The Right Ways to Grow Your Practice

Owning a professional practice has its many challenges. As a healthcare professional, for example, you have spent many years learning how to apply your technical craft so that you can deliver a good result to your paying clients.  However, were you taught how to run a business?  Did you start your practice with a plan on how to expand that practice as well as how to implement an exit strategy when the time comes to pursue other interests with your time?

Most of us get into practice because we want to help people and make a good living while doing it.  But as far as doing the necessary administrative functions like handling staff, legal rudiments, marketing and such, we haven’t been educated well enough on the proper ways to go about it. Not only that, but we haven’t been trained to know what our exit strategy will be before we get into practice.  But, now there is a solution:

Click to view a video on America’s Top 3 Proven Transition Strategies

Note: This presentation is directed toward dentists, but the methods will work for any professional practice.

We, at Wealth Advisory Associates, work with management experts who can teach you how to become an executive and grow your practice to whatever level you want.  There is a correct way to hire staff, market, sell, handle business finances and transition out of practice on your terms.  Contact us if you are interested in making your practice more profitable and valuable.

To learn more, call 727-588-1540 or sign-up for a free consultation or write your questions, and we’ll get back to you soon. 

Financial planning is the process of working out ways to make more money and to effectively allocate the money you’ve already made so that you increase your net worth.  Ultimately, it is the amount of a family’s net worth that will determine what kind of lifestyle you will have and if you’ll be able to afford the financial wherewithal to achieve your goals.

What is your plan?  Did you know that the government has a plan on how to tax away your wealth over the several years while your alive and upon your death?  Much of the income you produce this year and for the rest of your life and much of the stuff you accumulated will go to the government unless you have and implement your own plan. 

Those without a plan will make mistakes with investments, pay unnecessary taxes, have little to no asset protection, and be spending more than they make.  Without a plan, goals are not clarified and articulated.  Without a plan, we haven’t stated where we are going so there is no way we can know what to do to get there.  It’s just that simple.

However, with a plan, we can state our goals with clarity and get a good sense of the ways things ought to be at some point in the future.  Then, we can look at where we are today and readily see what needs to be done to bring us closer to the way things should be.  This is planning.  It is done BEFORE we start investing, insuring, setting up legal structures, borrowing money and so forth.  Doing these things without a plan only wastes money. 

Call our office today at 727-588-1540, or sign up now for a free consultation, to find out how you can get started on a plan today to build and grow your wealth.

Christopher will be speaking at the upcoming seminar in Clearwater:

Crisis Buster Event

WHERE: PostcardMania 2145 Sunnydale Blvd., Clearwater, FL 33765

WHEN: September 19-20, 2009 9:30am to 5:30pm

CALL NOW TO REGISTER! 877-831-2299

www.crisisbuster.com

 Investments can be very confusing because it seems that every stock broker or investment advisor has a great investment opportunity to share with you.  Investing is and should be VERY boring.  The more excitement you have, the less you are investing and the more you’re speculating or even gambling in an effort to make money.

The most important point to remember with investing is that one must determine the purpose of the money being invested before one chooses how to invest. For example, let’s say that you wanted to save for a downpayment on a home in 3 years. There is a proper type of investment for that purpose. It would be something that would have stability of principal, high liquidity and low interest, such as a money market or certificate of deposit. On the other hand, if you are investing with the purpose of creating a retirement income stream 20 years from now, the type of investment would be much different. It would have some volatility, lower liquidity and higher potential returns, such as equities, bonds, real estate, annuities and life insurance. When you have the intention of placing money aside for future use, always decide on the purpose first and then invest in the appropriate manner to achieve that purpose most effectively.

The only time people have a problem with investments losing value is when the investment purpose changed. For example, if someone was investing in equities for the purpose of retirement income in 20 years, and decided to cash in the account due to a market recession, losses would be realized because the person did not allow for the volatility that is inherent in equities over that time frame. It is not the market that is the problem, it is the changing of the purpose mid-stream.

A PRUDENT INVESTOR WILL CAREFULLY CONSIDER HIS GOALS IN RELATION TO THE BENEFITS OF EACH OF THE ASSETS IN HIS PORTFOLIO. SOME OF THE MORE COMMON FEATURES DESIRED IN AN INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO INCLUDE: 

• LIQUIDITY: The ability to readily convert an asset to cash.
• GROWTH: To provide an inflation hedge and assure capital for retirement or other future needs. Remember, retirement is for a lifetime. 
• INCOME: To meet current living expenses as a supplement to wages or retirement plans.
• TAX ADVANTAGES: In the form of tax-deferred growth, tax-free or tax- advantaged income, tax credits, or excess deductions that can be used to offset current taxable income.
• PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT: You should have professional management at 2 levels; at the source of the investment and to position the investment to match your individual risk tolerance. 

When a professional is responsible for the income of the household due to his personal production, a disability can really create havoc, not only for the household, but for the practice as well.  Disability insurance was created to replace income if a person becomes disabled and cannot produce income. There are several provisions within disablility policy that are very important to understand in order for the policy to cover the needed risks: 

This is an overview of some of the key elements of different provisions of disability policies.  To learn more, please give us a call 727-588-1540 or sign up for a free consultation or write your questions, and we’ll get back to you soon.

In a well-integrated financial plan, it is very important that a business owner derive as much value as possible out of banking partner.  For example, does your current bank pay you interest on your business checking account balance?  How about your personal checking account? Do you get reimbursed those pesky ATM access fees?

You should work with an online bank that offers the following:

• Interest bearing personal and business checking accounts that start at 3.51% APY (intro rate).
• Unlimited check writing.
• Free VISA^R check cards.
• Customized Online Banking Services, including financial management reports.
• Reimbursement of ATM access fees up to $6.00 per month.
• Overdraft Protection (subject to credit approval).
• No monthly fee is a reasonable minimum balance is kept in the account ($3,000).
• Access to money market accounts in foreign currencies.

Click here to see current rates.

Keeping costs down is one of the challenges we face everyday in business.  You could save hundreds of dollars per year just by working with a bank that has lower fees and pays higher interest on reserves. 

Sign up for an account today.  Click on the link below.

“Carve-out” planning seems to be the next generation of planning to help small business owners create plans to skew the contribution amounts to key employees. 

A “carve-out” plan is fairly easy to understand. 

Defined Benefit (DB) Pans are unique qualified retirement plans that allow owner/employees to put away significantly more money into a retirement plan than a 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan. However, because there requirements to fund the plan for employees in a non-discriminatory manner, the required contributions to a DB plan can be prohibitively expensive to fund for the employees.

That’s where a “carve-out” plan might come in handy. All you do to make the plan more economically viable is place the older more highly-compensated non-owner employees in a 401(k)/Profit Sharing Plan (where required contributions for the employees will be low) and the owner and the younger less compensated employees in the DB plan. 

The name “carve-out” make sense because you are carving out the older highly-compensated employees from the DB plan and moving them into the 401(k)/profit sharing plan. 

If you are interested in putting the maximum away for yourself as a business owner and the minimum amount away for your staff, you should consider using a “carve-out” plan to accomplish this goal. To learn more, call 727-588-1540 or sign up for a free consultation or write your questions, and we’ll get back to you soon.

Do you have liquid assets worth $500,000 or more?

(If not, you may want to consider the wealth growing strategies covered in C.A.L.M. Level 3.)

You should be very aware that Offshore Asset Protection aims to protect your assets. We want to make this very clear.

You should not go offshore if you think you will save on U.S. federal income tax.

Any advisor who tells you to move assets offshore in order to AVOID taxes is not just dangerous to your wealth, but dangerous to your freedom.

The basic principle behind offshore asset protection is to get assets out of your control and put them in a place where the U. S. government has no legal jurisdiction. An order from a U. S. Court is not binding on assets placed in a foreign jurisdiction.

In general, a U.S. court has jurisdiction only over people or property located within the U.S. With offshore asset protection, your assets are owned by an offshore trust. Because the assets are owned by a foreign entity you remove your property from U.S. control.

But there’s an interesting twist that you may not be aware of.

And that is, using the C.A.L.M. 4 Level Offshore Asset Protection Strategies, your assets stay in a domestic LLC or FLP and only move offshore if you have a claim, if someone is coming for your assets - such as might occur in a lawsuit. Unless that happens, your assets remain in the United States.

If a claim is filed, your assets move to the foreign jurisdiction. In order for the creditor to pursue their claim, they now have to chase your assets to the foreign jurisdiction they have been moved to.

That requires finding the assets, finding a lawyer in the new jurisdiction, and bringing suit in the foreign court. All of this costs time and money - on top of the money already spent to get the judgment against you in the United States. And there’s no guarantee that the suit in the foreign country will be successful. It will cost the creditor so much time, effort and expense for an uncertain result, the creditor will simply give up and leave you - and your assets - alone.

Additional protection is provided in many offshore trust documents. If litigation is filed in the foreign jurisdiction, the language requires the trustee of the foreign trust to immediately move the assets from that jurisdiction to yet another foreign jurisdiction. A creditor could spend $25,000 pursuing you in a foreign jurisdiction, get a judgment there, and then discover that the assets are now located in still yet another foreign jurisdiction. (This would be in compliance with the first foreign jurisdiction’s laws and the trust documents.) Think they want to be out of pocket another $25,000 - with the possibility that the assets would again be transferred to another jurisdiction (again, in compliance with the second foreign jurisdiction’s laws and the trust documents)?

Not too likely.

In order to provide you with the highest level of protection for your liquid assets, our Comprehensive Asset and Liability Management (C.A.L.M.) Plan must provide you with offshore planning solutions

C.A.L.M. plan members get discounts of up to 20% off the usual and customary price of an offshore asset protection trust. An offshore asset protection trust plan can range in price from $20,000-$50,000 (less a 20% discount), depending on the complexities.

Our recommendation is that if you have liquid wealth worth protecting, you should have an offshore asset-protection trust.

Other offshore asset-protection tools are captive insurance companies and LLCs. If you buy the C.A.L.M. plan, a number of available asset protection tools, domestic and offshore, will be reviewed in light of your particular situation.

Whether you have the liquid wealth to justify offshore asset protection or not, we can help you get there through asset protection and strategies to grow your wealth safely. Why not call us today at (269) 216-9978 for a no-obligation free consultation. Call today!

With C.A.L.M 1, you’ve built a foundation.

C.A.L.M 2 protects your “house of wealth” with walls and a roof to keep the vicious elements of potential lawsuits, actual taxes, and more from attacking and subtracting your wealth.

C.A.L.M. 3 is like putting in the interior decoration, the fancy new kitchen, the awesome entertainment center and the beautiful landscaping. C.A.L.M. 3 uses the fruits of your labor to grow your assets so that you can reach critical capital mass — meaning, you can retire when you want and in the style you want.

C.A.L.M. 3 builds a comprehensive program — a 30-50 page “comprehensive” and “coordinated” estate, financial and tax plan. It’s as if you sat your CPA, your accountant, your attorney, and your financial planner down in one room for several hours to create a golden path to your retirement and beyond.

Building on C.A.L.M 1, which reviewed your asset and estate plan for appropriate protection, C.A.L.M. 3 tracks your wealth and shows you how to get to that golden path.

Have your CPA, accountant, attorney, and financial planner sat down in one room for several hours to put together for you a “comprehensive” and “coordinated” estate, financial and tax plan?

Here are a list of valuable wealth-growing tools that should be at least considered in a complete and comprehensive financial and estate plan:

• Wealth Builder Annuity = With this, you could be deferring up to $50,000-$300,000 or more a year without having to make contributions for staff.

• Freeze Partnerships - You could get up to a 90% discount on a Family Limited Partnership (FLP) when used for estate planning.

• Private Annuity Trusts - Defer, and maybe even avoid, capital gains on the sale of real estate or stock.

• The Maximizer- Nearly double the return of the S&P 500 while principally protecting 90% of your invested assets each year.

• Carve-Out Planning - Implement a qualified plan in the most discriminatory manner possible.

• Leveraged Bonus Plans - Defer compensation for key executives.

• Qualified Pension Insurance Partnership - Mitigate the double taxation via a qualified plan or IRA.

• 412(i) Defined Benefit Plans - Contribute - in some cases - in excess of $200,000 to a “qualified retirement plan”.

• VEBAs - Purchase life insurance for estate planning or buy/sell agreements in a tax-deductible manner The death benefit can then pass free of both income taxes and estate taxes.

• Life settlements - Sell a life insurance policy that has lived out it usefulness for much more than its cash-surrender value.

• Indexed annuities - Protect your money - 100% - from downturns in the market The upside growth is then pegged to the S&P 500. A deferred investment tool.

If the professionals advising you in wealth matters have not been covering these important topics, you’re a candidate for C.A.L.M. 3.

And those are not the only considerations.

Other aspects a comprehensive plan include such items as:
 

• Durable powers of attorney - both medical and legal. These make sure that your family won’t have to go to court to obtain legal powers to act for you if you become incapacitated.

• Living Trusts to avoid probate and minimize estate taxes.

• An irrevocable life insurance trust to make sure the death benefit from your life insurance policy passes income AND estate tax free.

• A traditional Family Limited Partnership/FLP - to discount the value of your estate for estate tax purposes.

Through the C.A.L.M. program, your CWPP™ advisor has access to nationally recognized advisors who are experienced and certified specialists in their field.

Through a collaborative effort, the team will put together for you a complete program ready for implementation.

If you were to go outside of the C.A.L.M. Program, it would cost, typically, between $10,000-$20,000. And those plans won’t have the comprehensive plan from our “roundtable of advisors”. Most clients would get a run-of-the-mill plan hardly worth the money - and most clients would not know better.

Through the C.A.L.M. program you can receive this comprehensive plan for just $7,500. Your plan will be ready for implementation when you say the word.

C.A.L.M. Level 3 protection grows your wealth so you can have a fulfilling retirement and make sure that you have a legacy of to leave your family, or whomever you wish to leave it. Few things can be as satisfying as that.

Call us, at 727-588-1540 today for a free, no obligation, no pressure consultation on how C.A.L.M. 3 can have you enjoying the benefits of “critical capital mass” sooner than you think.

Many people who have assets have heard of setting up Limited Liability Corporations (”LLC”) — but usually, just for their business.

And many more people will tell them how having your business under an LLC won’t be as much protection as they might think.

And understandably so.

There’s a lot of mis-information out there - rumors and myths - and even a few facts get mixed in to make the information seem legitimate.

There are so many different aspects of setting up an LLC that we can’t go into all of them here.

But here are just a few aspects:

• The actual type of legal entity.
• The jurisdiction it’s set up in
• What assets should be owned by the LLC

Don’t get us wrong - we believe that anyone with any assets should protect them by use of an LLC. Note: in some places, they are called “Family Limited Partnerships” (”FLP”).

Introducing C.A.L.M. Level 2 Protection:

Level two of the C.A.L.M. program makes sure you and your assets are protected.

If your asset protection plan is wanting, C.A.L.M. 2 will get you protected using a Family Limited Partnership. In some cases, you may need more than one.

An FLP forms the foundation of any domestic asset protection plan. You can, with this inexpensive tool, start protecting yourself and your assets from business creditors and personal creditors.

Warning: As foundational and as useful an FLP is, it is not a cure-all. We highly recommend it as the cornerstone of nearly all domestic asset protection plans. But it is not a cure-all. We mention a situation below where they are not appropriate.

Who Needs C.A.L.M. 2 Protection? Let’s look at who is at risk… If you are a professional, if you hold a professional license of any kind - you are at risk:

That means:

• physicians,
• attorneys,
• CPAs/accountants,
• insurance agents,
• financial planners,
• stock brokers,
• mortgage brokers,
• real estate brokers/agents,
• architects and
• engineers

…to name but a few.

Not a licensed professional? If you own any of the following assets - you are also at risk:

• Personal Residence
• A brokerage account
• bank account
• CDs
• Rental property
• Vacation condo
• IRA (depending on the state)
• A boat, plane, waverunner, snow mobile
• Anything else of value

(Note that it doesn’t matter if you own them in your own name, or in a revocable living trust, or in a C- or S-Corporation, or Partnership.)

In other words, if you have a pulse and breath and are of age, you undoubtedly need protection.

Licensed professionals mostly know, all too well, that they need asset protection. If they didn’t learn it in school, they learn it from professional seminars, colleagues and hopefully not from their own personal experience.

But if you’re not, let’s take a few examples of the kinds of risks you face:

Homeowners:

Teenage Children:

Vacation rental:

“The Right Jurisdiction”: What You Need To Know About Where Your LLC Or FLP Gets Formed

C.A.L.M. Level 2 Protection involves using properly set up LLCs and FLPs. Part of setting them up properly is having them set up in the correct jurisdiction.

We’ve already covered the danger you and your assets could be in from the risk of a lawsuit.

In order to explain why the right jurisdiction is important, let’s assume someone has sued you successfully for $2 Million dollars. This is more than your umbrella liability policy of $1 Million dollars - or, if you are a physician, assume it’s more than the $1 Million dollar malpractice insurance covers.

If your assets are in your name, or under incorrect or improperly set up legal and business entities, the plaintiff is coming after your assets.

With an FLP, will your assets be safe? Let’s look…

With a properly set up FLP, your assets remain in the FLP.

The judge cannot:

• transfer the interest in the FLP to the creditor or force the debtor to sell his/her interest and turn over the sale proceeds to the creditor.
• force the FLP to sell assets.
• force an FLP to distribute income.

What can a judge do, then?

He can give the creditor a “charging order.”

What does the creditor get with a “charging order”? Not much.

They still can’t

• get the interest in the FLP transferred to them, or force the debtor to sell his/her interest and turn over the sale proceeds to them.
• force the FLP to sell assets.
• force an FLP to distribute income.

What does the creditor get? The creditor gets the right to pay income taxes on income generated in the LLC but NOT distributed.

Let’s say you were successfully sued, you have your assets in an FLP, and the judge issued a charging order. You have a brokerage account owned by the FLP that earns $1000. Even though the FLP retains the $1000, the creditor gets to pay taxes on it. They get what is called a K-1 for the income.

That’s right. Even though the creditor has seen no money in their bank account from you, the debtor - they still have to pay income tax on any income. Every year. Even though the assets of the FLP are not distributed.

Collecting nothing but paying income taxes to the government, a charging order is hardly attractive to the plaintiff — or the plaintiff’s attorney.

But this only works well in about 6 states. In only 6 states are the charging orders statutes strong enough to withstand a challenge by a creditor. In the rest of the 50 states the FLP statutes are weak.

As a C.A.L.M. plan member, you will want to have your FLP set up in a state with strong FLP statutes, with strong charging-order language in it. If you do not live in a state with strong FLP statutes, as a C.A.L.M. plan member, you will be provided with lawyers to set up your FLP(s) in a state that is geographically distant from your home and office.

An example:

You are a California C.A.L.M. plan member. You set up a Nevada FLP, since Nevada has strong FLP charging-order language in their FLP and LLC statutes.

If you are sued, do you think a California attorney representing a California creditor would want to incur the time, expense and risk to hire a Nevada attorney to ask a Nevada judge to issue a charging order? Not too likely. And, as a CALM plan member in California, you will have access to Nevada attorneys. These C.A.L.M. plan attorneys specialize in drafting FLPs and are able to represent you in Court, should you need a Nevada attorney to help you protect your Nevada FLP assets.

You Need C.A.L.M. Level 2 Protection!

Over 99% of our clients have inadequate asset protection.

You may have C.A.L.M. Level 2 protection already.

Not sure?

We invite you to call us to find out more.

The C.A.L.M. Plan provides the best protection in multiple states and jurisdictions.

With C.A.L.M. Level 1 you get a comprehensive asset protection Review. Perhaps the most important part of this Review is the Action Plan that you can start implementing, to protect you and your assets.

The Action Plan will generally cover C.A.L.M. Level 2 Protection as a first step. This provides core domestic asset protection through the forme doneation of a Family Limited Partnership (FLP). Normally, it would cost $3,000-$5,000 when done by an asset protection attorney. Through your C.A.L.M. membership you can get one set up for the reduced price of $2,500. Since Level 1 costs $495, your cost savings for Level 2 pay for your C.A.L.M. Level 1 membership.

But it’s better than just the cost savings. (And there are more potential cost savings. If you should need additional FLPs and LLCs, for instance, you will get those at a discounted rate as well.)

The design and implementation of this core level of protection will be performed by a collaborative team of professionals with special training in Wealth Preservation Strategies. A key member of this team will be your Certified Wealth Preservation Planner (CWPP™). You can contact your CWPP™ Advisor right now for more information and a free, no pressure, no obligation consultation about how we can get you started today.