Everything Dentists Need to Know About Financial Planning

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Financial Advisor rweigel@eidebailly.com Eide Bailly Financial Services

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Insurance Specialist zschnitzler@eidebailly.com Eide Bailly Financial Services

 

The Transcript

Art Wiederman, CPA And hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. I am your host, Art Wiederman. It's a pleasure for me to be joining you today and sharing some information. I am a dental division director at the CPA firm of Eide Bailly. Our CPA firm represents about 800 dentists and today's topic is, goes to the core of what this podcast series is about. It's called The Art of Dental Finance and Management.

And today we're going to be talking about a financial plan. I've done podcasts on the 10 Biggest Financial Mistakes Dentists Make, and I've talked about retirement planning. But today I have two really great experts from our firm, Ryan Weigel and Zach Schnitzler. And Zach and Ryan are going to go ahead and talk about financial planning. They're part of our financial planning group.

We're going to talk about why do you need a financial plan? What is a financial plan and what are the biggest mistakes we see dentists making. Because they're working with dentists and other professionals all over the place and they have a really neat retirement planning module. And I'm going to talk about insurance. So we're going to get to that in a couple of minutes.

I do have some information for you that I want to share with you first about our partners. And then about something that happened yesterday that came out from Treasury. We're recording today, which is November the 19th, which is Thursday. So I'll talk about that in a second. A couple of rulings and procedures that came out from IRS that is, unfortunately, folks not going to make anybody happy. But we'll talk about that in a second.

I would really like for you guys to take a look at our partner, Decisions in Dentistry www.DecisionsinDentistry.com. Great, great, great clinical content, continuing education courses. They have been a wonderful partner of ours in working with us on the podcast and sharing great information for dentists on clinical dentistry.

Also our Academy of Dental CPAs, which is www.ADCPA.org. 24 CPA firms across the U.S. that represent over 10,000 dentists. We are, at Eide Bailly, one of the members of that group. And I've got some great information for you, too.

We are putting together here in Southern California a one year long series on the business side of dentistry, six local dental societies in Southern California, and I have no problem mentioning them by name - the Harvard Dental Society, the Orange County Dental Society, both the Los Angeles and the West Los Angeles Dental Societies, the San Gabriel Valley Dental Society and the San Fernando Valley Dental Society. I am putting together, through Eide Bailly, a wonderful, wonderful year-long series which is going to begin, put on your calendar, because I'm inviting all of my podcast guests, because the great thing about doing stuff virtually is anybody can join. You don't have to get on an airplane or book a hotel room and these are free. These are not going to cost anything and the information is going to be fantastic.

So the first one is going to be on December the 9th, which will be from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. and it's going to be on year-end tax planning and the research and development income tax credit for dentists. So if you would like to register, the page is either up or will be up very shortly. You can register for the webinar and if you register, they'll send you the link. You go to www.EideBailly.com/dentalseries.

And in fact, as part of this dental series, one of the series, which is going to be every month in 2021, we're going to start with December and then it'll start in January and February. And every month after that. One of the series is going to be these two gentlemen that you're going to hear today is going to talk about in much more depth than we can do on a podcast. We're going to be talking about financial planning and we're actually going to do a case study or two on the webinar with the software, which is really, really cool. So www.EideBailly.com/dentalseries.

And also if you're interested in the R&D tax credit www.eidebailly.com/dentalrd. Put in your information and our team will give you a call. So I want to talk before I get to Zach and Ryan. I want to talk about what came out yesterday and what came out yesterday. We knew it was coming. And in fact, our previous podcast with Mel Schwarz. Mel emailed me two days after we recorded and he said, Art do we need to rerecord because this is coming down the pike.

So I've been talking to you guys about the PPP loans and whether the expenses that you pay are deductible. Remember, your PPP loan is not taxable when you have it forgiven. So back in April, I think it was actually April, late April, early May, Treasury came out with Notice 2020-32 that said the expenses are not deductible, but they didn't give us any details. So I have taken the position on this podcast that if you have a forgivable loan, that and it's not forgiven by the end of the year and you're a cash basis taxpayer. I've been a CPA for a long time. 36 years. And the law says if you don't have a forgivable event, then those expenses are deductible.

Until yesterday. Revenue 2020-27 came up with two situations. Number one, it basically said that if you apply for forgiveness in 2020 but no decision has been made on your forgiveness. But you meet all the rules, you check all the boxes that you're going to get full forgiveness. Or you wait until 2021 and you meet all the rules. They basically say, and these are the words in the ruling that if you have a quote, reasonable expectation of reimbursement and I will read from the ruling, quote, if it's reasonably expected to occur rather than being unforeseeable, such a deduction is inappropriate.

Bottom line is, folks, if you meet all the rules and you're going to get forgiveness, then your expenses are not deductible for 2020. So if you got 100,000 dollar PPP loan, you better add 100,000 dollars to your taxable income for 2020, which is going to bring a lot of my doctors to not only where they were in 2019, but even higher. Very, very important doctors that you go to your CPA between the next six weeks, between now and the end of the year and figure out where you're at.

There is a revenue procedure, 2020-51, which is a safe harbor, which basically says that if you reasonably expect forgiveness and you're submitting for forgiveness, but all or partial forgiveness is denied. In other words, you don't get forgiveness, or if for some reason you choose not to file for forgiveness. I don't know any dentist in America that is not going to file for forgiveness. But if you just say I don't meet the rules, I fired everybody. I didn't bring them back, then no problem. Then you can deduct the expenses in the year that you are denied forgiveness. It doesn't tell me if you have no intention of submitting for forgiveness at all in 2020 can I deduct the expenses, it doesn't address that.

I did have a long conversation with Megan Mortimer yesterday from the ADA. I will tell you that the ADA, along with the American Restaurant Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the AMA organizations that represent dogs and giraffes and puppies and everything, they're all going to Congress and they're all basically pushing real hard. And folks, without getting into details at the moment, it's all political.

We may not see anything about this until January, February. So you may be looking at extending your tax returns to see what the government's going to do. We think they're going to make a law that says these expenses are deductible. It would hurt small businesses if they didn't. But we'll see what happens.

Alright. Well with that joyful news, folks? Let's get to our program today. My good friends, Ryan Weigel and Zachary Schnitzler from Eide Bailly are going to join us here in a second. Let me tell you a little bit about them. Ryan is a financial adviser. He is located in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He works with his clients on financial planning, including cash flow analysis, education, planning, insurance and risk analysis, retirement planning and asset allocation. And that's Ryan.

And Zach is in Fargo, North Dakota. Go North Dakota State Bison, by the way, I told him that earlier. Zach's an insurance specialist involved in insurance planning, employee retention solutions, planning for purchase and sales of businesses, succession and estate planning. So, Zach and Ryan, welcome to the Art of Dental Finance and Management.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Thanks Art. It's our pleasure to be here.

Art Wiederman, CPA Hey, nice to talk to you guys. Appreciate you taking the time today. So you guys are avid golfers, I hear. So I won't talk about the fact that I went out and played yesterday here in Orange County, because right now you're just playing like ice golf or indoor golf. How's that work?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP I'll let Zach go on that he's a he's a better golfer than I am.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS It kind of depends on the day. But up here in Fargo, we definitely started our indoor simulator league, and it's not even Thanksgiving time yet. So it's too bad.

Art Wiederman, CPA We'd love to have to get you out here to play some golf anyway. So. Hey, guys, why don't you. Again, we're talking today about financial planning, folks. We you know, I went through all the Certified Financial Planner courses, you know, a long time ago. And it takes, you know, a couple of years to do that. So in an hour podcast, we're not going to be able to go through every single detail. What my objective today is to make a call to action.

If you haven't done a financial plan, if you haven't figure out where you're going, we want you to take action after what we talk about today. You know, there's seven areas of financial planning. There's cash flow management, there's taxes, there's insurance, investments, retirement planning, estate planning and college planning. We're going to touch on them today. But we want you to take action. Basically sit down and figure out where you're at so that, you know, if you don't have a road map and you don't know where you're going, it's kind of hard to get there. So with that said, let's start. Ryan, tell us a little bit about your journey.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Yeah, so I'm a CPA, much like you are, and I'm also a CFP, as you alluded to. So my journey started with Eide Bailly, I think 12 years ago. I started on the tax side. I did tax work tax compliance work, and that led into a lot of planning. Just as you alluded to earlier. The dentists better be, the doctors you're working with, meet with their CPAs here between now and the end of the year, because there's a lot of the year-end planning needs to get done.

That brought on a lot of things that I enjoy doing, which was financial planning instead of just tax compliance planning. It was now financial planning, which also alluded to investments and insurance and so on. And so my career path changed about halfway through my tenure with Eide Bailly and it moved over to our financial services division. So my main role is financial planning for clients. And again, like I said, it involves a lot of pieces, investments, tax insurance and so on and so forth.

Art Wiederman, CPA OK, and Zach, other than you going to PGA school or whatever it is, what are you doing? What's your story?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm an insurance specialist specifically in the financial planning realm. So we're talking life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance type work. I've been in it my whole career almost ten years. Everybody grows up wanting to be an insurance person. I know that. But no, I have some great mentors right away to jump into the business. And before Eide Bailly, I was primarily a consultant with financial advisors as the insurance side is a very unique animal in itself and it requires specialized attention. So happy to be at Eide Bailly. And it's a great place to help our clients on a consultative type approach versus a sales type approach.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, we don't sell. I've never sold. I mean, I'm a registered investment advisor. But guys, if I recommend a stock or a mutual fund, you should probably short it. That's kind of the way I feel about the whole thing. So, hey, Zach, we have to do the required reading of the disclosure. So why don't you get that out of the way and then we'll get another topic.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS We do. It'll be as fast as possible, I promise. Here we go. Financial Advisors offer Investment Advisor Services for Eide Bailly Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor, securities for Three United Planners Financial Services member of FINRA SIPC. Eide Bailly Financial Services LLC is the holding company for Eide Bailly Advisors LLC and Eide Bailly agents. Wholly owned and operated under Eide Bailly LLP, insurance products are offered or issued under Eide Bailly Agency, LLC. Eide Bailly Advisors LLC employees can also be licensed as insurance agents producers of Eide Bailly Agency, LLC. Eide Bailly Financial Services and its subsidiaries are not affiliated with United Planners. Not all products and services are available in all states. The views expressed are those of the author of the date noted are subject to change based on market and other various conditions are not a solicitation to purchase or sell any security and may not reflect the views of United Planners Financial Services. Keep in mind that current and historical facts may not be indicative of future results. Third party material is meant to provide general information and is not to be construed as specific investment tax or legal advice. Individual needs vary and require consideration of your unique objectives and financial situation.

Art Wiederman, CPA Okay, promise me you're not going to do that again. 

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Promise. We're done with that.

Art Wiederman, CPA So which stocks should I buy? Nah, I'm just kidding. Let's just blow up everything we just did.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah. Right.

Art Wiederman, CPA So there you go. Okay, so let's start out with the basic question. Why does a dentist need a financial plan?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Well, you alluded to this earlier, Art. A roadmap, right? So I always try to tell clients is as we sit down with you and we try and gather your information, you've got many roads to go and we're trying to determine which road makes the most sense. And just because it makes sense today doesn't mean in two years it's going to still mean the same road. But what it does is it allows us to have a form of a road map to help answer a lot of questions. And those questions are, again, tax, investment, insurance, business succession, estate. So the whole goal is, hey, I've got this plan in place to answer questions. And it's not a product specific thing. It is a service specific.

Art Wiederman, CPA Right, so what we want to do is, is, you know, again, my experience in this, guys, is that, you know, the people that do this right they're looking at what the goals and the objectives are. And at some point down the road, everybody's got to get compensated for what they do. And at some point down the road, a product usually is involved, whether it's an investment product or an insurance product or something. But that's not where we start, right? That's not even close to it.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP No. You start with the financial plan first and foremost, and that's going to give you. The numbers don't lie in a plan is what I usually tell my clients. Because if it says you need life insurance, you probably need life insurance. I don't care who you talk to about that. There's probably a need of life insurance. Right. But the plan gives you the numbers and the numbers don't lie. And you kind of work through that scenario.

You know, the one thing I'll just say real quick, Art, is there's really four main steps that I use. I think most individuals that use this, but the first step to plan is we sit down and you listen. OK, what are the goals and circumstances? What is your profession? OK, you're a dentist. OK, what's the goal? How long do you want to work? Right. Then we kind of gather a lot of information from you. We might analyze that data and put together some creative plan. But as soon as tomorrow hits, my creative plan is done because your checking account just changed or PPP loan that you just talked about is now no longer a deductible expense. And that just changed the financial plan because now I have to pay more taxes. Right.

So there's this constant circle of what happens where we're constantly looking at everything. And that's why I always tell clients, hey, we're not doing a financial plan because the financial plan is the date stamp we're done. We're doing financial planning. Financial planning is this thorough thing that keeps going and it's constantly evolving. Right?

Art Wiederman, CPA So when you meet with your clients, you do the initial plan and I want you to get a little more into exactly what you're doing. How often should a dentist meet with his or her financial planner after we do the initial plan?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP So the initial plan is going to be, you're probably meeting six times from start to finish over a series of, it could probably be anywhere from, you could probably get it done as quick is four to six weeks or four to six months depending on how busy you are, how busy the planner is. But then going forward, there is no rhyme or reason, it's as needed.  I would say at a minimum, twice a year. I want to look in the spring how are my investments doing, how was my plan, what are my goals that have changed? And I better be looking at the end of the year too. You know, what are my tax implications? What do I need to do? Is there some retirement plan changes I need to make, have I updated my will, have I looked at my insurance lately? So at a minimum twice a year. But it could be 12 times. I mean, depending on each client, there's no specific rhyme or reason to it.

Art Wiederman, CPA Now you guys said there's four steps. How many of, you talked about the listening part. That's the first step, right?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Yeah. Yep.

Art Wiederman, CPA Where do we go from there?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Yes. Cause we're in the gather step. And in the gather is where we really sit down and we're trying to do not only the hard skills, the hard numbers, but the soft skills. So what is your actual net worth, their balance sheet look like. Then we're going to gather information. What insurance do you have? What investments you have? But that is a lot of the soft stuff. What is your goal? Is your spouse working? Does she have the ability to work? What do you want to do? Do you want to climb Mt. Everest in five years? Because that might change the impact or do you want to sell your practice for a ton of money at age 40. Or do you want to be a dentist, not care. Right.

So you got to gather the soft skills as well. Then we got to sit down. The third step is we need to analyze the data. We got to figure out what do you have. Right. And then our job from there is to create this because the fourth step would be to create this plan and create this fluid plan that keeps evolving. And then so right after we get done with the fourth step, which is great, you go right back into listening again.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, and we see I want to talk about the mistakes, because we want to make people make sure that they don't get mistakes, they don't make mistakes. So what are the biggest mistakes you see working with your dental clients on financial planning?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP The first one is that and then take this with a grain of salt for anyone who's listening, but they don't have a plan, right? That's the biggest one. And it's not that they don't want to Art. It's typically because they're busy running their practice. Right. There's only so much time in the day. They might have kids and might have employees and they got practice and everything's going on and on. And so this thing just gets kicked to the side, which is a reasonable thing to think about. But at the same time, it's so important that you have to do it. So that's absolutely first and foremost, the biggest issue I see is that we don't have one. They bought some insurance because they were told it was a good idea, but they don't know if it's a good idea because they don't have the time.

Art Wiederman, CPA So let's talk about insurance for a minute, because this is, we're just going to go all over the place here with this. Then we'll hit everything. You know, I have some opinions about insurance, but we have life insurance and we have disability insurance and long-term care. Really, those are those are the main food groups. Let's talk about life insurance.

So when you guys look at a client, how do you determine, let's just briefly get into how much do they need and what type of insurance do you recommend?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Well, let's kind of start at step one. I mean, what we are finding is in this industry, many folks are severely underinsured. And you know, that might even be with hypothetically one million dollars of death benefit, for example. It sure seems like a big number. You know, we use the word million in it. But when you calculate, let's say, income replacement for a 35 year old dentist. You know, how many years of income does that, we'll call it, you know, that person and that machine have for the rest of their career if something were to happen? And I'm not saying like a 35 year old needs to insure 30 years of income by any means. But all of a sudden, you know, using that example of, say, a million dollars doesn't go very far.

Art Wiederman, CPA No.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS So that's piece number one is it does seem like the majority of people, dentists included, are many times vastly under insured and don't understand, you know, how many years of income they should maybe be thinking about replacing if the worst case scenario happened.

Art Wiederman, CPA And a lot of this Zach is that really depends on, you know, if I have a husband and wife and one of them is the dentist and the other one is not working, I'm going to need a lot more than if both of my doctors, both of my husband and wife, both of the people who are husband and wife, sorry about that, are both earning two or three or 400,000 dollars a year.

You know, I have an interesting thing that I want to get your take on this is, in my mind and I'm overly simplifying it. I like for a dentist, I need enough life insurance, because remember, isn't life we get life insurance is to two purposes. Number one is income replacement. And number two is estate needs, which at the moment, unless you get an estate of about 24 million dollars, husband and wife, if you do your planning right, is not an issue. Right?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Right.

Art Wiederman, CPA OK, so basically, I'm looking for enough money to pay off the mortgage, put a fund away for the kids for college, and then to have enough of a pot of money to keep potentially a non-working survivor's spouse able to live reasonably.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Right.

Art Wiederman, CPA Does that seem reasonable to you?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Oh, absolutely. And the big thing is Art. I'll ask you a question. I mean, if somebody, dentists or anybody else hypothetically say, passes away and their income was 300,000, could a non-working spouse go find a new job that pays 300,000 dollars a year?

Art Wiederman, CPA Highly unlikely.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Very highly unlikely.

Art Wiederman, CPA Unless they are also a dentist or another type of profession. Yeah.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Hey there's something I want to hit on that really quick, guys. One of the things I see is let's just go back to your same example. We've got a dentist practitioner and a non-working spouse. I always see this. The dentist practitioner has insurance, the spouse has none. And I ask well why? Because they don't make any money. But then I'll ask them this. Well, what is the non-working spouse do? Well, they take the kids to school and they make sure the house is taken care of. And they do all these things so that I can maintain my business and I can be the breadwinner. Right.

There's actually a need over there because if the non-working spouse parishes, if something happens to them, you either got to hire a nanny or you can't be as productive in your business, right? So you don't have to go and get oodles of money and millions of dollars. That's not the point. But there is actually a need for both people. And you see that quite a bit, actually.

Art Wiederman, CPA And obviously, buying life insurance is cheaper when you're younger than if you're older.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Very much so. It's crazy how it follows almost the perfect exponential curve. 

Art Wiederman, CPA So the bottom line is we need enough money to cover a surviving spouse and the family if they if, God forbid, the dentist passes away. And then again, because we could spend hours on this. Are you term insurance? You have permanent insurance, maybe a little comment on what people should be looking at just in a high overview.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah. So first and foremost, you know, the younger dentists term insurance is super simple, very inexpensive. You can get high limits for low premium. I definitely recommend that all have at least some of that. Permanent insurance, it's a podcast of its own I think. It offers lots of different advantages, like potential for tax free income. But it is absolutely not for everybody. And that is a case by case basis. So permanent insurance will have some cash value that comes with it, although a much higher premium.

One thing Art I do want to quickly mention is we're talking about having enough. What is enough? Right, how many? What's the multiplier of income some are there are some agents out there that I know that are literally trying to get as much as possible from the insurance company. Myself, I am in the ballpark of close to seven times income plus debt.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, that's about right. I was going to say, you know, seven to ten, but yeah. So for example, doctors, you know, if you're making 300,000 dollars a year, that's 2.1 million dollars. Is that enough to pay off your mortgage, put the kids through college and have a pot of money available for your surviving spouse so that he or she does not have to work and can be focusing on the family? I don't know. You got to run the numbers, right guys?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS There's no question it's a case by case basis. The good news is I hate to say that there's good news during the COVID-19 pandemic because nothing seems like good news. Right. A lot of a lot of doctors and dentists are scared almost of applying for these limits because it comes with a very, very challenging underwriting experience. Might have to give blood. Your might have to order medical records. Well, due to the pandemic, companies have increased what's called accelerated underwriting, where people can get up to five million dollars of life insurance immediately with an online health portal. So it doesn't, you know, somebody you don't know doesn't necessarily have to come to your house and put a needle in your arm to see if you can get these high limits.

Art Wiederman, CPA OK, and I talking about disability insurance, what I tell people is as much as you can qualify for, you have comments on disability.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah, no question. I agree with you there. And it's usually close to 60 percent of income is about what these insurance companies will offer. However, in most cases, disability and insurance would pay out tax free. So we don't necessarily need a super high, you know, close to 100 percent by any means.

Art Wiederman, CPA What do you think about long term care insurance?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Well, for the, maybe the dentist on the second half of their career, it's a major issue in our world today of the cost of long-term care, whether it be nursing home, assisted living etc. You know, now we're talking after work life, right? We're planning for after it.

It's something that needs to be looked into. I mean, when I'm saying that it's a problem, it's costing just to get care upwards of 10,000 dollars or more per month. And it's going back to why we're doing this today, financial planning or planning for all aspects of life, short term and long term. It's all about asset protection. We're not necessarily, you know, don't need to talk to clients about, well, you want to go to a nursing home or do you want to do this? It's about protecting your assets. A six year stay at over 120,000 dollars in 2020 money, you know, not even counting inflation. It'd be 700,000 plus. And that's an issue.

Art Wiederman, CPA And how about this guys, not only for the doctor, but what about the doctor who's mother or father or both have not done a good job of saving and they need to go into a nursing home and you, the doctor, are the only child who has assets. Who's going to be paying for that? Do you see that happen?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Correct. Oh, absolutely. There's no doubt. One other thing to mention. Art you're a CPA. Ryan, you are as well. Long term care, buying long term care insurance can come with some fairly unique tax advantages as well.

Art Wiederman, CPA We're not going to get into that today because that will be a 12 hour podcast.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Like I said. Yeah, that's time for another podcast. These topics could all have their own at some point.

Art Wiederman, CPA Absolutely. So talk about student loan debt. And that is a big deal. In the United States, the average student loan debt is and again, this is all over the country, is somewhere between 250 and 300,000 dollars is what it costs to go to the average United States dental school. In California, we have, I tell this story occasionally at my lectures, and I probably told it on the on the podcast, is that I had two doctors come up to me. I was speaking at the University of Southern California Dental School, oh, gosh, about five years ago. And these two young men come up to me and say, Mr. Art Wiederman, thank you so much for your lecture. We both did four years of dental school here at USC, plus a general practice residency. We are 550,000 dollars each in debt. What do you suggest?

And my answer to them was, guys, if you go walk around the corner to Hoover Street, there's a 7-Eleven, they sell lottery tickets. Other than that, I got nothing for you. How do you approach student loan debt?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Well, that's one way of spin that.

Art Wiederman, CPA It works really well, I mean, yeah, it's not very good, but it is a way to do it.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP So earlier when I discussed the gather meeting, which is our our second meeting with clients and their soft skills. This is some of the stuff that comes up. It's hey you're going to have to live like a college student for a few more years. I know you're making a bunch of money and I know it's great you want to you want to move on from that. You don't have the luxury to do that, unfortunately, because if we don't take care of the student loan debt soon, we don't have a game plan in place or plan in place for this stuff just keeps going. And the downfall is it's not like it's cheap interest.

The average loan, I think it's still like seven and a quarter. So you think about oh I can go get a house or a car right now in today's environment, two, three, three and a half percent. No, you're still at seven or seven and a quarter is the average and sometimes higher than that. So the only way to take care of student loan debt is to pay for it. That's first and foremost. The only way to pay for it is to have some detailed plan. And the easiest thing I've found for new grads for sure, is you have to just live like you're still in school. We just have to take care of it.

And, you know, we use a software, we've branded Eide Bailly Wealth One the meat and potatoes behind it is eMoney is the software we use. We can show what that means inside of a plan. And so once you can start to pictorially show that it kind of helps them understand. Yeah, I got to get this taken care of because if I don't get this taken care of that, then I can't get my retirement plan started. And if I can't get my retirement plan started, then I got to make a decision down the road of whether I need to buy long term care insurance or if I self-funded because I saved enough money along the way. Right. So it just keeps it rolling.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah. So this is why it's a, this financial planning thing is not a one time deal. It's on going because you're going to start your life out in your 20s. Doctors, most dental students, most folks graduate dental school somewhere between the ages of 25 and 30, give or take. You start later, you do it later. And at that point you might be single living with three guys or three ladies in an apartment somewhere and starting your life off as a dentist. And then the next thing you know, you get married, the next thing you know you have kids and next thing you know, you buy a house and you buy a practice. I have, I sell dental practices, guys. I have two 30 old dentists about four years ago, I sold the practice to. They had 800,000 dollars of student loan debt. They bought a practice from me for about one million, 250 thousand dollars. So they were two million dollars in debt at the age of 30 and they didn't even own a home, in Southern California.

Now, that's scary. So, again, in different parts of the country, it's going to be different. A home in Iowa is going to be different than a home in Southern California and the same thing with a practice. Let's get into, let's talk a little bit about estate planning, because, I mean, my experience, guys, is that you're looking at 60 percent of the people that I deal with do not have wills or trusts. I don't know what the, maybe your numbers are similar, but just some basics about why it's important and what people should be thinking about.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP The numbers that you mentioned, 60 percent is spot on, I mean, 60 percent of the people don't. And it goes back to the thing I said earlier is that you get busy in your practice. It's just another one of those things that you're going to get to someday. The simplest thing to start with, just get a wil. Go to a respected attorney, ask your older peers if you're a multi doc practice who they use, go get some wills established, that's just first and foremost.

But then as you're a more seasoned practitioner and you're getting more towards a later time in life, you've got to start doing estate planning. Estate planning, you mentioned earlier Art, unless you have 22 million dollars, you don't have an estate tax issue. But it doesn't mean that you can't do estate planning and estate planning is simply sitting down and trying to understand how do I want to divide everything up upon my demise. Right. And how do I want it to escape probate? How do I want it to go efficiently and certain pieces like that. So. Depends on the life cycle you're in. First and foremost, but a will has to be done. You just got to get it done. And then probably the next thing is, once we get a little bit further on it, what is my estate plan regardless of my asset size? Zach, anything you would add to that? 

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah, for sure. Well, I think a lot of people do think about estate planning is it's you know, a tax mitigation thing. And it's not at all. There is an estate tax. And about a year or so ago, we had a campaign called Estate Planning for the other 99 percent. Right. But it needs to happen. There are things that people need to do. And it comes down to if it's not on paper, it's not a plan. My, I work for, like you said Art, in my bio, on succession planning and whatnot and estate planning. I think we did a we did a study and said about 70 percent of people said they had an estate plan or a transition plan. And then what was funny is the next piece was 50 percent said it was in their mind, OK, if they have a plan here. But ultimately, it's not a plan if it's not on paper.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, that's like that's like my 330 yard drive similar to Dustin Johnson. That's in my mind. I just can't get it to my driver. That's my problem. 

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS There's no, it's a great analogy for sure. And as the only thing I can mirror as Ryan said is business owners and in this case dentists who own their practice, they're very good obviously at what they do. However, you know, they need help with things that like this that they aren't thinking about every day.

Art Wiederman, CPA So I'm going to take a break here, guys, and just share with everybody you. Yeah. Like I say, what I'm hoping this is going to do, ladies and gentlemen, is to be a call to arms to get some planning done. If you're working with an Academy of Dental CPAs member, if you're a client of them, you're in very good hands. They can handle that for you. If you're not, if you're not working with someone, if you haven't done any planning at all, I'm going have these guys give their contact information out and it'll also be in the show notes.

But what I want you to do is whether it's with your CPA, your financial planner, if you've got a great financial planner that you're working with, that's great. Let them do the plan. Call them up, call them up as soon as you hear this podcast and say, hey, Joe, hey, Susie, whatever their name is. You know, I've been thinking about it and I really want to get a plan on paper. And can you do that for me? And if you need some help, these guys can help you. So guys, give out your contact information if somebody wants to give you a call or email you.

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah, my direct number once again, my name is Zachary Schnitzler, direct number is 701.239.8567. And if you remember, Art talking about my last name, it's a doozy. So I think we'll just say check the show notes for my email. It is ZSchnitzler@EideBailly.com. It's a tough one to spell. I'd say if it were a batting average, it'd be somewhere around each year I was batting average in the three hundreds of people who get it right. 

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Yeah, mine. You can contact my office at 605.225.8783. My email is rweigel@EideBailly.com.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well I appreciate it. And guys again, folks, I don't care who you do your financial planning with. If you got somebody good, like I say, go to them, call them. This is what I want you to do. My podcast is about a call to action to all of you to make your lives better and make your family's lives better. It's really important. If you don't have somebody you're working with or somebody you trust, you know, these guys definitely can help you, though, they're at the top of the class.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Hey, Art, I just want to say one thing real quick. If there's two things you take from this, if you don't have life insurance, I don't care who you go to, just go get some life insurance number one. Number two go get a will taken care of and then loop back. Right. Because if you die and you don't have those things, good luck. So let's take care of those. And then if you need to go do the financial plan. I would suggest doing a financial plan first and foremost. But hey, if you want to call the action, those are two things that can really help people quickly.

Art Wiederman, CPA Alright, well, I want to jump in to two or three more things that we'll have time for. Retirement plans. I mean, we've talked about SEPs and Simple IRAs and Profit-Sharing plans, Defined Benefit Plans. I mean, we don't have time to get into all of that here. But I want to go over. This is interesting. We were talking about this before we went on live here, is how much money do you need to save by the age of 65 to save one million dollars? So guys, you kind of jotted that out. So if you start at different ages, walk through starting at 25, and then 35, how much do you need to save on an annual basis say starting at 25.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP So if you're, so again, to get to the illusion of a million dollars. Right. This is assuming a 10 percent rate of return. If you're 25 years old.

Art Wiederman, CPA 10 percent?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Yeah. 10 percent return. So if you think of historical equities, 10 percent. If you want to go into 60 40 it's going to be much less than that. But this is a chart that we've used.  A 25 year old, 2000 dollars a year. That's it. 2000 bucks a year for 40 years. A 35 year old is 6000 dollars a year. 300 percent of the original balance. A 45 year old, you got to jump up to 16,000 dollars a year. 55 year old, you need 60,000 dollars a year. And then lastly, obviously, if you're 65, you'll need a million bucks that one year.

Art Wiederman, CPA And would it be right if someone wanted to be more conservative and say I'm only going to earn five percent those numbers are double, right?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Absolutely. Yeah. And just so you're aware, I wouldn't go out recommending that, hey, you should have a financial plan assuming 10 percent, because good luck, especially later on in life now. And when we do talk about hurdle rates and we do financial plans for people, what is my hurdle rate that I need to get at prior to retirement? What's my hurdle rate in the future? A lot of times we're using six to seven pre-retirement and four to five post-retirement. So these numbers I. Double this for sure, absolutely.

Art Wiederman, CPA Yeah, and again, most people who are 25 years old don't get the opportunity to start saving money. When you're, doctors, you're 25. You might be in your sophomore or junior year of dental school and you're on the student poverty plan. So, again, the sooner you can get in, the sooner you get into your own practice, the sooner you have the ability. And obviously for small business owners, including dentists guys, a qualified retirement plan is absolutely the best way to go, isn't it?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Absolutely. I'm going to get, typically, when you get a tax deduction up front, to get tax deferred growth, obviously you'll have to pick up the tax later on. But there's a lot of statistics out there. On average, it seems to be that if you have a taxable account, versus a tax deferred account, your rate of return can be upwards of 10 percent per year simply because of the tax savings over the long period of time. So absolutely.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, and again, remember, folks, that, you know, 20 to 40 percent of the doctors who retire, they don't retire because they've saved enough money and they're ready to retire. They retire because they have a physical ailment. They have back, neck, shoulders. That's why ergonomics is so important in dentistry to make sure, exercise and stretching and yoga and all these things I talk to dentists all the time about this. But I have doctors getting to 55, 60, 65 and we probably get five to 10 calls a year from our clients. Art, I just I'm starting to feel something in my hands. I'm starting to feel something in my neck. I'm afraid I'm going to make a mistake. I need to retire, not because they want to, but because they have to. And if you don't do this planning, it's just so, so important to do this.

Okay, guys, let's talk about. Because of the disclaimer you gave earlier, what were there like 20 different names? But anyway, that's OK, we have to do that for legal purposes. Let's just talk on a 35,000 foot level. I mean, today the stock market is. Alright, let's see. So we have a new vaccine now. The Dow goes up a thousand points. The president tweets something, the Dow goes down 600 points. The commissioner of Internal Revenue says this. It goes I mean, it's there's no rhyme or reason lately for what's going on. So from a high level, what are you telling doctors as far as their investment philosophy? What a plan? How do you look at this?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP The first philosophy is you have to have a philosophy. Right? So that can be, I mean, that could be anything. And there's a whole bunch of different philosophies out there. Some are active, some are passive, some are factor it can be whatever you want. But you better have a philosophy, better stick to it, because just as you alluded to, the markets go up, down, sideways. But that's probably the first thing.

The next area that I always see is they don't have what I like to consider broad diversification, they don't have any diversification simply because everything is owned within my practice, which somewhat makes sense. I've got a practice that is worth money. I've got a building is worth money. I make my money from my practice. And this is, this isn't just dentists. This is any small business owner or practitioner out there. So you gotta try to start thinking about how do we shift money elsewhere out of that to alleviate that risk and increase my diversification.

Art Wiederman, CPA And diversifications, I mean, ever since I've been younger, that's what you hear is you hear it's you know, you don't put all your eggs in one basket, you diversify and you don't watch and flip out if the stock market drops. And that's another thing that kills me. Everybody says, oh, the market was down a thousand points, no 30 stocks were down a thousand points, not one of their 10,000 different types of mutual funds and stocks you can buy. And you've got the New York Stock Exchange, you've got the Nasdaq, you've got the American Stock Exchange. You've got I don't know how many different exchanges there are.

So what they talk about on the news is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which are large cap stocks, the 30 biggest stocks. That's not the market. So what do you tell your doctors as far as you know? I mean, we get into you know, we got into 2008 and we got into I mean, talk about March, the pandemic hit. What happened to the markets? And what were you telling your clients?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Well, first thing we were doing was we're calling them, scheduling a meeting with them and looking at their financial plan. If let's just hypothetically say someone has a million dollars all invested in the market and it went down 37 percent or 40 percent. So they have 600,000 now in their account and they say, what the heck is going on here? My next question is, when do we need this money? If you're a 45 year old doc and you don't plan to retire until you're 55 or 60, you still got a long term time horizon. Right?

And even if I'm going to retire at 55 or 60, I still hope to hell you're going to live a little bit further than that. So that means I still have an even further, longer time horizon. So it gets back to this plan. And what is my goal? My goal is to invest to grow. Well then do I really care what the short term happens? If the long term is that my projection is the markets can be higher in 10 years, but I care what happens in the next month. I'm going to care. But I don't want that to blur my vision of the long term, because if I don't think it's going to be higher in 10 years, why do I have any money in it right now?

So, I mean, it gets back to just having the conversation, it also gets back to, you know, plan, I'm a big believer in a form of budget. A lot of docs that we talk to get and most people get lifestyle. More money I make, the more I spend. Right. So you don't have to have a detailed budget, I don't really care if you're spending all your money on whatever it is. But just how much do you spend. Everyone spends money on different stuff. How much do I spend? Do I have some cash on hand to be able to alleviate any issues that might come up AKA March and April or my practice might have been shut down for a little bit of time. And if that's the case so I don't know if I'm as worried about my retirement accounts again. Right. So that's what I tell my clients. Knock on wood. So far, so good.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, a couple of rules of thumb that I've used on this podcast and my lectures in my entire life. 65/25/10 rule folks. You live on 65 percent of what you make. You're going to pay about 25 percent of your income in taxes. And what do you do with the other 10 percent? We save it. I always talk about that. Unfortunately, I get some of my clients who live on the 90/25/minus 15 rule. We talked about this yesterday, guys, they spend 90 percent of what they make. They scrimp and they go into debt for paying their taxes and they're always behind. And the IRS is not a bank you want to use. And then the other minus 15 percent is credit card debt. I mean, talk about credit card debt and the work that you guys do.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Oh, yeah, obviously, you can't out earn bad spending habits, but if you make 100,000 dollars, and you're spending 110. Good luck. You're never going get out of debt.

Well, what we typically do with credit card debt as we sit down and we might look at refis. So do I have access elsewhere to refi. Do I have a house that I could refi? I don't want to take a loan that I could pay off in three years and now extrapolate it out to 15 years. All that does is create more of an issue for most people. But do I have access to anything that can burden the amount of interest and make it lower? That's typically where we're looking. Otherwise we're getting pretty detailed within my budgeting because that all comes back to budgeting, Art.

Art Wiederman, CPA Alright, as long as I can get all the sports networks on my cable deal and I'll pay for that, as long as you let me have that, I'll let you cut back everything else.

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Well, I don't know. Hulu keeps going up.

Art Wiederman, CPA OK, I want to get to a couple more things, guys. Let's talk about saving for college. Again, I've got two boys that are 26 and 31. I am so proud of both of them of course. I talk about them on the podcast, you know, and I personally saved the money myself. I didn't set up these specialized 529 plans or anything. They didn't have them back when I was getting started 30, you know, 30 years ago. But I saved them and one went to art college in San Francisco. And that's not cheap. And that was Nathan. And Forrest went to Chapman University. He went to San Jose State the first year. I was thrilled to death. I was like 12,000 dollars a year out the door, including housing and everything.

Then he transferred to Chapman University, which is one of the best universities in the world. And then I just started crying. It was real sad. And but talk about how do you recommend doctors save for college? Are you looking at 529 plans? Are you looking at municipal bonds or are you looking at just winging it? You're probably not looking at winging it, but what are you talking, what should doctors be looking at as far as saving for college?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Yeah, there's two main pieces I'm looking at. A 529 and UTMA account. Or it doesn't have to UTMA (Uniform Transfer to Minor Act) it could just be a general savings account. The reason I use those two accounts is the 529 account is going to grow tax deferred and it's going to come out tax free to the extent that I have qualified expenses. And the IRS has been pretty good lately and they've expanded those qualified expenses. Um, the downfall is if I don't, let's say my kid doesn't go to school. Let's say you start saving this thing from when they're a year old. You're very fortunate and you put a big chunk away when they when they're born. Right. You have very good practice. You throw a bunch in. And it grows for 18 years. Now you got 100,000 dollars in there and the kid doesn't go to school.

Well, now, I going to take that out, not only subject to taxation, but a 10 percent penalty. I maybe could have put it in just a other account for them. I could have put it in a UTMA account or some other form of account that is not going to have a very high tax issue because there's some kiddy tax issues and we don't want to get into that. But I can get, there's some lower limits that I can get them money income tax free. And so it's a combination of those two accounts. That's really all I look at for clients. You know, you can do ESAs, you can do some of these other ones.

But 529 account, especially early on. Later on, if they're already sixteen years old. Well, you're not going to get a whole lot of growth when you're 16, your kid's going to school at 18. No matter what you're investing in, it's too risky to put it in stock market when they're 16 and all of a sudden your 100,000 goes to 50 and that's when you need to use it, not worth it. Right. Well, it kind of depends on the time frame of the kids, but those are the two accounts that I typically always recommend.

Art Wiederman, CPA And let's just clarify UTMA ask for a Uniform Transfer to Minors Act Account, which is an account, ladies and gentlemen, that allows you as the parent, I think it's up to age 25 now. Is it 25?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP I think it's still 18 or it's dependent upon the state that you're in.

Art Wiederman, CPA It allows you as the parent to put money into an account in your child's name, but you can maintain control of it. And so and then the 529 plan is a, you know, virtually every state has one. In California where I'm at it's called Scholar Share. The money is managed by TIAA CREF, which manages the teacher's retirement. But every state's got one of them. And you put the money in. And most states it's not tax deductible. And some of them for state taxes, you get a write off, federaly it's not tax deductible and the money grows tax free forever. As long as when you pull the money out, you use it for its intended purposes, which is to send the kids to college.

Well, guys, this time flies by. Unfortunately, we're getting towards the end. So last thing I want to ask is there's several things that we've talked about. What do you see in your very successful dentists as far as their financial planning and their financial plans?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Well, first off, they've got a plan, that's first and foremost right, that they've got a plan. The second thing is probably what I alluded to just a little bit ago about the markets. They think long term, they don't think short term. That the planning that we do or anybody, any successful financial planner doesn't have to be us, it can be anyone. They do a good enough job. They're thinking long term. They're trying to have you focused on the future. Right.

The other piece is they know their numbers. Now, I always tell practitioners, I don't need to know how to do a root canal, but I need to know why you're recommending a root canal to me. So I just need to trust you that you're telling me the right thing. I need to understand why we're recommending it and why we're doing it. I need to know a little bit about it, but I don't need to know how to do the actual procedure. That's why I've got you. That's why I hired you.

But they ask the questions. They know the plan. They know their numbers. And probably the last thing is they use a group of professionals. They're using an attorney to help them. They're using a CPA. They're using a form of an advisor, you name it. They're helping. They're using people that help them. So those are probably the things I would say probably the most successful practitioners do. Zach, anything you would add to that?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah. And specifically on the last bullet point, I call it the round table, OK? And successful professionals are going to have an expert in each field. And I also think it's important that all of these experts are also working together. It's not just individual to the specific dentist, it's they are on your roundtable and they are working together for your financial future.

Art Wiederman, CPA So doctors, I want you to use this analogy. I've been teaching for 36 years about the fact that your patients need to trust you and you need to care about them. Well, let's think about the same analogy of you working with a financial planner or a CPA or an estate attorney or an architect or someone who's going to paint your house. I mean, maybe that's not a good analogy. But the point is, is that, you know, we all have a good meter that we can monitor people with.

Again, if you're working with somebody who, you know, and you trust with your money, you work way too hard to just not look at your investment statements and not meet with somebody. So you've got to trust the person that you work with. So think about, all the things, doctors, that you do in your practice to elicit trust from your patients and then transfer that, the professional that you're going to work with, who's going to monitor, make and monitor your financial plan and help you get to the finish line. And that's what you really, really need to be doing.

Again, this is a call to action. You know, these guys are good. I've seen their financial planning program. It's really good. There's lots of really good financial planners out there. We want to give you information on the things that you need to be talking about, the things you need to be thinking about.

So we've come to just about the end of our time, guys. So one more time, give out your contact information and then we'll wrap it up. A lot of really, really good tips. We got to pretty much all the food groups today, I think. So, Ryan, how do they get a hold of you?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Ryan Weigel, 605.225.8783 or my email is rweigel@EideBailly.com.

Art Wiederman, CPA OK, and Zach?

Zachary Schnitzler, CEPA, CLCS Yeah, Zach Schnitzler, Insurance Specialist 701.239.8567 Just for the heck of it, I'll spell out the email at zschnitzler@EideBailly.com.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well Zach, if it makes you feel any better, the state of New York spelled my name wrong on my birth certificate. They spelled Wei instead of ie. So, you know, I don't bug anybody about their names.

But guys, hey listen, thanks for taking the time, giving this really, really good information. Ladies and gentlemen, please take action. Go get your planning done. Do it for yourself. Do it for your family. Again, I don't care who you do it with. If you got a good person you're working with it. If you've got an ADCPA firm your working with. You know, if you do great. If you got them and you trust them, work with them. If you don't, you know, give these guys a call, they can they can answer your questions. You guys will do a complimentary, you know, call up front to talk about the doctor's needs and stuff like that, right?

Ryan Weigel, CPA, CFP Absolutely. Correct.

Art Wiederman, CPA Sounds good. Well, and again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to our podcast. We're now over 100 episodes. I think this is number 102. And it is an honor and a privilege to present this information to you.

I do want to again remind you to register for our webinar series, www.EideBailly.com/dentalseries. And again, we're starting December 9th with tax planning and research and development credit. We're going to have several of the best dental management consultants in the company in the country coming on. I've got Jennifer Chevalier from Fortune Management. Gary Takacs, who you don't have to tell anybody who Gary is. I've got Kiera Dent. I've got Rachel Wall, who's one of the best dental hygiene consultants in the country.

We've got several of our folks from Eide Bailly talking about, these guys are going to be back. We're going to be talking about retirement plans, student loan debt. So it's going to be a killer series. I've been wanting to do this forever. And the fact that these dental societies have given me the opportunity to do that, it's an honor and a privilege. So make sure you register for that.

Go to our partner, Decisions in Dentistry magazine www.DecisionsinDentistry.com. They have a great website with great content. Their magazine is fantastic. There are up to date on all the COVID-19 protocols and consulting on what you should be doing in your dental offices on virtually every clinical topic. Their advisory board is a who's who of dentistry, not only in this country, but in the United States. What did I just say, not only this country, but in the United States, I'll be alright. Not only in this country, but in the whole world, actually.

And if you're not working with a dental specific CPA, you know, Eide Bailly is here.  My office is in Southern California. My number is 657.279.3243. My email is awiederman@EideBailly.com.  Give us a call. Again, if you're looking for a dental specific CPA anywhere in the United States, it's www.ADCPA.org.

Okay guys, stick around when we sign off, but thank you so much for your time and your great expertise, Zach Schnitzler and Ryan Weigel, really appreciate it, from Eide Bailly. I hope we gave you some great information today on financial planning.

And again, ladies and gentlemen, we're eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, and I'm going to give you my same five word saying that I've been using since the beginning. Failure is not an option. Go out, manage your practice, manage your team, take world class care of your patients. And we're all going to get through this. You watch the news, you see Pfizer and what was it, Pfizer and Moderna. And I believe they're the two companies. They're getting pretty darn close to having a vaccine. And it sounds really promising. And, you know, life's about hope.

So we're all going to get through this. 2021 is going to be a better year for everybody. So with that, folks, thank you again. Please tell your friends about our podcast. And this is Art Wiederman for The Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA signing off. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.