Don Pendleton
Founder of Protect Wealth, Asset Protection Author
Sued after a shooting at the park he managed, he has spent decades teaching business owners how to keep what they build.
About Don
Don Pendleton is the founder and president of Protect Wealth and one of the nation's top asset protection advisors. He is not a CPA or an attorney. He got into the work after being sued, and he has spent decades since teaching business owners, investors, families, and professionals how to structure themselves for lawsuit protection and tax reduction. He has co-authored multiple textbooks and articles, presents at seminars and workshops every year, and has run an asset protection hotline for 26 years. His books and trainings have helped thousands of people save millions of dollars.
The lawsuit that started it came while he was managing a recreation park in Southern California just after the Rodney King riots. Gang members he had asked to leave fired shots into the parking lot, an 18-year-old girl was killed, and Pendleton, the manager on duty, was named in the suit. He had four small kids at home and no idea how lawsuits worked. Three years of depositions followed. He went on to work alongside the pioneer of asset protection, writing case studies for hundreds of scenarios before teaching the strategies himself. Protect Wealth now organizes everything around four pillars: lawsuit protection, estate planning, tax strategy, and wealth creation.
On the Franklin Planner Podcast, Pendleton joined George Wright III for a masterclass on lowering taxes, protecting assets, and keeping families out of probate. He laid out his rules for the tax code — toll roads and free roads, two sets of rules for people with and without a business, and why a refund is not a win — and replaced the question “Can I deduct this?” with “How can I deduct this?” He closed with the three documents everyone over 18 needs, why a living trust only controls what it owns, and the one-line succession clause that would have kept a $4 million Texas company out of probate.
Key ideas from Don’s conversation
A tax refund means the IRS held your money all year; the real scoreboard is your effective tax rate.
Pendleton tells people to stop celebrating refunds. Divide taxes paid by income to get your effective rate, then set a target to lower it next year — if it was 20 percent, aim for 18. Tracking that one number and pushing it down every year is how you win the tax game.
There are two sets of tax rules: one for people with a business and one for people without.
Even a sole proprietorship with a real intent to profit and a set of books opens the door to thousands of deductions individuals cannot touch. The more deductions you want, the more structure you may need, but the minimum is simple: have a business.
Stop asking whether you can deduct an expense and start asking how you can.
Tax preparers put your numbers in the right boxes; they are not paid to strategize. Pendleton reframes the expense instead: a business monitor is deductible, a Super Bowl TV is not, a logo shirt becomes advertising. Every answer still has to pass his CORN test — customary, ordinary, reasonable, and necessary.
A living trust only controls what it owns, so fund it and retitle the assets.
Everyone over 18 needs a will, an advance health care directive, and a financial power of attorney. Once you own real estate, add a living trust and move the home and bank accounts into it. A trust that owns nothing protects nothing.
One line in an operating agreement can keep a business out of probate.
A Texas widow lost control of her late husband's $4 million water-drilling company because it was a single-member LLC in his name only. A succession clause in the operating agreement would have transferred his interest instantly. Add one to every LLC agreement and stock certificate you hold.
