Join Phil Silberman and Austin Black in Episode 16 of the ‘Weekly Docket’ as they dive into the latest legal updates. Discover how President Biden's executive order reshapes Title IX and explore the latest developments in marijuana laws. Plus, gain valuable insights into the complexities of buying or selling a small business. Finally, Phil and Austin rant about a landmine for unsuspecting home buyers. Don't miss this episode filled with legal insights, expert guidance, and lively discussions!
Join Phil Silberman and Austin Black in Episode 16 of the ‘Weekly Docket’ as they dive into the latest legal updates. Discover how President Biden's executive order reshapes Title IX and explore the latest developments in marijuana laws. Plus, gain valuable insights into the complexities of buying or selling a small business. Finally, Phil and Austin rant about a landmine for unsuspecting home buyers. Don't miss this episode filled with legal insights, expert guidance, and lively discussions!
Welcome to the Silberman Law Firm's Weekly Docket, Episode 16, where we talk legal news and practical law. Today is May 3rd, 2024. I'm your host, Phil Silberman, and owner of the firm. I'm joined by Austin Black, who works in our Dallas office, and my co host. How are you doing today, Austin?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Doing well.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:What's on our docket today, my friend.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:So today we first got our legal news section we're going to be talking about Biden rewriting title nine with an executive order, and exactly what that means. and then. in a similar vein, the U. S. Department of Justice recommended a few changes, to the marijuana scheduling classification on the drug schedule. it's like labeling dangerous substances. so that's what we're doing for legal news today. And then moving on to our legal questions. section. We're going to be focusing on the basics of buying or selling a business. there are a few different ways you can do that. We'll be talking about those methods of that sort of acquisition and, pitfalls you want to look for and then in our rant and rave section, we're going to be talking about. which is a requirement, from the IRS related to foreign investors purchasing real estate, in the U S it can cause problems for both buyers and sellers of homes. and we'll be touching base on that and giving you a little bit more information. and that's our show for today.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:let's kick it off with our legal news section first. And Biden administration signs an executive order, basically rewriting much of Title IX.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:And I feel like he was just biding his time on this one. he just wanted to do this for quite some time, and then he's finally done it.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:He's done it. Yeah. he wants to fulfill some of these campaign promises and appease the far left, especially going into the election this year. now if I say title nine, what is the first thing that pops in your head?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:you can't discriminate on the basis of sex.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Okay. That I think most people would say something cooler than that. men. Playing girls sports or using bathrooms or stuff like that, but that's okay. We'll go with that non discrimination based on sex, which is correct. That's if I asked that to a lawyer, it's not quite as fun. Cause I, I get the correct answer, but before we get into the, to the Biden rewrite, let's talk about some basics of title nine. It acted in 1972 and it prohibits, like Austin said, sex discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual violence. In any educational or athletic program or service of a federally funded school. So that's pretty much almost every school colleges, high schools, elementary schools, no sex discrimination. You can't discriminate against gender, but what title nine is really best known for is not discriminating against gender and equality. Sports. That's really what, most people think of when they think of Title IX. and you can summarize, kind of Title IX and college sports by saying, you have to have equal participation of men and women playing college sports. reflective to the percentage enrollment of men and women at your college campus. Does that make sense, Austin?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Sure. so if you have a college, say 60 percent men, 40 percent women, then if you have hundred. Basketball players or something like that, then you would need to have, at least 40 percent of that, Would need to be women too, right?
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:exactly. Yeah, you're matching percentages from enrollment for participation.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Great. Great.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:and the seminal case on this, the case that everybody knows is Cohen v. Brown University. And that's probably the best known title nine case out there. And I'll give you a history on it. Brown, needed to do some budget cuts. Okay. I guess their endowment was down, donors were down, but at some point Brown needed to do some budget cuts. And they decided that they were going to cut out women's volleyball and gymnastics. As well as men's golf and water polo seems like a reasonable thing.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:those don't sound proportional to me. I don't know about the time that this case went forward, but I feel like there's probably more women doing women's volleyball and gymnastics than men doing golf and water polo. I don't know.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:that, that could be exactly right. And we don't have those figures, but in fact, that's probably true because the women at Brown, they got together and they sued. And they probably said exactly what you said is, Hey, the enrollment is 50%. Let's just assume it was 50 percent men, 50 percent women, and Now the participation in the athletic department doesn't equal 50 50. And that was just a really simple argument. And guess what? The women won. And basically in that one case, the women, the suing Brown University, they not only won the battle, but they also won the war because that is title nine going forward in a nutshell. you just need equal numbers to reflect equal participation, but let's use my Alma mater as an example. Okay. The university of Texas at Austin is where I went to undergrad and Austin, you went to law school there too, right?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Yep.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:According to the fall 2022 statistics university of Texas has 43 percent male students and 57 percent female students. That statistic did not shock me because the data we're seeing are more women are going to college than men right now. We can speculate on why that is. I've got four kids. Two of them are older. Two of them are younger. And at the moment, my daughter is much more responsible and motivated than her brother. That's a couple of years older than her. So you can Maybe figure out maybe why women are going to college and higher education at a higher rate than men right now, but doesn't shock me. University of Texas has 691 student athletes, 345 are male and 346 are female. that's almost exactly 50 percent despite the University of Texas enrollment only having 43 percent male. if you're out there listening to this, and the gears are turning, you're an enterprising lawyers and is there an opportunity to sue University of Texas based on the Cohen v. Brown precedent? The answer is maybe okay, or probably yes, I think they need to realign their participation there on the athletic side. Now, as a side note, and I want to illustrate this example, let's talk about sports at the University of Texas. these statistics just blew my mind. The football program, and this is net profit. We're talking about net profit of all the sports at Texas. The football program had a net profit of a hundred million dollars in one year. Shocking. Texas football is big.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:It
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:the only other sport that makes money male or female at the university of Texas is basketball. And it's only about five or 10 million. Every other sport, women's and men's sport, loses money. The men's sports lose a little bit of money. The women's sports lose somewhere between one and five and a half million dollars. So that just shows you how big the football programs are at these major universities. And that, you need to have that background to really understand Title IX. Because after Cohen v. Brown and we figured out, okay, you got to have, as many girls playing sports as you do in your student body enrollment on a percentage basis. The next fight that came along was scholarships. How do we give scholarships to men and women? Because they basically have to be equal. The scholarship money has to be equal, but we have a numbers problem because your bread is buttered. with your football programs at these major D1 universities. So you have this incentive to give out all of your scholarships to football, which you do, and the University of Texas, the, under, and then the NCAA rules come into play. Under the NCAA rules, the big D1 football programs are allowed 85 football scholarships. So that number drives everything else, because football makes all your money, and now you're basically sitting around doing a math problem, Because you've got to give at least 85 girls scholarships, right? So the whole thing becomes what can we do to keep the football program going, basically, and still comply with Title IX. and the NCAA rules make it a little complex. Now, maybe this eases a little bit. We've now allowed college athletes to make money on their name, image, and likeness. So if you've got a football program, 85 scholarships may I'm just speculating,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Sure.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:maybe you've got a top quarterback that is considering in Texas. And if he goes to Austin, he can get some big sponsorship and maybe the University of Texas can save a scholarship and give it to a girl athlete because that quarterback is going to get millions of dollars in some sort of. name, image and likeness deal. And maybe that quarterback can forgo the scholarship. Now, maybe not, maybe the QB, maybe that star quarterback considers it insulting that, I'm going to go to Texas and not get a full ride,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:hmm.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:the, the comeback from the coach or the university needs to be, we have the university of Texas brand. Our football program is so big. If you were to go somewhere else, you couldn't get that same NIL deal. Does that make sense?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:That does
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:So maybe that changes things. How do you feel generally about Title IX and scholarships? just from a policy standpoint, Austin. Good? Bad?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:I like it from a policy standpoint. I think you should Yes, I understand that like men's sports are making more money, but I think taking away a little bit from the one that's making more money to have more people come and play sports. I think that's a good public policy stance to have. And so I like it. I understand why people wouldn't, but I'm in favor of it.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Yeah, I like it too. And I've got two, two girls, two boys. There's a lot of societal good that comes from girls playing sports. if you've got some young ladies out there, And they know they can earn a scholarship at a school and title nines, giving them that ability, all kinds of good things are going to happen for those young ladies in school. They're going to work hard in high school. They're going to go to practice. They're more likely to stay off drugs. They're more likely to make better grades. All right. So that's a history of title nine and you have to have that history to really understand what, why title nine was enacted. But now today in 2024, we step into this crazy world. Of what the Biden administration wants to do with Title IX. And it's the crazy world of, biological men wanting to play female sports and biological men wanting to go into female restrooms. That's really what this is about, apparently. And what Biden's new rule does by executive order. is it expands the definition of sex to include one's self professed gender identity. So here's what that means. A school has to let that guy who's, I don't know what they do, where they take estrogen or something, he,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Replacement Therapy, I believe, is what it's called for both sides. if they're taking estrogen or if they're taking testosterone, on the flip
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:okay,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:that's what it's called, so yeah.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:guy thinks he's a girl, wants to be a girl, he decides he wants to go into a women's locker room, play a women's sport under this new Biden rule, schools can't discriminate against him on that. this isn't just colleges, as we mentioned, Title IX also applies to Anything K through 12 that takes federal money. As I mentioned, I've got two daughters. So my oldest daughter is very much into theater. If she is doing theater and there's a dressing room and there's a boy in her school that thinks he's a girl, that means she has to put on her costume and get dressed in front of this. In front of this boy. But this is what's coming down the pipeline from the Biden administration. This is the agenda that they have. This is the battle that they're fighting. I personally do not want my 12 year old daughter in a dressing room, getting ready for a play with a boy who thinks he's a girl, and I certainly don't want, to see any men. that think they're women competing in female sports, taking accolades, taking trophies away from women's sports like in tennis or swimming or whatever. and I don't want to see women losing scholarships. to men that think they're girls either. So I think this is an absolute, just awful executive order. And six attorney generals from the GOP, not surprisingly, agree with me. And including our home state of Texas have sued the Biden administration. The argument is simple that the president of the United States does not have the authority for this kind of executive order. If they want this kind of law to be passed, it needs to come from Congress. So we're going to see where this comes out. In my opinion, this almost certainly will be shot down by the corpse and rightfully so. all right, let's go ahead and move on to our next, legal news piece, which is the U. S. Department of Justice recommends changes to marijuana classification. Now, this is really all about, edible gummies and, THC drinks and hemp based products and vaping, marijuana, I don't see too many people smoking weed anymore. But this is all about. These kinds of things marijuana use and before we dig in Let's talk about the landscape of marijuana law in general. So recreational use is currently legal. it's permitted in 24 states. No surprise, Austin, it's the liberal Democrat states that, have legalized recreational use of marijuana. Now it is still illegal, prohibited by the federal government. So you've got the feds saying, no, still illegal, can't do it. And then you've Very liberal state saying, Hey, it's legal. No problem. but practically speaking, the feds are not really enforcing marijuana use, right? They're not putting people in jail for it at this exact moment, especially under the Biden administration, the department of justice is not prosecuting. of marijuana. And that's reflective of what Biden did in 23.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:in 2023, at the end of it, Biden pardoned everyone who is in jail for simple possession of marijuana. which I think you and I both agree was a good thing, right?
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Yeah, and this, just to be clear, this isn't like the cartel members who were dealing with marijuana. A bunch of weed. They didn't get pardoned. this is like you were somewhere smoking a joint or vaping THC. Somehow the feds rang you up and you got put into jail and Biden pardoned you. I think that's a good thing. I have some libertarian tendencies. I don't believe we should be putting people in jail for things like possession of marijuana. Or casual marijuana use. That doesn't mean I condone the use by any means. I just don't want our resources being allocated to imprison those people. And I think more societal harm comes from the imprisonment than the good. So the fact that marijuana is illegal by the federal government does present some sort of unique problems. The cannabis industry cannot get a bank account because it's illegal by the feds. And if you're trying to run a business, Austin. it's really hard to run a business without a bank account. So what do they do? all these dispensaries, they deal in a lot of cash. That creates other problems as well, because then they're, likely to, evade taxes. They're likely to get robbed. some small credit unions. and small banks have stepped up and said, okay, we'll take the risk even though the federal government has said it's illegal and Bank of America is not touching it. Chase is not touching it. Their big bank policies. They're scared of basically aiding and abetting a crime if you have an LLC and you ever open a bank account, they're going to ask do you do anything cannabis related? So some of the small banks, some of the small credit unions have given them bank accounts, taking on a little bit of that risk. that's some of the big problems. So that's the legal landscape of, Of marijuana use generally speaking, but let's talk about how pervasive marijuana really is we have a survey in 2022 survey says. 16 percent of adults say that they had used some marijuana products That's a lot. 16%. That's, almost a fifth. I tend to think those surveys. Probably skew a little bit lower because if you're an adult taking a survey, you may not want to admit that you use marijuana frequently. But the idea is that, a significant amount of people are using marijuana in this country. Anecdotally and interestingly, Austin, in my circles, and I'm a little bit older than you, And I'm seeing a lot of THC use by my buddies. and the idea was that a lot of my friends, they, especially among attorneys are sort of known to have substance abuse problems. that's a well known thing. And for years, alcohol has been the drug of choice. Yeah. But alcohol has a lot of bad side effects. It, hurts your liver. It causes, increased rates of certain cancers. You feel really crappy the next day. There's all kinds of bad things about alcohol. So a lot of my buddies have turned to this THC use, and they're doing a lot of edible gummies. they're now these THC drinks. And the idea being that it's healthier than alcohol. So how are these THC infused things legal, right? what's the law on that? Are you familiar with the farm bill of 2018 Austin?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:So the farm bill was passed in 2018 that legalized the production of hemp and removed it from the list of federally controlled substances in the same year. so if something is hemp based, so THC, right? Like gummies or drinks or something like that, you can have that. That's no problem. It's separate from, smoking weed. Somehow, I don't really know the difference, to completely honest,
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:here it is. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana. It's synthesized from the marijuana plant, I believe. I don't, or I don't know how they're producing. But the key is, you can, at least in Texas, you can legally sell a THC infused drink or a gummy. If it's a 0. 3 percent weight or less, so that's considered a small dosage. And that makes it legal on, under the farm bill. Okay. But Austin, I've got a, I've got a, a math conundrum for you.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Okay.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Is it ever possible that a little plus a little plus a little could add up to a lot,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:No. Never.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:it is. So if you have five THC drinks or you have five gummies in a row, that 0. 3 plus 0. 3 plus 0. 3 of a percent adds up to a lot. and it's actually becoming dangerous. it's getting people in trouble because they don't feel the immediate effect after eating the gum. And he's so they like, they take one or two and they don't wait for the effect to take it
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:And then it
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:for,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:hits you.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:and then it just hits you. and some of these people are having severe, they're like, they're having to be rushed to the hospital. So it's a, it's actually a health concern. This is our public service health portion, part of the show, are there downsides? Are there risks? to THC use at these levels. We have some statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. First of all, IQ loss. I think you've had some opposing counsel with this problem, Austin. So
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Yeah.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:if you start smoking weed or using THC at a youngish age, Before frontal lobe development is complete, which they're saying that could be as much as 25 now, I don't know if that's true, you can lose eight points of your IQ and that's never coming back, you stop the THC use later, you're never getting that eight points back. So big deal, mental health issues, depression, anxiety, psychotic episodes. From a study published in World Psychiatry, there is now reasonable evidence from longitudinal studies that regular cannabis use predicts an increased risk of schizophrenia and of reporting psychotic symptoms. You do THC for 5 years, they're now seeing THC users for 3, 4, 5 years. They just have a psychotic episode. They start seeing stuff and you can't unsee the stuff you stop using. The it's not like, Oh, Oh, that was my warning sign. You go into the ER, you're seeing stuff, stopping using the THC doesn't ever get that back. You're now a schizophrenic. this is not your dad's weed at Woodstock, okay? This is not the kind of ganja that Bob Barley smoked. That plant based stuff from the 60s and the 70s, that stuff was much, much more benign. Then the concentrated THC substances that are coming out of these plants or however they're extracting these THC dosages. So different ball game here. You need to be very careful with this stuff. so now that we have the background. All right, we've got the background of what the current law is in, in this country, on THA marijuana usage, and we know some of the health risks and really what's going on. We've painted that big picture. what these new DOJ rules, department of Justice rules. here's what they propose. It removes marijuana from a Schedule one drug and schedule one drug includes stuff like. Heroin and LSD and the new rule removes it from that category, knocks it down to a schedule three, which includes stuff like ketamine, steroids, and Tylenol with Cody. I guess I agree with that, I don't think marijuana is quite as bad as LSD or heroin, I think based on these health risks that we're talking about, it doesn't mean that we want to encourage people using this stuff.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Sure, I think this is a good place for marijuana
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:oh. Okay. there you go. I don't know that it really matters because from a practical standpoint, this proposed rule even, and it's not a rule yet. It has to go through a review period. I don't know if this changes anything. This is just a signaling of a paradigm shift. In this country of the way that we're perceiving and the way that we're viewing marijuana, this is also a way for Biden, who controls the executive branch, which is the department of justice is under that executive branch to fulfill some campaign promises to the very far left that he made and also going into this election. Cycle any real change in marijuana law is going to have to come from Congress.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:though, really, is legalization of marijuana a far left thing? I
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:no, that's a good, that's a good point. I think it may be a moderate thing. I think there's some surveys out there that are saying that many more Americans than ever are a proponent of legalization of marijuana. we'll see where this comes out. If they really want to change it, they're going to have to do something in Congress. But all right, let's answer some legal questions. Now we get a lot of calls at the firm or someone calls up and says, Hey, I'm buying or selling a small business and I need help, and that's all they know. they don't know what they need. They don't know how to do it. And the first thing we ask him is what Austin?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Okay, so are you attempting to actually purchase the entity, or are you just purchasing assets of it under a new LLC or entity that you formed, right? That would be the first question.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Yeah. and usually we want to do an asset sale if we're the buyer, because that doesn't come with any liabilities. If you're going to do an entity sale and you're going to buy someone's LLC, you're worried about, does that LLC you're buying have any, Outstanding tax liabilities like franchise taxes or federal income tax. Are there any outstanding lawsuits?
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:a lot of times clients do not know when they come to us, when I ask them, is this going to be an asset or entity? They're like, I don't know. which one do you think? if you don't know, let's definitely go with the asset one.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:yeah, that's that is always better. The only time we really do an entity sale is if that entity, the LLC has long term contracts that can't be renegotiated with the buyer's new entity. So You have to do an entity sale. For example, let's say you've got a software company. And most of the value in that software company is tied to some big contract with Exxon Mobil. You're not going to be able to call up Exxon and be like, Hey, I'm the new buyer. Let's renegotiate this contract. You need to buy the entity because that entity has the contract with Exxon Mobil. In that case, we are going to actually do an entity transaction, which is more complex, more legal fees, because there's more due diligence involved in making sure there's no liabilities coming. LLC. so let's assume we're going through with the asset sale. That's 90 percent of the ones that we do. That's what most buyers and sellers really want. You have to ask yourself, is there real estate involved? So does that business that's being acquired, does it own any real estate? If it does own real estate, we're going to have to do a separate purchase and sale agreement for the real estate. So you're going to have a real estate contract and you're going to have an asset purchase agreement. Those two contracts are going to be contingent on each other. The real estate portion is going to go through the standard title company closing stuff, and if one doesn't close, then they both don't close. So you've got the real estate closing on the same day as your asset sale and the asset sale. Is going to include all the assets, the personal property assets of the business, like the, any inventory, vehicles, goodwill. That's how you get the brand name. The going concern of that business is what you get in the asset sale. Now, if the business doesn't own any real estate, maybe they just lease a space, then you're going to have an assignment of the lease. The landlord of the current entity, the landlord of the seller is going to have to consent to the assignment of that lease over to the new buyer.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:And you absolutely want to have legal representation when renegotiating that lease, either if you are the representing the company that's selling or the one that's purchasing it because I've reviewed those leases before as they were written by the landlord. And it is crazy the amount of liability they try to make either side take on sometimes.
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:the next thing you need to know is this a finance transaction? Most of these business sales are finance transaction. You typically see an SBA loan with first priority for the primary component of funding. The business acquisition, and then you'll see the seller do a second loan for seller financing. And that seller's second loan for seller financing, that's where we have to do a promissory note where the buyer of the business signs the note promising to pay the seller. Then we do a security agreement where should the buyer default, the seller has some security, which is usually the business or assets in the business. And then we do a UCC one or financing statement, which is filed with the secretary of state and that perfects the lean, that the seller has. So it could be a cash deal where the buyer's just coming in and paying all cash. That's more rare because most buyers just don't have cash, to do that. That's a business sale in a nutshell. We do a lot of that work, get a lot of those calls if you're out there thinking about buying or selling small businesses. that's what that looks like typically. All right, let's go ahead and get in our rant and rave section today, Austin. And we're talking about FERPTA and the title we have in our show notes is an abusive tax withholding requirement on unsuspecting home buyer. I had this come up, a week or two ago. some transactions, somebody asked me, it was a 200, 000 house that the buyer was buying. And it turned out that there was a foreign seller. So this FERPTA thing came up and it's all about. So let's start with what FERPTA is. It's the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act of 1980. And the main purpose of FERPTA is to ensure the federal government receives their capital gains tax. So the federal government is very concerned about foreigners coming to this country. You can buy property all day long if you're for no problem there. Bring us the money, put it into our economy. But when you go to sell that property, the federal government is very concerned that you're just going to take your suitcase full of money. Get on a plane and we never get our capital gains tax.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:there are even some problems with foreigners buying property, right? That we talked about a few weeks back,
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Well, that's true. Austin's talking about how we don't want to let the Chinese buy any property anymore. so the IRS, the, the legislature passed a law, told the IRS to enforce it and said, Hey, How do we keep the money here? How do we ensure that the seller pays the tax? And you can't punish the seller because you can't really enforce against the seller. The seller is going to be in China or Russia or Venezuela and good luck trying to collect capital gains tax against that seller who's just wired all the money out or taken a suitcase full of money,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Yeah,
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:if you haven't done a withholding. So The legislature, Congress had a brilliant idea. They said, aha, we'll put this on the buyer because the buyer is the only one left. The buyer is buying the house. Or the real estate. So the buyer is going to stay in the country. So we've got someone that we can enforce this against. So this is all on the transfer rear of the buyer. Now, that's not such a big deal. If you're a sophisticated buyer, you're used to having all kinds of compliance, but you're not. issues and government regulation, because that's just the world we live in our country, unfortunately, so the issue is you're just a regular old buyer and now, you've received a notice that you've got a foreign seller and you've got to figure out how to withhold because the way this works. If you're a buyer and there's a foreign seller and the foreign seller, you don't meet these exceptions. You as the buyer have to withhold I think it's 15%. And then forward that money onto the federal government. If you fail to do so, there's all kinds of penalties on you as the buyer. And no problem. if you're a well heeled buyer buying a commercial, probably no issues, But in this one deal that came up, you're talking about a 200, 000 home, just a regular first time home buyer. There's no way that kind of person can comply with these kinds of tax requirements.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:yeah,
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:we did everything we could try to find her an affordable tax lawyer, but even an affordable tax lawyer could cost 1, 500 to review everything, give an opinion, and that's cheap, review everything, do an opinion, give the buyer some instruction on how to do the withholding or whether there's an exception. Uh, to the rule that 1, 500 to a buyer who is buying a home on an FHA loan with a down payment of three and a half percent,
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:yeah,
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:and that buyer struggled and saved for all these years to be able to buy their first home. That 1, 500 might as well be 150, 000 to that buyer.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:yeah,
philip-silberman_2_05-03-2024_104230:Washington D. C. Completely out of touch. law that was passed that needs to be updated that they're so far removed from what regular americans are doing day to day and what regular americans are able to do. they just form their little committees up in D. C. And they pass these laws and they're not even really thinking about how this thing plays out. So That's my rant about how out of touch politicians are with just people working for a living, saving up for down payments and trying to buy houses. And he put this FERP to requirement on him. some committee up there in DC needs to get together. And they need to expand these exceptions and they need to make it like just a simple form and they need to tell people exactly how to do it. And I hate to put more things on the title company because I have a title company because as it stands now, the title company won't help you. Title company doesn't want anything to do with this tax liability and this FERPTA requirement. In fact, when you close on a house with the title and you're signing all that stuff with your title company, if there's a FERPTA deal, you're going to sign a document that says, go hire your own attorney. We had nothing to do this with the title company, but this has to be cleaned up. It needs to be cleaned up either. Out of Washington or the IRS needs to pass some sort of rule that makes this much, much easier on homebuyers under certain threshold amounts. There is a rule out there that has a 300, 000 under amount, but even that is incredibly complex and it requires a tax attorney opinion. So again, big government just being oppressive, not in touch with our average American. And that brings our show to a close. I've been your host, Phil Silberman. Austin Black has been my co host. Like us, follow us, review us wherever you get your podcasts. If you have a legal question, email us at info at silblawfirm. com. I N F O at silblawfirm. com S I L, be like boy, lawfirm. com and say you want it publicly answered in the podcast. Have a great day, everybody.
austin_2_05-03-2024_104228:Thanks.