Advisors Trust utilizes a holistic approach to financial planning. Our objective is to help you manage your wealth in a manner consistent with your life goals. Through The Strategic Planning System and our Advanced Choice Technology (ACT) program, we help coordinate your cash flow, income tax, investment, retirement, gift and estate planning. Implementation of the plan is entirely at the discretion of the client.
Domicile
There are many reasons to vacation in Naples – nice weather, golf courses, tennis, boating, friends, or just to get away. Considering the purchase of a second home is a more serious matter. Contemplating a change of domicile is infinitely more complex. In addition to our helpful Changing Domicile Economic Module for high-income clients, it’s imperative to seek the advice of legal and tax professionals. Together we can work through the various tax and logistical decision-making steps.
Cash Flow
Advisors Trust understands that cash flow is at the center of virtually all financial planning projects. Supported by industry-leading state of the art software, our planning program The Strategic Planning System can more accurately project tax-efficient cash flow scenarios and help you organize, analyze and monitor your assets to ensure you’re making consistent progress. In tandem with our Total Return Portfolio Management System, we help you enjoy more consistent revenue to cover ongoing household and travel expenditures and to support family needs through all phases of economic cycles. And through tactical asset harvesting and systematically reducing tax obligations we can help you receive consistently higher net spendable income.
Retirement Assets
Advisors Trust recognizes there are two phases to retirement plan asset management. First, during the accumulation phase we help high-income business owners, physicians and other professionals utilize creative solutions that perhaps they hadn’t studied before to solve restrictive 401(k), Profit Sharing and Pension Plan funding dilemmas. By utilizing our in-depth retirement plan knowledge, you’re likely to enjoy a more robust plan design to fund a more secure retirement through much higher tax-deductible contributions. During the distribution phase we help you coordinate a distribution strategy consistent with your overall financial and investment objectives, satisfying the required minimum distribution rules while simultaneously establishing the framework that would later provide your family the option to take advantage of the “stretch” provisions of the IRC Regulations.
Physicians Module
Doctor, you spend your life helping others. Especially in today’s changing national health care environment, due to reducing reimbursements, changing professional relationships, increasing malpractice insurance costs and increasing taxes, Advisors Trust understands you have a unique set of personal, financial and professional risks. Unfortunately you can’t work any harder than you are now! And ideally you would like having someone to provide services for you like you take care of your patients. Our Physicians Strategic Planning System provides unique investment, financial, insurance, retirement and estate planning solutions just for doctors. For example the Physicians Cash Flow and Asset Report and the Physicians Retirement Analysis are specialized strategies that may also include extra attention to your personal plans for asset protection. We have the expertise and resources to help you create, accumulate and manage your wealth. Being your advocate is at the heart of what we do.
Business Matters
According to the published research of Leon A. Danco, PhD. (“Beyond Survival”) the typical life cycle of an owner-managed business falls into four distinct phases. The Wonder Stage is where the owner often wonders, “How did I get into this mess?” Undercapitalized, overextended, and working seven days a week; most do not survive to reach the Blunder Stage, where big mistakes and 18-hour days become the norm; and the remainder of the failures quit. The Thunder Stage can be recognized when the few surviving businesses thrive, myths develop about the special market niche the fast-growing business controls, and the “secrets” of the business become the hallmarks of success. Ironically, during this stage advisors are desperately needed to begin planning an exit strategy – but the owner(s) distrust advice; they believe they know what’s best for the company, and rely on themselves. The Plunder Stage eventually arrives as the owner(s) lose their appetite for risk and further growth, preferring to keep what they have; the markets shift yet the status quo is maintained at the company. Growth is replaced by stagnation, and is too often followed by an accelerated decline. If the business survives a transition to a second generation, 70% will fail. If instead, the owner(s) embrace the advantages of succession planning, Advisors Trust can help facilitate a successful “CHANGING OF THE GUARD”, for everyone’s benefit and before it’s too late.
Estate Planning
If Estate Planning is your next step, reviewing existing plans requires the active involvement of your estate planning lawyer and your CPA. The rules have changed. Now more than ever, the estate plan becomes an integral component of one’s overall business plans. It should consider your retirement and investment objectives and should also include an insurance policy audit. Working together, tax-efficient strategies and personalized solutions can be explored. Likewise, Advisors Trust suggests “Even though you may only be contemplating a change of domicile, or merely want to develop an income tax reduction plan, or revisit your overall investment strategy, or you’re seeking an evaluation of your trust life insurance; clients should ask their lawyer to review their Estate Plan and new post ATRA (American Taxpayer Relief Act) Estate Planning opportunities”. To help you learn more, this would be an ideal time to utilize our Advanced Choice Technology program (ACT).
Philanthropic Planning
QUERY: What will become of your assets? Estate planning professionals point out that for estates with substantial assets, the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) still permits your family heirs to keep a part of the estate. But they cannot keep the significant portion taxed-away by state inheritance and federal estate taxes. At a 40% federal unified estate and gift transfer tax rate, unless we choose in advance to direct a portion to charities of our choice, substantial taxes will be taken (and government agencies will determine how that portion of your assets will be distributed). Philanthropic planning helps you CONTROL THE TRANSFER OF MORE OF YOUR ASSETS while also helping you avoid multiple layers of taxation during your lifetime. If you want to learn more, included in our planning process you can receive detailed projections illustrating how these available planning tools and strategies could be coordinated to satisfy your personal lifetime cash flow needs, benefit the charitable entities of your choice, and obtain significant tax savings and benefits. The result could be a win/win solution for everyone.