Average Rating: 
Rating: - Good book.
The single greatest point of this book is the explanation of the difference between the employee and the employer. As an employee, you'll go to work, contribute to your 401K and hope your investments in that 401k work out and you have a comfortable retirement. However, Uncle Sam will take their bite out of any income that doesn't go into that 401k. And who's to say they won't come after your 401k in the future? Do you see a pattern here? The system, while being the greatest in the world, is still set up to limit your upward mobility. Keeping you on the low savings, highly taxed, debt treadmill is in the best interests of the corporations and the government. How do you get off? Become the corporation. This book teaches you the tax advantages of forming your own corporation and all the necessary legal procedures you'll need to get started. It's not that hard! What you do need, is a decent business plan and good idea you can make a profit on. This book fits in well with the other Rich Dad books. Before reading this book, I would recommend the Cash Flow Quadrant and Guide to Investing so you can develop a big picture view of your roll in the socio-economic system and what you are going to do to elevate your status. These books have inspired me to form my own PT business, incorporated of course!
Rating: - Gear towards Medium-High corporate knowledge Audience.
This book is a good source of information for those already incorporated and even the ones think about it. The author lays his experience in an easy to understand format. When I first picked up the book I read 1/3 of it in one night, absorbing mainly the information about how to protect my business and sometimes more importantly, my personal assets from unscrupulous lawsuits and "legal" mistakes. The 2/3 of the book or so, talk about taking your company to the public (the stock market), and in my opinion the author knows or specializes in this type of practice since he spent many pages talking about the intrinsically complicated ways of making this transition. The last portion was merely reproduction of information already available from many state government web sites about the requirements, and even though it is nice to have this information handy in one book, I particularly did not appreciate the author including all these many pages of public information in this book. Overall, the book is a must read for anyone serious about long term business. I give it a 4/5 in my scale.-
Rating: - Proper Structural Preparation Pays Off!
Almost everyone will either start-up a new business or invest in one at some point. Almost all of these investments will be unsuccessful. Most people will think that they merely have their investment sums at risk. Take the wrong approach to structuring the investment legally, however, and your whole career and life savings can be at risk. If you carefully follow this book's advice, none of these investments will cost you anything more than you planned to lose in the worst case. When Robert Kiyosaki was a youngster, he loved to read about the early explorers like Columbus and Magellan. His Rich Dad encouraged him to also study those who financed the explorers, to learn about how they managed their risk and reward to expand and protect their wealth. "Don't climb the corporate ladder, why not own the corporate ladder?" was other advice that Rich Dad gave. To do this, Mr. Kiyosaki advises you to "find a good attorney and use him or her as your advisor on this important subject." Own Your Own Corporation does an excellent job of explaining the various advantages and disadvantages of C and S Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, and Limited Partnerships from the legal perspective of how to save money on taxes and protect yourself from successful attacks on your personal assets. I particularly liked the way that the usual legal gobbledegook was avoided, and the ideas expressed in clear, simple language. As a lawyer, I felt that the work was highly accurate and well presented for a layperson. I was especially impressed with the very long appendix that outlined the legal circumstances in each state. On the other hand, the book makes it clear that you should get some legal and accounting help to make sure that you do things properly. My complaint about the book comes from the lack of describing the other methods that can be used to protect an individual and a family from liability. Setting up the right business structure is just part of what needs to be done. Other assets need to be protected using other techniques such as trusts, and insurance can also play a helpful role in protecting you from mistakes. In picking a legal advisor, I will also mention that many perfectly capable practitioners will not be familiar with this particular area of legal practice. So choose well, or you will not necessarily end up with the business structure you need. A good use of this book is to arm you with questions and background knowledge to help you test how current and experienced your potential legal advisor is. In fact, you may need more than one legal advisor to help you set up the optimum structures for your personal assets and your business activities. Taking time to eliminate risks and taxes in advance is well worth your focus and investment!
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