Cynthia de Fazio 00:00
Welcome to Retire Smart Austin. My name is Cynthia De Fazio, joined today by Phil Capriotti Sr. and Henry Lande of Empower Wealth and tax to our viewers at home. Do you often ask yourself, why should I consider working with a financial advisor? Why should I consider tax planning in my retirement? Well, if you have those questions, today’s show is just for you. We’re going to tackle some reasons why you need to have both in your financial future so that you can empower your retirement. Phil, how are you today?
Philip Capriotti 00:57
I am blessed. Cynthia. It’s so good to be here with you today, and it is extremely another blessing to be here with Henry as well. Yes, I’m excited. You know, it’s very unique that I actually sit in on our shows with another advisor. But as you know, you know, through the last couple of years, we’ve been growing our company, putting in offices literally all in and around the entire city of Austin, anywhere. If you hear us on the radio or you view us on TV, we’re going to have an office there. We just opened up the Georgetown office. Our Lakeway office opens up in December. We located a beautiful building on- it’s Lakeway center plaza. If you folks out in Lakeway, guess what? We have an office opening up right next to you, but, Henry is going to be working out of and in all probability, running the Georgetown office. So, for all of our Sun City Georgetown folks, let’s go ahead and meet the new newest, and I think the best addition to our team, Henry. I just got to give him a little bit of background. I’m going to give him the show. Henry is a certified financial planner. He’s relatively young, like I told everyone, I’m looking for the best and brightest, ages 25 to 35 I’ll stretch it out to 40, but 25 to 35 with experience. So, Henry fits that bill. He’s also, again certified, but he’s homegrown Texas baby. Wow, wonderful. So, this is Henry. Henry, I’m going to let you go ahead and take it away and tell people a little bit, little bit about yourself.
Henry Lande 02:44
Yeah, I actually grew up in Liberty Hill, Texas, so right next to Georgetown. So, I have seen the growth in Austin, and I have seen the growth all around it. It’s a- it’s been a pleasure growing up in the area, and now that I’m back here, working close with Phil and our team here at Empower, it’s been great. It almost feels like I’m giving back to the community, but I’m still doing the job I love while I’m here.
Cynthia de Fazio 03:05
Yes, most definitely. And I have had the honor of knowing Phil for how many years, and I have lost track and one of my dearest friends and your beautiful wife, Jimmy, so it’s amazing to know that you’re now part of the team. How does that feel for you? Are you excited to learn so much? Because I know you’re already seasoned with the experience, but Phil takes it to a whole other level. So, tell me about your excitement about working with him.
Henry Lande 03:28
It has been go, go, go, and I am an active person. And as you see him, he’s the exact same way he is on the news as he is in the office, day in and day out. Yes, it is refreshing. It is unlike any other company I’ve worked at, I thought he would just be a TV personality, but he is so knowledgeable, so detail oriented and so client focused, that it aligns very closely with my beliefs, and I couldn’t be more than happy to be working with him, as well as our team, yes, our back office, front office, all of it has been outstanding. You couldn’t get better service or better tax planning, which is what I’m very excited to help with my clients as well.
Cynthia de Fazio 04:05
I love that I know tax planning is such an important part of retirement planning overall. In fact, I want to take a moment to talk about a website, if I could there is actually the amazing empowertaxbill.com, empowertaxbill.com. I’m so glad that Henry brought up tax planning, this website is simply amazing. You can click on the QR code you visit it. It takes about five to seven minutes to put in some information about yourself, maybe a little less than that. You can play around with different income scenarios, different tax brackets, and what you receive via email might shock you. It will show you your current tax obligation today, and then maybe an avenue to make some changes. So once again, please visit it. Empowertaxbill.com click the QR code at the bottom corner of your screen. I had to pause there for just a second. I tried to do another friend of ours pause it. Oh, he’s so good at it. But anyway, today’s show is exciting. I’m so happy. Happy to be with you both in the studio. This is amazing. 30 reasons to work with a certified financial planner and tax planner. And Phil, you’ve been talking about this for years, but number one on the list, you get holistic financial planning. What does that mean? Yeah.
Philip Capriotti 05:13
So, what that means, and we’ve been talking about this ad nauseum. Really, it’s the ability to integrate your investments, your taxes, your estate planning, your retirement plan, all into one comprehensive plan that’s adjusted and updated literally several times a year. So as a CFP professional, and by the way, just an FYI we are, and I don’t want to make this in a I don’t want to make this a recruitment show, but we are recruiting certified financial planners around the entire city of Austin. If you are one and you want to own a piece of the company, give us a call, come in for an interview. But at any rate, our clients want that, because, as I said before, it’s extremely important not to pay more in taxes than you absolutely have to, especially for those of us who have started working when we were 15, we’ve paid taxes for over 50 years. Some of us, you know, even longer than 50 years. But the fact of the matter is, we’ve done our fair share. So not only do you need to work with a certified financial planner, but you need to work with a certified financial planner who’s also a tax planning expert, which is exactly what Henry is. Henry is an extremely rare find, I would say, one out of over 100, every one out of over 100 certified financial planners, you find a Henry. That is amazing coming from me. You know, that’s one heck of a compliment.
Cynthia de Fazio 06:50
Yes, it is, because you only hire the very best. So, Henry, I’m going to put you in the hot seat for just a minute. Let’s talk a little bit about why tax planning is so critical for someone’s overall success in their retirement years. And if you can say anything, do you mention that people really forget to plan for taxes? Is that something that is true?
Henry Lande 07:11
I would say absolutely, and one, I’m still blushing, thank you. That was really nice, but really a lot of people view tax planning as tax filing after a year ends, you get your 1090, nines, whatever w2 statements. You bring it to your accountant, and they say, here’s how much you owe. Tax planning takes the holistic approach of saying, How can we actively do stuff throughout the year, starting January 31 through December 31 to help mitigate that as time goes on, it is overlooked. In my career, I’ve seen it overlooked many times the active ability to do so helping clients, especially with our back office and everyone that we utilize, helps clients save hundreds, if not 1000s over time. It’s a very valuable process that people tend to overlook, but it is part of financial planning over our key six areas. Taxes are one, retirement is another, insurance, estate, General, financial planning principles, all of those. If you pull one lever, it affects another thing. So how do we look at it all from the top level down and make sure we’re doing it efficiently? Is exactly why tax planning is important for financial planner.
Cynthia de Fazio 08:19
And if I may interject, I think it’s so amazing that you talk about that with your clients, because we hear over and over that you’re working with a certain financial advisor. They’re going to say, I don’t give tax advice. That’s your accountant. Go see your accountant. But that’s not the case when people choose to work with Empower Wealth,
Philip Capriotti 08:36
run, don’t even hide. Run away from that advisor and because and here, it doesn’t matter about the relationship. You can still go play golf and have a little fun, you know, with parties and so forth. It’s extremely unique to find a certified financial planner that’s also that will tell you, Yes, we’re going to do your tax planning. Let me explain why. Just give you one example of tax planning. Many of our high-net-worth folks have taxable accounts. They’re in seven and some of them eight digits. So, one of the strategies that we use, one of the many strategies, is we will harvest losses in these taxable accounts many times. We’ll do it weekly, or we’ll do it at least two times or three times a month. So, I’ll give you an example for many of our folks that want to do Roth conversions, they have seven or high seven or eight digit IRAs. They don’t want to pay a lot of money in taxes, but they still want to do Roth conversions. Give you an example, and you financial advisors, pay close attention here, okay? So, what we’ll do is we will harvest the losses. Let’s say we harvest 5000 a week, 10,000 a week. Let’s just say 5000 a week, okay, how many weeks in a year?
Cynthia de Fazio 09:52
365 days in a year, 52 weeks.
Philip Capriotti 09:56
52 weeks. So, if we harvesting 5000 over 52 weeks, that’s. Over $250,000 in losses we just harvest. I can now move $250,000 of an IRA into a Roth IRA by harvesting those losses and have a net neutral 0% tax, tax obligation. So, I would say to you, folks, if your advisor is not talking to you like this and your high net worth, come in and get a second opinion. Dial 888-818-6557, if you’re up in the Georgetown Round Rock area, come in and meet us, and let’s introduce you to Henry. One of the nice things about tax loss planning is if you’re a true certified financial planner, many folks that are CFP simply don’t work with a holistic office. So, we incorporate the tax practice, the legal practice, the estate planning, the insurance practice, all together in one. So, this is one of the unique benefits and features of working with our company, and now we’re finally finding advisors that have been longing to work with companies like ourselves. .
Cynthia de Fazio 11:09
Well, let’s give more people the opportunity to call in. Shall we? I know you mentioned the phone number, Phil, but I’m going to go ahead and tag on that. So, the phone number to call in is 888-818-6557, 888-818-6557, which are called you’re calling in for today, of course, is that consultation. You want to have a tax plan for your retirement years. If you’re curious again about that tax website, please visit empowertaxbill.com, empowertaxbill.com get on the fast track. Get into Empower Wealth and let them put a plan together that encompasses the most important thing in retirement income, of course, but tax planning for your income again, 888-818-6557, we’re going to take a very short commercial break here on Retire Smart Austin, but I have so much more with Phil and Henry when we return. Hello.
Philip Capriotti 11:59
Hello, my name is Philip Capriotti. If you’ve already filed for Social Security and would like us to fast track you straight to a licensed fiduciary to create your tax efficient retirement income plan, we’ll be happy to accommodate you. You know, one of the most important priorities to ensure that you do not become tax poor in retirement is to, number one, structure a tax efficient retirement income plan, as well as a comprehensive Morning Star Report. This will ensure that you understand three major variables. Number one, how much risk are you taking? Number two, how much return are you receiving? And number three, how much are your internal and external fees. To fast track your meeting with one of our licensed and experienced team members, just click on the link below, complete the form attached so we can provide you with an accurate and detailed plan. Let’s start empowering your retirement right now.
Cynthia de Fazio 13:04
Welcome back to Retire Smart Austin. My name is Cynthia De Fazio, joined today by Phil Capriotti senior and Henry Lande of Empower Wealth and tax we’re talking all about the importance of tax planning in your retirement years, and why you should be working with a certified financial planner and also someone who is a tax planner so you can have success in your retirement. Well, Henry, this next one I’m going to guide right to you talk about the importance of customized retirement strategies, please. Why is that important for your clients to have customized retirement income strategies?
Henry Lande 13:37
Yeah, it’s. It’s a great question because it leads to the same answer, you’re not the same as me. I’m not the same as Phil. And everyone has different needs, wants and goals at the end of the day. Do you want the same? And Phil and I joke about this all the time. We’ve had a hoot the past few weeks. Do you want a cake in the box, something that you go pick up at a store and it just says Happy Birthday? Or do you want it to say happy birthday to you and know exactly what we’re looking for.
Philip Capriotti 14:01
Oh, that’s nice. Very, very nice. We were talking about big box retailers and boilerplate portfolios. Everybody got the same portfolio, you know, if you work at the same mutual funds, the same ETFs, and so I said, Yeah, it’s all boilerplate. My wife says, You mean hot plate. I said Dell honey boiler plates, all the same. And Henry says to me, yeah, cake in a box, portfolio, cake in a box. Brilliant. So, I- it actually is brilliant. And right? I mean, that was immediate bond, right there and then, but, but everyone’s portfolio, retirement goals and strategy is customized to them, okay? And when you have that type of holistic 360-degree planning, what you have is you have a financial advisor and tax advisor that’s worth the fee. You pay them, okay, absolutely. And are well worth it. Okay, worth it in spades. So, I’ll let Henry go ahead and elaborate more, even when it comes to say wealth planning and these types of things. So, being a Certified Financial Planner as well as a tax expert, what all in one okay? Because when we talk about a tax planner and a certified financial planner. We don’t want to talk about it as two separate people. We want it to be one in the same and, and, so, if you’re not working with your financial advisor is not both. If you’re hearing Yeah, you need to talk to your accountant about that honest to goodness as a good lord, is my judge and all of our judges. You need to give a call and come on out and see the difference between holistic CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNING and cake in a box boilerplate.
Henry Lande 15:54
You bring up the best point. I mean, at 59 and a half, what happens? You don’t get penalized for taking out of your IRA, you’re finally able to access it at 65 if you’re taking out and you’re on Medicare, yikes. Now you might have a increased premium associated with it. At 73 right now, you have an RMD. You might be way higher in your total income. So, knowing these various ages, the different people that you’ll be working with, yes, that holistic approach is so important to taking all these facets together and saying, Here’s a customized approach to what you specifically need.
Cynthia de Fazio 16:26
I love that, and not only about what they need, but also goals, right? Because a lot of people that are entering their retirement years, they have specific goals that they want to achieve. So, Henry, how important is it to spend time and really get to know someone to design a plan that will allow someone to actually achieve their goals in retirement?
Henry Lande 16:44
Yeah, it’s, it’s a must. I forget what it was. It’s, if you don’t write it down and you don’t do it every year, it’s not a plan, it’s a wish, right? Makes sense, and I’m a firm believer. And you only retire once, hopefully, because if you don’t retire twice, that means you’re back working and you didn’t do it right the first time. Yeah, if we start planning for it now and get that in action now, you’re going to be set up for success in the long term, but it has to be followable, manageable and maintainable, associated with your goals.
Philip Capriotti 17:13
Okay, all right. You know, one of the case studies that we do at our workshop is to show folks how to maximize their social security. We’ve talked about it over and over. And over again, but how to not just maximize it, but how to receive it tax free. So, this year, as part of that Big Beautiful Bill, which, with respect to folks 65 and over, we have a new bonus deduction. It’s $6,000 per individual over age 65 okay, so not only do I have my standard deduction of 31,500 if I’m over 65 I have another $1,600 deduction per individual, husband and wife, I have another bonus of 6000 for each and every one. So now to not look at Roth conversion strategies. Okay, is, is I would, I would have to say it is. What’s the word I’m looking for? Henry, silly. I’ve heard different words. It’s incompetent. It truly is. So, for instance, I’ll give you an example. If you’re pulling $60,000 from Social Security, okay, I’m just getting the one case study. Okay, there’s literally dozens. And you pull $60,000 out of your Roth under this new program, your social security, because you pulled 60,000 from the Roth, none of your Social Security is taxable. Wow. Okay, so now you’re in a 0% tax bracket, and you pulled $120,000 out of your retirement account between your Social Security. Let’s put case study number two, I pull $60,000 out of my social security, but I take 60,000 out of my IRA now not, not only are all the IRA dollars taxable, but 85% of the 60,000 of my Social Security is taxable. Wow. So, this is a, this is just an example of a tax efficient retirement income planning. So, I’ll ask you, do you want to be in a 0% tax bracket retirement? Is your financial advisory firm. Are they? CFPs? Are they talking with you about these different strategies? If not, give us a call. Come on and meet Henry and meet the rest of the team. Dial, 888-818-6557, there are so many different strategies that we used based on an individual’s net worth, what they want as retirement income. How much you want to spend? I have folks want to spend 100 grand. I have folks want to spend 350,000, right? In either event, I want to keep them in the lowest tax bracket. We have a plan for each and every one of those folks.
Cynthia de Fazio 19:54
Yes, you do. Folks at home, as you heard Phil say, there’s a plan for each and every one of you. All you have to do is. Call in today, 888-818-6557, 888-818-6557, today’s show, of course, talks about the importance of working with a certified financial planner who is also a tax planner married in one if you’re curious about where you currently stand with your tax situation, we’re going to invite you once again to visit the website empowertaxbill.com you can click the QR code at the bottom corner of your screen. That’s a fast track to get to this website. You’ll put in a little information about yourself. You can put in different tax brackets. You’ll receive an email with where your current tax liability is today and what it could look like if you make a few changes. Don’t miss this opportunity. We’re going to be right back with so much more. Phil Capriotti, Henry Lande of Retire Smart Austin, Empower Wealth and Tax back momentarily.
Philip Capriotti 20:49
Are you interested in growing and protecting your wealth, but not sure where to start? Managing wealth isn’t just about having an investment portfolio, it’s about understanding your dreams, your goals and challenges at Empower Wealth and tax our professional wealth management services are designed to simplify your financial journey. We create personalized strategies to help you build, protect and enjoy your wealth. Don’t leave your financial future to chance. Schedule a complimentary consultation with us today and take control of your wealth. Schedule today, and let’s start building a brighter, tax efficient financial future together.
Cynthia de Fazio 21:37
Welcome back to Retire Smart Austin. My name is Cynthia De Fazio, joined today by Phil Capriotti senior and Henry Lande of Empower Wealth and talks and tax we’re talking all about the importance of working with a certified financial planner that’s also a tax planner. Being married together empowers your financial future, your retirement success. Today’s show is so amazing because we’re getting to meet Henry, which is fantastic. We love having you here and talking about such an important thing, tax planning and retirement. Henry, I want to ask you a question, what about investment diversification and asset allocation? Is that something important for clients when they’re thinking about retirement planning?
Henry Lande 22:16
I am almost as passionate about this as I am taxes. Okay, asset allocation and asset location are very important to both pre retirees and retirees for a multitude of different reasons, but the main one being you can be tax efficient based on where an asset is located, and you can be growth oriented based on where it’s located. So, taking those two into account, for example, if you have a taxable account and you have a bond and it pays you $1 that $1 would be a dividend. If you invested that same dollar in a municipal bond, for example, that $1 would not be taxable as a dividend. There are different instruments and ways to invest that are both tax efficient and different things that will work well in different accounts. IRAs, for example, you can grow money tax deferred. If it’s a Roth IRA, you can grow it indefinitely, tax deferred and have no taxes when you pull it out. Each one plays a specific role for a specific person. That makes me very excited to talk to whoever wants to whoever wants to get into the details with it, but I encourage people call in, give me your information, and let’s have that journey together, because that there’s a different fix for each person, if you will. Okay, okay.
Philip Capriotti 23:31
And by the way, this is one of the reasons that we offer the complimentary Morning Star Report, and portfolio observation, and recommendation review. These Morning Star reports and portfolio observations are done at our home office by our team of certified financial planners. So, I like to get a lot of brilliant minds involved in it. You know, my father said, you know, son, you never You don’t need to know everything about a particular subject, but make sure that you work with people that know everything. Make sure your team knows everything. And so I’m very happy and actually shocked that my vision is actually coming to fruition, where we have our team, we have over 20 employees just in our Austin area team, and everyone is licensed and a professional in their own, in their own special services, whether it happens to be Medicare, whether it’s social security, whether it’s portfolio management, tax management, estate planning and so on. So, with that being said, it’s extremely important we like to manage drawdown, which manages risk. And how do you do that? You do it by active portfolio management, not passive portfolio management. And if the folks out there listening do not understand the difference, I would say, pick up the phone or click the QR code, come on in. For instance, I’ll give you an example. Apple. There was one particular healthcare company. I won’t mention the name on air here, but it was, it’s one of the largest HMOs and in the entire industry. In fact, they manage, literally hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of premiums through Medicare Advantage. Well, their stock dropped 52% this particular company. Now passive management says, Don’t worry about the 2% losing on this particular company, because we’re making x percent with Company B. Our strategy says, Wait a second. Let’s stop the bleeding based on the customer’s risk tolerance. Why don’t we pull that thing out of the portfolio? By the time it hit, loses 15% 20% just move it into cash, let it go ahead and drop. That’s not to say we won’t buy it back later, but we don’t want to drag down the performance of the entire portfolio. So active portfolio management, and this is one of the things that Henry’s passionate about as well, is extremely important. Now, why do other advisors not do it? And I’m going to tell you my personal opinion, lazy. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to actively manage a portfolio, as opposed to set it and forget it. So, I would say, if you’re in a basket of mutual funds, basket ETFs, you don’t see much motion in your portfolio, pick up the phone. Come on in the office. Let’s talk with Henry or one of our other advisors, and of course, I’m always there as well. Okay, but let’s talk about the difference between passive and active portfolio management. We can literally- on major downturns, we can literally save a retirement, save a portfolio, by doing just little things like this.
Cynthia de Fazio 26:52
And I’m sure a lot of people need some tweaking, like you mentioned before, this is not a set it and forget it situation, especially when you’re getting into the retirement years, because Henry, the one thing you don’t have as much of if you have losses, is time, correct?
Henry Lande 27:05
Correct, yep. And a lot of people tend to think of things in percentages. I really like to discuss it in dollars. So, if you have $1 million and it goes down 30% that’s actually 300,000 of your dollars that is now not there, and you have to work twice as hard to just get back to even or back to 100% you have to grow by 43% compounded interest per year, wow. So, it’s very important to take these things into an account and understand what your portfolio can or can’t do. We want to make sure that we align that with your values, your goals and your mission statement of your financial plan.
Cynthia de Fazio 27:40
Henry, thank you so much, Phil. Thank you so much to our viewers at home. Thank you for spending time with us today. Click that QR code at the bottom corner of your screen. Be safe, be happy and be blessed. We’ll see you next week on Retire Smart Austin.