HOW WE HELP

Specialized Services

Real Estate Consulting
We can provide investment analysis of various ownership and financing options involving your primary residence, a vacation home, or investment properties. We can assist in making real estate decisions that will coordinate your financial plan with your overall goals.

Business Planning
If you have a small business, professional corporation or sole proprietorship, we can provide recommendations on financing alternatives, cash flow management, creation of a retirement plan, and succession planning.

Stock Option Analysis
Our stock option experience can help provide clarity about the rules, the tax ramifications and the optimal time to exercise your options.

Estate Planning
We integrate your estate plan with your financial plan with the goal of meeting your legacy objectives. We will work with your attorney to facilitate the completion of your Estate Plan including periodic reviews as your financial and family circumstances change.

Elder Care
Caring for aging parents creates financial challenges for many families. We will work with other professionals to help you make compassionate decisions regarding your, or your parents, care management and investment decisions.

Philanthropy

Philanthropy is most rewarding for you and for those to whom you give when practiced effectively. Meritas strives to ensure that your charitable giving meets not only your philanthropic goals but is integrated with your financial and personal goals as well. In pursuing your passion for giving, there are many considerations beyond tax benefits including start-up and administration costs, valuation of gifts, control of assets, governance and succession, and perpetuity. Meritas will help guide you through this process.

Some effective philanthropy options:

• Establishing a private foundation can be an efficient tool for transferring wealth from your estate to charities, potentially helping your family to build a lifelong commitment to philanthropy.
• A charitable remainder trust allows you to defer capital gains taxes on highly appreciated assets such as stocks and real estate. These gifts may reduce your estate taxes, provide an immediate charitable income tax deduction and increase your spendable income.
• Planned giving strategies and lifetime gifts can be effective ways of minimizing estate taxes.

Retirement Planning

Choosing the right path toward the retirement you want means working with a financial advisor who knows exactly where you want to go. Meritas will assist you in laying out a customized plan for retirement, to help your assets grow with minimum risk, while maintaining consistent income in retirement.

It may be a matter of diversifying your income sources or rebalancing your portfolio. We will help you consider your options in terms of current income, spending patterns, future income needs, tolerance for risk, and timeline. Because these factors vary greatly for everyone, there’s no single financial solution for everyone. Meritas will review your customized retirement strategy with you on a regular basis, so we can guide you on the right path toward meeting your goals.

In addition to customized retirement plans, Meritas creates pension solutions, defined benefit packages and annuities for individuals, small businesses, and large corporations. Setting up a group retirement package can have many benefits for an organization, among them:

• Tax benefits of employer contributions
• Attraction and retention of key talented employees
• Assistance for employees in preparing for a secure retirement

Tax Planning

Whether you have merged a business, acquired, or sold property, received an inheritance or are negotiating a compensation package, we are happy to provide valuable insights into the tax implications specific to your situation.

Meritas offers a full range of tax planning and compliance services:

• Tax-efficient portfolio management
• Tax planning for stock options
• Income shifting and planning of deductible expenses
• Real estate consultations
• Mortgage refinancing
• Qualified retirement plan analysis, including Roth IRA conversions.
• Debt restructuring to maximize deductions
• Planned charitable contribution strategies

Investment Advice

Once we’ve created a financial plan, defined your goals, and established a target return, we’ll help you make specific investment decisions tailored to your plan and goals. We treat the holdings of each client’s accounts as unique, researching what we believe to be suitable investments in an effort to align properly with the goals you have established.

Our investment process begins by thoroughly educating you on your options, then providing you with recommendations that we believe will put you in a position to attain your goals. Whether you prefer conventional or socially responsible investing, we’ll work collaboratively with you to find the investment strategy that’s advantageous and comfortable for you.

With clear communication and understanding, Meritas will put your money to work for you. We strive to take the worry and anxiety out of investing so you can focus on the other important things in your life that require your attention.

For asset classes specific to a particular investment niche, Meritas calls upon a formidable network of outside professionals. For example, Meritas maintains close relationships with experts in the fields of convertible securities, fine art and collectibles and real estate investments. Providing access to this knowledgeable team of trusted experts is an important aspect of the value we bring to our clients.

Meritas Principles of Asset Allocation

1. Markets Work. Capital markets do an efficient job of pricing all available information and investor expectations about publicly traded securities.
2. Diversification Is Key. Comprehensive, global asset allocation can neutralize the risks specific to individual securities and markets.
3. Risk and Return Are Related. The compensation for taking on increased levels of risk is the potential to earn greater returns.
4. Portfolio Structure Explains Performance. The asset classes that comprise a portfolio and the risk levels of those asset classes are responsible for most of the variability of portfolio returns.

Financial Planning

Creating a financial plan is like laying out a pathway for your future. The right financial plan should feel like a guidebook for this journey, helping you to discover where you want to go and how you’re going to get there. This is a mutual process of exploration; together we’ll navigate the financial uncertainties of the market and economy and work with you to guide you towards your goals.

We believe that the value of financial planning lies not only in its ability to create wealth, but also in its ability to provide the security and freedom you need to pursue the things in life that are truly important to you. Your financial plan is about more than just money – it’s about helping you realize your hopes and dreams.

Our comprehensive planning process helps us understand each client’s individual circumstances thoroughly. We begin by evaluating your cash flow, emergency reserves, debt, and net worth. From there, we work with you to identify the investment and risk management strategies you’re comfortable with, so we can form a complete picture of your financial life.

Our focus is on education and communication. We create financial plans with our clients, not for them. Once we’ve worked together to put your plan in place, we follow a detailed implementation process that tracks your progress on a quarterly basis.

Making good financial decisions along life’s path can be challenging. Meritas helps you to define each step along the way, so you feel confident you’re moving in the direction you want to go. We strive to help you feel you’ve done everything possible to make your life’s journey a successful one.