Transcript
SPRING 2016 Holiday Party Welcome Phoebe Opal Ivany King Arthur Flour — Bread Baking for Haven Shredding Party Behind the Scenes Fraud and Scams Whew! Summit’s Transition to Schwab Et Cetera
Thomas C Hartman, CPA, CFP®
[email protected] Thomas G Wagner, MBA, CFP®
[email protected] Abigail Hurlburt, CFP®, RICP®
[email protected]
OUR MISSION Creating Peace of Mind for Our Clients by Improving Their Financial Well-Being and Lives. OUR VALUES Integrity Honesty, Fairness, and Ethics are the foundation of our culture. Commitment Making a difference to our community through Quality, Excellence, and Service. Flexibility Offering solutions based on being Open-Minded, Resourceful, and Committed to Win-Win. Kindness In all things, Consideration and Compassion with human touch guide our decisions. Summit Wealth Group provides sophisticated wealth management and life planning so our clients have the confidence that we understand their situation better than anyone else, and that we are able to make a difference in their lives.
WELCOME PHOEBE OPAL IVANY
HOLIDAY PARTY We continued our annual tradition of giving back to the community with a donation of $10,000 to The Good Neighbor Health Clinics during our annual holiday party. Our funds help this local nonprofit provide free medical and dental to the uninsured and underinsured.
On December 18th, 2015 at 11:09am, Kylee welcomed her new baby girl, Phoebe Opal Ivany into the world at 8.12 pounds and 21 inches long. Kylee brought her beautiful girl into the office to meet the team in January. Welcome Phoebe, we can’t wait to get to know you more! Visitors and callers know Kylee as the very pleasant, friendly, and helpful face and voice of Summit Wealth Group.
KING ARTHUR FLOUR—BREAD BAKING FOR HAVEN This year King Arthur Flour hosted a bread baking class for benefit of the Upper Valley Haven, a nonprofit providing emergency shelter, food, clothing, and educational programming to those in need. All bread made was donated to the Haven. Summit Wealth Group employees have elected to support the Haven, so four of our employees donated their time to help replenish the Haven’s bread supply, with perfect loaves!
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SHREDDING PARTY Save the date, Friday June 3rd 11:30-1:30, under the tent at Summit Wealth Group. Big Fatty’s BBQ will be back by popular demand. SecurShred will have a truck on site to devour all your confidential information, safely disposing of it. These days it seems like the scammers are everywhere, and none of us can afford to inadvertently divulge our personal information. Keep it out of the wrong hands. Our recommendation is to shred all documents that link you, your address, and
an account number together. Some might not appear obvious, but a conservative approach would be to shred utility bills, home owner association bills, your prescription list received with a refill, and medical bills. It is imperative to shred all banking and investment related documents, and don’t forget everything received from Medicare, as your Social Security Number is on every page. Bring us as much as you want or your vehicle holds.
FRAUD AND SCAMS Today’s scam artists are on the phone, at your door, and online. We are continually notified by clients that they have been victimized by some sort of scam or computer malware virus. We have written several pieces about this, and will continue to do so and continue our education during our meetings about the dangers in the cyber world we now live in. According to a survey by True Link Financial, older Americans are criminally defrauded of $12.76 billion annually. Think it won’t happen to you? Guess again; if you consider yourself friendly, thrifty, or financially sophisticated, according to True Link’s survey, you are more likely to be defrauded, because you give strangers the benefit of the doubt, are more enticed by bargains, and are comfortable moving larger amounts of money around. The biggest scam now is Microsoft Tech Support, and it victimized 3.3 million Americans last year. The number one reported fraud right now is IRS Impostor. Here is one simple tip: GET CALLER ID ON YOUR PHONE AND ONLY ANSWER NUMBERS YOU RECOGNIZE.
We encourage you to call us, and ask our opinion before returning a call. We have been able to prevent clients from being the next victim!! (Source: AARP Bulletin, True Link Financial.)
BEHIND THE SCENES Kerry McNally loves taxes! She joined Summit Tax Services at the start of the new tax season, working very diligently behind the scenes on our clients’ taxes. She decided to learn how to do her own taxes when she was a working 15 year old. Her parents did her return, but kept her refund. That was it! She was determined to keep her own money from then on, so she mastered the art of taxes. Since then she has done thousands of tax returns, having worked the previous 10 years at a large national tax preparation firm where she did over 700 returns a year. Since joining us, she has a perpetual smile on her face, delighted to be able to maintain normal working hours in a much calmer environment. WHEW! SUMMIT’S TRANSITION TO SCHWAB
Et cetera
Our major transition is mostly behind us. It was a very major transition of 260 clients resulting in 570 distinct new accounts that is actually a consolidation, as some clients may have had 4 or 5 different IRAs previously. Many of you know it was a lot of paper! Thank you for your cooperation, because your assistance made this a much easier process. The reason for the transition was our decision to establish our own Registered Investment Advisor, (RIA), and be totally independent and out from under any corporate umbrella. Summit Wealth Group is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a federally registered RIA. As such, by law, we have a fiduciary duty to our clients, which means we have a fundamental obligation to always act in your best interest.
BIG BUCKS Since 1935 Social Security has collected $18 trillion and paid out $15.2 trillion. (Source: Savvy Social Security.) NOT MUCH It takes only one penny to administer Social Security. 99 cents out of every dollar taken in goes directly to benefits. (Source: Savvy Social Security.) GOING UP Tax rates on the 400 wealthiest taxpayers rose sharply to 22.9% from 16.7% in 2013, erasing most of the last 20 years’ decline. (Source: NY Times and I.R.S.) HEALTHY SENIORS Vermont ranks as the number 1 healthiest state for seniors and New Hampshire is number 2. (Source: America’s Health Ranking.)
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