FINANCIAL PLANNING

Your financial plan will allow you to address the financial issues that are important to you and can help you, your family, or business work toward your financial goals. Your plan can be easily modified when you wish, to keep pace with changing economic conditions and/or changes in your circumstances. What is only needed is your commitment and self-discipline.

I can give you assistance in the following areas:

Cash Management Budgeting and Financial Position Analysis                        This is the most overlooked area of planning; yet, this key area, if well-understood, will make your overall plan reliable rather than based on a “wild guess”. Even a perceived small error in the cash needs can lead to a large shortfall of funds in the future.

Life and Other Insurance                                                                                       I can compute a fairly accurate amount of what you need to have, to cover yourself, your family, or your business, rather than rely on inaccurate formulas. Your individual financial circumstances not just your age or marital status

dictate the amount needed for coverage.

Savings for education                                                                                           It is never too early or too late to plan for education. College financing should be a major concern for parents who contemplate sending their children to college; yet, it is often disregarded until the funds are needed in the near future.

Real estate concerns                                                                                           Should you become a landlord? When should you sell your properties? How will investing in real estate impact your taxes? How large of a mortgage should you take? Should you payoff your mortgage? When are Section 1031 exchanges possible or beneficial?

Investments                                                                                                           How aggressive should you be? What would be a right allocation for you? When should you exercise your stock options? What are the tax consequences of owning Incentive, Non-qualified, Employee-Plans Options? What are the benefits of a Roth IRA versus a traditional IRA? Can you convert from a Roth to a traditional IRA? What about ROIs? I find that many of my clients did not understand the true returns on their investments before we looked together at the performance of their portfolios. Did you know that there are ways you can invest certain portions of your portfolios without paying "management fees"?

How long should you hold a particular investment?

There are countless financial services companies that are trying to get your accounts in order to sell to you their financial products. I will not sell to you financial products nor will I manage your brokerage accounts. I purposely want to remain free of conflict of interest in order to give you the best possible impartial second opinion.

Retirement concerns                                                                                             It is never too soon to think about retirement. It is never too late to review your retirement options in order to avoid costly mistakes. What kind of retirement accounts should you have? How much do you need to retire? It all depends on your current financial circumstances, your potential future earnings, and the lifestyle you wish to have during your retirement years. There is no "one fits all" formula.

Gifting                                                                                                                     There are many ways you can consider gifting without onerous tax consequences.

Estate Planning and Inheritance concerns                                                               Do you have a will? Do you need more than a will? If you need a trust, what type of trust? Protect your family for the future. We can devise distribution strategies that will maximize the preservation of your wealth, minimize taxes, at the least cost possible.

Starting and running businesses                                                                            Will you ever make a profit? What will it take to start a particular type of business? What kind of entity should your business be?  There is much more to planning than you ever fought besides marketing and budgeting. Once the business is going, when should you sell or fold the business?

For High-Net-Worth Clients

You just received a large inheritance; now what to do? You have a large portfolio yet it seems too complicated and you can no longer understand it. Is it time to simplify? Do you have everything in the market and nothing in real estate? Do you have everything in real estate and next-to-nothing in the market? You would like to take advantage of your wealth and share it with the community. What vehicle should you use for your non-profit endeavor? You are worried about safeguarding your assets against lawsuits what should you do? You know that you will leave assets to your beneficiaries and heirs but have no well-thought-out strategy. Should you contact an estate attorney and what should you tell him or her about your family, financial, and tax situations?

Coordination with attorneys

Most of us at one point or another during our lifetime have to deal with attorneys. I am not an attorney and will not practice Law. However, many attorneys do not always take financial or tax considerations in devising instruments or strategies for their clients. This is where my expertise can assist your attorney with making the right decisions.