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JackieCPA

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1 hour ago, TaxPreparer said:

Does anyone else have clients who complain about your measly fee (That should be higher) and you look at their investment paperwork and they have paid $51,000 to their investment company just this year!? 

Nah, my one complainer guy's broker fees were only $9,057.  He doesn't like my (finally up to) $350 fee.  He's been struggling with my enormous fee for ten years now but manages to drop in five times a year to get advice.  I have decided he will get the opportunity to find a better, less expensive alternative than me next year.  That's right, I'm letting him live to regret trying that haggling ship on me.  We don't do that here.  If I think I'm paying too much, I smile politely, thank you, pay your fee, and don't come back nine more times.  My #1 rule is everybody in this office is happy.  My #2 rule is if everybody can't be happy, Rita will be happy. 

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Yes, had one recently with fees over 23K and fees of 2K for municipal bond work.  With over a million $ in trades, and double that in account value, at end of the year it was up less than the fees. Some bad trades I suspect, in an up market something is not right.

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Image counts.

Brokers represent big money, and have office appearances to prove it.  He works in a state-of-the-art building in an exclusive part of town, and people somehow think they are entitled to fees that they can hide on the back page of the statement.  Lawyers same image.

But US?  They come to a modest office with papers stacked everywhere and talk to someone with none of the aforementioned image.  Some of my customers come to my house.  We're proud of it, but certainly not the Waldorf-Astoria.

I'm convinced by the fees that I see (customers never bother to look), that some of the brokerage houses are making more money than the investor.

p.s. in case any of you care, Rita has a very nice office.

 

 

 

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Yes. 

Don't undervalue yourself.

I have clients that pay more for ADP/Paychex to prepare 5 employees payroll on an annual basis than me, and anytime there is an issue with *Them* they tell the client to call *me* to fix it.

Investment fees are another example.  It is only *1* percent, but that *1* per cent on a large account is pretty significant.  And they throw my clients into expensive mutual funds and !horrors! MLP's to fatten their bottom line...

One firm, that collects $25k from my client, sent them this:

Quote

Today we placed tax harvesting trades in your portfolio, by selling individual MLPs and purchasing a basket of MLPs. By tax harvesting today we have swapped your holdings with a capital loss for a similar holding, allowing us to remain invested but providing a tax advantage. These losses will be used to offset ordinary income or capital gains.

 They invested my client in these MLP's in 2016, the5 MLP's returned about a $12k loss last year, and they sold them in 2018 to "harvest" the tax losses. 

So, they sold you out of losers, and just put you into a larger basket of losers.  With a better fee to the firm.

Un Fricking believable.  And I told my clients that.

 Rich

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