YOUR MONEY


Build Wealth, Keep More, and Live Tax-Free


BY MARK J. QUANN E


veryone’s heard the expression, “Buy low, sell high.” Let me tell you a quick


story about Mark “Pat” Munroe, an American banker in the small town of Quincy, Florida. During the Great Depression,


when the Dow Jones Industrial Average had plummeted by 89%, Munroe’s advice helped birth 67 new millionaires. And by the 1940s, he put Quincy on the map as the richest town per capita in the United States. This story began during the


Great Depression. Amid this storm of chaos and fear, Munroe saw an opportunity to buy more shares of Coca-Cola, and he began telling his friends and his clients to do the same. Even when the stock crashed


another 50% due to a dispute with the sugar industry, Munroe advised his clients to buy more, and even arranged to give them loans secured by their stock to buy more Coca- Cola shares. Munroe was a firm believer


in the enduring value of Coca- Cola, convinced that its stock was recession-proof. He noticed that even during


the harshest times, people would still spend their last few dollars on a Coke. It was a small luxury that provided comfort after a harsh day. Munroe’s strategy was simple:


Buy more, and never sell. This approach harnessed the


power of compound growth by continually buying more shares, always reinvesting the dividends, and never selling.


72 NEWSMAX MAXLIFE | MARCH 2025 The value of


those shares and the dividends they paid even helped the town’s shareholders stay afloat during future economic crises long after the Great Depression. Munroe’s strategy is sound today,


and furthermore, the strategy has significant tax advantages. By not selling the shares, his investors deferred capital gains taxes indefinitely. This allowed their wealth to


compound, with very little taxes, and those families were able to pass on that wealth to their heirs. He also advocated for additional


borrowing, secured by their stocks, to purchase other assets. In one prime example, a local farmer came to him to borrow $2,000 for farm equipment, but Munroe talked the farmer into borrowing $4,000: $2,000 for the farm equipment and $2,000 for Coca-Cola stock to act as collateral — so Munroe may just well be the innovator behind buying and then borrowing. If you were one of the Quincy


farmers who listened to Munroe and bought a share of Coca-Cola stock during its IPO for only $40, you’d find that after the company’s stock splits in 1935, 1960, 1965, 1977, 1986, 1990, and 2012, and by reinvesting all the dividends, that $40 would be worth more than $25 million today. See, getting wealthy and paying


no taxes can be simple and easy. It’s a simple matter of: Buy assets. Never sell them.


Always buy more, especially during


down markets. As the assets appreciate, take


loans secured by each asset to buy more assets. Repeat the process of taking loans


secured by assets only to buy more assets, and once again, never sell any of them. Then just die. The key part of this step is to only


buy assets you can pass to your heirs tax-free due to a stepped-up basis under current tax codes. A step-up in basis is like getting


a free upgrade when you inherit something. For example, when you inherit, say, a house or stocks/ exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the value is “stepped up” to what it’s worth when the previous owner passed away, so you can avoid paying taxes on all those years it went up in value — pretty sweet, right? That way, your heirs inherit the


stocks and ETFs you bought, and they don’t have to pay capital gains taxes for the growth over your lifetime! Anyone can implement a “Buy,


Borrow, Die” strategy and eventually pay no taxes. The first step is simple: Invest in a


taxable brokerage account. When you have over $2,000 in your account, you


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