BSMG Blog: Protecting the Future of Families and Businesses

Tax season is the ideal time to reach out to clients in order to ensure that their assets are protected from unnecessary taxation. Clients are more aware of their impending tax liability than at any other time of the year. By coming to them with solutions, you can build trust and set the table for future sales. 

We asked our in-house CPA which clients financial advisors and insurance professionals need to meet with this tax season and here’s some advice...

When it comes to taxes, a little bit of planning can save a TON of time, money, and misery. By informing your clients of important tax deadlines, you can prevent them from making costly mistakes. 

Let's take a look at six crucial tax deadlines your clients need to or should meet to ensure smooth sailing in 2017.

As a financial advisor, you should speak with your clients on a regular basis about making savvy investment decisions to maximize their wealth and savings. Some clients may find the topic of life insurance difficult and perhaps even morbid, but the conversation is an important one. Try approaching the conversation by speaking to the tax advantages that life insurance can offer. 

Use the Essential Tax Advantages of Life Insurance to get talking points for your next meeting!

Whether your client has estate planning needs, business protection needs, or supplementary retirement needs, cash value life insurance offers great competitive advantages versus alternative financial assets. These advantages fall into three major categories:

1) Tax advantages               

2) Financial and actuarial advantages

3) Legal and contractual advantages

Whether purchased for accumulation, retirement income or for the death benefit, life insurance has many tax benefits. With tax season in full swing, there's no better time than the present to educate your clients on the unique tax advantages associated with owning a life insurance policy.

We asked our in-house tax expert for a summary of the tax advantages of life insurance versus other asset types including; IRAs, NQ Deferred Annuities, Corporate Bonds and U.S. Government Securities. These are the top 6 tax advantages worth discussing with your clients.

We all balk at the many get rich quick schemes clients may be exposed to today. However, have you ever stopped to think about whether their current investment strategy is driving them to slowly go broke?

By the time taxes and inflation eat into your client's already modest gains made on a bank savings account, money market, or CD, their purchasing power is dwindling, ever so slowly. So slowly, in fact, that it's almost imperceptible. 

Estate and gift taxes have provided a source of revenue for the United States government for over 150 years and have had many variations. Now that we'll have a Republican president and a Republican majority in the Senate and House of Representatives, what's in store for the future of these taxes? To fully understand how Estate and Gift Taxes could be affected by the political and economic environment, let's take a look at a brief history of how these taxes have evolved. 

Certain high-earners face a double-barreled shot of federal income taxes for 2016. The maximum marginal tax rate for these high-earners remains at 39.6% in 2016 and the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) are still in effect.

Somehow we seemed to have blinked and it's already April. Here on the east coast mother nature is playing some sick jokes on us but we can see spring on the horizon. Of course in this industry April doesn't just signal spring, it also signals Tax Day! This year you have a whole 3 extra days to file those taxes. Some fun facts on why are below.

Here are the three major trends our advisors are experiencing this tax season.