Aliyah Diary 32: How to Hire the Right Professional and . . . Oops

All Aliyah Blog Articles

Aliyah Diary

Arrival
01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In

Cultural Adjustment
04. Sept 4, 2024: First Day of School
05. Sept 8, 2024: Two Weeks In . . .
06. Sept 16, 2024: Getting Comfortable
07. Sept 22, 2024: Ready for Yom Tov
09. Sept 30, 2024: Nasrallahed on the Floor
15. Nov 10, 2024: Safety Fourth
18. Nov 24, 2024: Language – l’at, ‘lat
29. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Still in America
31. Feb 3, 2025: Internet Filtering for Kids

The Roads
24. Jan 5, 2025: Supermarkets & Highways
25. Jan 12, 2025: Not Cutting Me Off

Government and Bureaucracy
10. Oct 8, 2024: Driver’s License
11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
13. Oct 30, 2024: Bureaucracies and Stories
19. Nov 28, 2024: Taxation for Americans
22. Dec 23, 2024: Doctors & “Choleh Chadash”
27. Jan 23, 2025: Healthcare in Israel
32. Feb 5, 2025: How To Hire the Wrong Person

Politics & Thought
12. Oct 25, 2024: October Sun and the Jew
16. Nov 17, 2024: Where People Look Like Me
17. Nov 19, 2024: Jewish Identity and Outlook
21. Dec 11, 2024: Let Freedom Ring

Travel and Trips
08. Sept 25, 2024: Jerusalem Concert
14. Nov 2, 2024: The Kindness of Strangers
20. Dec 5, 2024: Tel Aviv Art Museum
23. Dec 29, 2024: The West Bank. (Shomron)
26. Jan 18, 2025: Dead Sea Beer and Ice Cream
28. Jan 26, 2025: Yarkon River Judaism, Tel Aviv
30. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Visits and we Travel

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Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. I’m probably not your lawyer. Legal information here can have mistakes. I’m not licensed in Israel and don’t want to be.
Disclaimer 2: Facts are changed to protect the guilty.

Don’t Settle For “this is how we do it in Israel”

It’s now about five months since I’ve arrived and I don’t take “this is how it’s done in Israel” for an excuse – unless they do it better than America which is the case for a lot of things. There are plenty of American professionals here which match my belief in how things should be done (and likely yours, if you’re reading this blog).

Diverging for a minute – I’m a Patent and Trademark Attorney and I started off without a secretary because I didn’t want to spend the money, just starting up. Labor is one of the biggest expenses for a business. So … I answered my own phones and have heard many times, “wow, I’ve been calling around and you’re the first lawyer I got to actually speak to!” To this day, I answer my own phones and it’s even in one of my Google ads and on my website. It’s a great marketing tool and it’s true.

I have heard, though never verified, that the number one reason complaints are filed against professionals is missing a deadline. Proper practice is to forward documents received from the government as immediately as possible and always write the deadline and a day by which to respond to you so there is time to do the work. Clients are often nervous enough, so I almost never leave things to the deadline to do the work … many professionals do that and I can’t stand it. I’m also the kind of person who never had an “all nighter” and had my studying done a few days before and walked calmly into the test. Actually, no, I wasn’t calm. Kidding.

Don’t settle for, “this is how it’s done in Israel” because there are enough professionals here who follow best practices whether they be American or Israeli.

A Good Way to Find Professionals

The right way: not only get recommendations – ask the right questions and make sure they fit your personality. There are also plenty of “sheishters” who say things like “you shouldn’t do this, but you know how it is …” or “it doesn’t smell right however I’ve done it dozens of times and no one gives me trouble about it”. I got a major shock falling for that. What do I know about Israeli law?

I interviewed about five accountants when I got here, realizing I was being the kind of annoying client that drives me nuts with questions and is calling around. Oddly enough, the accountant who acted like me is the one I hired. He said something like, “People who take such sheister advice sound like those who come to me later to fix it’ and “I know what I’m doing and I have a good way to do this which doesn’t involve being a sheister. Come in, pay a consult fee [a seriousness fee so you know the person isn’t wasting your time] and I’ll tell you what you should do.”

When the accountant sounded like me, I knew it was the right fit. My rule in my business, with limited exceptions, is that initial free phone calls don’t go over 5 minutes – after that, you’re probably being abused.

This brings me to – You Get What You Pay For.

You Get What You Pay For

Professionals that give free advice for long periods of time have too much free time to give you.

I’m sure there are exceptions – I started off not charging consultation fees because I didn’t like it when others did. That lasted about a year. When I didn’t charge a consultation fee, so many people came in, took my advice, and wasted my time.

Professionals who do charge a consultation fee do it because they’re busy and don’t want to waste their time.

My Mistake

So far so good with accountants and the real estate lawyer. The tax lawyer … oy. Paid him a flat fee to handle the initial tax paperwork because … well, the more stuff you have going on, the more problems that can arise from transferring everything over. Come here when you’re single and 28 (after army years) with no stuff and get a salaried job in Israel and aliyah is relatively simple. There are other downsides, I’m sure.

Okay, so here’s my “oops” with the tax lawyer. Israel has purchase taxes for houses ranging from 0.5% to 8% depending on price of the house, if it’s your first house, if you’re an immigrant, and so on. The lawyer says, “don’t worry, you will pay no tax – I’ve done it this way many, many times … you won’t have to pay anything.”

See where this is going? It’s the 99% of other lawyers that make me look bad.

Okay – what do I know? I’m a “greener” – a new immigrant who doesn’t know the system, so you trust the lawyer.

Digression: when a professional makes 100% guarantees about anything – run. Actually, same with just about anyone … no medicine, therapy, lawyer, doctor, pathologist, or accountant will ever be right 100% of the time. If I had to bet though, my money is on the pathologist.

This works both ways … when a client tells you something that sounds too good to be true … run. One of my favorite new client phone calls:

Potential client: “I have this great invention – it’s going to make not millions – it’s going to make b-b-b- billions with a B. I’ll share it with you. How do you want to be a billionaire?”

My response: “Well, can we start with a hundred-airre for my consultation fee?”

Potential client: “Huh?”

There is, however, an exception to this rule. If it’s someone bipolar in their manic phase, then you take the client because they won’t go away anyway – and they shovel money at you. Later, they go into depression, don’t leave their house, and blame themselves while you’re still shoveling the money into your safe. (Kesef-it – I think I’ll be remembering that word.)

Narcissists are similar in some ways to bi-polar and different in other ways. Their ideas are just as stupid and when it doesn’t well, they blame you. Stay away from them.

How Not to Be an Unprofessional Professional

First, assume the client knows nothing. If the client says they know everything, explain to them why they don’t in a way that they will still hire you. If they knew everything you knew, they wouldn’t need to hire you and if they won’t respect what you have to say, it’s going to be trouble later anyway, so you have to assess the risk.

Next thing – referring back to the top of this article – don’t fail to tell clients of deadlines. Don’t fail to tell clients the chance of success. Don’t fall to tell clients at least some idea of what it will cost and what the likely results are. Don’t fail to put all of this in writing. In fact, this information and these sorts of disclaimers are in my engagement agreement and referenced on my invoices so a client can’t say, “you never told me”. No, actually … it’s right here [copy –> paste –> send]. Document everything (within reason and within the limits of how perfect any human can be).

In my case I get a phone call from the tax attorney – “oy, I just got off the phone with the tax authority and they want 8% tax on your purchase.” While it’s something close to an open miracle that we came here for four days and found a house to buy that we love – the house was just barely within our budget. The lawyer assured us that he does this all the time, and it will be 0%, e.g. within our budget. When you’re talking about a home purchase, that’s a lot of tax!

Keep in mind – I have seen no documents and don’t know one exists yet. Dreading the day I receive one in the mail. The lawyer simply says the tax authority is wrong and can’t simultaneously tax me like a foreign citizen and Israeli at the same time. He asks me if I want to file a response to the decision or pay the tax. Duh! What would you do when a lawyer says this?

Okay, lawyer is taking care of it and I’m not going to cause myself extra stress. Let him handle it.

A few weeks later I receive an absurd bill from him to file the response. How do you justify this bill? This would be 30+ billable hours for something which is probably three pages long with a bunch of checked boxes on a form. He said, “this is only because you’re a current client – really the way it works in Israel is I should be charging you double this and taking a percentage of your tax savings.”

I excrement you not. That is what we call posterior solid bovine excretions from the male of the species.

Oh, and he’s on vacation in Thailand. (You can tell the picture above isn’t actually in Thailand because there are three cranes – there’s construction everywhere in Israel.)

I don’t like when clients bother me on vacation so I say, alright, let’s talk about it when you get back.

He responds … the deadline is in three business days!

Recall the “best practices” above: I don’t buy for a second that doing business this way is okay in any country … and this is a lesson for American business too because I’m sure there are American lawyers who would do this too.

What I did Next

Freaked out and contacting anyone and everyone. Lawyer is in Thailand so even if I paid him, how is going to do a good job on this? He made a promise he couldn’t keep so shouldn’t he be … treating me better?

Ah, my neighbor works for the Ombudsman office in the government! Hard to believe yet this exists in Israel … a government institution … anyone in the government … if doing something improper? Fill out a form, say which institution it is, upload your documents, and someone gets back to you that day!

I also contact another lawyer … she talks to me for a good 20 minutes and tells me she’s going to take care of family in the U.K. and so she doesn’t want to take the case. Thanks, I think. I should teach her my five-minute rule.

She refers me to another lawyer … he says he’ll file the paperwork for less than half the price. Okay, let’s go with that.

I’m in my corporate lawyer’s office that day … that’s for the next blog article. Starting a business in Israel is quite the hootenanny. This lawyer got to listen to me cry and he calls a colleague for me …

Then I write Nefesh B’Nefesh … they respond right away … they call someone who works for the tax authority and get me an answer in writing.

Then someone tells me, “your wife’s cousin works for one of the largest law firms in Israel” … I met this cousin once in my life, I think. I’m know his parents better (shout out as they read my blog!). I’m contacting the whole world, so sure, let’s add him to the list.

What is the law that allows avoidance of purchase taxes?

A few weeks prior to all this I saw a distant retired relative at a family get together (hootenanny?). I heard he splits his time in Israel and America despite that he wants to move here. I asked him way. “Oh, my lawyer told me that if you make aliyah too soon they will charge you a high purchase tax, retroactively.”

Oh. Interesting.

He’s right.

This is what the law is: in order to avoid the purchase tax you have to: a) buy “over the green line”, b) not own other property in Israel, c) not have parents who are citizens of Israel, d) not be a citizen of Israel, e) not become a citizen of Israel within two years of the purchase.

I fit within a, b, c, and d … I don’t meet “e” since I made aliyah. Once you make aliyah, you have to pay the tax.

The idea behind the law is that tourists who are buying vacation homes are encouraged to do so. If you buy, for example, in a place like Efrat, you can avoid the purchase tax this way.

The lawyers I spoke to fall into two camps: a) those with the right answer, b) those with the wrong answer. Or … maybe I’m wrong and those with the wrong answer really could win on appeal, though I seriously doubt it.

The right answer includes: Nefesh B’Nefesh, Ombudsman office, corporate attorney’s colleague, and my wife’s cousin.

How to Fix It

A long time ago I read that the biggest reason those who make aliyah return to their previous is country is not money – it’s lack of family. My wife has a lot of family here and it is one of the reasons we are here. Thanks cousin. He fixed it for free.

It turns out that if you don’t tell the government that you are entitled to pay less fees, they’ll send you a bill for the highest rate. Kind of makes sense … if only someone told me that. Remember, I’m “green” … I’m new here. How would I know that?

The U.S. Patent Office works similarly … if you don’t apply to pay the lower fee because you have low income, then they’re going to charge you the higher fee. Except … there are FAQs on the Patent Office website and manuals of procedure online which can be Googled. For an IRS deduction, I didn’t understand the website though it took me about three minutes to figure out that I’m not eligible. Here, it’s so unclear that half the lawyers I spoke to got it wrong.

In America, also, if you receive a tax bill … woe is you. It’s going to be really difficult to get that fixed. In Israel it’s more like a starting offer.

The fix: by the deadline to pay the tax, which may or may not actually be a deadline, file the request for the exemptions. It’s very straight forward.

So now I have to pay the tax … it’s a lot less … about 3.5% purchase tax. It is what it is. However, the exchange rate got very bad so that’s going to cost me. I’m just happy to be done with it.

On to forming my corporation in Israel to … not pay so much tax. The tax system between New Jersey, the United States, and Israel and needlessly complex.

I feel a little better having gotten all this out. Thanks everyone!

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