The Services to address life's priorities

Preserving your wealth and maintaining your standard of living are among your highest priorities. Because people are living longer today, the possibility of spending 30 years in retirement requires careful planning and disciplined investing. We can create a plan for monthly distributions from your portfolio designed to preserve your principal. We can also assist you with longevity planning, required minimum distributions, income planning, tax strategies, proper account titling and beneficiaries, multigenerational wealth transfer, charitable giving, and asset preservation and reallocation.

There is more to your life than simple transactions and returns. Similarly, there’s more to financial planning than just a portfolio and a retirement strategy, so we look at planning through a wide lens and develop strategies designed to pursue your short- and long-term goals.

In today’s often complex marketplace, even the most sophisticated investor is challenged to keep up and respond to changing conditions. By utilizing asset allocation strategies and carefully selected money managers across a diverse range of equity and fixed-income disciplines, our goal is to provide you with an institutional-quality portfolio designed to help achieve financial objectives.

Asset allocation does not guarantee a profit nor protect against losses.

Whether it’s providing income for a spouse, educating children or grandchildren or leaving money to your favorite charity, proper estate planning can help ensure that your assets accumulated over your lifetime are protected and preserved for the use you have intended.

Giving cannot only help the organizations you choose, but can also generate personal tax benefits and advance your wealth management plan. We can help you with solutions that include private family foundations, charitable trusts, charitable gift annuities, pooled-income funds and donor-advised funds.

We believe a comprehensive financial plan must consider and prepare for the unexpected – such as accidents, illnesses and disability. Our team helps you think ahead and consider different scenarios, then prepare contingency plans to address them. We understand that while risk cannot be eliminated, it can and should be mitigated. Our risk management services include life insurance, annuities, long-term care, disability insurance and liability insurance.

Funding a child’s or grandchild’s higher education can be a personally rewarding use of your wealth. We can help you provide for this opportunity with investment vehicles such as 529 college savings accounts and specialized trust vehicles.

Earnings in 529 plans are not subject to federal tax and in most cases state tax, as long as you use withdrawals for eligible education expenses, such as tuition and room and board. However, if you withdraw money from a 529 plan and do not use it on an eligible education expense, you generally will be subject to income tax and an additional 10% federal tax penalty on earnings. As with other investments, there are generally fees and expenses associated with participation in a 529 plan. There is also a risk that these plans may lose money or not perform well enough to cover education costs as anticipated. Most states offer their own 529 programs, which may provide advantages and benefits exclusively for their residents. An investor should consider, before investing, whether the investor's or designated beneficiary's home state offers any state tax or other benefits that are only available for investments in such state's qualified tuition program. Such benefits include financial aid, scholarship funds, and protection from creditors. The tax implications can vary significantly from state to state.

If you retire or change jobs, rolling over your retirement assets to an IRA can be a good move. It is a non-taxable event when done properly, gives you access to a wide range of investments, and offers the convenience of consolidating your savings in a single location.

If an objective of your IRA is to provide for your beneficiaries, you may be interested in what are called stretch provisions. These provisions, when written into your IRA plan document, will allow your beneficiaries to take distributions over their life expectancy as outlined in the Internal Revenue Code. Some stretch provisions will allow you to designate second-, third- or even fourth-generation beneficiaries, if life expectancy allows for it.

In addition to rolling over your 401(k) to an IRA, there are other options. We can help you determine which is most suitable for your specific situation. Here is a brief look at all the choices.

Leave money in your former employer’s plan (if permitted)

You may choose to leave your money where it is if the investments offered are to your liking, and there is no additional fee for leaving your money in the plan. (The typical internal expenses still apply.) It is not a taxable event.

Roll over the assets to your new employer’s plan (if available and permitted)

It’s also not a taxable event, and keeping all your money together in one place means you have a larger sum of money working for you. There is also the benefit of convenience. Keep in mind, however, that not all employer plans accept rollovers.

Roll over to an IRA

As discussed above, this is not a taxable event. There is the convenience factor of consolidating your accounts, and you will likely have more investment options. 401(k) plans usually do not have a rollover fee or termination fee.

Cash out the account

This is a taxable event, and, of course, there is also the loss of investing potential. It is even more costly if you are under the age of 59½; in addition to income taxes, there is a penalty of 10%.

You should carefully consider all of your available options and the applicable fees and features of each before moving your retirement assets.

As an entrepreneur, you are probably too busy guiding your enterprise to devote enough time and attention to your own financial matters. We understand. It’s why we’ve developed the specialized expertise to serve as your holistic wealth manager so you can continue uninterrupted with the important business matters at hand.

We’ll take the time to understand your business and your goals and help you address a wide variety of important needs, such as asset preservation, cash flow management, tax planning, estate planning, employee retention, insurance and financing.

As with most business owners and entrepreneurs, your personal wealth is probably intertwined with your company, and you need to have a solid exit plan in place for the eventual transfer of wealth to your personal and retirement accounts.

In addition to our team’s own experience and knowledge, we have access to the resources of Raymond James, one of the country’s leading independent financial services firms. You can enjoy the confidence of knowing you have a single, trusted source for all your financial advice.

We can help you develop, implement and monitor a retirement or benefit plan that suits the needs of your business, as well as those of your employees. In addition, we can provide valuation analyses for businesses and ESOPs, as well as help you find appropriate insurance coverage for your company. For business owners seeking the most appropriate exit strategies, we can help you value your business, assess the tax implications and position your company for sale.