It is abundantly clear that most of us have little understanding of how the coronavirus will impact our financial lives (let alone our actual lives and those of our family and friends). How far will the market drop? When will it recover? How many jobs will be furloughed or lost? Which industries will suffer significant and long-lasting downturns? What permanent changes will be embedded within the global and local landscape? Will people stop going to public or private events or even restaurants? What of the airline, cruise and hotel industries? How long will it take for our economy to recover, and in a time of trillions of dollars of debt, where and how will the U.S. government get the necessary capital to operate, let alone meet its existing debt obligations without initiating inflationary measures?
These are just a tiny fraction of the questions permeating the minds of wealth distributors on Wall Street.
We just don’t know what we don’t know.
It is precisely because we cannot predict what will happen that we need to focus our financial advisors to see through our lens, helping clients protect their wealth. Market risk in the time of coronavirus is unknown.
Today’s financial modeling must be viewed within the dimensions of a new calculous. To avoid calamity, we need to be unafraid to release our grasp of the familiar in exchange for adaptive, thoughtful and well-reasoned ideas.
To that end there are several powerful and proven ways that clients with means can safeguard their wealth in 2020—by statutorily reducing litigation exposure from the recession and by deeply reducing taxes on their taxable income – including both investment income and earnings from privately held business interests (corporations, LLC’s, partnerships, options, contracts, and other legal structures which derive revenues).
Cost savings, including tax reduction, is one of the few common-sense solutions that nearly every wealth holder can and must put into action today.
It is not uncommon for clients to save 6 to 8 figures in unnecessary tax each year through this type of planning, net of all fees, and better protect themselves and their families from a variety of risks.
There are many views on what types of planning work best. While some advocate for maximizing qualified plans and IRAs, others are rightly concerned that these government-regulated programs do not offer the capacity for substantial wealth to be transferred pretax. Worse still, they are the first and easiest assets for the government to confiscate if it needs additional tax revenue. Who amongst us believes the present tax rates on affluent Americans will actually drop when we retire? And when does it ever make sense to defer tax today into a higher bracket into the future, particularly when that bracket is unknown, unlimited, and will be determined by politicians who may not yet be elected in office?
This is an unacceptable gamble, and one that, even under the best conditions, affords only modest benefit.
Clients with more meaningful levels of income and affluence and access to today’s best advisors are looking elsewhere. One key opportunity is a series of advanced and highly customized private placement structures. Clients with means (including many well-known names on Wall Street and in the technology space) have been able to shift a meaningful portion of their current business interests, including operating companies, unicorn investments, real estate and intellectual property rights into structures that are notably more tax efficient and also provide higher levels of protection. It is not uncommon for clients to save 6 to 8 figures in unnecessary tax each year through this type of planning, net of all fees, and better protect themselves and their families from a variety of risks.
Read the full article here: https://csq.com/2020/04/bradley-barros-most-critical-risk-impacting-entrepreneurs-and-what-you-can-do-to-protect-your-fortune-family/#.YNH2LkJKg-Q
