r/CFP

I’m having a hard time finding the right answer for this so putting this out there to see if anyone can help.

I have a client that passed away who owned a non-qualified annuity. One of the beneficiaries of the annuity is a special needs trust for the owners daughter.

When the contract owner died, this special needs trust became irrevocable. The annuity must be paid out to the trust either as a lump sum or the five-year deferral. No partial distributions allowed. The payment is made directly to the trust.

There is approximately $20,000 worth of gain in the annuity per beneficiary. While I know that it’s not a tremendous amount of gain, with the condensed trust tax brackets, the tax can add up and be significant.

I’m trying to find out if there is a way to have the gain be taxed at the individual federal level as opposed to the trust federal level.

If we take the lump sum payment and put it into a trust and then distribute the growth and use that for the benefit of the beneficiary for things that government benefits will not cover, will that make the gain be taxed at the individual level?

I do not want to cause harm to the benefits that the special needs trust beneficiary is receiving, and I know income can affect that. The trust distribution would be paid to places that would supplant the government benefits such as a new couch out for dental work their insurance will not cover. But the tax document would still show it being distributed to the beneficiary.

I hope this made sense. Am I missing something on this? Am I thinking about this correctly? I feel like the full amount of the distribution from the annuity is considered principal, and only the income generated, and then distributed would be taxed at the individual rate. I feel like there’s no way to avoid the trust tax rate in this situation.

Any help would be wonderful.

I am curious if any advisors working with higher net worth clients have had success soliciting their business from LinkedIn interactions and if the paid version of LinkedIn is worth it. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

I have a group of about 25 clients that have 457’s that have the Schwab PCRA option. I’m looking at it for them as their 457 fees are about 1.5%. PCRA annual fee is $50 plus say .1-.15% expense ratio. Does anyone know the process if I can be added on as the advisor and also if you’re allowed to charge fees? I’m at IBD if that matters.

What would you do differently, knowing what you know now?

What would you never do again?

I currently work in a bank environment and do a mix of advisory and brokerage business with consistent planning done for clients interested.

I've generally gave the plan for "free" but made money via advisory.

I'm contemplating adding an option for a one-time planning fee for prospects not interested in investment management.

My problem is that on first appointments I'm usually providing some advice immediately to poke holes and show value. Feels like I almost need to not "reveal" too much but enough that they're comfortable paying a few thousand for a meeting/analysis.

How do you approach the conversation with prospects, and it would be especially helpful if you're in the bank environment as those introductions aren't always people ready to pay for advice.

Edit: Bank is on-board, I'm currently testing the actual process

Curious to see if there are any ADHD advisors out here and how they manage the fast pace day to day environment. Medicated or non-medicated welcome

I’ve got an opportunity to buy a book of around $100M generating around $400k revenue across maybe 100 clients from a retiring solo advisor. Would be partnering with another advisor who also owns his own firm to buy the book.

For those who’ve done acquisitions in the past, what worked well? What didn’t? Anything that’s a red flag or hard no?

Last year, I left a very litigious bank to go independent. After having my agreement reviewed by an attorney, I was advised that my contract included a pretty broad no-contact provision, direct or indirect, and that it was enforceable. I took his advice and have been very careful about respecting it.

If you've gone independent, you know there are former clients you were extremely close with and others where you're not quite sure where their loyalty lies, or frankly, whether they're a snitch 😂.

For those "unknowns," what was your strategy once your restriction expired?

1. How did you reach out? Did you reach out directly? Send a general announcement? Connect on LinkedIn? Use some other soft-touch approach?
2. How did you explain the year of silence? Did you proactively address it when you reached out, or just connect normally and explain it if they asked?

Would love to hear how others handled that first conversation after the restriction expired.

Thank you!

A common theme with all clients, no matter who they are or how much or how little money they have is “What happens if/when the market goes down”

We have a hypothetical we share and walk folks through, it goes a little like this:

I want to show you guys here this investor. In 2007, they had $1M in cash and turned 65. They were sitting in the same seat as you and we helped them invest all their cash into a 60/40 investment portfolio. They were a simple couple and they wanted to spend $80k a year in retirement. So, on that day in 2007, they retired, and began taking $40k out of their investments a year, plus received $40k in SS.

Can you tell me what happened in 2008 Mr and Mrs Smith?

We then hand them the hypothetical sheet folded in half. Show them that they had a little less than $700k at the end of 2008. What do you think they were feeling at that time?

Now Mr and Mrs Smith, if they sold their investments in about 15 years they run out of money.

Stay with me here, let’s follow this chart. No one went back to work, they didn’t spend less money, where were they at in 2009.

And by 2013 (the end of the folded in half paper) they are at $1M.

Now with out flipping over the paper. Can you guess how much $ these clients have invested today?

$1.7M. Still retired, and drawing off it, still invested.
Now, since they’ve been withdrawing 40k a year, today, they’ve taken out just shy of $1M from that portfolio.

Mr and Mrs Smith. The market will go down. It’s going to feel like it’s different this time. We are here to help you stay the course.

It’s an extremely eye opening conversation for our bread and butter clients. 401k millionaires and diligent, hard working savers. 😁

Hey all! How is everyone showing their appreciation for when a current client refers someone new to you? We don’t have a great system in place and we’re looking for ideas to show our appreciation. Letters, phone calls, gifting, etc. Thank you!

Posting this because I’m trying to figure out whether anyone has encountered this specific type of scheme before.

Someone I know has been dealing with a person who claims to have access to significant tax credits connected in some way to REMICs (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits). The basic story is that these “credits” have substantial value and can somehow be transferred, deposited, monetized, or otherwise processed through a bank/account.

I work at a big bank, but this is well outside anything I’ve ever encountered in legitimate banking or investing, and virtually every part of it has set off alarm bells for me.

The person promoting it has provided various documents and explanations that make the transaction sound sophisticated and legitimate, with references to REMICs, tax credits, banking procedures, attorneys/professionals, etc. But I have not been able to identify a normal mechanism where an individual would receive some transferable REMIC-related “tax credit” and then deposit or monetize it through a bank in the manner being described.

My concern is that this is essentially an advance-fee or fake-financial-instrument scam dressed up in complicated tax/banking terminology. I have specifically told the person involved not to send anyone money until the underlying asset/credit and transaction can be independently verified.

A few questions for anyone in tax, banking, structured finance, or fraud:

Have you ever encountered a legitimate financial product or transaction resembling this?

Are there actually transferable/monetizable “REMIC tax credits” that an individual could receive and process through a bank?

Has anyone seen scams specifically using REMIC terminology or purported tax credits?

If this is a known scam structure, what usually happens next? Advance fees? “Processing” fees? Taxes that supposedly need to be prepaid? Requests for banking information?

Is there a particular document, IRS form, CUSIP/security record, or other independently verifiable item I should demand that would quickly establish whether the underlying transaction is real?

I’m intentionally leaving out names and identifying information. I’m mostly interested in whether anyone has seen this specific REMIC/tax-credit story before, because searching for it hasn’t turned up much.

Would especially appreciate input from anyone who works in tax law, structured products/REMICs, bank operations, or financial fraud.

Apex Acquisitions was mentioned in a post on this subreddit a year back to mixed responses. Ever since then a series of "users" been spamming the moderators asking to have individual critical responses taken down, asking for the post to be removed, and immitating the original poster to request the post be taken down. I would like to see if anyone else has any thoughts to share about Apex Acquisitions?

We are a two partner firm based in Massachusetts with one employee associate advisor working remotely in another state. Our employee is following their military spouse to Germany for a few years and we really want to keep them around as they are doing are great job. We've had mixed answers from compliance consultants ranging from this is very likely not doable and would trigger all sorts of GDPR and even German securities regulatory oversight to it isn't that big of a deal so long as they aren't holding themselves out as providing investment advice to German residents and the firm isn't soliciting German clients or advertising a branch office in Germany. If anyone has had this issue with a remote employee advisor going abroad and how to make this work, all advice is welcome.

I work in client services for a wire house taking inbound calls. studying for my letters. I just got an opportunity to work for CTI as an internal wholesaler. now i am young. very young. compared to most users on this sub.

i have s7/63. this is going to impact my career trajectory.. while there are a VARIETY of opportunities at my firm, and it’s easy for me to standout for these positions, the pay here is significantly lower than our competitors. good place to retire, not to start.

the CTI position is nearly double what i make now. commission monthly, fixed quarterly. base 70 target min 100.

my question to the sub is- what’s their reputation? outside of CRUX and seligman, what other GOOD products do they sell.

anything i should know about wholesalers? - it’s outbound sales yes- some people won’t wanna hear from us, yes.

Can’t find much about this online.

Are advisors at these firms allowed to choose their own tech stack? Does the firm pay for any of it and/or provide at a discount?

Financial planning ? EMoney or Right Capital?

Note taking? Jump or Zocks or nothing?

Prospecting? Finny or one of the many others

Hi Everybody,

I plan to be doing video testimonials for my CPA practice, and would want to do the same for my RIA. I also would like to be in compliance with the SEC for the video testimonials. If anybody could help shed some light on how to be compliant with the SEC for video testimonials it would be a huge help.

from what i saw so far is that I should avoid it, as the SEC is very very strict.

Edit 1: not sure why is being downvoted for seeking help with a tough area. Tough crowd.

I’m curious if any advisors here have taken their existing book and merged it into a CPA firm that’s building out a wealth management arm that already has some AUM.

The idea being: bring the book, help build and grow the practice together, leverage the CPA relationship/client base, leverage additional planning capabilities with CPA expertise, and ultimately create something where everyone wins financially and clients have better, more holistic experience.

Has anyone actually done this? Would love to hear how it went or how you structured it.

Additional context:

This CPA firm already has some duel CPA/CFPs on staff and they have maybe 10-15m AUM I’m guessing. This is regarding if I were to merge my book with theirs and we grow it and leverage the additional leadflow from the CPA book of clients. Appreciate the insight ahead of time.

Hi all,

How are you using AI? How have you heard of others using AI? What is actually making a difference in your practice?

For background, I'm an independent at Osaic. I am relatively tech-savvy; I have used AI to create/complete some pretty incredible things outside of my professional work. I am struggling mightily to find real use cases as it pertains to my practice.

Automated notetaker, lead list generator, email editor, calendar automation, CRM data entry; Sure, those are all neat and save some time, but they are not exactly practice-altering advances. I understand that our regulatory overhang naturally limits the accessibility/usefulness of this technology, but I strongly feel there are more use cases out there than I currently know of.

Thanks.

Would love to hear your anecdotes - in either direction - about your business development / prospecting successes and failures BEFORE vs. AFTER you got your CFP.

Some people staunchly suggest their CFP opened doors for them.

Others claim it doesn’t matter / never mattered.

What say you?