Personal Advisory Services

Our Personal Advisory Service specializes in wealth enhancement to the busy professional and executive.

We strive to eliminate worry in your hectic and demanding life by planning creative solutions to your financial challenges and by closely monitoring your success. Our comprehensive financial consulting processes offer you and your family the resources to help maximize income, help preserve assets against financial disaster, minimize taxation* and create success.

Analytical Services

Some of you have unique circumstances that require specially designed spreadsheets and reports to determine the right course of actions to take with your financial matters. Examples of our Analytical Services include Reports on stock option programs and wealth–building strategies that have a variety of income tax implications. Estate planning reports can include asset accumulation strategies with various approaches to gifting and estate freezing.

Educational Funding Analysis

Changes have occurred due to the latest Tax Act, liberalizing options available for parents wishing to accumulate funds to pay for their children’s college education. A variety of vehicles can be used, including 529 plans, educational IRA’s, pre-paid tuition plans and UTMA accounts. Our Educational Funding Analysis determines how much you should be investing to meet your college financial demands and which plans are best for you and your family.

Retirement Forecasting

Many invest in 401(k) plans, save personally, and participate in employer sponsored accumulation plans, but few have any idea of how these plans will come together to provide for their retirement. We assemble all of your current investments, and add all future contributions anticipated to help you determine your inflation-adjusted retirement income. You will have an understanding of your retirement picture and various options assuming various portfolio structures.

Catastrophe Planning

Thinking about catastrophe can be unpleasant, and planning for it is often avoided. However, unfortunate events do occur, and those who survive them are left to pick up the pieces. Planning for catastrophe involves calculating how much monthly income your family will have, taking inflation into account. Your liquid investments, insurance plans, business buy-out plans and employee benefits are gathered to help you see what your family’s financial position will look like if a catastrophe should occur.

Estate Transfer Planning

Passing your estate to your family without complicated court proceedings is very important for those who have significant wealth. You are shown the urgency of implementing a plan by seeing before-and-after pictures of various strategies. The objective is to have done everything possible to pass the maximum assets to the next generation without estate taxes, keeping Uncle Sam out of your pocket or those of future generations. Our services do not include legal documentation or advice, but are designed to give you a clear picture of your options to enable you to make informed decisions.

Legacy & Gift Planning

Going beyond the avoidance of estate taxes and probate, you may also need to develop a family legacy plan or a charitable giving strategy. We help you process the issues that surround such decisions as: how much is enough for my heirs to inherit, and when do I consider the creation of a charitable trust or family foundation? We help you determine the best course of action for you and your heirs. Analytical reports are provided to help you understand the financial impact of each concept.

Retirement Distribution Planning

You are provided with analytical information necessary to make informed decisions on your retirement. We determine the proper amount of money you need to withdraw from your various plans in order to prevent outliving your income, and also, determine when, from a tax standpoint, your withdrawals should begin. This service coordinates with estate and legacy planning to make sure that the wealth left over for survivors is the most tax efficient.

Portfolio Tax Management

For those who have a variety of investment accounts, understanding the most tax efficient way to build a portfolio can be difficult. Often, investors have completely lost touch with the taxation issues of their various investments. Perhaps the only thing you see is that your total tax bill on your investments continues to increase annually. Our Tax Management Analysis looks into each investment position and the taxes that are being generated, and provides you with a variety of alternatives to help lower the tax bill on your portfolio.

Existing Portfolio Evaluation

We study each and every position in your existing investment portfolio to determine risk and return. We also review the actual performance according to asset class, specific investment style and manager talent so that you have the information you need to make sure your investments are on the right track.

Portfolio Creation & Design

Making future investment decisions on last year’s results is unwise. When you need help positioning your investments going forward, our design service provides you with a custom new portfolio that is matched to your risk tolerance, return expectations, and personal goals and objectives. Designed to coordinate with your plans through retirement, you are provided with the mix of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash equivalent investments that fit your profile. You will know which positions to own and why.

Asset Protection Planning*

Protecting your assets from creditors and the potential liabilities that exist in today’s marketplace is necessary to preserve the wealth you have worked hard to accumulate. Where to live and how to structure ownership of investments is also important for those who may have future events that will create large tax bills. Our Asset Protection Planning explores the current tax environments of residency in various states, the use of trust arrangements that provide asset protection in different state jurisdictions, and ownership transfers to provide insulation of your assets from liability suits or creditors.

* Asset protection plans should be developed and implemented well before problems arise. Due to the fraudulent transfer laws, asset transfers that occur close in proximity to the filing of a lawsuit or bankruptcy can be interpreted by the court as a fraudulent transfer. Proper structuring of these assets is imperative please seek proper legal and tax advice prior to engaging in re-titling/structuring of any assets. Please note that laws are subject to change and can have an impact on your asset protection strategy.

Wealth Accumulation Planning

As you evaluate your potential for accumulating funds to allocate to your investments, it is important to know which type of accounts fit best with your financial plan, and how to title them. Tax-qualified, tax-free, tax-deferred, tax favored, and taxable plans are studied to determine where new money should flow. In addition to proper diversification, care is given to position assets in a way to take advantage of the step up in basis allowed for assets transferred at death, minimizing taxes to the next generation.

*To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS under Circular 230, we inform you that any U.S. Federal tax advice contained in this communication, unless otherwise specifically stated, was not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (1) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (2) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any matters addressed herein.

Our Mission As Advisors

To make sure that all of the children still love each other and want to stay together as a family, enjoying holidays and family events, after Mom and Dad are gone.

To assure that the family estate transfers to where it will continue to grow for future generations and not be wasted on taxes or those who will misuse it.

To position the company for long-term success, after the founders are gone, so that the employees and their families do not suffer due to layoffs, closings and consolidation. The community impact can be devastating.

Provide opportunity for young leaders to rise to senior-level positions and have the incentive of participating in the financial growth of the business, if they perform, which can include possible ownership as others retire.