What We Do
Personal Guidance,
Practical Planning
Everything we do is tailored to suit your needs and goals. We assess where you are in relation to where you want to be, and we provide a practical, personalized plan to help you bridge the gap. We specialize in comprehensive planning, where we examine the big picture and address each area of your financial life, outlining integrated strategies to ensure every element of your wealth is aligned with the life you want to live.
Wealth Management
Estate Planning
Estate planning is the process of arranging ownership and use of assets to help meet lifetime financial objectives in a tax efficient manner, and simultaneously help provide for survivors' needs and the disposition of property at death. A carefully implemented estate plan can help to create and conserve assets during life Minimize death taxes and estate settlement costs Assure that cash is available to pay unavoidable taxes and costs Provide an orderly distribution of assets that meets the estate owner's objectives and intentions Provide peace of mind and family harmony.
Retirement Planning
Retirement planning is the process of planning for one's income needs during retirement. Usually, there are three main sources of retirement income:
The Retirement Planning section of Advanced Markets Online focuses on employer-sponsored retirement plans and other related subjects. This includes an examination of qualified retirement plans in all their manifold varieties—defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans of the money purchase pension and profit sharing types, target benefit plans, Keogh plans for the self-employed, and section 401(k) plans Simplified employee pension plans (SEPs) SIMPLE retirement plans Individual retirement accounts or annuities (IRAs), including Roth IRAs Section 403(b) plans, also called tax-sheltered annuities or TSAs Rollovers*, direct rollovers, and direct plan-to-plan transfers Section 457 deferred compensation plans for certain employees in the government and not-for-profit sectors of the economy Pension income supplemental life insurance.
*When considering rolling over the proceeds from your retirement plan to another tax-qualified vehicle, note that you have options, including leaving the funds in your existing plan, or rolling it over to a new employer’s plan. Depending on the option you select, there may be fees, expenses, and taxes upon withdrawal.
Education Funding
The cost of a college education is continuously rising. At the same time, a college degree is a superior investment of both time and money. How and when families begin to save for college makes a substantial difference in the amount of money that will be available and the range of choices a student will have. Starting early gives the money set aside the greatest amount of time to potentially grow. Today there are more tax-advantaged ways to save for college than ever. The best way to save for college depends on diverse factors including how many years away college is, your income, your risk tolerance, how much you have available to set aside for college, further savings and investment plans, and other factors.
Investments
BFS offers customized solutions to help you develop a sound, long-term investment strategy. We also provide assistance in funding retirement plans for companies of all sizes, ranging from simple IRAs to full-service defined contribution and defined benefit plans.
Annuities
An annuity is a unique financial vehicle designed to help people accumulate money for their retirement and/or turn a lump sum of money into a guaranteed stream of income for life. Guarantees are based on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company.
Fixed Deferred Annuities
A Fixed Deferred Annuity is a product that is designed to help you accumulate funds for your retirement. The money in your annuity earns a fixed rate of interest and your money accumulates on a tax-deferred basis, meaning you do not pay taxes on your earnings until you actually withdraw them from your policy. Annuities are long-term retirement savings vehicles. Early withdrawals may be subject to early withdrawal charges. Distributions are subject to income taxes and if made before 59 ½ a 10% federal income tax penalty may also apply.
Variable Deferred Annuities
A Variable Deferred Annuity offers the advantage of tax deferral and can be used to accumulate money for retirement. The policy’s accumulated value – and sometimes the amount of monthly annuity benefit payments – fluctuates with the performance of your investment account. There are fees, expenses and risks associated with the contract. Please be aware that assets allocated to the investment divisions are subject to market risks and will fluctuate in value.
Investors are asked to consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the investment carefully before investing. Both the product prospectus and the underlying fund prospectuses contain this and other information about the product and underlying investment options and can be obtained from your Registered Representative. Please read the prospectuses carefully before investing.
Fixed Immediate Annuity
A Fixed Immediate Annuity pays a guaranteed rate of interest, resulting in a guaranteed stream of income where payments begin immediately. Immediate annuities are generally bought with one lump sum payment, which is then "immediately" converted into a series of scheduled payments.
Business Planning
Key Employee Protection
Key employees are the foundation of a successful business; they are sources of leadership and profitability to the company who would be extremely difficult to replace. Key Employee Protection provides the perfect solution for the company in case of death or disability of a key employee that can be devastating to the financial well-being of your company. Purchasing life and/or disability insurance on your key employees can be a cost-effective way to safeguard your business and minimize the impact of a key employee’s death or disability.
Buy/Sell Funding
Insuring the life of your business. A buy-sell agreement is a contract among business owners. At the loss of an owner, the business interest is transferred according to the terms of this contract. The other owner(s) are obligated to purchase the deceased's business interest and the deceased's heirs are obligated to sell.
Using insurance as a funding vehicle provides the following benefits:
Immediate availability of proceeds when death or disability occurs
The insurance proceeds used to buy the deceased's share are generally cost-effective
Death benefit proceeds are generally federal income tax free
Exit Strategy
Setting a defined exit plan strategy sets the road map for your company to exit potentially with a maximum dollar amount within a defined timeframe by maximizing short term revenues. As much as some business owners may avoid the succession issue because they love working and don’t want to stop any time soon, devising a written Exit Strategy for your business ultimately benefits you, your family, and possibly your employees.
Executive Bonus Arrangement
An executive bonus arrangement is a non-qualified employee benefit arrangement in which an employer pays a compensation bonus to one or more selected employees, which the employee may then use to purchase a personally owned life insurance policy on his or her life.
Deferred Compensation
An amount of earned income that is payable at a later date. Most deferred-compensation plans allow the wage earner to defer tax now so that the funds can be withdrawn and taxed at some point in the future. The most common form of deferred compensation is a retirement plan. Deferring income allows the earner to use the income later in life when they have a lower tax rate. Other examples include pension plans and stock-option plans.
Qualified Plan Funding
Qualified retirement plans usually cover significantly all eligible employees and have special tax advantages. Such plans are subject to strict and somewhat complex rules in order to obtain tax advantages.
There are two broad categories of qualified retirement plans:
Defined Benefit Plan provides employees with a fixed and known benefit at retirement; the amount is usually defined by length of service and highest attained salary.
Defined Contribution Retirement Plan provides employees with a retirement benefit based on the value of the employee’s account at retirement. There are specific Defined Contribution Retirement Plans available including a 401(k) Plan, 403(b) and a Profit Sharing Plan. Variations of an IRA-based Defined Contribution Plan include Simplified Employee Pension Plan (SEP) and Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE). Both the SIMPLE and SEP plans bring the benefits of employer-sponsored retirement programs to the employees of small businesses.
Protection Planning
Life Insurance
Life insurance helps to ensure that your family and loved ones are protected against financial difficulties in the event of a premature death. Life insurance can be a fundamental part of a sound financial plan. Permanent life insurance offers many living benefits as well, such as tax-deferred cash value accumulation.
Disability Insurance
Everyone must have a strategy in place to plan in case of a short term or long term disability. Some people have coverage that is paid through their employers, others opt to have individual disability insurance. Disability insurance helps protect you and your family against financial hardship in case you could not continue to work due to disability.
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it Now."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Our Location
8075 Leesburg Pike, Suite 400
Vienna, VA 22182
