in and.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
And that's true with a lot of things by local.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, it's just I laugh when I see these commercials.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
On the marketing works. That's why it's.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Out there, because you know, I buy from such and
such gold company because I trust them.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Well, well yeah, because you're getting paid to read the script.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I trust Troy Emmelson, who has a place called Emmeilson's
Coin Shop over across from the courthouse in Belton. He's
a great guy. He's as honest as the day is long.
And I walk in sometimes and say what's my best
deal today? Yeah, and he'll say, buy some junk silver today.
You know that's a better deal. Than buying a point
nine nine nine, which is your nearest pure silver you
(41:13):
can get.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
And I'm going to just dial this back because you
asked about, you know, some of these bigger companies that
do this same type of work that I do. I'm
I'm like the local gold guy. You know. You come
to me and your service is going to be excellent.
And I have a long list of testimonial and personal
and personal and you literally are, especially if you're local.
(41:34):
Sitting across the table for me, I have clients all
over the country, but I'm the small business, that local
person versus the big, the big one out well, I've been.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
A believer in precious metals for a long time. I
don't have any gold, but I have a lot of silver.
And the reason for that is that, let's say you
your budget for the week is two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay,
you can come out with a little bit of silver,
or at least you could a few months ago. You
can't buy a gold cow. You cannot buy a gold
coin for that right, certainly, not an.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Ounce and right. And I will say this because a
lot of people do like to hedge their future bets
buying by buying gold and silver coins. But if the
you know, zombie apocalypse comes, one of the things that
I tell people is, well, you can't eat your gold
and silver coins. You might be able to trade them
(42:25):
with someone for chickens or a cow.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Well the answer to that is, ammo.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yes, there's many skills of thought. Have a lot of bullets,
have a lot of bullets, yet we have a but.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
That's that's called I believe from my past reading, that's
called utility. Yes, like if you have a piece of wood,
you have a piece of wood, but you can turn
around and make a something or something. Silver, of course,
is different from gold. Gold only has two uses that
I know of. One is dental and the other is.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Is round kular objects that go on the finger.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Well, jewelry, Yeah, yes, all right, so jewelry and dental.
Silver is used in dentistry, but it's also in every cell.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Phone, and it's got much more utility, Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
More utility, absolutely, So silver is good from that standpoint.
I don't know. Platinum is pretty good. I've always wanted
some rodium, but it's like rodium is what like fifty
dollars an ounce or.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Something outside above my pay grades.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
And people even steal the catalytic converters off of cars
because they have. Yes.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
That actually happened to my brother out in California.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Palladium in Yes. But trust me, it's not enough to
go to the trouble. All right. I want to ask
you about a couple of other things here before we
end Yes. One is student loans, student loans, student loans,
colleges that give degrees.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
In women's studies. We used to make fun of underwater
basket weaving.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Underwater basket weaving, And I'll tell you a funny story
about this. I wrote a song recently. I like to
write novelty songs sometimes, and I wrote a song called
the Student Loan Blues.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
And I've heard this.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
It had laughlines all through it, Okay, And I'm playing
at these senior communities and they're looking at me with
deer in the.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Headlight that oh, they're not going to get it.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They did not get it, especially the line where you know, uh,
I got the student loan Blues. Somebody helped me. Please.
I'm eating crackers and cheese and I'm suffering by degrees.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Oh and they're supposed to be laughing at this, and
they're not laughing.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
At it.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, that's that's a know your audience thing there.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Okay, but let's say women's studies, black studies.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Anything and any degree ending with.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Studies, studies or weaving.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Or weaving right.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yes, uh, you walk out of college with those degrees
and you're.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Talking about lack of utility, Well.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Lack of utility your only option is to try to
get a job teaching the stuff to somebody else. Yes,
and you end up with one hundred thousand, maybe two
hundred thousand dollars in student loans. The decision making I
have made the step and fallen into that trail.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Oh absolutely had a I have tons of client stories
of people my age, your age, slightly older, with student
loans hanging around their neck, and they're talking about, well,
I want to retire next year or within five years.
I say, okay, well, let's look at that. You've got
a six figure student loan hanging out there, and you're
(45:34):
sixty five years old. You know what's that about that?
Speaker 1 (45:38):
And when they were young that would have bought a
starter house?
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Easy, exactly, it's a house you'll never own, right, your
student for from many people with student loans.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
What what would you say to the eighteen year old
who wants to be I don't know. I guess if
that eighteen year old wants to be a doctor, you
have to go to calle yeah, st law.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yes, certain things you must go to school for. And
those kinds of investments will actually have an investment, like
getting the student loan, will actually have an opportunity to
pay it off.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
But if you want to be a CPA or a
plumber or to trade school, can you be a CPA
without going to college?
Speaker 2 (46:23):
You need an accounting degree generally speaking, and then you
have to sit for the exam. So the accounting degree
is helping you prepare to sit for the exam, but
you do have to. And most eighteen year olds really
don't know what they want to be when they grow up.
And I would actually throw this back on the parents
in part, and certainly on the universities, because when you're
(46:43):
an eighteen year old kid and you're going through your
financial aid portal, you put in the FAFTSA and everything's
going along and up pops your student aid. There's a
little round button to press that button to get oh,
student loans. That's part of how I'll pay for college.
And it's just a click of the mouse, and before
you know it, you're twenty five thousand dollars in debt
and you really don't know what that means at.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Eighteen and when correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going
to make a statement. When the when Barack Obama decided
to nationalize the student loans, especially, yes, the colleges and
universities said, boy, what a great opportunity to just double
or triple the tuition, yes, and pay the Let's see,
the president of the college probably makes over a million,
(47:27):
and they had a football coach.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah, yeah, depending on the school, And what a great
time to jack up tuition.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yeah. Head football coaches are making upwards of sixteen million
dollars right now. So that's just.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Basically and they if they don't do so hot in
their contract time period, they get let go, but they
still get the balance of that contract they get to
get paid.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Are you familiar with something and we'll wrap this up
with this. Are you familiar with something called the fair tax?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
A fair tax?
Speaker 1 (47:55):
No, the fair tax. It's a specific version of a
sales tax. It has it's basically well in the old days,
and I have a couple of books on it, and
I used to be a real big proponent. But of
course the country has changed. But it was about a
twenty three percent sales tax on pretty much everything. There
was a prebate for poor people who could prove they
(48:19):
were poor because you know, not through laziness, but but
you know, health issues, whatever, being elderly, whatever it was.
But April fifteenth would come and you do nothing. Your
taxes are done automatically. There's not a vat tax. That
taxes scared the hell out of Yes, yeah do not.
(48:39):
That's where they just put a yeah, that's European stuff.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Or they experienced that in Ireland back in December.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
They put another tax on it at every step of
the way, and you end up paying through the nose
for it. The fair tax to me, seemed like the best, easiest,
most carefully worked out way to in the in the
in the in the income tax, but instead of paying
a dollar for something, you'd pay a dollar twenty three
(49:04):
for it, and that would be for everything. I don't
remember how that worked on mortgages and things like that.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I have now that you're talking about. I have heard
of it. I'm not particularly versed in it, but I
can see the utility in it. To borrow that word,
because people are going to be buying goods and services
at the level of income that they have, and there's
your you know, unless you are definitively poor by whatever
(49:30):
that standard is determined to be. But if you are wealthy,
have more money, you're going to be buying the goods
and services you want and you're paying that twenty three percent,
so it kind of balances out.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
All right, I'll ask you one final question, and this
is one place where I disagree with Dave.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Okay, Oh, yes, I don't always agree with everything dave' said.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
I don't agree with everything, but this is me being
more Dave than Dave. Okay, Oh, Dave says, you have
to put a little money back for a rain Yes,
the state of Texas has a rainy day fund. Yes,
I think the United States needs a rainy day fund. Instead,
we have a nearly forty trillion dollar debt. But what
(50:12):
was Dave, I believe Dave said? Was it five hundred dollars?
I can't remember, Oh it was.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
If you're single, have a five hundred dollars emergency fund
set aside, and if you're married a thousand. Okay, it's
not going to solve everything.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Well, my answer to that as I think, I think
the minimum rainy day that you ought to have is
ten grand and if you I don't care who you are,
you got to have that ten grand. There is nothing
that can happen to you that you can fix for five.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Hundred dollars, right, And it's not the point to cover everything.
The point of it is is to keep people from
using their credit card in this emergency like, oh my
kid spikes a fever in the middle of the night.
I got to get to the dock in the box
or the emergency room, and it's going to cost me
three hundred and seventy five dollars. I got to meet
my co payment. Oh I don't have three seventy five.
I've swiped the credit card. So now you've you're handling
(51:03):
any emergency, whatever the situation is, and you're going into
debt to do it. So if you had five hundred
bucks cash saved up, you can pay cash and just.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Have the we're doing we're doing lunch, right, Yes, we're
doing it. If I use a credit card, is that.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
I will turn a blind eye.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
I mean it's not going to it's not going to
bother me. You're not gonna make You're not gonna make
a scene there in the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Scene in the restaurant, and lunch will taste just as good.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Christine Stevenson, I've known you for a long time and
I ask you a couple of times, and so we've
got to talk about some of this stuff that you do.
That was a lot of fun. Yeah, yes, one more time.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Your website www dot Proverbs sixteen sixteen dot.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Com and the name of the book how.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
To Avoid Trouble with the Irs, and that's.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
The name of the episode of Playing It Logic. Christine,
Thank you, Thank you coming by. It was a lot
of fun.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Great to be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
I'm Lynn will let you. Our website is wbdaily dot com.
I put a new column up typically every Friday or Saturday,
and would love for you to read it comment on it.
I have a number of books out too. You can
find them at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever
better books are sold. Until next time, be logical, and
(52:19):
this is Planet Logic. We'll see you next time.
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