Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome
to the Complete Wealth
Management Podcast.
I'm Dave Allison and, as always, I have Conrad and David Roth
joining me today.
What's up guys?
How you doing?
I'm doing great.
How are you Doing good, conrad?
Tax season is over.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I was going to say, I
have a whole new outlook on
life.
I feel like it's a Disney movietoday.
Tax season well, the first partof tax season is over.
The busy April 15th deadline iscoming on.
I feel like it was actually apretty good year, so obviously
I'm feeling much better than Iwas three weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Well, in today's
episode we're going to talk
about some common mistakes thatwe see people make when they
have some sort of like suddenwealth, liquidity event or you
know financial windfall thatcomes into their life.
And really the genesis oftoday's podcast episode actually
came from a conversation in aclient meeting that the three of
(00:57):
us had last night with one ofour clients who was with a tech
company that you know.
News just broke that IBM ispurchasing the company, and so
typically what we see in anevent like that is that the
company acquiring the othercompany cashes out all the stock
and the stock options, and formany of our clients at least our
(01:20):
clients in the Silicon Valleyarea they're heavily compensated
with stock and stock options,and so this is not our first
rodeo.
We haven't really seen too muchbig M&A activity in the market
downturn that we saw in 2022 andeven in 2023.
But we were certainly runninginto this in 2019, 2020, 2021.
(01:45):
Running into this in 2019, 2020, 2021.
And we've been through thisexperience where maybe a client
of ours has stock options orrestricted stock units and we're
thinking about long-termplanning when it comes to this
money and it's going to have avesting schedule over time.
So it's not really their moneyuntil it actually vests.
And then all of a sudden newsbreaks and ABC company is going
(02:08):
to buy XYZ company and all thatstock gets cashed out.
And it's interesting becauseit's a big liquidity event but
needs to happen, as we're goingto talk about in this episode
today, because maybe you're notgoing to have a job at that
(02:30):
parent company, maybe you don'twant to go work for that parent
company, maybe you've got enoughmoney that you don't have to
work and it's now a more workoptional lifestyle, or you want
to pursue something different.
And I think what we're going totalk about today could really
transcend not just like workingat a company that gets acquired
by another company, but it couldalso be in the form of maybe
(02:53):
you've received an inheritance.
One of our clients is in theirearly 60s, mom and dad just
passed away and they've receivedan inheritance that allow them
to now potentially walk awayfrom work.
And how do you think about that?
And in other cases I know guyswe've worked with business
owners that have found anopportunity to sell their
(03:14):
business and we'll talk a littlebit about mistakes that some
business owners make leading upto a sale and then
post-transaction.
So a lot of this could reallybe for clients that maybe are
working at a company that couldpotentially sell.
It could be for individuals whoare going to have some windfall
(03:34):
like an inheritance and theywant to think about how that is
factored into their plan.
Maybe it's a business owner whowants to cash out in the next
few years, and so a lot of funstuff we'll jump into today.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, guys, I'm
excited to talk about this topic
.
I think there's so much that wecan do to unpack, you know.
I first want to throw out aquestion to you guys, right In
working with clients, what haveyou seen and we have a lot of
clients, I would call them highperformers what have you seen as
the biggest challenge orbiggest struggle with
(04:16):
conceptualizing what retirementand I'm going to put that in
quotations would look like ifit's considered early?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Well, I'll kind of
just kick things off.
I mean, you know you mentionedearlier that a lot of the
clients that we work with youknow would be, you know, high
performers, high level.
They're very driven people.
You know they're eitherleadership team executives,
engineers, business owners,lawyers.
You know doctors, those typesof professions and my first
(04:47):
question is always like well,why do you want to retire?
How would you define retirement?
Is it you just don't want tohave a nine to five that you're
accountable for and showing upand working for somebody else?
Is it that you want to just goplay golf and fish and travel
every day?
Or is it you want just more ofa work-optional lifestyle where
(05:09):
you're actually not going toretire from working?
You are going to continue towork, maybe do consulting, maybe
help advise on startupcompanies, maybe go generate
some part-time income, butyou're going to retire from the
nine to five of what maybeyou've been doing for the last
five, 10, 15, or 20 years.
(05:30):
And so I think that when wethink of this windfall or
liquidity event, what it reallydoes more than anything is it
gives people options andflexibility, depending on the
dollar amount.
If you inherit $100,000, that'sgreat.
It's going to help yourfinancial plan, probably not
going to change your life.
If you're 40 years old, youcan't retire on $100,000.
(05:53):
If you inherit $5 million, thatcould potentially change the
game in the course of whatdecisions that you make.
And very similarly to if youwere working at a company and
that company gets acquired andyour stock options get cashed
out, what's that dollar amount?
And is it what I call FU money,where you can walk into your
(06:16):
boss and say, fu, I'm done herebecause I've got enough assets
to support my lifestyle for aslong as I live?
Or, you know, is it more like,hey, we're a little bit more
comfortable now, but I don'tknow if I have the assets to
sustain my longevity.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So, david, you
wouldn't necessarily advise
every client to stop working andthen go be a greeter at Walmart
, right?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Not, unless that's
what you love to do and you have
enough money to do it.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So let's talk about
that.
You hit a word that I alwaysask my clients of love right?
What makes you feel good, andhow do you translate that into
what's next?
Because retirement oftentimesis a bad word or a dirty word,
right In this context.
So talk to me about how youtalk with clients, about how
they get to explore some oftheir feelings, and then how we
(07:09):
translate that into the what'snext conversation.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, and a lot of it
is.
As Dave Allison mentioned.
What are your options?
Can you live a work optionallifestyle or are you going to
need to continue to work?
What are the things that youneed to do, and can you actually
do that with this particularwindfall?
So I think that's one of theimportant key parts here.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Well, and you know,
conrad, I think it comes down to
like what your expectations aretoo.
So you know, I'll run through acouple examples, and I again I
think we keep throwing out thisterm like retirement.
But let's say, you come intothis sum of money Again, it
could be through a number ofdifferent avenues.
You decide to sell yourbusiness and decide it's time to
walk away, or you get a bunchof stock options that get cashed
(07:54):
out, or you get an inheritance,and there's this whole actually
financial movement.
You guys are probably bothfamiliar with it it's called
FIRE and it's this whole mindsetof try to save as much money as
you possibly can, build up thisfinancial nest egg and then be
financially independent andretire early.
(08:16):
And a lot of times when I seepeople who embrace that approach
, it's like you got to live asfrugally as possible and, quite
honestly, that might appeal tosome people.
Other people might be like Iwant nothing to do with that.
I work really hard, I have theability to make good income.
(08:36):
I'd rather be able to enjoysome nicer things than to have
to live incredibly frugally justto be retired per se, and so I
think everything comes down tothis cash flow conversation.
We just had a meeting with oneof our clients last night and
this whole situation came upwhere they work at a company
(08:58):
that it was just announcedthey're getting acquired by IBM
HashiCorp was the name of thecompany.
So if there's any otherHashiCorp employees listening
and you need help with this, wegot a team that can certainly
help you strategize and thinkthrough this.
But, just like most othercompany acquisitions, the
reality of it is all the companystock that those employees had
(09:19):
in HashiCorp is going to getcashed out.
They're going to have aliquidity event.
They're also going to have anincome tax event, which we'll
talk about throughout thispodcast episode today but
they're going to have a prettynice sum of liquid money for
whatever their stock options andRSUs were worth.
And so the question then comesinto okay, I have this pile of
(09:42):
money, how do I translate thatinto an income stream?
And, more importantly, how do Itranslate that into an income
stream that accounts forinflation and accounts for me
not running out of money whenI'm in my 70s, 80s or 90s?
Because if we ignore the lastfew years of inflation, that
(10:06):
it's been really high.
If we look at the long-termaverage of inflation, it's been
around.
Let's call it 3%.
And so what that says is aboutevery 16 years your income needs
to double to keep up with thecost of goods and services.
And so if you're accustomed toliving on $150,000 of cash flow
(10:30):
today, and let's say you're 45years old and you have this
liquidity event like yourcompany stock or you sell your
business or you get aninheritance and you're asking
like hey, do I have enough toactually stop working the first
thing is well, if you're livingon 150 today, that's going to be
about 300,016 years down theroad.
(10:53):
It's going to be about $600,00032 years down the road when
you're in your mid 70s at thatpoint.
So you need to have a game planto not just think like I need
150 grand a year.
You need to think about theimpact of inflation, because a
lot of times when we dotraditional retirement planning,
I mean what's the most commonage people retire, guys?
(11:15):
65.
Yeah, okay, let's call it 65,66, 67.
I'm seeing a lot more 70 yearolds because they're enjoying
what they're doing right now andthey're making good money.
But let's say it's 65.
What's the typical lifeexpectancy of a human being
right now in the United States?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Let's call it 80 for
males.
I think the last one I saw wassomewhere between right around
80 for males, 82 or 84 forfemales.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Okay, so let's say 85
.
Let's be generous.
Our clients have money, theyhave good access to healthcare
nutrition and they exercise andtake their vitamins right.
So for the traditional retireethey really need to account for
about 20 years of inflationadjusted income.
But as you dial that scale backand now you start talking about
(12:02):
retiring in your 50s or your 40sor you know, hey, maybe even
earlier we had a client.
Well, we have a client.
I shouldn't say we had a client, I sound like he died.
We have a client who retired at27.
Right, think about thelongevity of what his inflation
adjusted income stream needs tobe able to do to support his
lifestyle, and his assets needto account for that.
(12:24):
So you know, the first questionthat we would typically ask when
you have a windfall of moneylike this and you want to
potentially retire, is we got toget kind of laser focused on
your cash flow?
How much do you need to coveryour living expenses?
And are there going to be whatI would call chunky peanut
butter components of your cashflow?
(12:45):
Maybe the first five years makeis they decide to retire.
They think they have enough tobe able to last them.
(13:05):
They find out in fact theydon't.
And then five, 10 years laterthey're out looking for work,
and when you leave the workforceand you have a 10 year gap,
it's hard to find anything thatmaybe you would have been
accustomed to 10, 15 years ago,right?
Especially like with some ofour clients in Silicon Valley, I
(13:28):
don't know of any major techcompanies that would hire
somebody that's been out of thegame for a decade and
potentially compensate them atthe same level they were when
they were in the weeds nine tofive.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, and that's a
really key point is what your
earning potential today mightnot be the same thing 10 years
from now if you take off 10years.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So just to really be
cognizant of that, so, conrad,
when people think about cashflow, one of the things that I
don't think they have a goodcomprehension about is, if they
retire before the age of 65,what are two big things that
they need to account for intheir cash flow and their
finances?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, I'm going to go
with the smaller one likely
first, which is healthcare, andI know you're thinking that's
the smaller one, but most peopleand including the conversation
we had last night you thinkabout what you get as a company
benefit and now you have to pay100% of that on your own.
Now, outside of governmentsubsidies, that could be for a
(14:27):
husband, wife and maybe two kids, $25,000 a premium a year.
Right, have we seen thosepremiums most recently?
Absolutely.
That doesn't include coveringthe actual cost of your medical
care.
So medical is a huge expense.
The second one is taxes.
Right, and you think about youearn W-2 wages.
(14:48):
You go to your job nine to five.
They pay you for income.
Right, retirement accounts arenot available prior to 59 and a
half without paying a 10%penalty on top of taxes.
So we have to think about whereyour income is coming from and
(15:09):
the potential for taxes in thelong term and how they play into
what you're going to have.
You're no longer having thosewithheld from a W-2 job.
You now have to pay them out ofyour normal cash flow.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, and I would say
just from a planning standpoint
, there are some strategies thatwe help clients navigate in
thinking about how topotentially generate some
healthcare tax credits to offsetthe cost of healthcare,
depending on how we structuretheir income sources.
And then also with theretirement accounts you
(15:40):
mentioned, they can't reallytouch it until age 59 and a half
without a penalty and there'ssome unique planning.
You can do a strategy called a72T distribution.
We're not going to get too intothe weeds today on those
strategies that are available topeople, but there are some
options.
But what we see is healthcareis still a huge expense prior to
(16:03):
age 65.
And if you are able to tap intosome of your qualified
retirement money, it's generallya pretty small amount in terms
of what you actually need tosustain your lifestyle, which is
why, when we help clients buildthese accumulation plans, it's
so important to diversify yourtaxes right.
(16:24):
Have money in qualifiedretirement, have money in Roth
accounts, have post-tax moneythat again you could utilize to
supplement your lifestyle, yourincome needs, if you decided to
stop working early.
And the reality of what we seeis most of our clients who get a
financial windfall again,whether maybe they're selling
(16:45):
the company or they're cashingout a bunch of stock and stock
options is most of that money isafter tax, which is helpful in
constructing a more taxefficient retirement income
distribution strategy for themin retirement.
Now if you're inheriting money,that could be a whole different
story, because we've hadclients that have inherited
(17:07):
their parents' pre-taxretirement accounts and with
those it actually crushes theirincome tax planning because
they're forced to distributethose accounts over a 10-year
time period and it's all taxedat ordinary income and so
inheriting a retirement accountcould actually push you up into
some of the highest tax bracketsout there and erode a lot of
(17:32):
that wealth to excessivetaxation.
And I know we have a lot ofstrategies we talk to clients
about regarding tax managementand tax planning around
inheritances.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, and Dave, one
thing that I'm thinking back to
and as we talk about theseplannings, is charitable giving
and if you have a windfall, howdoes charitable giving play into
this?
And I know we had a greatpodcast about with Christopher
Worley and maybe you can givesome insight into how that might
impact in the year that youhave a windfall.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean I think there's somedifferent things to think about
and it depends on where in thespectrum you are of your
charitable intent.
We have some clients that havebeen fortunate enough to amass a
fortune and when they do decidethat enough is enough, they're
going to actually not reallyfocus on sitting on the golf
(18:25):
course or sitting on the boat,fishing or traveling.
They want to actually redirecttheir energy and talents from
maybe building a company orrunning a company to helping
different charitable causes.
And so in the year you havethese bigger financial windfalls
, that's really the best time tostart funding what I would call
(18:48):
your charitable fund, to makefuture donations from later on
in life.
And there's a lot of greattools.
There's donor advised funds,there's charitable trusts,
there's private foundations.
Those are all ways that you canstart to segment a part of your
net worth or assets into yourcharitable vision, but recognize
(19:12):
the tax benefits.
In the year you have this bigliquidity event.
Now for other clients, theymight not have this big
philanthropic or charitableintent, but they do give to
charities and they want tocontinue to give to charities.
And so even a more modest donoradvised fund for example, the
client that we were working withlast night has some individual
(19:34):
stock that's vested in theircompany.
It's appreciated in value whenthe company cashes it out.
There's going to be a long-termcapital gain associated.
It might make sense to shift aportion of that stock into a
donor advised fund, Because ifwe're now holding a portion of
that company stock that's got abunch of appreciation in it in
(19:55):
the donor advised fund and thenthose shares get cashed out, how
much tax does the client pay?
They don't pay any tax.
Yeah, that's right.
They don't pay any tax becausethe shares are held in the
donor-advised fund.
When they're liquidated, thedonor-advised fund doesn't pay
tax.
And what else does the clientget by moving some of those
(20:15):
shares into the donor-advisedfund?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
At the time of
donation, they get a charitable
deduction on their tax return.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
They get a charitable
deduction and that's probably
in the year that they're gonnahave one of the highest incomes
of their entire life.
And so, again, if you're havinga liquidity event, selling a
business being cashed out ofcompany equity, you know these
are the times that we sit downand say, all right, let's think
about if you do have anycharitable intent.
(20:42):
We want to be able to kind ofmake hay while the sun is
shining.
We want to be able to maximizethese deductions in the year
that you're going to be in thattop 37% tax bracket and create
the deductions, get yourcharitable fund set up and then
you could make the gifts tocharity for the next 10, 20, 30
years.
You don't have to do that thisyear, but at least it recognizes
(21:05):
the deduction.
So, in terms of bringing a lotof this stuff together, I think
that the overarching mistake andpitfall that we see people make
is they don't engage inplanning right.
This is all just planning 101that we're talking about right
now.
It's really planning aroundwhat your goals and objectives
(21:26):
are right, what your desire is.
For me, I don't know if I woulddo well in retirement.
I love working, I love beinginvolved in building things and
helping people and maybe there'ssome form of retirement.
I could still get all of thatsatisfaction.
But if I inherited $20 milliontomorrow, I don't have any plans
(21:50):
to do that, unless anyone wantsto add me as their beneficiary.
I'm happy with that.
But if I did, I honestly don'tthink I would materially change
much of what I'm doing in mylife right now.
I love the work that I do.
I feel like I'm in kind of thepeak of my career of being able
to continue to help other peoplenavigate their own finances,
(22:10):
and I think many of thelisteners on this podcast
probably feel the same way.
It's not about the money.
They don't go to work for themoney anymore.
They go to work because they'remaking an impact and they're
passionate about what they do.
But planning starts with thatreally identifying your passion,
your goals, your objectives,your dreams, your bucket list,
your vision for what the futurelooks like.
(22:31):
Then it starts to go into cashflow planning for what the
future looks like.
Then it starts to go into cashflow planning how much do I need
to be able to achieve my goalsand objectives and my vision and
continue to check things off mybucket list?
And does that mean I stopworking altogether.
Does that mean I go to more ofa work optional lifestyle?
Does that mean I just pick upsome consulting gigs and do some
(22:52):
passion projects along the wayand then it goes into planning
around investment structure.
What types of stocks, bonds,mutual funds, etfs, portfolios
should you be holding?
Because if you do decide to gomore this retirement or work
optional lifestyle, you go fromwhat we call an accumulation
(23:13):
strategy to a distributionstrategy.
And if you think about justinvesting 101, growth and income
sit on two different sides ofthe teeter-totter.
So if you're focused on growingyour assets as much as possible
, a lot of times you want tominimize the impact of income
(23:34):
from the portfolio, particularlyif you're working, have W-2
wages, have a high income,because the tax man is going to
take a big bite of the incomewhile you're working.
Now, when you decide to stopworking or slow down or take
time off, we might want thatteeter-totter to change.
And now our investment focusgoes more towards income
(23:54):
generation, particularly passiveincome generation, and we're
not as focused on pure growth.
Of course we want to see ouraccount balances grow.
We need them to grow to be ableto help combat inflation over
time and build as much wealth aswe can, but income is a
consideration, I would say theprimary consideration.
So again, goals and objectives,cashflow planning, investment
(24:17):
planning and longevity right,making sure that that income and
cashflow can last you as longas you're alive.
Taxes are a critical component,healthcare is a critical
component.
So it's like a game of chess.
You're thinking three, four,five moves ahead, sometimes 10
moves ahead to get back to whereyou need to be to make these
types of decisions.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Dave, you hit the
nail on the head with that list,
right, and I think anybodylistening to this that's going
through this.
That's it Number one.
We'll recap Understand your why, what your goals and objectives
are and what you feel like isnext.
Number two understand your cashflow.
You better make sure to thinkabout taxes and, as we mentioned
(25:00):
, your medical costs and thenunderstand where you're going to
get what did you say, dave, thechunky peanut butter spending
right, where it's going to bechunky and lumpy and ultimately,
where you're going to see bigspikes.
And then third is reallylooking at your asset allocation
and location and making surethose are in line with the
(25:20):
teeter-totter of are youaccumulating or are you
distributing money from yourportfolio, and will it last?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, definitely.
And the last thing that I justwant to touch on in this episode
is we certainly do have clientsand potential families that
we're helping that have thatsubstantial windfall.
I was just brought in on afamily yesterday actually that
they sold their business toprivate equity.
(25:48):
They got a nice chunk of change.
They got also a 17% interest inthe private equity fund because
of the acquisition, and theprivate equity fund has crushed
it.
And now the second bite of theapple is worth $70 million split
between two brothers $35million each, and the two
(26:10):
brothers are in their seventies.
And so to me, that's what wecalled earlier FU money right,
that's multi-generational wealthmoney.
And so what happens typicallyand this happened in this
scenario is the earlier we canstart doing planning for a
transaction like that, thebetter.
(26:30):
We don't want to wait till aterm sheet is in place or the
money's about to get depositedinto your bank account, because
there's so much strategicopportunity from income tax
planning and mitigation toestate planning, to funding
multi-generational trust for thefamily, the kids, the grandkids
, the charities that the earlieryou can get involved, the
(26:51):
better.
And so I would say that'sactually the last component, the
charities that the earlier youcan get involved, the better,
and so I would say that'sactually the last component of
the planning when we started atthe beginning of goals and
objectives and vision and bucketlist items and cash flow and
assets and how you're investedand taxes and healthcare
(27:11):
planning.
Legacy planning is that finalpiece of it all.
If you were no longer around,where does your stuff go?
Who's in charge?
What are the rules?
And for a lot of our clients,they've accumulated enough money
that is actually more thanenough money for them during the
(27:32):
rest of their life and theywant to start thinking about how
they impact other people.
Again, it could be charities, itcould be children,
grandchildren, it could be justsetting up a generational trust
that provides scholarships tonieces and nephews and cousins.
It could be a trust thatprovides a multi-generational
(27:52):
pool of money for people tostart businesses in the family.
Like there's so much cool stuffyou can do when you get to that
level and we help our clientsthink through that.
But again, whether you'reinheriting a more modest sum of
money $100,000, $200,000, orwhether you're selling your
business for $70 million,there's just so many things that
(28:12):
I know we've been able to helpour clients navigate and just
critical decisions and, to thepoint, david opened up the
episode with you know mistakesthat people make along the way
that are big, big mistakes.
I mean you know when you'retalking about seven figures or
eight figures of money, themistakes could be costly.
And so you know, taking yourtime, not being rushed, being
(28:34):
able to understand thetrade-offs associated with the
decisions, are where we reallyspend our time educating the
families that are in thesefinancial positions.
Well, any closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
guys, mine is gonna
be a repeat of what I've said in
prior episodes Planning earlyand often means that you're
prepared for what's next, and soengaging in whether it's a team
like us or another fiduciaryfinancial advisor to help you
make these highly importantdecisions and ultimately
(29:08):
implement that plan, I think ishuge for most people.
So you know, reach out,schedule a call, because I hate
seeing people make thesemistakes knowing we can't fix
them.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Yeah, and I like
going back to your chunky peanut
butter analogy, it just reallysticks in my mind for some
reason is just to really figureout where it is, where the bumps
are going to be.
You know that you're going tohave a big, big, big windfall
now, but how is it going to playout over multiple years and it
might be chunky, so just keepthat in mind.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Exactly, let us help
you smooth out that peanut
butter.
All right, fellas, it was agreat episode.
Don't forget subscribe to ourYouTube channel, follow the
podcast on every major podcastplayer Spotify, google, apple
and we will see you on the nextone tax or legal advice.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Insurance and tax
services offered to Allison
Wealth Management are notaffiliated with PCA.
(30:16):
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For information pertaining tothe registration status of PCA,
please contact the firm or referto the Investment Advisor
(30:37):
Public Disclosure website.
For additional informationabout PCA, including fees and
services, send for ourdisclosure statement as set
forth on Form ADV from PCA usingthe contact information here.
Please read the disclosurestatement carefully before you
invest or send money.