News About IRS And Tax

Wednesday, 4 April 2018

Too Late To Make a Tax Appointment? We Have Other Places You Can File

The April 17th tax deadline is right around the corner. And it’s not too late for all you procrastinators to file your tax returns on time this year. You probably don’t feel like waiting in line at the tax store...

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source https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/tax-planning-2/too-late-to-make-a-tax-appointment-we-have-other-places-you-can-file-33886/

What Does an IPO Mean for Employee Taxes?

With Snap, Inc going public a little over a year ago and Spotify doing a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday without an intial public offering (IPO), we thought it would be a good time to talk...

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source https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/income-and-investments/401k-ira-stocks/what-does-an-ipo-mean-for-employee-taxes-30159/

Why Households With Significant Debt Tend Not To Pay It Down

One considerable challenge for financial planners is often getting clients to focus on the goals we think they ought to focus on from a purely financial perspective, despite the psychological and behavioral biases which may direct their attention elsewhere. For instance, households may overemphasize accumulating assets (when they should be paying down debt), or overemphasize paying down debt (when they should be accumulating assets). To further complicate things, client preferences can sometimes seem to shift in a seemingly confusing manner, leaving financial planners wondering what they missed. However, an interesting line of research points to one seemingly irrelevant factor which can be lurking in the background and influencing how clients perceive their wealth: whether their net worth is positive or negative.

In this guest post, Dr. Derek Tharp – a Kitces.com Researcher, and a recent Ph.D. graduate from the financial planning program at Kansas State University – examines research on how our net worth may influence our perceptions of and preferences for holding assets and debt, and particularly the tendency to prefer having more assets when our net worth is negative, but less debt when our net worth is positive.

Mental accounting is a key concept of behavioral finance, which refers to the ways in which we mentally categorize assets, transactions, and other financial information. In theory, all of our resources should be fungible – dollars are dollars, regardless of what (liquid) account they’re in – but in practice, this is not how we typically behave. A study by Abigail Sussman and Eldar Shafir explores one particular form of mental accounting – the ways we tend to categorize assets and debt based on our net worth. By presenting participants with financial profiles that were equivalent in net worth but varying in the structure of their balance sheets, the researchers found that people tend to prefer having more assets when net worth is negative, but less debt when net worth is positive. For instance, despite the fact that net worth is actually $100,000 in both scenarios, households tend to indicate a preference for having $110,000 in assets and $10,000 in debt over $200,000 in assets and $100,000 in debt. However, if the assets and liabilities in the scenario above were reversed (i.e., net worth was -$100,000), then households would tend to prefer having more assets, even if it means having more debt as well.

And this finding is notable as it has several important implications from a financial planning perspective. For instance, it can help explain why people struggling with debt tend to accumulate assets and not pay down their debt, even if they’re keeping 0.25%-yield savings accounts and 22% credit card interest rates. Additionally, this may be why affluent clients who can afford lots of leverage still want to pay down their mortgage. Which, ironically, may mean that the people who can afford to “prudently” use leverage tend to eschew it, while those who can least afford leverage tend to engage in high-debt-profile behaviors that may actually amplify financial fragility. Further, preferences may seem to shift suddenly, particularly as households pay down student debt and begin to move into positive net worth territory, which may (or may not) align with what they should actually be focusing on. Particularly for those who enter positive net worth territory quickly, there may be an overemphasis on paying down debt relative to saving into investments which may grow at a higher rate in the long-run.

Ultimately, the key point is to acknowledge that seemingly irrelevant factors (such as a household’s net worth) can influence how households perceive their financial situation, the decisions they make as a result, and their willingness to keep accumulating assets (while not paying down the debt) versus liquidating assets to reduce their debt profile as well. As a result, the way we as financial planners communicate with clients and frame these discussions can have a big impact on whether clients do (or do not) ultimately adopt our recommendations. Which means it’s important to understand the factors which may be lurking in the background and influencing client behavior, even if those factors should (in theory) be irrelevant to a client’s behavior!

Tuesday, 3 April 2018

Tres grandes razones para presentar su declaración de impuestos antes de la fecha límite

El plazo para la presentación de impuestos al IRS para la temporada de impuestos 2017 es hasta el 17 de abril del 2018. Y aunque a muchas personas esto no les gusta, tal vez deberían tomar conciencia y presentar sus...

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source https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/tax-planning-2/tres-grandes-razones-para-presentar-su-declaracion-de-impuestos-antes-de-la-fecha-limite-30463/

#FASuccess Ep 066: Turbocharging Inorganic Growth With Outside Capital To Fund Mergers & Acquisitions with Adam Birenbaum

Welcome, everyone! Welcome to the 66th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Adam Birenbaum. Adam is the CEO of Buckingham Strategic Wealth and BAM Advisor Services, a combination of wealth management firm and TAMP platform that oversees more than $30 billion of assets under management.

What’s unique about Adam, though, is that he took over as the CEO of the Buckingham companies just over 10 years ago at the age of just 32, when the company was “only” $6 billion of AUM, and has nearly quintupled its size since then, as one of the youngest CEOs of any major advisory firm.

In this episode, we talk in depth about the Buckingham and BAM growth strategy, particularly on how a major investment by Focus Financial has helped to power the firm’s growth, giving Buckingham access to capital from Focus at 0% interest rates to fund its acquisitions (because Focus ultimately profits from the growth as an owner anyway), and the way Adam and Buckingham have been able to leverage the capital to accelerate their inorganic growth.

We also talk about the actual structure of Buckingham and BAM itself, why Buckingham has chosen to grow offices in multiple locations, how BAM Advisor Services aims to work with advisory firms by providing what they call a “Turnkey Wealth Management Platform” that provides back office services but does not require its advisors to use standardized investment models, and how the company is positioning itself for an increasingly competitive environment with threats from both low-cost robo-advisors and also large financial services firms like Schwab, Fidelity, and especially Vanguard getting into the advisory business.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Adam talks about what it’s like to be the CEO of a $30 billion AUM firm, where he focuses his own time as a leader in the business, and why he believes that strategy is important, but the real determinant of the most successful advisory firms of the future will be all about the firm’s ability to execute, and deliver on the client experience.

So whether you are interested in learning more about using outside capital to fund mergers and acquisitions, how you may be able to utilize a Turnkey Wealth Management Platform in your business, or are simply interested in what it’s like to be a CEO of a $30 billion AUM firm, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!

Monday, 2 April 2018

The Latest In Financial Advisor #FinTech (April 2018)

Welcome to the April 2018 issue of the Latest News in Financial Advisor #FinTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors and wealth management!

This month’s edition kicks off with the big news that former Envestnet executive Lori Hardwick is joining the Riskalyze advisory board, almost 2 years to the day after she left Envestnet (and the end of a likely-2-year non-compete requirement!?), and just as Riskalyze increasingly pivots towards a more holistic advisor platform that puts it on competitive collision course with Envestnet itself… especially if Riskalyze is paired with the next generation advisor dashboard that Hardwick’s own start-up AI (Advisor Innovation) Labs is reportedly creating?

From there, the latest highlights also include a number of interesting advisor technology announcements, including:

Tamarac launches a new QuickStart platform in an attempt to expedite the onboarding process for breakaway brokers who need to get up-and-running quickly;
Orion Advisor Services expands into compliance technology solutions to ease the burden of RIAs for both ongoing compliance oversight and especially the increasingly-frequent SEC examination;
RobustWealth launches its own Direct Indexing solution as Indexing 2.0 becomes the hot advisor technology topic of 2018 (following on the Model Marketplace buzz of 2017!);
Trizic raises a $10M Series A round to accelerate the growth of its robo-advisor-for-advisors solutions in the bank channel, building on its partnership with FIS.

Read the analysis about these announcements, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, in this month’s column, including “document automation” provider Conga acquiring Orchestrate and Process Composer to compete with LaserApp and DocuPace on the Salesforce platform with large advisory firms, former TD executive Tom Bradley joins the advisory board of MaxMyInterest as advisor interest grows (no pun intended!) in helping clients get better yields on cash than what RIA custodians typically provide, Advizr lifts out four Morgan Stanley executives to scale up its financial planning software solution in the small broker-dealer and insurance agent marketplace (where it’s about not just the software itself, but practice management training to help them transition for salespeople to advisors), and Blueprint Income launches a new tech solution aiming to deliver Deferred Income Annuities directly to consumers as a means to build their own “Personal Pension” plans with ongoing systematic monthly contributions.

And be certain to read to the end, where we also highlight the launch of Joel Bruckenstein’s new “Virtual Exhibit Hall” that aims to not only be a comprehensive directory of advisor technology but also an advisor review site of technology solutions, and a first look at 55IP, a new investment proposal generation solution (that also aims to help facilitate portfolio implementation on the back end)!

I hope you’re continuing to find this new column on financial advisor technology to be helpful! Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!

*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to TechNews@kitces.com!

Sunday, 1 April 2018

No Fooling Us: 5 Tax Benefits to Boost Your Tax Refund

The article below is accurate for your 2017 taxes, the one that you file this year by the April 2018 deadline. Tax information below will change next year for your 2018 under the new tax law effective on your 2018...

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source https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/tax-deductions-and-credits-2/no-fooling-us-these-5-tax-benefits-really-can-boost-your-tax-refund-2-22634/