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MailBag: Can You Relocate As A Financial Advisor Without Giving Up Your Existing Advisory Firm Clients?

February 26, 2015 07:01 am 15 Comments CATEGORY: MailBag

Many readers of this blog contact me directly with questions and comments. While often the responses are very specific to a particular circumstance, occasionally the subject matter is general enough that it might be of interest to others as well. Accordingly, I will occasionally post a new "MailBag" article, presenting the question or comment (on a strictly anonymous basis!) and my response, in the hopes that the discussion may be useful food for thought.

In this week's MailBag, we look at the issues to consider if you want to change where you live, but are concerned about whether the relocation means you'd have to sever all your existing client relationships and "start over" or not. Fortunately, the answer is that while not all clients be willing to stick through you in a transition, today's technology tools make this more feasible than ever before, and the key is to start interacting with your clients more virtually now, so that by the time you actually move it won't be such a big deal anymore!

The Problem With Naming A Trust As The Beneficiary Of An Annuity, And Using A Beneficiary Designation With Restricted Payout Form As An Alternative

February 25, 2015 07:01 am 23 Comments CATEGORY: Annuities

Retirement accounts and annuities used as accumulation vehicles can create significant tax-deferred account balances over time, with the caveat that eventually the tax bill must still come due. If the accounts are liquidated during life, the account owner faces the tax consequences; if the accounts are held until death, the tax liability falls to the beneficiaries instead. To help ameliorate the potential for a large liquidation to thrust the beneficiary into higher tax brackets after the death of the owner, Congress created the “stretch” rules for retirement accounts and annuities that allow distributions to be taken in small amounts over the life expectancy of the beneficiary.

However, the rules for stretching an inherited account are more problematic in the case of a trust as the beneficiary, because a trust is not a living breathing human being, and therefore doesn’t have a life expectancy to stretch against! In the case of retirement accounts, the IRS and Treasury have created the “see-through” trust rules that allow post-death required minimum distributions to occur based on the life expectancy of the underlying trust beneficiaries. However, in the case of annuities, no see-through trust rules exist, compelling trusts to instead liquidate inherited annuities over the far-less-favorable 5-year rule!

As a result, consideration of whether to use a trust as the beneficiary of an annuity must weigh the adverse tax consequences against the favorable/desired non-tax provisions of the trust. In some situations, using an annuity’s own beneficiary designation with “restricted payout” may be a viable alternative, saving on both the cost of the trust itself and preserving the stretch. However, in situations where it is most important to limit a beneficiary’s access to a trust – such as irresponsible spendthrifts, asset protection, and estate planning scenarios – there may be little choice but to accept the less favorable tax treatment, at least until/unless the rules change!

Takeaways From The T3 Advisor Technology Conference: PFM Portals, Dashboards, And Robo-Advisor-For-Advisors Platforms

February 23, 2015 07:01 am 18 Comments CATEGORY: Conferences

Celebrating its 10^th year as an event, this year’s Technology Tools for Today (T3) advisor technology conference was the biggest ever, punctuated by a stream of major product launch announcements at the conference itself, and buzzing about the literally billions of dollars of merger and acquisition activity for advisor technology firms in the two weeks leading up to the conference.

The breakout categories at this year’s event included several new “Personal Financial Management” (PFM) tools for advisors to work collaboratively with their clients, including the launch of EMX Select from eMoney Advisor (which, finally, will be “unbundled” from their financial planning software!) and a new solution called “Narrator” from Advicent (maker of NaviPlan and Financial Profiles). Also highly visible at this year’s T3 conference were an onslaught of more than half a dozen new “robo-advisor-for-advisors” solutions, all seeking to bring a better technology platform for advisors to build their businesses and automate much of the onboarding and investment implementation with their clients.

Yet underlying the potential efficiency of all these new technology solutions is the ongoing challenge that for many advisors, working with smaller clients isn’t actually a matter of efficiency (which technology can solve), but a marketing problem to get a sufficient volume of those clients in the first place. And while several new technology solutions are aiming to automate more of the advisor marketing process, along with making advisor websites more engaging with a series of “self-help” tools that can get prospective clients interested in actually working with an advisor, the question remains: how many advisory firms have a good enough marketing process to actually leverage these tools in the first place?

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 21-22)

February 20, 2015 03:01 pm 15 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "weekend reading for financial planners" - this week's edition kicks off with two big news announcements, including a new $60M round of venture capital for robo-advisor Betterment that will be used in part to build out its robo-advisor-for-advisors solution Betterment Institutional (with a reported 90 RIAs already using the platform), and a detailed review of Form ADV for the new Schwab Intelligent Portfolios "robo" solution as well that reveals the platform will only be "free" because its 30bps management fee will be covered by the profits Schwab makes on its underlying ETF and bank offerings (including a 7%-30% cash allocation in all portfolios!).

From there, we have several practice management articles this week, including a look at how doing financial planning for Millennials means retooling the advisor's services (and business model?) away from AUM-centric retirement accumulations and towards building "financial independence" instead, an interview with "Reformed Broker" and financial advisor Josh Brown as he approaches 100,000 Twitter follows about how his blog and social media presence helped to build a $170M AUM practice, a look at the importance of effective branding and communications for advisors, and some tips on how to publish an "e-book" to establish your credibility.

We also have a few technology-related articles, from a look at how to better "personalize" and humanize the ways you use technology with your clients, to software reviews for the latest Tamarac iPad app and the newest release of eMoney Advisor's financial planning software (dubbed "EMX").

We wrap up with three interesting articles: the first is a letter from CFP Board chair Richard Rojeck as the organization celebrates its 30-year anniversary, looking back at what has been accomplished and where the CFP Board still sees opportunity from here; the second is a review of the recent new book "The Incredible Shrinking Alpha" by Larry Swedroe looking at how the competition for alpha is fiercer than ever (which makes less and less of it available to capture); and the last is a great reminder that helping clients through the stressful times can be stressful for the advisor as well, so now - while markets are relatively calm - might be a good time to take a "reboot", and make sure you're fresh for when the next inevitable bear market finally comes.

And be certain to check out Bill Winterberg's "Bits & Bytes" video on the latest in advisor tech news at the end, including highlights of the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference, a review of the news that Betterment has raised another $60M of venture capital (in part to support its new service for advisors, but also to expand its capabilities to answer basic financial planning questions), and more!

Proposals For Eliminating Stretch IRAs, Repealing NUA, And The $3.4M Retirement Account Cap In The FY2016 Treasury Greenbook

February 18, 2015 07:01 am 22 Comments CATEGORY: Retirement Planning

Every year, the proposed changes to the tax laws encapsulated in the President’s budget request for the Federal government are recorded in the Treasury Greenbook, which is then taken under advisement by Congress to create its own budget resolution. And while the President’s budget request does not necessarily dictate what Congress will decide to do, it does provide valuable insight into potential legislation that may be considered in the coming months and years.

While some tax proposals in the Greenbook are relatively minor, or pertain to issues not directly relevant to our work as financial planners, this year’s FY2016 budget request had several proposals that would represent major changes in the world of planning for retirement accounts, both during clients’ lives and after they pass away.

Accordingly, following on last week’s review of the “good” and the “bad” of the proposed tax law changes for retirement accounts, we look at some of the “ugly” provisions that could have a more dramatic impact in the coming years, from the possible elimination of stretch IRAs (requiring the 5-year rule for most non-spouse beneficiaries), to a $3.4M “cap” on retirement accounts (though it is actually just a cap on new contributions to retirement accounts), and the proposed repeal of the Net Unrealized Appreciations (NUA) rules for those who were born after 1965!

Best Practices For Advisory Firm Partnerships – It’s Not About Avoiding Conflicts But How You Manage Them

February 16, 2015 07:01 am 9 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in both high-profile acquisitions of advisory firms, and a more general “urge to merge” as the increasing costs of running an advisory firm drive more to seek scale by banding together. Yet while the industry discussion often goes to the favorable results of the biggest mergers with the greatest success, the reality across most industries is that anywhere from 70% to 90% of mergers and acquisitions, and there’s little reason to imagine that advisory firms would be any different… suggesting that at least some of the vaunted benefits of large ensemble practices may be distorted by a significant survivorship bias.

Seeking to explore this issue further, a new industry white paper on “Best Practices in Investment Advisory Partnerships” has delved into what makes advisory firm partnerships work, and what causes them to fail… cultivated from both the experiences of the authors (who themselves were advisory firm owners who went through a problematic merger) and interviews with dozens of advisory firm partners of businesses both large and small.

What emerges from this new exploration of advisory firm partnerships is the idea that in more ways than a few, an advisory firm is like a marriage, where deep trust and a mutual commitment to the success of the relationship is crucial to navigate the inevitable conflicts that will arise over time, and that while every individual and partnership is different to some extent, the triggers of partnership problems are far more consistent than most might expect.

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MailBag: Can You Relocate As A Financial Advisor Without Giving Up Your Existing Advisory Firm Clients?

The Problem With Naming A Trust As The Beneficiary Of An Annuity, And Using A Beneficiary Designation With Restricted Payout Form As An Alternative

Takeaways From The T3 Advisor Technology Conference: PFM Portals, Dashboards, And Robo-Advisor-For-Advisors Platforms

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 21-22)

Proposals For Eliminating Stretch IRAs, Repealing NUA, And The $3.4M Retirement Account Cap In The FY2016 Treasury Greenbook

Best Practices For Advisory Firm Partnerships – It’s Not About Avoiding Conflicts But How You Manage Them

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Live Virtual Event: See How Successful Advisors Are Demonstrating Their Value To Clients and Prospects

Nerd’s Eye View Praise

Showcase YOUR Expertise

Stay In Touch

Questions?