Approved IAR CE Courses

This course offers a comprehensive examination of conflicts of interest specifically tailored for investment advisor representatives, emphasizing their identification, disclosure, and management to ensure adherence to ethical and regulatory standards. Through detailed exploration of various types of conflicts, including actual, potential, and perceived, the course provides real-world examples and scenarios commonly encountered in investment advisory practices. It covers the relevant regulatory frameworks and ethical codes of conduct, supplemented by interactive quizzes and case studies that reinforce learning and application in professional settings. The curriculum also includes best practices for transparent communication and the roles of compliance departments and ethics officers in mitigating conflicts. This structured educational approach is designed to enhance advisors' ability to maintain trust with clients while navigating complex ethical landscapes.

Completing continuing education is both a professional responsibility and an ethical imperative for investment adviser representatives. This course helps IARs understand why continuing education requirements exist, why it is an ethical obligation to remain up-to-date on industry knowledge, and how the system of continuing education laid out in the Model Rule on Continuing Education for Investment Adviser Representatives provides a framework for fulfilling this obligation. This coursealso covers the expectations for IAs and IARs regarding compliance and recordkeeping, statevariations in continuing education requirements, and how engaging constructively with continuingeducation benefits clients.

This presentation introduces a simple 4-step retirement income plan that helps advisors gain a deeper understanding of the client's attitudes toward lifestyle and legacy goals. Goal-based retirement planning provides a client-driven process that matches investment risk and financial product selection to spending. Moving beyond a traditional withdrawal strategy and failure rates demonstrates the need for spending adjustments and provides a framework for discussing products that reduce longevity risk. Through a better understanding of client preferences and a deliberate discussion of objectives and income tradeoffs, the goal-based income plan provides retirees with a deeper and more realistic understanding of how their investments relate to how they spend in retirement.. At this webinar, Professor of Wealth Management at The American College of Financial Services, Michael Finke, explains the practical implementation of a simple 4-step retirement income plan designed to help financial planners gain a deeper understanding of their clients' attitudes toward lifestyle and legacy goals.

In this session, learners will review two estate planning articles from the Nerd's Eye View blog by David Haughton, JD, CPWA: Creating Incentive Trusts To Foster Beneficiary Legacies Without Spoiling The Kids and Making Estate Planning More Tax Efficient And Equitable For Beneficiaries By NOT Just Splitting The Assets Evenly. Both articles examine how inherited assets may impact beneficiaries and how clients, with the assistance of their advisors, can be proactive by planning for the realities of future inheritances. In the first article, Haughton walks through the common ways decedents transfer assets to beneficiaries and explains how incentive trusts can be used to incentivize (or disincentivize) behaviors in accordance with their values, such as personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. In the second article, Haughton discusses how clients commonly leave their beneficiaries equal amounts of each asset to be distributed as a way to split assets tax-efficiently and equitably. But Haughton suggests an alternative asset-by-asset approach that can be more effective, which considers the beneficiary's unique financial circumstances and that may result in a more equitable split of assets. This article explains the approach, its advantages and disadvantages, and when it may be a useful strategy for clients to adopt.

An important aspect of creating retirement efficiencies is to make sound decisions with respect to their tax implications. When should taxes be paid to generate the most after-tax spending and legacy for a given asset base? Answering this question requires digging into the intricacies and nonlinearities of our progressive tax system. In this presentation, renowned retirement income expert Wade Pfau will consider the different tax advantages available in the tax code and how to create tax diversification as a foundation for retirement. Then Wade will describe asset location, or how to position assets between these different types of accounts. Wade will also discuss how to obtain tax advantages for taxable assets that go beyond the space available in tax-deferred or tax-exempt retirement plans. Then Wade delves into tax-efficient retirement distributions, including effective marginal tax rate management with strategic Roth conversions. Wade also covers pitfalls with generating more taxable income, including the Social Security tax torpedo, increased Medicare premiums, and the impacts of tax-preferential sources of income. Wade will finish with a detailed example to show how more tax-efficient retirement distributions using strategic Roth conversions can significantly extend retirement portfolio longevity.

The Presenters will discuss SEC Marketing Rule examination sweeps, and return to the basics of the SEC's marketing rule surrounding general advertisements, newsletters, testimonials and endorsements, third party ratings and rankings, and performance advertising.