Kevin Wessell shares the lessons from starting a bank that ultimately failed, costing him millions, leading to years of litigation, and reshaping how he approaches business, risk, and asset protection.
The founder and CEO of Asset Protection Planners, known to his 180,000+ subscribers as "The Business Guy," shares how a years-long IRS document dispute was resolved — and the lessons every business owner should know about compliance, recordkeeping, and staying an open book
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Aug. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Kevin Wessell, founder and CEO of Asset Protection Planners, is speaking publicly about a multi-year records dispute with the Internal Revenue Service that has since been fully resolved — choosing transparency over silence in the face of a situation he says could easily have been misrepresented by competitors and online commentators if he hadn't addressed it himself first.
"I got sued by the federal government," Wessell says, opening the account. "That got people's attention. So let me tell you exactly what happened, and what to do if it ever happens to you."
A Knock at the Door
In late 2018, Wessell was served with a formal request for business records covering a several-year period. The request was not a tax dispute — Wessell and his companies have always been fully tax compliant — but rather a records inquiry aimed at verifying that his customers were meeting their own tax obligations.
On his CPA's advice, Wessell retained outside counsel and instructed his team to grant the law firm complete, unrestricted access to every system, database, login credential, and document connected to the request. "I held absolutely nothing back," Wessell said. "Everything they asked for, they got." In fact, the IRS told my legal team in writing, "Stop all production of documents."
What followed was roughly two years of document production between his legal team and the government, including a period in which production was paused at the government's own request. Wessell believed the matter had been fully resolved once production was complete.
A Second Chapter
Years later, after the COVID crisis, a civil petition surfaced alleging that the production had been incomplete — that some records appeared to be missing or mismatched against the customer list Wessell's company had provided. Wessell emphasizes that this was a civil records matter, not a criminal case and not a dispute over unpaid taxes.
Rather than treat the allegations as an attack, Wessell says he went back through the specific examples cited and found straightforward explanations for each one — the kind that come up naturally in a records-intensive business spanning many years and formation types. Among the most common:
- Orders placed by a third party. A spouse, attorney, accountant, or consultant frequently places an order on behalf of the actual beneficial owner — the same way someone might buy furniture online for a family member. The order and the ultimate owner of record don't always match name-for-name, and that's expected, not evidence of concealment.
- Name conflicts at filing. When a requested company name is already taken, an alternate name is chosen at filing — and older records under the original working name aren't always cross-referenced automatically.
- Orders that were never fulfilled. Some customers don't pass a background check, or don't complete required due diligence (notarized ID, proof of address, reference letters), so no company documents are ever created for that order in the first place.
- Stock issued in blank, per law. By law, issued stock certificates are provided blank, with the purchaser filling in the ultimate owner's name — meaning company records won't always show a final owner's identity.
- Simple human error. In a business processing large volumes of formation documents, occasional scanning or filing oversights happen, despite standard procedures designed to prevent them.
Wessell met directly with government personnel to walk through these explanations. "They were genuinely good people doing their jobs," he said. "They don't run my business day-to-day, so naturally they don't see it from the inside the way I do. My job isn't to tell them what to do — it's to comply with what the law requires, fully and honestly."
The matter has since been fully resolved.
Why Wessell Chose to Go Public
With more than three decades in the asset protection and business formation industry, Wessell says he's seen how quickly incomplete information spreads once it becomes public record. Publicly filed legal documents are often mined by websites and commentators looking to generate attention — and people frequently form opinions based on those secondhand accounts rather than asking the person directly involved.
"People don't come up and ask you about it," Wessell said. "They just talk to everyone but you, and the story runs ahead of the facts. The way to get in front of that is to be an open book and talk about it yourself, before someone else tells a version of it for you."
The Takeaway for Business Owners
Wessell says the experience reinforced a philosophy he's held since founding his company in 1991: obey the law first, profit second. He points to a few practical lessons for any business owner facing a government inquiry:
- Cooperate fully and immediately. Full, unrestricted transparency with counsel and regulators removes ambiguity and builds credibility.
- Don't panic at the sight of a formal notice. A civil records request is not the same as a criminal case or a tax dispute — understanding exactly what's being asked matters before reacting.
- Keep clean, well-documented records. Recordkeeping gaps are usually the result of ordinary business friction, not wrongdoing — but they're far easier to explain when documentation habits are strong from the start.
- Address it publicly, on your own terms. Silence invites speculation. Getting ahead of a public record with a clear, honest account protects both reputation and relationships.
About Kevin Wessell and Asset Protection Planners
Kevin Wessell is the founder and CEO of Asset Protection Planners (AssetProtectionPlanners.com), a firm whose attorneys and advisors have 35 years of experience structuring Cook Islands trusts and offshore asset protection plans for business owners, physicians, and investors nationwide. Widely recognized under his "Business Guy" brand across YouTube and social media, Wessell is a sought-after voice on asset protection, business compliance, and lawsuit prevention strategy.
To learn more about protecting your business and personal assets before a crisis strikes, visit AssetProtectionPlanners.com.
Media Contact
Kevin Wessell, Lawyers Limited, 1 9544001050, [email protected], Lawyers Limited
SOURCE Asset Protection Planners
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