Welcome back to the Retirement Tax Services Podcast! Steven’s guest today is advisor William Miller, the founder of WM Wealth Planning. William regularly posts eye-catching, tax-related graphics on social media. We wanted to know more about how this became his focus.
William started out in insurance brokering. However, in time, he moved into financial advising. From there, he found his niche in tax strategies.
It wasn’t overnight, though. In fact, he started out listening to podcasts and watching Youtube videos. This gave him the chance to hear to how other advisors approached tax planning.
He soon learned that it wasn’t something to take lightly. Therefore, he committed to making it a cornerstone of his services.
Next, he took the insights he’d gathered and started applying them to his practice. It began with collecting clients’ tax returns. At the same time, he explained the new direction he was taking.
From there, he started with the basics. In other words, he initially verified that their names, Social Security numbers, and other data were entered correctly.
Gradually, as he grew more comfortable, he branched out into the complexities. He got to know some of the handier software for tax planning. However, if someone had a more in-depth question, he’d get their permission to make notes on their return while reviewing it himself.
This paved the way for quick referencing as more questions arose. Today, he lists reviewing tax returns among his services.
His primary focus is asset location, as opposed to asset allocation. In other words, he optimizes their bucket use.
Some things people dismiss as negligible now may have significant value later. For example, they might get tunnel vision regarding their retirement accounts’ balance.
In fact, some clients overlook the fact that their total retirement account investment balance includes a deferred tax liability. They love seeing $1 million on their statements, but they don’t realize that it may only be $750,000 after taxes.
The marginal rate sneaks up on the unwary. Blanket strategies aren’t always best, either. For example, you can actually defer too much. So, avoid simply trying to defer as much as possible.
A focused approach is always preferable. With this in mind, consider clients’ wealth from a lifetime perspective. It’s much easier to reduce someone’s overall tax bill this way.
Barring a life-changing event, reducing taxes within a single year can be challenging, to say the least. Meanwhile, a long-game approach of sanding off rough edges can potentially save significant amounts.
Make sure that your client or prospect understands this. In other words, explain to them that your strategies may not save a lot of money “this year.”
When they are on the same page, that’s a value-add. In fact, if they aren’t clear on why you advocate a farsighted approach, they are losing value.
Respectfully convey the bigger picture. Never assume they know aspects that you take for granted. That is to say, keep discussions simple and passersby-friendly without getting condescending.
Last but not least, remember that your Compliance department is part of your team. With this in mind, approach them with a sincere willingness to work together. If you avoid stereotyping them as killjoys or enemies, they can become invaluable allies.
Start collecting tax returns. Begin getting them from clients and prospects each year. Set this expectation, explaining how it’s a value-add that you have committed to for their benefit.
Begin with the basics and learn as you go. Look into how you learn. If you’re more auditory, utilize podcasts. If you’re stronger with visuals, watch videos. Regardless of your approach, stop putting off your tax education.
Proactively reach out to clients’ other COIs. If approached with consideration, many CPAs will work with you. If you’re not sure how to break the ice, start here.
Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn. In fact, please tell us who you’d like to hear on the show as a guest. Similarly, let us know which topics you want to hear about.
Steven and guest advisor William Miller have more tips for getting your tax planning rolling in today’s Retirement Tax Services Podcast. Tax-related questions are always welcome at advisors@rts.tax.
Important reminder from the team of William Miller:
Securities offered through Securities America, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Securities America Advisors, Inc. WM Wealth Planning and Securities America are separate entities. This site is published for residents of the United States and is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or product that may be referenced herein. Persons mentioned on this website may only offer services and transact business and/or respond to inquiries in states or jurisdictions in which they have been properly registered or are exempt from registration. Not all products and services referenced on this site are available in every state, jurisdiction or from every person listed
Steven Jarvis:
Hello everyone. And welcome to the Retirement Tax Services Podcast: Financial Professionals Edition. I am your host, Steven Jarvis, CPA. In this show, I teach financial advisors how to deliver massive value to their clients through tax planning. On the show with me today, I’m really excited to have Will Miller, the founder of WM Wealth Planning, a financial advisory firm in the Philadelphia area. So, Will, welcome to the show!
William Miller:
Thanks Steven. Thanks for having me!
SJ:
Yeah, I’m really excited to have you here. Part of the reason we got connected is because you are very active on social media posting about the great things you do with clients, and you do a lot of drawings and graphics, and there’s a real recurring theme of taxes. So, I was really excited to bring you on and kind of talk about what you do in your firm with taxes and how you got to a point where you’re so committed to that. As something you focus on.
WM:
I started off in the insurance broker dealer world and quickly realized that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to actually provide real financial advice to clients in one area that I saw that not a lot of people were talking about, was taxes. So that’s kind of where it all started as a differentiator point.
SJ:
Yeah, I completely agree with that approach. I mean, taxes is something that impacts all of us, but so few people really… I think honestly, part of it is that people don’t want to spend the time on it because for a lot of people that can, it seems like a, not a very exciting topic. It’s like taxes are something we dread, but since it is something that comes up every single year, it’s such a great opportunity to really have an impact on what’s happening in your client’s lives. So, you mentioned that this is something that you kind of identified as an opportunity. And then, I mean, I would assume that at that point is when you really had to start diving in and learning more about this. Talk about that progression.
WM:
Yeah. So, I’m sure we’ll talk about it, but I’m more of an auditory learner, so I’m sure we’ll get into that auditory and visual. So, really a lot of my learning just came from, you know, podcasts and YouTube videos. Really diving in, seeing what other advisors were doing, seeing how they were doing it, listening to them, and then just taking that information and applying it to my practice.
SJ:
That’s awesome! So, as you kind of started into, I guess going beyond presenting this as a kind of an idea on social media to working with clients on this, what were some topics you started on? Where did you see your success early on in getting that value to clients?
WM:
Yeah, I think the building block, when it comes to anything you want to get better at, you always have to start at the foundation level. So really, you know, I put it on the website, I put it on social media. So, I kind of just made a hard commitment to it. So, where I started was just collecting tax returns with every client, making sure they understood like, ‘Hey, this is where the firm’s going, here’s the value you’re going to get into it’. And from there, you know, I originally just started off checking off to make sure their name, address, social security numbers were right. The numbers looked within reason from what they’re telling me. Then from there progressively got a little more in-depth with the taxes, as I got more comfortable with it.
SJ:
I love that. It’s such a great starting point because it doesn’t have to be complicated out of the gate and really making sure you’re managing client expectations and letting them know what the process is going to look like, so they don’t hand you a tax return and think that they’re getting this hundred-page report of every possible thing that could happen on a tax return. But I liked what you said about letting them know, ‘okay, here’s the direction the firm is headed. This is something we’re committed to, this is something we’re going to be doing.’ So, I noticed that even on your website that, on your services tax return review is one of the things you list as a service for clients. So, when you asked for that tax return, how do you set expectations as far as what they’re getting back? Is there some kind of deliverable you give them or is it just when they come in, you say, you know what, Bob and Sue looked at your return and everything was good to go?
WM:
Um, yeah, so I actually was demoing, two softwares. It was between holistic plan and FP alpha, both give deliverables like attacks, snapshot. So, that’s kind of what they got as a deliverable. We would walk through that, the more in-depth questions I would make sure I personally ran through the tax return and made notes on it with their permission. So, if they had more questions in depth, I could just pull out the original tax return and we could just go to those line items as needed.
SJ:
Yeah, I like that. Okay. So you started this process with reviewing tax returns. It’s a great way to learn so much about – especially how your specific niche of clients is impacted by taxes – and where has your kind of tax planning journey gone from there?
WM:
A big focus that, you know, I work with a lot of clients is actually asset location. First, the concept of asset allocation. So, making sure that we’re in the right buckets for the right investments, because that will have a dramatic impact on the future value of those assets when we distribute them.
SJ:
Yeah, it’s such an important concept to keep in mind that it’s not just what is my balance in my retirement accounts. A lot of people miss that, that total investment balance includes essentially a deferred tax liability, depending on the qualification of those accounts that we can say, ‘oh, I’ve got a million dollars in my retirement account.’ Like, you know, good for me, I’ve got this million dollars when really that might only be 800,000. That might be 750,000, depending on what type or what your marginal rate is going to be, marginal tax rates. And so taxes are certainly a reality of life, we just got to make sure that we understand what that means for our situation.
WM:
Absolutely. A dollar is really not a dollar when there’s taxes involved.
SJ:
Yeah. The IRS, there are certainly some opportunities to defer taxes. And more importantly, I think is it’s not just to get hung up on – let’s defer as much as possible because you can defer too much. It’s about understanding where you have choices and making sure that you’re proactive and intentional that you are doing what you can either as a taxpayer, as an individual or in your case, as an advisor, working with clients to say, ‘okay, if we look at the tax bill of the lifetime of your wealth, what can we do to start kind of sanding off the rough edges and have an impact on what we pay over that lifetime.
WM:
Right. Yeah, definitely. If you can sand off those edges that would save potentially lots of money over the course of 30 – 40 years.
SJ:
Yeah. In a single year, it can be hard to really make a dent unless there’s some big life changing event or something specific to that client situation. But over 5, 10, 20 – 30 years, yeah. Show me the return. Show me what they’ve got going on, my experience has been, you can find thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars over that timeframe of tax savings.
WM:
I think that’s an expectation you have to set with the client early on that you might not… this might not be the way to save the most money this year, but we have to think with the big picture in mind and how to pay the least amount of taxes over the course of your lifetime.
SJ:
Yeah. So, Will, one of the questions we get from advisors quite often, or I guess maybe one of the comments we’ll have a lot of advisors say, ‘you know what, I can’t do tax planning. I’m not allowed to my firm won’t let me.’ Whatever it is, and I work with enough advisors who are across the spectrum, as far as the types of firms they work with, whether they’re in the RIA space or the broker dealer space that are successfully doing tax planning. To me, the ones who are the most successful when they have maybe a more actively involved complaints department are the ones who approach them as part of their team as, and see them as some, somebody trying to help them. And so, I know that we talked about earlier, you do a lot with posting on tax topics that doing these things in writing. How have you found success in working with compliance to make sure that you’re serving your clients in these areas that you’re really committed to? But making sure you’re following all the rules.
WM:
Yeah. I think you nailed it on the head that they’re part of the team. And if you, if you view them as the enemy, they’ll be the enemy. But if you bring them, involved into your practice. Really get to see what they’re seeing, but also talking to them about what you want to accomplish out of it. You can find a middle ground and most of the time they’re really willing to work with you to find, you know, both something that’s compliant and getting your point across.
SJ:
Yeah. Are there any things that kind of stand out in your mind in that process of maybe adjustments you’ve had to make and how you think about what you post or are there things that you have to kind of stay away from and how you word things?
WM:
Not really. I am very particular about how I word things. Like you said, you have to be very diligent and do everything with purpose. So, I take that approach into my marketing, everything I say has a particular reason or another. So, I guess the compliance department and I have an understanding, they know what I’m trying to get across, but like, if I say something, you know, a little too much, they’ll just come back to me like, ‘Hey, can we change this up?’ You know, I’ll always just resubmit something else. But they’re very willing to work with, with you if you’re understanding and see their side too.
SJ:
Yeah. I love that approach. Part of the reason I appreciate you talking about that is just trying to help more advisors get past this kind of mental block of, ‘oh, well, I just can’t do it, so I’m not going to spend any time on it.’ Sure maybe, especially if you’re more on the BD side of the world, maybe there is a couple extra steps you have to take, but I think… I know it’s going to be totally worth it, as we were talking before the show, you actually get clients from social media. It’s a part of your prospecting process, is that right?
WM:
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the big social media channel that I use is Instagram. Generally, because that’s my… I would say most of my clients are under the age of 40. So that would be, I guess, where most of them are, that’s where I am.
SJ:
Yeah. I mean, that’s really cool that you’ve dialed in who you serve and how you can connect with them. But I mean, even for advisors listening, who aren’t getting their new clients through social media, because they serve a different niche, you know, still the point in this is that you can’t just make this blanket assumption that compliance isn’t going to let me. Aright? If you can take the time to say, ‘okay, here’s why this is valuable to the client.’ And then like you’re talking about we’ll proactively work, make those little adjustments. Cause I mean, I follow the images and the graphics you’re putting out on tax. I mean, that’s great stuff. So, it’s about taking the time and being diligent and getting that practice.
WM:
Thank you. Yeah definitely.
SJ:
So, we’ve talked about how you use taxes as a piece of what you do for marketing. You’re posting different things about it and this is something you incorporate with your clients in practice. How do you kind of merge the two? Do you ever have people come to you of, ‘Hey, this is the image I was looking at of this list of common tax mistakes.’ Are you doodling? I don’t mean doodling as an insult of any kind – I wish I could draw better, but are you doing these drawings in front of clients too? Is this part of… you said you’re more of an auditory learner? Do you get the visuals in there too?
WM:
Yeah, so, I try to combine the visuals in there. I don’t draw right on the spot because a lot of the drawings either I just have to print off because it takes probably a few takes to actually make them look good. But yeah, I definitely incorporate a lot of what I do on social media, into client meetings. One, because like we said, from the marketing standpoint, they saw it. They realize that’s why they reached out. So when I bring it up in process, it’s more of a comfort level because they’ve seen it before.
SJ:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. One of the other things you mentioned to me when we were preparing for this show that kind of stuck out was – I think he made a sports analogy – you know, getting 1% better every day that, we take a really complex area like taxes that this isn’t about. Let’s block out the next six weeks, become an expert at tax and move on. I like that incremental growth. So what does that look like for you now? How do you make sure that you’re staying committed to that, that you’re continuing to learn?
WM:
Yeah. So again, I’ll say it goes back to just, you know, podcasts and YouTube videos, but also it goes into actually applying what I learned into the client process. Um, that could be, you know, even just from a simple standpoint of, I have a question on a tax return, I’m going to be honest. I’m no expert in taxes. I’m not a CPA. I’m not an enrolled agent. So, if I have a question on a tax return, the value of me going to the client’s accountant, ‘Hey, this is what I’m seeing. Is this what you see to?’ Just that question alone can provide so much value to the client.
SJ:
I love that you’re taking the time to do that. I really encourage advisors to take that team approach with the tax professionals in their client’s lives offering, especially offering to review your client’s tax return, especially if you’re clear about what it is you’re going to do for them, that you’re not committing to being the smartest tax person in the room. You’re, helping them kind of just pull back the curtain a little bit on, on what all this means for them and how they can have an impact on it.
WM:
Yeah, and it builds like you said, that team aspect where the accountant now knows that I have a certain understanding of the client’s situation that they’re comfortable talking to me about it, or we’re starting to build that professional relationship, which is also going to help the client in the long run, because you know, now you have two people working together for your best interests. We’re going to go back and forth. We’re going to review every idea. And when you know, they’re in taxes and if I see something I know to wait till after they’re done, but you’re having that constant connection. Like if you have a question, ‘Hey, you know, we’ll talk to them after April 15th or even just later in the year, when we’re doing tax planning with clients, reaching out to the accountant and saying, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re thinking of doing. Does this make sense from your aspect?’
SJ:
Advisors sometimes will hesitate to really kind of bridge that gap with CPAs. Sometimes it’s because of negative experiences they’ve had personally, but it’s this thought process of, ‘oh, well, taxes is their lane and they don’t want me getting in it’. It’s really, it’s just, it’s this team aspect. Advisers tend to meet with their clients more times throughout the year that they can be in a better position to kind of just raise, raise a hand and say, Hey, I think there’s something you need to look at here and then take it to the accountant. Like you’re saying, and make sure it gets done correctly. And as long as those communications that are proactive and constructive, everybody wins in that situation. Right.
WM:
I think the commonality in all of this is just setting expectation, whether it’s with the client or with the accountant.
SJ:
Yeah. That communication is huge. Here’s what to expect. Here’s what we can, and can’t do related to this topic so that you don’t have your clients just making assumptions about what you’re going to do for them. Because if you just say, ‘Hey, I do tax planning’ and you give them no idea of what that means. They might come back to the next meeting, thinking that tax planning means that you’re going to wipe out their tax bill, they’re never going to pay taxes again. That might seem a little farfetched, but none of us liked taxes. And if I’m not familiar with what tax planning looks like, I mean, that sounds like a good goal.
WM:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely sounds good!
SJ:
Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk about your experience with all of this. We try to make sure that we always take the knowledge we share and turn it into action items. So that advisors know how to put these things into practice. So as you look at either what you do with clients now, or kind of how you got here, what are action steps you can recommend for advisors who want to kind of up their game when it comes to tax planning?
WM:
I mean, I would say the first thing is just to start collecting tax returns from clients, you know, set that expectation start saying, ‘Hey, you know, this is going to be a new value add that we’re going to offer to clients’, really lay the foundation with it. You don’t have to be an expert at the beginning and then kind of just look into how you learn and really just start to learn the basics. Learn where you could be able to help the client. And then finally, start reaching out to the accountants, the CPAs that your clients are working with and start building a real good relationship with them because that’s going to help in the long run.
SJ:
Yeah, those are all great. They’re really, really common themes of things we talk about real often on this show. I like how you highlighted that we asked those taxes terms. You need to highlight that this is a value add to them. You really need to focus on what the benefit to the client is, of them taking the time to send you those documents. And then I think it’s an important point that you said, figure out how you learn, right? Cause this is certainly going to be a learning process to get to really of strengthen your muscles around taxes, but how you personally learn is important. It’s important to do this in a way that’s going to be meaningful and effective. So, Will, like I said, I really enjoyed the conversation today.
Thanks everybody for listening! Be sure to follow Will Miller on LinkedIn and Instagram. He puts good stuff out, some great graphics out there related to tax planning. Until next time everyone, remembered a tip your servers and not the IRS!
