America's Road to Wealth

Around eleven o'clock in the morning.

In a hotel in Los Angeles, Abel and Annie were doing yoga together.

Abel suddenly discovered that yoga is a good exercise.

good for health.

When I saw Anne's graceful figure, she was doing difficult yoga moves that revealed her curves and were very tempting.

Abel instantly fell in love with the sport and decided to do yoga with her.

While Abel and Annie were concentrating on learning to do yoga.

The mobile phone placed by the bedside kept vibrating.

It seriously interfered with his yoga studies.

"My dear, why don't you... check your phone, in case... there is something important?"

Annie bit her lip and said.

There was sweat on her forehead, and practicing yoga was very tiring.

You have to maintain a fixed posture for a long time, which consumes a lot of energy.

"Don't worry about it, just focus on teaching, you know?"

Abel held Annie's slender waist and helped her fix her posture.

"Yeah!" Anne hummed lightly and ignored the phone call.

After more than an hour of yoga, Annie was covered in sweat, and Abel was also sweating a little.

He found that the difficulty of some yoga moves was really good.

After doing a set of yoga movements, you will feel refreshed and relaxed physically and mentally.

Abel carried the exhausted Annie to the bathroom for a comfortable bath.

After taking a bath, he carried her back to the hotel suite bedroom and got into bed.

Annie half-closed her eyes and lay lazily in Abel's arms, looking particularly charming.

Abel hugged her, picked up his phone, and started browsing.

In daily life, he has three mobile phones.

One is mobile phone number 1.

This mobile phone number is only known to his woman, family and relatives.

It's what he uses for intimate contact.

Usually when he's with another woman.

He won't take this phone.

This phone will be placed with David. Jones' side.

Such is the case now.

There are two other mobile phones, one is for business calls.

When contacting people within the company and business friends.

This is the phone number used.

The last one is a satellite phone, which is basically only used when a mobile phone is not convenient to use.

The cell phone that rang at this time was cell phone No. 2.

He didn't look first to see who was calling.

Instead, he read the text messages on his phone first.

There are seven or eight unread text messages, mostly from investment banking giants and Wall Street oligarchs last night.

Philip Purcell: [Hey, dear Mr. Smith. I want to treat you to a meal. I wonder if you are willing to honor me? ”]

Paulson: [I heard that there is a very good Chinese restaurant in lower Manhattan. Mr. Smith, are you interested? 】

Richard Fuld: [Mr. Smith, Lehman Brothers would like to talk to you]

【.】

The text messages sent by these investment bank executives have similar contents.

They all wanted to treat Abel to dinner or have a chat with him.

Even last night.

Because of Abel's operations, these investment banks basically suffered small losses.

Most of them lost some money.

But now, they don't seem to mind it at all.

Everyone wanted to get in touch with Abel.

Even with a valuation as high as 500 billion US dollars, they all shouted that they were cheating.

But after that, I still want to talk about what I should want to talk about.

"Sure enough, the benefits are so exciting!" Abel shook his head lightly.

He looked at the unconnected call record again and found that it was marked [Rich Country, Richard Kovacevich].

Richard Kovacevich is the current CEO of Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo is the largest mortgage originator in the United States, and its performance has been mediocre thanks to a prudent, pragmatic business strategy.

But among the ordinary, it also has the most stable rate of return among major banks in the United States.

This makes it very popular among more conservative American investors.

This is the only bank in the United States with a AAA rating.

It is also one of the banks with the highest market capitalization in the world.

Its total assets under management have reached US$800 billion this year.

This is true for the big banks in the United States that generally like the investment banking style.

Considered an outlier.

Based on the practice that eggs cannot be placed in a cage.

Smith Capital has cooperated with each other many times before.

It is an ordinary financial cooperation like letting the other party act as a middleman and a guarantor.

About four days ago, Abel had the idea to make a lot of money from short positions.

At the same time, Wall Street was made aware that Abel Smith was not without conflicts with Wall Street.

It's not necessary, but once he has such an idea.

He can make Wall Street suffer.

So in four days, he passed Smith Capital and David Mellon.

He secretly sent his own think tank to contact Wells Fargo and Citibank.

By mortgaging his assets in Los Angeles and his personal line of credit.

Obtained US$3 billion in loan funds and then used these funds to enter the international foreign exchange market.

Through the guarantees of these two banks, we seek financial leverage from many other banks.

Compared to before, he did not hide the flow of funds at all.

This time, his cooperation with these two banks was very secretive.

Those short-selling Wall Street giants are used to his previous openness and relaxation.

There was no vigilance against his operations in this area.

Let him finally succeed in stealing the chicken, and Xiaoxiao let them suffer a loss.

After that, if you want to do this again, it will be more difficult to hide it from them.

Unless it takes longer and uses more complicated techniques.

That way you can't go through other banks, you have to let Smith Capital do it yourself.

And must also have at least one of its own banks.

A bank of its own.

Abel marked this incident in his mind.

This will be his next greatest effort in the financial field.

This is Richard Kovacevich who called just now.

It was the CEO of Wells Fargo who was in contact with Abel throughout the entire transaction.

It must be mentioned that Richard Kovacevich was not Wells Fargo's CEO just two years ago.

At that time he was the CEO of a company called Norwest Bank.

In December 1998, he broke with his usual practice.

Acquired Wells Fargo Bank with assets of US$93 billion for US$35 billion.

However, Richard Kovacevich only paid a 9% premium over Wells Fargo’s market capitalization to complete the acquisition.

This is very rare in daily large-scale commercial acquisitions.

It was a very successful acquisition.

Compare this to Richard Kovacevich’s trade.

Not long ago, there was a deal of similar size in the international banking industry.

That was Credit Suisse First Boston, acquiring Fleet Boston Bank.

In comparison, the latter paid a 40% premium for this.

If you buy something worth 100 yuan, give 109 yuan or 140 yuan.

I believe everyone can understand the gap here.

After the merger, Wells Fargo became one of the largest banks in the United States.

For two years, Richard Kovacevich ran it very well.

Taking the mobile phone, Abel dialed.

The phone didn't ring twice, and the call was answered quickly.

"Mr Smith?

"It's me. How's the morning? It's already noon. Mr. Kovacevitch."

"Hahaha~ Good afternoon. Besides, I think it would be more wonderful if you could call me Richard!"

"Okay, then Richard. But Richard, you can also just call me Abel."

"Understood, Abel."

On the other side of the phone, Richard Kovacevich looked very enthusiastic.

They wanted to build a relationship from the very beginning, but before this transaction, the two of them had not even spoken once.

This is normal.

Although Smith Capital likes to disperse funds among major banks when operating capital.

But this kind of dispersion also has some preferences.

Some banks have a good relationship with Smith Capital, such as the four major investment banks. This is really no joke. Smith Capital has indeed had the best relationship with these four banks since its establishment.

This may also be the reason why these four investment banks pay great attention to Smith Capital's actions every time.

For the four major investment banks, Smith Capital provides commissions and interest quickly and stably.

This is their best quality key customer template!

If they have ten clients like Smith Capital a year.

Then their annual profits are estimated to double from the current level.

Among these banks, Wells Fargo is a financial group that does not have close ties with Smith Capital.

In the banking industry, Smith Capital, which likes short-term and fast operations and has a large transaction volume every month, has always been the most popular company.

Because this can provide them, the intermediaries and guarantors, with more interest and commission income.

Smith Capital has always been generous.

In other words, cooperation with Smith Capital in this area can bring huge commissions.

Wells Fargo, which had no personal relationship with Abel before, took advantage of the opportunity.

Richard Kovacevich, apparently wanted to get closer to Abel.

So that Abel can choose the middleman and guarantee company in the future.

You can work more with Wells Fargo.

Again, everything is for profit.

"Abel, as you requested. Since last night, we have begun to close your account."

Richard Kovacevich was on the other side of the phone and said with a pity:

"Total floating profit initially was $1.156 billion."

"But you asked to close the position too quickly, and we had to give up some floating profits. Eventually, a profit retracement occurred. Your actual profit is currently US$690 million."

What the Wells Fargo CEO was talking about was the long U.S. dollar trade that Abel had started four days ago.

After ten o'clock last night, he contacted the other party and began to close the position.

Because those giants who were short the US dollar realized that the general trend was irreversible.

They all chose to cut off their profits and exited the market with a loss of hundreds of millions.

According to Richard Kovacevich's thinking at the time, if the closing speed could be slowed down a little.

Higher profits were guaranteed at that time.

But Abel refused and asked Wells Fargo and Citibank to close their positions as quickly as possible.

This caused Fu Ying, who was originally very beautiful, to shrink by more than half.

This is something that often happens in foreign exchange and futures transactions with a little carelessness.

This call now comes from Richard Kovacevich.

It was to tell Abel the final situation of this investment that Abel had planned for three days.

"It's pretty good. Richard. I've never been greedy. The profit of 690 million US dollars is already very high." Abel said with a smile.

Earning US$690 million from a single investment is not common in the capital market.

He, a talented person, always uses high leverage like a gambler.

Under high risks, high returns can be so exaggerated.

If you switch to a normal investment manager, you will need at least one to two billion US dollars in principal.

It is possible to earn so much money in two or three days.

And they can't guarantee a guaranteed profit, rather than a guaranteed loss.

"Haha~ Okay." Richard Kovacevich laughed there.

"So Abel, I'm on a plane to New York now. I'll get off the plane in an hour."

"Can you please reward me then? I'd like to treat you to a meal to celebrate your profit from your investment this time!"

"Huh? I'm really sorry about that. I'm in Los Angeles now."

"Well" Richard Kovacevich wanted to say, weren't you still in New York in the middle of the night?

But if you think about it, flying from New York to Los Angeles only takes about six to five hours.

Besides, businessmen of their level.

Flying all over the United States is normal.

Richard Kovacevich said sadly: "Well, that's a shame."

"It's a bit of a pity." Abel said with a smile:

"By the way, Richard. Help me return the funds in my mortgage account to Wells Fargo. For the specific commissions and interest, you can just write me another bill."

Richard Kovacevitch said immediately:

"Ah? So soon? Abel, I can give you another 50% discount on the previous interest."

"You don't need to repay this loan right away. You can use this loan to make more money."

"I believe that with your ability, this is not difficult."

The financial industry or banking industry is like this.

For successful businessmen, they want each other to lend as much as possible.

The interest is also as cheap as possible, and some are close to interest-free.

Even for such businessmen, sometimes they don't need a loan at all.

And those businessmen who are in urgent need of funds and need loans.

The interest rates on the loans they get from banks are often very high.

Give an umbrella when it's nice and take it out when it rains.

That's the best way to describe these people.

"Sorry, Richard. I'm not short of funds. You know, I chose Wells Fargo because Wells Fargo is relatively stable." Abel said softly.

Richard Kovacevich was silent there.

Finally, he smiled and said on the phone: "Okay, no problem. Wells Fargo Bank is here to serve you wholeheartedly!"

"Thank you, Richard. I have some things to do here, so I won't talk to you now."

"Understood, no problem."

After hanging up the phone, Abel thought for a while and found another person's name on the phone.

Call over.

About the same airtime as Richard Kovacewicz.

The person on the call this time was Citibank CEO John Reid.

The content of the conversation was similar to that of Richard Kovacevich.

It’s about paying off your mortgage while keeping track of your finances.

After the mortgage and credit loans are all paid back.

Deduct some interest and commissions.

This time Abel quietly conducted the operation through Citigroup and Wells Fargo.

The total profit is 6.9+4.5, a total of 11.4 US dollars.

The reason is that there is a gap of more than 200 million US dollars.

It was Abel who invested slightly less money with Citigroup for insurance.

This fund does not go out of Smith Capital's account.

It can be regarded as the money that Abel earned personally, and it has not been transferred to a specific company account.

This means that if this money is not used for tax avoidance or tax reduction operations.

A large portion of this money will be collected as taxes by the IRS.

But this was also Abel’s purpose.

He really paid taxes legally and didn't even deliberately avoid them.

But he is not really completely transparent about his income. The IRS can take pleasure in sucking up fools.

It is still necessary to follow the appropriate procedures to avoid taxes.

For example, now, the big head of Smith Capital.

It’s time to start reasonable tax avoidance.

Otherwise, if more than 10 billion profits have to be used to pay taxes, it will be too painful.

But in order to maintain a good relationship with the IRS, he also has a good image of paying taxes in accordance with the law.

We cannot stop supporting the work of the IRS all of a sudden.

After much deliberation, Abel decided to use his personal account to trade once or twice every month.

Try to achieve a profit of about 4 billion US dollars per year, all through the full tax channel.

This can be regarded as his expenditure on maintaining his personality.

It is also the protection fee that allows the US IRS, the most powerful relevant department, to always stand firmly by his side.

There is an IRS, so I'm afraid of FBl!

If the IRS is looking for trouble, they can randomly check the FBl headquarters at any time!

Like the last time the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

If there is no reaction from Robert's side after the lawsuit storm.

He even wanted to go to the IRS at that time.

Let the IRS go play with Robert Morgenthau!

He had already implicitly expressed this intention to the IRS at that time.

Jed, deputy director of the IRS, also implicitly expressed that they were very happy.

This is what protection money does.

You have to pay protection fees, and the money earned from this kind of investment usually goes by two names.

In the United States, the normal tax that should be paid on investment income is capital gains tax.

Capital gains tax is about 15%-20%.

In addition, if it is a stock, there is a dividend tax and another tax.

However, U.S. tax law stipulates that profits generated from financial transactions such as stocks, futures, bonds, etc. held for no more than twelve months do not need to pay capital gains tax.

Have to pay more expensive personal income tax

According to current tax laws.

The personal income tax in the United States is divided into seven levels from 10% to 37%.

With an income of Abel's level, this one is naturally the one with the highest 37%.

This 37% tax rate includes the taxes levied by the U.S. federal, state, and local governments on personal income.

According to different levels of collection, it is divided into federal personal income tax, state personal income tax and local personal income tax.

The bulk of it is basically in the federal personal income tax.

States and localities account for a small share.

Therefore, some states in the United States that are relatively wealthy or have complex situations simply do not levy personal income tax.

For example, in Texas, you only need to pay federal personal income tax and no other income taxes.

State taxes are in the area of ​​personal income tax, with rates generally ranging from 1% to 11%.

This is why Texas has become so popular among the newly wealthy in recent years.

If it's tax-free, even if it's just a small amount, it's still money.

If Abel's profits of US$1.14 billion were paid normally without tax avoidance at all.

Almost $420 million is paid at one time.

There are so many that it hurts.

This will probably be in the past few years, maybe even in the past few decades.

Maybe ever.

In the area of ​​personal income tax, the IRS has obtained the largest record of the highest tax paid by an individual.

But in order to maintain the character, and this is mainly the purpose.

At the same time, he continued to build a good relationship with the IRS, a powerful department, and Abel chose to pay the money.

It's just that later on, he'll ask the IRS to do certain things in certain areas.

Compensate yourself elsewhere.

And according to the nature of the various powerful departments in the United States, the IRS will most likely be very cooperative.

You must know that within these powerful departments, they have their own work indicators.

In the eyes of the IRS, Abel, a good boy who pays taxes according to the law, is a good boy who has achieved their quota.

Like last time, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Internal Revenue Jed.

When Abel was creating his own persona.

Jed, in his capacity as deputy director of the IRS, did not hesitate to stand up and endorse his character.

This is the first time in the history of the IRS.

For the first time, the IRS endorsed a wealthy man’s good tax ethics

You must know that before this, the IRS has always been the department that American wealthy people are most afraid of and fear, and it is also the department that they hate and resist the most.

It can no longer be said that people who are like Abel are rare.

But it's unique.

After all, such a large amount of tax made even Abel feel a little pained.

Fortunately, the money was easier for him than the strong wind.

The money blown by the strong wind has to be "hard" to pick one by one.

And Abel only needs to make a few phone calls to make this money.

Thinking about it this way, Abel didn't feel so distressed anymore.

He threw the phone back on top of the cabinet.

Turning around and hugging Annie who was so tired that she fell asleep.

"Get up~ Honey, let's do yoga again!"

"Ah? You're still coming~"

After being woken up, Annie felt that her whole body was soft and numb.

You can’t do yoga by yourself.

Doing yoga with Abel is very hard!

Think about carrying a large, moving sandbag while doing yoga.

Even this big sandbag itself has a certain role in maintaining posture.

But it will still be very tiring.

But I haven’t seen him for more than a month.

Anne was reluctant to refuse him.

She had no choice but to do it, worked hard, sweated again, and assumed the yoga posture she had just practiced.