Filling A Niche
The GFP Institute’s 10-session Master Class series is offered three times a year. The next cycle starts on September 30, and the cost is $3,300. This will be the program’s fourth go-round.
Jalene Hahn, a certified financial planner at WWA Planning & Investments in Columbus, Ind., participated in the class last autumn and took the exam in January. Among her specialties is helping employees at Cummins Inc. maximize their company benefits and plan for retirement. Columbus-based Cummins is a global leader in designing and making fuel engines, generators and power systems. Given the company’s international reach, Hahn occasionally works with people who aren’t U.S. citizens.
“I knew there were probably some areas where non-U.S. citizens had different requirements, but I wasn’t familiar with what they were,” she explained. “Even though [cross-border planning] isn’t a big part of my business, for these clients I needed to understand this area and, if necessary, consult an outside expert.”
In searching for answers on how to serve this demographic, she discovered the GFP Institute’s website and signed up for the Master Class.
“It was as rigorous as a CFP course,” Hahn said. “It’s different subject matter because it’s stuff that’s not part of the CFP curriculum.” She added that cross-border financial planning issues aren’t addressed at conferences and meetings at the FPA or NAPFA.
Hahn praised both the quality of the experts who taught the classes and the course materials, but acknowledged that she learned more information than she needs for her practice. Then again, such thoroughness is a good thing because different advisors have different needs regarding cross-border planning. She said her biggest takeaways related to tax treaties, the requirements about bank accounts, how to handle various reporting issues and the need to be careful about exit taxes.
“If you’ve been in the United States and you’re renouncing your citizenship or going back to your home country, if you don’t plan it right you can get hit with a pretty hefty penalty,” she said.
Hahn noted that taking part in the GFP Institute’s program provides access to other advisors who can help her address client needs that are beyond her scope. She cited an example of a client from India who worked at Cummins but was moving to California to work in the tech field.
“I went through the database of people who took the GFP class with me, and came across someone where one of her focuses is Indian-Americans and tech. I made the referral to her,” Hahn said.
And that speaks to one of Murphy’s goals in starting the GFP Institute, which was to create a community where people can come together to interact regarding cross-border planning topics.
The GFP Institute offers three membership levels with commensurate access to its various offerings. Full membership costs $445. Associate members pay $295, which provides access to a little more than half of the tools and services available to full members.
There’s also a free membership tier, which provides access to introductory content. “It’s a way to bring in advisors and begin to educate them about all that’s involved with this particular niche,” Murphy noted, adding that the GFP Institute now has 165 total members.
The GFP Institute isn't the first endeavor of its kind to help financial advisors with cross-border planning. There's also the CIGA Network, which offers webinars on the topic and provides a roster of professionals who work in this area.
For Murphy, the GFP Institute has become his main priority. His financial planning firm, Areté Wealth Strategists, serves 62 clients with total assets of $65 million. Increasingly, his focus there is on clients with Australian-U.S. cross-border planning needs. Beyond that, he said he feels that helping other financial advisors to better serve cross-border clients has become his professional calling.
“It comes back to an existential question: What’s your legacy going to be?” he said. “This is genuinely it. I thought, ‘If I could grow my business another 20% or whatever, how is that going to change my life or what difference will that make compared to something like this?’"