And good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Jean Dickerson, you've got Megan Smale, you've got an entire team here at PBS.

Bring you the next half an hour of financial intelligence.

It's, is very different than I. I am a little creepy, creepy.

You see stuff, you go, wow, that's amazing.

Then you realize probably not true.

And then you get people who are just pulling stuff off of, the artificial intelligence, where it doesn't matter which platform, and they're just assuming.

Assuming it's correct.

Maybe it is.

Maybe it isn't.

We have a long way to go.

Heck, I I'm still looking for a lot of a and a lot of AI.

As you look around the world, there's there's tons of a I got it.

But I feel maybe that's why our show is so popular.

And I know it sounds like I'm giving myself credit for having great intelligence, which of course is true, but that's not the real key.

The real key is in our show's popularity, I believe.

What do I know?

But I'm not a marketing specialist, but I believe is is you and and your intelligence, your your willingness to share your ideas, your willingness to share your concerns, your your questions, your willingness to allow other people, hundreds of thousands of other people to learn from you, to learn from, your, your family, to learn from on occasion, mistakes, fears, concerns, emotions.

You allow us, into your lives.

Real lives.

Not artificial.

Not not artificial.

You allow that to happen.

Some of you have been very kind, in sending us responses to, our recent live studio audience shows where we had so very many of our, More Than money team, live on the air.

We had, makers out here so people could, interact with her instead of being back in the back in the control and, goodness, a tremendous audience, wonderful people, wonderful people.

And our whole PBS team here doing a great job interacting, getting them involved, and then and then showcasing that back to you.

The response that you've given us is fantastic.

Is it so much different than your forgive the phrase typical, financial show on air today?

And the answer is yes.

Yes, the vast majority are.

They're trying too hard to integrate technology.

Let me show you the sweeping charts.

Let me show you the the visuals and the telestrator, and I'll let you show you.

And let's bring in 93 different, please.

There's two things that most folks that come through our door are interested in.

They're interested in finding a financial advisor they can trust, and I don't I don't care where you are in America.

Coast to coast, border to border, wherever, whatever financial advisor office that you walk into, first thing you're looking for is someone that you can trust.

Just please, just tell me the truth and and and hopefully, hopefully put my, my best interests at heart.

And number two, once they find someone they feel they can trust, they don't want to have to do it again.

They hope.

They pray that they will have a long term relationship, that they will have a connection.

My current, I am proud to say, current longest standing client 46 years.

It's even mind boggling to say, sadly, we lost her husband, my good friend a couple of years back, but she remains a client.

Her daughter remains a client.

Grandchildren remain clients.

46 years.

Think about walking into someone's office where your interview process is to try to determine two very important things.

Number one, do you trust this person to test as he or she demonstrate that they are trustworthy and will care about your needs?

First?

And number two, do you see yourself being with them not just for decades, but for generations, generations.

Generations is a pretty powerful word.

It only happens if you're connecting as people.

And I think one of the great reasons, maybe one of the primary reasons why people enjoyed our live audience shows so very much.

The people, the connection with people.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much.

If you wish a connection similar to that, if you'd like to submit your question or you'd like to sign up for a newsletter, all you have to do is send me an email gene and ask mtm.com.

We'll be happy to do all that for you.

Meg's long winded intro.

Let's get started.

Where do we start?

Sounds good.

Our first email is someone who wants your help to help her friend.

This one says I have a question for my friend.

Life threw her a curveball, and she needs to get another car.

She called them and asked if she could get about $10,000 out of this.

And they basically said no.

Perhaps there's a big penalty.

I don't know, I wasn't there.

I'm sure you and the crew have seen this numerous times.

Maybe you could enlighten me on what, if anything, she could do.

I'm going to guess.

This is from an annuity salesman, and they said a lot of nice things.

And perhaps a lunch.

Oh, boy.

If you have a moment, let me know what we can do.

Thanks for all that you do.

And the staff.

Well, you're very kind, and you're very kind to help your friend.

Good for you.

Sadly, yes.

As we explore this, two very unfortunate things happened.

Three, if you count what happened to the salesman, Young lady?

Yes.

Life does throw us curveballs, doesn't it?

On occasion, anything.

Everything's smooth.

And then all of a sudden and you have to be able to respond.

So in this particular case, this young lady, was sold.

I'm using the right word.

You, we'll circle back, but using the right word was sold.

An annuity that required her to invest the vast majority, not 100%, but it was very close, 85, 90 ish percent of her investments into one annuity.

And then when the curveball came up, her need arose.

The annuity company, she picked up the phone.

Her salesman was unavailable.

How interesting is that?

But the annuity company responded to a phone call.

Call center?

And she asked, hey, what do I have to do to get 10,000 out?

And she was told, you can't.

Wow.

Well, two things.

All right, let's let's kind of circle back to the term annuity salesperson.

There's a huge difference between financial advisors, fiduciary financial advisors, those who are, legally, ethically, honor bound to serve your best interest first, putting theirs aside.

And an annuity salesman.

A salesman is not required to put your best interests at heart.

Annuity salesmen can be driven by other issues like commissions.

And in this particular case, it ended up it was about $180,000, a very substantial sum of money.

This young lady, the friend, was apologizing.

I apologize for getting you involved.

It's not very much money.

180,000.

Where I come from, that's a huge sum of money.

So, yes, happy to be involved.

Well, once we found out what company it was with, we understood annuity salesman, not financial advisor, even though, he, let her to believe he was.

He's not in any way, shape or form.

The commission on this particular transaction was 7%.

7% of $180,000 is somewhere between 12 and 13 grand.

He spent a total of less than two hours with her.

So in his mind, and I'm not talking about what profit the annuity company is making, I'm talking about the salesman himself.

In his mind, he is worth six $7,000 an hour for filling out an annuity application and leading her to believe that there was a fair amount of flexibility, that if she needed money, of course she could get there.

And, of course, there would be no problem.

Well, as it turns out, a number of things here are just dreadfully wrong.

The annuity salesman said things that were not exactly incorrect.

They're not exactly correct.

They were.

They were largely incorrect.

The call center gave her totally bad information.

The, responsibility of the salesman.

Apparently, he felt ended when he got paid because, we were never successfully able to talk to the salesman company for sure.

And as a result, once we explained the situation, explained her situation, and they became very, very clear that this was an inappropriate investment and that we we were unhappy, unhappy and willing to be very unhappy, and, and write letters and issue complaints to regulators.

All of a sudden, she had access to her money with no penalty.

All of a sudden there were adjustments made to the contract itself.

And I say all of a sudden it was not all of a sudden, of course, but left to her own devices, they would have shooed her away like an annoying mosquito.

But on occasion, being old and little snarky.

Pretty useful stuff.

So happy to help.

There are circumstances.

I confess, I'm not happy about it.

Where?

Where you've got to go toe to toe with somebody who's obviously had, not your best interest at heart, and get downright serious about it.

Some would say aggressive.

I just say snarky, kind of my my go to, but bottom line, worked out well for her.

Worked out well for her, and did, not so much for the annuity salesman as you might expect.

Meg's.

That was great fun.

Where do we go to next?

Okay, we have a bit of a change of subject now.

This one says I have a question about inheritance tax on revocable versus irrevocable trusts.

Wondering which eliminates the tax without incurring capital gains.

Thanks.

Irrevocable.

Irrevocable.

Irrevocable.

Not able to be revoked.

Yeah.

This is a very interesting question.

And it kind of demonstrates a fairly common, set of misinformation.

Under the, under the heading perhaps of I would like to have my cake and eat it, too.

Concept.

This is mixing, the attributes of one type of trust with the other.

Let me give you the basics.

Irrevocable.

Irrevocable trust unable to be revoked is exactly that.

Whatever goes in stays in.

However, the trust is set up.

It's set up, your hands are off.

You no longer own those assets.

So her folks are being, counseled, advised.

Hey, let's take a your house.

Let's put it into a irrevocable trust.

How old are you?

I'm 55.

This is a dreadful idea.

What are the odds that between 55 and hopefully 100, the circumstances of your life would change?

The.

The decisions right now are crystal clear.

Might be different in five, ten, 15, 20, 30, 40 years.

The answer is, of course they will be, if you're not able to change your trust, you have put handcuffs on yourself.

And it is an extremely rare circumstance where that would be useful.

Now, what what do you gain with such a trust?

The asset is now out of your estate.

So at your passing, your, your heirs will pay no estate taxes.

That is a huge advantage to very few people.

Very few people on a percentage basis, I'm guessing less than 2%.

So for a thousand of you out there, there might be ten.

There might be 12 that would benefit 990 plus.

No, don't do that.

And the ones that would benefit would be I have an estate that's over $30 million.

I live in a state that has an an inheritance tax.

Many do not, but but some do.

So if you happen to be, I'll pick on Florida for a second.

They have no inheritance tax.

And your your asset that you're transferring into this trust, is part of a $10 million estate.

Do not do it.

You have gain nothing.

All the taxes, that you're avoiding are zero.

In the state of Pennsylvania, where we reside, there are inheritance taxes.

There may be a reason to do that.

The federal government, not so much, but maybe in Pennsylvania, so very few revocable trust give you lots of options.

You can put something and take something out, change it completely.

However, at your passing, inheritance tax, inheritance tax, it's still yours.

You're still in control.

So the IRS says if you're still in control, even though it's in the trust, it's still yours.

Why do that, then?

They're being sold by, trust salesmen on the basis of avoiding probate.

If it's in a trust, you pass away today the beneficiaries of that trust.

In essence, it's not exactly.

But in essence, receive those assets in a blink, in the blink, as opposed to going through probate, which could be six months, nine months, a year or two years.

It could be long.

So there is an advantage.

There.

Pros and cons, pros and cons.

Now, the reality is, they were not asking about cap or about state taxes or about capital gains taxes.

If you put money into a irrevocable trust, you avoid, estate taxes, but your children receive no stepped up basis and the capital gains taxes are going to hurt.

If you put it into a revocable trust.

You pay capital, you pay estate taxes, but your kids pay no capital gains.

They get a stepped up basis at your passing.

So, having your cake and eating it too, it's not going to fly here.

And you even have to figure out what cake am I eating?

Am I eating the inheritance tax problem?

Am I eating the capital gains tax problem?

Or am I making both of them far worse?

It can be complicated.

Make sure.

Make sure you're sitting with a trusted, experienced, family wealth advisor who understands these complications.

Has, perhaps a legal background or a legal partner has a tax background or tax partner, hopefully all under one roof.

So you can sort these out in your specific situation.

What gives you and your family the greatest benefit?

Wow.

Again, short question, long winded answer.

Maybe we're going to buck the trend this time round.

Makes.

Hopefully it's a long question that I can answer was just two.

Or I don't know about a long question, but I think you're going to like this question.

This one says I've been watching for the last few years, and I thoroughly enjoy your show and appreciate your knowledge.

I love your snarkiness.

You've mentioned buffered ETFs and I am interested in where I can obtain them and the minimum dollar requirements.

I am 80 years old and I'm on my way to your 100 club.

Thanks.

I love that, correct?

Yes.

Why not?

Triple H club?

For those of you just joining us, maybe, recently or haven't heard of our our club yet.

Secret decoder ring on its way through the mail watch.

Triple H. Happy, healthy.

100.

We are not 80.

Hoping to barely crawl over the finish line.

Dude, we are 80.

Working out.

We're 80.

Staying involved.

We're volunteering.

We're helping our family.

We're we're physically engaged.

We're we're spiritually engaged.

We're mentally engaged, and we're going to be happy.

That's fantastic.

Healthy.

Outstanding and 100.

So you're on the you're on the right path.

I'm confident, that you will get there.

Yes.

By the way, snarkiness.

Thank you.

I appreciate that very much.

Buffered ETFs for, the sake of context for everyone.

Exchange Traded fund, ETF, is a general category very similar to mutual funds.

General category.

What would you find in an ETF?

Gosh, almost anything you can think of.

What investments would you find in a mutual fund?

Gosh, almost anything you could think of mutual funds.

You can invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, gold.

So it goes on and on and on.

ETFs you can invest in stocks, bonds, silver, gold.

It goes on and on and on.

And in this particular case the type of ETF the the term is buffered.

And a buffered ETF is an investment platform that invest typically in stock indexes indices S&P 500.

It might be the Nasdaq, it might be international lots.

There are dozens.

But let's let's stick with the S&P 500 as a good demonstration.

They invest in that index.

But they layer into that investment that ETF.

The use of options and the use of options says I can create they can create the manager, create a a protection, a an insulation.

Some would say insurance against the market going down.

What how do you say that sounds pretty interesting.

Well, it absolutely is pretty interesting.

As a matter of fact, in the, American investment environment, it is one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing segments of exchange traded funds out there.

You can invest and determine how much risk you're willing to take.

So you could say to the ETF, you know what?

I'm I'm a little nervous, but I'm not very nervous.

I would like protection, that protect me against losses down to -10%.

Lovely.

So stock market goes down five, six, seven.

You lose zero.

Stock market goes down 11.

You lose one because they you are protected.

You're you have that buffer that 10% buffer stock market goes up.

Five 1015 you get five 1015 stock market goes up.

1617 you get 15.

What what.

Yeah there's a limit on the upside.

That's how they can afford to pay for the insurance on the downside.

So the buffering has a cost.

The overall cost on most of these ETFs are very reasonable.

6/10 of 1% a year, 7/10 of 1% a year, including the insulation, including the insurance, including the buffering.

So a very reasonable, very reasonable cost to provide this protection.

If you said, 10% is nice, but gosh, the stock market's got me worried, would you like 15%?

Would you like 30% in the ultimate?

Would you like to invest in the S&P 500 and have zero capital risk be protected down to -100%?

The answer is yes.

You can do all of that.

You can do all of that.

Absolutely easy to do.

And bottom line is isn't there a give up?

Sure.

Of course there is.

If, minus ten gives you a cap of 15%, is it possible that -100 is half of that the answer?

Sure, sure.

15.

Maybe seven, 7.5% cap on a 100% guaranteed investment in a buffered ETF.

So if you're hearing all that and saying, wait, wait, wait, I'd be happy with six 7% return, then you might very well be a good candidate for a 100% protected ETF.

On the other hand, you might very well say, gosh, my financial plans, they're kind of dependent on making eight, nine, 10%.

Very good.

Now, we know that 100% protected isn't going to be the right choice for us.

Maybe it's -30.

Maybe we fine tune it that way.

And at 80 years old, my guess is this gentlemen's, desire for not losing is pretty high.

His desire for making a big bucket of money is is reasonably low.

He understands this is the real world, making a reasonable return with reasonable protection.

Ten years ago.

Almost impossible to dial that in.

And today, with buffered ETFs, registered index linked annuities, structured notes, you can literally dial in the amount of risk that you're willing to take to match the return that you require.

Pretty fascinating stuff.

Hopefully I helped hopefully help you got 20 years to keep working on this.

You'll be in good shape.

Makes a brief one, perhaps?

Yeah, I think this one's pretty brief.

This one says our daughter is 24, working and doing okay financially.

Not saving much, but not racking up the credit cards either.

We still have almost $60,000 in her.

529 wondering what is the process for getting those funds into a Roth IRA for her?

Thanks.

Well thank you.

Great question.

First of all, congratulations.

You've got a young daughter.

They're working hard, doing the right things.

Keep supporting her.

The father of three daughters and a granddaughter.

It's the best.

It's the best.

So bless you, bless you.

Bless her.

Good for her.

The fact that you've got leftover money in a 529 plan.

And we're talking about a Roth IRA.

We'll throw some people in our audience a curveball.

I've never heard of such a thing.

Well, it's been around now for a couple of years where the, leftovers and a 529 can be used to fund a Roth IRA.

For a student that is working, there are certain requirements.

I won't go into all the details, but let me give you the mechanics.

We set up a Roth IRA.

You're allowed to contribute as, to the maximum per year, up to 100% of their income, or the maximum for the IRA, which right now is about 7000 bucks a year.

And over the total conversion amount, you're allowed to put $35,000 away.

So, 60,000, you're going to have some leftover still.

Maybe that's for grandchildren.

Give her some time.

But 35,000 converted, likely by the time she's 30.

What's great fun about that is that if she allows that just to cook over the course of her lifetime, it's going to double before her retirement about six times.

Details or, something we can discuss off air, but about six times to 30, 35 becomes 70, becomes 142, 80 times 560 becomes over a million bucks, becomes $2 million tax free by the time she retires.

That's what you're in a position to do for your hard working, wonderful daughter and her family.

The impact is going to be rather tremendous, and all because you save really hard for education.

You had some left over and then you knew what to do with it.

Good for you.

Good for you.

And I pray.

I pray for all of you that, yeah, grandchildren are on the way.

They're pretty cool.

They're pretty cool speaking, of course, very, very cool.

They let you spend time with us?

You should be doing lots and lots of other stuff.

And as summer comes on and the days stay lighter, longer.

Hopefully Dover's in your future.

So you still stick with us.

Watch it when you get a chance.

And, if we can serve you we would love to do that.

You keep us the most relevant financial show on television by your emails Jean at ask mtm.com.

That gets you, opportunity to ask your question.

Make your observations, your, your approvals, your criticisms.

Those are fun too.

And also sign up for our newsletter, More Than money.

Newsletter it goes out.

E letter every other month.

And happy to 17.

Also happy to serve you.

Thank you for being with us tonight.

Hopefully you'll be with us next week with another edition of More Than Money Tonight.