Coordinated planning for complex family finances
Financial Planning for High-Net-Worth Families
When a family’s finances have several moving parts, each decision is best made with the others in front of us.
Financial planning for high-net-worth individuals and families is a single written plan that coordinates investments, tax planning, estate structure and charitable giving once those decisions begin to affect one another. At Monument Group, wealth, tax and legal professionals work from one Concord office, so each recommendation is weighed against the rest.
What changes as wealth grows
A household with modest, straightforward finances can often make each decision on its own. As assets, income and obligations grow, that stops being practical, because a choice in one area starts to move the result in another. A sale of appreciated shares changes the tax bill, the tax bill changes what is available to give or to leave, and the way assets are titled changes what happens when the family’s circumstances change.
High-net-worth planning is the practice of looking at those connections deliberately. There is no single dollar figure at which it begins. The more useful signal is that your decisions have started to depend on one another, and that you would like one team holding the whole picture rather than several professionals each holding a part of it.
Where the complexity tends to sit
- Taxes across several years
- Income, gains, charitable gifts and retirement withdrawals interact from one year to the next, so the timing of each can matter as much as the amount. Our in-house tax advisors help plan these across years rather than within a single filing season.
- Estate transfer
- Wills, trusts and beneficiary designations need to agree with the financial plan, and Massachusetts has its own estate tax with a threshold well below the federal one. Legal work is provided by Woodman & Eaton, P.C., our affiliated law firm, or by your own attorney.
- Concentrated stock
- A large holding in one company, often from employment, carries a kind of risk that diversification addresses, and the tax cost of reducing it calls for a deliberate timetable.
- Business ownership
- Owners often hold much of their net worth in one company, so personal and business decisions about income, ownership and an eventual transition are better made together.
- Charitable giving
- How and when a gift is made, and which assets fund it, can change its tax treatment, so giving is planned alongside the rest of the picture.
How wealth, tax and legal professionals work on one plan
The Monument Group Companies are three affiliated firms in one building in Concord: Monument Group Wealth Advisors, Monument Group Tax Advisors and the law firm Woodman & Eaton, P.C., which has been on Main Street since 1980. Because the people involved share an office, a question raised in a planning meeting can be put to a tax advisor or an attorney the same week, and clients are not handed off to outside firms to find the answer.
We call the result a Master Plan. It is a written blueprint in which investment, tax and estate decisions are tested against one another before a recommendation reaches you. Monument Group is a fee-only fiduciary, so our compensation comes from clients and not from the products we recommend.
The roles stay distinct. Monument Group Wealth Advisors provides financial planning and investment management, Monument Group Tax Advisors provides tax planning and preparation, and legal advice and document drafting come from Woodman & Eaton, P.C. or from your own attorney.
What a first conversation looks like
The first conversation is mostly listening on our side. We ask what is on your mind, how the family is structured, what you own and in what form, and what you would like the money to make possible. Recent account statements, your last tax return and any estate documents are useful, though they can be gathered afterward.
From there we tell you plainly whether our approach looks like a fit. If it does, the next step is gathering the details needed to build the plan, and if it does not, we will say so.
What planning can and cannot do
Coordinated planning may help a family make better-informed decisions, reduce avoidable surprises and keep its documents and accounts consistent with its intentions. It cannot guarantee a particular investment, tax or estate outcome. Results vary with individual circumstances, tax law changes, and markets move, so we review the plan formally at least twice a year and sooner when something significant changes.
Financial Planning for High-Net-Worth Families
Questions about financial planning for high-net-worth families
Related
What does high net worth mean for financial planning?
There is no single definition, and institutions use different dollar figures. In planning terms, the more useful test is complexity: whether your tax, investment, estate and giving decisions have started to depend on one another. If they have, a coordinated plan is likely to be more useful than separate advice on each part.How is financial planning for high-net-worth families different from standard financial planning?
The core method is the same, but more of the plan depends on coordination. Larger and more varied assets bring multi-year tax questions, estate transfer, concentrated holdings, business interests and charitable giving into the same conversation. The work is to weigh them together so that a decision in one area does not undercut another.Does Monument Group provide legal advice?
No. Monument Group Wealth Advisors provides financial planning and investment management and does not draft estate documents or give legal advice. Legal work is done by Woodman & Eaton, P.C., our affiliated law firm, or by your own attorney if you prefer. Both firms work from the same Concord office, which makes coordination practical.What should I bring to a first conversation?
Recent account statements, your last tax return, any estate documents and your insurance information are helpful. Just as useful is a clear sense of what is on your mind. The first conversation is mostly listening on our side, and we can gather documents afterward.
Talk through financial planning for high-net-worth families
Every plan starts with a conversation about what’s actually on your mind.
Schedule a time to discuss whether our approach is the right fit for you.