Private Client Services

Is Your Wealth Being Managed by the Right Team?

Posted on October 4, 2021 by

Margaret Amsden

Margaret Amsden

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Though CPAs and wealth managers are two different advisors, together they play an essential role in helping individuals make short- and long-term financial plans. To make the best plans for their future, clients are discovering that a partnership between these professionals can further enhance their financial goals and performance.

How to Choose a CPA

CPAs are detail-oriented and tax-focused, and wealth managers look to the long term for opportunity and growth. When these two specialists join forces, they offer many benefits to clients. Here are some of the main advantages that occur when CPAs and wealth managers work together.

Minimizing Obstacles & Maximizing Opportunities

Instead of being faced with unforeseen legal and financial obstacles that could impact financial plans, individuals that have an integrated team of CPAs and wealth managers are better able to plan for or mitigate these concerns.

Perhaps today the legal and financial responsibilities seem manageable, but as individuals approach retirement or find themselves beginning to make estate plans, having a CPA in the room will likely save them time and money. Improperly planning for real estate or capital investments can lead to significant tax costs, so approaching this as a team can yield benefits.

Tax rates can also fluctuate in retirement based on income, and opportunities may be found when assessing investment income. While a wealth manager can help determine the best time to start drawing on certain funds, a CPA can help individuals minimize tax costs and maximize cash flow. Their combined knowledge is likely to achieve the best result.

Leveraging Connections

Whether it be annuities or capital gains, taxes and wealth management are parts of our life that perpetually bob and weave around each other, so it only makes sense that the people who manage them do too.

While some tax experts may have a working knowledge of investments, and some wealth managers may know a little about taxes, the collaboration generates greater results for the client or business.

Financial Planning

It goes without saying that a key part of financial planning is knowing how much spending a client’s lifestyle requires, and whether their retirement planning has them on track to maintain that level for years after they’ve finished working. While wealth managers are adept at asking the right questions to understand a client’s spending habits, a CPA will likely have a better understanding of someone’s spending—maybe even better than the client.

By sharing data accumulated over years of tax returns and other documents, CPAs can assist wealth managers by helping develop a more accurate model of their client’s retirement portfolio, thereby maximizing comfort and working to reduce spending risk in the years to come. So many people are living longer today than ever before and are worried about outliving their resources. Introducing your accountant to your wealth manager is a step towards making sure that does not happen.

Streamlined Communication

Even if your CPA and wealth manager do not talk now, what most clients fail to realize is that there is still a steady flow of communication indirectly through them. It is more than likely that each of them will see your tax returns, have some understanding of your investments, and have separate models of what financial burdens you have for the years to come.

Financial benefits aside, integrating a CPA and wealth manager gives clients the advantage of taking one more thing off their plate and streamlining communication between their advisors. This also minimizes the risk that critical information fails to be communicated, which might put yet another burden on a client.

Our clients are so successful because they are experts in what they do, and they have mastered their craft. They deserve the luxury of trusting their finances to experts who have mastered theirs, too.

Whether you are someone who is just beginning your financial journey and seeking trustworthy expertise in taxes or wealth management, or someone who is well into your career looking for a new partner, Clayton & McKervey is ready to be a confidant and advisor that puts your future first. Our Private Client Services team has experts in both short- and long-term planning and can effectively integrate tax advice with your investment options, so you face the least number of obstacles and can focus on what you do best.

Contact Us

We work seamlessly with wealth managers to help enhance our clients’ short and long-term financial goals. To learn more about how we can support you, please contact us today. We look forward to speaking with you soon.

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Margaret Amsden

Shareholder, Private Client Services

Margaret leads the firm’s private client services group as the point person for individual, estate and succession planning tax strategies.

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