Timothy Li: Hello everybody, this is your boy Tim Lee, CEO of Len coming at you with a brand new episode for I guess the summer season. Today's July 15th, 2026. And I've got an awesome guest that I know for a long time, Ron James on our show. again, we're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and of course on our website. So click and watch this episode and enjoyed all the other previous episodes and let me know what you what you think. So Ron, bright and early, thanks for joining us. You're I know you're traveling, so thanks for giving me the time. Why don't you tell our audience who Ron James is? I know you're for a long time, so w w would love to learn more about ya.
Ron James: Yeah, I think, you know, it's important to start. I'm a kid from a rural town in southwest Missouri. I have a background that's interesting to most, but I actually worked at the, I was a senior leader at the number one retailer in the world at the time, Walmart, the number one electronics in the world and number one tax prep in the world at H &R Block. actually ran a region that had over 3000 employees and we filed over 450,000 tax returns at H &R
Timothy Li: that's right. Wow. So you're a people person. Okay. Wow. and how was your ch childhood and school and all that stuff? Were you a good kid? A good good sk a good kid in school?
Ron James: Definitely a people person. Definitely. Yeah! I was a good kid. I was a good student. had both my parents are teachers. My dad is unique. My dad had a master's degree in math and was a math teacher and also had a he had a bachelor's in math and history. And he's a genealogist. My dad actually has 47 books published in the Library of Congress, a logical work. So I didn't even know that until we were doing the eulogy for his funeral. And I read that I was like, seriously, dad? So
Timothy Li: wow. Yeah. my word.
Ron James: But yes, I had to be a good kid because dad taught at the same school I was at and so he usually knew if I was in trouble before I knew I was in trouble. I have an older brother so that's kind of cool.
Timothy Li: Right. And your Yeah, and your mother taught as well, both
Ron James: Yeah, my mom taught home ec. She was at a different school, but she taught home economics back in the day when when some of these guys don't even know what home economics is, but. Yeah.
Timothy Li: I do. Learn how to sew and and cook, right? I mean I I learned at a high s middle school or high school or something like that, home ed classes our course.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, I had to learn how to sew and cook at the house and I was a boy scout. I'm an Eagle Scout, second generation Eagle Scout. My dad was an Eagle Scout, my brother's an Eagle Scout, my son's an Eagle Scout. So scouting is important to us. All of that background is important to us to spend time.
Timothy Li: That's it. So Yeah. My parents are both teachers. That's probably why we get along so well, you know.
Ron James: Probably is, It's a different world when your parents are teachers. I tell my kids all the time, was like, man, I never had to worry about, or I always had to have my homework done. My worst was, my dad had to be at school at seven in the morning because he needed to gossip with his buddy teachers. And so we had to be at school at seven in the morning. And so a lot of times, nobody's there at seven in the morning when you don't start until 25. So we would, the year I had my dad as a math teacher sucked.
Timothy Li: Right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. okay, so he taught Okay, got it.
Ron James: because, well, I did advanced courses, so I had to do the advanced algebra too, and he was the only one that did it. But he always knew when I had homework, and I'm like, but if I do my homework at night, what will I do between seven and eight in the morning?
Timothy Li: Sure. Right. Yeah. Right. You're basically a a dad junior following around and and do what on these schedule.
Ron James: Yeah, was very involved in sports. Sports is a big part of our lives. I played football, basketball, and through did some field sports through and track and that sort of stuff. Yeah. I did not know I wasn't I wasn't at that level, but but it was on a great great high school team. It was you know when people talk about resilience with me, I think about our.
Timothy Li: Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Very disciplined. I like that. Do you play collegiate sports? Right. Mm-hmm.
Ron James: So we were the class that was going to transform our school. In sophomore year, we were one and nine. In my junior year, we were two and eight. And we came together that summer and we said, we're tired of losing. And we put the time in and the jam, and I think it's important in business too, but we just put the time in and we turned around and we still have the, I think the only undefeated team in the school history and the only team to win a playoff game in the school history.
Timothy Li: There you go. There you go. wow. Holy eleven
Ron James: Yeah, we were 11 and 0, then we lost, so 11 and 1. And still to this day, I could call any of those guys up. And we're still just talk like we talked yesterday.
Timothy Li: They said it was it's a core memory. That's what that's what it wow. Sounded like Al Bundy there for a second, right? Four touchdown in in in in one game. That's awesome. That's awesome, Ron. When was the first time when was the first time you've got introduced to a computer? I know I think we're both a similar kind of age. What was that my computer?
Ron James: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, Oregon Trail. Come on, everyone had introduced their Oregon Trail in school. Remember that? It's like my boys are like, it was at school. It was definitely at school. My parents couldn't afford a computer. mean, back then they were so expensive and stuff. I remember when I bought my first one, I was a manager for Walmart. I think I was in New Mexico when I bought my first computer as a manager for Walmart.
Timothy Li: Yes. Was it at school? At home? Mm. Wow.
Ron James: But yeah, I was
Timothy Li: Wow.
Ron James: introduced to school. I remember Oregon Trail. I remember green screens. Gosh, I remember back in the day when I started at Walmart, used to have, P &Ls usually came out about the fifth or sixth of the month. And man, every store manager was sitting back there at the dot matrix printer, because that's how the P &L came. And then you're calling and, hey, mine just came. Be on the lookout. And so.
Timothy Li: yeah. Yes, yep. Ha ha ha.
Ron James: In the world that today when you have technology or fingertips, my boys are always like, you guys have a, he goes, did you have a tablet in high school? was like, tablets weren't even thought about when I was in high school.
Timothy Li: That's right. Ab. You had a paddle to get beaten down. What yeah, and the tablet. I I could just im I can just hear the sound of those printers going off and the smell, and remember that? Right, play like different tones and and you gotta close the door if if that thing's going off. Wow, so fascinating. Walmart was in the forefront of technology even today. What were some of the things that you know when you went when you were at Walmart? I was like, Well, that's really fascinating. That's like just mind-blown company.
Ron James: Yeah, exactly. Inventory in general was spectacular at Walmart. I the way that we could use the telezones, the way that we could get stuff door to floor. I helped open super centers to the West. So I actually, I opened one in New Mexico, well, I opened a couple in New Mexico, opened in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Palmdale, California, opened Stockton, California, and then went up in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Timothy Li: Right. Yeah. right.
Ron James: I kind of had a niche in the grocery side. And so as we moved into open super centers in the late 90s, early 2000s West, I went West with Walmart. I was young and single, so it was easy and cheap for them to move me. But I think the coolest technology, mean, one, you could set it, you could figure out a way to make sure that it was door to floor. I mean, you could keep your inventory turned so far. And Walmart was so great at that. And then the RFD technology that's still,
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: kind of seems to be state of art now. I left Walmart in 2005. And we were testing two things. One was we were doing pay from scan, meaning we wouldn't pay for inventory until it scanned out the register to reduce shrink. And we were also trying
Timothy Li: Okay. Wow. Wow.
Ron James: RFD technology then where our products would actually come in the back door, be checked in through RFD. I mean, this is 2005. When it went out the front door, the RFD would catch it leaving the store.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Yeah.
Ron James: You're doing that in cosmetics, you the little lipsticks and stuff. So, you know, I hate, I despise lipstick. Cause when I was an hourly employee, me and my good friend, Will, we got stuck in the cosmetics department the night before inventory. And there's like a hundred shades of red that have one tiny
Timothy Li: Sure. Yeah.
Ron James: number in between each one. And we're having to find where it goes because people just put in baskets on the floorboard of the neighbors.
Timothy Li: With a tooth. my God. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. You know, I read an article a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago, about Starbucks introducing AI driven inventory system and they they they turned off in a i in a matter of month. Did you read about that, heard about that? It was it was misreading, miscategorizing different type of milk as to start with, and it was a shortage everywhere. What what happened there? What could possibly
Ron James: I did not. man. I don't know. And to think that Walmart had that technology 22 years ago was starting that technology. You know, and we were told Walmart had the next to the United States Air Force. We were told our technology was next to the United States Air Force. And it was, you know, I remember September 11th and Walmart actually set up an alternate location that could be set up in minutes to run the company because
Timothy Li: Yeah. Wow.
Ron James: If you want to impact the American economy, you would attack Walmart's corporate office. And so it was just great. The Walmart stories I have are just, yeah, there's shoplifting. I ran Walmart stores for so long, the shoplifting stories, the customer story. Everyone's like, you should write a book about just Walmart.
Timothy Li: That's that's crazy. Yeah, shoplifting, fraud and all that stuff by you know, that's crazy. You mentioned nine eleven. I mean w actually internally in our company we talked about it 'cause we're going to Finovate Finovate show in in New York City. It happened to be on nine eleven and I was talking to my folks about, you know, visiting the memorial at the time I go to New York, I'll I'll if I can, I'll go to memorial and that's all I'll always emotional. And I think everybody in America, maybe around the world remembers what happened on that on that day.
Ron James: Yo yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Li: You know, I still remember what what what happened. Well were you, Ron? It felt like you were in Walmart inventory.
Ron James: I was, it was a crazy day. I usually got up and went to work early. Most of our shifts were seven to five or seven to 10. And I remember getting up early, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada. And so, yeah, as I was getting up and on my way to work, heard it was on the radio.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Things already transpired. You were just
Ron James: And I remember calling my mom who was in Missouri about it on the way to work. And then when I got to work, it was just this eerie feeling. Walmart had all those TVs in the store. And so all of them were on Fox and CNN and those things. And I just remember how crazy, like it was, there was nobody in the store. Like, absolutely. mean, this was a hundred million dollar store. And there was not a soul in that store that day.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Mm. Hmm. Right. Right.
Ron James: And really the next few days and obviously being in Las Vegas, they evacuated the strip, shut down the Las Vegas strip, which was just, I think COVID's the only other time they've ever shut down the Las Vegas strip. But they got everyone out of there because no one knew what was going to happen. And obviously there were tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands of people on the strip. Yeah, you wanted to get everybody off the strip because you just didn't know what was coming next.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Stuck. You know, cars trains and everything was shut down, right? That's crazy. I think I was in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area. I was doing a co-op, engineering co-op internship with Toyota. Same kind of a thing. We have a huge plant, and I I didn't listen to radio, I was listening to N Nirvana on the way to work. Get myself pumped up. Walked in, none of the engineers were on the floor. I'm like, what happened? Tim, you gotta go to the cafeteria. And we had two big screens. I walked over, everybody's halting around these two TVs, and I can't really see about what's going on. And I saw like some kind of a
Ron James: Thank you.
Timothy Li: I thought it was a movie scene because there are there were a lot of Hollywood studio folks in our plant filming certain scenes. I'm like, that's another premiere they get to you know show us a movie scene. And then, you know, long story short, I learned about it. I'm I'm like, wow, this is this is absolutely insane. And talk about how resilient this country is. We bounce right back and let's let's let's stomach the chump a little bit. Between 9-11 and you mentioned COVID, right? Maybe even today. What are some of the major events between those two dates from two thousand one to two thousand twenty six? Major events at I can I can start next.
Ron James: I think the other one that impacted me was the dot com piece. I was at Best Buy. And dot com. Yeah, well, that and then, in 2000, 2008, and even more so in the early teens when Amazon came on board. And I remember, you so you had the early 2000s and you had the 2008 shift with
Timothy Li: Mm, that's right. It was right around two thousand, two thousand and one, right? Right right before the Clinton Clinton year.
Ron James: the recession and everything where real estate and being in Las Vegas, they were still hit by that because it was such a service industry. And so I remember that because it impacted a lot of my friends who had bought houses based off their tip and things. So that really impacted them. then then at Best Buy, it really started to impact my employment because now you had Amazon starting to take over probably 2000.
Timothy Li: Right on there. my god. Right. yeah.
Ron James: I remember the article that Best Buy was becoming Amazon showroom. It was crazy because that article came and you're just like, man, people are coming in, they're not buying. People came in, started to come in more educated too. You didn't really need sales.
Timothy Li: This is right. Yeah. I can get us on Amazon for you know half the price, whatever, you know, whatever thing. Right.
Ron James: Yeah, well, they'd already done all their research. They'd done, in fact, you know, talking about Scouts, it's funny. My boys have to do an Eagle Required Meribadget personal management where you have to budget, you have to save up for product, you have to competitive shop. I was telling my other, when he's working on it last month, I was like, dude, you have it so easy. You can go online, you can competitive shop, three competitors. I had to actually have my parents drive me around to Walmart. This is bringing back the Kmart.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Kmart. That's right.
Ron James: The guys that drive me around had to actually go find it on the shelf and write down the price and they can just do it all in the touch of a button now.
Timothy Li: Yes. Yes. Circus city. Remember that? Comp USA. I don't know if you ever had those stores in your neighbo neighborhood. My God. Yeah. and the last of fall was like Fryce Electronics or something like that. Back five still around.
Ron James: Yeah, you know, Best Buy, the CEO after Brian Dunn and I had left at that time to go to H &R Block, but that CEO after Ryan Dunn, really transitioned the service part and really helped. Really, I mean, I wasn't sure Best Buy was going to survive when I left. And, you know, as we know, many of them didn't. Best Buy found a way to survive all of the doc. So did Walmart. think
Timothy Li: Mm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right.
Ron James: I'm still amazed at how Walmart continues to reinvent itself to become competitive. I always go into Walmart stores, I'm curious about what they're doing and know, probably 15, 20 % of the real estate and the one where I live in Denver is now, has been moved and totally for store pickup. I mean, it's just crazy. they've taken probably about 15 to 20 % of the floor space.
Timothy Li: Yeah. wow. wow.
Ron James: to create a store pickup design. I mean, it's just crazy how some of these companies have really evolved and have not been able
Timothy Li: matter in terms. Yeah. so okay, so dot com, I I was there, you know, in San Francisco. I saw experienced a little bit differently. Certainly seven, eight, right? We kind of mentioned that I was working at the bank, and it was it was a bloodbath. I think the bank held out pretty well because there was TARP. Remember TARP? That was a that was that was like the very first time growing up growing up in USA, U United States of America's like wow. The government can just write checks to prop up private enterprises. And where is this money coming from? You know, that was a mind-boggling thing. And they were forcing the banks to take this money. I understand it now, because it it it's basically a institutional kind of a fundamental banking financing infrastructure, they need to have that. And speaking of standing up the the war room for Walmart within minutes at JP Morgan Chase, we had to identify different spots in the country to make sure that that those are the spots that distribute cash out to the public should we have a should we have an event. But I think now you you for the past 10-15 years you've been working on closely with these government large government policies right tarp and you mentioned covet my god it was trillions of dollars and then there was an ERC employee retention program and now there is the tariff stuff
Ron James: Yeah.
Timothy Li: Give us a whole playbook on on why the government's doing this stuff and and how does that sort of play into the American psyche and the the economy and all that stuff. You're an expert in this. You s you tell me numbers all the time. I I'm like, Wow Yeah.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty crazy how impactful some of these things are. until I went to H &R Block, I never realized how much the government impacted things. at H &R Block, understood everyone looks at these at the end of the year, there's always some sort of government shutdown and Congress is trying and everybody's trying to get their things passed and not passed.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: All of that impacts the tax code greatly. So much of it is, hey, what are we going to cut and what are we not going to cut? And, you know, at H &R Block, we started to realize that or they knew it forever. I just started to learn it. And, you know, the biggest one in the beginning at H &R Block was actually Trump's first term, which was Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And that, the TGCA, it was the biggest change in the American tax system since Reagan administration. And you know, he was going to put H &R Block out of business and all this stuff. And what we learned is, is taxes are complicated. And anytime that you change something, whether it's for the good or the bad, it just uses the American taxpayer and then they need someone who's an expert to help them sort it out. And, you know, then then came this COVID and it's interesting. to a company called Innovation Refunds right after COVID.
Timothy Li: That's right.
Ron James: I had left H &R Block, I had an opportunity to go run a tax business for one of the best tech companies and that didn't work out for a couple of reasons with, never made it on board there, honestly. But then I found myself in a spot where, hey, I gotta go do something different. There's a way for me to impact things differently and I found Innovation Refunds and I found this whole specialty tax world.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: And we were focused on the employee retention credit. We recovered $6 billion of money for US businesses. And really what the ERC credit was, to, at the heart of it, was written by Congress to keep people employed during the COVID so that
Timothy Li: emotion. Right.
Ron James: they didn't pay unemployment. And so if they could keep people off unemployment and the businesses paid them, they created a credit to get that money back to the businesses. And that's at the heart of was helping those businesses recover that money. They actually enlisted. So this came from Katrina, which was the first time the ERC credit really happened. And there's some friends of mine that I've come to know that actually two congressmen came to him and said, hey, I know you helped write this for Katrina, help us write a bill that will protect the American businesses across the country. And so that's where ERC came from.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. wow, okay.
Ron James: was a mimic.
Timothy Li: Mechanically though Katrina, my god, that's another major event that's in the in the American psyche for the longest time. How does that mechanically different than PPP? I think it comes at the same time. I I think they're they're both kind of a benefits program for businesses, but y let us hear it. What what is PPP?
Ron James: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PPP was an actual, it was a grant or a loan essentially given to people. The credit was giving you back money you paid in payroll taxes. And so essentially the businesses were getting back money that they already paid. So the government wasn't, you know, there's all these people, they were printing checks. No, they were giving back the small businesses the money they paid in payroll taxes.
Timothy Li: Okay. Got it. Got it. Right. Right.
Ron James: that the government really saved by not putting those people on unemployment. And then those people didn't have to find jobs after COVID. And so there was a lot of benefits to that to the government. And these tax credits are, the government continues to come up with tax credits. I don't see them ever going away. Some of them like Watts, he's been around since the early 90s, since the Clinton administration, the work opportunity's tax credit. R &D's been around since the early 2000s. And it's really about influencing behaviors that we want to see in the country. R &D, or the Research and Development Tax Credit, which is one of the bigger ones right now for American businesses, it's really designed to influence American businesses to keep their tech teams, to keep their developers on the US soil. And people are going and offshoring that, not realizing they get tax credits almost dollar for dollar for the money they spend.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Yeah, so you know, we Ron, you and I talk all the time because you know we do a little bit of work with IR, you know, previous and you were saying, Hey Tim, do you know anything about R and D? Shame on me. I'm I'm an entrepreneur in the tech space for 10 years. I'm like, R and D? Yeah, we do a lot of RD here. And you're like, no, no, no. And we we start actually started working together with our CFO on this, and you just broke a piece of news right before we got on this call, but
Ron James: Thank
Timothy Li: Tell us what R and D is and why it's special. You already c kinda got into it. And is it do you have to be Microsoft to get this or T could you just be a small time tech entrepreneur to benefit from this? Tell us more.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, my whole goal in the business that I've kind of started over the last five months is helping small business owners recover these credits that the big guys get. People look at the Microsofts, they look at Amazon, they look at President Trump and they're like, there's loopholes. And there's not loopholes. They just have huge teams, huge attorneys that are on retainers that are going out and finding these credits and they're utilizing the information. And so... It's really about making the American businesses aware of those and then helping them get the money and recover it and helping them file it. And then I even have groups that will help them get that money within five to 10 days versus having to wait for the government to pay it out. And so R &D is really specific to manufacturers, tech companies, healthcare, but anyone who's taking a risk in their business.
Timothy Li: Right.
Ron James: And that's really the biggest piece of it. You have to be taking a risk where you don't know the outcome, which you and I both take those risks every day. And there's a lot of pieces. mean, the biggest part of these is payroll, getting credits for that. There's record keeping that my team makes sure and helps the businesses find. I know we work directly with your CFO to get all the paperwork that we needed.
Timothy Li: I read Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Ron James: There's a three-year look back, so you can actually go back for right now 25, 24, 23. So you can go back and so typically if you haven't done it now, you can go back and then it's recurring. As long as you're doing it, you can take, it's not a one-time credit, you continue to take it every year. So yeah.
Timothy Li: wow. I mean we got engineers sitting right outside, right here in Irvine, California, and we did work with your team. And right before this call, you're telling us we we're we're I mean, we're getting half a million dollars back? Is that
Ron James: Yeah, half a million dollars back is what my team told me last Friday.
Timothy Li: That's that's absolutely insane. For a for a startup and f for for us, that's like that's I don't want to say life changing, but that's like I mean, how can we haven't done it before? Is it just an education thing, Ron? I mean, I d I didn't know anything about it. And this is you're right, this is government trying to you know, induce or changing behavior, like you said, right? Set up set up research development companies here and and build
Ron James: Okay.
Timothy Li: Train people, hire Americans, you know, that makes total sense. But no I mean, I didn't know anything about it. What's going on here?
Ron James: Yeah, it was funny when we talked about it. just remember saying, Tim, of all people, I would think that you would be taking advantage of it. In you know, it was like of all people. And I'm glad we were able to recover you some money. And yes, for some businesses, that's life changing. But that's money that you're going to have to reinvest in whatever you want to reinvest it into. You didn't even know you were going to have a week ago to reinvest in things, which is great. Yeah.
Timothy Li: Of all people. Right. Like what? Absolutely. That's crazy. That's absolutely insane.
Ron James: I just said, you know, and we had that conversation, was like, man, how many people in your marketplace, that's what they do, are not taking care of it. In fact, it's the most underutilized credit in the government. the IRS, 80 billion of this goes unclaimed every year. And so it's not that these big guys are getting things other people aren't, they just, the other people aren't aware of them, don't have the teams to do it.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right. And we Right. Right. And the immediate hesitation was like, my god, we gotta do a lot of paperwork, there's lot of time burnt. But it wasn't we we keep those records anyway. And it was just a couple of emails. Right.
Ron James: Yeah, we work directly with your CFO. Yeah, we just work directly with CFO and collected what we needed to. There's no money out of pocket either. We just take a contingency. So it's really no risk. you're not eligible, then you don't pay anything. And if you get it, then we take a contingency fee on what you're going to get.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right. Right.
Ron James: It's a great opportunity for businesses to find money to reinvest it.
Timothy Li: I I hope everybody listening to the show reach out to you guys for some education. It's not that a lot of work, I could tell you that. And then we're we have money coming. I mean it's literally it took maybe maybe a month or two to get things done. That's crazy. It's which which firm what's the name of the the group that you're that could that could help people with this, Ron? That you
Ron James: Yeah, it's, yep. Yeah, so Opscale Exchange, if they just go to OpscaleExchange.com, we can, they'll find everything out there. They can direct message me on LinkedIn too, but OpscaleExchange.com has the credits that we're focused on now. We're continuing to, what we're building though is unique. We are building a platform that's going to allow us to continue to help clients find these credits throughout the time. We'll have a client portal.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right, right.
Ron James: where we'll be able to continue to ask clients, they can build their profiles and we can continue to go back to them with other credits incentives. There's over 10,000 credits, federal, state and local in the US.
Timothy Li: Crazy. We used to work for with some real estate fun real estate companies and they're saying even like in the counties, if you're a firefighter firefighter or something like that, you get benefits of buying homes and things like that. There's there's a lot of stuff out there.
Ron James: Yeah. I will tell you cost segregation, which you and I talked about this, we got to get you on it now. Cost segregation is another great one where you can accelerate depreciation. And of course, with the big, beautiful bill last year, you can just accelerate 100 % of your depreciation right now. And so instead of taking that over 20, 30 years, you can take it all up front. And then a lot of these folks who invest in short-term rentals, are you taking that and then using that money as a deposit for another short-term rental?
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right.
Ron James: And so it's, you know, they say the rich get richer. Well, it's because they know these programs that help them and the average person can take advantage of these same programs. They just got to have the right people to do it. And we do everything with no out of pocket upfront. Everything's.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. That's insane. Well, you know, the other day the team listed you guys on our marketplace. You know, I I think I gotta do a little bit more telling people what's going on. If you need a reference on your website, let me know, brother, because you do it. This is a real comedy.
Ron James: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. don't worry. You're going to be a testimonial for me as soon as we get this done. You're going to be a testimonial. That'd be that'd be front and center, man. And then soon you'll be on there for Cossack too, because we'll get you your family.
Timothy Li: That's Sure, yeah. All of our servers and and equipment that we bought, you know, to set up this office, my God. or you know, I know a lot of people that have like single family homes and they flip houses and all that stuff, right? So you can instead of twelve, twenty four year kind of a you know, d depreciate schedule, you can just write it all off and not write it all off, but you could, you know, depreciate.
Ron James: Yeah, it's. Yeah. You take it all up front. You don't have to wait. so, you know, it's important to use our tax experts to talk through that just to make sure. It's not the right for everyone, but if you're an investor or if you need capital now, it's a great way to do it. You're just not going to have that write-off going forward. You wrote it all off at once.
Timothy Li: That's right. Yeah, but that's the nature of their business, right? They churn every six, nine months away. So wow. Right.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah. So it's really good. You know, there's a lot of a lot of things out there that are that are meant to help, you know, even like restaurants and those the FICA tip credit. You know, in fact, I was talking to a peer that owns a 47 restaurants and he's getting six million back and FICA tip credits. Imagine that it goes back three years as well. But he's six million dollars back that he didn't know that was coming to him.
Timothy Li: In Stang. Jesus, wow. I mean I I think you saved you know probably a hundred million dollars just on this episode for from people that are listening to this. But it is a daunting task to yourself. You gotta have help. Right. We we would never we don't even know what form to use and what kind of information it needs, and God forbid we submit the wrong information and the government look at us as trying to get something out of nothing, right? I don't wanna be that guy. So yeah, thanks for for for helping us on that. Yeah. And what about
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's about having the right partners. And I think that's what's really good is I bring really good quality partners, top 100 law firms, top experts in these spaces. There's a lot of mom and, I don't even want to call them mom and there's a lot of people in the tax world, and I didn't realize this until I went to H &R Block even, that just aren't ethical. And my background being a scout and an Eagle Scout, I have...
Timothy Li: Yeah. Yeah.
Ron James: people who I trust, who I know. I told someone the other day because they're, well, this person will pay more. was like, would you rather be able to sleep at night knowing that your clients are going to get their money or would you rather make an extra dollar? I remember Sam Walton once said in his book, hey, would you rather sell a box of Tide for $100 or would you rather sell 100 boxes of Tide for $10? We all know this. Sam said, I'd rather sell 100 boxes for $10 than one for a hundred.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right.
Ron James: And I think it's, you know, we got to make sure that they're better, they're quality. One thing I learned at Innovation Refunds is, you know, I help grow the solutions team, the people who did that, and I manage those partners. And we grow at 300%, and we brought in top 100, top 50 firms to be doing the work. People that people can trust and that they know, you know, hey, these people are signing this and they're putting their name on it they're backing it.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right. I almost want to end this podcast to start doing some of the other stuff that you just told us about. I don't want to forget, but you know. Okay. Good. Because you have most of our information there anyway on the platform, you know, might as well might as well do a little bit more. That's great. what else have you been up to, man? You're on I I think you have
Ron James: We're getting on Costag. You and I are getting on Costag soon. Yep.
Timothy Li: Y you you just love helping people, I can tell. what else are you working on to help the American p people and the the the s American small businesses folks to to grow to or to save?
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, you know, this this marketplace is a big one with capital. And I've created some partnerships where we can get other capital working capital to folks quicker. So so it's really about helping these small businesses not only get money that's out there that that's theirs that they're not aware of. But hey, if I need a million to 50 million, I have a really strong partnership that can get working capital of a million to 50 million. I have groups that are just seeing these government credits.
Timothy Li: Right.
Ron James: So that so that you can get it tomorrow. I mean we can get it to you in 5 to 10 days versus waiting 6 to 12 hours or longer.
Timothy Li: Yeah. With with a guy that's getting six million dollars, you know, they will spend heck fifty grand, right, to get it tomorrow, right? Or a hundred grand to get it tomorrow. That's real cash.
Ron James: Yeah.
Timothy Li: He needs to operate his business. Wow.
Ron James: Yeah, and tariffs is another one that we're doing, helping people, these tariffs that were ruled unconstitutional, helping people recover that. I have groups that are working to help people recover it. And if you've already filed, we have groups that are purchasing that at 90 plus cents on the dollar to help you get the money now so that you can do it. these tariffs crippled the small businesses. And I feel horrible for the ones that went out of business because of them. But there's a lot of reasons that you should use a professional to help you with this. Maybe not even a broker, but somebody that's an attorney that can really help you manage the nuances and get everything back. And with one of only 10 US Trade and Customs firms that has a whole department of US Trades and Customs Attorneys. And so there's only about 150 US Trade and Customs Attorneys in the US, and this firm has four of them. So we're working with them.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: Good. And again, it's nothing out of pocket. Everything comes on the backside once you get paid.
Timothy Li: That's just that's crazy. What kind of businesses typically will benefit from this tariff refund? I don't think we paint any tariff software business, but I guess any business would be impacted by this, right? Import, export.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, importer, have to be the importer record is the rule. So it's somebody who actually paid US customs, the import fee. And so, so if you paid the import tax to US customs, then you are eligible. The confusion is, is there's a lot of middlemen that got that passed down to them. We'd love to talk to those people too, because we have some ways to help them out too. But as far as the actual refund, it is you had to pay US customs.
Timothy Li: Right, importer of of record. And I remember last time we taught to you about this, I taught to you about this, y you cited some really fantastical numbers just on this tariff stuff. What are what is the that number now? And I've some read some articles about Nintendo filing for a million billions of dollars refund. Yeah, what
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, Nintendo filed for a ton. The government says, I believe the government is saying there's 165 billion out there. The folks that I'm working with think it's probably closer to a trillion that the government really doesn't want us to know what's out there. Trump continues to challenge, not the Supreme Court, but challenge the way that US Customs is handling this. He wants to make it as hard as he can for folks to get this money back. And so having an attorney in your corner.
Timothy Li: Right. Yeah. Sure.
Ron James: We'll do that and then to be honest, there's no recourse on these advances. So we're doing these advances, know, 90, 95 cents on the dollar with no recourse except for if it's fraud. And so a lot of people are interested in taking that and getting that money in five to 10 days versus waiting.
Timothy Li: Right. And you give me some arbit averages, right? An average business that it's like a couple hundred thousand dollars. That's those are real money.
Ron James: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, the average business paid paid over $100,000 in tariffs. Yeah.
Timothy Li: Holy moly. Wow. And Ray, you need a you need a you need a attorney to represent you 'cause this one is a little bit different than the sh the nice forms that we you know, you can fill for ERC and PPP stuff.
Ron James: Yeah, there's some litigation out there on these that may have to take place. There's a lot of statute of limitations and my team would argue that why is there even a statute of limitations for something that was rolled unconstitutional? So that's gonna come into play someday. The goal is gonna be to get all of these folks who have impacted their businesses, their money back in their pockets so that we can get the US economy going.
Timothy Li: Right. Yeah. Right. even for unfortunately, even for businesses that sort of folded under pressure, they're still eligible, can be eligible for
Ron James: Yeah, if they paid if they paid the the tariff fees, yeah, they're still eligible to get that money and recover it
Timothy Li: Wow, okay. Well people need to hear more about this. That's that's insane. Out of the big, beautiful build. There's a lot of people love it, there's a lot of people don't like it. other than R and D, which happened a long time ago, and this accelerated depreciation. What else is in there that's juicy you want people to know about it? That's hidden secret, I suppose.
Ron James: Yeah, well, it made cost segregation permanent. It made cost segregation permanent, which is a big one, especially with, and then it, you 100 % of your depreciation write-off is really big. So those things that we talked about, R &D was part of it. Unfortunately, part of that expired because it gave you the three-year look back. It also
Timothy Li: Okay.
Ron James: until July 6 gave you 2022 as well. yeah, so there were some pieces there that the big beautiful bill did. So it's done a lot of different things and it also ended some credits, right? It changed some of the energy credits and some of those types of things. The thing is, is every administration that comes in is going to do things to influence things that they ran on their ticket with their.
Timothy Li: Sure. Right. Right. The the big green bill, you know, had does something to this energy sector, right? This b beautiful bill did something else.
Ron James: Yeah, there will be something if I can guarantee you there's going to be something that happens if if the Democrats control the House and the Senate, they're going to go back and do something around energy and they're going to they're going to want to promote electric cars again, energy again, all those types of things. And and so they'll do everything they can to get something like that pushed across or really renewed. mean, what's these one that got ended? The Workers Opportunity Tax Credit, which is a big credit. You can get
Timothy Li: Right. Yep. My god.
Ron James: up to, I think it's up to $27 credit per employee. And I never realized when I worked at the big companies, why they had people fill out those forms on hiring date, because I can't imagine the amount of credits those big companies get. And they had the client fill out that form. We're automating that process right now. And it's believed that when it gets re-approved, that they'll be able to go back and collect that money. And really it's for, if you hired people that were veterans, people that are unemployed over a certain amount of time, people with disabilities, it's to encourage.
Timothy Li: Wow.
Ron James: to get those people jobs and encourage companies to hire those types of folks. And so every one of these credits has a reason behind it and what it's driving. And it's something that someone at some point got pushed across that said, hey, this is important to us. Let's get our veterans back to work and let's give these companies some money if they hire these veterans and get them back to work. We should do everything we can to get veterans jobs in the US to keep those guys going and that. it's just a
Timothy Li: Perfect. I love it. Right. To to facilitate behavior. Right. That's right.
Ron James: Thanks.
Timothy Li: That's right. We some we you know, we work with some small equipment lending leasing companies and I talked to some of their CEOs, like, my god, Tim, you know, it's it's it's a big, beautiful bill, you know, people buying trucks and and equipments and all w is that a the behavior that I'm I'm seeing as well? What what is accelerating all that?
Ron James: Yeah, yeah, that's that whole 100%. Yeah, that's that whole 100 % depreciation write off. So people are buying new company vehicles right now. They're buying, you know, yeah, they're doing that. They're investing in real estate. They're doing a lot of things that should stimulate the economy. They really should help stimulate the economy. And some of those things probably are keeping us from going into recession, but we gotta get the little guys to know about it, not just the big construction guys.
Timothy Li: Sure, right, absolutely. That's right.
Ron James: We got to get the little guys knowing about these credits so that they can take advantage of it. Because 85 % of the businesses out there are small businesses and we need to keep them in business. We need to do everything that we can to support them and help them get the capital that they need to grow.
Timothy Li: There's a lot. Right. What are you doing to educate outreach? Right? to let people know that this these are easy things to do. Money granted to you already, you just have to you know to do do a couple of days of work.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, we're, yeah, I'm getting on more podcasts, really trying to drive these podcasts up. I've got some really big, big partners, you and, another big company in New York that I'm spending some time with this week that they have huge amounts of small businesses in their network that are looking for capital that are doing those types of things. And so, so through those partnerships, trying to get them to understand us. So we're doing a lot of those different things so that we can just continue to educate people on these credits.
Timothy Li: share. Right. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna do some education myself 'cause I know a lot of people just in my personal network that their family owns like, you know, twenty, thirty single family homes, you're sitting there doing nothing things, but they don't they're they have no realization. Yeah.
Ron James: Yeah, yeah, you need to connect on that offline and get that going and get it going for your family because it is there's so much out there and so many ways to help people get capital and I would hate for a business to go out because and when there was money they could have had that they just weren't aware of.
Timothy Li: Right. And there's time horizon to all this, right? Look back period and all that stuff. You miss it, you missed it, right? So you just have to wait.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, if you'd have finished, if you'd have done R &D before July 6, you'd have done it, and then most of the look-back periods end on April 15 each year. Yeah. And back there, but most of these credits, you can go back three years on.
Timothy Li: Got it. That's the the tax day, I suppose, right? Right, wow. Let's let's end this show by talking about semiconductor. And I had a I had another guest from Nevada Energy Accelerator on the show and he was talking about rare earth metals and that that you eyes only have one or two really good companies that are mining stuff. I mean we have a lot of deposits, we just don't have anything to process. What is the government doing today? And what are your thoughts around that in general, Ron? just
Ron James: Yeah, that's an interesting one. think it's such an interesting world, especially when you get into this mining and some of that stuff. And recently, think Trump just backed up some things that impacted national parks and stuff that will allow people to mine and stuff. As a scout, I obviously want to see our land.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: stay but I do think you know there's natural resources that we need also. It's a fine line that we do. There are credits out there for that though. There's credits to help people do those types of things to get into it. mean it's just like everything else. mean there was, we all know how the current administration feels about windmills but there used to be a credit for windmills. That's why you saw them popping up everywhere is because these people get these credits to
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Sure. That's right. That's right, yeah.
Ron James: you are basically getting paid to put a windmill on your property. And so it's kind of that same thing that you know with mining and all that. There's credits out there for everything. Like I said, 10,000 plus credits out there at the state, local and federal level. And so I would encourage, and if it's not one that we do, I'd love someone to send me a DM because I have the people in my network that can do it.
Timothy Li: Right, right. Crazy. Right.
Ron James: As you know, the technology build and the scaling of it allows you to stay focused. But any individual, I'm happy to research and help them find it. I mean, I got a top 100 law firm that I'm very close with that can do any credits that we can find.
Timothy Li: You got it. Yeah. Wow. Will be the beta tester wrong. Let me know.
Ron James: Perfect man, I appreciate it.
Timothy Li: Yeah, Ron, this great. Thank you for taking your time to talk to me in your travel schedule. Have a great time in New York City. We'll talk to you again soon. I'll post all these show notes, all the links, I'll do a little bit more social media because this is it this is actually impactful to my own business. So thank you so much for doing the work for us as well. Appreciate you. Yeah, you got it.
Ron James: All right, thanks, Tim. We'll talk soon, buddy.
Ron James: Yeah, I think, you know, it's important to start. I'm a kid from a rural town in southwest Missouri. I have a background that's interesting to most, but I actually worked at the, I was a senior leader at the number one retailer in the world at the time, Walmart, the number one electronics in the world and number one tax prep in the world at H &R Block. actually ran a region that had over 3000 employees and we filed over 450,000 tax returns at H &R
Timothy Li: that's right. Wow. So you're a people person. Okay. Wow. and how was your ch childhood and school and all that stuff? Were you a good kid? A good good sk a good kid in school?
Ron James: Definitely a people person. Definitely. Yeah! I was a good kid. I was a good student. had both my parents are teachers. My dad is unique. My dad had a master's degree in math and was a math teacher and also had a he had a bachelor's in math and history. And he's a genealogist. My dad actually has 47 books published in the Library of Congress, a logical work. So I didn't even know that until we were doing the eulogy for his funeral. And I read that I was like, seriously, dad? So
Timothy Li: wow. Yeah. my word.
Ron James: But yes, I had to be a good kid because dad taught at the same school I was at and so he usually knew if I was in trouble before I knew I was in trouble. I have an older brother so that's kind of cool.
Timothy Li: Right. And your Yeah, and your mother taught as well, both
Ron James: Yeah, my mom taught home ec. She was at a different school, but she taught home economics back in the day when when some of these guys don't even know what home economics is, but. Yeah.
Timothy Li: I do. Learn how to sew and and cook, right? I mean I I learned at a high s middle school or high school or something like that, home ed classes our course.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, I had to learn how to sew and cook at the house and I was a boy scout. I'm an Eagle Scout, second generation Eagle Scout. My dad was an Eagle Scout, my brother's an Eagle Scout, my son's an Eagle Scout. So scouting is important to us. All of that background is important to us to spend time.
Timothy Li: That's it. So Yeah. My parents are both teachers. That's probably why we get along so well, you know.
Ron James: Probably is, It's a different world when your parents are teachers. I tell my kids all the time, was like, man, I never had to worry about, or I always had to have my homework done. My worst was, my dad had to be at school at seven in the morning because he needed to gossip with his buddy teachers. And so we had to be at school at seven in the morning. And so a lot of times, nobody's there at seven in the morning when you don't start until 25. So we would, the year I had my dad as a math teacher sucked.
Timothy Li: Right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. okay, so he taught Okay, got it.
Ron James: because, well, I did advanced courses, so I had to do the advanced algebra too, and he was the only one that did it. But he always knew when I had homework, and I'm like, but if I do my homework at night, what will I do between seven and eight in the morning?
Timothy Li: Sure. Right. Yeah. Right. You're basically a a dad junior following around and and do what on these schedule.
Ron James: Yeah, was very involved in sports. Sports is a big part of our lives. I played football, basketball, and through did some field sports through and track and that sort of stuff. Yeah. I did not know I wasn't I wasn't at that level, but but it was on a great great high school team. It was you know when people talk about resilience with me, I think about our.
Timothy Li: Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Very disciplined. I like that. Do you play collegiate sports? Right. Mm-hmm.
Ron James: So we were the class that was going to transform our school. In sophomore year, we were one and nine. In my junior year, we were two and eight. And we came together that summer and we said, we're tired of losing. And we put the time in and the jam, and I think it's important in business too, but we just put the time in and we turned around and we still have the, I think the only undefeated team in the school history and the only team to win a playoff game in the school history.
Timothy Li: There you go. There you go. wow. Holy eleven
Ron James: Yeah, we were 11 and 0, then we lost, so 11 and 1. And still to this day, I could call any of those guys up. And we're still just talk like we talked yesterday.
Timothy Li: They said it was it's a core memory. That's what that's what it wow. Sounded like Al Bundy there for a second, right? Four touchdown in in in in one game. That's awesome. That's awesome, Ron. When was the first time when was the first time you've got introduced to a computer? I know I think we're both a similar kind of age. What was that my computer?
Ron James: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, Oregon Trail. Come on, everyone had introduced their Oregon Trail in school. Remember that? It's like my boys are like, it was at school. It was definitely at school. My parents couldn't afford a computer. mean, back then they were so expensive and stuff. I remember when I bought my first one, I was a manager for Walmart. I think I was in New Mexico when I bought my first computer as a manager for Walmart.
Timothy Li: Yes. Was it at school? At home? Mm. Wow.
Ron James: But yeah, I was
Timothy Li: Wow.
Ron James: introduced to school. I remember Oregon Trail. I remember green screens. Gosh, I remember back in the day when I started at Walmart, used to have, P &Ls usually came out about the fifth or sixth of the month. And man, every store manager was sitting back there at the dot matrix printer, because that's how the P &L came. And then you're calling and, hey, mine just came. Be on the lookout. And so.
Timothy Li: yeah. Yes, yep. Ha ha ha.
Ron James: In the world that today when you have technology or fingertips, my boys are always like, you guys have a, he goes, did you have a tablet in high school? was like, tablets weren't even thought about when I was in high school.
Timothy Li: That's right. Ab. You had a paddle to get beaten down. What yeah, and the tablet. I I could just im I can just hear the sound of those printers going off and the smell, and remember that? Right, play like different tones and and you gotta close the door if if that thing's going off. Wow, so fascinating. Walmart was in the forefront of technology even today. What were some of the things that you know when you went when you were at Walmart? I was like, Well, that's really fascinating. That's like just mind-blown company.
Ron James: Yeah, exactly. Inventory in general was spectacular at Walmart. I the way that we could use the telezones, the way that we could get stuff door to floor. I helped open super centers to the West. So I actually, I opened one in New Mexico, well, I opened a couple in New Mexico, opened in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Palmdale, California, opened Stockton, California, and then went up in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Timothy Li: Right. Yeah. right.
Ron James: I kind of had a niche in the grocery side. And so as we moved into open super centers in the late 90s, early 2000s West, I went West with Walmart. I was young and single, so it was easy and cheap for them to move me. But I think the coolest technology, mean, one, you could set it, you could figure out a way to make sure that it was door to floor. I mean, you could keep your inventory turned so far. And Walmart was so great at that. And then the RFD technology that's still,
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: kind of seems to be state of art now. I left Walmart in 2005. And we were testing two things. One was we were doing pay from scan, meaning we wouldn't pay for inventory until it scanned out the register to reduce shrink. And we were also trying
Timothy Li: Okay. Wow. Wow.
Ron James: RFD technology then where our products would actually come in the back door, be checked in through RFD. I mean, this is 2005. When it went out the front door, the RFD would catch it leaving the store.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Yeah.
Ron James: You're doing that in cosmetics, you the little lipsticks and stuff. So, you know, I hate, I despise lipstick. Cause when I was an hourly employee, me and my good friend, Will, we got stuck in the cosmetics department the night before inventory. And there's like a hundred shades of red that have one tiny
Timothy Li: Sure. Yeah.
Ron James: number in between each one. And we're having to find where it goes because people just put in baskets on the floorboard of the neighbors.
Timothy Li: With a tooth. my God. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. You know, I read an article a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago, about Starbucks introducing AI driven inventory system and they they they turned off in a i in a matter of month. Did you read about that, heard about that? It was it was misreading, miscategorizing different type of milk as to start with, and it was a shortage everywhere. What what happened there? What could possibly
Ron James: I did not. man. I don't know. And to think that Walmart had that technology 22 years ago was starting that technology. You know, and we were told Walmart had the next to the United States Air Force. We were told our technology was next to the United States Air Force. And it was, you know, I remember September 11th and Walmart actually set up an alternate location that could be set up in minutes to run the company because
Timothy Li: Yeah. Wow.
Ron James: If you want to impact the American economy, you would attack Walmart's corporate office. And so it was just great. The Walmart stories I have are just, yeah, there's shoplifting. I ran Walmart stores for so long, the shoplifting stories, the customer story. Everyone's like, you should write a book about just Walmart.
Timothy Li: That's that's crazy. Yeah, shoplifting, fraud and all that stuff by you know, that's crazy. You mentioned nine eleven. I mean w actually internally in our company we talked about it 'cause we're going to Finovate Finovate show in in New York City. It happened to be on nine eleven and I was talking to my folks about, you know, visiting the memorial at the time I go to New York, I'll I'll if I can, I'll go to memorial and that's all I'll always emotional. And I think everybody in America, maybe around the world remembers what happened on that on that day.
Ron James: Yo yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Li: You know, I still remember what what what happened. Well were you, Ron? It felt like you were in Walmart inventory.
Ron James: I was, it was a crazy day. I usually got up and went to work early. Most of our shifts were seven to five or seven to 10. And I remember getting up early, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada. And so, yeah, as I was getting up and on my way to work, heard it was on the radio.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Things already transpired. You were just
Ron James: And I remember calling my mom who was in Missouri about it on the way to work. And then when I got to work, it was just this eerie feeling. Walmart had all those TVs in the store. And so all of them were on Fox and CNN and those things. And I just remember how crazy, like it was, there was nobody in the store. Like, absolutely. mean, this was a hundred million dollar store. And there was not a soul in that store that day.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Mm. Hmm. Right. Right.
Ron James: And really the next few days and obviously being in Las Vegas, they evacuated the strip, shut down the Las Vegas strip, which was just, I think COVID's the only other time they've ever shut down the Las Vegas strip. But they got everyone out of there because no one knew what was going to happen. And obviously there were tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands of people on the strip. Yeah, you wanted to get everybody off the strip because you just didn't know what was coming next.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Stuck. You know, cars trains and everything was shut down, right? That's crazy. I think I was in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area. I was doing a co-op, engineering co-op internship with Toyota. Same kind of a thing. We have a huge plant, and I I didn't listen to radio, I was listening to N Nirvana on the way to work. Get myself pumped up. Walked in, none of the engineers were on the floor. I'm like, what happened? Tim, you gotta go to the cafeteria. And we had two big screens. I walked over, everybody's halting around these two TVs, and I can't really see about what's going on. And I saw like some kind of a
Ron James: Thank you.
Timothy Li: I thought it was a movie scene because there are there were a lot of Hollywood studio folks in our plant filming certain scenes. I'm like, that's another premiere they get to you know show us a movie scene. And then, you know, long story short, I learned about it. I'm I'm like, wow, this is this is absolutely insane. And talk about how resilient this country is. We bounce right back and let's let's let's stomach the chump a little bit. Between 9-11 and you mentioned COVID, right? Maybe even today. What are some of the major events between those two dates from two thousand one to two thousand twenty six? Major events at I can I can start next.
Ron James: I think the other one that impacted me was the dot com piece. I was at Best Buy. And dot com. Yeah, well, that and then, in 2000, 2008, and even more so in the early teens when Amazon came on board. And I remember, you so you had the early 2000s and you had the 2008 shift with
Timothy Li: Mm, that's right. It was right around two thousand, two thousand and one, right? Right right before the Clinton Clinton year.
Ron James: the recession and everything where real estate and being in Las Vegas, they were still hit by that because it was such a service industry. And so I remember that because it impacted a lot of my friends who had bought houses based off their tip and things. So that really impacted them. then then at Best Buy, it really started to impact my employment because now you had Amazon starting to take over probably 2000.
Timothy Li: Right on there. my god. Right. yeah.
Ron James: I remember the article that Best Buy was becoming Amazon showroom. It was crazy because that article came and you're just like, man, people are coming in, they're not buying. People came in, started to come in more educated too. You didn't really need sales.
Timothy Li: This is right. Yeah. I can get us on Amazon for you know half the price, whatever, you know, whatever thing. Right.
Ron James: Yeah, well, they'd already done all their research. They'd done, in fact, you know, talking about Scouts, it's funny. My boys have to do an Eagle Required Meribadget personal management where you have to budget, you have to save up for product, you have to competitive shop. I was telling my other, when he's working on it last month, I was like, dude, you have it so easy. You can go online, you can competitive shop, three competitors. I had to actually have my parents drive me around to Walmart. This is bringing back the Kmart.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Kmart. That's right.
Ron James: The guys that drive me around had to actually go find it on the shelf and write down the price and they can just do it all in the touch of a button now.
Timothy Li: Yes. Yes. Circus city. Remember that? Comp USA. I don't know if you ever had those stores in your neighbo neighborhood. My God. Yeah. and the last of fall was like Fryce Electronics or something like that. Back five still around.
Ron James: Yeah, you know, Best Buy, the CEO after Brian Dunn and I had left at that time to go to H &R Block, but that CEO after Ryan Dunn, really transitioned the service part and really helped. Really, I mean, I wasn't sure Best Buy was going to survive when I left. And, you know, as we know, many of them didn't. Best Buy found a way to survive all of the doc. So did Walmart. think
Timothy Li: Mm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right.
Ron James: I'm still amazed at how Walmart continues to reinvent itself to become competitive. I always go into Walmart stores, I'm curious about what they're doing and know, probably 15, 20 % of the real estate and the one where I live in Denver is now, has been moved and totally for store pickup. I mean, it's just crazy. they've taken probably about 15 to 20 % of the floor space.
Timothy Li: Yeah. wow. wow.
Ron James: to create a store pickup design. I mean, it's just crazy how some of these companies have really evolved and have not been able
Timothy Li: matter in terms. Yeah. so okay, so dot com, I I was there, you know, in San Francisco. I saw experienced a little bit differently. Certainly seven, eight, right? We kind of mentioned that I was working at the bank, and it was it was a bloodbath. I think the bank held out pretty well because there was TARP. Remember TARP? That was a that was that was like the very first time growing up growing up in USA, U United States of America's like wow. The government can just write checks to prop up private enterprises. And where is this money coming from? You know, that was a mind-boggling thing. And they were forcing the banks to take this money. I understand it now, because it it it's basically a institutional kind of a fundamental banking financing infrastructure, they need to have that. And speaking of standing up the the war room for Walmart within minutes at JP Morgan Chase, we had to identify different spots in the country to make sure that that those are the spots that distribute cash out to the public should we have a should we have an event. But I think now you you for the past 10-15 years you've been working on closely with these government large government policies right tarp and you mentioned covet my god it was trillions of dollars and then there was an ERC employee retention program and now there is the tariff stuff
Ron James: Yeah.
Timothy Li: Give us a whole playbook on on why the government's doing this stuff and and how does that sort of play into the American psyche and the the economy and all that stuff. You're an expert in this. You s you tell me numbers all the time. I I'm like, Wow Yeah.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty crazy how impactful some of these things are. until I went to H &R Block, I never realized how much the government impacted things. at H &R Block, understood everyone looks at these at the end of the year, there's always some sort of government shutdown and Congress is trying and everybody's trying to get their things passed and not passed.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: All of that impacts the tax code greatly. So much of it is, hey, what are we going to cut and what are we not going to cut? And, you know, at H &R Block, we started to realize that or they knew it forever. I just started to learn it. And, you know, the biggest one in the beginning at H &R Block was actually Trump's first term, which was Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And that, the TGCA, it was the biggest change in the American tax system since Reagan administration. And you know, he was going to put H &R Block out of business and all this stuff. And what we learned is, is taxes are complicated. And anytime that you change something, whether it's for the good or the bad, it just uses the American taxpayer and then they need someone who's an expert to help them sort it out. And, you know, then then came this COVID and it's interesting. to a company called Innovation Refunds right after COVID.
Timothy Li: That's right.
Ron James: I had left H &R Block, I had an opportunity to go run a tax business for one of the best tech companies and that didn't work out for a couple of reasons with, never made it on board there, honestly. But then I found myself in a spot where, hey, I gotta go do something different. There's a way for me to impact things differently and I found Innovation Refunds and I found this whole specialty tax world.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: And we were focused on the employee retention credit. We recovered $6 billion of money for US businesses. And really what the ERC credit was, to, at the heart of it, was written by Congress to keep people employed during the COVID so that
Timothy Li: emotion. Right.
Ron James: they didn't pay unemployment. And so if they could keep people off unemployment and the businesses paid them, they created a credit to get that money back to the businesses. And that's at the heart of was helping those businesses recover that money. They actually enlisted. So this came from Katrina, which was the first time the ERC credit really happened. And there's some friends of mine that I've come to know that actually two congressmen came to him and said, hey, I know you helped write this for Katrina, help us write a bill that will protect the American businesses across the country. And so that's where ERC came from.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. wow, okay.
Ron James: was a mimic.
Timothy Li: Mechanically though Katrina, my god, that's another major event that's in the in the American psyche for the longest time. How does that mechanically different than PPP? I think it comes at the same time. I I think they're they're both kind of a benefits program for businesses, but y let us hear it. What what is PPP?
Ron James: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. PPP was an actual, it was a grant or a loan essentially given to people. The credit was giving you back money you paid in payroll taxes. And so essentially the businesses were getting back money that they already paid. So the government wasn't, you know, there's all these people, they were printing checks. No, they were giving back the small businesses the money they paid in payroll taxes.
Timothy Li: Okay. Got it. Got it. Right. Right.
Ron James: that the government really saved by not putting those people on unemployment. And then those people didn't have to find jobs after COVID. And so there was a lot of benefits to that to the government. And these tax credits are, the government continues to come up with tax credits. I don't see them ever going away. Some of them like Watts, he's been around since the early 90s, since the Clinton administration, the work opportunity's tax credit. R &D's been around since the early 2000s. And it's really about influencing behaviors that we want to see in the country. R &D, or the Research and Development Tax Credit, which is one of the bigger ones right now for American businesses, it's really designed to influence American businesses to keep their tech teams, to keep their developers on the US soil. And people are going and offshoring that, not realizing they get tax credits almost dollar for dollar for the money they spend.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Yeah, so you know, we Ron, you and I talk all the time because you know we do a little bit of work with IR, you know, previous and you were saying, Hey Tim, do you know anything about R and D? Shame on me. I'm I'm an entrepreneur in the tech space for 10 years. I'm like, R and D? Yeah, we do a lot of RD here. And you're like, no, no, no. And we we start actually started working together with our CFO on this, and you just broke a piece of news right before we got on this call, but
Ron James: Thank
Timothy Li: Tell us what R and D is and why it's special. You already c kinda got into it. And is it do you have to be Microsoft to get this or T could you just be a small time tech entrepreneur to benefit from this? Tell us more.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, my whole goal in the business that I've kind of started over the last five months is helping small business owners recover these credits that the big guys get. People look at the Microsofts, they look at Amazon, they look at President Trump and they're like, there's loopholes. And there's not loopholes. They just have huge teams, huge attorneys that are on retainers that are going out and finding these credits and they're utilizing the information. And so... It's really about making the American businesses aware of those and then helping them get the money and recover it and helping them file it. And then I even have groups that will help them get that money within five to 10 days versus having to wait for the government to pay it out. And so R &D is really specific to manufacturers, tech companies, healthcare, but anyone who's taking a risk in their business.
Timothy Li: Right.
Ron James: And that's really the biggest piece of it. You have to be taking a risk where you don't know the outcome, which you and I both take those risks every day. And there's a lot of pieces. mean, the biggest part of these is payroll, getting credits for that. There's record keeping that my team makes sure and helps the businesses find. I know we work directly with your CFO to get all the paperwork that we needed.
Timothy Li: I read Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Ron James: There's a three-year look back, so you can actually go back for right now 25, 24, 23. So you can go back and so typically if you haven't done it now, you can go back and then it's recurring. As long as you're doing it, you can take, it's not a one-time credit, you continue to take it every year. So yeah.
Timothy Li: wow. I mean we got engineers sitting right outside, right here in Irvine, California, and we did work with your team. And right before this call, you're telling us we we're we're I mean, we're getting half a million dollars back? Is that
Ron James: Yeah, half a million dollars back is what my team told me last Friday.
Timothy Li: That's that's absolutely insane. For a for a startup and f for for us, that's like that's I don't want to say life changing, but that's like I mean, how can we haven't done it before? Is it just an education thing, Ron? I mean, I d I didn't know anything about it. And this is you're right, this is government trying to you know, induce or changing behavior, like you said, right? Set up set up research development companies here and and build
Ron James: Okay.
Timothy Li: Train people, hire Americans, you know, that makes total sense. But no I mean, I didn't know anything about it. What's going on here?
Ron James: Yeah, it was funny when we talked about it. just remember saying, Tim, of all people, I would think that you would be taking advantage of it. In you know, it was like of all people. And I'm glad we were able to recover you some money. And yes, for some businesses, that's life changing. But that's money that you're going to have to reinvest in whatever you want to reinvest it into. You didn't even know you were going to have a week ago to reinvest in things, which is great. Yeah.
Timothy Li: Of all people. Right. Like what? Absolutely. That's crazy. That's absolutely insane.
Ron James: I just said, you know, and we had that conversation, was like, man, how many people in your marketplace, that's what they do, are not taking care of it. In fact, it's the most underutilized credit in the government. the IRS, 80 billion of this goes unclaimed every year. And so it's not that these big guys are getting things other people aren't, they just, the other people aren't aware of them, don't have the teams to do it.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right. And we Right. Right. And the immediate hesitation was like, my god, we gotta do a lot of paperwork, there's lot of time burnt. But it wasn't we we keep those records anyway. And it was just a couple of emails. Right.
Ron James: Yeah, we work directly with your CFO. Yeah, we just work directly with CFO and collected what we needed to. There's no money out of pocket either. We just take a contingency. So it's really no risk. you're not eligible, then you don't pay anything. And if you get it, then we take a contingency fee on what you're going to get.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right. Right.
Ron James: It's a great opportunity for businesses to find money to reinvest it.
Timothy Li: I I hope everybody listening to the show reach out to you guys for some education. It's not that a lot of work, I could tell you that. And then we're we have money coming. I mean it's literally it took maybe maybe a month or two to get things done. That's crazy. It's which which firm what's the name of the the group that you're that could that could help people with this, Ron? That you
Ron James: Yeah, it's, yep. Yeah, so Opscale Exchange, if they just go to OpscaleExchange.com, we can, they'll find everything out there. They can direct message me on LinkedIn too, but OpscaleExchange.com has the credits that we're focused on now. We're continuing to, what we're building though is unique. We are building a platform that's going to allow us to continue to help clients find these credits throughout the time. We'll have a client portal.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right, right.
Ron James: where we'll be able to continue to ask clients, they can build their profiles and we can continue to go back to them with other credits incentives. There's over 10,000 credits, federal, state and local in the US.
Timothy Li: Crazy. We used to work for with some real estate fun real estate companies and they're saying even like in the counties, if you're a firefighter firefighter or something like that, you get benefits of buying homes and things like that. There's there's a lot of stuff out there.
Ron James: Yeah. I will tell you cost segregation, which you and I talked about this, we got to get you on it now. Cost segregation is another great one where you can accelerate depreciation. And of course, with the big, beautiful bill last year, you can just accelerate 100 % of your depreciation right now. And so instead of taking that over 20, 30 years, you can take it all up front. And then a lot of these folks who invest in short-term rentals, are you taking that and then using that money as a deposit for another short-term rental?
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right.
Ron James: And so it's, you know, they say the rich get richer. Well, it's because they know these programs that help them and the average person can take advantage of these same programs. They just got to have the right people to do it. And we do everything with no out of pocket upfront. Everything's.
Timothy Li: Right. Right. That's insane. Well, you know, the other day the team listed you guys on our marketplace. You know, I I think I gotta do a little bit more telling people what's going on. If you need a reference on your website, let me know, brother, because you do it. This is a real comedy.
Ron James: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. don't worry. You're going to be a testimonial for me as soon as we get this done. You're going to be a testimonial. That'd be that'd be front and center, man. And then soon you'll be on there for Cossack too, because we'll get you your family.
Timothy Li: That's Sure, yeah. All of our servers and and equipment that we bought, you know, to set up this office, my God. or you know, I know a lot of people that have like single family homes and they flip houses and all that stuff, right? So you can instead of twelve, twenty four year kind of a you know, d depreciate schedule, you can just write it all off and not write it all off, but you could, you know, depreciate.
Ron James: Yeah, it's. Yeah. You take it all up front. You don't have to wait. so, you know, it's important to use our tax experts to talk through that just to make sure. It's not the right for everyone, but if you're an investor or if you need capital now, it's a great way to do it. You're just not going to have that write-off going forward. You wrote it all off at once.
Timothy Li: That's right. Yeah, but that's the nature of their business, right? They churn every six, nine months away. So wow. Right.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah. So it's really good. You know, there's a lot of a lot of things out there that are that are meant to help, you know, even like restaurants and those the FICA tip credit. You know, in fact, I was talking to a peer that owns a 47 restaurants and he's getting six million back and FICA tip credits. Imagine that it goes back three years as well. But he's six million dollars back that he didn't know that was coming to him.
Timothy Li: In Stang. Jesus, wow. I mean I I think you saved you know probably a hundred million dollars just on this episode for from people that are listening to this. But it is a daunting task to yourself. You gotta have help. Right. We we would never we don't even know what form to use and what kind of information it needs, and God forbid we submit the wrong information and the government look at us as trying to get something out of nothing, right? I don't wanna be that guy. So yeah, thanks for for for helping us on that. Yeah. And what about
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's about having the right partners. And I think that's what's really good is I bring really good quality partners, top 100 law firms, top experts in these spaces. There's a lot of mom and, I don't even want to call them mom and there's a lot of people in the tax world, and I didn't realize this until I went to H &R Block even, that just aren't ethical. And my background being a scout and an Eagle Scout, I have...
Timothy Li: Yeah. Yeah.
Ron James: people who I trust, who I know. I told someone the other day because they're, well, this person will pay more. was like, would you rather be able to sleep at night knowing that your clients are going to get their money or would you rather make an extra dollar? I remember Sam Walton once said in his book, hey, would you rather sell a box of Tide for $100 or would you rather sell 100 boxes of Tide for $10? We all know this. Sam said, I'd rather sell 100 boxes for $10 than one for a hundred.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right.
Ron James: And I think it's, you know, we got to make sure that they're better, they're quality. One thing I learned at Innovation Refunds is, you know, I help grow the solutions team, the people who did that, and I manage those partners. And we grow at 300%, and we brought in top 100, top 50 firms to be doing the work. People that people can trust and that they know, you know, hey, these people are signing this and they're putting their name on it they're backing it.
Timothy Li: Yeah. Right. Right. I almost want to end this podcast to start doing some of the other stuff that you just told us about. I don't want to forget, but you know. Okay. Good. Because you have most of our information there anyway on the platform, you know, might as well might as well do a little bit more. That's great. what else have you been up to, man? You're on I I think you have
Ron James: We're getting on Costag. You and I are getting on Costag soon. Yep.
Timothy Li: Y you you just love helping people, I can tell. what else are you working on to help the American p people and the the the s American small businesses folks to to grow to or to save?
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, you know, this this marketplace is a big one with capital. And I've created some partnerships where we can get other capital working capital to folks quicker. So so it's really about helping these small businesses not only get money that's out there that that's theirs that they're not aware of. But hey, if I need a million to 50 million, I have a really strong partnership that can get working capital of a million to 50 million. I have groups that are just seeing these government credits.
Timothy Li: Right.
Ron James: So that so that you can get it tomorrow. I mean we can get it to you in 5 to 10 days versus waiting 6 to 12 hours or longer.
Timothy Li: Yeah. With with a guy that's getting six million dollars, you know, they will spend heck fifty grand, right, to get it tomorrow, right? Or a hundred grand to get it tomorrow. That's real cash.
Ron James: Yeah.
Timothy Li: He needs to operate his business. Wow.
Ron James: Yeah, and tariffs is another one that we're doing, helping people, these tariffs that were ruled unconstitutional, helping people recover that. I have groups that are working to help people recover it. And if you've already filed, we have groups that are purchasing that at 90 plus cents on the dollar to help you get the money now so that you can do it. these tariffs crippled the small businesses. And I feel horrible for the ones that went out of business because of them. But there's a lot of reasons that you should use a professional to help you with this. Maybe not even a broker, but somebody that's an attorney that can really help you manage the nuances and get everything back. And with one of only 10 US Trade and Customs firms that has a whole department of US Trades and Customs Attorneys. And so there's only about 150 US Trade and Customs Attorneys in the US, and this firm has four of them. So we're working with them.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: Good. And again, it's nothing out of pocket. Everything comes on the backside once you get paid.
Timothy Li: That's just that's crazy. What kind of businesses typically will benefit from this tariff refund? I don't think we paint any tariff software business, but I guess any business would be impacted by this, right? Import, export.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, importer, have to be the importer record is the rule. So it's somebody who actually paid US customs, the import fee. And so, so if you paid the import tax to US customs, then you are eligible. The confusion is, is there's a lot of middlemen that got that passed down to them. We'd love to talk to those people too, because we have some ways to help them out too. But as far as the actual refund, it is you had to pay US customs.
Timothy Li: Right, importer of of record. And I remember last time we taught to you about this, I taught to you about this, y you cited some really fantastical numbers just on this tariff stuff. What are what is the that number now? And I've some read some articles about Nintendo filing for a million billions of dollars refund. Yeah, what
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, Nintendo filed for a ton. The government says, I believe the government is saying there's 165 billion out there. The folks that I'm working with think it's probably closer to a trillion that the government really doesn't want us to know what's out there. Trump continues to challenge, not the Supreme Court, but challenge the way that US Customs is handling this. He wants to make it as hard as he can for folks to get this money back. And so having an attorney in your corner.
Timothy Li: Right. Yeah. Sure.
Ron James: We'll do that and then to be honest, there's no recourse on these advances. So we're doing these advances, know, 90, 95 cents on the dollar with no recourse except for if it's fraud. And so a lot of people are interested in taking that and getting that money in five to 10 days versus waiting.
Timothy Li: Right. And you give me some arbit averages, right? An average business that it's like a couple hundred thousand dollars. That's those are real money.
Ron James: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, the average business paid paid over $100,000 in tariffs. Yeah.
Timothy Li: Holy moly. Wow. And Ray, you need a you need a you need a attorney to represent you 'cause this one is a little bit different than the sh the nice forms that we you know, you can fill for ERC and PPP stuff.
Ron James: Yeah, there's some litigation out there on these that may have to take place. There's a lot of statute of limitations and my team would argue that why is there even a statute of limitations for something that was rolled unconstitutional? So that's gonna come into play someday. The goal is gonna be to get all of these folks who have impacted their businesses, their money back in their pockets so that we can get the US economy going.
Timothy Li: Right. Yeah. Right. even for unfortunately, even for businesses that sort of folded under pressure, they're still eligible, can be eligible for
Ron James: Yeah, if they paid if they paid the the tariff fees, yeah, they're still eligible to get that money and recover it
Timothy Li: Wow, okay. Well people need to hear more about this. That's that's insane. Out of the big, beautiful build. There's a lot of people love it, there's a lot of people don't like it. other than R and D, which happened a long time ago, and this accelerated depreciation. What else is in there that's juicy you want people to know about it? That's hidden secret, I suppose.
Ron James: Yeah, well, it made cost segregation permanent. It made cost segregation permanent, which is a big one, especially with, and then it, you 100 % of your depreciation write-off is really big. So those things that we talked about, R &D was part of it. Unfortunately, part of that expired because it gave you the three-year look back. It also
Timothy Li: Okay.
Ron James: until July 6 gave you 2022 as well. yeah, so there were some pieces there that the big beautiful bill did. So it's done a lot of different things and it also ended some credits, right? It changed some of the energy credits and some of those types of things. The thing is, is every administration that comes in is going to do things to influence things that they ran on their ticket with their.
Timothy Li: Sure. Right. Right. The the big green bill, you know, had does something to this energy sector, right? This b beautiful bill did something else.
Ron James: Yeah, there will be something if I can guarantee you there's going to be something that happens if if the Democrats control the House and the Senate, they're going to go back and do something around energy and they're going to they're going to want to promote electric cars again, energy again, all those types of things. And and so they'll do everything they can to get something like that pushed across or really renewed. mean, what's these one that got ended? The Workers Opportunity Tax Credit, which is a big credit. You can get
Timothy Li: Right. Yep. My god.
Ron James: up to, I think it's up to $27 credit per employee. And I never realized when I worked at the big companies, why they had people fill out those forms on hiring date, because I can't imagine the amount of credits those big companies get. And they had the client fill out that form. We're automating that process right now. And it's believed that when it gets re-approved, that they'll be able to go back and collect that money. And really it's for, if you hired people that were veterans, people that are unemployed over a certain amount of time, people with disabilities, it's to encourage.
Timothy Li: Wow.
Ron James: to get those people jobs and encourage companies to hire those types of folks. And so every one of these credits has a reason behind it and what it's driving. And it's something that someone at some point got pushed across that said, hey, this is important to us. Let's get our veterans back to work and let's give these companies some money if they hire these veterans and get them back to work. We should do everything we can to get veterans jobs in the US to keep those guys going and that. it's just a
Timothy Li: Perfect. I love it. Right. To to facilitate behavior. Right. That's right.
Ron James: Thanks.
Timothy Li: That's right. We some we you know, we work with some small equipment lending leasing companies and I talked to some of their CEOs, like, my god, Tim, you know, it's it's it's a big, beautiful bill, you know, people buying trucks and and equipments and all w is that a the behavior that I'm I'm seeing as well? What what is accelerating all that?
Ron James: Yeah, yeah, that's that whole 100%. Yeah, that's that whole 100 % depreciation write off. So people are buying new company vehicles right now. They're buying, you know, yeah, they're doing that. They're investing in real estate. They're doing a lot of things that should stimulate the economy. They really should help stimulate the economy. And some of those things probably are keeping us from going into recession, but we gotta get the little guys to know about it, not just the big construction guys.
Timothy Li: Sure, right, absolutely. That's right.
Ron James: We got to get the little guys knowing about these credits so that they can take advantage of it. Because 85 % of the businesses out there are small businesses and we need to keep them in business. We need to do everything that we can to support them and help them get the capital that they need to grow.
Timothy Li: There's a lot. Right. What are you doing to educate outreach? Right? to let people know that this these are easy things to do. Money granted to you already, you just have to you know to do do a couple of days of work.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, we're, yeah, I'm getting on more podcasts, really trying to drive these podcasts up. I've got some really big, big partners, you and, another big company in New York that I'm spending some time with this week that they have huge amounts of small businesses in their network that are looking for capital that are doing those types of things. And so, so through those partnerships, trying to get them to understand us. So we're doing a lot of those different things so that we can just continue to educate people on these credits.
Timothy Li: share. Right. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna do some education myself 'cause I know a lot of people just in my personal network that their family owns like, you know, twenty, thirty single family homes, you're sitting there doing nothing things, but they don't they're they have no realization. Yeah.
Ron James: Yeah, yeah, you need to connect on that offline and get that going and get it going for your family because it is there's so much out there and so many ways to help people get capital and I would hate for a business to go out because and when there was money they could have had that they just weren't aware of.
Timothy Li: Right. And there's time horizon to all this, right? Look back period and all that stuff. You miss it, you missed it, right? So you just have to wait.
Ron James: Yeah. Yeah, if you'd have finished, if you'd have done R &D before July 6, you'd have done it, and then most of the look-back periods end on April 15 each year. Yeah. And back there, but most of these credits, you can go back three years on.
Timothy Li: Got it. That's the the tax day, I suppose, right? Right, wow. Let's let's end this show by talking about semiconductor. And I had a I had another guest from Nevada Energy Accelerator on the show and he was talking about rare earth metals and that that you eyes only have one or two really good companies that are mining stuff. I mean we have a lot of deposits, we just don't have anything to process. What is the government doing today? And what are your thoughts around that in general, Ron? just
Ron James: Yeah, that's an interesting one. think it's such an interesting world, especially when you get into this mining and some of that stuff. And recently, think Trump just backed up some things that impacted national parks and stuff that will allow people to mine and stuff. As a scout, I obviously want to see our land.
Timothy Li: Right. Right.
Ron James: stay but I do think you know there's natural resources that we need also. It's a fine line that we do. There are credits out there for that though. There's credits to help people do those types of things to get into it. mean it's just like everything else. mean there was, we all know how the current administration feels about windmills but there used to be a credit for windmills. That's why you saw them popping up everywhere is because these people get these credits to
Timothy Li: Right. Right. Sure. That's right. That's right, yeah.
Ron James: you are basically getting paid to put a windmill on your property. And so it's kind of that same thing that you know with mining and all that. There's credits out there for everything. Like I said, 10,000 plus credits out there at the state, local and federal level. And so I would encourage, and if it's not one that we do, I'd love someone to send me a DM because I have the people in my network that can do it.
Timothy Li: Right, right. Crazy. Right.
Ron James: As you know, the technology build and the scaling of it allows you to stay focused. But any individual, I'm happy to research and help them find it. I mean, I got a top 100 law firm that I'm very close with that can do any credits that we can find.
Timothy Li: You got it. Yeah. Wow. Will be the beta tester wrong. Let me know.
Ron James: Perfect man, I appreciate it.
Timothy Li: Yeah, Ron, this great. Thank you for taking your time to talk to me in your travel schedule. Have a great time in New York City. We'll talk to you again soon. I'll post all these show notes, all the links, I'll do a little bit more social media because this is it this is actually impactful to my own business. So thank you so much for doing the work for us as well. Appreciate you. Yeah, you got it.
Ron James: All right, thanks, Tim. We'll talk soon, buddy.
