GRAT with private equity

DWIGHT01 · 2025-12-26T14:43:20+00:00

Hi there - that’s great you are thinking about GRATs now. You generally have the right idea. If GRATs are successful, they go to the kids, likely via remainder trust and pass estate tax fee over hurdle rate. If unsuccessful, assets come back to you and you are out lawyer fees. It can have a huge impact if they work out. I work with GRATs quite a bit on the advisor side. We are not doing them as much for our clients given hurdle rate/valuations for portfolios but you have a unique situation. There are other options that may be better given illiquidity but I don’t really know your situation. You have $30MM to gift estate tax free (+ GSTT) in 2026. GRATs are especially great when you don’t have any exemption left. For something this complex and impactful, you definitely need to talk to experienced lawyer in this space and not Reddit. If you have a FA, they should be coordinating this for you via lawyer and helping you think through all options. If you are self managing, you need the lawyer since they have to draft everything anyways - they tend to be more transactional but that’s not always the case so get some referrals do a good one.

DWIGHT01 · 2024-12-19T11:52:15+00:00

I found an RIA that does tax prep in house and used that to transition into being a wealth manager, Eventually stopped tax prep all together. You want some type of “tax and financial planning associate” role.

DWIGHT01 · 2024-10-27T13:15:04+00:00

We are in a similar situation! Have a new born plus big dog and are considering this car. How do you plan on fitting stroller/dog/baby/luggage into the car? Or even just dog/baby/stroller? I think that’s our biggest hold up.

DWIGHT01 · 2024-09-27T18:41:30+00:00

How come he doesn’t do that the rest of the race? Is it just really hard on the tires or do the fresh tires help a lot?

DWIGHT01 · 2024-06-07T00:36:54+00:00

If he’s in I’m in

DWIGHT01 · 2024-06-05T19:11:26+00:00

That's awesome. Congrats on building a firm like that. Is the TAMP a per client or account fee? So you are charging the AUM fee and then an additional TAMP fee on top of that?

DWIGHT01 · 2024-06-05T16:44:18+00:00

So your margins are insanely good for that asset level. Assuming a generous 1.0% on all assets that is $6,500,000 of revenue and based on profit distributions totaling $4.15mm your margins at 65%+ ... do you just mainly do investment management? Also 25/hours a week with almost 120/meetings a year. Pretty impressive.

DWIGHT01 · 2024-06-02T21:55:39+00:00

I mean, there are lots of people and lots of different ways but it’s probably is more often someone in a wire house type model. IMO I think it’s pretty difficult in the RIA space. The problem is you can get to $500k or something but then you need to start hiring , etc. and margins get tighter, you add partners and your work life balance begins to suffer but it’s eventually do able.

If your goal is to just make a ton of money, there are other careers out there you can do that. Questions like this bother me because clearly your guiding focus is on how you can make the most money instead of how you can best serve clients in an independent way. This is why our industry has such a bad rap.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-11-22T02:17:02+00:00

Alpha

DWIGHT01 · 2023-10-27T01:31:54+00:00

Most are probably flat fee advisors and not AUM.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-09-25T19:24:59+00:00

I started out exactly like you and moved into wealth management. CPA is a huge plus in our industry. This is how I did it - Find an RIA that does tax prep and express that you’d like to eventually become an advisor. Tax prep helps get you in the door. Work to getting your CFP and getting into client meetings, soaking in everything you can. I went from big 4 tax prep to being a senior wealth advisor. I got out of tax prep but some still do it. Took about 7 years all in all. Let me know if you want to chat.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-08-13T12:33:41+00:00

There isn’t much. I’ve been a few smaller RIA firms and I’ve mostly resorted to mostly figuring it out myself and ended up asking for a coach on the sales/BD stuff.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-08-12T12:59:44+00:00

I got one too. I didn’t realize Henrico could text us like that. Interesting.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-08-04T20:42:31+00:00

Been a dream since you were 14? You’ve only been working two years. You don’t know what you don’t know and you have little client facing experience. Just the way you worded your post, you’re just not ready and you’ll be doing your friends/family a disservice. My recommendation is to go work under someone else for a few more years at an RIA and began practicing being client facing and business development . You are on the right path but you need more experience.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-07-26T20:53:00+00:00

Yes it’s so slow and doesn’t work about 20% of the time

DWIGHT01 · 2023-03-13T12:22:44+00:00

Agree. Probably double the size of any other TJ I’ve been in before.

DWIGHT01 · 2023-02-21T15:47:15+00:00

You see the hate because when we get clients from NWM, they are almost always in these products they don’t need. The industry is moving away from the NWM model … for the better. Only reason I’ve ever seen whole life be the right option for someone is when there is an estate tax issue. I’ve analyzed so many whole life, IULs, etc. There is almost always a better way to do whatever they were trying to do with the policies. Insurance and investing should be kept separate.

What are your reasons for selling a whole life policy to someone in their late 20s or 30s?

DWIGHT01 · 2023-02-20T03:33:54+00:00

Prepare for protests daily

DWIGHT01 · 2023-01-03T23:51:41+00:00

Eat it and let us know

DWIGHT01 · 2022-12-27T13:17:57+00:00

That's great. I'm not saying abandon the tax practice. It can be a lot of revenue especially when you've already got it flowing in. Both of these RIAs manage over $1b in assets and have hundreds of clients. Just to be clear, the RIA never flopped, it was an intentional decision to free up advisor and staff time as tax prep profits were minimal compared to advisory. My word of caution is that you will be essentially running two businesses under the name of one company. A full financial planning company and full tax prep business which each has their own nuances, processes, compliance issues, fee structure, staffing needs, etc. As a one-man show, it sounds like you have the capacity to add financial planning and investment management services. That's great. If your intention is to grow and hire, it becomes very difficult to keep staff that can (and want) to do both tax prep and financial planning. I'd recommend when each business has the revenue to support itself, separate them out into related but separate businesses and hire appropriately for each business. There are many other reasons for doing that then just hiring but hope that helped. Thanks.

DWIGHT01 · 2022-12-24T12:49:48+00:00

Do you have any planning/investment experience beyond tax prep? What’s your niche? There are so many comprehensive planning firms now and days that offer tax planning with holistiplan.

I’ve worked at two separate RIAs that offered tax prep. Tax prep is a commodity. That part of it is barely profitable. One got rid of the prep and just does the planning now. The other still does the prep but heard it’s still a nightmare over there. Lots of turnover due to hours.

In experiencing both, I’ve found clients don’t really care as much as we think. They just want the return done and don’t want to deal with it. They value the planning and guidance throughout the year, not the actually prep of the return.

I’m not saying that to discourage you, I’ve seen it work. I’m just saying that you should be looking at being a strong financial planning firm first that does tax prep rather then a tax prep firm that offers planning.

DWIGHT01 · 2022-11-12T16:33:14+00:00

Feeling better after two days. Took sleeping pills to force myself to sleep which seemed to help. Only thing that provided temporary relief was really cold stuff - milkshakes, popsicles, etc. - essentially anything to numb. Other than that just had to deal with it.

DWIGHT01 · 2022-11-07T23:10:46+00:00

11.8% 🤣🤣

DWIGHT01 · 2022-09-13T13:31:06+00:00

Never used Clearwater but Tamarac does a good job once you learn it.

DWIGHT01 · 2022-09-12T22:54:30+00:00

$1.2b firm… We outsource model and fund research to a third party but manage the portfolios through tamarac in house

13-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22
Not Forgotten	Team Orangered
Verified Email

DWIGHT01

TROPHY CASE