The Tools & Techniques of Employee Benefits and Retirement Planning, 18th edition

Book Synopsis:

Explore all aspects of employee compensation and benefits with “The Tools & Techniques of Employee Benefit and Retirement Planning”. This must-have resource provides real-world examples of compensation options, healthcare, life insurance strategies, and fringe benefits to help you understand the important and sometimes unexpected consequences of different planning approaches. Each approach is explained in clear, easy-to-understand language that takes you through the legal and regulatory requirements for instituting and maintaining benefits while also explaining the tax consequences of different approaches. For those looking to learn more about employee benefits and retirement planning topics, this book additionally includes detailed references to source material to provide jumping-off points for conducting deeper research.

Fundamentals of Writing a Financial Plan, Second Edition:

Provides a totally revised and unique approach to helping aspiring financial planners write a comprehensive financial plan. The book outlines how the CFP Board of Standards, Inc. 7-step planning process can be applied when writing a comprehensive financial plan for an individual or family. The book not only highlights various elements involved in comprehensive financial planning, including estate, tax, cash flow, education planning, and much more—but also introduces important behavioral perspectives and communication techniques. As a way to synthesize these pieces and learn how the plan writing process unfolds, students follow a running case—the Hubble family.

What’s New:

• An updated chapter on COVID-19 related tax changes for employee benefit plans
• Updates resulting from the SECURE Act
• Employee retention credit under the CARES Act
• New details on use and rollover of medical and dependent care FSA plans
• Updated ERISA compliance and reporting requirements, including Form 5500 information
• Updated materials that address CFP Board’s new Client Psychology learning outcomes.
• Videos that can be used to illustrate client communication and counseling techniques.
• Revised and expanded test bank.
• Updated Excel package.

Key Highlights:

• A thorough review of the new 7-step systematic financial planning process.
• A description of the regulatory environment in which every financial planner operates.
• An in-depth discussion of client communication and counseling techniques.
• Financial planning approaches that can be applied to a variety of clients and client circumstances.
• A chapter-by-chapter focus on analytical tools and techniques that can be used to evaluate client data.
• An example of a complete written financial plan with explanations about how analyses lead to the recommendations.
• Chapter-based learning aids, including access to a fully integrated Financial Planning Analysis Excel package and other online support materials, including video examples of client communication and counseling strategies.
• Instructions on how to do calculations essential to creating a financial plan.
• Numerous self-test questions to test comprehension of material.

Topics Covered:

• Brief descriptions of the benefit planning tool or technique being discussed.
• Summaries of the client situations where the particular technique is most often beneficial, including the advantages and disadvantages of each technique.
• Design features of the technique and the planning options that are available.
• Tax implications describe the federal income, estate and payroll tax implications of the technique to both employer and employee; some state tax aspects are also noted where appropriate.
• ERISA and other compliance requirements summarizes the ERISA reporting and disclosure, funding, and other non-tax federal regulatory requirements.
• Instructions on how to install the plan provides a summary of the steps that must be taken for an employer to adopt and implement the plan.
• “Where Can I Find Out More?” provides a list of references for further study and information.
• “Frequently Asked Questions” discusses some specific problems (and their solutions) that are often encountered by planners in connection with the benefit plan.CFP Board’s 7-step financial planning process.
• Step-by-step guide to formulating a financial plan and presenting it to a client.
• Guides for different types of financial planning such as life insurance planning, long-term care insurance planning, and retirement planning.
• Comprehensive Hubble case.