Comprehensive Wealth Counseling

At Comprehensive Wealth Solutions, LLC (“CWS Global”), personal financial counseling is just that, personal. Each client is matched with a personal financial advisor who is dedicated to meeting your unique needs supported by all the expertise, experience and resources of CWS Global. In developing your financial plan, we consider all relevant areas of your financial and personal life. Our initial goal is to gather information about your current circumstances, identify and address issues that can threaten your lifestyle or that put what you have already achieved at risk. The next step is a focus on the future, what you want and what it will require to achieve it. As we make detailed recommendations, we will assist you with implementation to enable you to maximize the value of what is currently available to you and efficiently move you forward towards your long-term goals.

Once the financial plan has been established it is critical to monitor the financial plan to measure your progress, factor in changes in goals, income, career, family circumstances, resources and opportunities. While we continue to work with you to update and monitor your goals and changing circumstances, you can easily and securely review your progress at any time by accessing secure web based updates that are available to you at all times.

Principles of Wealth Counseling

CWS Global's approach to personal financial counseling is based on the following principles:

• Objectivity: Rigorous analysis of each situation with a focus on the best solution for you.
• Comprehensive Approach: Financial issues and decisions are interrelated. Our approach is to examine the many phases of your financial life, appreciate and analyze where different aspects intersect ultimately enabling you to make sound, highly informed decisions.
• Technology: We are committed to integrating the best technological tools throughout the financial planning process to provide the sophisticated analysis that is required and to assist you by making detailed, up to date financial information available to you at any time, day or night.
• Teamwork: We coordinate efforts on your behalf with other professionals (existing advisors or suggested professionals) when required/appropriate.
• Review & Monitor: Achieving or keeping financial success for the long run requires ongoing vigilance and adjustment. Our monitoring services provide the continuity and ongoing insight necessary to managing your financial affairs.

Wealth Counseling Services

CWS Global offers a full range of personal financial counseling services including:

• Cash Flow Management
• Financial Independence (Retirement) Planning
• Wealth Management
• Estate Planning
• Risk Management
• Education Funding
• Income Tax Planning
• Benefits Optimization
• Stock Option Planning

Cash Flow Management: Begins with a review of the cost of your current lifestyle. We may provide multi-year cash flow projections for further analysis, identify ways to make better use of your existing cash flow, advise on gaining quick access to funds for emergencies, evaluate and manage debt by considering the structure, tax consequences and other implications of debt.

Financial Independence (Retirement) Planning: “When can I be financially independent?” is a central question for nearly every client and answering it is integral to the completion of any sound financial plan. Financial independence means something different to every client. Together we determine what it means to you and your family, assess your current situation and opportunities, and develop strategies to enhance your opportunities to move you towards and ultimately to achieve your goal. Such strategies focus on quantifying the resources necessary to achieve your objectives and maximizing accumulation of assets while managing income taxes, both in the accumulation (pre-retirement) and distribution (post-retirement) phases.

Wealth Management: We design individual investment strategies to suit the lifestyle and long-term goals of each client. Our process is designed to integrate investment strategy, tax planning and risk management considerations to enhance the probability that you will reach your goals. Our strategy development starts with you; your family and career status, your specific needs and goals, your attitudes towards risk, the implications, opportunities and risks of holding significant investments in company stock. We evaluate all factors and incorporate them into a strategy to preserve and increase your wealth.

Once we have established the parameters we start with a macro view, the broad investment strategy incorporating education about different asset classes and investment strategies. After the broad parameters for the portfolio are determined we work down into the details of portfolio construction, i.e. determining appropriate allocations to specific asset classes, and then finally down to the specific investment vehicles that are appropriate for your circumstances. We provide our clients with access to a wide range of investment vehicles from the straightforward to the most complex, including but not limited to mutual funds, individual stocks and bonds, access to top money managers via managed accounts and alternative investments.

The investment world can be extremely complex; we are your outspoken advocate to dig into the details of performance, persistency and the cost of various investment vehicles and products. We earn your trust and confidence by providing you with unbiased advocacy respecting your confidentiality at all times.

You are able to manage the risk of a portfolio concentrated in company stock by implementing sophisticated strategies such as collars and straddles when appropriate.

Estate Planning: Reducing the estate tax burden is an important goal, but as important is having the proper asset distribution strategy. In addition to reviewing techniques to manage the potential federal and state estate tax burden, we work with you to clarify your family goals and intentions and add our insight from working with many clients in similar circumstances. Once you have determined the plan, we assist you and your attorney to implement that plan. We utilize all the tools available to achieve this including; estate planning documents such as wills and various types of trusts, gifting strategies, insurance strategies, and multi-generational planning opportunities to create the peace of mind that comes from knowing that you have soundly addressed these important issues.

Risk Management: Protecting your family’s income and lifestyle demands that you have adequate insurance coverage. We analyze your insurance needs and the current coverage you have in place to ascertain the adequacy and efficiency of your life, disability, medical, long term care and property and casualty insurance. We make specific recommendations to ensure that you and your family have adequate, efficient and cost effective insurance coverage.

Education Funding: Is a primary goal for many families. We assist you by helping to evaluate and determine the appropriate amount of money required, the periodic or lump sum investment and savings needs, funding methods and recommended investment strategy to reach your goal. We evaluate the myriad of vehicles and types of accounts available for saving for education (Education IRA’s, UTMA accounts, Sec. 529 plans, etc.). Investment strategies are evaluated over time and may be adjusted as your children approach college age.

Income Tax Planning: Income taxes touch or affect nearly every aspect of your financial life. Managing the income tax implications on your financial plan and minimizing your overall tax burden is our goal. Tax planning runs throughout the financial planning process and is an incorporated into our analysis and decision making process in nearly every other part of your financial plan. We understand the specific implications for every financial decision clients make and alert them to tax exposures and opportunities so we can minimize the tax impact of those decisions. In addition, we provide our clients with annual income tax projections to consider and identify other chances to reduce your burden. We also strive to make income taxes predictable so that you know what your tax obligations will be well in advance. There is nothing worse than being surprised with a large tax bill on short notice. Managing income taxes is an important and integral part of the planning process.

Benefits Optimization: Benefit choices for executives have grown more varied and complex in recent years and will likely continue to do so. We assist executives to assess their choices, understand the nuances of the various plans and determine how to utilize benefits to best meet the needs of our clients. We combine our years of experience with many different corporate benefit plans, trends in executive benefits, tax implications and awareness of each client’s family and financial considerations to evaluate and determine the appropriate utilization of these benefit programs. We monitor updates and changes in benefit choices, e.g. changes in investment options, insurance contracts, etc. to make sure that your benefit choices are optimized for every client’s specific situation.

Stock Option Planning: We evaluate and monitor your stock options and factor the value, or potential value into your overall wealth management and accumulation plan. This includes monitoring vesting schedules, values, new grants and developing strategies for exercising options while minimizing the income tax effects, including managing the Alternative Minimum Tax implications of qualified stock options. We help executives to make the most out of their stock options.