As a fiduciary financial advisor in Winter Park, Holland Capital helps you connect the financial plan to a portfolio you have already spent years building. We decide what the money has to provide, how taxes affect those decisions and what the rest is eventually for, then manage the portfolio to a written investment policy.
You already have a portfolio.
It may be spread among an IRA, a taxable brokerage account, a trust and accounts accumulated over a long career. Some of it may already be professionally managed. Some you may have managed yourself. The individual investments are not necessarily the problem.
The question is whether anyone has given the entire portfolio a job.
How much does it need to provide each year? Which account should provide it? How much risk do you still need to take? Which gains are worth realizing? How much can you give away and still keep what the plan needs?
At this point, investment management should answer to those questions, not the other way around.
What Does the Portfolio Have to Do?
For years, the objective may have been simple: keep saving and keep investing.
Eventually, accumulation stops being a useful description of the job. The portfolio now has to support your spending, absorb taxes, provide for things you want to do for family or charity and still carry enough risk to keep the plan working.
The plan starts there. We calculate what you spend and how much of it the portfolio has to provide once work stops or has already stopped. We account for Social Security and other income. We look at what you want to give now and what you want to leave later.
Our approach to retirement planning starts with those decisions.
Only after the job is clear do we decide how the portfolio should be managed.
When the Portfolio Starts Paying You
Once the portfolio has to produce income, every withdrawal is also a tax decision.
A dollar from a traditional IRA is taxed as ordinary income. A dollar from a taxable account may be taxed only on the gain in it. A dollar from a Roth account is usually not taxed at all. The same amount of spending can create very different tax bills depending on where the money comes from.
The taxable account can carry harder choices. Stock bought decades ago may have a very large gain. Selling it to diversify creates a tax bill today. Holding it keeps the risk in one company. Giving some of it to charity, instead of cash, can avoid the gain entirely.
Our guide to capital gains tax planning works through those choices.
We plan withdrawals and sales several years ahead so that today’s decision is made with the later tax consequences in view.
Managing the Portfolio to the Plan
Once the plan is settled, it becomes a written investment policy statement.
The statement records what the portfolio has to fund and when, how much risk the plan can carry and how each account is taxed. It gives the investments a standard to answer to.
Every account we manage is run to that statement, for the best return after tax that the plan’s level of risk allows. Where an investment is held, whether in a taxable account, traditional retirement account or Roth account, is part of that work.
We start with what you already own. A holding that fits the plan stays. If selling something creates a tax cost, that cost is part of the decision before anything changes.
That is what our investment management is for. How we put the pieces together is covered in portfolio construction.
Working with Holland Capital
Holland Capital Management is an independent registered investment adviser and a fiduciary. M. Chad Holland, CFA, CFP® works directly with clients and is responsible for the planning and advice.
You work with the person doing the planning. The first meeting covers what you own, what the portfolio has to provide and which decisions need to be made first. If a CPA or estate attorney is already part of your financial life, they stay, and we coordinate with them where the plan touches their work.
The first conversation is free. If there is work worth doing after that, we will define the scope and cost before you decide whether to move forward.
Our Florida office is in Winter Park, at 941 West Morse Boulevard, Suite 100. If you are looking for a fiduciary financial advisor in Winter Park, most of our work together still happens by video or phone, which keeps the planning moving without extra trips. When an in-person meeting makes sense, we can meet by appointment at the office.
We work with clients throughout Florida. You can see the other Florida communities we serve here.
Our what we do page explains how a planning engagement works.
RETIREMENT ENGINEERING™
The Order Matters
Five retirement decisions and why timing matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does a Fiduciary Financial Advisor Owe You When Managing Your Portfolio?
Holland Capital acts as a fiduciary when providing financial planning and investment advice. That duty applies to the recommendations themselves, including which accounts to consolidate, what to sell and when, and how the portfolio is invested against the plan.
Some recommendations can change what we are paid. Moving an account under our management is the clearest example. When that is true, we say so before you decide. The SEC’s interpretation of the advisor’s fiduciary duty sets out the standard.
Should Everything Be Consolidated at One Firm?
Not necessarily. Fewer accounts can be easier to see and manage, but some accounts are better left where they are, such as a workplace plan with low-cost institutional funds or an account with features you would lose by moving it.
The plan decides. We look at each account and recommend keeping it, moving it or combining it, with the reason for each.
Can We Move Our Accounts Without Selling Everything?
Usually, yes. Most stocks, bonds and exchange-traded funds can be transferred between firms as they are, which does not create a tax bill. Some mutual funds and proprietary products cannot move and would have to be sold first.
Before anything is transferred, we list which holdings can move as they are, which cannot, and what selling the rest would cost in tax.
Do We Need to Come to the Winter Park Office?
No. Most of the work happens by video or phone. When an in-person meeting is useful, we meet by appointment at our office at 941 West Morse Boulevard, Suite 100.
Photo: Ebyabe / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
