Ankur Nagpal (Founder, Carry): How Creators and Business Owners Can Build Wealth
Learn how you might save thousands of dollars in this tax season
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Dear subscribers,
Whether you’re a creator, business owner, or employee - you’re probably leaving thousands of dollars on the table if you haven’t studied the tax code closely.
Ankur Nagpal is the founder of Carry, a platform that helps creators and business owners build wealth. Previously, he co-founded and sold Teachable for $250M.
I spoke to Ankur just in time for tax season about:
How employees can keep more of what they earn
His top 3 tips for creators and business owners to build wealth
How to get educated and hire the right financial help
None of what follows is financial advice.
How employees can keep more of what they earn
Welcome Ankur! Can you start by sharing some advice on how employees can build wealth on W2 income?
Unfortunately, W2 is the worst type of income to keep more of what you earn.
The tax code is written to encourage activities that the government wants you to do. In the US, starting a business and investing in real estate are two of those activities.
That being said, here are some things that you can do to optimize your W2 income:
Don’t sit on too much cash. Cash loses value over the long-term.
Use Roth accounts. You can withdraw tax-free from these accounts at retirement.
Max out your 401K match. This is free money from your company.
You mentioned real estate - how can you use that to reduce your taxes?
Real estate depreciation lets you deduct part of the cost of your investment property from your income. Here’s how it works:
Buy an investment property that produces rental income.
Do a cost segregation study to divide the property into parts (e.g., roof, NVAC) with different lifespans.
Deduct 80% of the cost of any part that lasts 15 years or less from your income.
So for example, if you buy an investment property for $1M, you might be able to use the strategy above to get a tax deduction of $250K+ right way.
There’s one catch - you can only deduct the $250K+ from passive income sources like rentals unless you or your spouse are real estate professionals.
I know some couples who pay zero taxes on $1M+ income by having one person work in FAANG and the other person get qualified as a real estate professional.
It’s complicated, but this shows the power of what you can do with the US tax code.
Wow. Maybe the government should fix some of these loopholes.
Yes, sometimes, when I share this information, people ask: “Why don’t you just pay your taxes?” And I’m like, look, all the wealthy people already know this stuff. They already have accountants doing this.
So we may as well democratize this information and talk about it more openly.