May 2, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of The Influential Advisor podcast, host Paul interviews Erik Brenner, founder of Hilltop Wealth and Tax Solutions with 32 years of experience in wealth management. Erik discusses his innovative "Personal CFO" model that brings comprehensive financial services under one roof, including integrated tax planning and wealth management. The conversation explores how this approach can transform retirement planning for successful individuals by breaking down traditional silos in financial services and providing family office-level services to non-ultra-wealthy clients.
Guest Bio
Erik Brenner is the founder of Hilltop Wealth and Tax Solutions, an independent registered investment advisory firm. With 32 years of experience in the financial services industry, Erik built his practice after growing up in a family business in the aftermarket automotive industry. He specializes in providing comprehensive wealth management services that integrate tax planning, investment management, and estate planning under one roof.
The Personal CFO Model
- How the model differs from traditional financial advising by combining multiple services under one roof
- The importance of integrating tax planning with wealth management
- How this approach provides family office benefits to clients who aren't ultra-wealthy
- Why coordination between financial professionals is crucial for optimal outcomes
Five Critical Retirement Decisions
- Timing Your Retirement
- Financial implications of retiring earlier or later
- Balancing emotional readiness with financial preparedness
- Benefits of working longer during highest earning years
- Social Security Claiming Strategies
- Why "it's not grandma's Social Security anymore"
- How couples can maximize benefits through coordinated claiming strategies
- Consideration of life expectancy, health history, and age differences between spouses
- Tax implications of Social Security benefits (15% may be tax-free)
- Distribution Strategy
- Importance of tax-efficient withdrawals from retirement accounts
- Why emptying accounts sequentially isn't always optimal
- How proper distribution planning can lower lifetime tax burden
- Healthcare Planning
- Medicare eligibility at 65 and planning for the gap years
- Strategies for obtaining healthcare coverage before Medicare eligibility
- Consideration of long-term care costs in later life
- Estate Planning
- Common oversight of not having or updating estate plans
- Ensuring assets pass according to your wishes
- Going beyond document creation to implementation and funding strategies
The Window of Opportunity
- The critical period between retirement and Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
- How taxable income often drops during this window, creating tax planning opportunities
- Strategic Roth conversions when in lower tax brackets
- Addressing the "balloon" of tax-deferred savings before mandatory distributions
Breaking Down Financial Silos
- How separate financial professionals (insurance, tax, investments, estate) often don't coordinate
- The value of comprehensive financial planning across all domains
- Preventing contradictory advice from different specialists
Client Stories Highlighted
- Claire's Healthcare Savings
- Saved over $31,000 in healthcare costs before Medicare eligibility
- Strategic income management to qualify for healthcare subsidies
- Example of how proper planning can enable earlier retirement
- Henry's Pension Loss
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on the Influential Advisor podcast,
we're exploring how the personalCFO model is transforming
wealth management for successfulindividuals.
My guest, eric Brenner, founderof Hilltop Wealth and Tax
Solutions, has spent 32 yearshelping clients navigate the
increasingly complex financiallandscape.
After growing up in a familybusiness, eric built an
(00:22):
independent wealth managementfirm that serves entrepreneurs,
medical professionals, businessowners and those planning for or
living in retirement.
His approach offers somethingtruly unique combining
sophisticated investmentstrategies with integrated tax
planning under one roof.
If you're wondering if you'remaking the most efficient
(00:42):
financial decisions, thisconversation reveals what's
possible when your advisorbreaks down the traditional
silos in financial planning.
Eric, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey Paul, I'm doing well.
Thanks, it's great to see you.
Great to see you, hey Paul, I'mdoing well.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Thanks, it's great to see you Great to see you, so
I've been looking forward to ourauthor interview today.
So thank you for making thetime and for our audience.
Let's go ahead and kick thingsoff.
Tell us a little bit about whoyou are and what led you to what
you do today.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, so thanks, paul , and it's great to be here.
I've been an advisor.
This will be my 32nd year.
I really started in thebusiness as an entrepreneur, had
an entrepreneur mind, grew upin a family business and we sold
those businesses and really thefinancial advisor business
attracted me.
I founded the firm HilltopWealth and Tax Solutions and we
are an independent registeredinvestment advisory firm and
we'll talk more about this.
This is really what the book isabout, but we've really
(01:49):
developed over the years andfelt the need to be truly
comprehensive.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, and just out of curiosity, what was the family
business that you were engagedin before?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It was aftermarket automotive.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay, very cool, and something that you do which I
think is fairly unique in themarketplace is that you work
with people both on the wealthand the tax side.
I find oftentimes those aresiloed into two different
categories.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, that's true.
A few years ago we decided toreally integrate tax because for
a lot of our clients that arein retirement, tax is their
biggest bill.
It's really not healthcare,unless they really have extreme
healthcare needs, long-term careneeds, things like that and
what we were finding was yourtypical CPA or accountant is
(02:37):
putting numbers in the box.
The other thing that we saw waspeople's assets were growing
and they were growing inaccounts like retirement
accounts, iras and so forth thatwere deferring tax.
And we saw, and continue to see, this issue of the balloon
getting bigger and eventuallyit's going to pop.
(02:59):
So we have fully integrated thetax business.
So we do have a tax andaccounting piece of the business
and that's grown quite nicelyover the years.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Nice, and is your background?
Is it on both sides, or howhave you gotten into both sides
of the business?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, so no, the background's finance and
financial and I've always had aninterest in tax a bit more and
have done some little more deepdive in the tax side.
But when I decided to look athaving that as a service, really
what we did is I went out andfound a tax partner and so she
runs the tax side of thebusiness on the day-to-day and
(03:37):
really has that tax backgroundto help with the integration.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Fair enough.
So exciting part of today,which is the author interview
and of course, as the time we'rerecording this, we're is the
author interview and of courseyou're.
As a time we're recording this,we're in the final stages of
publishing your book, thepersonal CFO revolution.
We'll dive into questions, butjust big picture, what motivated
and inspired you that now wasthe right time to write this
(04:01):
book?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
We just feel as though there, when people are
saving and investing and they'removing along through their
financial journey, there'seducation about how much you
should save and where do yousave.
Of course, we are moreresponsible for our retirements
now than ever, and as people getto almost to retirement and
they start coming down thefinancial mountain and they
(04:23):
start this journey, which reallythe book is centered around
that there's a lot moredecisions that people have to
make now compared to theirparents or their grandparents,
and so the coordination of theCFO was really bringing a
concept that has been availableto the ultra wealthy for a long
time, and that is a familyoffice environment.
(04:46):
A lot of people may not knowwhat a family office is, but it
is basically someone.
The ultra wealthy work withfamily offices and they take
care of everything financial.
We want to be their resource,and so we say your chief
financial officer, we're here tohelp you in all aspects and
coordinating all your financiallife so that you can really make
(05:08):
good decisions beforeretirement and then in
retirement.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, and I can relate to that personally, even
more so just in the past coupleof months.
I have a financial advisor andI have a CPA, and they don't.
I introduced them and myexpectation was that they would
coordinate a little bit behindthe scenes and give me cohesive
recommendations, and I only diddiscover that they were not as
cooperative as I had hoped, andso the CPA unfortunately has to
(05:33):
go.
But as the consumer of it, it'slike I want, just by extension,
the family office is that,especially as your wealth grows,
you want all the expertise thatyou should be getting, but you
also want that coordination onyour behalf.
Because I'm not educated tomake these decisions, I need to
rely on you and your team toinform me about what I should be
thinking about, what's mostimportant.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Exactly, and one of the things about the family
office concept is that we haveaccess, so we are able to bring
our clients access to strategies, certainly investment types,
and service and advice and givethem access to that, and I think
that's a real key.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So the title of the book is the Personal CFO
Revolution, as we mentioned.
And what is a personal CFO andhow is it different from a
typical financial advisor?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I think the differences are a couple really
major differences.
One of them, we alreadymentioned, is tax.
Very few firms really offer upa tax service and so we always
tell clients we don't hidebehind tax, because we can run
it through our tax projectionsoftware.
We can talk about tax, since weare an independent firm, and
then we take it over to our taxside and they run it through the
(06:44):
super duper software.
And then we take it over to ourtax side and they run it
through the super duper softwareand then we can come up with a
plan from a tax perspective.
Other pieces of it are thatbecause we are a fiduciary RIA,
we by law must act in the bestinterest of the client.
So they have us on their sideand they know that.
Look, we don't get paid anymoreif you invest in A, b or C
(07:05):
right, and so we want to bringthat together.
The other piece of it is weoften find that is put off and
we understand why.
But as estate planning, we justsee a lot of times where people
A don't have an estate plan orit's very old, and if they have
an estate plan, that may just bedocuments, but they didn't
finish off by putting instrategies in place, or what we
(07:26):
call funding, and so, instead ofus sending them off to remind
them get an estate plan done, wehave the ability to complete
that and help them through that.
And then the other piece of it,paul, is that the CFO is look,
if you're going to buy abusiness, if you're going to buy
or lease a car, if you're goingto make these other decisions
(07:47):
certainly retirement being a bigone we want to be on your side
and say look, we're helping youhere comprehensively.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So oftentimes we, as a business owner, we might have
a CFO on our team and they'retasked with doing a number of
things for the business becausethey have that expertise doing a
number of things for thebusiness because they have that
expertise.
But in this case it'softentimes the individual who
may or may not be a businessowner, but it's really having
that person that you can go to,that has access and that
comprehensive advice, so that Idon't have to go to three, four
(08:15):
or five different people, getpotentially conflicting advice
or, to your point, just never doit.
So in your book you talk aboutthe five critical retirement
decisions.
What are these five criticalretirement decisions and why do
they matter so much?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
They are critical.
I first talk about timing yourretirement.
Just, maybe by putting offretirement a year or two means
you're putting more into yourretirement plan.
Right?
You're probably at your highestearning years.
Maybe there's marketsensitivity, like we're going
through right now.
Maybe there's healthcaredecisions.
So a lot of times people don'twanna put retirement off, but I
(08:54):
think they wanna look at what isthe timing of the retirement
and what does it meanfinancially?
I look at it as there's theemotional decision to retire
from something, but then there'salso the financial decision.
Then the second thing thatcomes into is our pension.
So everybody has a pension,everybody.
If you have Social Security, andSocial Security claiming
(09:15):
strategies are often overlooked.
In the book I mentioned, it'snot grandma's Social Security
anymore.
We have clients that have a lotof Social Security per month,
and so what they don't do isthey don't, because once you
make that decision, that's it,and so they really don't put a
plan in place and say when's thebest time to draw, should I
draw, should I delay, and soforth, and it's different for
(09:37):
each person.
Can you give an example?
Sure, especially when you havea couple, oftentimes to get the
most out of Social Security, onemay delay.
So you can delay up to age 70and one may take early before
their full retirement age andthen determine what that benefit
total is going to be.
It also is not just yourdecision, because if one of the
(10:02):
spouses passes away, well, oneof the social securities goes
away and so you hop up to thehigher one.
If people have health histories, if one spouse is much older
than the other spouse, thatcomes into play.
The other thing, paul, that Ithink is often overlooked is not
all social security is taxed Inthe current environment, and I
(10:23):
know there's talk of whetherit's going to be taxed or not
taxed or whatevered In thecurrent environment.
And I know there's talk ofwhether it's going to be taxed
or not taxed or whatever.
But in the current environmentthere's a piece of social
security that's not taxed andthat's up to 15% of your benefit
.
15% of a higher benefit is ahigher amount that's tax-free
and that's also not consideredoften.
So all of these variables comeinto play into a situation
(10:46):
determining really what's bestfor the individual.
Then the next one.
We go so social securitydistribution strategy, so you
distribute money when it may notbe just in your best interest
to distribute an empty one pot,then go to the next pot and go
to the next pot.
So how does that come into play?
That's where our tax planningwork and tax work that we dive
(11:09):
into makes a huge difference.
We look at it obviously thisyear or next year, but also
what's it going to look like infuture years.
So that's a big piece of that.
And then the fourth one ishealthcare.
So how we plan for healthcarecertainly once you get to 65,
medicare, you get yourself someMedigap insurance and how we
(11:29):
plan for that.
If people are going to retireprior to 65, then it's a
planning on okay, where'shealthcare?
Do you have to buy healthcare?
How's that going to look foryou?
Healthcare could also look atthe long-term care costs, things
like that, because obviouslythat can be very expensive later
(11:52):
on in life.
And then the last one is theestate plan, like we talked
about.
You hear about these well-knownfolks that die without an
estate plan hundreds of millionsof dollars of an estate and
they didn't have a will nortrust, and that piece of it, to
wrap it up, is really importantin making sure that your assets
pass the way you want them topass.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
How does that happen?
I can see someone that maybehasn't accumulated that much
money not doing the estate butas your assets and your net
worth increases, is that fairlycommon to see people without an
estate plan?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, when you look back at history, there's some
pretty well-known folks thatdidn't have it.
Yeah, it's one of those thatlike taxes.
If you owe taxes right, youfile or they're going to come
after you and people fear uncleSam.
Yes, but on the estate side, noone's there to say there's a
deadline to get this done, and Ithink that's a big piece of it.
(12:43):
People don't want to thinkabout it because obviously
you're thinking about when youpass away and they also don't
maybe realize the consequences,and so it really doesn't tie as
much to the money.
Now, if the ultra wealthy arethese people that have a lot of
wealth.
If they're working with someoneagain on a but we can be on a
(13:11):
client for years, and if theydon't take hold and go through
with it and get it done, youknow there's nothing we can do.
So we just try to make surethat we're there.
We're making it as easy as wecan, but let's get this done,
because we really hate to seehard-earned money and net worth
(13:31):
get hung up and get taxed more,hung up in probate and just
costs they shouldn't have.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, okay, so you covered the five critical areas
and decisions.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
It is and it's also being able to carry it out.
So what you were saying withthe accountant CPA, it's being
able to carry it out and say,instead of saying, yeah, you
should do this for some taxstuff, go see, see what they say
, so we can carry that out forthem and make sure that we're
following through with it from acoordination perspective.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
This sounds like a great service.
You probably have a linestretching outside the door.
Where have you been my wholelife?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
We do have people that have done some of what
they're on their own, but thenthey get to a point of a lot of
people have a lot more to manage.
They have multiple accounts,multiple places.
Those can be taxed differently.
They can have four or fivedifferent kind of streams of
income and they're all taxeddifferently.
As far as a coordination goes,not everybody wants that service
(14:29):
but we're finding more and morewant that as they're in
retirement.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and how do you implement that?
Is that you meet every so oftenon a scheduled basis.
What does that look like inreal life?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, so typically if it's a new relationship,
there's a lot of work to workthrough initially and lay out a
plan and then it really dependson the situation.
So sometimes it's a coupletimes a year, sometimes it's
more.
It depends on the client, whatthe needs are, what we're
working on.
Sometimes they'll go and we'resmooth going.
(15:02):
Certainly, tax time they've gotto gather their tax stuff and
so forth.
But we do a lot of planningwhere we clients know where
they're going to land from a taxperspective.
It's still a deadline, so itdepends on the client.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
And at this point, here we are in 2025, after COVID
.
Are you finding that morepeople?
You're working with peopleacross the country.
Is it more locals in youroffice?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, we're finding, actually, that we are working
with more people Zoom and acrossthe country.
So we are not state specific.
So we certainly meet peopleface to face as well, but
technology has brought this on.
And then the services theservices that we provide, if
they're searching out that for aservice One of the things, paul
(15:47):
, I always tell people in myseminars and others when I ask
people if you have arelationship with an advisor,
when's the last time they askedfor your tax return?
And almost everybody saysthey've never asked for my tax
return, then you really don'thave a comprehensive advisor,
because there's no way they cangive you comprehensive advice
without having your tax return.
(16:08):
And so we find people that wantto have that kind of
relationship and make surethey're making good decisions.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Continuing, a couple of questions.
Back in the book, you speakabout something that you
describe as the window ofopportunity between retirement
and what's called RMDs, orrequired minimum distributions,
and so why is this window ofopportunity so important?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The window of opportunity is this so if you're
upon retirement, let's just say65.
Why is this window ofopportunity so important?
The window of opportunity isthis so if you're upon
retirement, let's just say 65.
So between age 65 and if you'rerequired minimum distribution
age is 73.
You've got those eight yearsbefore you're forced out
minimums out of your retirementplans.
Maybe you haven't drawn SocialSecurity yet because you're not
(16:54):
at full retirement age, whichfor most people now is 67, in
Social Security.
So you've got this opportunitywhere we see often, where income
, taxable income drops off, thatdoesn't mean they don't have
assets and places to take itfrom, but there's taxable income
that drops off substantially.
So you're in a much lowerbracket for a period of time and
(17:15):
the opportunity becomes what'sthe IRA money?
What's the retirement moneygoing to grow to?
What's that projected?
What are those requireddistributions projected at?
Should we do some balancingthere, taking money out even if
it's not needed for income at alower bracket?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's that balloon that you were speaking of it's
growing.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, exactly, and that's the way we're saving
money.
25, 30 years ago, 401ks reallydidn't exist and people had
pension, and the good part isthat people have done and the
people we work with they've donea good job of saving.
The markets have cooperatedover the years and so this now
balloon has gotten to a size andnow they have, or will have, a
tax problem based ondistribution.
So you're in low tax,potentially low tax brackets.
(18:02):
You've got this opportunity.
Before then, uncle Sam forcesminimums out.
You certainly would not waittill after 70 for Social
Security because they pay you nomore.
So that's the window ofopportunity from retirement up
to required mental distributionage.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Okay, very cool.
I talked to a lot of financialprofessionals.
I don't think I've heard itdescribed so specifically with
that much clarity, so it'sinteresting to know.
So in the book you share astory about someone named Claire
and I know that we're keepingnames separate for
confidentiality.
In the story with Claire, yousaved her over $31,000 in
(18:40):
healthcare before Medicare.
So tell us about that.
How is that possible?
What did you do?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Obviously, prior to 65, there is no Medicare.
So oftentimes people initially,when they come to us, say I got
to work till 65 because I needhealthcare.
Well, there's now what's theopportunity for folks to buy on
the marketplace that's oftenreferred to as Obamacare.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Which is expensive.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That's what the thought is.
It can be expensive.
However, if your income staysbelow a certain level, then you
get subsidies, and so whathappens is that sometimes we can
manage someone retiring priorto 65, keeping their income
that's reported below athreshold so that they get a
(19:29):
subsidy, and oftentimes asubstantial subsidy, so that
then when they get to Medicare,of course they're on Medicare.
You could have a lot of assets,but what shows up and where do
you take it from and what'staxable?
So in that situation whichwe've done a lot and we manage a
lot of these is people need tothink about that as they're
(19:51):
saving, because if they'resaving in a place that will be
100% taxable when they retire,they may not be able to get the
subsidies, versus if theydiversified their saving
strategy, they could tap adifferent bucket that would be
less taxable.
Yeah, we've done that a lot andit really is helpful for
(20:12):
somebody that, okay, it's ready,it's time to go, I've got
enough money, want healthcare,and so it's a great way to
bridge the gap betweenretirement and Medicare.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you find that a lot of people wait until 65 to
retire for the reasons ofMedicare?
When you discuss this conceptwith them, Do you find that
people start making decisions toperhaps retire earlier?
Or what's the reaction that yousee as you discuss these things
with people?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Once we have this discussion and the plan shows,
they have enough money.
So it's just a matter of how dowe proportion it out?
We've had many times whereclients are here whether they're
new, or we've been working withthem, but a new client and can
I do new?
Or we've been working with thembut a new client and can I do
it or not?
(21:01):
And we tell them you can dothis and we're going to help you
through this, and theyliterally will turn in their
notice, sometimes the next dayor the next week, knowing that
they can do it.
And I tell people if you haveenough assets and you've done a
good enough job and you have theability to utilize what's out
there, the law, what's thesubsidies, let's do it.
Don't be miserable at whatyou're doing just because of
(21:23):
that.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Another question and I think we've touched upon this
a little bit, but I'll ask youis that you use the term silos
in the book and you talk aboutthe concept of breaking down
silos in financial planning.
Can you help explain what youmean by that?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, the silos could be.
You have insurance and it'ssiloed with insurance or an
estate.
So when you go to and get yourestate done, right there's a lot
of great estate planningattorneys, but it's often estate
siloed.
I've had situations that peoplegot their estate done and the
attorney never asked about,never gathered a net worth
(21:59):
statement, they never askedabout their financial assets Tax
.
We talked about that, so that'ssiloed.
So really, what we're doing iswe're looking across channels,
right, not being siloed, andsaying if we do this, how does
it affect this and this?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Often advisors are challenged with giving advice on
Social Security because youdon't get paid for it.
Yeah, again, these silos versusworking together and bringing
it together was very important.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And that essentially, I mean the overarching theme is
the idea behind the book, whichis your personal CFO and,
additionally, the concept of thefamily office is that you bring
all of these things under oneroof so that you don't have
these silos that don't reallyserve your best interests.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
All right.
What I love about your book isthat you take these financial
concepts, but you do a great jobof telling stories to make them
more relatable to everydaypeople.
And so in the book, you tell aheartbreaking story about a man
named Henry again, privacy, nothis real name who lost $100,000
in annual pension income.
And so, whether it's him orjust what do you see when it
(23:07):
comes to people such as Henry,making mistakes with their
planning?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, we've had some sad cases.
This one was certainly a sadcase and this was prior to us
getting introduced to him.
And so him and his wife bothwere going to retire and he was
pretty much a do-it-yourselferand he thought he was making
good decisions and his wife hada really good pension.
(23:33):
And they decided that insteadof having the pension to have a
benefit for the spouse, shewould just take life only, which
means if she passes away he hasno pension.
And so they made that decisionand really no planning at all,
just saying we want the mostmoney, and unfortunately she
(23:55):
became ill and passed awayshortly after retirement.
All of those years put into thework, the hard work, and she
got very little.
Yeah, and If we would have beenintroduced to them earlier, I
believe we would have been ableto advise them as to what the
best decision is.
But you know, when you get intothe higher dollar amounts over
(24:18):
time, you cannot project lifeexpectancy.
That's where reallyprofessional, experienced advice
can help you make those rightdecisions.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, do you find that there's a pattern or
anything?
When it comes to DIYers ordo-it-yourselfers, when they
come to realize on their ownaccord that it makes sense to
start working with someone likeyourself, do you see any through
lines or patterns there?
Speaker 2 (24:44):
One is it just gets too large for them to do it.
We work with a lot ofprofessionals doctors, business
owners, successful entrepreneurs, as well as pre-retired and
retirees and so they've beensuccessful in their own, but
they in a lot of really smartpeople.
But they also realize this isnot their, this is not their
forte.
Probably if they could spendthe time hours on it that they
(25:07):
could do it.
So a lot of it is how do theykeep up?
We do this hours and hours aweek and we have trouble keeping
up with all the tax law changesthat have happened over the
last just handful of years.
There's really no way someonecould keep up with them and hold
down a career and understandthem and how to integrate.
So the whole thing about thepersonal CFO and the mountain
(25:30):
analogy, paul is, it's justgotten way more complex.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I would imagine that a wire do-it-yourselfer
generally does it because theythink I don't want to pay fees,
I want to save money.
I can do this myself.
But to what you're just saying,it could be the opposite.
Right, it could be Henry orothers that you could be
actually costing yourselfpotentially a lot of money and
benefits.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
We do a lot of tax mitigationstrategies, which means mitigate
your tax Not talking aboutsaving in a 401k and deferring
tax, talking about reducing yourtax bill now this year, and we
continue to look for thosestrategies in the tax code that
allow people to reduce tax thisyear Someone that's a
(26:14):
do-it-yourselfer.
You're just not going to runacross those and or have the
access to them.
Yeah, so oftentimes, and whatwe get compensated to help
people, oftentimes we canactually save them more than
what our cost is.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I find that's.
I think it's underappreciated,right.
So, since I've been workingwith an advisor myself, I find
one of the best things is that Idon't make short-term emotional
decisions right.
It's my money, obviously, but Ialso value the support that I
get from an advisor.
It's almost a sounding board,it's accountability, it's just a
check on making impulsiveemotional decisions which, just
(26:52):
from my own experience, I didn'tfully appreciate until I began
engaging an advisor.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, that's.
A great point is that the worstdecisions is to make financial
decisions based on emotion.
Helping people see it is a bigvalue add.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Which is hard not to do because money is inherently
emotional and so it's very hardto not make emotional decisions
good or bad.
But just as I'll do this butputting the brakes on it,
pausing and being a little morereflective is definitely a good
thing- yeah, absolutely.
So, as we start to wrap up, isthere any question that I
haven't asked you, that you'dlike to share, anything that's
(27:29):
important to you that we haven'ttalked about?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
No, I think that the question a lot of times is in
retirement there'ssimplification.
That's another reason as thepersonal CFO kind of especially
as people get into retirementinitially, if they want to
travel and see grandkids andhave flexibility and freedom,
simplification is key and sothat's very helpful for a lot of
(27:54):
our clients to know that it'sall under one roof.
And it's going to be even moreof a key, as I said, because of
the complexities of navigatingtheir downward climb on the
mountain in retirement.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, I would imagine when it comes to couples,
that's even more importantbecause if, traditionally or
whatever, maybe the man is alittle bit more engaged in the
finances and then he passes awayas I understand, 80% of men die
married and 80% of womenoutlive them, and if the
surviving spouse is now suddenlythrust into having to
understand these things, I canimagine the benefit of just
(28:30):
seamlessly working with someonelike yourself.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, and that's a great point.
We do have a lot of people thatwe've started to work with over
the years and, yeah, they wanthelp immediately, but they're
also thinking about they gotnudged from the spouse.
Right, I want to have arelationship, so if something
happens to you, I know who to goto, because, unfortunately, a
lot of times, if they gosomewhere, they may get misled,
may get missold something theyshouldn't own, and so that is
(28:57):
another important piece.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's almost protection for them.
You may not be always makingthe best decisions as we age.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Exactly, and the kids the adult kids right at the
time would be boy.
They just feel better.
We meet them often and they'renot in town or they're not
around them, but they feelbetter that mom or dad has a
resource that they can rely onso that they're making the good
decisions.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
One of the things I hear which to me sounds
counterintuitive, but I guess Iunderstand it is that oftentimes
the folks you know who havesaved been great savers their
whole life and they'veaccumulated a lot of money and
they're not going to spend alltheir money down.
One of the things that Iunderstand that they are
sometimes challenged with isactually learning how to spend
more money and enjoying theactual money that they've
(29:42):
accumulated.
Do you have any perspective onthat?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, that's true.
Sometimes they've got plentyand every situation is different
.
Some are very charitablyinclined, some of them want to
have it to their kids orgrandkids while they're living.
You know, the challenge is whatare you going to need later in
life?
You can have health care costswith long-term care costs and so
forth skyrocket very quickly.
(30:06):
But typically they got therefor a reason they did well, made
good decisions with their money, and now it's just about making
sure they've got enough andthen passing it on the most
efficiently.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
If readers, if someone were to take one key
message from your book andthere's multiple important
messages but if they were totake one key message from your
book, what would you like thatto be?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I'd really like them to think about retirement's
different than 25 years ago,than your parents or your
grandparents.
It is going to get more complexRetirement plans, iras, 401ks
and so forth in the UnitedStates right now is at about $40
trillion that is yet to betaxed, so there are laws that
(30:52):
have changed in the recent yearsto help push that money out
sooner.
So people have much largeraccounts, which is a good thing,
but from a tax perspective, soI'd like to take them out.
That the planning side is notnecessarily will you have enough
.
Often the people we work withmostly they've got enough.
(31:14):
It's now being the mostefficient with what you have.
And look, you can.
You have two choices with yourestate you can give it to the
ones you love and care about, oryou can give it to the IRS,
uncle Sam, probate, court costsand so have you ever had someone
say I want to give it to UncleSam?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
No, where can our listeners learn more about you?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Hilltop Wealth and Tax Solutions or get a copy of
your book.
Yeah, so they can get a copy ofthe book.
They simply go tohireapersonalcfocom On there.
They can get access to the book.
If they want to find out more,we do a 15-minute introductory
call with one of our teammembers.
Find out more about them.
They can find out a little bitabout us, and then we determine
(32:02):
whether or not we think it wouldgo to an initial discussion
with a wealth manager and if wecan't help you, we'll let people
know that.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Who makes a good fit, Aside from income and assets
and things like that that make agood fit, but just from a
personality cycle, however youdefine it, who makes a good fit
and who doesn't make a good fit.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I think one is advisor receptive.
So advisor receptive, someonethat wants to take advice right,
and that's a good fit.
And then we fit into categories, as I said pre-retired five
years or less, typically, andretirees, medical doctors and
medical professionals, and thenentrepreneurs.
(32:40):
Maybe they're in a point nowwhere they're starting to think
about selling the business orjust making their business grow
further and they need thefinancial on the team.
Those really are the peoplethat we can really make a big
impact in their lives.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, fantastic, I've enjoyed the conversation.
Congratulations on the book andthanks so much for your time
today.
Thanks, paul, all right, byefor now.
Today on the Influential Advisor podcast,
we're exploring how the personalCFO model is transforming
wealth management for successfulindividuals.
My guest, eric Brenner, founderof Hilltop Wealth and Tax
Solutions, has spent 32 yearshelping clients navigate the
increasingly complex financiallandscape.
After growing up in a familybusiness, eric built an
(00:22):
independent wealth managementfirm that serves entrepreneurs,
medical professionals, businessowners and those planning for or
living in retirement.
His approach offers somethingtruly unique combining
sophisticated investmentstrategies with integrated tax
planning under one roof.
If you're wondering if you'remaking the most efficient
(00:42):
financial decisions, thisconversation reveals what's
possible when your advisorbreaks down the traditional
silos in financial planning.
Eric, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey Paul, I'm doing well.
Thanks, it's great to see you.
Great to see you, hey Paul, I'mdoing well.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Thanks, it's great to see you Great to see you, so
I've been looking forward to ourauthor interview today.
So thank you for making thetime and for our audience.
Let's go ahead and kick thingsoff.
Tell us a little bit about whoyou are and what led you to what
you do today.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, so thanks, paul , and it's great to be here.
I've been an advisor.
This will be my 32nd year.
I really started in thebusiness as an entrepreneur, had
an entrepreneur mind, grew upin a family business and we sold
those businesses and really thefinancial advisor business
attracted me.
I founded the firm HilltopWealth and Tax Solutions and we
are an independent registeredinvestment advisory firm and
we'll talk more about this.
This is really what the book isabout, but we've really
(01:49):
developed over the years andfelt the need to be truly
comprehensive.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, and just out of curiosity, what was the family
business that you were engagedin before?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It was aftermarket automotive.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay, very cool, and something that you do which I
think is fairly unique in themarketplace is that you work
with people both on the wealthand the tax side.
I find oftentimes those aresiloed into two different
categories.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, that's true.
A few years ago we decided toreally integrate tax because for
a lot of our clients that arein retirement, tax is their
biggest bill.
It's really not healthcare,unless they really have extreme
healthcare needs, long-term careneeds, things like that and
what we were finding was yourtypical CPA or accountant is
(02:37):
putting numbers in the box.
The other thing that we saw waspeople's assets were growing
and they were growing inaccounts like retirement
accounts, iras and so forth thatwere deferring tax.
And we saw, and continue to see, this issue of the balloon
getting bigger and eventuallyit's going to pop.
(02:59):
So we have fully integrated thetax business.
So we do have a tax andaccounting piece of the business
and that's grown quite nicelyover the years.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Nice, and is your background?
Is it on both sides, or howhave you gotten into both sides
of the business?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, so no, the background's finance and
financial and I've always had aninterest in tax a bit more and
have done some little more deepdive in the tax side.
But when I decided to look athaving that as a service, really
what we did is I went out andfound a tax partner and so she
runs the tax side of thebusiness on the day-to-day and
(03:37):
really has that tax backgroundto help with the integration.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Fair enough.
So exciting part of today,which is the author interview
and of course, as the time we'rerecording this, we're is the
author interview and of courseyou're.
As a time we're recording this,we're in the final stages of
publishing your book, thepersonal CFO revolution.
We'll dive into questions, butjust big picture, what motivated
and inspired you that now wasthe right time to write this
(04:01):
book?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
We just feel as though there, when people are
saving and investing and they'removing along through their
financial journey, there'seducation about how much you
should save and where do yousave.
Of course, we are moreresponsible for our retirements
now than ever, and as people getto almost to retirement and
they start coming down thefinancial mountain and they
(04:23):
start this journey, which reallythe book is centered around
that there's a lot moredecisions that people have to
make now compared to theirparents or their grandparents,
and so the coordination of theCFO was really bringing a
concept that has been availableto the ultra wealthy for a long
time, and that is a familyoffice environment.
(04:46):
A lot of people may not knowwhat a family office is, but it
is basically someone.
The ultra wealthy work withfamily offices and they take
care of everything financial.
We want to be their resource,and so we say your chief
financial officer, we're here tohelp you in all aspects and
coordinating all your financiallife so that you can really make
(05:08):
good decisions beforeretirement and then in
retirement.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, and I can relate to that personally, even
more so just in the past coupleof months.
I have a financial advisor andI have a CPA, and they don't.
I introduced them and myexpectation was that they would
coordinate a little bit behindthe scenes and give me cohesive
recommendations, and I only diddiscover that they were not as
cooperative as I had hoped, andso the CPA unfortunately has to
(05:33):
go.
But as the consumer of it, it'slike I want, just by extension,
the family office is that,especially as your wealth grows,
you want all the expertise thatyou should be getting, but you
also want that coordination onyour behalf.
Because I'm not educated tomake these decisions, I need to
rely on you and your team toinform me about what I should be
thinking about, what's mostimportant.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Exactly, and one of the things about the family
office concept is that we haveaccess, so we are able to bring
our clients access to strategies, certainly investment types,
and service and advice and givethem access to that, and I think
that's a real key.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So the title of the book is the Personal CFO
Revolution, as we mentioned.
And what is a personal CFO andhow is it different from a
typical financial advisor?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I think the differences are a couple really
major differences.
One of them, we alreadymentioned, is tax.
Very few firms really offer upa tax service and so we always
tell clients we don't hidebehind tax, because we can run
it through our tax projectionsoftware.
We can talk about tax, since weare an independent firm, and
then we take it over to our taxside and they run it through the
(06:44):
super duper software.
And then we take it over to ourtax side and they run it
through the super duper softwareand then we can come up with a
plan from a tax perspective.
Other pieces of it are thatbecause we are a fiduciary RIA,
we by law must act in the bestinterest of the client.
So they have us on their sideand they know that.
Look, we don't get paid anymoreif you invest in A, b or C
(07:05):
right, and so we want to bringthat together.
The other piece of it is weoften find that is put off and
we understand why.
But as estate planning, we justsee a lot of times where people
A don't have an estate plan orit's very old, and if they have
an estate plan, that may just bedocuments, but they didn't
finish off by putting instrategies in place, or what we
(07:26):
call funding, and so, instead ofus sending them off to remind
them get an estate plan done, wehave the ability to complete
that and help them through that.
And then the other piece of it,paul, is that the CFO is look,
if you're going to buy abusiness, if you're going to buy
or lease a car, if you're goingto make these other decisions
(07:47):
certainly retirement being a bigone we want to be on your side
and say look, we're helping youhere comprehensively.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So oftentimes we, as a business owner, we might have
a CFO on our team and they'retasked with doing a number of
things for the business becausethey have that expertise doing a
number of things for thebusiness because they have that
expertise.
But in this case it'softentimes the individual who
may or may not be a businessowner, but it's really having
that person that you can go to,that has access and that
comprehensive advice, so that Idon't have to go to three, four
(08:15):
or five different people, getpotentially conflicting advice
or, to your point, just never doit.
So in your book you talk aboutthe five critical retirement
decisions.
What are these five criticalretirement decisions and why do
they matter so much?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
They are critical.
I first talk about timing yourretirement.
Just, maybe by putting offretirement a year or two means
you're putting more into yourretirement plan.
Right?
You're probably at your highestearning years.
Maybe there's marketsensitivity, like we're going
through right now.
Maybe there's healthcaredecisions.
So a lot of times people don'twanna put retirement off, but I
(08:54):
think they wanna look at what isthe timing of the retirement
and what does it meanfinancially?
I look at it as there's theemotional decision to retire
from something, but then there'salso the financial decision.
Then the second thing thatcomes into is our pension.
So everybody has a pension,everybody.
If you have Social Security, andSocial Security claiming
(09:15):
strategies are often overlooked.
In the book I mentioned, it'snot grandma's Social Security
anymore.
We have clients that have a lotof Social Security per month,
and so what they don't do isthey don't, because once you
make that decision, that's it,and so they really don't put a
plan in place and say when's thebest time to draw, should I
draw, should I delay, and soforth, and it's different for
(09:37):
each person.
Can you give an example?
Sure, especially when you havea couple, oftentimes to get the
most out of Social Security, onemay delay.
So you can delay up to age 70and one may take early before
their full retirement age andthen determine what that benefit
total is going to be.
It also is not just yourdecision, because if one of the
(10:02):
spouses passes away, well, oneof the social securities goes
away and so you hop up to thehigher one.
If people have health histories, if one spouse is much older
than the other spouse, thatcomes into play.
The other thing, paul, that Ithink is often overlooked is not
all social security is taxed Inthe current environment, and I
(10:23):
know there's talk of whetherit's going to be taxed or not
taxed or whatevered In thecurrent environment.
And I know there's talk ofwhether it's going to be taxed
or not taxed or whatever.
But in the current environmentthere's a piece of social
security that's not taxed andthat's up to 15% of your benefit
.
15% of a higher benefit is ahigher amount that's tax-free
and that's also not consideredoften.
So all of these variables comeinto play into a situation
(10:46):
determining really what's bestfor the individual.
Then the next one.
We go so social securitydistribution strategy, so you
distribute money when it may notbe just in your best interest
to distribute an empty one pot,then go to the next pot and go
to the next pot.
So how does that come into play?
That's where our tax planningwork and tax work that we dive
(11:09):
into makes a huge difference.
We look at it obviously thisyear or next year, but also
what's it going to look like infuture years.
So that's a big piece of that.
And then the fourth one ishealthcare.
So how we plan for healthcarecertainly once you get to 65,
medicare, you get yourself someMedigap insurance and how we
(11:29):
plan for that.
If people are going to retireprior to 65, then it's a
planning on okay, where'shealthcare?
Do you have to buy healthcare?
How's that going to look foryou?
Healthcare could also look atthe long-term care costs, things
like that, because obviouslythat can be very expensive later
(11:52):
on in life.
And then the last one is theestate plan, like we talked
about.
You hear about these well-knownfolks that die without an
estate plan hundreds of millionsof dollars of an estate and
they didn't have a will nortrust, and that piece of it, to
wrap it up, is really importantin making sure that your assets
pass the way you want them topass.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
How does that happen?
I can see someone that maybehasn't accumulated that much
money not doing the estate butas your assets and your net
worth increases, is that fairlycommon to see people without an
estate plan?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, when you look back at history, there's some
pretty well-known folks thatdidn't have it.
Yeah, it's one of those thatlike taxes.
If you owe taxes right, youfile or they're going to come
after you and people fear uncleSam.
Yes, but on the estate side, noone's there to say there's a
deadline to get this done, and Ithink that's a big piece of it.
(12:43):
People don't want to thinkabout it because obviously
you're thinking about when youpass away and they also don't
maybe realize the consequences,and so it really doesn't tie as
much to the money.
Now, if the ultra wealthy arethese people that have a lot of
wealth.
If they're working with someoneagain on a but we can be on a
(13:11):
client for years, and if theydon't take hold and go through
with it and get it done, youknow there's nothing we can do.
So we just try to make surethat we're there.
We're making it as easy as wecan, but let's get this done,
because we really hate to seehard-earned money and net worth
(13:31):
get hung up and get taxed more,hung up in probate and just
costs they shouldn't have.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, okay, so you covered the five critical areas
and decisions.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
It is and it's also being able to carry it out.
So what you were saying withthe accountant CPA, it's being
able to carry it out and say,instead of saying, yeah, you
should do this for some taxstuff, go see, see what they say
, so we can carry that out forthem and make sure that we're
following through with it from acoordination perspective.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
This sounds like a great service.
You probably have a linestretching outside the door.
Where have you been my wholelife?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
We do have people that have done some of what
they're on their own, but thenthey get to a point of a lot of
people have a lot more to manage.
They have multiple accounts,multiple places.
Those can be taxed differently.
They can have four or fivedifferent kind of streams of
income and they're all taxeddifferently.
As far as a coordination goes,not everybody wants that service
(14:29):
but we're finding more and morewant that as they're in
retirement.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and how do you implement that?
Is that you meet every so oftenon a scheduled basis.
What does that look like inreal life?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, so typically if it's a new relationship,
there's a lot of work to workthrough initially and lay out a
plan and then it really dependson the situation.
So sometimes it's a coupletimes a year, sometimes it's
more.
It depends on the client, whatthe needs are, what we're
working on.
Sometimes they'll go and we'resmooth going.
(15:02):
Certainly, tax time they've gotto gather their tax stuff and
so forth.
But we do a lot of planningwhere we clients know where
they're going to land from a taxperspective.
It's still a deadline, so itdepends on the client.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
And at this point, here we are in 2025, after COVID
.
Are you finding that morepeople?
You're working with peopleacross the country.
Is it more locals in youroffice?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, we're finding, actually, that we are working
with more people Zoom and acrossthe country.
So we are not state specific.
So we certainly meet peopleface to face as well, but
technology has brought this on.
And then the services theservices that we provide, if
they're searching out that for aservice One of the things, paul
(15:47):
, I always tell people in myseminars and others when I ask
people if you have arelationship with an advisor,
when's the last time they askedfor your tax return?
And almost everybody saysthey've never asked for my tax
return, then you really don'thave a comprehensive advisor,
because there's no way they cangive you comprehensive advice
without having your tax return.
(16:08):
And so we find people that wantto have that kind of
relationship and make surethey're making good decisions.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Continuing, a couple of questions.
Back in the book, you speakabout something that you
describe as the window ofopportunity between retirement
and what's called RMDs, orrequired minimum distributions,
and so why is this window ofopportunity so important?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The window of opportunity is this so if you're
upon retirement, let's just say65.
Why is this window ofopportunity so important?
The window of opportunity isthis so if you're upon
retirement, let's just say 65.
So between age 65 and if you'rerequired minimum distribution
age is 73.
You've got those eight yearsbefore you're forced out
minimums out of your retirementplans.
Maybe you haven't drawn SocialSecurity yet because you're not
(16:54):
at full retirement age, whichfor most people now is 67, in
Social Security.
So you've got this opportunitywhere we see often, where income
, taxable income drops off, thatdoesn't mean they don't have
assets and places to take itfrom, but there's taxable income
that drops off substantially.
So you're in a much lowerbracket for a period of time and
(17:15):
the opportunity becomes what'sthe IRA money?
What's the retirement moneygoing to grow to?
What's that projected?
What are those requireddistributions projected at?
Should we do some balancingthere, taking money out even if
it's not needed for income at alower bracket?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's that balloon that you were speaking of it's
growing.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, exactly, and that's the way we're saving
money.
25, 30 years ago, 401ks reallydidn't exist and people had
pension, and the good part isthat people have done and the
people we work with they've donea good job of saving.
The markets have cooperatedover the years and so this now
balloon has gotten to a size andnow they have, or will have, a
tax problem based ondistribution.
So you're in low tax,potentially low tax brackets.
(18:02):
You've got this opportunity.
Before then, uncle Sam forcesminimums out.
You certainly would not waittill after 70 for Social
Security because they pay you nomore.
So that's the window ofopportunity from retirement up
to required mental distributionage.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Okay, very cool.
I talked to a lot of financialprofessionals.
I don't think I've heard itdescribed so specifically with
that much clarity, so it'sinteresting to know.
So in the book you share astory about someone named Claire
and I know that we're keepingnames separate for
confidentiality.
In the story with Claire, yousaved her over $31,000 in
(18:40):
healthcare before Medicare.
So tell us about that.
How is that possible?
What did you do?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Obviously, prior to 65, there is no Medicare.
So oftentimes people initially,when they come to us, say I got
to work till 65 because I needhealthcare.
Well, there's now what's theopportunity for folks to buy on
the marketplace that's oftenreferred to as Obamacare.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Which is expensive.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
That's what the thought is.
It can be expensive.
However, if your income staysbelow a certain level, then you
get subsidies, and so whathappens is that sometimes we can
manage someone retiring priorto 65, keeping their income
that's reported below athreshold so that they get a
(19:29):
subsidy, and oftentimes asubstantial subsidy, so that
then when they get to Medicare,of course they're on Medicare.
You could have a lot of assets,but what shows up and where do
you take it from and what'staxable?
So in that situation whichwe've done a lot and we manage a
lot of these is people need tothink about that as they're
(19:51):
saving, because if they'resaving in a place that will be
100% taxable when they retire,they may not be able to get the
subsidies, versus if theydiversified their saving
strategy, they could tap adifferent bucket that would be
less taxable.
Yeah, we've done that a lot andit really is helpful for
(20:12):
somebody that, okay, it's ready,it's time to go, I've got
enough money, want healthcare,and so it's a great way to
bridge the gap betweenretirement and Medicare.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you find that a lot of people wait until 65 to
retire for the reasons ofMedicare?
When you discuss this conceptwith them, Do you find that
people start making decisions toperhaps retire earlier?
Or what's the reaction that yousee as you discuss these things
with people?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Once we have this discussion and the plan shows,
they have enough money.
So it's just a matter of how dowe proportion it out?
We've had many times whereclients are here whether they're
new, or we've been working withthem, but a new client and can
I do new?
Or we've been working with thembut a new client and can I do
it or not?
(21:01):
And we tell them you can dothis and we're going to help you
through this, and theyliterally will turn in their
notice, sometimes the next dayor the next week, knowing that
they can do it.
And I tell people if you haveenough assets and you've done a
good enough job and you have theability to utilize what's out
there, the law, what's thesubsidies, let's do it.
Don't be miserable at whatyou're doing just because of
(21:23):
that.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Another question and I think we've touched upon this
a little bit, but I'll ask youis that you use the term silos
in the book and you talk aboutthe concept of breaking down
silos in financial planning.
Can you help explain what youmean by that?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, the silos could be.
You have insurance and it'ssiloed with insurance or an
estate.
So when you go to and get yourestate done, right there's a lot
of great estate planningattorneys, but it's often estate
siloed.
I've had situations that peoplegot their estate done and the
attorney never asked about,never gathered a net worth
(21:59):
statement, they never askedabout their financial assets Tax
.
We talked about that, so that'ssiloed.
So really, what we're doing iswe're looking across channels,
right, not being siloed, andsaying if we do this, how does
it affect this and this?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Often advisors are challenged with giving advice on
Social Security because youdon't get paid for it.
Yeah, again, these silos versusworking together and bringing
it together was very important.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And that essentially, I mean the overarching theme is
the idea behind the book, whichis your personal CFO and,
additionally, the concept of thefamily office is that you bring
all of these things under oneroof so that you don't have
these silos that don't reallyserve your best interests.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
All right.
What I love about your book isthat you take these financial
concepts, but you do a great jobof telling stories to make them
more relatable to everydaypeople.
And so in the book, you tell aheartbreaking story about a man
named Henry again, privacy, nothis real name who lost $100,000
in annual pension income.
And so, whether it's him orjust what do you see when it
(23:07):
comes to people such as Henry,making mistakes with their
planning?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, we've had some sad cases.
This one was certainly a sadcase and this was prior to us
getting introduced to him.
And so him and his wife bothwere going to retire and he was
pretty much a do-it-yourselferand he thought he was making
good decisions and his wife hada really good pension.
(23:33):
And they decided that insteadof having the pension to have a
benefit for the spouse, shewould just take life only, which
means if she passes away he hasno pension.
And so they made that decisionand really no planning at all,
just saying we want the mostmoney, and unfortunately she
(23:55):
became ill and passed awayshortly after retirement.
All of those years put into thework, the hard work, and she
got very little.
Yeah, and If we would have beenintroduced to them earlier, I
believe we would have been ableto advise them as to what the
best decision is.
But you know, when you get intothe higher dollar amounts over
(24:18):
time, you cannot project lifeexpectancy.
That's where reallyprofessional, experienced advice
can help you make those rightdecisions.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, do you find that there's a pattern or
anything?
When it comes to DIYers ordo-it-yourselfers, when they
come to realize on their ownaccord that it makes sense to
start working with someone likeyourself, do you see any through
lines or patterns there?
Speaker 2 (24:44):
One is it just gets too large for them to do it.
We work with a lot ofprofessionals doctors, business
owners, successful entrepreneurs, as well as pre-retired and
retirees and so they've beensuccessful in their own, but
they in a lot of really smartpeople.
But they also realize this isnot their, this is not their
forte.
Probably if they could spendthe time hours on it that they
(25:07):
could do it.
So a lot of it is how do theykeep up?
We do this hours and hours aweek and we have trouble keeping
up with all the tax law changesthat have happened over the
last just handful of years.
There's really no way someonecould keep up with them and hold
down a career and understandthem and how to integrate.
So the whole thing about thepersonal CFO and the mountain
(25:30):
analogy, paul is, it's justgotten way more complex.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I would imagine that a wire do-it-yourselfer
generally does it because theythink I don't want to pay fees,
I want to save money.
I can do this myself.
But to what you're just saying,it could be the opposite.
Right, it could be Henry orothers that you could be
actually costing yourselfpotentially a lot of money and
benefits.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
We do a lot of tax mitigationstrategies, which means mitigate
your tax Not talking aboutsaving in a 401k and deferring
tax, talking about reducing yourtax bill now this year, and we
continue to look for thosestrategies in the tax code that
allow people to reduce tax thisyear Someone that's a
(26:14):
do-it-yourselfer.
You're just not going to runacross those and or have the
access to them.
Yeah, so oftentimes, and whatwe get compensated to help
people, oftentimes we canactually save them more than
what our cost is.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I find that's.
I think it's underappreciated,right.
So, since I've been workingwith an advisor myself, I find
one of the best things is that Idon't make short-term emotional
decisions right.
It's my money, obviously, but Ialso value the support that I
get from an advisor.
It's almost a sounding board,it's accountability, it's just a
check on making impulsiveemotional decisions which, just
(26:52):
from my own experience, I didn'tfully appreciate until I began
engaging an advisor.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, that's.
A great point is that the worstdecisions is to make financial
decisions based on emotion.
Helping people see it is a bigvalue add.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Which is hard not to do because money is inherently
emotional and so it's very hardto not make emotional decisions
good or bad.
But just as I'll do this butputting the brakes on it,
pausing and being a little morereflective is definitely a good
thing- yeah, absolutely.
So, as we start to wrap up, isthere any question that I
haven't asked you, that you'dlike to share, anything that's
(27:29):
important to you that we haven'ttalked about?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
No, I think that the question a lot of times is in
retirement there'ssimplification.
That's another reason as thepersonal CFO kind of especially
as people get into retirementinitially, if they want to
travel and see grandkids andhave flexibility and freedom,
simplification is key and sothat's very helpful for a lot of
(27:54):
our clients to know that it'sall under one roof.
And it's going to be even moreof a key, as I said, because of
the complexities of navigatingtheir downward climb on the
mountain in retirement.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, I would imagine when it comes to couples,
that's even more importantbecause if, traditionally or
whatever, maybe the man is alittle bit more engaged in the
finances and then he passes awayas I understand, 80% of men die
married and 80% of womenoutlive them, and if the
surviving spouse is now suddenlythrust into having to
understand these things, I canimagine the benefit of just
(28:30):
seamlessly working with someonelike yourself.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, and that's a great point.
We do have a lot of people thatwe've started to work with over
the years and, yeah, they wanthelp immediately, but they're
also thinking about they gotnudged from the spouse.
Right, I want to have arelationship, so if something
happens to you, I know who to goto, because, unfortunately, a
lot of times, if they gosomewhere, they may get misled,
may get missold something theyshouldn't own, and so that is
(28:57):
another important piece.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's almost protection for them.
You may not be always makingthe best decisions as we age.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Exactly, and the kids the adult kids right at the
time would be boy.
They just feel better.
We meet them often and they'renot in town or they're not
around them, but they feelbetter that mom or dad has a
resource that they can rely onso that they're making the good
decisions.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
One of the things I hear which to me sounds
counterintuitive, but I guess Iunderstand it is that oftentimes
the folks you know who havesaved been great savers their
whole life and they'veaccumulated a lot of money and
they're not going to spend alltheir money down.
One of the things that Iunderstand that they are
sometimes challenged with isactually learning how to spend
more money and enjoying theactual money that they've
(29:42):
accumulated.
Do you have any perspective onthat?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, that's true.
Sometimes they've got plentyand every situation is different
.
Some are very charitablyinclined, some of them want to
have it to their kids orgrandkids while they're living.
You know, the challenge is whatare you going to need later in
life?
You can have health care costswith long-term care costs and so
forth skyrocket very quickly.
(30:06):
But typically they got therefor a reason they did well, made
good decisions with their money, and now it's just about making
sure they've got enough andthen passing it on the most
efficiently.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
If readers, if someone were to take one key
message from your book andthere's multiple important
messages but if they were totake one key message from your
book, what would you like thatto be?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I'd really like them to think about retirement's
different than 25 years ago,than your parents or your
grandparents.
It is going to get more complexRetirement plans, iras, 401ks
and so forth in the UnitedStates right now is at about $40
trillion that is yet to betaxed, so there are laws that
(30:52):
have changed in the recent yearsto help push that money out
sooner.
So people have much largeraccounts, which is a good thing,
but from a tax perspective, soI'd like to take them out.
That the planning side is notnecessarily will you have enough
.
Often the people we work withmostly they've got enough.
(31:14):
It's now being the mostefficient with what you have.
And look, you can.
You have two choices with yourestate you can give it to the
ones you love and care about, oryou can give it to the IRS,
uncle Sam, probate, court costsand so have you ever had someone
say I want to give it to UncleSam?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
No, where can our listeners learn more about you?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Hilltop Wealth and Tax Solutions or get a copy of
your book.
Yeah, so they can get a copy ofthe book.
They simply go tohireapersonalcfocom On there.
They can get access to the book.
If they want to find out more,we do a 15-minute introductory
call with one of our teammembers.
Find out more about them.
They can find out a little bitabout us, and then we determine
(32:02):
whether or not we think it wouldgo to an initial discussion
with a wealth manager and if wecan't help you, we'll let people
know that.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Who makes a good fit, Aside from income and assets
and things like that that make agood fit, but just from a
personality cycle, however youdefine it, who makes a good fit
and who doesn't make a good fit.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I think one is advisor receptive.
So advisor receptive, someonethat wants to take advice right,
and that's a good fit.
And then we fit into categories, as I said pre-retired five
years or less, typically, andretirees, medical doctors and
medical professionals, and thenentrepreneurs.
(32:40):
Maybe they're in a point nowwhere they're starting to think
about selling the business orjust making their business grow
further and they need thefinancial on the team.
Those really are the peoplethat we can really make a big
impact in their lives.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, fantastic, I've enjoyed the conversation.
Congratulations on the book andthanks so much for your time
today.
Thanks, paul, all right, byefor now.
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