Resources & FAQ

Our advice is very holistic in nature, as our team has both the financial experience but additionally, the tax expertise. Many advisors have a tax message, while their materials have a disclaimer that they are not authorized to give tax advice and direct you to consult a tax professional.

Walser Wealth is uniquely qualified to give advice from the perspective of minimizing a client’s total taxation for the rest of their lives – moves that are usually in direct conflict with traditional advice given by most CPAs. In the end, CPAs can only use the tools that are available to them, whereas Walser Wealth has a much broader range of tools to choose from, especially more advanced tax strategies.

We challenge the status quo because it must be challenged! We do not follow outdated, outmoded, and obsolete conventional financial wisdom because it will lead to failure for most Americans. Ms. Walser’s book, Wealth Unbroken (available on Amazon), does a thorough job of spelling out exactly why this is the case.

Yes, our practice and our advisors are fiduciaries working under Walser Wealth Management as Registered Investment Advisors (RIA). Ms. Walser and the team have made a commitment to always do what is in the client’s best interest, and our client’s interests always come first.

There is a misconception that you can only be a fiduciary if you are ‘fee-only,’ but that is just frankly not accurate. A flat fee percentage does not equate to conflict-free compensation. Fee-only advisors get paid when they are managing money. However, there may be times when clients need to avoid large market corrections based on where they are in their investment life cycle, but getting out of the market or moving to cash equivalents means the advisor gets paid nothing, and that is a move that we have seen advisors historically, consistently and quite vehemently discourage their clients from making.

In America, we are all paid for the work we do, and that does not create a conflict of interest. Changing advice for compensation reasons is what creates a conflict, and that possibility exists for the bad actors in the financial services industry on both the flat fee side and the commission side. Do not be manipulated into believing that you must pay a never-ending percentage fee every year in order to have a conflict-free advisor. Look at the plan – does it accomplish your goals, does it cover all the bases, does it have contingency plans for the unexpected, does it meet your gut check? Those are the important questions that must be answered. Build a relationship with an advisor you trust, and do not be manipulated by the industry’s attempt to push you in one direction or the other.

There are many strategies that we offer to help achieve each client’s unique needs and goals. Whether you are just starting out or have already accumulated a considerable-sized portfolio, we are here to help!

We meet potential clients in various ways. We work best with clients who believe as we believe, and there must be a need or desire to work together. If you believe you have all your bases covered, then we hope you do. A second opinion is always best in those cases, however, as conventional advice continues to fail America in droves and droves.

The first step is a conversation to see if there is a mutual fit regarding needs and capabilities. From there, we learn more about you and your specific needs by mapping out specific goals by time frame. Additionally, you learn more about us and our philosophy. Next, we deep dive into your current financials and give an in-depth analysis of what you are currently doing vs what we would do here at Walser Wealth. Once you decide to come onboard, we develop a plan to address gaps and deficiencies. For those we move forward with, the implementation phase will begin, where the granularity of the plan will be spelled out explicitly and agreed upon, along with time frames to properly set expectations.

Ms. Walser began practicing finance after earning her undergraduate degree in finance at the top of her class, summa cum laude, in 1996. She went to law school after practicing in financial services for over a decade. After practicing law exclusively, she combined her financial and legal expertise by establishing a national comprehensive wealth advisory that addresses the unique financial challenges facing Americans building wealth in the ever-changing taxable years ahead.

CPAs have been trained to accept your historical earnings and expenses every year, AFTER they have occurred, and then calculate the lowest legal tax bill. This often leads the CPA to suggest tax deferrals, such as IRAs or 401(k) contributions which will have the impact of lowering your tax bill in the current period. However, as our tax rates are nearly the lowest they have been in 3 decades, it is time to start asking ourselves, will we pay more now, or pay more later?

If you know the coming demographic changes the country will experience en-masse beginning in 2022, and you understand the unprecedented debt situation that America has never faced before, then you are much better prepared to answer the question of where taxes are headed going forward. Armed with that knowledge, you could very easily decide that it is in your best interests to stop the deferral madness, as short-sided for this year, and instead take advantage of these lowest tax rates in years by paying as much tax at these rates as possible.

CPAs are not bad; they are just doing what they have been trained to do – lower your tax bill by as much as possible in the current period and deal with the future when it arrives. As a tax strategist, Ms. Walser is only interested in maximizing your total wealth by minimizing your total taxes over more than any singular period.

Ms. Walser runs a busy national practice that is growing. However, the practice is busy because the team is successful in their work, and clients recognize the value the team brings. You, as a prospective client, should only want to work with a successful and growing advisory firm as there is usually a reason behind any advisor who isn’t. Ms. Walser is the CEO and Principal of the firm and spends her time analyzing macro and microeconomics to guide the practice and our philosophy. Because of this, we have a team of advisors and back-end support that work directly with our clients. We are committed to performing for our clients and will continue to build our team as we continue to build our practice. We look forward to successfully growing alongside our clients.

We challenge convention because it fails most Americans. While annuities are a part of our service offerings, it doesn’t mean we recommend them for every client. We truly look at each individual’s short-term and long-term goals and then decide which products or services would best help them achieve those goals. The annuities of today are NOT the contracts of your parents and grandparents. For example, you no longer lose all your cash value if you die prematurely, as there is a death benefit. We usually use no-fee products, so there are tremendous benefits available, including tax-free long-term care and safe growth for little to no fees, and certainly less than the annual money management fees charged by a money manager, in most cases where we would use such an asset class. Annuities are a great safety piece we leverage for clients who are looking to get off the market rollercoaster and especially for those who are looking for guaranteed income in retirement.

New research from a Yale Finance professor was published in January 2018, making the mathematical case for using indexed annuities in lieu of fixed-income bonds, given the low rate environment. For these reasons and more, it is not appropriate to dismiss this financial asset class based on outdated stereotypes and rumors.

For certain clients with high annual earnings, there are advanced tax strategies that may be applicable to legally reduce the current period of tax due. Once you are a client, we will always look to see if you qualify for these strategies.

We do not offer these tax strategies for non-clients as a separate, stand-alone service. They are offered only to existing clients.

Depending on a client’s objective, they may choose to emulate the pension they would have received from corporate America through a lifetime, guaranteed income. Alternatively, if their priority is to protect what they have built and earn safe returns going forward, without any income needs, then they must offer something in return to meet these objectives through guaranteed contractual ways (based on the claims-paying ability of the insurer). The price usually somewhat reduces liquidity in the first seven to ten years.

However, mathematically, by walking through your worst-case liquidity cost, you can see how these products achieve major goals, not otherwise achievable, at extremely reasonable rates.

Ask for your specific cost analysis while working through the process.

We actually LOVE the market as the greatest wealth creator and supporter of American capitalism and distributing that wealth throughout America. However, we understand that as a client’s Investment Life Cycle begins to change for the 10-year period while they transition from Accumulation to Decumulation & Spending, the inherent risk of losing their nest egg, is much different when they had plenty of time left to make up for extreme market losses. Therefore, for clients that are at, near, or 10 years from retirement, we begin to identify their NON-NEGOTIABLE number – the number they are absolutely NOT willing to lose a penny from. That amount MUST be removed from the risk of the market at this stage of their life; after all, it is non-negotiable to them.

Life insurance has been leveraged since very ancient times, where communities pooled resources for widows and children of wars. In America, life insurance has been protected in the tax code since its inception and is the most highly favored asset class under the tax code, the ‘golden child’ of asset classes under the tax code, as Ms. Walser says.

Because of this extremely favorable tax classification, life insurance has been leveraged by those “in the know” to build lifetime tax-free income used as your own bank (liquid savings), college funding for children and grandchildren, housing funds, and full retirement replacement vehicles, like having a personal pension. The opportunities are endless, and the lifetime benefits are an incredible planning tool. Life, when used just for death planning, is really missing the boat.

When you look at the super wealthy families or corporations in America, almost every single one is utilizing life insurance to build and maintain wealth. So the question really is, if the wealthy are doing it, why aren’t the average Americans? Is it because they simply aren’t given access to wealth strategists who are familiar with and utilize these tools? That’s where we are trying to break the mold – regardless of your portfolio size, we are passionate about educating everyone on the tools that are available.

As a holistic planner and overall tax strategist, we develop the plan and implement it. Your CPA, or our referral to those CPAs we work with, will continue to prepare the proper tax forms for our implemented strategies. Our practice does not prepare or produce tax forms.

This is a common misconception because when you utilize a permanent life policy that builds cash value, the premium can seem high. But, in most cases, once you realize that most of the cost is going to overfund the cash value, while a small percent is going to pay for the actual insurance, you will see that the cash value is really what you are funding and not the cost of the insurance itself. This can be misleading, so do not let this prevent you from leveraging this asset class without making sure you understand what is really happening within the policy.

As financial and tax experts, planning for a secure retirement is one of our practice’s strengths. Because we ensure that your income and asset plan will not be derailed by future taxation, which will cause most plans to fail in the coming years, we are best positioned to help clients confidently achieve their retirement goals.

This kind of plan takes strategic tax planning over a 5 to 7 year period, possibly even 10 years on the long side, but in the end, our goal is a future tax rate of literally 0% for the rest of your life (as long as there is no pension. With a pension, our goal is under 10% or less forever) from forever taxed – what you have now – to never taxed again – our goal when we complete the plan.

All of this is done within the context of meeting guaranteed income levels and/or protecting your assets from extreme market volatility.

Yes – we love putting plans together for your children or grandchildren. As you may have read, we are not fans of the market-based, but tax-advantaged 529 plan or state pre-paid plans that only lock in certain aspects of the college expense.

The best examples are those that built college funds exclusively in the 529 when their college student was set to begin school in the Fall of 2009. Since we had the market low of the Great Recession in March 2009, pulling money out in August of 2009 to pay for school would be the worst possible scenario because we need to not TOUCH that account so that we can recapture all that we lost in the Great Recession. But, it took over 4 years for the market to recover and get back to what it had lost. By that time, your child is graduating from their 4-year program. As you can see, a market-based program that must be accessed at a specific time no matter what the status of the account, just doesn’t work. If the market crashes right before they are due to go to school, all that hard work you did to save and provide for them can be ruined….

Fortunately, there are other tax-advantaged programs that do not have that market risk of loss at exactly the wrong time, and we love working those numbers for a plan.

Our practice is holistic in nature and involves many planning aspects. We are fee-based as we get compensated through various capacities, including Financial Planning Consulting Fees, Investment Advisory Fees for Assets Under Management, Payments for Securing Financial Assets, and Legal Fees Collected Acting as an Attorney.

Most people do not realize that there is a rule in the financial services world that you cannot offer products outside your employer’s offerings. Meaning as a client of a large brokerage house or captive insurer, you are not able to offer clients financial asset classes that are not offered through your employer, even if that would be the best option for the client. It is a prohibition against ‘selling away.’ So, while the industry is trying to convince everyone that fee-only advisors are automatically better, they never mention this little secret.

An independent advisor is not subject to this rule as they are able to represent hundreds of companies’ offerings. We leverage this open-market ability to our client’s best interests, and we know which offerings will best meet our client’s objectives.