As the United States acclimates to the “flood the zone” governing style, reasoned discourse around civics has crumbled.

https://youtu.be/ngx0GxJjmDM

There are many causes. Polarizing media, bombastic claims, and systematized gas-lighting on both sides have created one of the most toxic political environments since the Vietnam War.

However, the absence of civics and good citizenship concepts have laid the groundwork for the hysterics of today.

LINDSEY CORMACK has a way forward. She is the author of the book “How to Raise a Citizen “

https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Citizen-Why-Its-ebook/dp/B0DBWYTXJ4/

Outline:

• Why are Civics Important?
• Recent stats on the absence of civics
• Understanding structures
• Understanding the “why” of structures and civics
• Knowing what the Constitution says
• Knowing that the Constitution evolves too
• Understanding federalism
• Government funding mechanisms
• Communication- how to broach inflamed subjects

How to raise the next generation

• What makes a good citizen? 
• Going beyond jury duty and voting
• Civics and Active participation
• Intersection with wealthy multi-generational families
• Joint decision-maling
• Believing in something greater than self
• Guardrails of ideals melded with open-mindedness and curiosity
• Right holder vs Duty bearer (Rights come with obligations)
• Justice vs compliance 
• Control vs grace
• Right and wrong in civics

Contacting Lindsey

Links: www.howtoraiseacitizen.com

IG: @howtoraiseacitizen

Lindsay discussing civics on Errol Louis’ YOU DECIDE Podcast

The Intersection of Civics, Money and Presidents

Rights and Obligations with David Haass (Civics)

Background

LINDSEY is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Stevens Institute of Technology. She is the former Director of the Diplomacy Lab. She is the secretary of community board 8 in Manhattan and the co-chair of the Street Life Committee. Lindsey is the creator of DCInbox, a comprehensive digital archive of Congress-to-constituent e-newsletters.  Finally, she is also the author of Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the GI Bill to the VA Crisis.

Frazer’s interest in citizenship and civics:

You may be wondering why a show about wealth management (and beyond) would be interested in citizenship and civics.  

In a nutshell, I get asked three times a day what can be done to raise responsible kids.  Because families (and the answers to those questions) are different. The answers should come from within, I ask what they (the parents or grandparents what think it takes to be a “good citizen.” 

The answer to that question can then lead into the discussions I need to have about stewardship and a variety of other concepts.

Additionally, good civics is good business. Businesses ignore the politics around them at their own peril. Board dynamics are also the intersection of civics, joint decision-making and constituent accountability for businesses.

Executives have to be good at this. The values that make people successful are also the ones that people want to pass down to their kids

Personally, politics and civics are ingrained in me.  I majored inhHistory and political science major in college. I worked in many NYS campaigns, the NYS Department of Economic Development, and ran the Republican Party in Bedford, NY for a year. More recently, I was on the board of my co-op for 7 years and president of the NYC Estate Planning Council. Civics and participation are a big part of my worldview.

Transcript

Frazer Rice (00:32.447)

As we get acclimated to the new flood the zone component of politics, reason discourse has crumbled. And I think absence of civics in public life is the cause. Lindsay Cormack has a way forward and she’s the author of How to Raise a Citizen. Welcome aboard, Lindsay.

Lindsey Cormack (00:46.978)

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to talk with you today.

Frazer Rice (00:50.025)

This will be a lot of fun. It harkens back to my background before wealth management and lawyering and all that stuff. Tell us a little bit about what you do and the impetus for the book.

Lindsey Cormack (01:02.574): Background

Sure, so for the last 10 years, I’ve been a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. This is primarily in an engineering school in Hoboken, New Jersey. It is one of the reasons that I ended up writing this book. I have some of the brightest students that I’ve ever been around. They have really high test scores. They know how to do school.

When I teach them intro to American government, I realize most of them have been failed by our school systems. They do not understand the landscape of the government. They don’t understand their own routes of power. They’re not practiced and having hard conversations. I’ve got wonderful students who are going to go on to successful careers in everything. We should make sure that they have this positive look at government and this better understanding than they’re getting. And it’s true that it’s not just happening in New Jersey. It’s kind of everywhere.

Frazer Rice (01:47.737)

What does the absence of civics look like in the education system? I seem to recall a stat that you put forward that it’s almost like less than 1%. It’s actually focused on in a curriculum in public schools.

Lindsey Cormack (02:00.652) on Civics

Yeah, so it’s really hard to say here’s how civics instruction happens. Every state has its own approach. Within every state, the independent schools have different approaches than the public schools. The charter schools or the mini schools have different approaches. The modal form of delivery across the United States is usually in your seventh or eighth grade of school. At that grade, you have some social studies class.

That’s where students are going to learn a little bit about the founding. They’ll learn about some like westward expansion. They’re taught a history lesson about like how we got to where we are. The actual lessons that they hear vary. But that’s like the basics. We usually wait until the second semester of 12th grade to give students a class called government. The amount of instruction time that we’ve had on civics and government has only gone down from the 1940s. It is the subject that has the least amount of focus and time allocated to it.

And it also has the lowest amount of federal dollars spent on it. For every $50 that gets spent on STEM, the science, technology, engineering, math disciplines, only five cents go to civics. We don’t give it enough attention in schools and we haven’t been doing that for a very long time.

Frazer Rice (03:07.564)

I mean, I’m never going to be one to say take money away from STEM. At the same time, to not have that background is crazy. With the polarization of information that’s out there, the ability to deal with information is vital. The news that you get, the values you have and the understanding of our structures are vital. How do you think about that in terms of structuring your curriculum?

Lindsey Cormack (03:34.734)

So for me, in my intro to American government class, it moves very, very slowly. Like we’re coming up on midterms. We’ve been in school for about eight weeks and we still are not done with the Constitution. We’re still in the amendments. That’s because I know that if our students know the rules of the game, they can figure out everything else with a clearer brain.

And so we go really line by line figuring out what did this mean? What were they trying to say? What are they not saying? I think that’s animportant starting piece that we don’t have in most K through 12 educational systems. It doesn’t surprise me that we don’t have this. The end result is for most kids in high school, it’s a score on an SAT or an ACT. Neither one of those exams has any components of social studies.

And if it’s not tested, it’s not taught. So I understand why it’s not in the curriculum, because we don’t think we need to evaluate students on this.

Frazer Rice (04:25.531)

You dive into the Constitution, which is a great underpinning of how the United States works. I’m sure you go into the history of it and where many of the concepts and values came from. What else surrounds what you’re teaching on that front?

Lindsey Cormack (04:41.336): Learning to Communicate

Usually I start with:, “what have they heard so far?” I like to start any conversation that might be controversial with this. It’s helpful with students who have difference of opinions.

I just like to set the table and say like, well, what have you heard? Here’s something that I heard a few years ago that really stuck. The constitution doesn’t say anything about slavery.

And I was like, that is such an interesting take. Let’s go read it with a keen eye for that. Like if you just do a control F and try to find slavery, you’re right. It doesn’t say slavery.

There’s three to four oblique references to the practice that are in there that takes a little bit more observation. You just have to have a keener eye to it. And that’s something where I like to go with like, what are they starting with? Then how can we get to something that lets them appreciate something in a bigger? Or fuller or more robust manner?

Frazer Rice (05:24.169)

The history of the Constitution is important too, For example, you can get things like three-fifths voting for slavery, There may be previous incarnations of slavery, but it’s been changed to reflect different values and cultural norms.

Lindsey Cormack (05:40.962): The Evolving Constitution

Yeah, that’s right. That’s something that I think our schools do an OK job at. We teach them this is a historical form of theater.

You know, we say to our kids 250 years ago, some really smart guys got together and wrote this document. Isn’t it great? But I like my students to think of themselves as the caretakers of this document and the entire enterprise what we’re doing.

And in order for that to be true, they can’t see it as a history lesson. They have to see it as an active lesson where they’re a participant in moving this forward. Truthfully, they are.

One of the best things about being in the United States is that we have the agency to shape our outcomes. This document sets out a lot of guarantees. However, we have to make sure that we understand how it works to move it forward.

Frazer Rice (06:19.002)

One of the things that I really enjoyed about your book was the concept of reminding people that civics and our government is not just the three branches in the federal government, Federalism and the interaction between the states and local government are just as important in many ways.

And in some ways, the real sort of rubber meets the road impact component of where policy affects people. How do you think about that in terms of sort of conveying that, that lesson? To your students and beyond?

Lindsey Cormack (06:49.848): Getting Kids Interested In Civics

So usually, my pedagogical approach is to let them go figure something out. So I’ll let them say any policy space that they care about. I don’t care if it’s like I care about fashion or I care about sports. And then I’ll ask them to go see if different states have different orientations to this.

And then they really get a clearer picture of like, my gosh, you’re right. The states get to decide so much. And when we think about what students care about generally, things like access to guns or access to reproductive care.or access to drugs.

All of those things right now are state level decisions. Most of them don’t really understand how their state systems work because the little instruction that they get in K through 12 is nearly all focused at the federal level. It’s just sort of this task of saying like, hey, why don’t you go figure this out?

Then they learn in that figuring like, ooh, this is important or, my gosh, she’s right. There might be something that’s different here than it is in the state where my parents happen to be right now. And I really like that approach.

Something else that’s important to me is we all get excited about federal elections, but in this upcoming year where we don’t have federal elections slated, we have over 100,000 state and local election coming.

So like we have all these different places to learn and they just need to be nudged and reminded to go look for that sort of information.

Frazer Rice (08:00.638) : Good Citizenship

The idea of being a good citizen, of being part of the civics discourse is something that I think your book does a really good job of really approaching and understanding and that it really gets back down to communication.

And the lesson that I took from it in my day job in many ways is the concept of really understanding communication and building in some structure and values in communicating to families that have multi-generational wealth.

When I get the question “hey you know how do I raise productive kids?” or
“how do I raise people who respect norms that are around there and are active and participate in civics and society?”

My answer to that oftentimes is what makes a good citizen when you’re sort of thinking about this and getting the the students excited not only about the structures and the underpinnings of government and so on. How do you take the communication lessons forward for that?

Lindsey Cormack (09:04.142)

So in all of my classes, if it’s happening during a non-federal election year, we have a project at the end that’s going to be a debate. And so it’s like it’s a research and a debate.

And I don’t let them pick what side they’re going to be on. But I do let all of us decide what are the topics that we most care about. And then some of them are going to have to argue for sides that they believe in.

Some of them are going to have to argue for sides that they don’t. And in an engineering discipline or in an engineering school, they don’t get a lot of opportunities to do this. That’s not their normal mode of classroom time.

It really is this practice and like, how is it to inhabit someone else’s perspective and then say those things? And at first they’re a little bit like frustrated by it. They’re like, but if I don’t believe it, I don’t want to say it.

Then I slowly sort of like keep telling them the more that you understand about the way that the other side or another side sees this issue, the better you will be able to understand your own personal position. Let’s say that you encounter some information that sort of changes the way you see something. That’s not bad.

That’s not like a marker of failure in civics. That shows that you’re a human with a working brain who can like add in new information. That’s all we’re doing here. And so by giving them like the experiential piece of like, no, you’re going to have to chat this out against another team in front of all your classmates.

I think that’s one of the best things because it is the practice that they’re lacking because so much of our instruction is I tell you, you listen, you regurgitate it to me.

But if I give them that sort of like opportunity to do this with each other, it starts to open up their minds like, ooh, maybe I could do this. It’s not so daunting. I don’t just have to listen. I can do a back and forth.

Frazer Rice (10:34.012)

Well, it also underscores the idea that the sign of true intelligence is being able to house two differing thoughts in your head at the same time and to be able to work through them, which is sort of an unfortunate byproduct of law school for me and, you know, an expensive liberal arts education. But I imagine in the engineering world where things may be a little bit more black and white, it can be a new experience for them.

Lindsey Cormack (10:56.962)

Yeah, that’s mostly what my feedback is, is that, you know, in every other place there’s right and wrong answers, and here there’s just a bunch of different right answers depending on who you’re asking and what the perspective is.

Frazer Rice (11:06.326)

So David Haass has a great book out on the rights and obligations of citizens. And something I saw in a website, sort of a curriculum based website was the idea that people were right holders and that duties were borne by somebody else. And it really agitated me.

How do you think about that in terms of good citizenship and participation and things that people should feel not only entitled to, but obligated to participate in? with regard to being a part of American society and beyond.

Lindsey Cormack (11:39.874) Rights and Obligations

Yeah, I appreciate this question very much. I also like that book. If it’s not in my bookcase behind me, I know it is in my house because a mom at my daughter’s school was like, ooh, you should read this book. And she said that to me while I was writing my book. But in terms of rights and duties, I’ll tell you sort of like how I come to this.

When I was on sabbatical two years ago, I spent some time going around to different parts of New York City and setting up two chairs, a table, and a sign that said, you chat with me about politics for three minutes? I bought a three-minute sand timer, and I’d just sit with different people and let them tell me about politics.

And a lot of times the takeaways that they would have is like, well, I don’t really like where it’s going. They’d sort of conceptualize themselves as passengers on the ship of democracy or passengers on some ship of politics.

Then towards the end, I’d be like, okay, that’s really interesting. And then if they were willing to have me talk to them about it, I’d say like, but don’t we kind of think that we’re the crew? Like we’re not passengers on a ship. We are the crew that is powering where the ship goes. And so if we don’t like where things go, we do have an obligation.

We do have a duty to figure out things a little bit more and find out how we can turn our own sort of agency on to change those things. An example in my life is right where I am in New York City, we have had undergone an enormous policy transformation on marijuana policy.

Like we can now sell legalized marijuana in our stores. But there was a lot of gray zones. And we had so many unlicensed, illicit stores who just like popped up and were like, well, there’s no enforcement. Someone’s going to make money. Might as well be me.

At that same time, I took a position at our community board chairing our street life committee, which was talking about liquor licenses and cannabis licenses. And that meant that I was going to have to go to a bunch of illicit stores and try to figure out what’s happening here.

Who are these people? Why are they running this business? Why is it happening? And that was like annoying. That’s not my day job. I don’t get paid for it, but it’s an obligation. If I want my society to be better, to be a part of that solution, to figure out what this is, what’s happening.

I was really happy and proud to do it, but I know that we need to do a little bit more because so many of us just want to be not inconvenienced, but the price we pay for living in a society instead of just as 340 million individuals that happen to be together is that we’re going to be inconvenienced sometimes.

Things are going to be annoying, but if we want to get better, we have to get into it instead of putting our heads down and thinking that someone else is going to do it for us.

Frazer Rice (13:51.546)

How do you think we broach that subject to get people to think about participating beyond jury duty and voting, which we have to force people to do that anyway, to get more engaged with their surroundings?

Lindsey Cormack (14:04.898): Why Are People Afraid of Civics?

I mean, I think part of it is that there’s a narrative that politics is either bad for egomaniacs, for people who are like really into themselves or they’re out to like steal from other people, or there’s this narrative that like politics is for nerds. And so it’s like, I’ll let these other people take care of it.

But it’s actually a true blessing or something that I see as like one of the greatest things about America is that politics is for everyone. It’s going to happen to us, whether we like it or not. We need to change the narrative that it is a force for good and that there are things that can come to better ends if we have more people who care about them.

So the idea that voting is a hassle, or I hate when people are like, I’m trying to get out of jury duty. I’m like, what are you talking about? This is one of your only entry points to influence the judicial system. You really know other ways to do this. And so I think we need to tell our children the positive stories of this.

If you have clean water to drink, government has a hand in that or if you have nice roads to be on, government has a hand in it. If you have schools that you can go to, places that you can recreate, usually government had a hand in that.

All too often we focus on the negative stuff when we talk about the bad actors in this system. But a lot of the people, especially at state and local government, are essentially volunteers who just think they have something to offer who can make the world a little bit better. And those are the stories that I wish we would champion.

Those are the people that I wish we’d introduce our kids to instead of letting them have a narrative that’s characterized by media that focuses sort of on bad outrageous activities or even child’s entertainment, which really has archetypes of people in government as either bumbling, like bumbling idiots, or like slick characters out to defraud the people they’re meant to protect. And so we have to do the work, collectively, of showing them when government does good things.

Frazer Rice (15:42.873)

Where does the role of bureaucracy fit into that you’re thinking on that? I know that for me, it’s very frustrating. You go to the post office or the DMV, or you’re trying to get something through, you know, whether it’s a tax situation or something like that.

The red tape component, which is to me sort of the byproduct of what’s happening up top and how it’s implemented or seen at the ground level. How do get people patient with that?

Lindsey Cormack (16:08.12): Bureaucracy

That’s a much harder question. I will say I’ve only experienced the DMV in three states and I happen to really like the New York state approach to it, which is like you’re making, you make appointments online, you show up, you do it, it’s done. That wasn’t my experience in Kansas or in Arizona.

But for like the day to day frustrations about government, I think something that we sort of misunderstand is we think the government is maybe like some big wigs who are like just trying to make our life hard.

Frazer Rice (16:20.002)

Right.

Lindsey Cormack (16:32.536)

When in reality, it’s a lot of like legacy systems with people who are trying to do the best work that aren’t terribly well compensated to do that work. And if we can kind of extend empathy for that, that’s like part one.

Part two is let’s get to fixing it or let’s get to a way that we make this better. I do get sad when I see like the beautiful outsides of post offices and I’m like, wow, these buildings are incredible. Then you go inside and you’re like, we don’t have air conditioning in here. my, we still have like COVID things up on the wall. but.

That’s like, has to be a point of pride. can’t be just a point of annoyance and we have to get over that one way or another. I don’t know that I have all the right answers, but I do know that I share that sort of viewpoint that you’re saying.

Frazer Rice (17:10.521)

Something that sort of strikes me and I deal a lot with financial literacy and numeracy generally and that when people don’t have that, they almost don’t have the language to be able to navigate in their own self-interest. How do you think about the language of numbers as it relates to understanding one’s role within civics and society generally?

Lindsey Cormack (17:33.934) Civics as Something Bigger

So I think you’re absolutely right that if you don’t have that in civics, there’s so many decision pieces that are just harder or impossible for you to sort of get your head around. But something that I like to think about is when you’re like pivotal.

In federal elections, I oftentimes hear people be like, well, I’m only one voter. And you know, for the presidential election, it’s a winner take all system. And maybe you’re a Democrat in a red state or Republican in a blue state. You think your vote doesn’t matter, whatever. But when you say, OK, let’s like put that aside or believe that you’re true there.

Think about what the denominator is for state elections. Think about what the denominator is for local elections or for even smaller ballot initiatives.

We are all so important at the local level, yet these are the elections that are the least attended. Oftentimes there isn’t really good media around it and we think it’s just for party insiders. Soon you realize, no, if I got together with like 20 of my friends, we could have someone on the school board.

Those sorts of things are really powerful. However, you have to break down the numbers for people where they see like once the denominator changes. Once the number of people who get to make this decision changes, every individual is more powerful than they were in a bigger system. This is why we really should have more focus on local and state government because we’re all far more pivotal in those arenas than we are at the national level.

Frazer Rice (18:45.156)

I think too, when you start hearing about numbers being thrown around and the current DOGE numbers, how much is being saved or not saved and whether it’s entitlements and so on and where the actual spending takes place or the interest to pay off federal debt, etc . . . The scale around these numbers is not well conveyed,

I think, in the media and people end up focusing on more narrow situations and end up spending a lot of time, energy and emotion around things that are minor in comparison to the tougher questions that we need to be asking.

Lindsey Cormack (19:20.376): Innumeracy

I think that’s correct and I actually don’t put all the blame on the media. I actually think these are really hard concepts to teach and in a similar way to civics not being giving enough time in K through 12, we certainly don’t have more financial literacy. We need more financial literacy. We have like plenty of math, but the translation of this to dollars and cents doesn’t happen in many K through 12 settings.

Something that I do in my classroom is I try to think about what it is where they could sort of have a relative understanding of something. So an exercise that we were doing this last week is I had them look at Doge data. I said, ‘I want you to guys go to the Doge website. “I don’t care what sort of thing interests you, but I want you to go figure something out and tell me what you learned. Some of them were like, I looked at how many people were fired. I looked at how many contracts got taken. Or I saw like, if this state had this much Medicaid funding, do we think they’re talking about DOGE in their legislature? And so I was like really interested to see what they were doing.

However, it all spoke to this numeracy component, which is like, everyone had a different insight, but the ability to sort of assess it relative to anyone else is very limited because we really don’t have that comparative ability for most people, at least most people I interact with, which are the best of the best STEM minds that I’ve ever been around.

Frazer Rice (20:25.921)

Well, one of the, this is my plea to throw in the power of compounding, even if it’s just a sentence in your curriculum, It just- it triggers so many things.

I think the light bulb goes off for most people that if you allow things to compound interest wise, either for the positive or negative, it can create some major outcomes with not very much time.

As we go through that though, I think one thing that I’m interested in isthe concept of where the spending goes, I bristle when people forget that the federal government can print money, but the state governments and lower can’t.

That the taxation that occurs at those different levels has different ramifications. Is this something that you talk to in the federalism component in civics?

Lindsey Cormack (21:20.654): Federalims

They don’t really understand this, but they hear a lot about it. So we talk about that a little bit. When we talk about federalism, we talk about how states get to make their own sorts of tax rules, whether they’re going to have property taxes or if they’re going to have exemptions for things like clothing and food.

So we have a week towards the end of class where we talk about money and politics. And we talk about top marginal tax rates, because most of my students are 18 to 22. They haven’t really been paying income taxes.

We talk about why states might make these different decisions or if some states are going to have income tax and some states aren’t what sorts of things happen with that. So we get into that at a very high level thing, but in a 16 week curriculum, there’s only so much that you can do on every, on every subject.

That certainly gets like a part, but it’s not an enormous part. We do another exercise that I really like where I have them go use opensecrets.org to look at federal elections commissions data on like what companies or what PACs or what individuals are donating to different sorts of things. And they always come up with the cleverest stuff.

They were able to see.how people in my own university, the administration versus the faculty, were donating politically. As a result, they were able to make some sort of deductions about like where you could sort of put our politics.

I said, “I’m so proud of you all for trying to figure out things about the world that you think matter to you and that are like right in front of you.” Part of that is giving them the tools and confidence to go play with data themselves. This is something that I see as an integral opponent to teaching civics. If you want to know the civics, this is not just a history lesson.

This is a numbers and a data lesson. And so you really got to be able to get into those things if you want to have the bigger conversations.

Frazer Rice (22:51.533)

You’ve been in different parts of the country, New York, Arizona, Kansas. Any regional differences in the level or interest in civics that you’ve noticed?

Lindsey Cormack (23:01.986): Civics Across Regions

I think there’s enormous regional differences. I grew up in Kansas and I was there until I was 22. And in Kansas, as well as in parts of the South where much of my family remains, the sort of approach to talking about politics is much quieter. There’s this sort of fear that like it’s going to offend someone.

It’s sort of a taboo topic. Like it sits in the same place as like you’re going to talk about sex or drugs or how much money someone made. It would be like, Ooh, that’s an off limits one. We’re not going to do it.

Whereas in my 17 years on the coasts, I find that people do talk about politics more, but they tend to do it in like an overtly negative way where it’s like always dismissive.

One of the sort of things that happened when I was writing this book was looking about what etiquette manuals said for the longest times about like how we’re supposed to approach this. And there are regional differences.

Neither one of those approaches though is truly that functional. Not talking about something doesn’t make it better. Only talking about the negative parts of something doesn’t incentivize children to want to learn more. I think we have like cultural differences, but not one of them is like, we’re getting it more right here. We have room to work in all sorts of parts of the country.

Frazer Rice (24:09.462)

Interesting. You talk in your book a little bit about the responsibility that parents have in teaching about the political end of things. Maybe go into that a little bit.

Lindsey Cormack (24:21.762): Parents Raising Citizens

Yeah, so the book’s full title is “How to Raise a Citizen (and Why It’s Up to You to Do It.)”

That parenthetical, “why it’s up to you to do it”, is because in researching this book, which we thought was going to be something that said, you know, this state curriculum is the one that’s graduating the students who really understand it.

What we found is, like, no state curriculum is graduating a lot of students who really understand things. So if we got to change something, it’s probably going to have to start in the home. Changing the state policies around what you can teach in a classroom or how many hours of instruction time you have or even how many teachers are hired with the requisite expertise is incredibly hard to do.

Like something that we heard in these interviews was everyone knows who teaches government, his name is coach. At most of our high schools, there’s not enough social studies hours that are going to be taught to have a full-time employment contract. Many of the people who teach that also teach wrestling or swimming or track or football, what have you. It became a book that said parents have to take this on because there’s so many barriers to getting this done in schools. It’s not that schools couldn’t do better. It’s not that schools don’t do good work in the limited sorts of ways that they can.

But we’re not going to fix things if we’re putting this on schools. We really have to take it into the home. It’s also the case that emerging research on parent socialization to kids indicates that one of the best things that allows your kids to understand different viewpoints, be able to engage in respectful dialogue. They should participate in voting and volunteering is having their parents do that with them. They should be practicing it and showing it to them.

If we want better outcomes, if we want our politics to feel and function in a better way, where the adults in the room now, we’re the ones raising the next generation, we’ve got to show them what that is and hope that they take that up and continue that work with their kids.

Frazer Rice (26:00.853)

When I read that part, the light bulb really went off to me because I’m spending a lot of time on intergenerational money discussions and money like you just described earlier, has its own taboo associated with it.

Ultimately, if you’re trying to convey values AND value to the next generation, you have to have these discussions. Civics is an important component of it. To be politcally involved is vital in order to not only get the country aspect and the town aspect preserved, but the family aspect too.

To not have that conversation, I think would be a mistake. As we wind down here, the media, social media, traditional media, books, newspapers, TV, internet, TikTok, et cetera. Do you have any thoughts or ideas as to how to curate your media diet so that you get more signal than noise?

Lindsey Cormack (26:55.074)

Yeah, but my thoughts are not terribly popular. My thoughts are you need to be talking to people face to face. You need to be interfacing with people who are in your communities and in your day to day reality. You need less of your online algorithmically derived information, meant to keep you either attentive or disassociative.

I think a lot of our online content is going to be different than what I’m going to see is going to be different than what my daughter sees. And we’re actually, none of us.

Frazer Rice (26:57.704)

Yes.

Lindsey Cormack (27:21.686): Political Discourse and the Social Media Diet

If we exist in just online spaces or ever seeing the same slice of the world or the same slice of reality. I think if you really want to like get down to it, it’s understanding what the people around you are thinking and hearing.

That requires that you do conversation. That requires that you don’t have AirPods in, in every social setting that you might be in. This is something that I think is, is really damaging. We’ve been okay with it for the last eight years or so since AirPods came out. This idea that we can be in social settings, but everyone’s listening to their own podcast or book on tape or music.

I think we really have to be able to talk to each other more. If you want to have a rich information diet, you have to not let it just be the one that’s algorithmically designed to come to you. So you’re going to have to have that friction with other people.

Frazer Rice (28:04.477)

Lindsay, great stuff. How do we find your book?

Lindsey Cormack (28:07.042)

You can find it anywhere that you find books online. It’s sold on Amazon and on Barnes and Noble and bookshop. It’s also possible to buy it directly from me.I’ll sign it and scribe it and send it to you. I can send it to someone else as a gift. And you can do that on howtoraiseacitizen.com.

Frazer Rice (28:23.781)

That will all be in the show notes. What is your other information?

Lindsey Cormack (28:29.187)

You can find me on Instagram @howtoraiseacitizen, on Bluesky and Twitter, I still maintain DC inbox. This harkens back to the first civics project that I ever did as a political scientist.

Frazer Rice (28:40.733)

Really cool. Lindsay, thank you for being on.

Lindsey Cormack (28:42.786)

Thank you so much. I love these questions.

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

For those of us who live in New York, mass transit is the norm and traffic is a minor form of apocalypse. In response to this persistent issue, New York City implemented a new congestion pricing plan.

https://youtu.be/TeObZEnjmv4?si=fQTxzRCe6b-sGH5F

Besides the increased funds for badly-needed infrastructure improvements, the plan made other promises. These also include reduced commute times, better air-quality, and improved safety for all road users.

https://www.amazon.com/Movement-Yorks-Long-Take-Streets-ebook/dp/B0CV9FNFWV/

Because the sample size is small, it is an open question of whether congestion pricing has delivered? Can it deliver? And how did we get from the horse and buggy, to the street car, to the train and automobile-based system we have now? Will it apply to other cities in the U.S.?

Nicole Gelinas and I took some time to trace New York’s transportation history in her new book and analyze the prospects for congestion pricing’s effectiveness going forward.

(*UPDATE: 20 minutes after we stopped recording on 2/19/25, President Trump announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation was pulling its approval of New York City’s congestion pricing plan. Governor Holchul has met, apparently unsuccessfully, with President Trump on the topic. Litigation has already started. STAY TUNED.)

NICOLE GELINAS, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder, is a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and contributing editor to City Journal. She lives in New York City. She is the author of the recent book, Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back Its Streets From the Car.

Outline

How did you get interested in congestion pricing and the development of transportation in NYC?

New York City’s Transit History

What are some of the “tragedies” (Cross Bronx Expressway / death of streetcar) and “near misses” (The Saving of Washington Square Park and Grand Central Terminal) that we don’t know about?

How much credit or blame should we give Robert Moses?

Congestion pricing- what is it trying to do (and is it trying to do too much)?

• As a revenue raiser
• To reduce congestion
• Help environment
• Quality of Life

What are the early returns on its effectiveness? 

(Anecdotally, to me it seems like it is having a positive congestion effect in Manhattan) 

• Uber/Taxis?  Notwithstanding these initiatives, what about these often empty cars?
• E-Bikes? Now that the city has addressed cars, what about the safety concerns of motorized bikes?
• How is the program affecting Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut?  
• As a result of these changes, has the air quality shown any improvement?

Meanwhile, is London a Success? 

Because of its heady reputation of being one of the most forward cities on congestion control, urban planners trot out London as an example for others. Is this warranted?

(However, having been there in November, I thought the traffic was insane! )

Did they do other things to screw up a good initiative?

Congestion Pricing’s Future (*Before Trump’s Involvement)

I never met an automatic tax that a politician didn’t see to expand and the tax is automatically going up by law,

Regarding government’s growing addiction to revenue,

• Will the program expand?
• Will the borders go north? Brooklyn? Queens? 
• Or can it go backward under Trump?
• Regardless, does the MTA have the will to cut costs?
• Notwithstanding the controversy, is there any political will to enhance safety?

Wish list: What would be your favorite next NYC transportation initiative?

If we want to learn more, what’s the best way to get the book and keep track of your work?

Further Details on NeW York’s Congestion Pricing Plan

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

https://youtu.be/xNeFuqsU7A4

Podcast Trailer

Welcome to the “Wealth Actually” podcast trailer. I’m FRAZER RICE. After 170 episodes, I thought I’d check in to make sure that everyone understood what to expect from the show going forward, especially if you’re new to it. For those newcomers, it was time for a quick podcast trailer.

Ultimately, I’ll be talking to a lot of different experts in their various fields.

By day, I’m a chief operating officer / wealth strategist for large complicated families. This involves wealth management, tax, trustee issues, family dynamics, and the odd business succession story.

I’m also a lawyer which means I’m interested in legal issues that surround these concepts.

Finally, I enjoy politics and public policy. I grew up in it, and so I like to think about it and its interaction with my day job.

Ultimately, this show is paired with a book called Wealth Actually, and the best way to reach me is via www.wealthactually.com.

I hope this podcast trailer was helpful. I’m always looking to get it better. If you have guest ideas, topics to explore or or other ways to increase its reach, I’m happy to listen. Finally, if you have other shows that I think are worth experiencing, send them along.

(For those repeat listeners, you will notice I changed the theme music too. It’s a little more thunder, a lot less synthesizer. Let me know what you think of it.)

Enjoy the show and be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends.

More Episodes

Find more episodes in the podcast section HERE

Book

To buy a copy of the book “Wealth, Actually”, see the link below. (There is a great audiobook version that I just produced and is accessible on Amazon too)

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

Social Media

Linkedin

Twitter

IG

BlueSky (NEW!)

Podcast Trailer

The Internal Revenue Service is a massive “Three Letter Agency.” It’s a bureau of the Department of the Treasury and (believe it or not) one of the world’s most efficient tax administrators. In fiscal year 2020, the IRS collected almost $3.5 trillion in revenue and processed more than 240 million tax returns. It has over 90,000 employees.

It is also about as popular as Communism and Dog Catchers with most people! This makes running this most public of organizations a challenge for garnering resources and maintaining safety, stability and confidence in the revenue collection that makes this country go.

https://youtu.be/mXxwh0IR3Ig

Charles “Chuck” Rettig is a Shareholder at Chamberlain Hrdlicka in the Firm’s Tax Controversy & Litigation practice and served as Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from 2018 through 2022. He shares his experience with us and some pointers in dealing with the Service.

How the IRS operates and its priorities:

The volume of work and responsibility of the Internal Revenue Service

The structure of the agency

Data Science is the Future

What it does that people may not be aware of

• Other parts of the Treasury opine on tax policy, but the agency provides guidance on workability
• Chuck as the Commissioner appeared before Congressional Committees 37 times in 4 years.
• Personality matters both internally and externally
• The Commissioner has an 11 person security detail and receives 3 credible death threats / week.

What to expect in the next years:

Legislative Uncertainty

Administrative Challenges

• The Service has almost 400 Million “clients” with huge disparities in sophistication
• Resources are always a struggle- getting bang for the buck
• Personnel departures from the Service

Prediction: Increased aggressiveness at the state level

What best practices in front of the IRS look like.

Setting up your affairs with a ling term strategy in mind

Interacting with an Examiner

Speed and Humanity

The 3 headed approach to family office planning

High end advisory work with the T&E group

The overall context in working with the structure and culture of the IRS – having a backdoor channel

Litigation support for those situations that need it.

Links

With Kelley Miller: The IRS Audits You- What’s Next?”

Transcript of the Show

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

Frazer Rice (00:01)
The IRS and taxation in general is in all sorts of tumult with the new administration. How to deal with the IRS, how to file your taxes, how to plan for things going forward. It’s something to think about. We have Chuck Redig on and he is a terrific resource for all of our listeners. He’s a shareholder at Chamberlain Herdlica. It is in the firm’s tax controversy and litigation department.

Frazer Rice (00:26)
Most importantly, he served as commissioner of the IRS from 2018 through 2022. So we have a little inside baseball here on how the commission works and things to think about in your own practice. So Chuck, welcome aboard.

Chuck Rettig (00:32)

Thank you for having me. It’s a privilege to be out.

Frazer Rice (00:42)
Well, it’s a treat for us to have you and a real great opportunity. First and foremost, look, the three letters IRS are scary to just about anybody who comes in contact with them on a personal basis. Maybe break down a little bit how the IRS operates and what its priorities are.

Background

Chuck Rettig (01:01)
Yeah, you know, when I went on board, somebody high up in Treasury, and I’m basically a kid from Los Angeles and Irish headquarters in Washington, D.C., and somebody from Treasury said to me, you know, congratulations, it’s a Senate-confirmed position, and you are one of the five most powerful people in the United States, but you are absolutely the most hated. And I remember shaking his hand going, okay, thank you, you know, and this is something I’m still interested in doing.

Reflection

Looking back, I look back with a lot of pride.for the opportunity. basically a tax guy from a tax practice, 36 years in tax and state planning and other related things in one firm in Los Angeles, the opportunity to go on board of the IRS. And if you will make a difference. This was in 2018, which was about a year and a half-ish, right? Depending upon when you say COVID started and gave us the opportunity to go in and see what we can do to change things. But I always kept in my head.

the anxiety people have for the IRS. At all levels, you could be the most sophisticated tax professional, or you could be the taxpayer on the street. Individual, corporate, everything in between. And everybody interacts with the internal revenues of us. The IRS interacts with more Americans than any other public or private sector organization on the planet. And for a variety of reasons, there’s a lot of challenges for the agency. But the operation itself,

The physical part of the operation, I’ll just kind of give you a once over, is headquarters is in Washington DC, 1111 Constitution. I moved to Washington DC, had an apartment a few blocks away from there, thinking, oh, I’ll just walk to work.

The IRS Commissioner and Security

And one of the first things you realize is, okay, well, the commissioner is not going to be out in public by themselves, tying into this most hated thing. had what mostly was an 11 person protection detail with you at all times, averaged one to three to five, what they call credible death threats per month. And it’s hard to adjust to, right? It’s like, if you will, for a federal government salary, you really have to want to do government service and make a difference when you see the things that most people are not aware of. But headquarters, Washington, DC, the…

The Size and Scope of the Service

Headquarter ability is 1.2 million square feet. You know, there were about 85,000 employees when I was there. Currently, it’s about 100,000 employees, 519 offices throughout the world in terms of what we think of in terms of operations. So I was there in 2018 to 2022, and the commissioner has a term, my term expired November 12th, 2022 by statute. But just during the term that I was there,

IRS implemented seven major tax acts, right? Starting with TCJA in December 2017. So in five years, you’re redoing all your systems, right? You have to figure out how you have to code the systems for changes in tax law. And in addition to that, you gotta be prepared. So you redo some of your systems and put them on the shelf so you’re ready to go with the changes, but everything you think is gonna become tax law doesn’t. So tremendous effort to try to get things moving and get it operating, if you will, behind the scenes. And then, you know.

Frazer Rice (04:28)
And so, you were put in charge of this, the scale is massive. You’re dealing with essentially one of the largest corporations in the country, even though it’s a government agency. Chronically underfunded, as we always hear in the news, and so you don’t have the resources to do what you want to do, either technologically or people-wise, and so on. And then you’re called to account for why things go wrong when they do or how awful you are on a daily basis because you’re the you’re the you’re the bearer of bad news oftentimes. How did you adjust to that?

Job Requirements

Chuck Rettig (05:01)
So I think you have to have thick skin. You have to know why you’re there. We were there to serve the country, right? What a lot of people said is, hey, Chuck followed his son into government service. My son is a major in the United States Army. When I went on board, my son was deployed. He’s deployed three times. And sort of if you will serve in the country and look at the flag, I do pause when I look at the flag.

DC is different than pretty much any other part of the United States. Everybody points fingers. Nobody takes responsibility. Nobody takes accountability. And they all want to send out a tweet of, we just grilled the IRS chief. I testified in Congress about 37 times, Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee. And a lot of that also was during COVID, where we had tremendous struggles during COVID, as the rest of the world did, right? And so,

Frazer Rice (05:53)
Huh. Right.

COVID and the IRS

Chuck Rettig (05:57)
You just really have to hunker down, move forward. And by nature, the commissioner of the Inter-Northern Service, the only person who could ask me to leave would be the president of the United States. And I served equal terms under President Trump and President Biden and relied on the fact that, you know, if they want to fire me, they can fire me. But my lines inside to the employees were, we’re going to do what we’re going to do.

We’re going to do the right thing. Very impartial, non-political at all.and we’re going to move forward. And then I would always add in, if somebody wants to fire me, they can fire me. Of course, I would add in and send me back to my home in Los Angeles, to my friends, you know, get me out of the snow in DC. And then other people come in and go, it sounds like you’re trolling to get terminated.

I go, no, but when I think about home compared to I think about DC, you know, maybe I’m ready. But that was my, if you will call it. My son in the military has a thing. If you think you’re all that, bring it, right?

The Personal Touch

And I adopted that, I adopted that for the IRS. If people wanna take shots at us, if you will verbally, make your comments. I will say I got counseled on when I testified that the staffers for some of the senators thought I was intimidating the senators when I wanted to testify. Senate finance has 28 senators. And I said, it’s one against 28, how can I intimidate them? They said, well, sir, you.

You have a look and then you throw tone if you disagree. I said, go back up there and you tell them they won’t get the look, they won’t get tone. Two things. If they, as they’re asking a question, put out accurate facts, right? And then stay away from the employees. That’s all I’m asking for. Accurate facts, it up, your question is, and then ask me your question and do not go after the employees. They won’t see tone or, or,

Frazer Rice (07:55)
or faces. Right.

Chuck Rettig (07:55)
or the look, right?

Resources

But I felt my job was really to get it right in the trenches, not to, if you will, be swayed by somebody who has a title, senator or congressman, is most of the folks we interacted with. I served under Secretary Mnuchin and Secretary Yellen. They really gave us free rein to do our thing. And we did. And in the same time as all this is going on, keep in mind,

Iris maintains two level five computing centers, one of the largest call centers in the world, one of the largest law firms in the world, one of the largest processing sites in the world. So you can start to see the 63 separate operating systems. You can start to see how technology and the complaints the agency has about technology, technology becomes important when you want to bring it into 2024, 2025, 2026, and technology requires money, right? So the idea is

Frazer Rice (08:58)
Well, the crazy part is, your largest processing, largest law firm, whatever, you also have 360 million clients. I don’t care how large they are, the scale and the many to many relationship that you’re dealing with here.

Chuck Rettig (09:05)
Yes, exactly.

Well, and think of that, you know, the taxpayers, We had, the IRS, we had the most sophisticated individual and corporate taxpayers on the planet, just by far. We also had some of the most, and I don’t mean this in a disparaging way, but the most unsophisticated individual taxpayers who live in an area where they don’t have a smartphone, they don’t have, you know, a laptop, they don’t have wifi access.

Inclusion as a Revenue Raiser

And IRS has to service everybody. Then I’ll add into that what was very important to me was the concept that, I’ll just say, I used say to the employees, where do you live? And I said, don’t say America. You live in the United States of America. I think you know, Fraser, but some people may not. My father was born in Germany and my wife is born in Vietnam.

The in-laws ultimately made it out of Vietnam. My wife got to the country, she was a refugee, a boat person, nine months in a refugee camp in 1981, she escaped at age 17. My in-laws live in Little Saigon in Southern California, do not speak English. And so when I would say to the employees, where do you live? You live in the United States of Most of us can go back one or two generations and somebody culturally identifies with a different country. So for the conversation about sophisticated and unsophisticated individual and corporate.

Languages

There’s also, there’s 170 languages fluently spoken in the United States. When I got on board, by and large, was operating in English. And we did a big push to get into other languages. Again, trying to knock down this anxiety factor. And a lot of the folks who come to the United States come from hostile countries, Vietnam, Cuba, Hungary, Ethiopia, you know, there’s a list, right? And so if you can get… in the language of the people who are trying to get it right, with people from their community and send, you know, bring those people into the send those people back. We had a decent shot of building trust and confidence in the IRS. And I’ll just say, know, lot of people say, well, what are some of the things you’re proud about?

Well, it is, you we could go on for eight hours, but among the top liners, we did the 2019 Form 1040 in Spanish. First time IRS did a individual in context return a really significant form in a language other than English. And they’re ultimately going to have those forms in eight different languages. And so there was pushback. People said, you know, cost us a lot more to do this in another language. And my response was, well, one, we’re not a profit making activity, although gross revenue when I was there was $4.9 trillion a year. That’s 96 % of the gross revenue in United States of America.

Back Home

And if you just think, if you go up 1 % because maybe the folks that you get into their language get it right, that’s $50 billion a year without doing anything other than getting into their language. But one of the comments I made internally when people pushed back about the cost of going into another language was, this should help take the pressure off our phones and off our mail. Because I would say, my father-in-law is 90.

And I said, so every year he files his tax return, he sends in his $8. If in looking at it, he thinks, it should have been six, he’s going to call us every Thursday and ask for his two bucks back. And he’s going to send us a letter every Friday and ask for his two bucks back. And, and he doesn’t speak or write or whatever English. So we’re going to have to deal with that on our end. Whereas if we get it right, if we get our guidance into simple terms, things that people understand, we can actually, we should be able to bridge part of that gap and, and move forward quickly. So that was significant.

I will say, you know, the employees, the workforce embraced that a thousand percent. I’m not smart enough to see some of the benefits we got, but I will tell you that when we did the 1040 in Spanish, a significant percentage of our employees identify with, you know, Hispanic in some form. All of a sudden I became their guy, right? Like they could see me respecting their community.

Integration with Other Policy

Frazer Rice (13:26)
Well, and it’s a major component of policy elsewhere. mean, whether it’s immigration or otherwise, mean, you’ve got to be ready to meet the people that live in the country where they are, especially when you’re revenue, which in my opinion is important, especially when you’re trying to fund things, making it easier to intersect with that.

Chuck Rettig (13:34)
Yeah.

Well, they are in circles.

Yeah.

Frazer Rice (13:53)
Service. In theory, think as long as you’re not dealing with a language that only has a couple hundred speakers, that should increase things as you move forward.

Chuck Rettig (14:03)
Yep.

We had in fiscal 22, which was my last fiscal year, government’s on a September 30 fiscal year. We had 90 million visits on our non-English speaking pages of iris.gov that by and large did not exist when we came on board. And again, for the folks who want to go online and do it themselves, getting into their language. And the key was

If you will, I refer to myself as a single syllable guy. I’m a public school kid out of LA. Only person in my family go to college. The key was not using, if you will, the equivalent of Shakespearean English in our, when we go into other languages, but something that real people could understand. That was critical because the purpose of getting there was to touch base with people, knock down some of the anxiety, and hopefully they get it right when they send it in the first time.

Technology and the IRS

And if it comes in right the first time, the automated systems, 98 % of the 1040s, a set of eyes never look at it. It just sails through the system. If they get something a little bit out of kilter, then it goes to a filter, our people look at it, notices happen and stuff like that. So the goal was to streamline the filings for everyone and then free up resources so we can spend more time on areas that obviously there were not enough people for, but we needed to.

We hired left and right, as many as we could, data scientists. And as we were talking before, you said, that’s one of the things that surprised you. Like most people, or like most tax folks, I saw the IRS as a tax administrative agency, processing returns, collection action, issuing a lot of refunds, issuing a lot of refundable credits and such, examinations and all that.

Data Science

Really, you need a lot of data scientists as you start to really rely on technology and you modify your technology. And IRS has compliance data warehouses, what’s called Insight CDW. It’s one of largest data warehouses in any organization that has three letters that you’ve heard about. I met a lot of three letter organizations that I didn’t know existed. And I met a lot of people that don’t exist. You know, you go into a room, there’s…

Frazer Rice (16:23)
Guys in suits with pistols.

Chuck Rettig (16:27)
There’s five guys named Sam and nobody has a last name, okay? This is unique. But really the idea being that if you can streamline and make it user friendly, my terminology on there is Apple friendly, right? Ergonomic, acceptable from all facets of the organization. What a of people refer to more sophisticated than me, we call it the private sector experience. Hey, can I help you today? You know, when they answer the phone people at Iris were phenomenal given the lack of resources they had. But data scientists are behind all of that. And so we hear about hiring people for the phone. We hear about hiring people for examinations or collection or HR. There wasn’t so much talk about all the data scientists, but inside they really, they make a difference for the internal interactions as well as external interactions.

Cybersecurity

And having said that, I just want to touch one thing that I like to throw out, because it helps understand the size of the operation, but also the issues around it. While I was there, we averaged between 1.4 and 1.6 billion sophisticated cyber attacks per year. Government-speak, a sophisticated cyber attack means it’s essentially North Korea, Iran, Russia, or China. And our entire campus is designed to attack

US systems, we were responsible for ours for treasury. But also we had information sharing agreements with at my time, I it was 83 countries around the world. If you have taxpayers here or there and information goes electronically and it’s the weakest link here. So we not only had to protect if you were the home front, we had to protect 83 systems in foreign countries. And you know, you did not hear hey, there was this large bump in the theory, I guess, be somebody could get in and possibly think that they could. I don’t think they can, but if they got in, trigger billions of dollars of refunds. And we looked at that, and that’s obviously, without saying, important. But beyond that, what my pitch was to the folks there who were phenomenal, the emotional component of this, right?

If somebody gets into the financial operating system, the United States government, if a foreign country is to get into that, the emotions for people in the country will suffer. You you want to think we’ve got the thickest armor and we’re there and we’re prepared. You don’t want to think that, you know, an eight year old in China got through or whatever. And not thinking on China. I’m just telling you, we know, we know.

The Service and Congress

Frazer Rice (19:13)
I don’t know, but, no question about that. As you look at, we’ve now flipped back to a Trump administration and the IRS, we have sort of Doge over here, which is evaluating things and Elon throws tweets at the IRS and we’ve already know that it’s not as well resources that really should be given the importance of its function. How do you view what we’re looking at? Either both legislatively or administratively for the IRS in this new administration.

Chuck Rettig (19:46)
So the most significant role I played at the IRS really was going for the money, right? I went up to the hill left and right. We need timely, consistent, multi-year funding. were, the agency had been starved forever. There’d been a hiring freeze from 2011 to 2018. I walk in the door 2018 and it’s duct tape on the carpets, duct tape holding people’s laptops together.

I know, folks by large in the field, if they wanted to pin some paper on their own, they got to go to Office Depot kind of a thing. yeah, that’s one thing, but also it’s the emotions of what you’re asking your employees to do. So my significant effort was to go for the money. We went for the money. I started out doing what every other commissioner said. We need timely, consistent multi-year funding. We have no money, you know, and it kind of drones on on the hill. And the response almost routinely was, well, we don’t think you’re efficient enough, right?

Talking to Senators

And I offered for certain amounts of money, billions and billions of dollars extra every year, I offered any oversight they wanted. know, Tuesday at 10 o’clock, I’ll be in all of your offices and explain what we did since last Tuesday kind of a thing. Where it shifted, and I think this is important and people need to see this. So I have a kid in the military who wears a military uniform with a flag on his shoulder. The IRS brings in 96 % of the gross revenue in the United States of America.

The Importance of Collecting

The federal government does not build aircraft carriers internally, doesn’t build bridges internally and all that. They contract that. So my comments went from IRS kind of, this is what we do to showing how IRS supports the country, right? And that we’re important was the line, IRS is important. Everything we put out had red, white and blue stars and stripes on it. If you will, we sort of branded.

the IRS, right, as red, white and blue, not putting this on the military level, but they want to support the military, you got to fund it. That really, I think changed the way a lot of people looked at it. COVID changed, we were the only operating federal agency during COVID. We issued 475 million payments, totaling $830 billion in three crunches, all in record time. So all of that came in, and IRS August 16, 2022 got $80 billion of

IRA funding allocated how Congress wanted it allocated. The majority going to enforcement, $45.6 billion going to enforcement. The reasoning behind going to enforcement really wasn’t, gee, we really love the IRS, is its scores. If you put a dollar into enforcement, you can get $10 or $11 back elsewhere. Now Congress can go spend $10 or $11. That’s what’s going on there, where it’s the rest of the money, modernization,

Frazer Rice (22:28)
Right, sure.

Chuck Rettig (22:38)
Taxpayer services, operations support, didn’t score so they could go after more money. So Congress has, they left alone, they’ve left alone a lot of, sorry.

The Service and Tax Policy

Frazer Rice (22:46)
As we as we know, that’s OK. As we think about it, how involved is the IRS get in the form formulation of tax policy? I’m sure Congress comes to you and says, hey, you you’re in charge of implementing this. Is it doable? But do you go in and have an opinion on good ways or efficient ways to raise money or places to places to attack, for lack of better word?

Chuck Rettig (22:57)
So, that’s a Treasury role. We’re just tax administrators. So Treasury works with the Hill and also an administration on tax policy. What we were able to achieve, which was also critical, we were able to get in the room when Congress, Treasury, and everybody else decided what would, how, be taxable, et cetera, et cetera. We were able to get into the room to help draft the legislation for what we could administer. So rather than setting us up to fail,

Frazer Rice (23:12)
Mm-hmm. Got it.

Complexity

Chuck Rettig (23:39)
We want provisions that we actually can administer in tax code, right? And we were instrumental in getting that done in part. A lot of credit there goes to the then chief counsel of the IRS, who was also a Senate confirmed position. Mike Desmond, he did not see the role as chief counsel as just the lawyer in the law firm for the IRS.

But when you send a Senate confirmed person up to the Hill to go in a room with Senate staffers and talk about what we can do, people listen and Mike’s great guy and was in to try to make a difference. He came on board shortly after I did and our theories was we’re gonna sit in our office and go look how cool we are. We’re commissioner and chief counsel. Let’s get our hands dirty. Let’s go to work. So it’s a thing. You don’t want the tax administrator deciding tax policy.

Best Practices

Frazer Rice (24:27)
That makes sense to me. What’s your best advice to people who are in front of the IRS, either as far as setting up their affairs or then interacting with them when it’s time to talk to the IRS or if you’re being audited or there’s some by-play in between?

Chuck Rettig (24:46)
So know today that the IRS has the technology, and this is kind of what we’ve been talking about. They have the technology in place to uncover, if you will, issues of noncompliance that weren’t even remotely possible just a few years ago. So they’re very data-driven. In the digital asset virtual currency space, there are no anonymous transactions. There are no random audits. The examinations that happen happen for a reason. It’s either

The IRS is running a campaign on a specific type of issue. In the high wealth world, you have art donations, you have business aircraft and such. So it’s either a specific type of issue or it’s a type of taxpayer. know, high wealth taxpayers, complex partnerships, large corporations, multi-tiered partnerships, those are all high on the radar screen for enforcement presence. Backing into the beginning of question, so what do you do? You do your homework. You do your homework on fun.

Pattern Recognition

And it’s not unusual for IRS to engage and find out that maybe it wasn’t a tax return that doesn’t track to if you have a partnership agreement or the LLC agreement or something, particularly in closely held family type operations. know, entity needs money, mom and dad put money in. Where did the capital accounts adjust accordingly, Effectively, if not, you might have a transfer of wealth from mom and dad to children just by that act alone. And so agents are trained to look for that. THE BEST EXAMINATION IS THE ONE THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN.

And then number two, the one that you’re prepared for. The agents are doing their job. The training for an agent is not to get in and make a lifetime endeavor out of this. Get in, get a sense of feel, if you will, and then get out. And so there’s a marginal return. So it goes like this. And so about here, they should be getting out.and the longer they stay in, they don’t get a more significant adjustment. But agents are people and coming really to the beginning, question is, I’ve found in now 44 years of interacting with IRS five of which were from the inside, I’ll just tell you, maintain the appearance of reasonableness at all times, stay professional. The agents are trying, they’re doing their best. Some of the questions may just make no sense to you, right?

Checklists

And it may just be a checklist that they have. By the way, in the high wealth world, there’s enough out there now, you global high wealth, the information document requests that they roll out with in an audit. want all this information. I would say if you’re on the front end of, you know, involved in preparing returns for wealthy clients, ought to take a look at one of those because that’s going to roll out quickly. Better to have, you know, a file or digital file that has that stuff and you’re kind of ready to go. I’ll tell you.

in thousands and of specialized agents of the IRS, having the right thing in the right place on the return. It’s like reading a book. Can you read the language or do you stumble on something? They look at a tax return like we would look at a novel or a magazine and they glance through it. Then when they hit something that’s either in the wrong place, it’s called the wrong thing, it’s a bit of an issue to them. You don’t want them to slow up. They go look.

You don’t want them to slow up. You want them to go fast. And then if they find something, you should be hopeful. If it’s a mistake, that it’s only in the year they’re looking at, because they’ll immediately go to the prior year. They should be looking always at three years, the year of the exam, the next year, and the year before. And when you have pattern that’s a mistake, and using quotes around the word mistake, when you have pattern that’s a mistake and it’s always in the taxpayer’s favor,

When the Puzzle Becomes Personal

It’s really when they start to dig in, right? And remember, know, tax professionals sign these returns, prepare these returns. Most agents don’t have private sector experience. So the idea of, and I would routinely say, listen, on the outside, a client is somebody who always gives you everything you want in a timely manner, exactly the format you want. And then I would go, that doesn’t exist, right? Tax professionals.

are up against deadlines, they’re trying to put all this together. They got a lot of people who are procrastinators. know, somebody’s thinking October 15th, so they must be the only person in the world who’s gonna give their guy the stuff on October 15th. And I said, remember how these things come together. And then I pitched another one that wasn’t as universally accepted, but something to think about. I said, the second question the agent should ask, other than good morning, how you doing? It should be,

Being Upfront

In preparing for this examination, did you notice anything that you want to tell me? And my third or so week on board, I said that to the chief of exams. said, I’ve never understood why you just don’t roll out with that. Concept being, is there something you want to tell me? And then the agent should say, what you put on the table right now, there’ll be no penalties for the adjustment. You’re keeping me from having to do it. I get it that things happen. I’ll use word mistakes, but we don’t say that really.

Frazer Rice (29:59)
It’s a type of thing where you want to make their job easier and be ready for explanations of things that may be weird speed bumps along their thought pattern there.

Chuck Rettig (29:59)
But yeah. thousand percent and remember they’re people, right? So they don’t get graded on, they got a big adjustment or this or that. They get graded on how quickly they go through a return. The data says which returns have are more likely to have potential for adjustment, but that doesn’t mean that every return you look at is in that vein. So, you know, examination and interacting with agents, the appearance of cooperativeness, appearance of reasonableness.

Stay Uncomplicated

Trying to explain things and often the agents can have no clue about the type of business operation that’s involved, right? Or the financial nature of the financial transactions involved. I wouldn’t get too far in detail trying to explain some real sophisticated thing to a person with the IRS. I would do it by analogy, right? Find something that we all understand in our daily lives. Say this is kind of how it works.

You’re familiar with whatever. you know, this thing, that’s how this system works. They don’t need to know how to duplicate the business activities of the taxpayer. They need to get a modest comfort level that what’s in the return is appropriate and agents stereotype, right? So if you come at them hard, don’t expect an easy resolution. You know, my wife, as I said, from Vietnam, she was an auditor for Franchise Tax Board in California, residency auditor for like 12 years.

Rudeness . . . Not a Good Idea

And she and every other residency owner can tell you stories where somebody says, listen, little lady, let me explain this to you. Exactly. You know, I’m so much better and smarter than you. Let me explain how this works. you know, you just kind of think, why would you go there? But they do hear it. And so I’m not saying take them to lunch, but I’m saying treat them like you’re going to be treated. Yeah, exactly.

Frazer Rice (31:48)
That always works: Be reasonable.

One of the things, especially as we move up the ladder in complexity, in terms of staffing the advice around you, whether it’s your accountant, your tax preparer, your lawyer, if it gets to that point, is not only having the right people from creating the transaction, getting the compliance right, et cetera, but also having the people who are used to either litigating or dealing in a pure legal sense with the IRS and then having someone with let’s say the back channel or relationship with the IRS as part of that, that that’s a good way to go or to think about staffing your own personal affairs as you sort of get up the food chain. Does that make sense?

Staffing your tax team

Chuck Rettig (32:49)
Yeah,

I have to tell you, so, you my first six years, I was not on the controversy side. was transactional tax person, tax lawyer, you know, handling some of those sophisticated stuff out there. And then branch was doing both. And it floors me how seldom people call in, if you will, the firefighter to see is the house flameproof, right? Kind of a thing. You know, what’s your look at this?

Or if they came at us, how would you approach a response to them before the return goes in? And my personal reaction, this isn’t like saying, hey, create business for us, but a set of eyes who’ve been in the trenches, who’ve been in the courtroom, who’ve been in the appeals courtroom, who know how the government thinks, invaluable to go. Usually it’s just a little tweaking here and there. It’s that tweaking that really the examinations are gonna…

Get in . . . Get Out . . . Fast

It’s that tweaking that makes those examinations flow smoothly. I just think sometimes, it’s the old thing, pressure. I’ve drafted a lot of things in my career, 42 years, 43 years of practice. Early on somebody said, draft it, set it aside, and come back and look at it. So I do that, I come back and look at it. And my first response is to myself, who drafted this thing? I’m in love with

Frazer Rice (34:14)
I think we’re all like that.

Chuck Rettig (34:16)
I’m in love with it on Wednesday. It’s a masterpiece. I wish my mom was still alive. She’d be so proud of me. And on Friday, I look at it and think, what was I thinking? And that’s in this world. you’re representing a client. Do you want to do your best for the client? People who do what we do are a quick study. You’ve been in those trenches that long. You start to know exactly where they’re going to go, how they’re going to go, what they’re going to look at.

And sometimes it’s just a simple thing that sets them off in one direction or another. And you want to get through this activity quickly. If you really want to save money, get in and get out. And then the other thing, and for clients, what you want to provide the client is certainty, right? Getting out gives them certainty. Having an examination linger, even if somebody’s reporting the agent doesn’t know what they’re doing, et cetera, et cetera. In the meantime, that client can’t go on and…

Frazer Rice (34:58)
No, speed is key.

Speed

Chuck Rettig (35:17)
Realistically conduct a lot of business activities. Cause if you will, the fear, what we talked about in the beginning, the fear, the anxiety of the government and what if the government takes a left turn and comes in heavy on us on some issue. Now I’ve got at least mentally set aside some amount of money to possibly pay it, but also to fight it. Whereas if you can close it down today, quickly, you give that client the comfort to go forward in their own world.

And unfortunately, I’ve been involved in things. I’ve seen businesses break up and I’ve seen marriages and families break up because some people miss her or miss America. can’t function with the iris sits doorstep, right? Even if all the reports are good. Let alone there is a mistake.

Frazer Rice (36:05)
Well, that kind of fighting and litigation is just a drain. And at some point, you want to graduate to work on different and fun problems, not that.

Chuck Rettig (36:13)
Nobody will.

I used to have clients come in and I’ve seen some of it since I’ve come back and I’m with Chamberlain come in and you know, we want you because you you’re going to be able to slay the government. my now my typical response is, so my wife and I have four children, they’re through college. You’re not going to have to pay my kids college education. I had somebody recently say they wanted me want us to go biblical on the IRS. were so right.

Frazer Rice (36:45)
No.

Don’t Tug on Superman’s Cape

Chuck Rettig (36:46)
And I said, well, we’ll revisit that, but I can just tell you, that’s not what’s going to happen. You’re going to hear at some point me say to you, this is how we get it resolved. And I can do it economically. You know, I was an economics major at UCLA. I can tell you why, but I’m also going to tell you for your own sanity why you’re going to do it. And the comment has always been the same. And think your tax controversy folks should routinely bring this in. Better to pay them than to pay us. You pay off the government, right? What you were going to pay us, you put it in the kitty.

It’s not such a big difference, but you’re buying certainty with that. We think we’re right. The line is, if your name’s in a caption, it hasn’t been a good experience. And I tell clients, if we become best friends, it’s not a good experience. We were involved too quickly. And we really pride ourselves, if you will, on the surgical strike. Take a look. What are the things to go after with government and controversy, madam, and try to put that to rest. And you see the rest of the case just evaporates.

Outro

Frazer Rice (37:47)
Really cool stuff. Chuck, how do listeners and watchers find you?

Chuck Rettig (37:53)
So the same way that when I got my government phone, they got handed to me, IRS phone, there was a message on it, I played the message, and I found out that the FBI was about to arrest me for failure to pay taxes. But like, how do the spammers get my IRS phone number, right? Yeah, so you can just Google Chuck Reddick, R-E-T-T-I-G, or former IRS commissioner. I’m very proud to be on board Chamberlain Hurdlicka.

We have over 100 tax lawyers on board. We’ve got, you know, a whole estate group and high wealth and family office and all of that. you know, coming out of government, I had 25 or 30 or more opportunities to join all types of professional practices, as you can imagine, right? I’m essentially the only tax commissioner in recent history to be a tax guy and then go back into private practice. So…

Nuance

The question is, how did you pick Chamberlain? I have a quick answer. It’s not just me, but it’s the people. There’s dozens of people that I’ve known for decades. And you want to work with people you want to work with. I found out about Chamberlain and that’s how I ended up with Chamberlain. And like I said, we pride ourselves on surgical strikes, getting in, getting out. that’s my reaction to who folks want to work with, tax professionals and who you want to help.

I represent your clients and it’s important, you know, and we see it, you know, I, we don’t go with thundering in, Hey, I used to be commissioner. Let me explain how you’re doing. That’s the, that’ll be a commissioner version of listen, little lady, let me explain to you. You know, we’re very subtle on, on that. I’ll just, you know, if we’re at the closing level, say, when I was leaving, a lot of people said to me, what do you think folks at the IRS think about you?

Frazer Rice (39:36)
Heh.

Chuck Rettig (39:48)
I said, well, I’d hope that 95 % of them would tell you that I had their back a thousand percent, because I did. I went in for the tax professional community, the taxpayer community, tax administration in general, and the IRS workforce, and see if we can pull it together and be better.

Frazer Rice (40:05)
Really cool stuff. Chuck, I really appreciate you being on and look forward to seeing how the IRS operates in the new administration and going forward.

Chuck Rettig (40:13)
Fingers crossed.

https://youtu.be/h1yo6l7V0Yw

Preserving legacies is about more than cataloging “stuff” and keeping a spreadsheet. Done well, it can provide the grounding for intergenerational communication, engagement with outside constituencies and, in certain cases, monetization.

This involves a organized process:

Preserving Legacies and Cataloging

With the horrible recent storm damage in North Carolina and Florida and the horrible Los Angeles wildfires, the cataloging process is on the forefront of many families’ minds.

Storytelling Development

The artifacts of a family can be the keystone of family narrative building and next-generation education.

Fan/Constituency Engagement

The building of physical digital museums can be the centerpiece of engagement for internal and external constituencies. From extended families, to customers and extended fan-bases, advanced legacy preservation is more than just “stuff.”

Monetization

In certain situations, these efforts can lead to new forms of business and monetization. For artists, authors and musicians, these museum efforts can add value to IP revenue streams and transactions.

Preserving Legacies

We talk about case studies with stars like Def Leppard, Chris Paul and Jon Bon Jovi. However, we also go through the importance of preserving legacies with families that aren’t filling 50,000 person stadiums.

We distinguish “Preserving Legacies” from Estate Settlement (where many families first begin this process). That said, this show pairs well with the Estate Settlement episode with Joel Schoenmeyer.

Background

BRAD MINDICH is the Founder/CEO of Inveniem which is the leading archiving/fan engagement company that works directly with artists, estates, athletes, brands, and individual celebrities on finding, organizing, preserving, and monetizing their artifacts and history.

INVENIUM, and its fan-facing brand Definitive Authentic’s, overarching message to its clients is Your Past Is Your Future® and this philosophy sets the tone for how the company holistically and strategically partners with its clients to both preserve and extend legacies and connect clients deeper with their fans. The company’s client list is confidential, but it includes some of the world’s most iconic creators.

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/ https://bsky.app/profile/frazerrice.bsky.social/post/3lgul3z7nrs2a https://open.spotify.com/episode/0C9Bost6uihR1Pj8MnsppE?si=cbf4a554b9f04cfa

Estate Settlement is one of the most feared parts of wealth transition. It is where trust and estate planning meet their first real test- usually when a will is put in front of the probate court system. JOEL SCHOENMEYER, Head of the Family Wealth Group at a Major Regional Bank joins us to discuss the ins and outs.

https://youtu.be/OwepMwX0uao?si=YKevHbmDrtrRv12b

What is Joel’s background?

I spent the first 15+ years of my career as a trusts and estates attorney. First at a few different law firms, including Sidley Austin – back when they had a T&E group. Then as a solo practitioner for more than a decade. In 2012 I made the transition to working for financial institutions, where I have held a number of roles:

• Legal department, in the trust counsel group
• Senior Trust Advisor on an ultra-high net worth team
• National Head of Estate Settlement
• Senior Wealth Strategist in a multi-family office group

I’m now in charge of the Family Wealth group at Fifth Third, which is an offering for ultra-high net worth clients and families.

Just broadly, can you explain what happens from a legal perspective when someone dies?

Sure. First, a little terminology:

“Estate settlement” is the overall process of wrapping up a deceased person’s affairs, a job that’s usually handled by an “executor”. That settlement process can include lots of different things, but it can be broken down into a few broad topics:

• Inventorying and collecting all assets;
• Identifying and then paying debts and expenses, including taxes (both final income taxes and, if the estate is large enough, estate taxes); and
• Distributing what remains according to the decedent’s estate plan (or if they didn’t have one, according to state law).

“Probate” can be a part of estate settlement, and involves court supervision of the above process, to make sure that it is handled correctly. I spent some of my time as an attorney drafting Wills and Trusts. However, I spent even more time in court, dealing with probate issues (including litigation).

We are going to be talking about messy estate settlement issues and how to avoid them. Why is this important?

I will say that, throughout my career, I have met clients (or potential clients) who say, “I don’t care what happens when I die – that’s someone else’s problem.” However, most people do NOT want to cause problems for their loved ones. The death of a parent or spouse or sibling is difficult enough without having to figure out where their stuff is, or what they wanted to do with it.

There’s also the positive aspect. You have family and friends – and possibly charities – that you hope will thrive after your passing. Why wouldn’t you want to set things up so that they actually get your hard- earned money? Do you want to have that money go to the IRS or some probate litigators?

How should people start to think about their estate?

I break the issues to consider down into four interconnected categories:

• Assets
• Debts and expenses (including taxes)
• Personal Relationships
• Estate Plan (Will, Trust, etc.)

One thing you will notice is that your estate plan is only one category here. A lot of people think that having a Will and/or Trust in place means that they are “done” with planning for their death. That’s just not true.

So let’s start with assets in the estate settlement process. What is the big mistake people make with their assets in the context of planning for death?

The main mistake is not paying attention to how your assets are titled. This is especially the case where people have an estate plan but then also have assets with a listed beneficiary, or assets owned jointly.

For instance, I once handled an estate where the decedent’s Will gave away her interest in a home – but the decedent already owned the home in joint tenancy with her sister! As a result, the gift under her Will was ineffective (but the situation created a lot of litigation as well as conflict). Too often people don’t have a handle on how assets will pass when they die, so they don’t have a holistic plan.

One other example: husband marries later in life, then dies with a $5 million life insurance policy. That policy was purchased before he got married, and the initial beneficiary was his mother. After the decedent got married, he should’ve updated the beneficiary to his spouse, but he never got around to it.

Another asset-related issue that I encounter: “dead” assets, which is my term for assets that really have little or no value but that are painful to get rid of. Timeshares are the quintessential dead asset, to my mind – estate settlement folks HATE them.

It sounds like there could be estate settlement issues with debts and expenses.

That’s correct. Keep in mind that debts survive your death – they don’t just disappear. If you name beneficiaries for all of your assets but then die with debts, your executor will have to figure out how to come up with the money to pay those debts – and that will probably involve a court proceeding.

Another issue – specific to wealthy individuals – involves the estate tax. That tax is due nine months after death, with very few exceptions. Now, nine months might seem like a long time, but it really isn’t. That’s especially the case if the decedent owned a lot of illiquid assets, like real estate, or private equity, or even a working business.

For instance, what if the decedent dies with an estate of $100 million and gives all of his assets to his children? The estate tax will be roughly $40 million, which is a LOT of money to raise in a short amount of time. Do you obtain a loan? Do you sell the business or real estate quickly?

What’s the best solution for a living person looking to simplify things with respect to both assets and debts?

Speaking generally, you need someone to take a deep dive into both your assets and your debts/expenses/taxes. Who this “someone” is depends on your personal situation. Some people pay their attorney to do this work, although that can an expensive proposition. Other people use their financial institution, or their financial planner, or even an accountant. But the important point is that you – with the assistance of an advisor – need to have eyes on all of your assets and liabilities.

You mention personal relationships as another important issue. What do you mean by that?

I’m really talking about understanding whether your estate plan takes into account the relationships between your friends and family. It might actually worsen those relationships. This comes up a lot in the context of beneficiaries.

An obvious situation: you have two children but giveone child 2/3rds of your assets and the other child only 1/3rd. Now, you may have good reasons for doing that – or even bad reasons, which is allowed, since it’s your money. However, you are also potentially leaving a mess. What are the ways to deal with these personal relationship issues?

Three Things to Keep in Mind:

First: Family Dynamic Awareness

You need to be pretty clear-eyed about whether your kids get along, or whether your spouse gets along with your kids from a prior marriage. Don’t close your eyes to reality. Don’t assume that your family will have good relationships after you are gone. (You being alive may be the only thing forcing them to be civil to one another.)

Second: Staffing

You should be thinking not only of family members as beneficiaries, but also about who is in charge of handling your estate (and any trusts created as a result of your death).

It’s vitally important to NOT create situations where people who don’t get along have to work together.

This applies to co-executors or co-trustees. or in a situation where one of them is “handling” the other person’s finances.

Pro tip: If you have a son and daughter who don’t get along, do NOT name your daughter as trustee of the trust for your son’s benefit. They are both going to be miserable!

Third: Communication

I think this goes for all categories. Transparency solves a lot of these issues, although it may involve some uncomfortable conversations. But I really believe that telling people what your plan is, and explaining the rationale BEHIND your plan, is key. To go back to what I was just saying about leaving differing amounts to your beneficiaries: maybe this makes sense.

For instance, maybe one of your children helped to grow the family business and the other one never contributed. In that case, you should articulate this reason why the child who helped gets more than the child who didn’t. Similarly, if one child is very wealthy but another is struggling but working hard you might want leave more to the struggling child. Please, make sure you explain why!

FInally, how does the actual estate plan factor in here?

Usually we aren’t talking about obvious errors, like a Will or Trust that gives away 105% of your assets. I often encounter situations where the estate planner tries to translate your wishes into legal language that doesn’t work when applied in the real world. Here’s a situation I encountered a couple of years ago: Dad (a widower) has a son and a daughter. His Will gives daughter a right to buy his home within 30 days of his death. Now, I found this provision while dad was still living, and had to ask:

• Why did only daughter have the right to buy? Not to get ahead of myself in talking about personal relationships, but would daughter’s right to buy anger son? Is this just a situation where daughter was in the area, or lived at the home for longer than son, or had more of a claim to it?
• “30 days” is really fast – did the daughter have the ability to raise this type of money (or obtain a loan) that quickly?

What are your quick take-aways on the Estate Settlement process?

I would say there are two of them.

• Number 1 is: track (or have someone else track) your assets and your debts, with an eye toward making things easy for whoever has to handle your estate.
• Number 2 is: communicate! One of the things we have done at Fifth Third – which is growing in popularity – is have professionals focused on what we call “Family Alignment” or “Family Governance.” On my team, we have someone who is focused on conducting family meetings, anticipating some of these pain points with an eye toward resolving them, and even mediating disputes. And we are not alone – this is becoming a much bigger topic of conversation as wealthy individuals and families realize that being rich can create a host of problems.

Related Estate Settlement Episodes

Estate Settlement in a Cryogenic Scenario

Whom should you name as executor?

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

This week, “Wealth Actually” meets “THE SOUL OF WEALTH” as I speak with DR. DANIEL CROSBY, Ph.D. about his new book.

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Wealth-reflections-money-meaning-ebook/dp/B0CP625K99 https://youtu.be/Y6dUcW_eQW4

Outline (Soul of Wealth)

-Behavioral Finance
-Issues with the “research”
-Building consensus around money decisions
-How our brains trick us into faulty wealth processes
-Teaching people to stretch the time horizon of their planning

Biography

Educated at Brigham Young and Emory Universities, Dr. Daniel Crosby is a psychologist and behavioral finance expert who helps organizations understand the intersection of mind and markets.

As a leading voice on the impact of behavioral finance, “The Soul of Wealth” isn’t Daniel’s only writing.

Dr. Crosby’s first book, Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management, was a New York Times bestseller.

His second book, The Laws of Wealth, was named the best investment book of 2017 by the Axiom Business Book Awards and has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and German.

His latest work, The Behavioral Investor, is an in-depth look at how sociology, psychology and neurology all impact investment decision-making. 

Finally, Daniel publishes the highly respected Standard Deviations podcast- where you can find his personal thoughts on financial psychology and interviews with experts in the wealth management and psychology fields.

Money – The Soul of Wealth

Daniel’s book presents 50 short essays which explore what wealth really is and provides practical suggestions for how to change your thinking and your actions in small, powerful ways, for a wealthier life.

Soul of Wealth Topics:

• How you spend your money reveals your values.
• That money can buy happiness if spent well.
• What makes a good financial plan.
• Why willpower is overrated.
• How to master delayed gratification for the ultimate wealth hack.
• Why anything worth doing carries some risk.

Contacts:

@DANIELCROSBY TWITTER

STANDARD DEVIATIONS PODCAST

Behavioral Scientist, Brian Portnoy on the 100th Episode of “Wealth Actually”

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

Author and investment expert, JARED DILLIAN, joins the podcast for the second time to discuss his new collection of short stories, NIGHT MOVES. We talk about his talent for moving across formats and between fiction and non fiction. We go into the need for story-telling and the importance of holding an audience. Finally, we look for crossovers in his writing from his personal history, his move to South Carolina and his experiences in the Coast Guard and Lehman Brothers.

https://www.amazon.com/Night-Moves-stories-Jared-Dillian-ebook/dp/B0DDLB49X1/ “Night Moves” by Jared Dillian

From his military experience and investment experience to his DJ’ing prowess and obvious for multi-faceted talent for writing, Jared is a creator and a Renaissance Man- and a terrific, no nonsense person to speak with about the ins and outs of publishing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7pratxa3EY

Writing across formats and how that led to NIGHT MOVES? 

• Non fiction 
• Novel 
• Short story – is the format a challenge or an opportunity?
• Newsletter – The daily grind of the Daily Dirtnap

How to move between the daily pressure of writing a newsletter to the longer form content in non-fiction?

Then, how do you move to the character development and world-building involved with fiction?

Themes in NIGHT MOVES

Sex, desperation, wistfullness

Writing in a women’s voice (how do you get into that headspace?)

What does research consist of for short stories?

Genre Favorites?

Where you end the story determines whether it’s a comedy or tragedy

Do you start knowing where you want to end up?

What does the format of a writing day look like?  Ie do the newsletters get in the way or help with other projects?

Do you get stuck?  (Is there where it’s convenient to have the newsletters)

Music and Writing- The Crossover into NIGHT MOVES

DJ’ing composing – what are the similarities in that process?

Any crossover to investing?

Where do we find the book and how else can people keep track of JARED?

JARED’S SUBSTACK

DAILY DIRTNAP

Jared on “Wealth Actually” talking about his previous book, “NO WORRIES”

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/ “Wealth Actually” by Frazer Rice

“How to Retire” (by Christine Benz) deals with a concept full of fear, emotion, math and uncertainty: retirement.

Even the wealthiest, who have a margin of safety, run into issues of purpose, time management and legacy.

Layer onto that the risks of longevity, dementia, divorce, managing cash and investments in inflationary times, and navigating the byzantine health and elder care systems.

No wonder “retirement” is a scary topic.

Christine Benz’ new book “How to Retire” is here to help get our arms around this topic.

With 20 interviews with experts in the field, Christine has written a terrific reference for retirees to get their arms around this stage in life.

Her book covers the numbers, the emotion and the structure for people entering the golden years.

CHRISTINE BENZ is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and senior columnist for Morningstar.com. In that role, she focuses on retirement and portfolio planning for individual investors. She also co-hosts a podcast for Morningstar, “The Long View”, which features in-depth interviews with thought leaders in investing and personal finance.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Retire-lessons-successful-retirement-ebook/dp/B0CP5X3TYK/ How to Retire

How to Retire with Christine Benz

The Numbers (Funding Retirement and Resilient Investing)

The Transition to Retirement (AKA “The Countdown”)

With a plan in mind, what is the role a Dry Run with Retirement?

The Buy-In: Getting consensus from spouses and family on what life will look like

The First 2 years: The Importance of a Detailed Calendar

How Are You Going to Use the Time?

Having entered the role of caregiving, retirement may be more of a “job” than you think

“End of Life”: When Should you Give up the Keys and Long Term Care with CAROLYN MCCLANAHAN

Estate Planning (with past “Wealth Actually” guest JENNY ROZELLE)

With all of this frre time, how do spouses adjust to spending so much time together?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN5C7Ko6XBY https://open.spotify.com/episode/50ZO3JLl4bAdf95b64UQIZ?si=XJEYU2h4ToG8rL_Qkou6eA https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/ Frazer Rice’s “Wealth Actually”

Sports media is decentralizing. However, “Sports Podcasts” are exploding in audience growth. Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAffe and Barstool Sports are household names. Legacy names, like ESPN, are figuring out how to hold on to their audiences and find new ways to expand them. Out of this high profile world, there are many lessons to learn in managing one’s own career and how to harness the possibilities of media for your own businesses.

BRAM WEINSTEIN (the “Voice of the Washington Commanders”) is the founder of Ampire Media and can be heard weekdays from 3-6 PM EST on “The Bram Weinstein Show” on ESPN 630 DC. As part of his 24 year (and counting) on air career, he spent 7 years at ESPN mainly as an anchor of “Sportscenter” and has appeared on a  variety of programs including “Like it or Not” on Fox 5 in Washington DC, “The Bram Weinstein Show” on The Team 980, as well as analyst roles on NBC Sports Washington. 

When not performing, Bram produces for and consults with various content providers in traditional and new media for his firm AMPIRE MEDIA.

We also get to nerd out a little on the Washington Commanders and their improbable fast start this year!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2rW0FF84wRQZ8O8qZEyptt?si=bc2c29518f96414e Bram Weinstein “Voice of the Commanders” on Sports Podcasts

Bram Weinstein’s Background –

How did you get into broadcasting?

Take us through the route with the career to get back to DC.

What does a life in sports media look like?

The arc of a broadcaster’s career and the need to develop equity.

https://youtu.be/OxKRSXB2lFI?si=OwyNPG2ZyrC0O3D_ Bram Weinstein on Wealth Actually

Sports Podcasts (and Beyond)

AMPIRE MEDIA– Going from talent, to production, to ownership.

Aggregating other voices.

Where did the idea for the media company come from?

Specific experience or advice that informed the project?

Where do you see the path to profit coming from?

Bridging Traditional Media and the Sports Podcast Business-

How do you manage the time?

What are your ultimate ambitions for Ampire?

What have been the challenges so far?

Lawyer in me asks how you stay in the good graces of everyone, contract and IP-wise?

Has the attitude of the Sports Media Companies changed about “talents’ other activities??

Lessons from Sports Podcasts for other businesses in their marketing strategies.

Joe Gibbs and the Washington Redskins

The Washington Commanders (and their fast start!)

Finally, I’m duty bound to ask some #Commanders questions.

Having been a fan back in the glory days, what is your favorite memory or favorite player?

There is so much new with the Commanders in the last two years: Owner, GM, Coach, QB, a lot of the roster!

What does this season looks like with this “crazy good” start . . . and Jayden Daniels?

Outro- Sports Podcasts

How do listeners find and support you.

https://www.ampiremedia.com/

AMPIRE on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/8jmCnWViN0Y?si=mKy4NPASYiRKfLZ5

MEDIA DISRUPTION and VENTURE CAPITAL

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

The pace, scale and sophistication of RIA marketing has accelerated into hyperspace in the last 10 years. There are new business models in wealth management and, thus, new voices and sources of trust. The speed of content creation and publishing is increasing- especially with newer artificial intelligence tools. Social media has made the scope and reach of marketing efforts enormous -- and required firms to be data scientists as much as financial advisers. Finally, where once the firm drove the branding in the RIA space, there appears to be a move back to the star system - where recognizable names create the light that attracts clients. Enter RICHARD HEFT, President of EXT MARKETING - His firm focuses on marketing for RIA's, asset managers, and other financial institutions. The development and execution of marketing strategies are accelerating well past the leadership of the typical RIA. They have to prove to the market that their inorganic growth efforts are real and sustainable in a crowded (and often bland and undifferentiated) space. Richard tells us what he is seeing in the RIA Marketing space. Background- What does EXT do? Richard Heft EXT Marketing What was the opportunity you saw? What is "Marketing" vs Marketing for Financial Institutions? vs. RIA Marketing? Differences Regulation Other cultural issues Where does RIA Marketing stop and PR start as part of larger strategy? How do you combat the "sea of sameness" and "Lowest common denominator" factors in RIA Marketing? Boats, Piers, Forests Couples at the Beach New demographics, new ideas Measurement - What does marketing success look like from the agency perspective? Is there a difference in the clients' perspective? How do you bridge that gap and make sure there is agreement on metrics? Digital - After putting strategy, into action, what is the importance of data integrity and maintenance? Having established a visibility strategy, how does one convert eyeballs to dollars? How do we get around the "consulting class" fluff? Success stories The new sophistication of the referrer and the consumer / client. https://open.spotify.com/episode/79qDVNuUC0ixgHJIIhVAyD?si=33170e765cc44bdd The art of segmentation? B2B vs B2COI B2B vs B2C? How much can (or what should) be outsourced to an agency vs hiring someone internally? The necessity of 3rd party credibility and how to get it (and get credit for it) "RIA Marketing" Trends going forward? Artificial Intelligence and other tools Social Media (How an UHNW adviser uses podcasts) Will there be a move away from referrals to "legitimate" digital lead generation? Where does traditional media fit in? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuhdR2xJ0bw "RIA Marketing" with Richard Heft Outro: https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/ "RIA Marketing" on Wealth Actually