Approved IAR CE Courses

State-sponsored retirement programs—often referred to as auto-IRA programs—are rapidly expanding across the country. And for financial advisors, they represent a meaningful opportunity to help individuals along their retirement savings journey and achieve financial security.

In this timely webinar, two leading experts will break down what’s happening—and what it means for your practice.
Angela Antonelli, Executive Director of the Center for Retirement Initiatives at Georgetown University, will provide a comprehensive overview of the state-run retirement landscape, including how auto-IRA programs work, which states have active mandates, and where expansion is headed next.

Peter Thompson of Commonwealth Savers will then take a deeper dive into RetirePath, one of the newer state-facilitated programs, and explain how it is evolving as it rolls out to more businesses later this year.

Together, they will help you understand:
1. How auto-IRA programs are reshaping the small business retirement market
2. Which employers are impacted—and when
3. Where advisors can still add value (and where they may be disintermediated)
4. How programs like RetirePath actually function in practice
5. Strategic ways to position yourself as a solution—not a substitute

As more states implement mandates and enforcement ramps up, advisors who understand this landscape will be better equipped to protect existing relationships, identify new opportunities, and guide clients with confidence. If you work with small business owners—or plan to—this is a conversation you can’t afford to miss.

IRA rollover recommendations are among the most common decisions financial advisors help clients make—and they can also present significant fiduciary and compliance considerations. In this session, securities attorney Michelle Atlas-Quinn will provide an in-depth look at how financial professionals can apply their fiduciary duty when advising clients on whether to remain in an employer plan, roll assets to another employer plan or IRA, or take a distribution.

Michelle will explain the key distinctions between financial advice and financial education, the conflicts of interest that can arise in rollover recommendations, and a practical seven-step Duty of Care process for evaluating a client’s alternatives. Through real-world scenarios and case studies, she’ll explore how advisors should evaluate costs, services, investment options, creditor protection, tax considerations, and client-specific needs—and why cost should be an important factor, but never the only factor.

The session will also examine documentation best practices, compensation-related conflicts, directed rollover requests, and common compliance pitfalls. Advisors will leave with a practical framework for making and documenting rollover recommendations that are client-specific, well-supported, and consistent with their fiduciary responsibilities.

Open configuration options
Open configuration options

This course provides financial professionals with a data-driven overview of today’s college admissions landscape, including key trends in selectivity, testing policies, and application strategies. Participants will learn how these changes impact planning considerations and how to incorporate admissions insights into more effective client conversations around education and financial planning.

The Treasury Department and IRS have issued proposed regulations interpreting the newly enacted Trump accounts under IRC §530A—introducing a complex framework that extends well beyond the widely discussed $1,000 pilot contribution.

This program establishes two distinct provisions within the Internal Revenue Code: the Trump account structure under §530A and the Trump Accounts Contribution Pilot Program under §6434. Understanding how these provisions interact—and how they differ—is critical for advisors evaluating planning opportunities and client suitability.

In this session, Denise Appleby (“The IRA Whisperer”) breaks down what the proposed regulations clarify, what operational rules advisors can rely on today, and what key issues remain unresolved.

Advisors will gain practical insight into how Trump accounts are expected to function, how different contribution types are treated, and how to begin positioning these accounts in client conversations.

This program, which features tax attorney Joe Endres, will address applying residency tax rules tocommuters, occasional visitors, and full-time residents of the various states. It will also identify the practices most states use to determine if a taxpayer has "truly" changed their residence. For example, changing your residence from a high-tax state (think NY, NJ & CA) to a low or no-tax state (think FL) can dramatically reduce the amount of state taxes you have to pay. But high-tax states don't let their residents go smoothly. If you continue to maintain any connection to the former residence (think snowbirds), the high-tax state may contest that you genuinely changed your residence. Note that Mr. Endres specializes in residency and local taxation matters and hasrepresented numerous clients in cases related to this issue.In this webinar, Mr. Endres will teach you how states determine a taxpayer's residency and how tomake the states respect your residency change.

This course, led by Bob Keebler, CPA, will focus on the intergenerational transfer of property and will focus on what CPAs should know about trusts and estates. It will cover many topics rangingfrom fundamental legal principles of trusts and estates to how language in the trust instrumentaccomplishes a particular tax result.Bob will also discuss the legal definitions and principles of estates and trusts, the basic principles regarding property ownership, and the types of trusts commonly used. Bob will also delve into trust accounting fundamentals and the specific clauses thatare important to understand, including formula valuation clauses.

Join Mark J. Warshawsky — the economist who ran retirement and disability policy at the Social Security Administration — for a first look at his newly published analysis of what happens after the trust fund runs dry.**

The Social Security retirement trust fund is on track to run out in the fourth quarter of 2032. When it does, current law calls for an automatic, across-the-board 24% cut to every beneficiary's check — the same percentage whether that retiree is living paycheck to paycheck or sitting on a multimillion-dollar portfolio. It doesn't have to happen that way, and your clients are going to want to know what does.

Mark J. Warshawsky — former Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy at the Social Security Administration, Harvard-trained economist, and current Senior Fellow and Wilson H. Taylor Chair in Healthcare and Retirement Policy at the American Enterprise Institute — will walk through his newly published *Journal of Retirement* analysis, "What Happens When the Social Security Trust Fund Is Exhausted: Alternative Contingency Policies."

In this eye-opening session, college planning experts Beth Walker and Joe Messinger will show financial advisors how even high-income, high-asset families — including business owners — can implement sophisticated strategies to optimize financial aid outcomes. Using real-world case studies, they will demonstrate how strategic income timing, asset positioning, and business planning decisions can meaningfully reduce out-of-pocket college costs, even for clients who assume they won’t qualify for aid.

Jonathan Sparling of Private 529 Plan will join Beth and Joe to present sophisticated 529 plan strategies many advisors overlook. Jonathan’s review will include the power of grandparent-owned 529 plans, how funding 529 accounts during low-income years can create meaningful state tax arbitrage opportunities, how ownership structuring can position 529s as a powerful financial aid asset strategy for divorced or remarried families, and how deliberate beneficiary “generation shifting” can extend tax-free compounding across decades. Jonathan will also explore he unique value of private 529 plans — including the ability to lock in tuition at participating private colleges, hedge tuition inflation risk, reduce reported parental assets (depending on structure), and potentially improve financial aid positioning.