Cash Flow Planning Strategies To Maximize Your Wealth
Consider what living a life aligned with your goals and values might look like. Maybe it’s taking that dream trip to Italy, helping your kids
How To Maximize Your Social Security Benefits as a High-Net-Worth Individual
You spend your entire working life paying into Social Security, so you want to make the most of your benefits when the time comes. You might believe that your extensive portfolio and diverse income sources make these benefits insignificant, or that the complexities and uncertainties surrounding Social Security make it less relevant to you. However,…
Could the Alternative Minimum Tax Come Roaring Back?
As a high-income earner, you may have breathed a sigh of relief when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 reduced the impact of the alternative minimum tax (AMT). However, the AMT will return in full force after 2025, when key TCJA provisions expire. Under the AMT, certain taxpayers must calculate their…
How You Can Benefit From a Comprehensive Approach to Wealth Management
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…
How Goals-Based Financial Planning Can Help You Achieve What Matters Most
What do you want to accomplish with your wealth? This question lies at the heart of goals-based financial planning, a strategy that helps you develop your goals and direct your financial decisions toward achieving them. With this approach, your money works in service of what matters most to you. Maybe you have short-term plans,…
How Do Elections Impact Your Wealth?
Another election cycle has begun, and you may feel a looming anxiety about how your wealth and investment portfolio will be affected. Recent surveys show how heavily the 2024 election outcome is weighing on investors. A retirement study by Nationwide showed that 45% of respondents believe it will significantly sway their portfolios—more so than financial markets.1 This bipartisan concern spans 68% of Republican and 57% of Democratic investors surveyed. To that end, 33% of pre-retirees have already started to manage their investments more conservatively due to election uncertainty.2 Each time an election cycle revs up, people start to get nervous about their finances. In 2016, for example, 47% of investors with at least $1 million in assets3 considered reducing their market exposure around the…
How To Navigate the Rising Costs of Long-Term Care Insurance
If you own a standalone long-term care (LTC) insurance policy, you may have received troubling notices from your provider flagging drastic premium increases in the coming years—to the tune of 100% to 200%—unless you reduce your benefits. After purchasing a policy many years ago, diligently paying your premiums and building plans around a certain amount…
8 Types of Trusts for Owners of High-Net-Worth Estates
Think of trusts as the Swiss Army knife of financial and estate planning. With their adaptability and wide range of structures, trusts can cater to a variety of financial needs. Whether you want to avoid probate, reduce your tax liabilities, guard your assets from potential claims, set guardrails around large monetary gifts, or facilitate the…
Should You Embrace Alternative Investments?
Are you hearing more about alternative investments? Alternatives include assets like private equity, private credit, hedge funds, real estate, art and luxury goods. The global value of alternative assets under management (AUM) surged from $4.1 trillion in 20101 to an estimated $16.3 trillion2 by the end of 2023. The value is projected to reach a…
How to Minimize Estate Taxes and Maximize Your Legacy
Take a hard look at your estate plan. Does it show considerable tax exposure? Given the substantial increase in estate tax exemptions—rising to nearly $26 million for married couples1 in 2023—there are ample opportunities to avoid heavy taxes in today’s environment. In fact, in recent years only 0.2% of estates2 have been subject to taxation…
11 Advanced Strategies for Tax-Efficient Charitable Giving
Your wealth has the potential to change lives and communities for the better through charitable giving. With a thoughtful donation strategy, you have the potential to save a lot of money in personal and estate taxes. This strategy can help you protect and grow generational wealth. As of 2024, you can generally deduct charitable cash…
Worry-Free Retirement Planning for High-Net-Worth Individuals
Attaining confidence in your retirement plan can be an elusive pursuit, even once you achieve financial success. A study1 found that 58% of high-net-worth individuals…
5 Key Financial Planning Strategies for High-Net-Worth Individuals
Less than 9% of Americans1 become millionaires, and even fewer can make that money last. Economic volatility has historically triggered “richcessions,” or periods when high-net-worth individuals experience greater economic losses compared to those lower on the wealth spectrum. When the dot-com bubble wiped out $6.2 trillion in household wealth2 in 2000, for example, we saw…
7 Essential High-Net-Worth Tax Strategies for Preserving Wealth
Your wealth requires a sophisticated tax reduction strategy that addresses the diversity and magnitude of your assets. But unfortunately, it’s all too easy to overlook the options available to you—at a steep cost to your net worth. Estate plans can accumulate millions of dollars in unnecessary tax liabilities. On top of that, many retirement plans…
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Expires Soon: Are You Prepared?
It’s One of the Smartest Tax Moves You Can Make. Substantial changes to the tax code are on the horizon, meaning you should review your wealth management strategy now to prepare for potential consequences. The sweeping 2017 tax reform known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) catalyzed a seismic policy shift when it…
How Do Interest Rates Impact Your Estate Plan?
Interest rates are at generational highs and the Federal Reserve will keep them elevated into 2024. Working with an advisor who understands how interest rates affect irrevocable trusts can save you money on taxes and boost their efficacy. How Do Interest Rates Impact Your Estate Plan? Just as rising interest rates influence your investment portfolio,…
Investing Globally
After the tech bubble burst and markets bottomed on October 9, 2002, the U.S. stock market recovered over the next five years with a 121% gain. While that may sound enviable, foreign stocks doubled the U.S. market over the same stretch, generating a 237% return. Back then, it was almost heresy to suggest that investing overseas…
Retirement Plan Strategies for High-Income Earners
If you are a doctor, lawyer, thriving business owner, successful executive or another high-income earner, this thought has probably crossed your mind: How will I maintain my lifestyle once I retire—especially if I want to retire early? You’re not alone. In this article, we’ll look at some retirement plan strategies for high earners that…
Retirement Spending Solutions
We hear from many clients who feel apprehensive when they start spending their retirement savings. It can feel unnatural after you’ve been focused on saving for decades. Or… maybe you can’t wait to spend! Either way, it’s critical that you make the transition from saving to spending using strategic retirement income withdrawal strategies, ultimately prolonging your…
RWA’s Expertise: Financial Planning for Lawyers
As a successful attorney, you’ve dedicated yourself to serving the best interests of your clients. While you are an expert in your field, your time is limited and it’s natural for you, like most lawyers, to have far less expertise when it comes to managing your personal finances. That’s where an experienced wealth management team…
The Roth IRA Path to Millions
Happy National Teach Children to Save Day! With summer job season fast approaching for high school and college students, now is an excellent time to teach your youngest loved ones a life lesson about the benefits of putting money aside in a Roth IRA. While the notion of retirement seems unfathomable to anyone under forty,…
RWA’s Expertise: Financial Planning for Doctors
As a medical professional, you dedicate your time and knowledge to care for the health and well-being of your patients. While you are an expert in your field, it’s not uncommon for busy physicians like you to not have the same level of expertise when it comes to managing your personal finances in pursuit of…
4 Ways to Maximize Your Equity Compensation
Stock options have become a larger part of our clients’ overall compensation in recent years—but how employers structure their offering varies widely and maximizing the benefit can be tricky. We’ve touched on the basics of employment-based stock options in the past. There are several different types of options, including Incentive Stock Options (ISOs), Non-Qualified Stock Options…
HSA Spells Tax-Free Investing
It might seem like the holy grail every investor is looking for: A way to shelter a portion of your income for spending later in life—without having to pay taxes on it, unlike with an IRA. What’s the vehicle that can make this a reality? A health savings account (HSA). If you qualify, HSAs are worth…
Estate-Planning Checklist: Must-Haves
Drawing upon RWA Wealth Partners’ decades of experience, our comprehensive estate and legacy planning checklist includes a glossary of key terms and identifies five critical estate planning must-haves. Once completed, your final wishes will be honored and your family will be unburdened, with appropriate time to grieve instead of picking up the pieces you…
Advanced Trusts: 4 Ways to Protect Your Estate
Traditionally, when we talk about estate planning tools, we focus on revocable trusts—an incredibly important and versatile wealth management tool. But that’s not the end of the story. In some cases, an irrevocable trust may be more appropriate for your needs. Today, we look at four types that can come in handy. Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT). An ILIT is…