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Who will arrest the investment police? May 17, 2009

Posted by Jeff Nabers in : real estate, Self Directed IRA Solo 401k , add a comment

arrest clown

An unsurprising story surfaced a couple of days ago… SEC attorneys are under investigation for insider trading!

If you can’t truly value that exclamation point I just used, let me help you. The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is a government organization that was formed to convince us that investing in the stock market was safe. Part of their role is to make sure people don’t use their non-public knowledge to make profitable investments in the stock market (yeah, right). This is called “insider trading”. In business, this is known as “doing business”. In real estate, non-public knowledge can turn a peon into a mogul overnight. But in the stock market it is a crime and we give the SEC billions of our dollars to make sure it doesn’t happen.

But, whoops, SEC attorneys are doing it themselves. And a lot. One of the two SEC attorneys currently under FBI investigation made 247 stock (more…)

Grading Promoters – Waterford Financial Group… F April 30, 2008

Posted by Jeff Nabers in : Self Directed IRA Solo 401k , add a comment

As a follow up to “Where to find reliable information”, I want to let you know about another seemingly unscrupulous self directed IRA/401k promoter… Waterford Financial Group (www.thetrueira.com). Again, I’ve never spoken with them or dealt with them in any way, but one visit to their web page is cause for alarm. At the time of this writing, their web site links to various advisory opinions, private letter rulings, and field service advisory letters from the IRS & DOL (the DOL rules on IRA/401k prohibited transactions and exemptions).

The page in question lists summaries of these letters. It is important to first acknowledge that their “About Us” page says:

“Waterford Financial Group is a national marketing and financial services company with a consortium of tax professionals and Tax Attorneys on staff. Our purpose is to educate individuals and other professionals about the many benefits contained in the tax code.”

I always find it odd that companies spotlight all the tax attorneys on their staff without naming those attorneys or substantiating their claim in any way. If you’re browsing my blog posts, I hope I don’t come across too negative, but my pet peeve is predatory practices… and this is not minor issue when it comes to messing with people’s wealth.

Back to the Waterford Financial Group web page: They link to a DOL opinion with the description:

“Here’s a ruling where an IRA owner had his IRA make a loan to a corporation owned 47% by him. Sure beats dealing with a bank.”

The description infers that the proposed loan is acceptable and compliant. So no need to actually read the document since their staff full of tax attorneys probably wrote the description, right? Wrong. If you just scan the actual document you will find (more…)