Art Werner: The Hidden Perk Most Miss | Quick Tax Tip
The retirement planning hack can be a secret weapon for tax-free growth.
Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today
PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING
David Podell: Build Net Worth in Retirement Planning | The Concierge CPA
“If you’re not putting your clients into retirement plans, you’re missing one of the biggest value-adds in tax advisory.”
This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by CPA Trendlines Pro Membership, Where Accounting Pros Go Pro – See Today’s Special Offer
Click to subscribe anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), Boomplay (Africa), or RSS.
The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines
In a recent episode of The Concierge CPA, host Dr. Jackie Meyer welcomes back David Podell, CEO and founder of Business Benefits Consultants, for a deep-dive on retirement strategies that are often overlooked by small business owners, CPAs, and even seasoned financial professionals.
Kicking off with sharp-witted tax news, Meyer touches on IRS free file expansions, refund reductions, and the hiring of thousands of new auditors—before jumping into a topic that directly connects tax strategy to future financial health: retirement planning.
Podell, with more than two decades of experience designing retirement plans, returns to emphasize a crucial point: “If you’re not putting your clients into retirement plans, you’re missing one of the biggest value-adds in tax advisory.”
David Spence: Build a Tax-Free Retirement | The Concierge CPA
Explore the rising threat of national debt, future tax hikes, and how Americans can prepare.
This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by “TurboCharge Your Profits: How to Thrive in the New Economy,” by Frank Stitely, CPA, CVA – See Today’s Special Offer
Click to subscribe anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), Boomplay (Africa), or RSS.
The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines
The U.S. is hurtling toward an economic reckoning, and most Americans are dangerously unprepared. That’s the warning delivered in the latest episode of The Concierge CPA podcast, where host Jackie Meyer sits down with financial planning expert David Spence, CPA, CFP, CLU, PFS, to unpack how today’s economic decisions could impact tomorrow’s taxpayers.
Spence’s message is clear: history shows that skyrocketing national debt leads to one inevitable outcome—higher taxes. “After World War II, with debt at 120% of GDP, top tax rates soared to 94%,” Spence explains. “Today, we’re at 130% of GDP, and we’re already paying massive interest on our debt—more than we spend on defense.”
FORM 5329
Major Penalty Changes Involving Failure to Take Timely Required Minimum Distributions from Retirement Accounts (Including IRAs)
Click here to Buy Now | Learn More
Art Werner: Unlock Smart Giving Strategies | Quick Tax Tip
Make the most of financial contributions.
Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today
It’s Time to Fix the Problem of QTIPs and LLCs
Goldberg urges the IRS to address new state laws that pose a threat to the QTIP marital decuction.
By Seymour Goldberg, CPA, MBA (Taxation), JD
The Practitioner’s Guide to the IRA Distribution Rules under the SECURE Act
Lately, some clients and others have inquired about transferring their ownership in limited liability companies to trusts for estate planning and asset protection. I cautioned them that doing so could lead to complex tax and legal problems. To address this, I recently made a formal request to the IRS for guidance on a unique situation.
Read Goldberg’s Revenue Ruling Request Here (PDF, 5 pages.)
Be the Flywheel to Increase Revenue
“This will be the largest transfer of wealth the nation has ever seen in such a short period of time.”
By Rory Henry, CFP®, BFA
Rory Henry is a Director at Arrowroot Family Office and host of the Wealth Management Forward podcast. He can be reached to discuss ways to integrate financial planning into your practice through the CPA Partnership program at (310) 566-5865 or at rory@arrowrootfamilyoffice.com.
The financial advice business is undergoing significant change, particularly in the accounting and wealth management sectors. The arrival of private equity firms, combined with the rise of M&A and rapid advancements in technology, has shifted the landscape considerably. While these changes are unsettling to some practitioners, I view them as opportunities.
MORE: Four Core Principles for Elite Wealth Management | Why You Need a Team of Experts | Why a Virtual Family Office? Why Now? | Is Your Client’s Umbrella Big Enough? | Your Client’s Instincts Are Wrong | Preserving Wealth Is a Different Mindset | Three Approaches to Investment Consulting
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
In many ways, a CPA is a flywheel at the center of the financial advisory engine. All the other providers and advisors rotate around the CPA, and together they build momentum as the firm expands its offerings and as the advice engine gains speed and confidence.
Transferring Business Interests to Optimize Estate Taxes
Strategic estate planning could save your clients millions.
By Anthony Venette, CPA/ABV
We stand at the precipice of the largest wealth transfer in American history. Millions of business owners are struggling to write the next chapter of their companies and their legacies. Prudent gift and estate tax planning can be the difference between creating generational wealth and squandering it. Gifting privately held business interests to a child or children can be an effective and tax-efficient way to maximize wealth transfer and achieve legacy planning goals.
MORE: Enhance Wealth by Mitigating Taxes | Your Client’s Instincts Are Wrong | Preserving Wealth Is a Different Mindset | Three Approaches to Investment Consulting | Cashing Out: Your Business Clients’ Five Big Issues
That being said, many business owners are unaware of the benefits of gifting interests in their businesses rather than cash. Here are four important reasons why gifting business interests can be advantageous:
IRS Processing Returns as Fast as It Gets Them
Refund numbers up 20+ percent, but average amounts still down.
By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research
Has the Internal Revenue Service been bingeing NASCAR videos? The agency put the pedal to the metal in processing individual income tax returns, with an incredible current rate of 99.8 percent.
MORE: Only 39% of Tax Returns Filed by Pros | Tax Season Opens with Refunds Up 85%
As of Feb. 17, the latest data available, the IRS had received 36.9 million individual income tax returns, up 2.6 percent from the same period in 2022, and processed 36.8 million of them, up 9.9 percent.
READ MORE →
Where to Next? We Have Apps for That.
Use these apps to plan your next vacation on the cheap.
By Beth Ziesenis
App of the Week
Has going back to work after the holidays already got you in the mood to take off work? The last Tuesday of January is National Plan for Vacation Day, so it’s a perfect time to plan the perfect trip.
MORE APPS of the WEEK: Make Your Computer a Clean Slate | Recycle and Repurpose Old Devices | Enlist AI for More Productive Meetings | Keep Teams on Task with Project Management Apps | Apps to Put Your Affairs in Order | App of the Week: Celebrate Black Business Month | App of the Week: Cheap Flights | Help Your Clients Save Money | Time to Upgrade Your Spreadsheets | App of the Week: Secretly Stash Cash | Easy Apps for Increasing Client Engagement with Video | App of the Week: Grow Your Business Knowledge and Career Skill Sets | App of the Week: Upgrade Your Resume | App of the Week: End Procrastination |
SEE ALL: Apps of the Week here |
Actually, those of us with wanderlust probably spend a fair amount of time on travel apps, specifically hoping to find that too-good-to-be-true dream trip. Here are two of my favorites.
The Life Insurance That Your Firm Needs
Guarantee funding when your business needs it the most.
By Russ Alan Prince
Your $5 Million High-Net-Worth Practice
There are times because of death when key people in a company are lost. Key person life insurance provides funds to a business to address the financial losses that can occur when a key person dies.
MORE: Why You Need a Team of Experts | Why a Virtual Family Office? Why Now? | Is Your Client’s Umbrella Big Enough? | Your Client’s Instincts Are Wrong | Preserving Wealth Is a Different Mindset | Three Approaches to Investment Consulting
Revenue losses can be offset, and money can be tapped to help ensure the business remains viable and doesn’t fail – for example, to find a replacement or train someone to take the job of the key person who died.
This is almost always the most cost-effective approach. Additionally, key person life insurance pretty much guarantees the money required will be available when needed.
Stop Selling and Start Discovering
Discover how not selling produces better business.
By Russ Alan Prince
Your $5 Million High-Net-Worth Practice
Selling is persuasion. It’s convincing someone – prospects and clients – that they should engage you for your services.
MORE: Create Family Dynasties and Add Value, ROI | Four Core Principles for Elite Wealth Management | Is Elite Wealth Management Right for You? | Wanna Know What Clients Say About You? | Why Accountants Fail at Wealth Management
As an accountant, you have a set of expertise and selling is about getting others to hire you for your expertise. However, a much more powerful way for you to grow your accounting practice is by not selling.
Allow me to explain.
Build Your High-Performing Family Office Practice
Make your firm indispensable to elite clients.
By Russ Alan Prince
If you have an elite wealth management practice, you might want to “upgrade” to a family office practice.
MORE: Enhance Wealth by Mitigating Taxes | Your Client’s Instincts Are Wrong | Preserving Wealth Is a Different Mindset | Three Approaches to Investment Consulting | Cashing Out: Your Business Clients’ Five Big Issues
Self-proclaimed family office practices are multiplying at an incredible rate. For a great many financial and legal professionals, professing to have family office practices is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
As there is no “official” definition of a family office practice, anyone can say they have a family office practice irrespective of the expertise they can deliver. Today, family offices are being described in all sorts of ways.
But, when you get right down to it, a family office is a very simple concept: “A family office is an expert coordinator of expertise that optimizes the lives of family members.”