Wondering what events your business can host at your home and still qualify for tax-free income under the Augusta Rule? In this video, tax attorney John Hyre breaks it down. From annual meetings to investor presentations and even client networking events—there are more qualifying options than you think. The key is documenting it the right way and treating your business like a real business.
We cover:
Common qualifying events you can host at home
Why your annual and quarterly meetings matter for asset protection
Tips to build a strong audit-proof narrative
What not to do (hint: a two-minute meeting won’t cut it)
Transcript:
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So, what kind of events can your
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business pay to have at your personal
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residence? We have some suggestions.
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Now, if you have other suggestions, if
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we miss something, email us. We’ll let
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you know what we think. But here are
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some common ones. Annual meetings. And
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again, as an asset protection lawyer, I
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can’t emphasize enough. Part of what
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entities do at least once a year is have
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a substantive real meeting, not just a
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little piece of paper from some full in
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Nevada or Utah that says, “We had a
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meeting.” and it’s the same piece of
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paper every year with a different date,
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that doesn’t cut it. You need to have an
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actual annual meeting to talk about your
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business. And if the annual meetings are
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fairly short, nothing says you can’t
0:39
have more than one. So, as far as asset
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protection is concerned, you want to
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have these annual meetings. You want to
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make them substantive. And really, what
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do you discuss? The things you normally
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discuss with your business buddies, but
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formalized. For example, if you’re in a
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real estate business, where are interest
0:55
rates? Where is inflation? Do we want to
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buy and hold? What’s happening in the
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Airbnb industry? Do we want to assign or
1:02
rehab? These are all big picture topics
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that are appropriate. They should be
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recorded and then transcribed. You
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create a custom set of notes. Now, you
1:11
can show a court that you hopefully
1:13
never meet in the future because what is
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asset protection? It’s a narrative.
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You’re creating a narrative now for
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someone you’ve never met, a judge,
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someone you hope to never meet. But
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you’re creating the narrative now and
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writing it down. Part of your narrative
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is we treat our entity like an actual
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entity. And serious recorded annual
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meetings are part of that. And that’s a
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perfect event that you could also well
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at it maybe we’ll have a meal we’ll pay
1:41
some rent for the use of the space. It
1:43
all fits together nicely. Likewise with
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quarterly meetings for the business.
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Those are not as necessary from a legal
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standpoint, but it might be something
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you either should do or are already
1:54
doing for the business. Other thoughts?
1:56
Employee meetings, meetings with clients
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in terms of either having an actual
2:01
client meeting if there’s a reason to
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have it in that setting or maybe a
2:05
meeting with a large group of clients to
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talk about ideas and things they may
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want to have and give them a chance to
2:11
network. uh capital raising. Depending
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on the kind of business you’re in, you
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may want to have a meeting at your
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personal residence, assuming I don’t
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know if I would have the meeting at the
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RV for the capital raising. We might
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want to do that at the vacation home,
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the nice one. But have a meeting where
2:27
we raise some capital industry training.
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In my case, networking with other tax
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professionals, having a dinner, sitting
2:35
down, and trading ideas that what have
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you thought about? What have we not
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thought about? This is how we learn.
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Now, how do we conduct the meetings?
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Well, I rented the house for the whole
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day and I had a 2-minute meeting. Isn’t
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going to fly. And we’ll get into more
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detail on how much time should you take
2:50
shortly. But it’s got to look like what
2:52
a real business would do cuz again,
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we’re building a narrative in this case
2:56
for someone we hope to never meet, and
2:59
that’s a tax court judge. Hope to never
3:01
get there, but we want to have a
3:03
narrative set, whether it’s for the
3:05
audit, for the negotiations, for the
3:07
appeals, for the tax court. And part of
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the narrative is doing things in a
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reasonable manner. Having a two-minute
3:13
meeting to get a write off for a day’s
3:16
worth of rental is not what a real
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business would do. So every time you
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look at all these things, these
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meetings, these concepts, these ideas,
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and how you conduct yourself in general,
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do what a business would do. And we’re
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going to help you with that. For
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example, we provide contracts that
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autopop populate. And they’re reasonable
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contracts that have actual business
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practices embedded in them. We try to
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keep them simple enough that you’ll
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actually do it, but real enough that it
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is like the real world that a judge will
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look at it down the road and say, “This
3:48
is something we can respect. This is
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something we can go
