Weekend Reading: Why Most Financial Advisors Do Not Provide Valuable Tax Planning

Posted: 03/25/2022

|Forbes |Tax

This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.

Weekend Reading

Tax planning is just as essential to any comprehensive retirement plan as income planning, legacy planning, etc., and it’s also why our team focuses on tax-minimization strategies as part of our Retire With Purpose™ Framework.

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The reality: You deserve to keep as much of your hard-earned dollars as possible; however, not all advisors possess the tools – or are even allowed by their firms – to offer you tax advice. Some might offer feedback in its simplest form, while others may wait until the end of the year to review Uncle Sam’s impact on your accounts. Bottom line? You should expect more in the realm of tax management, and most importantly, understand what valuable tax planning looks like.

Less is more: As mentioned here, a tax-efficient financial plan prioritizes including “strategies to help you pay the least amount of taxes over your lifetime, not just the current tax year.” In partnership with your tax preparer, your financial advisor should closely analyze all elements of your lifelong savings to keep your overall tax burden at bay, and do so in a proactive manner.

Bottom line: You know you need tax planning. You understand the value as much as your financial advisor, and there’s no doubt in my mind these are the top reasons FAs are leaving “big box broker” outlets in droves for the independent channel.

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