Cash flow planning

• Quantify and prioritize each financial goal and need.
• Determine how much you can spend on a new house and what type of mortgage you should get.
• Establish feasible savings targets to balance education and retirement.
• Provide modeling of cash flow planning to see the effect of different scenarios and stress tests.

Saving for education

• Establish 529 plans for each child to take advantage of the state tax deduction for each contribution and allow savings to grow tax-free.
• Guide the investment allocation so that the account is positioned to meet the future liabilities.

Retirement planning

• Forecast your retirement portfolio as a function of current savings.
• Explore the trade-offs between current and future spending.
• Maximize your after-tax return using 401(k)’s, SEP IRA’s, and Health Savings Accounts.

Insurance planning

• Determine the appropriate amount of life insurance, avoiding expensive whole life policies when they’re unnecessary in favor of term insurance.
• Discuss need for disability insurance.
• Protect your assets with personal umbrella insurance that covers liabilities which exceed your coverage from other insurance.

Tax planning

• Conduct quarterly tax projections to determine and pay quarterly estimated tax payments.
• Maximize tax deductions related to your small businesses.
• Examine opportunities to accelerate or defer business revenue orexpenses into low or high income years.

Estate planning

• Refer and screen estate plan attorneys.
• Work with you and your attorneys to create wills and powers of attorney, which address issues such as guardianship of your children.
• Draft trusts to more effectively govern the distribution of your estate.
• Update the titling of your assets and the beneficiary designations for your retirement plans and life insurance.
• Meet with the trusted family members whom you chose to be your executors and trustees to build familiarity and trust between them and our team.

Investment planning

• Determine if various investment accounts such as old 401(k)’s, IRA’s, and stock accounts should be consolidated.
• Capture and consolidate daily performance across all your accounts.
• Reallocate investments into a diversified, high-quality, low-cost portfolio.

Cash flow planning

• Build and model your budget, and ensure you have enough cash to meet forecasted outflows, and a cash buffer for unexpected ones.
• Establish additional sources of liquidity, such as a pledged asset line collateralized by your portfolio, that can be tapped in an emergency.
• Determine if large ticket purchases should be financed or paid for in cash.
• Coach your maturing children on budgeting and how to monitor cash flow.

Retirement planning

• Structure the payout of your Deferred Compensation Plan to best match your retirement cash flow needs and minimize future tax liability.
• Determine whether to stay with your existing company pension benefit or move to an annuity.

Insurance planning

• Determine if you should to buy long-term care insurance now, when medical underwriting is favorable to you, and what type of product is best (e.g., stand-alone long-term care or a hybrid life / long-term care policy).
• Make sure you have enough umbrella liability coverage.

Estate planning

• Maximize annual gifting to other sources, such as relatives, and taking advantage of gifts not subject to the gift tax, such as educational expenses.
• Convert some term insurance to whole life in order to have a source of cash during estate settlement so that you won’t have to sell illiquid investment assets.
• Transfer your insurance policies into an irrevocable trust so that the death benefit can pass outside of your taxable estate.
• Facilitate the annual gifting and Crummey Letters that are required for irrevocable trusts.

Investment planning

• Forecast future stock grants and vesting, and create a plan to methodically diversify out of company stock.
• Minimize the tax consequences by selling high-basis and 401(k) shares.
• Counter any negative reputational effect that selling company shares will have by establishing a 10b5-1 plan, which lays out an approved schedule for the sale of company stock.
• Move from mutual funds to separate accounts so you are not exposed to the inflows and outflows of other investors, and the unwelcome capital gains distributions they cause.
• Invest in private funds that pursue alternative strategies, such as distressed debt and private equity, which cannot be effectively exploited in public funds.

Cash flow and retirement planning

• Rollover your 401(k) into an IRA and determine whether you should take the payout from your cash balance plan as an annuity or a lump sum rollover into an IRA.
• Establish a SEP IRA so that you can make tax-deductible contributions while you do part-time consulting. Assist your spouse with their 401(a) and 457 deferred compensation plans when they are elected.
• Address myriad cash flow items as you transition into semi-retirement, such as delaying Social Security until age 70 so that you get a higher benefit and planning for your impending IRA minimum distribution requirements.
• Forecast your semi-retirement budget and initiate automatic portfolio withdrawals to keep your checking account replenished.

Estate planning

• Reduce your taxable estate by making annual exclusion gifts to heirs and make uncapped payments of their medical and educational expenses.
• Convert some IRA assets into a Roth so future distributions to your heirs are tax-free.
• Consider additional sophisticated strategies, such as transferring your business stock into a grantor retained annuity trust or funding an intentionally defective grantor trust.
• Ensure that your plan accounts for evolving variables such as different federal and state exemption amounts, different federal and state estate tax rates, and portability.

Investment planning

• Establish a well-defined dollar-cost-averaging plan to invest a portion of your business sale proceeds into a traditional stock/bond portfolio of mutual funds and separate accounts.
• Invest in private investment funds run by managers with unique and persistent skills that utilize strategies which mesh with your traditional portfolio.
• Keep a portion of the portfolio in safe, liquid investments that maintain your purchasing power while serving as a ready source of liquidity to fund liabilities such as living expenses and capital calls.
• Implement a long-term investment strategy for the assets that will be passed on to future generations.

Tax planning

• Manage the tax implications from the sale of the business by spreading out the realization of gains over time or funding charitable gifts with the low-basis shares of the acquirer’s stock.
• Use 1031 exchanges to acquirer new rental properties without paying c tax.
• Use 1035 exchanges to get rid of old annuities for better products without paying tax.
• Analyze the trade-offs of changing residency to the state in which your second home is located.

Insurance planning

• Advise on signing up for traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage (plans offered by private companies) and on purchasing a Medigap policy.
• Determine is permanent life insurance is needed to minimize the risk that your estate administrator needs to sell assets in a down market to pay for estate taxes and expenses.
• Evaluate your long-term care insurance to determine if premium increases can be offset by adjusting policy parameters.

Saving for education

• Use 529 plan contributions to pay for your own continuing education at a local community college.

Tax planning

• Arrange for neutral valuations of illiquid assets so that the value of your estate is clear and heirs have less incentive to contest.
• Sell assets with large unrealized gains to avoid a step down in tax basis.
• Complete tax returns adjacent to the estate, such as 1041’s for trusts, and 709’s for gifts that exceed the annual exclusion.
• Work with your attorneys to complete the form 706 estate tax return and address key questions, such as the alternative valuation date.

Retirement planning

• Convert some traditional IRA assets to Roth accounts during your lifetime, effectively making an extra “gift” to your heirs by paying the tax liability instead of passing it onto them.
• Determine at death which IRA’s should be rolled into spousal IRA’s and which should immediately be passed into inherited IRA’s.
• Designate a trust as the IRA beneficiary where appropriate in order to prevent needless premature distributions.

Insurance planning

• Transfer ownership of life insurance policies into an irrevocable trust so the death benefits are excluded from your taxable estate.
• File annual tax returns, such as a 1041 trust return and 709 gift tax return, related to the irrevocable life insurance trusts.
• Work with trustees and attorneys to properly administer the trusts (e.g., Crummey Letters) so that the IRS doesn’t demand that the death benefit be included in your taxable estate.

Investment planning

• Manage the estate’s investments during the lengthy administration process to ensure they are not negatively affected by the current market situation.
• Offer our services as a fiduciary advisor to the trustees and heirs to help them make sound and informed decisions.

Cash flow planning

• Forecast the estate’s expenses and create a budget in light of income and assets in order to ensure there is enough liquidity to cover the costs without encumbering illiquid assets.
• Document and pay estate-related expenses, clearly explaining their nature to the beneficiaries so as to minimize the potential for conflict.

Saving for education

• Establish successor owners on the grandchildren’s 529 plans so the accounts are properly administered when you pass on.
• Continuously fund 529 plans for heirs during your life because these assets are not part of your taxable estate.