Our firm strives to provide quality advice and guidance when it comes to tax issues, regulations, and finances, with a holistic view of the client’s financial picture, goals, and resources. In the past year, we have gone even further to ensure we are seeing the whole picture — we’ve created a partnership with a Spoor Law and Sagace Wealth.
This means that a client can have a meeting with their wealth advisor, their accountant, and their lawyer at the same time. With the client communicating effectively with all three firms, we are able to create a comprehensive plan for dealing with challenges or taking advantage of opportunities.
To figure out if working with a lawyer, accountant, and wealth manager with an integrated approach is for you, we’ve addressed the topic from all three perspectives. Below, you’ll see questions answered by Dodd Disler, CEO of Sagace Wealth, Rusty Spoor of Spoor Law, and Steve Bunch, an SBF partner. If you want to learn more about our integrated services approach, email us at info@sbfcpa.com. No matter who you work with for your professional services, though, we believe it’s important that your CPA, attorney, and wealth advisor are communicating with one another regularly and looking holistically at your financial picture.
Why do you think it’s so important for someone to have their attorney, accountant, and wealth manager in the same room?
- Dodd Disler – The three are interrelated, and coordinated execution is critical for effectively realizing the planning benefits. To use a football analogy, imagine a great quarterback, wide receiver, and offensive line, but none of the three are looking at the same playbook. It is only through coordinated execution that these players can score touchdowns and win games. For many high net worth clients, the majority of income is from investments, and the largest annual expense is income tax. Doesn’t a coordinated approach to optimizing these seem like a wise financial move?
- Rusty Spoor – A client’s total financial picture involves accounting, investing, and legal, and any plan implemented in any of these areas is most effective when all three professionals are on the same page. If all three are involved from the beginning, the odds of anything getting lost in translation are greatly minimized. Further, each professional brings their own set of skills to the table and, as they say, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.
- Steve Bunch – From my perspective, a coordinated approach is all about creating legacy wealth. If you are a business owner, your CPA and attorney can help you set up and grow the business that is the source of the wealth and protect that business from external and internal risks. Along the way, a financial advisor can help the owners plan for retirement and a business exit or succession. The business exit/succession plan is where the real value of a coordinated approach comes into play. The hardest thing about wealth is not attaining it, but preserving it for generations to come. Our coordinated approach helps ensure the wealth you created passes on to multiple generations of your family.
What kinds of clients does this model best serve?
- Dodd Disler – Nearly anyone with an investment portfolio can benefit, but high net worth clients with liquid assets greater than $1 million would have the most to gain. We find that business owners also typically have a more complicated financial picture that can benefit from our approach.
- Rusty Spoor – Any client with investable assets would benefit from this model. The more complicated a client’s financial picture becomes, the greater the benefits of this model.
- Steve Bunch – I agree with both Rusty and Dodd, business owners likely have the most to gain from the coordinated approach because they typically have more complex needs from a legal, accounting, and financial advisory standpoint.
When you think about a business owner coming out of a rough 2020 but looking forward to a good 2021, what kinds of topics do you think it would be important to talk about with all three professionals?
- Dodd Disler – We are finding that a number of business owners are considering the sale of their business, which may be a result of the recent unpredictability of the economy. In this situation, it is imperative that all three professionals work together to maximize not just the transaction value, but also the after-tax proceeds. Further, a liquidity event like this creates good estate planning opportunities.
- Rusty Spoor – The legal and tax changes which will inevitably come about during 2021 will be best handled by a team approach. Clients should be kept informed of any stimulus that may be available to them as well as tax law changes and opportunities that may come about with the new presidential administration.
- Steve Bunch – One of the biggest topics will undoubtedly be what tax changes are on the horizon and how do we prepare for those. Again, coordination between the attorney, CPA, and advisor here is key. With that coordinated approach, the CPA can communicate those changes to the attorney and advisor and then, as a team, we can look at our clients’ financial picture globally and help them meet their financial goals while minimizing their taxes. I also think equity investing will be interesting in the coming year, and having a professional advisor with a solid, custom-built portfolio and good financial planning skills will be key.
What kinds of opportunities are missed when someone meets with their accountant, attorney, and wealth manager separately and the three professionals are never in the same room?
- Dodd Disler – The biggest opportunity cost of separate professional services is efficiency. Without integrated services, a client has to coordinate among professionals and be the conduit for a lot of technical information, which slows down the process. It also creates additional cost, because each service provider is billing for separate time to discuss the same matter.
- Rusty Spoor – I agree that efficiency is the greatest benefit of a team approach. When a client meets separately with their CPA, advisor, and attorney, this is the most inefficient use of the client’s and professionals’ time. Further, things discussed at one meeting may not get mentioned at future meetings or may get lost in translation, leading to missed opportunities.
- Steve Bunch – For me, it’s execution. I have a client who had some estate planning done in 2005 that required coordination with his CPA and advisor to ensure it was properly executed. This client came to our firm in 2017. For 12 years, there was no coordination between the attorney who crafted the plan, the CPA filing the tax returns, and the advisor handling the investments. Without getting mired in the details, that client lost the opportunity to get some significant long-term tax savings during those previous 12 years—and it was all because of a lack of coordination and execution.
What piece of advice can you give for investors and business owners as they look into their financial future?
- Dodd Disler – Make sure you have a financial plan, and meet with your service providers to confirm whether you are on track. From an investment perspective, the vaccine release should lead to a return to normalcy for the economy and continued performance of the equity markets. However, some aspects of our lives and the economy are changed forever. So, work with your financial advisor to make sure you have adapted to the new normal.
- Rusty Spoor – All clients should ensure that their financial plan, estate plan, and tax planning are reviewed regularly to ensure they are still on track and do not need adjustments. An integrated team approach ensures that there are multiple people looking over a client’s plan from different angles.
- Steve Bunch – Even more than hurricanes or inflated real estate bubbles, the pandemic taught us all to be prepared. You need to be prepared in your financial life as much as in your personal life. That means getting a team of coordinated, seasoned professionals, whose sole purpose is helping you create a financial plan, keep as much of what you earned as you can, and protect it for generations.