Financial Planning (3) Resources

The subject of what to do with assets after retirement or death is an understandably difficult topic to address. Upset family members, lost documents and the absence of the grantor after death are among some of the difficulties that tax professionals face. But the ultimate difficulty lies in having the conversation in the first place.

Clients want to utilize their wealth to meet unique goals that they have. Charitable gifting, leaving assets to family members or even having enough for one last hurrah with friends requires a unique investment strategy for unique goals.

Tax loss harvesting involves the selling of a security that has experienced a loss. By selling the security, the investor realizes or "harvests" that loss and is able to offset taxes on both gains and income. The security that was sold is replaced by a similar one, which maintains the optimal asset allocation.

Financial professionals will often recommend products and services that reflect the current circumstances of their clients. But they also need to recommend products and services that reflect their future circumstances. A very real worry in the financial planning world for investors and their advisers alike is the possibility of outliving their assets and possessing more liabilities and expenses in retirement.

Why is this Topic Important to Wealth Managers? This blogticle represents a special series regarding advanced investing with ETFs. Recently there has been much discussion in the marketplace on the use of these tools and thus we present this topic for wealth managers who may consider these investment vehicles for their clients.

The subject of what to do with assets after retirement or death is an understandably difficult topic to address.  Upset family members, lost documents and the absence of the grantor after death are among some of the difficulties that tax professionals face.   But the ultimate difficulty lies in having the conversation in the first place.

Clients want to utilize their wealth to meet unique goals that they have. Charitable gifting, leaving assets to family members or even having enough for one last hurrah with friends requires a unique investment strategy for unique goals.

For those of us that have been watching the decimation of much of the banking and finance industry, it has become clear that finance-related firms’ compensation arrangements and ethical standards are being called into question through a blanket labeling of all finance industry professionals with some permutation of the word “crook.” The rapacious practices of real crooks, like Bernard Madoff et al., and the over-compensation of the officers of bailed-out financial institutions have clearly left a bad taste in the mouths of the public. This negative perception of the finance industry as a whole has in large part rubbed off on all individual professionals in the financial services, whether such gross agglomeration for the purposes of labeling is warranted or not.

Many clients who have been witness to major drops in their investment portfolios over the last year have come to the realization that they are far less risk tolerant than they had originally believed. For these clients, as well as those whose life circumstances may have changed as a result of the financial market crisis, it may become appropriate to reallocate portfolios on a much more conservative basis – using an ultra-conservative methodology.

Towards the end of the year, CPA firms are generally looking for opportunities to maximize the tax deductions available to their business owner clientele. For a business owner client whose operation has the right characteristics, there is a substantial opportunity for tax deduction (up to $1.2 Million annually) that has gone unutilized until relatively recently (around 2002). This opportunity is provided by IRS tax code under IRC 831(b), and is known as the domestic captive insurance company.