Use This EIN-Only Holding Company Strategy Before Building Business Credit

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]Welcome back to Success with Steven. My name is Steven Smith. On this channel, we discuss all things financial literacy. Have you ever wondered if there was a way to protect what you own and build wealth through your business without everything being tied directly to your personal name? In this video, I want to show you one of the biggest wealth secrets that almost nobody talks about, and it starts with understanding how to use your business entities and your EIN the correct way. This isn't just about running a business. This is about structuring your assets smarter so that way you create more privacy, more protection, and more control over what you're currently building. Today, we're going to talk about how to hold things like your home, your bank accounts, your brokerage accounts, your investment properties, and other valuable assets in a way that makes them far less visible to creditors, investigators, and anyone trying to see what you own. When you structure things properly, especially through the right entities that are connected to your business, you create a layer between yourself and your assets that most people never even think about.

[00:01:01]And this matters more than people realize because before someone sues you, before they come after you, and before they make a move, one of the first things they often do is to see whether or not you're even worth pursuing. They want to know if you have assets, if you have money, and if you have something to lose, and that's where the game starts to change. If everything is sitting directly in your personal name, you can look like an easy target. But when your business is structured correctly and your assets are positioned the smart way, it becomes much harder for someone to quickly figure out what you own and how much leverage they actually have.

[00:01:36]And that changes the conversation completely. So, without further ado, let's get right into the video. First, let's discuss why you want to make sure that your assets are invisible in the first place. The reason this matters is because invisibility becomes even more important after a judgment is entered against you. So, let's say you have a lawsuit that got filed and you never even knew about it. Maybe you were never properly served. Maybe notice never reached you. But either way, a default judgment gets entered against you without you realizing it. Now, I've heard plenty of stories like this from people who said, "I got sued in another state. I was never served, and before I knew it, there was already a judgment against me." Now, once that happens, the creditor is no longer guessing. They have legal leverage, and the next thing that they try to do is collect. That can mean freezing bank accounts, going after assets, and trying to seize whatever they can find. And why were they able to move that fast? Well, because the person owned everything in a way that made those assets easy to trace directly back to them. Now, could you fight it? Of course, you can. If you were never properly notified, you may be able to go back and change that judgment. You may be able to have it set aside. But the problem is by the time you find out, the damage may have already been done. Your accounts may be frozen already. Your assets may already be tied up. And now you're not fighting to protect what you have, you're fighting to get back what was already taken from you. That's a much harder position to be in. So, the goal with smart planning is to make that process far more difficult from the beginning. We want to structure things in a way where people don't immediately know what you own. And even if they do get a judgment against you, they still don't have a clear road map showing them where to go to collect. That's the power of making your assets less visible. It doesn't just help discourage people from coming after you in the first place, it also makes collection much harder even if they do. So now, what I want to do is start breaking down some of these assets and show how simple structures can create serious levels of protection from an invisibility standpoint. And once you understand this, you're going to realize that a lot of people leave themselves exposed simply because of how their assets are titled. Let's start with something almost everybody has, and that's going to be your personal checking account. Not your savings account yet, but we will get into that.

[00:03:54]I want to focus on your personal checking account because this is one of the easiest places for people to leave themselves vulnerable without even realizing it. Most people have a checking account in their own personal name, and that is completely fine. You have checks with your name on it. That part is completely normal. That's no issue, right? If you're writing a check, you of course want the person receiving it to feel comfortable accepting it.

[00:04:16]They want to see your name. They want to verify your ID and then move on. So, that part is completely fine. The real problem is not what the check says. The real problem is how the account behind that check is titled. That's where people make the mistake. And here's why.

[00:04:31]Just because a check has your name on it doesn't mean the account itself has to be held directly in your own personal name. Those are two different things.

[00:04:39]And if the account is sitting in your name and then it's tied directly to your social security number, that would make it much easier for a creditor to trace that account back to you and go after it. Here's how that plays out in the real world. If someone was to get a judgment against you, they can file what's known as a writ of garnishment against your bank. And what does that do? Well, it tells the bank that this person owes me money. And if you're holding funds in an account under this person's name up to this amount, those funds need to be turned over. If the bank doesn't comply, then the bank can be sued, and they can become liable. So, what does the bank do? They don't sit around and debate it, they just freeze your account. That's why so many people wake up one day and realize that their money is locked up. So, how do you actually fight back here? One strategy is to hold that personal checking account through what is commonly referred to as a privacy banking trust.

[00:05:32]The idea is simple. Instead of the account being held directly in your personal name, the account is held in the name of the trust. You can call the trust almost anything. It could be something plain, it could be something professional, or something completely random. Now, this name will not show up on checks. That would be odd, and that's why I brought that up. That information will remain the exact same. The name itself is not the point. The structure is the point. You would be in control as the trustee, and you would also be the beneficiary of the trust. In other words, you still control the money, and you still benefit from it, but the title of the account is no longer sitting out there in the same direct way under your individual name. And this is where the EIN becomes so important. When people tie everything back to their social security number, that makes themselves easy to locate and exposes themselves to garnishments. Now, this is one of the biggest mistakes that people make with financial accounts. But when a properly structured trust is set up and tied to its own EIN, you create a layer of separation. The account is no longer exposed in the same way even though you still maintain control over it. I have an entire video where I actually talk about starting a trust. I'm going to link that video here. Now, it's not step-by-step detailed, but it does give you a general idea of how you could establish one. From a tax standpoint, you do not have to file taxes. So, when it comes to your personal checking account, the lesson is very simple. If it's held directly in your own name and tied to your bank account by your social security number, then it's exposed. If it's structured properly through a privacy trust using your own EIN, you create a layer of invisibility that makes it so much harder for someone to immediately connect that account back to you. And once you understand that, you start to see the bigger picture. This is not just about one checking account.

[00:07:23]This is about how wealthy people and smart business owners think about structure. They don't just focus on making money, they focus on how to hold it. Now, let's move on to the next asset. Next, let's talk about your savings and your investment accounts.

[00:07:36]When we're talking about investments, we're referring to things like stocks and funds held inside of a brokerage account. These are the kind of assets that usually don't create liability on their own, but they're exactly the kind of assets that a creditor would want to find, and they would like to seize. In other words, the accounts themselves may not get you sued, but if you are sued, these are often the first things that someone tries to take a look at. That's why savings and investment accounts need to be structured carefully. The goal is not just to move them out of your personal name, but to place them into a structure that doesn't obviously connect them back to you. For example, if you form a regular LLC in your home state, let's say like Nevada in my case, your name may appear in public filings as the member, manager, or organizer of that business. So, if someone was coming after me, they could run a search, and they would find me on, let's say, corporate.com. You could put my business name, and you could search for a manager, an officer, or any entity in the United States. And if I set up this LLC, my name will show up there, and my address will be there as well. So then, if a creditor was doing a background check on me, they would have some semblance of what I own because of the business that I formed, and I created a direct trail back to me. Because of that, you don't want your savings and your investments held in some entity that publicly points right back to you.

[00:08:59]For this kind of planning, a Wyoming LLC is often the best choice. Now, I've had some people ask me why not use New Mexico since it can be cheaper, but the answer comes down to stronger asset protection. The objective is not only to create anonymity, but it's also to use a structure that gives you an extra layer of defense if someone does come after you. Even if a creditor cannot easily locate your assets, you still want the legal structure itself to provide protection in case they keep digging and decide to pursue the matter further.

[00:09:30]Wyoming is attractive for that reason because the state does not require the public disclosure of the LLC members or managers in the same way many other states do. When properly formed through a third party like a registered agent and paired with a virtual business address and a EIN number, the LLC can be set up without your personal information appearing on any public filing. That makes it far more difficult for someone to connect the dots. And once the Wyoming LLC is established, you can begin moving your financial assets into it. For example, if you have a savings account at a bank like Chase, you would open a new account under the LLC using the EIN and the operating agreement that you started with the Wyoming LLC, and then you would transfer funds from your personal savings account into this company account. The same idea applies to your brokerage account. If you have investments at, let's say, E*TRADE or another brokerage, you would request the paperwork to open an LLC-owned investment account, you would complete the process, then transfer those holdings into this new account. Most major banks are already familiar with this process, and once that is done, your savings, your brokerage account assets, even your crypto can be held inside the LLC instead of under your personal name. Now, at this point, the assets are no longer sitting in the open with direct public connection to you. As a side note, Delaware can also work for this, but it's usually expensive. And again, New Mexico may offer anonymity, but it does not provide the same strength of charging order protection, which is why Wyoming is often the preferred option when the goal is both privacy and real asset protection.

[00:11:09]Another major asset that should be kept private is your personal residence. Now, you should contact an experienced estate planning attorney or a specialized tax advisor or CPA to establish or discuss a qualified personal residence trust, all right? Because this is something that I would say is fairly complicated, so I don't recommend trying to do this on your own. Now, with that said, when it comes to making your home less visible, there are really two ways to approach this. One requires an EIN and the other does not. To know which option is better for you, the first question you need to ask is whether the property still has a mortgage. If the answer is yes, then one of the best tools to use is a residence trust. Now, if you're familiar with land trust or residence trust, it may sound familiar in some ways, but they are different, and that is very important.

[00:11:59]One of the biggest mistakes that people make is assuming any trust will do the job. They hear about land trust and put their home into one and don't realize that they may have just created more problems for themselves. And again, like I just stated, if the trust is not drafted correctly, you could interfere with your homestead exemption, your mortgage interest deduction, or even your Section 121 capital gains exclusion when you eventually sell the property.

[00:12:25]That's why the trust has to be designed specifically for a primary residence so that all of those tax benefits still remain intact. Now, the mortgage matters for another reason, too. You don't want to move the property into the wrong type of structure and trigger problems with the lender. Transferring the home into a properly structured residence trust will help you avoid that issue. So, let's say we create a residence trust for your property and we call it Easy Trust. The next step would be to deed your home into that trust. And when you do that, the deed does matter. You need to use a warranty deed, not a quick claim deed.

[00:13:00]That is extremely important. A quick claim deed can raise questions and make the transaction look sloppy or very suspicious. If the goal is to create a clean layer of privacy, then you want the transfer to look polished and legitimate from start to finish. Now, let's say you own the house and you want to move it into this trust that we may call Easy Trust. The way the privacy piece works is through the use of a nominee trustee. Now, that nominee trustee is the person whose name appears on the title for the trust. At that point, a lot of people get nervous because they think they're giving their home away or they're losing control.

[00:13:35]That's not what's happening. If the trust is drafted properly, the beneficiary still controls the property.

[00:13:41]The nominee trustee is there to hold legal title in name only and has no practical authority beyond what the trust allows. The real control remains to the beneficiary. The property is deeded from you into the name of the nominee trustee as trustee of Easy Trust. So, instead of the title showing your name as the owner, it might show another name as trustee of that trust.

[00:14:05]Now, if someone later searches the public record to see what you own, they're not going to find the property listed directly in your name. All they'll see is the trust and the trustee listed on the title. That creates a layer of separation and privacy. But here's the critical part. After the transfer is complete, the nominee trustee should resign immediately. The trust document, which remains private and is not recorded, should state who takes over as successor trustee once the resignation happens. In this example, you would step into that role, but nobody searching public record would know that because the trust itself is not filed with the county. The only public clue is that the trust itself actually exist. The private document contains the actual details, and that is what keeps the arrangement confidential.

[00:14:52]That's why you need to be very careful when using a third-party company as your nominee trustee. Some people have found themselves in bad situations where they hire someone to serve as trustee, and the third-party company will refuse to resign unless they pay extra fees or demand ongoing annual payments just to stay in place. That's not how this should work. The arrangement should be clear from the beginning to the end.

[00:15:16]Now, the nominee trustee's job is to take the title temporarily, resign promptly, and provide a trustee's deed so that the successor trustee can step in when needed. That trustee's deed is essential. It's a signed and notarized document that can be recorded later if you ever want to put the new trustee's name on the title. Now, I'm sure you're asking, "Well, why would you ever need to do that?" Usually, it's because you want to sell the property or maybe even refinance it. In some cases, if there are no claims or judgments floating around, it may simply be easier to clean up the title before a sale. But one of the biggest reasons people use this structure is to prevent their home from becoming an easy target. First, it creates privacy. Not everyone needs to know where you live. Second, it helps you keep potential plaintiffs from seeing how much equity you have in your home. If someone is considering whether to sue you or not, visible equity can make you look like a worthwhile target.

[00:16:10]If they can't easily connect the property to you, that may discourage a weak or opportunistic claim before it ever even begins. There's another powerful benefit, too. If someone sues you and gets a judgment against you, that judgment can usually be recorded in the county where you own property. If your name is directly on the title, the judgment can attach to the house as a lien. That means if you try to sell or refinance, the creditor may have to be paid. But if the property is not titled in your personal name and instead is held in a properly structured trust where your name is not visible in the public record, that judgment may not automatically attach the same way. The judgment can sit there, but it doesn't necessarily connect itself to the public because the public record does not show you as the title holder. That can make a major difference. In some situations, people later need help selling or refinancing property that's still in the trust. Now, in those cases, the former nominee trustee can be reappointed for the limited purpose of signing documents on behalf of the trust and helping complete the transaction. The trustee is not there to control the funds or to manage the property. They are simply there to sign where needed so that the transaction can move forward. Now, that flexibility is one of the reasons a properly structured residence trust can be such a valuable planning tool. At the end of the day, a residence trust can be one of the strongest ways to create privacy around your home while still preserving the tax benefits and protections that matter. When it's done correctly, it gives you control, you keep your ownership details out of easy public view, and it makes it harder for opportunistic creditors or investigators to connect that residence directly back to you. It's a very effective tool for anyone who wants to hold their personal residence in a smarter and more private way. So, here is another option that you can use that actually involves your EIN number. Now, for this one to work, your home needs to be completely paid off. If your personal residence has no mortgage on it and you would rather not use a trust, another strategy is to place the property into a Wyoming LLC. Now, you want to make sure that that is treated as a disregarded entity for tax purposes. For example, if you live in, let's say, Utah, you might assume the LLC has to be formed there in order for you to hold title to Utah real estate.

[00:18:28]However, if the property is simply your personal residence and it's not being rented out or operated as a business, then a Wyoming LLC can often be used to hold title without needing to register it as a business in Utah. The key is that the LLC must remain disregarded for tax purposes. A disregarded entity is a business structure. It's most commonly a single-member LLC that the IRS ignores as a separate entity for federal income tax purposes. The business income deductions are reported directly on the owner's personal tax returns, avoiding double taxation. While legally separate for liability protection, it's taxed as a sole proprietorship, and that's the advantage of a disregarded entity. And the advantage of using a Wyoming LLC is the same reason why it works well for your savings account or your investment accounts. Wyoming does not publicly tie your name to the LLC in the same way many other states do. That means if someone searches the property records to see who owns your house, they would see the name of the Wyoming LLC on title instead of seeing your personal name.

[00:19:33]That creates a layer of privacy and makes the property far less visible to anyone trying to trace assets back to you. At the same time, if the LLC is properly structured as a disregarded entity, you can generally preserve the Section 121 capital gains exclusion when you eventually sell your home. The trade-off, however, is that this strategy can put your homestead exemption at risk. So, if you live in a state with a strong homestead exemption, a residence trust may be the better option because it allows you to keep that protection in place. On the other hand, if your state only offers a modest homestead exemption, such as 80,000 to 150,000 dollars, then using a Wyoming LLC may be worth considering because the privacy and structural protection it can provide is way more valuable than a limited exemption that your state might be giving you. Now, let's talk about investment real estate because this is where the structure really starts to matter. When it comes to rental properties and other investment real estate, the strategy is not just one entity by itself. It's a layered structure, and the foundation of that structure is the Wyoming LLC. That Wyoming LLC becomes the central piece for privacy, anonymity, and asset protection. It's the entity sitting in the background that helps shield ownership from public view. Now, here's how it works. Every LLC that actually holds a rental property is set up so that it points back to the Wyoming LLC as the member or manager. So, let's say that you form an LLC in Nevada to hold a rental property located here in Nevada.

[00:21:06]Now, on the public filing for that Nevada LLC, instead of your personal name showing up, the member manager listed would be the Wyoming LLC. So, if a tenant, attorney, or a creditor looks up that Nevada company, all they'll see is that it's owned or controlled by the Wyoming entity. [music] Then, if they try to dig into the Wyoming LLC, they'll hit a dead end because Wyoming doesn't publicly disclose the same ownership details the same way many other states do. That's what creates the privacy. The local property holding LLC is visible, but the real person behind it is not.

[00:21:41][music] And that's why investment real estate should usually be structured so that each rental LLC is tied back to one Wyoming LLC that acts as the parent holding company. This allows you to own multiple properties without your personal name being directly connected to each one. Depending on the situation, there may also be other tools involved.

[00:22:01]For example, if the property has a mortgage or if transferring title could create a transfer tax issue, you might want to use a land trust first, then have the beneficial interest flow into the LLC structure. The exact path can vary, but the purpose stays the same.

[00:22:17]You are creating a setup where the Wyoming LLC is the layer that provides anonymity while the individual LLC holds the actual properties. When this is done properly, someone looking from the outside would have a very difficult time figuring out that all of those rental properties belong to you. You could own a large portfolio of 80 properties, and a tenant or outside creditor wouldn't see your name tied to any of them.

[00:22:42]That's the real power of the structure.

[00:22:44]It's not just about owning real estate in LLCs, it's about owning them in a way that separates your personal identity from the assets themselves. And finally, let's talk about your business. If you have an active operating business, the approach can be a little bit different.

[00:22:59]In some cases, anonymity does not make much sense because your identity is already tied to the company in a very public way. For example, for my business, I am publicly associated. I founded it. I openly present myself as the person behind the company. Because of that, it wouldn't make sense to structure this in a way where someone that looks it up doesn't see any connection to me. That would be inconsistent with how I already hold myself out in the public eye. But not every business works that way. Sometimes you own a company that operates quietly in the background, and there's no reason for the public to know you're the owner.

[00:23:34]Let's say the company was called Next Funding LLC. First, we set up the business to be taxed as an S corporation. And instead of having my personal name show up as the owner, I use two separate Wyoming LLCs to hold ownership interest. Now, in this example, I'm looking at two different Wyoming LLCs. One's going to belong to someone named John. The other's going to be John's partner, right? For a 50/50 ownership. One Wyoming LLC, once again, will hold my share, and the other will hold my partner's share. Again, each owning 50%. Now, if someone looked up the company to find out who owned it, they would only see those Wyoming entities listed as the members or the managers. They would not immediately know that we were the individuals behind those entities, which is exactly the point. If I don't want to be the public face of that company, then this is what I would do. That is why if you have a business where privacy matters, there's no need for your name to be publicly connected to it. You may want to explore this structure as an option. The important detail, though, is that the business in this example was taxed as an S corporation, which is why separate entities were created and used to hold the ownership. Now, this is where things can get technical very quickly. So, if your goal is to restructure an existing business and remove your personal name from public ownership records, this is not something you want to do carelessly or set up on your own without any advice. I recommend that you get a CPA or some qualified professional to help you map this out correctly. That way, your tax treatment, your ownership structure, and your privacy strategy all work together the right way. I want to thank you guys so much for watching this video. So, at the end of the day, this is what it really comes down to. You want to get in front of the problem before the problem ever even starts. You want to position yourself in a way where if someone was to go looking, they walk away thinking there's nothing worth chasing here. That's the real power of invisibility. It's not about having nothing, it's about not looking like you have deep pockets even when you do. And I know how this works because I've seen the other side of it. I've seen attorneys handling a personal injury case, and the mindset was very clear.

[00:25:42]They wanted to recover from insurance policies or go after the person who looked like they had a lot of money.

[00:25:49]They were looking for the easiest and most profitable target, and that's exactly why this information is out here to help you avoid looking like a target.

[00:25:57]I want to show you how to structure things the smart way using your EIN number so that your business, your assets, and your wealth are not just sitting out in the open for anyone to find. Because when you do this correctly, you change the entire game.

[00:26:11]You create more privacy, more leverage, and more protection around what you have already worked so hard to build. If you got value from this video, please make sure you hit the like button and subscribe. I truly appreciate it. If you have any questions, please drop those down in the comments below. Once again, thank you so much for watching, and you guys have a wonderful day.