Financial Planning

Investment Management
Are you comfortable watching your investment accounts, IRAs and Trust accounts, lose 20%, 35% or even more? Perhaps not. Especially considering major market declines can take longer to recover than you have time remaining until your investment savings is needed to provide income in retirement.
Do you have a strategy to help mitigate and protect your accounts when these times occur? Would you feel better knowing you have an Exit Strategy? We do.

We have rules-based strategies that inform us when it's time to reduce market exposure and rules to guide us when it's favorable to add market exposure. We realize we have no control over how high markets go or how fast. We do have input into how much in losses to suffer. Instead of the "Buy and Hold" mantra, we like to operate under, "Buy and be Smart".

Using rules as guides prevents us from trying to time the market and also helps prevent us from letting emotions interfere, striving to keep long-term goals and portfolio returns on track. These Strategies are customized to align with your Risk tolerance. From a conservative growth approach to a more aggressive growth approach, we will match a strategy that's right for you.
At TPWA, we firmly believe in establishing an investment strategy that aligns with your risk tolerance, time horizon, and overall goals.

We consider active risk management strategies crucial to work toward mitigating devastating effects of multi-year negative markets. This is what we feel separates us from the typical financial adviser that may reply "hang in there," or " this is for the long run, you will be okay “. Although many of these phrases may sound good, what’s also true to remember is when your portfolio is down 20%, you need a 25% return to get back to even, and should your portfolio go down in value by 50%, you need a 100% return to get back to even. Can you wait 10 years to get back to even? It's our belief that if you limit the downside (which you control) the upside (which you do not control) will take care of itself.

Taking income from investment accounts while in retirement necessitates protecting from multi-year negative returns. The danger in what is called negative sequence of returns in retirement income planning is real. Nobody wants to risk potentially running out of money. Going back into the workforce after retiring should only be something one wishes to do, not have to do because of poor investment risk management. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

Income Strategies
As the trend continues with employers not offering pensions, employees are left with only their social security benefits as a reliable source of income in retirement. It is now more important than ever to begin establishing and building a private pension that can possibly guarantee an additional stream of income for you and your spouse. At Texas Private Wealth Advisors (TPWA), we strive to help our clients find a reliable way to secure a certain percentage of their overall income needed in retirement. Whether you need to secure 100% of your income in retirement or only require replacing 75%, we will work with you to build an effective and efficient way to work toward securing your overall income needs.
As retirement approaches, many begin to ponder how and when to withdraw from their retirement or investment accounts and what potential consequences may occur. Prior to withdrawing from these accounts, our advisors will help develop a strategy that can potentially minimize or eliminate unnecessary income taxes. Utilizing direct rollovers along with charitable distributions can potentially help alleviate the burden of unwanted taxes and penalties. RMD’s will become a concern for those who are 72 and own an IRA because for those not taking a required minimum distribution will cause an immediate 50% penalty.

Insurance and Risk Planning
Protecting What You Love Most
Insurance transfers the financial risk of unfortunate life events to an insurance company. A sound insurance strategy can help protect your family from the financial consequences of devastating loss. A risk assessment with planning topics includes a consideration of personal insurance, liability insurance, short and long-term disability, life insurance, and long-term care insurance.
If you are a business owner that relies on key employees, we can help develop plans that seek to protect your business from a key employee loss and the financial burdens that may affect your company's financial health.
As we do with all of our financial plans, we take a comprehensive financial planning approach that includes a thorough insurance needs and gap analysis. Our advisors will review your existing coverage and policies to evaluate the potential impacts of disability, long term care, and premature death which can impact your future plans.

Social Security Optimization
Getting more of what is truly yours
For many clients, social security benefits play a large role in their financial planning. It is important to note that more planning must be done to determine the most effective way to claim your benefits as well as what strategy is most beneficial for you and your family. Deciding on when you take your benefits depends on many factors. You will need to consider things like, your current health, family history of longevity paired with current life expectancy statistics, your overall income needs, your desire to continue to work while claiming benefits, etc. Whether you plan to take social security benefits early, at your “full retirement age”, or allow your benefits to increase in value each year until the age of 70, planning will be crucial to make sure you are on the right path.
There are many misconceptions about social security benefits regarding if and when they’re taxed, having benefits reduced upon early retirement, and continuing to work after your “full retirement age”. By working with one of our advisors, we will help you optimize your benefits and understand the effects your benefits might incur should you continue to work and/or also have additional income sources such as, retirement plans, pensions, or IRA’s.
This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax advice. We suggest that you discuss your specific tax issues with a qualified tax advisor.

Estate Planning
At TPWA, we understand the importance of wealth preservation and providing for your loved ones. Our team is dedicated to helping you distribute your assets effectively and efficiently, working toward minimizing unwanted tax bills and/or avoiding costly court and attorney’s fees. Our advisors will provide an overall review of all your accounts to help ensure proper titling and beneficiary designation. Additionally, although we do not provide legal advice, we will review your wills, durable power of attorney, health care powers of attorney, living wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, business succession planning, and buy-sell agreements to see if there are any concerns we have from an investment strategy point of view.

This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax or legal advice. We suggest that you discuss your specific situation with a qualified tax or legal advisor.

Tax Planning
What is tax planning and why should you consider it BEFORE you actually file your annual income tax return? If you are like most taxpayers, you are more than likely to visit with your CPA or tax advisor prior to the April 15 annual deadline. You email your W2 tax forms and provide them any new or changed personal information. If you’re a business owner, you might be dropping off a shoebox with all your tax receipts for expenses you may have incurred the during the previous tax year. Sound familiar? Although you might get your return filed on time, the purpose of tax planning is to ensure tax-efficiency. It’s important to be able to act in time prior to the tax deadline and/or before it’s too late to establish a retirement plan, pay off certain debt, utilize tax gain-loss harvesting, or contribute to your company’s retirement plan.

Tax planning will also help you understand the impacts of potentially withdrawing from retirement accounts such as IRA’s and 401(k) plans, which may cause your marginal tax bracket to increase, your social security benefits to be further taxed or reduced.
This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax advice. We suggest that you discuss your specific tax issues with a qualified tax advisor.