Family Wealth Management

 

You’ve spent your lifetime building up your family wealth. It was a long and bumpy ride but you’ve made it! Now it’s time to protect and grow your wealth for generations to come. That’s where Prosperity Financial Group comes in. We offer comprehensive family wealth management services to help you achieve your financial goals.

The next question is:

How can you successfully transfer wealth to the next generation?

In short, it’s complicated. The process looks different for every family because no two family financial situations are the same. Moreover, your family’s wealth is always evolving! The strategies that worked this year must be adapted to next year’s intricacies.

With higher wealth comes greater complexity and more concerns, such as:

Leading Family Wealth Advisor & Planner

It’s easy to see why it’s necessary to develop a personalized wealth plan.

The best way to arrive at a truly comprehensive and well-informed plan for managing your unique portfolio? Hire a Wealth Manager.

family-wealth-management

Leading Family Wealth Advisor & Planner

When it comes time to evaluate the sensitive issues surrounding our finances, investments, and legacy plans, it can be difficult to make objective decisions amidst feelings of anxiety, indecisiveness, and sometimes even conflict.

This is where your Fiduciary Wealth Advisor comes in. Learn more our Fiduciary duty of loyalty.

With all these potential pitfalls, it’s no wonder that 7 in 10 wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation. By the third generation, that number reaches an astounding 9 in 10 families.

As you map out your financial future based on both short- and long-term goals, it can feel like there are countless strategies, money-managing vehicles, budgeting, saving, spending, and investment strategies to juggle.

So what can you do to plan for the successful intergenerational transfer of your family’s wealth? You can tap into your Family Wealth Advisor’s broad and deep expertise in investment, tax, and family wealth planning.

You need a rock-solid wealth management & preservation plan to maintain your high standard of living and sustain your family wealth across multiple generations. By adopting the most updated tax strategies, properly forming your estate plan, and making the best use of investment vehicles, we can help you effectively manage all the details of your family wealth.

JUST ONE CONVERSATION CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER

We’ll spend 30 minutes getting to know you—your situation, needs, and vision—then offer a strategic plan to reach your goals.

The Importance of Family Wealth Management

Family Governance

Family governance helps family wealth survive generation after generation.

To future-proof your wealth, you need a clear plan for sustaining family unity as well as prosperity.

Family governance can be a powerful tool to pass on the most important values — a strong work ethic, financial discipline, family harmony, and education — at the heart of your family’s success.

The risk of poor governance

Without such a framework, wealth is at risk of dissipating. Family disputes or ill-advised investment decisions can wipe out decades, or even generations of wealth-building.

However, the process of transferring wealth between generations can be plagued with trust issues and lack of communication. “78 percent of high net worth individuals feel that their heirs aren’t financially responsible enough to handle inheritance,” says Chris Heilmann, U.S. Trust’s chief fiduciary executive.

It’s easy to understand why families would avoid the dreaded money talk. According to the same survey, 64 percent of high net worth individuals admitted that they’ve disclosed “little to nothing” about their wealth to their children.

Why? The reasons are endless.

  • You may have been taught not to talk about money.
  • You may worry that your children will become lazy and entitled.
  • You may fear that loose lips sink ships!

Harrowing as it may seem, there is a way to navigate the conversation smoothly. The idea is to turn an honest discussion into a concrete plan—one that includes expectations from both the current and next generation, as well as how to carry your family values forward.

A Fiduciary Wealth Advisor can help you facilitate a productive discussion with your family members about the resources that’ll someday be available to the children, and about the responsibilities that come with substantial wealth.

When implementing your family wealth plan, it’s important that each generation is involved in establishing and agreeing to ground rules regarding:

  • Control and decision-making over the long term
  • Conflict mediation and resolution
  • Responsible management of an allowance
  • Entitlement to shares in the family business
  • Business succession
  • The role of family members vs. non-family members in the business
  • Philanthropic goals
  • The succession of the family’s core values

Finally, we recognize that your family’s wealth is ever-evolving. Your financial needs and goals can and will change. As such, we integrate periodic reflection and revisions throughout your family wealth management journey.

Have a productive conversation about money

It’s possible to achieve family harmony through philanthropy, impact investing, and shared passions.

We focus on unifying parents and children around commonalities — core values, goals, traditions, legacy — and empowering each generation to interpret, innovate, and contribute in their own way.

START THE CONVERSATION TODAY!

College Planning & 529 Plans

If you have young children or grandchildren, you might have noticed rapid increases in college tuition and fees. In fact, if college costs keep rising as they have for the past 30 years, the inflation-adjusted price of a four-year undergraduate education could more than double by the time your children or grandchildren are ready for college!

It’s more important than ever to start saving for your children’s and grandchildren’s college education as soon as possible. The sooner you start saving, the better position you’ll be in to meet college costs.

Your ideal savings vehicle is one that:

  • Isn’t saddled with arbitrary income limits on eligibility
  • Allows you to contribute a little or a lot, depending on your current cash flow situation
  • Lets you set up automatic recurring contributions from your checking account so you can put your savings effort on autopilot
  • Gives you a way to stay ahead of college inflation
  • Some tax benefits so as many of your dollars go towards your heirs’ education, and not Uncle Sam

You can find all of these things in a 529 Plan

Key Features 529 Plans

Unlike Coverdell accounts, U.S. savings bonds, and Roth IRAs, you can contribute to a 529 plan no matter your income level.

It’s an easy process to open a 529 account, set up automatic monthly contributions, and manage your account online. You can modify the amount and frequency of your contributions, change the beneficiary, change your investment options, and track your investment progress online.

529 plans have high lifetime contribution limits. The exact limit depends on each individual state, and generally begin at $350,000 and up. You can take advantage of a unique gifting feature that allows lump-sum gifts up to five times the annual gift tax exclusion. In 2020, this amount is up to $75,000 for individual gifts and $150,000 for joint gifts. This is a useful estate planning tool for grandparents who’d like to contribute to their grandchildren’s college education in a tax-efficient manner.

Over 30 states currently offer a full or partial tax deduction or credit for 529 plan contributions. While contributions to California’s plan are not deductible at the state or federal level, all investment growth is free from state and federal taxes, and the earnings portion of withdrawals for qualified education expenses are income tax-free.

Estate Planning

Estate planning is the process of creating a master plan for managing family wealth after you’ve passed on. We use tools — like irrevocable trusts, life insurance, and lifetime gifts — in order to protect your wealth for the next generation.

Tax minimization is not the sole goal of estate planning, though. A successful estate plan fulfills your unique wishes, even if they result in less tax-efficient planning. You get to decide how, when, and to whom assets will be distributed—ideally at the lowest possible cost.

Here’s a list of common issues that may be covered by your estate plan:

Philanthropy Management

After accumulating significant wealth, you may decide that you want to leave a lasting philanthropic legacy. It can be enormously fulfilling to give back to your local community, make a social impact, or show your appreciation to a hospital that cared for a loved one. It’s also a tool in your overall family wealth management strategy.

Defining Your Legacy

How do you want to be remembered for what you have contributed to the world? Here are 3 foundational questions for defining your legacy.

Think about what motivates you to act in order to make a difference.

It could be a passion that you’ve had since childhood or something you’ve become more aware of in recent years and want to support. Perhaps it’s related to your lifelong career. Maybe you noticed it when watching a relative or friend suffer through a health condition.

Identify a specific audience and focus your efforts toward reaching that group.

Some groups of people who could benefit from your philanthropy include alumni, inner-city youth, or crime victims.

Consider the specific lasting impact you’d like to make.

Do you want to help children in underserved communities access education opportunities? Do you dream of bringing clean water to a remote village in an international country?

Charitable giving is also a way to educate younger generations about your family’s wealth journey.

For instance, you can involve your children in choosing the charities that you give to on an annual basis; this empowers them to communicate their own values and put them into action.

BOOK A COMPLIMENTARY RETIREMENT STRATEGY SESSION

If you left the world tomorrow, what would happen to your estate?

Your estate plan can help you define how you want your wealth to benefit the people and causes you love. We can help you assess your estate tax liability, incorporate tax-efficient trusts into your wealth management plan, determine your most important goals, and structure a plan that fits your needs.

We’ll also review your estate plan regularly to make sure it still aligns with your goals.

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