308 N. 21st Street, Suite 650
St. Louis, MO 63103
Phone (314) 667-4978
Fax (314) 667-4976
4040 Embassy Parkway, Suite 310
Akron, OH 44333
Phone (330) 665-2376
Fax (330) 670-1081
Individual Planning
Retirement Planning
Retirement planning has become increasingly complex. With a wide range of investment options, fluctuating market rates, and many other variables, it can be challenging to determine what action to take to maximize your potential worth. Constantly changing tax and legislative environment make the timing and amount of withdrawals ever more critical to avoid tax penalties. There is value in acknowledging that each type of retirement plan has its own special characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. The proper retirement plan for you will be one that most closely corresponds to your unique circumstances and objectives. To work towards defining your objectives, we provide a complete cash flow analysis, risk tolerance assessment, and short and long-term goal analysis.
Wealth Transfer Planning
As a successful individual, you understand the effort involved in creating and maintaining personal wealth. Yet, you may not realize how quickly estate and income taxes could sweep half of this wealth away. Your assets can only go to three places: your family, a charity or other designated beneficiaries, or the Internal Revenue Service.
Concentrating on current and potential future estate and income tax legislation, we provide an in-depth analysis and advanced design techniques to help you to:
- Map out and document a plan to ensure proper timing and amount of distributions to your chosen beneficiaries.
- Provide sufficient income for a spouse or other dependents; take maximum advantage of annual and lifetime gift exclusions; establish gifting programs to transfer assets and provide financial security for children or grandchildren; establish charitable foundations.
- Maximize your ability to give to charity while reducing taxes and potentially increasing current income.
- Equalize distributions of estate and business interests between children working in the family business and those not active in the company; reduce or eliminate estate taxes.
- Properly fund any remaining tax liability through the most efficient and cost-effective methods.
Asset Protection
Because your objectives are personal and complex, we will work closely with your tax and legal advisors to identify specific needs and to develop an integrated plan just for you. As our client, we hope you will benefit from a number of important relationships. After years of sophisticated strategic planning, we have developed associations with tax attorneys. They are specialists in their field who are now part of our personal network of advisors. In the ever changing world of tax law, access to these specialists helps up provide comprehensive services to our clients.
Since your business figures prominently in your net worth, we provide navigation in the complexities of estate planning and the successful transfer of your business and personal wealth to successive generations. Among the services we offer for your asset protection, independent third party analysis and liability analysis provide critical insight to your current situation and needs, and help us identify the appropriate creditor and predator solutions.
Insurance Planning
Life insurance provides payment of a death benefit at the death of the insured(s). However, life insurance has many unique characteristics that may make it an appropriate solution for a variety of uses in addition to the death benefit protection. Some of these characteristics include:
- Policy cash values accumulate on a tax-deferred basis.
- Policy death benefits are received income tax-free.
- Policy cash values may be accessed on a tax advantaged basis. (Please keep in mind loans and partial withdrawals may decrease the death benefit and cash value and may be subject to policy limitations and income tax.)
In the individual planning context, life insurance serves many purposes, including pension maximization, family protection, college funding, debt protection, wealth creation, estate tax liquidation, and gifting leverage.
Although often mistakenly viewed as a price only decision, the long term nature of life insurance necessitates careful consideration in the selection of the insurance carrier, the product type and the agent or agency to represent you and interact with your heirs. Our in-depth analysis of life insurance portfolios—including overviews of ownership and design ramifications of insurance products and analysis of insurance using trusts—helps us strategize and find the best insurance solutions to fit your needs.