Ok, now it’s time to solve the mystery. (Final Post) [see previous here]

In 1978 Jimmy Carter reorganized the government with this order, and this took the issue of retirement account prohibited transactions away from the domain of the IRS and gave it to the Department of Labor (DOL).

This fact was unknown to (or possibly ignored by) the ROBS promoters who claimed the IRS ROBS letter confirmed the validity of the ROBS strategy. The truth is that the IRS letter did not say whether or not the ROBS strategy creates a prohibited transaction because the IRS didn’t have the authority to say it. It was the authority of DOL. Ah, what fun bureaucracy can be.

Speaking with the Proper Authority

Now, I’ve known about this transfer of authority ever since the creator of the IRA LLC (late attorney Debra Buchanan) told me about it back in 2004. So I’ve been in close contact with DOL employees for several years. Here’s where the bureaucracy gets funny (or scary, depending on how you look at it).

A couple of weeks after the IRS ROBS letter came out, I called my friendly DOL contacts to ask, “What do you think of the ROBS strategy that the IRS just wrote a letter about?” They responded with, “What letter? What is ROBS?”

[If my friends at the IRS and DOL are reading this now, don't take offense. Everyone knows that government agency intercommunication is kind of like Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster. It's not your fault.]

So I faxed the IRS ROBS letter over to DOL. I was happy to do this for the IRS because I know they are really busy.

Finally… the Meeting

My annual trip to Washington, D.C. was scheduled for about six weeks later. So this gave DOL plenty of time to review the letter so we could discuss it at our meeting.

When the meeting came in December, all of the mystery surrounding ROBS collapsed with a couple of straightforward sentences out of the mouths of the decision makers at DOL (paraphrased):

The ‘qualifying employer securities’ exemption means that transaction of the plan acquiring stock from the C corporation is exempt. BUT, this exemption doesn’t throw the rules out the window for looking at the whole strategy. This whole strategy generally provides an ‘outside-of-the-plan’ benefit to the participant, who is a disqualified person. Thus this strategy creates a prohibited transaction.

Bear in mind this unofficial conversation is, well, not official. What would make it official is if I (or anyone else) submitted a written request for a DOL “Advisory Opinion” letter that explains whether the ROBS strategy is a prohibited transaction.

These DOL guys indicated that such a request would be met with an Advisory Opinion declaring ROBS illegal.

Don’t Kill the Messenger

There it is, folks. End of story. ROBS is a prohibited transaction. Many people and attorneys can disagree, but it comes down to 4 guys at this government agency in Washington, D.C. to provide the interpretation of the prohibited transaction law. In other words, it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks except for them. And they think you owe the government a 115% tax (on the amount of money involved in the scheme) if you do a ROBS.

Up until this meeting, I was just as hopeful as anyone that ROBS would come out of the gray area in a favorable conclusion. I don’t want to end this topic on an disappointing note, so I will be throwing out some ROBS alternatives in a future post.

[This is a continuation of a previous post. You should read that one first so this makes sense.]

The IRS Responds

For the first time ever, the IRS actually addressed the “financing a small business with an IRA or 401(k)” strategy. They called it “ROBS” for “roll over business startup,” and issued a letter on October 1, 2008. This letter basically stated:

• We know about the ROBS strategy
• We are concerned about it for several reasons

Celebrate and Ignore

Most ROBS promoters spun the IRS ROBS letter as a long-awaited government blessing for the strategy. They said that the concerns that the IRS listed were administrative errors, such as not filing the plan’s annual valuation report, not telling the corporation’s employees that they can also participate in the plan, and not ever launching a bona fide business in the first place. “These can be avoided. Read between the lines here.”

According to ROBS promoters, what was between the lines is that the IRS implied that the ROBS strategy was legitimate in the first place.

You would think my quest for a final answer to “Is the ROBS strategy legal or illegal?” would lead me to the IRS building in Washington, D.C… Not so. What ROBS promoters were ignoring (or unaware of) is that a strange, mostly unknown Presidential move from the 70s placed this matter outside of the IRS and onto a different government agency. In fact, the IRS letter talked around the core ROBS issue and never faced “Is the ROBS strategy legal or illegal?” head on—because, after the move in the 70s, they actually don’t have the legal authority to comment or decide on the issue.

What Now?

Determined to get to the bottom of this, I went to the other government agency.

Oh yeah, let me tell you why this matter is so important: If the ROBS promoters are wrong, everyone who believed them will be subject to a tax of at least 115% of the amount of funds involved in the strategy. OUCH!

Continue to Final/Part-3 of this post

Guidant calls it Audeo. Benetrends calls it Rainmaker. SDCooper calls it ERSOP. It goes by many names and it’s gotten a lot of attention from the franchise industry and, as of about a year ago, the IRS. The IRS calls it “ROBS” for Roll-Over Business Startup.

What is it?

It’s a strategy where a person with retirement funds:

1. Forms a C corporation.
2. Uses the new C corporation to adopt a 401(k) or profit-sharing plan.
3. Performs a rollover from existing retirement funds (IRA, 401k, etc) into the new 401(k) plan.
4. Directs the new 401(k) plan to invest into the new C corporation by purchasing shares of stock.
5. Now this person has a C corporation with some or all of their retirement funds in it, and they are told they can use the funds to run the corporation, launch a venture, buy a franchise, and even pay themselves a salary.

Special Powers – For Good or Evil?

This is a tremendously powerful strategy. The problem? Many attorneys think it’s illegal because of the prohibited transaction rules. Those rules say that the accounthoder (a.k.a. plan participant) is classified as a “disqualified person,” meaning that the retirement plan can’t transact with him or do things designed to benefit him outside of growing the plan.

To complicate matters, many other attorneys think it’s legal and on very solid ground. Why the disagreement? The pro-ROBS attorneys say that a special exemption throws the prohibited transaction rules out the window when you classify the transfer of the C corporation stock as “qualifying employer securities.”

A Quest for the Final Answer

About a year ago, my phone was ringing off the hook from people saying, “Some say it’s legal, some say it’s illegal. What’s the truth? I don’t want to risk my retirement fund on something sketchy!”

So I set out to get to the bottom of it, and the outcome will surprise you. Stay tuned for the tale of my trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with the guys with whom the buck stops.

Continue to Part 2 of this post

This question is on the minds of millions of Americans. I know exactly how to recover your losses: get out of the U.S. stock market and recoup your losses elsewhere.

S&P 500 loses 28% in one year

The sales pitch of securities salesman is that the stock market goes up around 8% or 9% per year over the long run – so don’t ever sell as a reaction to losing money. Let’s examine this, and assume your investment performance equaled the S&P 500 (even though the majority of mutual funds’ performance is inferior to that of the S&P 500).

Scenario A – You entered the market one year ago. You experience a 28% loss. For you to get back on track for 8% annual gains, you’ll need a 62% gain this next year. Or if you take two years to get back on track, you’ll need a 32% gain each year. How likely do you think this will be?

Scenario B – You entered the market exactly four years ago. Thus far you’ve had a 1.5% loss. If you goal was to earn 8% per year in the stock market and you started with $100,000… you’ve come up short $37,548 of the $136,048 target. That’s the would-be power of compound interest. Over this four year period of time you’ve ended up almost 30% short of your target.

Solution: Get most of your money out of the stock market. It is a speculative investment vehicle masquerading as a predictable investment vehicle. Now the mask came off… take a good look.