 My name is Ann Smith, and I'm here with the second part of my program with my guest, Lawrence O'Cayew, who has had to me an extremely interesting life. I'm going to let him explain to you why we had to talk at the end of his last show. It went longer than we planned because I really didn't understand the complications of the education he received at Southern Methodist University in Texas where he came from his birthplace in Kenya to get a variety of degrees and to work towards becoming a minister in that denomination. So why don't you explain once again very briefly to the audience how you came to be told that you couldn't do this thing anymore in case they miss our first show. Thank you very much, Ann. It's good to be back again here in the studio with you to continue the part two of our... The Lawrence O'Cayew show. Yeah, very good. Part two of the Lawrence O'Cayew show. I'm so happy to be invited again with you. And yes, just a quick recap of our last show. It is very obvious I told you that I had to go through the candidacy process. And as I said, the candidacy process was the process of becoming an Oden minister in the United Methodist Church. The process is the same all over the United States but also with United Methodist affiliated churches in Africa and I think in Asia all over the world. So it's a process that may go the longest probably six to twelve years. But if everything had to work well within the three years, mostly it is paralleling the time the candidates are going to their seminary studies or theological trainings in the universities. So mostly school of divinity takes four years, master's in theology two years. So during those two years or four years of the school of divinity the highest longest degree as candidates which have been chosen from their... Let me say from their district, they begin the process. So by the time they are done with their academic work, theological academic work, they are also said to become members of annual conference. That is ministers on probation. And then after that you are being posted. So I did it two times but I did not know, I didn't understand the reason why the first time didn't go through. Why the panel, the bishop's panel called the district annual conference. I did not know why they couldn't be allowed to go on despite the doctrinal writings which I did for them. Trying to help them understand how you can articulate the doctrinal teachings within the church. That was well done. But later on as I told you I went to another year again for the same conference under the same leadership, the DS. But I couldn't be moved on because and then eventually I was told because of the readiness, the readiness of the local congregants that were not. They seem to think that they were not ready to have a black person or someone from Africa to be a minister there. So it was not a failure on your part to learn how to explain what the church stood for or what was taught. You were completing all the requirements that were asked of you. But the people they were going to put you as a spiritual leader to were probably not ready to have a black man do this for them. That is what the three representatives from the district annual conference that were chosen to come and talk to me and tell me the reason why I couldn't be admitted to become a member of annual conference. That is what they told me. And there was nothing I could do about that. I couldn't change my ethnicity or where I came from. Of course not. Neither could I change my color. And you would determine not to go back to... You could have been an ordained minister in Kenya. I could have been an ordained minister in Kenya but I knew the adult that we love to face with the African United Methodist Church in Kenya. I knew that the highest elevated universities that all of the churches in the United Methodist Church look to is Southern Methodist University. It is not just a churches university. This is a research school university among others in the United States. So this is the place where such credential would really make sense while you're trying to reach your people around the world or even within the United States here in America. So the failure was not the inability to articulate the polity, the politics of the church. It's called polity. It was not the failure to articulate the polity of the United Methodist Church. I understood that from... I was a good student academically in the university. The failure was not to articulate the doctrinal teachings, statements and teachings to the people they thought I was very eloquent. I was very understanding and eloquent speaker. They said there was a guy who was an Indian by nationality or by race who was a doctor of philosophy from Southern Methodist University. School of Divinity is the highest, is the best school, the one at... School of Divinity at Parking School of Divinity is the best school of the United Methodist Church pretty much in the whole world. That's where everybody wants to come and train and it happens to be one. So this student, it happens to be one of them that actually I went to. The student came out there with a doctor of philosophy and theology and he was posted to a local church there and the representatives that were sent to me said the church, the people left the church, the people. So I don't say that it could have been discriminatory in itself. I am simply saying that their experience informed them and it looks like sometimes doing... It makes perfect sense. You see that? Yeah. They didn't want to set you up to face... So sometimes they did not want to set me up for a failure. Yeah. But could there have been other ways of working with minority candidates like us? Could I have gone through the process and be assistant pastor somewhere else in places like Houston where there are so many diversities? There were so many. People are really mixed. But this decision was not made. So you had to move on in a different direction. That's right. And I believe from everything you told me, you are now thoroughly qualified from all of the academic studies and some of the experiences you had to be a community leader. And for that you said to yourself, I think, there are many ways to do this. That is right. That is very true. So I knew that I had to come back to myself and be able to dig into the resources that already been given by virtue of going to educational studies or by virtue of just the abilities and the grace God has given me as a person. And I began to see that School of Divinity trained me to be a community leader. So some of the concentrations that you, when you are doing a theological degree, there are concentrations. So Master's Divinity is not a general theological study. It is a concentration, a professional degree program. Decided to train community leaders and majority of whom, majority of them that many people know out here, a common person know, is just the ministers, the pastors. But majority of people that are doing leading non-profit organizations, working in the civil right movement like Dr. King, majority of us are so familiar with Dr. King, his highest, maybe his practical degree, apart from the Doctor of Philosophy that he asked, could be said as Masters of Divinity. Majority of people also do not understand the relationship between law and religious studies like School of Divinity. There is a study called Moral Theology, ethical moral study. It is deeply into the foundations that literally formed the civilized societies all over the world. It is there that when I started practicing in a tax firm, a tax accounting firm in Texas, this firm was started with some three Kenyans. I begin to see the correlations, the relationship between ethical studies I did in School of Divinity and the practice of tax law. I stayed there for five to eight years, not just helping in this tax company, but also engaging in tax preparation and attempting to understand the law behind each and everything that we are doing. There are different laws, but I would say that tax law is very challenging because it keeps changing. The Congress keeps making laws and the internal revenue keeps finding ways through which it can be implemented down here. There is a constant rigor of study. Even right now, I have to continue doing, continue education in tax law. Constantly we are studying. I have to say, the only legal situation that I've ever seriously been involved in as an American citizen has been the preparation of my taxes every year. I'm quite serious. If you were to take a big cut of most people, some people, of course, are running out of court for a variety of reasons. And then there are all the problems that people can have in life or mistakes they can make that could end them up in any legal situation. But everybody has to pay their taxes. And if this is so closely, and I never would have seen it before you explained it to me, if this is so closely connected to all of the law, all of the body of law that underlies a civilized society, then what better way to reach a great many people with what you have been taught and what you have learned in your long study of human behavior and people's connection with the world and with God? Absolutely. So the human behaviors which when you do, when you take them, when you are in the school of divinity, so the major studies is sociology, where you study human behaviors. And psychology, where you go deeper into all those human behaviors and the social nature of the human being. And then we have the Biblical dealing with the writings and the interpretations of different writings, not just scripture. People do not know that scripture is a body of letters. So yes, it becomes a better way with the ethical understanding of the foundations of what formed the civilized communities around the world. It couldn't be better than that. And that is the interest that inspired me to actually be doing tax law now and continue wanting to deepen my understanding into taxes and system in the United States. And the clients you are most concerned with at this point are people from Africa who come here. Why would they need a specialized point of view in dealing with their approach to taxes? To me it's always look pretty cut and dry. You just put the numbers in and you add it all up and every year pretty much the same things happen. But then I watched my parents do their tax returns every year. Do Africans have a background in understanding personal income tax? That's a very good question. So as I have said, tax law keeps changing. A typical example is the challenges that have come because of the pandemic, the COVID-19. And we have seen the most important body in the government has been the internal revenue, the Treasury, and the Congress. So the Congress keeps adapting laws related to what actually became a global emergency. And the internal revenue keep finding ways through which these things can be understood and these tax credits can be articulated in the communities and how people can benefit from them during this difficult time. Tax law, I mean to simply say, tax law keep constantly keep changing. And the idea that you will just keep doing it, the forms looks like they don't change as much, but even the forms can be added. And there are thousands of federal forms and the state forms, lot. But when you learn only how to do yours, it looks like you can always see the form as the same. But when you are doing tax return, you are dealing with so many forms, federal and state forms. Majority of Africans, immigrants that are coming here, they come from a tradition that do not have a taxation system like the one you are born into in the United States. So that is one challenge. So personally, I am a first immigrant in the United States from Kenya. There's no any other members of my family that have been here. I'm the first generation. Now, many people are familiar that the government in Kenya is billed by taxation just like here. What many people cannot articulate is how that taxation system actually affected the common people on the ground here. When I grew up in 1980s, I used to see people come to, they will call them tax collectors. This people would come and literally chasing after animals and chickens. I think it would be sold and then put into money and paid to the treasury. That thing went for a long time. So they would assess your value by taking a look at what you had and then take their cut. Yeah, if you said you didn't have money, they said but you have goats and you have chickens. Part of it could be acquitted to the tax liability that you needed to pay and you paid it. Many people are not happy to see chickens going and the goats going. I cannot forget those experiences. So it's very, very different in what Americans commonly call third world countries, the whole taxation system. So it isn't just Africa. I mean your story about the goats and chickens delights me. But this must have been happening all over the world even now although modern times have made things a little different. Talk some more about that, what your customers or people come to you for advice, what they don't know. Majority of people, majority of nations, communities, they truly, they truly doesn't have the kind of robust system of taxation like we have here in America. So I would easily, I would still imagine things like that still opens. But in Kenya we have progressed a little bit. I mean we have progressed. There is a certain amount of money an individual or businesses must make in order for them to file a tax return. So the filing of a tax return, the electronic filing that we do here is actually happening in, let me just talk of my country, Kenya, where I come from. But apart from that, majority of people would not make one million or ten thousand US dollar, one million Kenya shillings, to be able to really feel that they are giving some part of their money for the local government or the central government in any way. So these things are happening but you know people do, whenever the sales taxes are there. So majority of people only, when they buy something. There are sales taxes in Africa. Yeah. So the sales taxes are there and that is the common way through which I think many governments are collecting taxes, especially from common people. And that is what many common people may, may know or may not know. So when people come to the United States, like most of the immigrants from African countries, they, they don't really quite get the tax, the taxation system in the United States. It's more, it's, it's complicated and constantly changing. And even people like us, who are, this is our profession, we constantly have to keep up with, with informations coming from the internal revenue. I mean, from the IRS as many people know it. So because the community here is, everything keeps changing. Congress keep making laws and the laws are passed to the Treasury and the Treasury found a way through which common people down here will understand them through tax companies. So things, so it is more robust. This is why we are inviting. I am inviting this time, immigrants to come, come to the office and be able to, I can spare sometimes to explain a number of few things, basics of tax system in the United States so that they can be comfortable. No, just a possibility just occurred to me. Your office is presently in the Immigrant Welcome Center down on Preble Street, 24 Preble Street on the second and third floor of that building. Absolutely. No, I'm sorry. Third and fourth. We are in the third. You are on the third floor. So my office is on the third floor, but the Immigrant Center floor is on the fourth floor. Well, it just occurred to me though, and perhaps you and I or possibly Bezier should talk to Reza, the man who directs this program. He might want to have an open house at some point before taxes need to be filed. Some weekend or some afternoon or whenever he thought would be a good time. I know we still have the corona problem, but sometime when you could just be available to briefly talk to anybody who comes in that day because there are larger rooms that you could assemble in. That would be such a strategy not only for educating, giving the basic information and education on the tax system here, but also I see that as a marketing strategy also for my business. Of course. That would be really good. One of the great dangers, particularly if you go and become an incorporated LLC, one of the big problems for newcomers to the United States is they think that getting the paperwork done for their company, whether it's a local grocery or a hairstyling salon or whatever it is they're trying to sell, they think that those papers and the fees they pay initially, that's it, right? Yes, absolutely. But they are unfortunately quite mistaken. Why don't you explain about the taxation of businesses a little bit and fees? So you see depending with the business structure that the business itself, the owner chose, some of the business structures is a limited liability company. LLC. LLCs were started with the state and then after that all other states adopted that and the federal accepted it. But some people are escop, escoporations, some business structures and those are also structures of taxation. There are tax advantages in these structures of business. They are not just types. Mostly they are tied with the benefits of taxes that you would save. Escoporation, for example, would be good for much more organized businesses with payroll and probably reasonable salary draw for the owners. Those could be some of the qualifications IRS would want. Do you have a reasonable salary? So there must be a reasonable salary and it is engaging much more. And in that way, choosing escop would save this business owner from a double taxation. I've never even heard of that. So a double taxation is like you have a business, you have a 1040. So while you are allowed to file to do your LLC Schedule C and also do your 1040 in the same tax return, you will pay on the profit from the business, from the profit or loss that you've made on the business. And you will also be paying on your 1040, like most of us, the withholding and things like that. The profit is taken from the Schedule C and brought to become your income of what you made. Therefore you are being taxed there again. So it becomes a double taxation in that way. But if you would have escoporation, you would have, unless say that one that is organized, you have a payroll, then you would only consider the payroll taxes, but not necessarily pay again the 1040 Schedule C, whatever. It would limit you. So it is advantageous for businesses that are much more organized. But if it is just a simple tax return, you don't have payroll, I would say that it is still good up to that extent to simply have it all done together. So escop, you would do it different. The business will be doing itself, and you and your family, you will remain doing taxes by your family. So at this point I would just like to say that you have made your services available, and at the end of this program we will show how to reach you in a thing on the screen. And you also said that you would not, in order to ask you questions, you could set up an appointment when it was convenient, and they would not necessarily have to pay you any fees just for an initial talk about what they need. Yeah, there would be no fee. This would be, I would consider that as a marketing, as a time spent on marketing and advertisement. So if that can be organized, that would be great. I would like people to really understand the basics of doing tax return in the United States. Well, and I thank you so much for coming in and giving this talk about your own history and your business.