MARK J. QUANN (KNOXVILLE, TN) is the founder & CEO of The Perfect Portfolio, a division of REMii Group, Inc.

Mark Quann grew up in a blue-collar family, his father a brick mason, his mother a stay-at-home mom. At times, they struggled to put food on the table, and growing up in the "poor neighborhood" offered little-to-no opportunity. Frustrated with the lack of financial education in school, Mark began asking his parents, "How do I make money?" They soon nick-named him "Money Mark."

Growing up, Quann disliked school and reading, and much of his education came from the school of hard knocks. After a time buried deep in cred card and student loans because of attending college for business and financial advising, Quann spent over two decades of investing and studying how money works, working as an insurance investigator and thirteen years as an Investment Advisor Representative (IAR).

In 2018, Quann started his own company called The REMii Group, Inc., and a financial education company in 2019 called “The Perfect Portfolio” which teaches an advanced tax-avoidance strategy known as “Buy, Borrow, Die.”  

Quann is the Amazon bestselling author of Top 10 Ways to Avoid Taxes: A Guide to Wealth Accumulation, Top 25 Ways an IUL can Secure Your Financial Future: And Build a Tax-Free Family Bank!, and Rich Man Poor Bank: What the Banks Don't Want You to Know About Money. 

Quann is a life-long, serial entrepreneur with a passion for financial education. And Quann also works with schools, non-profits, and community groups to spread financial education to anyone that wants to learn.

The author lives and works in the Knoxville, TN metro area.

Learn more about wealth building at ThePerfectPortfolio.com

REMiiGroup.com

CHAPTER ONE of BE SMART PAY ZERO TAXES: Use the Buy, Borrow, Die Strategy to Get Rich and Stay Rich! by Mark J. Quann

The Pandemic Epiphany: How I Discovered The Perfect Portfolio™

It was January 2020, and all my speaking engagements had been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The stock market was crashing, and I found myself walking around the pool pondering how I would spend my time in 2020. 

The government was handing out free money—no taxes, no strings attached. I was concerned about the inflation that would follow, and I made a post on Instagram encouraging others to invest the “free money,” rather than spending it. Then a friend asked me a question: “Mark, why don’t you start a financial education company?” I had been teaching finances for over a decade and I loved the idea!

Some friends and I got together, and we began brainstorming. We knew we wanted to build a financial education company that would benefit everyone, regardless of their income or level of financial education. Soon I was consumed in writing and developing a curriculum for the course, and I found my inspiration to write my third book. It was then that I wrote down the following: “The #1 rule in my investing is simple: If I can’t use OPM [other people’s money] to invest, it is not a good investment. PERIOD. No Exceptions.” I didn’t know it at the time, but it became a guiding principle for the next three years and a staple of all my investing.

We began teaching the tax strategies I had covered in Top 10 Ways to Avoid Taxes, but we found that we could take these strategies to the next level by buying assets and then borrowing against them—completely tax-free—to buy more assets.

We defined the three goals that would be attainable for all our students.

The Perfect Portfolio would:

1. “Raise Your Financial IQ”

2. “Teach You to Fish”

3. And “Automate Your Income™” (which we now own the trademark to!)

We named the course The Perfect Portfolio. But . . . what strategy would we use to build The Perfect Portfolio? Then it appeared!

It was July 2021 when I found THE strategy.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal when I stumbled on an article called “Buy, Borrow, Die: How Rich Americans Live off Their Paper Wealth.” The article talked about how “the wealthy are borrowing more than ever, using low-interest loans backed by their investments.”

Why had I never heard of this strategy?

I began a deep dive, and here is what I learned: The term “Buy, Borrow, Die” was coined by University of Southern California tax law professor Edward McCaffery in the 1990s as a simple way to explain how the ultra-wealthy avoid paying taxes. And yes, many pay NO TAXES at all. The article mentioned how the wealthy buy assets and never sell them and never pay taxes. Rather than sell the assets (and trigger the taxes), they simply take loans, which are 100% tax-free.

Let’s give you a basic example:

Imagine you buy a stock for $1,000. Over the years, it grows to $10,000. Instead of selling it and paying (capital gains) tax on the $9,000 profit, you borrow $5,000 against it, which you use to purchase another $5,000 of stock. You avoided paying taxes because you didn’t sell, and you are now investing a total of $15,000—and you only paid taxes on the money you originally earned to buy that first $1,000 of stock. As each asset grows in value, you repeat the process of buying and borrowing against each asset to purchase additional assets, thus avoiding paying any taxes. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? 

I can hear the screams already: “But what about Dave Ramsey? Aren’t we supposed to get out of debt?”

I love Dave, but he has never said, “I will teach you how to get super-wealthy and Pay No Taxes.”

But I will.