Imagine cashing in your investment earnings only to find you’ve triggered an unexpected tax bill—one you could have mitigated with better planning. Or how about buying a vacation home without realizing how it will affect your plans for early retirement? These examples highlight why effective wealth management doesn’t neatly separate your cash flow from your taxes or your investments from your retirement plan. Instead, it integrates all these elements into a comprehensive strategy so they work together in harmony to achieve your goals.
You may be nearing retirement and need help shifting from an accumulation mindset to one focused on withdrawal, distribution and replacing your regular income. You want to ensure your money lasts throughout retirement, allowing you to maintain your desired lifestyle. Maybe you’re a partner in a law firm that you’ll need to exit, or perhaps you’re navigating the complexities of equity compensation as a senior executive. A coordinated approach ensures that any financial decision, like investments or tax moves, is taken with consideration for its impact on other areas.
This is where we stand out. With our boutique, high-touch approach, we offer a comprehensive suite of services that brings together financial planning, taxes, estate planning and investment management under one roof. By working with a dedicated advisor who acts as a liaison between specialists, you can be sure that all aspects of your financial life are being handled with care. Let me explain how our firm puts clients first and helps you build confidence in the future of your finances.
Personal tax rates are probably going in one direction: Up.
Core elements of comprehensive wealth management
What goes into a fully connected wealth management plan? Here are the core services we offer at our firm:
Financial planning
Our financial planning services are anchored in a goals-based approach, helping you identify, prioritize and achieve what matters most to you. Through a process of guided discovery, your advisor works closely with you to uncover and articulate your goals, whether they involve short-term plans like luxury travel or long-term ambitions such as a comfortable retirement. From there, we’ll help you design an action plan featuring your short-, medium- and long-term goals, and we’ll review this document at least annually to track progress. Our approach minimizes the anxiety caused by short-term market fluctuations, allowing you to concentrate on what you can control. Your advisor will help you set financial targets and develop a disciplined investment strategy to reach your goals more effectively.
Tax planning
Our in-house tax professionals work closely with your wealth advisor to provide ongoing, year-round, proactive planning and guidance to reduce your tax burden. To develop a customized tax plan, we begin by collecting your most recent tax return and collaborating with your current tax preparer. If you prefer, our team can also directly prepare and file your taxes. Whether you’re considering a liquidity event such as the sale of a property or business or you’re exploring gifting as a tax planning tool, our experts are well equipped to guide you.
Investment management
Our investment philosophy is built on four enduring principles:
- Maximizing risk-adjusted returns after fees and taxes
- Leveraging academic rigor and institutional-quality research
- Driving returns and mitigating volatility through asset allocation and diversification
- Focusing on long-term growth while capitalizing on short-term opportunities
We offer tax-efficient investing, tailored portfolios, tactical allocation shifts and active portfolio management. Outside of your portfolio core of cash, bonds and equities, we also offer access to alternative investments such as private equity and private credit. Depending on your situation, we also provide additional strategies, including direct indexing for personalized portfolios or tax transitioning, individual stocks and bonds, and ESG and responsible investing. If you come to us with a concentrated stock position, we can advise you on diversification strategies.
Estate planning
Our estate, trust and legacy planning services help you sustain your wealth and values for generations. We coordinate with attorneys to assist in document preparation and complex estate planning structures (including trusts) to protect your beneficiaries and ensure your wishes are fulfilled. Our team can help facilitate estate settlement and probate, asset management, tax filings and distributions. We also offer family office services, including family wealth education and wealth transfer strategies. Collaborating with your estate and tax planning team, we can create a philanthropic giving strategy that aligns with your values and minimizes your tax burden. With our firm, you can have confidence that your legacy will be managed according to your vision.
Your dedicated advisor
Can you afford the million-dollar vacation home? Do you have enough to retire? Should you cash out of that investment? Are you underinsured, putting your generational wealth at risk? At our firm, your advisor serves as far more than just a financial expert; they become your personal CFO, trusted confidant and counselor through some of life’s most important decisions. We won’t pass you on to different staff who don’t know your backstory. And we’ll always take the time to fully answer your questions—and listen to your concerns.
Benefits of comprehensive financial planning
It’s easy to overlook the issues that can arise when the elements of your wealth management plan aren’t coordinated. Here are a few ways a comprehensive strategy can benefit you:
Avoid tax ‘landmines’
If you don’t proactively manage the tax implications of your financial plan, you might end up surprised—and not in a good way. For instance, liquidating assets could raise your income and inadvertently push you into a higher tax bracket, while ill-timed Roth conversions might trigger a significant tax bill.
A key consideration is that crossing certain income thresholds can result in higher Medicare premiums, known as the income-related monthly adjustment amount (IRMAA). In 2024, if your income exceeds $103,000 for single filers or $206,000 for married couples filing jointly, you may be subject to these surcharges, which can add hundreds of dollars to your monthly Medicare premiums.1 Helping our clients plan in the years prior to claiming Medicare is a top priority. With thoughtful planning, it’s possible to reduce the amount you pay in premiums, especially for Medicare Part B.
Assessing the inevitable trade-offs of tax decisions can be complex. For example, in some situations it may be beneficial to incur a tax now to lower your burden later. To measure the benefit of any tax move, it’s essential to consider how it aligns with your long-term financial plan, which is something your advisor can help you figure out.
Plan for your legacy
Estate planning and taxes go hand in hand. For example, while a Roth conversion might not provide significant benefits during your lifetime, it could have a substantial impact on your heirs by reducing their future tax burden. Your advisor can walk you through these scenarios, illustrating how strategic planning can benefit both you and future generations. A critical component of this is making sure your financial plan today is robust enough to handle any gifting plans you have for your heirs in the future. And we can help you explore how incorporating charitable giving into your estate plan could reduce estate taxes and preserve more of your wealth for your family and charitable causes.
Work together toward long-term goals
Without a dedicated advisor, you may miss out on the personalized, boutique experience that can make all the difference in achieving your long-term financial goals. When you work with different professionals separately across estate planning, tax strategy and investments, you risk receiving fragmented advice that cannot consider the bigger picture. This lack of coordination can lead to missed opportunities for optimizing your wealth management strategy, and it may even result in decisions that work against your overall goals. In contrast, building a strong long-term relationship with a dedicated advisor allows them to understand your goals and how your plan is progressing toward them. The financial plan that comes from this relationship is the foundation on which all your decisions are made concerning investments, taxes, your estate and more. Any guidance or advice your advisor gives you will align with your long-term plan.
The RWA Wealth Partners experience
When you work with us, you’ll experience a level of personalized service and attention that is tailored to your unique needs. Our boutique approach means that you’ll never feel like just another number; instead, you’ll receive the white-glove treatment typically reserved for clients of much larger firms.
What sets us apart is our ability to provide comprehensive services that are unusual for a firm of our size. We provide access to alternative investments, in-house tax preparation by CPAs, estate planning and equity compensation planning. It’s a full suite of solutions designed to meet your specific needs.
Through our firm, you’ll have direct access to our chief investment officer, portfolio managers, tax team and estate planning professionals—all working together to provide you with the most comprehensive and coordinated advice possible. We embrace technology to enhance our services and provide valuable insights, but we never lose focus on the importance of the human element in wealth management.
At the heart of everything we do is a commitment to helping you achieve wealth with purpose. We understand that your financial aspirations are deeply intertwined with your personal values and passions, and we strive to provide highly personalized advice. Our focus is squarely on you, and we always put your interests first.
Whether your dream is to buy that vacation home, take an international trip with your grandkids or retire early, contact us today to get started on developing a financial plan that gets you there.
Think of the current estate tax breaks as a limited-time offer.
Sources:
- MedicareResources.org. (2024, March 5). What is the income-related monthly adjusted amount (IRMAA)?
- RWA Wealth Partners. (2024, April 2). Interview with Andrew Busa.
Disclosures:
This material is for informational purposes only. Tax, legal and insurance information contained herein is general in nature, is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal or tax advice, or as advice on whether to buy or surrender any insurance products.
Data and statistics contained in this report are obtained from what we believe to be reliable sources; however, their accuracy, completeness or reliability cannot be guaranteed.
