Long-term Financial Planning in San Antonio, Texas

First things first, long-term financial planning typically covers working and retirement years that take you to the end of life. The duration of this timeline could be decades because many people will be living well into their 90’s.

Consider long-term financial planning as creating a healthy, productive garden. Planting seeds represents your initial investments during working years, which need time and nurturing to grow into productive plans. Pruning and weeding are similar to revising your financial strategies and eliminating less productive or risky investments that may hurt the pursuit of your long-term goals.

Similarly, life events and your economic outlook might prompt you to revise strategies in your long-term financial plan. By staying proactive and adaptable, you keep moving toward your goal, ensuring a smoother journey and successfully pursuing your financial goals.

Over time, with patience and timely updates, your garden flourishes, providing substantial rewards that reflect the effort and foresight that went into its upkeep.

                          Listen to our podcast: Financial Checkups, Explained.

There is a universal agreement that no one wants to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s a form of erosion that reduces your assets for future use. This makes tax-efficient planning an important element for planning your financial future. 

1. It can assist in reducing the amount you owe in taxes each year. You keep more of your income and earnings by taking advantage of all relevant tax deductions, credits, and favorable tax rates.
2. Another significant advantage is the ability to plan for future expenses more effectively. Knowing your projected tax liabilities in advance can help you budget better, ensuring you're not caught off-guard by unexpectedly large tax bills.
3. Tax planning also promotes investment growth. By choosing tax-efficient investments, such as retirement accounts like IRAs or 401(k)s, your money can grow tax-deferred, which enhances your compound results over longer periods.
4. Tax planning helps in managing the timing of your income and expenses. By understanding how different financial decisions impact your taxes, you can choose the best times to take income or make large purchases, potentially leading to lower overall tax liabilities5. Tax planning is an important part of your estate planning efforts. 
5. It helps ensure that your assets are transferred to your heirs with no more taxes than are necessary. This impact will preserve more of your wealth for future generations and cause you to wish to support after you are gone.
6. A mid-year tax check-in allows you to assess your current tax strategies and make necessary adjustments to optimize your financial outlook. This can include adjusting withholdings based on your current income, revisiting tax deductions, etc. San Antonio financial advisors can guide you through local and federal tax opportunities.

Here are two examples of how tax planning plays a key role in long-term financial planning:

• When planning for retirement, you’ll need to consider the tax treatment of various retirement accounts, like 401(k)s, IRAs, and Roth IRAs. Each account has different tax implications, and choosing the right mix can significantly affect the money you have available for later retirement years. For instance, contributions to traditional IRAs may be tax-deductible, but withdrawals are taxed as income. Conversely, Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax dollars, leading to withdrawals during retirement years that are generally tax-free.
• Another important reason to incorporate tax planning into your long-term financial plans is to ensure your assets are transferred to your heirs with minimal tax liabilities. 

Listen to our podcast: “Tax Smart Retirement Planning: Insights on Roth Conversions.”

Think about how hard you’ve worked to accumulate substantial wealth for your future use. To ensure these assets endure after you have passed, you need a process that reflects your wishes while looking at the most effective ways to protect your wealth for future generations. Enter the need for effective estate planning.

Here’s how it adds value:

1. Estate planning ensures that your assets are distributed according to your wishes after the surviving spouse's passing. This control helps prevent family disputes and ensures your legacy is carried out as you envision.
2. By establishing trusts, wills, and other estate planning tools, you can secure your family's financial future. This includes provisions for children, spouses, and future generations, ensuring they are financially cared for in your absence.

Following are a few examples that describe how you can leverage estate planning that benefits your family:

• Effective estate planning helps minimize the tax burden on your heirs. For instance, by setting up trusts or gifting assets during your lifetime, you can significantly reduce estate taxes and increase the net value of your beneficiaries' inheritance.

• Advance directives and health care proxies are part of estate planning that enable you to describe your preferences for medical care if a catastrophic illness incapacitates you. This ensures that your health care wishes are respected and relieves your loved ones from the burden of making difficult decisions during emotional times.
• Regular estate plan reviews are important - this is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. Life events such as marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, or the death of a beneficiary can impact your estate plan. Reviewing your estate plan annually or after any significant life event is advisable.

As your wealth grows, so can the sophistication level of various tax strategies you can use to boost your net returns and minimize your tax liabilities. By incorporating these strategies into your long-term financial plan, you can effectively reduce your tax burden while ensuring your investments are aligned with your long-term goals. 

Always consult a San Antonio financial advisor to craft the right strategy for you and your family.

Here are a few advanced tax strategies you should consider.

1. Tax-Loss Harvesting - This strategy involves selling securities at a loss to offset a capital gains tax liability. It's particularly useful in managing the after-tax impact of your buys and sells. By realizing losses, you can reduce the tax consequences of profitable sales.

2. Roth IRA Conversions - Converting funds from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA can provide tax-free growth and tax-free withdrawals in retirement. While this conversion triggers a tax liability in the year it occurs, the long-term benefits can be significant, especially if you expect to be in a higher tax bracket.

3. Charitable Giving - Utilizing a charitable remainder trust or setting up donor-advised funds allows for tax-efficient charitable giving. These vehicles provide tax deductions and help manage and/or eliminate capital gains taxes when funding the trust account with appreciated property.

4. Real Estate Investments - Investing in real estate offers numerous tax benefits, including deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes, and operational expenses. Additionally, strategies like a 1031 exchange can defer capital gains taxes when selling appreciated investment properties.

5. Trust and Estate Planning - Establishing trusts can be a productive way to manage estate taxes and protect your assets for future generations. Techniques such as grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs) or irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) can effectively reduce estate tax liabilities.

Making strategic adjustments to your portfolio allocation is critical for long-term financial planning. Why? All things financial are subject to change. 

This practice involves periodically rebalancing your investments to align with your evolving financial goals, risk tolerance, and market outlooks. These adjustments help maintain a desired risk exposure across your portfolio, preventing any investment or asset class from disproportionately impacting your financial well-being.

Two examples of strategic portfolio allocation adjustments include:

1. As you approach retirement, shifting more of your investments from higher volatility stocks to more stable bonds can be a prudent decision. This change can help protect your savings from sudden market downturns while providing a more consistent income stream. For instance, a person in their 30s might have an aggressive portfolio consisting of 80% stocks and 20% bonds, but as they move into their 50s or 60s, adjusting to a 60% stocks and 40% bonds mix could be more appropriate to reduce risk as retirement nears.
2. Expanding the percentage of your portfolio allocated to equities during prolonged economic growth can capitalize on the growth potential of stocks. Conversely, increasing your holdings in defensive sectors like utilities, consumer staples, or alternative assets like gold can buffer against market volatility in downturns triggered by inflation, recessions, and the extraordinary level of U.S. debt ($34 trillion and rising). For example, if economic factors indicate a looming recession, shifting more of your assets from stocks to high-quality bonds and income-producing real estate could help preserve your assets.

At PAX Financial, we understand that everyone's financial situation is unique. We do not believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. That's why we're here to develop a long-term financial plan tailored specifically for you. 

We're more than just financial fiduciaries; we're your partners in weaving your values into a financial strategy that reflects your unique vision of financial independence. We stand for:

• Defining what financial freedom looks like and tailoring an approach that fits your unique needs, concerns, and goals.
• Helping you live the life you’ve always dreamed of without financial worry.
• Creating a lasting impact that extends to future generations of your family.

Our services are designed for affluent individuals, families, and business owners. We understand that your financial needs are increasingly complex as you approach and enter retirement years that can last three decades or more. That's why we offer sophisticated wealth solutions to proactively manage, preserve, and distribute your wealth according to your wishes.

Ready to learn more about our long-term financial planning in San Antonio?  Let’s connect for an introductory call.