Good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene Dickison, your host, your personal financial adviser, not your political commentator.

Your personal financial advisor.

Happy to be serving you this evening.

Happy for all of you who are, happy to have the election cycle over.

No matter what the results were, if they were, joyous for you, unhappy for you, it's over.

And so our mails should return to something less than an inch thick of fliers or emails.

Our text should be a lot cleaner, a lot more, personal, than we have experienced in this cycle.

And, goodness, we, we pray for, our entire country.

We pray that everyone, benefits as we move forward.

Everyone enjoys the very best that America has to offer.

We're a blessed nation.

We are blessed to live here.

And, goodness, anything that that can benefit all of us, we're anxious to have, brought to the fore.

So, welcome to More Than Money.

If you're a loyal viewer, then you knew I'd have something to say about the election cycle and a couple of things along the way.

If you're just joining us for the first time, we lay claim to being the most relevant financial show on television.

No matter where you may look, it can be coast to coast.

It can be border to border.

It doesn't matter the size of the station, our show is the most relevant.

Not because of my inherent skills, which are formidable.

I must admit, but because of you.

You set the agenda.

You set the tone.

You send us your emails with your questions, your observations, and, we we share those with our audience that, goodness, these days, coast to coast and border to border applies there as well.

So many of our PBS systems picking us up, it's fantastic.

And we're hopeful and, and honored to be able to serve as many of you as we possibly can.

So if you have a question about, gosh, your retirement, Social Security, Medicare, about income taxes, how to pay the least and not go to prison, that's a very good litmus test right there.

Investments, how to make sure that everything is is done exactly as it should be.

How to bring all those accounts together and have the result be exactly what you want.

It could be estate planning, wills, trusts, executors, executrix.

The topics are varied.

What's fascinating about the questions that you typically send to us is that you bring all that together, because it's rare that, an individual circumstance has challenges that are in one particular small slice of the financial world.

It's very common that it bleeds over into many different areas.

So we are happy to serve you.

You send us your emails to, GENE at ask MTM dot com, GENE at ask MTM dot com.

We answer every single question back to you, even the hard ones, even the ones we have to do research on you.

You test us on occasion.

But then we, we take a selection of those and we bring those to you typically, we bring those to you through our financial correspondent, Megan Smale.

Megan is on assignment for this week and next, and, will not be with us, but goodness, we're trusting that Gene with all of his, 780 years of experience, will be able to read questions and answer questions all by himself.

I guess we're going to find out here shortly.

So if you have questions for us, send those along.

If you are simply, I think I'm going to try to learn a few things tonight.

Pad and pencil.

Not a bad idea at all, as you might want to take notes.

So let's give you a demo of exactly how this works on More Than money.

Our first question, with the headline of I remote or digital or Real Life Advisor.

This is fascinating.

A, listener, an audience member sent us this, descriptor disclaimer in some ways, from a company that was, soliciting them to become a client.

And it says that this company is revolutionizing retirement planning by offering a comprehensive range of services, including income planning, investment management, tax planning, health care advice and estate planning, all with a greater degree of effectiveness compared to traditional providers.

As a fully digital firm, they prioritize efficiency and convenience, providing remote consultation and digital account opening.

Unlike traditional firms, this particular company focuses on delivering extensive services without the need for in-person meetings, allowing clients to enjoy their retirement while their financial needs are expertly manage.

This company then enhances and then embraces a new era in retirement planning.

Fascinating.

Fascinating, indeed.

So their claim to fame is twofold.

Number one, that they do all these services and other firms do not.

And number two, that they do it without ever actually having to meet with you face to face with that, you ever having to leave the the comfort of your home or the confines of your office.

These are two rather interesting, claims.

We will address both of those.

Let's take the first one.

The easiest one first.

The easiest one is that they lay claim to offering comprehensive ranges of services covering all those.

You heard the list.

All where they greater degree of efficiency and effectiveness, I, I my apologies effectiveness compared to individual and traditional providers that is a what's the proper term I studied this, yes.

It's called a steaming pile of hoo ha.

It's simply incorrect.

The, claim, that this particular firm among the thousands, firms and there are literally thousands of firms, some would say tens of thousands.

Let's just use 10,000 as an example that they are the only firm.

They are the only firm offering comprehensive services, income tax, planning, investment planning, health care, estate planning.

That simply is false.

There are hundreds that do it, and they're claiming a higher degree of effectiveness.

I would suggest that that is also a likely, incorrect, just based on the need in order for a plan to be effective, to have exceptional levels of communication and understanding between the advisor and the client.

And I don't believe not for one tenth, 100th of a percent, that these folks are doing this, in a more effective way.

Now, the second, proposition that they are offering, is this we never have to meet face to face.

We do everything remotely.

We do everything by phone, by zoom, by digital.

You never need to leave your home or your office.

And that that in itself should make you wish to work with them.

And and my question is, does that sound right to you?

Would that be your preference?

I think I think that the answer is it depends.

I think there are folks who are goodness, what's the right word for folks who are afraid of crass, agoraphobic folks who are not comfortable being out and about?

That's this is fantastic.

What's interesting, of course, is that every every financial advisory firm of any caliber at all, of any size of any scope of any, effectiveness can offer exactly the same thing for a financial advisory firm.

And I know many, many of them, of course, many of them watch our show and take notes and and then send me an email thanking me.

Hey, that was a great idea.

I used it for my clients.

That's wonderful.

That's fantastic.

So, many of them, prefer, as we do, to meet with our clients in person at least.

Initially.

We have clients in 17 states.

So it's it's not always in person, but offering the opportunity to have those conversations by zoom face to face.

But, but not in person, by phone.

These are all typically typically offered by if I'm guessing.

And my guess is are they're pretty darn good.

I know the I know the field real well.

If I'm guessing 90% of the top quality firms could easily accommodate folks who would like to be, remote and digital.

Very easily done.

So this gives them no real advantage.

My, my question, though, is for you.

What what would you prefer?

And if you prefer, purely digital, this this could certainly work, but it would work with almost any quality firm that you might choose.

And if you prefer the opportunity to be, in person, that that works with the vast majority, probably 95% plus of the firms that are out there.

And then if you want the ultimate and, flexibility hybrid, if you will, virtually all the top firms are hybrid.

You can do it in person.

You can do it, remotely and you can mix and match.

Which is to be blunt, most of our more than money, clients, that's what they do.

They mix and match their in person when they can, particularly if they're snowbirds or they're further afield or if the weather just turns against them.

They can do it remotely as well.

Fascinating.

In the claims that are being made and the realities which are a little different than the claims.

Shall we shift gears just a bit?

I think so, this, topic bad advice, but why?

The young lady writes, when my dad passed away, he left his IRA to us kids.

It was split three ways.

270,000.

Not a small number, to each of us.

Dad's adviser, who I had never heard of until he died, now is in charge of my IRA, at least for the moment.

I've talked to her once and asked her about my options, I am certain so is my sister.

That she said the account had to stay with her for ten years.

Is that true?

Neither of us likes this woman very much.

That's pretty blunt.

My brother doesn't much care and is fine with leaving his money with her.

What can we do?

Quite a bit.

Quite a bit.

I am prayerful.

Hopeful.

More prayerful, that this is a misunderstanding.

While it is true that if you've inherited an IRA, you have a ten year rule.

We'll circle back to that.

That governs how that IRA, that inherited IRA functions.

It is certainly not the case that it must stay with that advisor.

Now, let's assume, you sound very reasonable.

Your your emails well-written and concise and to the point, let's assume for the moment that you heard it exactly right and that your sister heard it exactly right.

And this, this, this young lady advisor has said to you, it has to stay with me.

That's really bad advice.

That's really bad advice.

Because it's not true.

And if she's telling you something that's not true about something that's so easily.

Right.

Confirmed to be a fib.

Fibber.

Fibber pants on fire.

If that's the way she starts her relationship with you, you've got to leave.

You have got to move that account.

You have got to go to another advisor that you can trust because this person is untrustworthy.

If that is indeed what she has said now.

But is there another option?

Is it is it always that she's a bad human being and she's lied?

Maybe not.

Maybe she's ignorant.

Maybe she just doesn't know.

Maybe she is not well trained.

Maybe she doesn't understand tax law.

There's a lot of things, none of which are good, none of which are good.

There are so many wonderful advisors, smart advisors, experience advisors, extremely trustworthy advisors.

There is simply never a reason to stay with an advisor that is not trustworthy or is not well trained, or is ignorant, or doesn't give you good advice.

There's just no reason to stay.

You have so many options, so many options that you can take advantage of.

There's no reason to stay.

Now, as I mentioned, we'd circle back.

Inherited IRAs have since 2020 now four years in, become, such a, a a mess.

That's not a terribly sophisticated word, but the IRS has made this into quite the mess the original rules were issued.

Hey, you've got to take it out before the end of ten years.

Everybody said, okay, for the most part, I'll just leave it grow for ten years and take it out on the last day.

Then the IRS, a year or two later said, no, no, no, no, that's not what we meant.

What we meant is you've got to take some out every year for ten years.

And everybody went, okay, how much?

And they went, oh, yeah, we forgot that part.

So about a year later they went, hey, so the rules have changed so often, that the, the requirement that you take money out year by year has been waived.

I, I'm going by memory, but I think all four years that it's been in existence.

So this year as, as, as we are recording the show that year 2024, you do not have to take any money out of an inherited IRA that you received after 2020.

You don't have to, but the rule is still in effect.

So theoretically, if you inherited this IRA in 2020, you have not taken anything out.

You haven't had to you haven't been required to for four years.

But but you now only have six years left.

You don't.

The ten year doesn't start over.

So there is a ten year rule.

There's no question about that.

How you handle the money during that ten years is there are tons of options.

It's got to be customized to fit you for some folks.

Give me an example.

Hey, I've got two kids in college.

I'm spending a bucket of money and it's really, really stressing us out.

If you have an inherited IRA, that's the perfect time to take as much money out as you possibly can to satisfy those college needs and take the financial stress off of you.

So for folks who say, hey, you just push it off forever.

Maybe not.

Maybe now is exactly the right time for those of you that are fearful that tax rates will go up, taking money out early makes sense because now you know what the tax rate is.

Let's say you're in the 22% bracket.

You take it out of 22, you're fearful in five years it's going to be 40 to take it out.

Now, pay the tax, get it out of that, that that system as early as you can.

For those of you that are of the opposite, that opinion, hey, I don't need the money right now.

Hey, it's not, I don't think taxes are going to go up dramatically.

I don't think the rates are going to really hurt me.

Then taking it out either later or year by year makes, excellent sense.

By the way, one other strategy, this is totally unrelated to this question because I, I think we've we've kind of explored our options a bit and, we already know that the, the current advisor and out and new advisor that can give her, good counsel based on her needs.

Specifically, here's a strategy that many of our, viewers have used, to great advantage.

Taking the money out of the inherited IRA means it has to be taxed.

It is taxed.

You have to pay tax on it.

And if you're in a relatively high bracket, 22, etc., you're on.

This is painful.

This this is no fun at all for some folks who are active and contributing to A41K plan at their employer, they might be able to shift a portion or all of an inherited IRA into their 41K, and you got whoa, whoa whoa.

That's not allowed.

Not directly.

That is true.

You're not allowed to convert from an inherited IRA into A41K, but if for example, you're 50 years old, your contribution limit is 30,000 a year, you've been contributing 10,000 a year.

That extra 20,000 could come from the distribution from your, inherited IRA paint simple numbers.

There's 200,000 in the inherited IRA.

You're putting 10,000 in.

You could add another 20 if you took 20,000 out year by year over this ten year window, all of the money would come out of the inherited IRA.

Virtually.

Bits and pieces.

All the money comes out.

You make the contribution through your payroll deduction into your 41K, you get taxed on the money coming out of the inherited IRA.

You get a tax deduction.

If you choose a tax deduction for the money going into your 41K, all of a sudden you have converted and inherited a taxable inherited IRA into a tax deferred for one K. Just for fun.

These are great ideas.

Speaking of great ideas, where do we turn next?

Some financial advisors think who made it this?

We have a trend.

My financial advisor invested in my rollover for Ireland K into some funds, and one of them has a ten year double guarantee return.

Now, let me stop you there.

This is undoubtedly an annuity.

These were very popular a number of years back.

And indeed that's exactly what they said.

You put in, say $100,000.

You invested in their investments and it goes up and down, up and down, up and down.

But if it gets to ten years and it's not yet 200,000, they will.

It's called grossing it up.

They will gross up the account value to $200,000.

So you're guaranteed that your money will double.

Double over ten years is a little over a 7% 7.25% return.

Not outrageously high.

Not not not not dismal by any stretch.

So very acceptable.

But in some cases, the investments don't do, well, the the emailer goes on to say this means if I keep the investment ten years, it's guaranteed to double.

Last year was ten years, and it did not.

I've contacted the advisor twice now and discussed it with him.

He promised he would contact those higher up.

Then he.

And get back to me.

And it's been about three months now, and I don't have any, concrete answers.

Last time, he said he was still waiting to hear back from the higher ups.

How long do I let this go before I get someone else involved?

Who should I contact to help me?

Do I need to hire an attorney?

Some advisors think.

And I have said so many times on this show, we're a national show.

There are tens, say, 10,000 firms out there, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of advisors.

The vast majority of them are outstanding, well trained, well meaning they put their clients first.

They're fiduciaries.

They're doing a great job.

On occasion, though on occasion, financial advisor not doing his or her job.

In this case, his job.

Is this scenario, suggests to me that this financial advisor, air quotes is an insurance salesman.

It suggests to me that he is an insurance salesman who sells annuities.

That's what this product undoubtedly is.

And, is there by licensed as a, as a life and, and health insurance salesman that the treatment of that interaction will be very different than if we find out that he has a financial advisor, at least in name, by being a registered investment advisor, a series seven licensed advisor, something that actually suggests that, he has he is being regulated by the SEC, by the, Finra, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or in within his state being regulated by.

Well, in the state of Pennsylvania, it's called the Department of Banking and Securities.

Every state has a division of their regulator, bodies that oversee financial advisors.

If he is a an insurance salesman, you're going to do two things.

And they don't involve getting anyone else involved yet.

First is that you're going to write a letter to, this gentleman copying his supervisor and saying, I, documenting this this is what I was told.

I've I've been incredibly patient.

Three months.

I've asked twice.

I keep getting stonewalled.

This is unacceptable.

Well, you'll give them three days and you'll say in your letter, I gave you three days to respond and get this fix.

And at the end of the third day, likely you won't get a satisfactory response.

You, send a letter to the, insurance commissioner in your state.

They are, empowered.

They're they're, they are mandated to, supervise, regulate, investigate.

These kinds of, conflicts.

And I am prayerful again, hopeful, prayerful that this is a misunderstanding and that you're going to find out your money is exactly as it should be.

But my fear is, it is not.

My fear is that you were told one thing, but the contract says something very different.

My fear is they would not be stonewalling you if they had a positive answer.

These are all my fears.

I'm probably correct.

So bottom line is that once you get the insurance commissioner involved, depending on your age, you might also want to get some of the consumer protection agencies involved.

And you can do all this with without hiring an attorney.

You can do all this on your own.

And in many cases, these agencies are are rightfully, indignant on your behalf.

And you can save yourself a lot of, of of potentially, legal fees by having them represent you.

So make sure as you're going through this, that you exhaust all of the public, opportunities, all the public resources that you have to represent you.

If, on the other hand, this individual is a, licensed or registered investment advisor, this gets much more interesting because in that world, a written complaint to the advisor certainly copy to the supervisor, stops everything cold.

And financial advisors with a history of written complaints end up losing their jobs.

Companies that ignore consumer complaints end up being fined.

Not thousands, not hundreds of millions.

And in some cases, tens of millions of dollars.

There isn't a reasonable company around, none that would not sacrifice a salesman or an advisor in the best interests of the company to keep their regulatory record as clean as humanly possible.

And when there are enough consumer complaints against the company, the regulators get very unhappy.

And, a fair number of these kinds of advisory firms have gone out of business, based on the fact that they did not respond and protect their clients as they are intended to.

So if your advisor is indeed an advisor, you have much more power than you already know a written complaint.

Phone calls mean nothing.

They will deny you ever call.

Phone calls mean nothing.

Emails mean a little bit more, but a written complaint, particularly, registered mail that gets everybody's attention.

Bless you.

Quick one, what financial advisor will help a 17 year old?

I'm interested in getting my 17 year old son in front of someone who can help him plan for investing for his future.

He's a hard worker, working two jobs.

He still has one more year in high school.

He started on a co-op last year as an electrician, making really good money and worked full time over the summer, will be back on co-op after school starts and then back to full time work.

Who?

What financial advisor will assist a 17 year old with modest means?

Sadly, there's a fair number that will not.

There is a fair number, many of which advertise nonstop on radio and TV about they you need a half $1 million to invest to get their services.

You need $1 million to invest.

There's a lot of snotty companies out there that are like that.

They are far better.

They're far, far too good for us.

A quality financial advisory firm, particularly local, particularly local, will gladly counsel a 17 year old.

Gladly.

It's like the farmer planting seeds.

You start with a young man who clearly has a bright future, and you give them in essence, pro bono.

You won't make any money.

They don't make any money.

Adviser doesn't make any money.

But they build a relationship with a young man who's quality working hard, going to school, doing all the right stuff needs to be rewarded.

He's a quality individual.

There are tons of financial, but certainly more than money.

Advisors would do that in a heartbeat.

There are tons of financial advisors that would do exactly that in a heartbeat.

So a couple phone calls, you're going to do just fine.

Speaking of just fine, in the absence of, our finance correspondent Megan, who is on assignment, I think we did just fine.

I think Gene read reasonably well.

And the the questions were fantastic.

You guys are amazing.

So if you, are so inclined and would like potentially to see your question asked and answered on a future show, send those to me.

Gene at ask MTM, dot com, GENE at ask MTM dot com.

Were very very happy to have.

We have an entire team of financial advisors.

I can't do this all by myself.

True success is never done all by yourself.

And I have the best team available and they're available to you for the asking.

And so if you've learned a few things along the way this evening, picked up a couple ideas.

Maybe you want to take advantage of that opportunity.

And at the very least, we invite you to have the opportunity to return next week for another edition of More Than Money.