Where to Find a Fee-Only Financial Planner? Trade Group Will Provide a Free List
Q The Times’ Wall Street, California Money Make-Over feature repeatedly uses fee-only financial planners, and I understand why. Clearly, professionals who do not rely on commissions as payment for their advice seem more likely to offer truly independent, unbiased counsel. What I don’t understand is how to find one in my area. Is there a way for the ordinary investor to find a fee-only planner?
--P.C.
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A Perhaps one of the best sources is the National Assn. of Personal Financial Planners, which is dedicated to advancing the practice of fee-only financial planning.
By writing or calling the group, you can obtain a free list of fee-only planners in your state who belong to the association.
But be warned: Unless you specifically ask it not to, the group will pass on your name and address to fee-only planners in your area so they can contact you directly.
If you want to be the one making the contact, be sure to make this clear before you request a list of group members in your state.
To get a list by mail, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to NAPFA, 355 W. Dundee Road, Suite 200, Buffalo Grove, IL 60089, or call (888) 333-6659.
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Q I have a small amount of stock that I would like to sell. The stock was given to my late wife by her father many years ago. I have no idea what the price was when the stock was purchased. Is there a way I can figure it out? I do not want to get into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay the appropriate tax on the gain.
--L.L.
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A Your situation may be far easier to resolve than you think.
In your case, you do not have to find out the purchase price of the stock, because the tax basis was reset as of your wife’s date of death. To figure your potential taxable gain, you can use the closing price of the stock on the day your wife died as your tax basis and calculate any taxable gain by subtracting that per-share price from the price at which you sell the shares.
You would follow this course of action whether your wife held the shares as separate property and then bequeathed them to you, or you held them as community property. Assets bequeathed at death are valued as of the donor’s date of death; community property assets are treated to a full step-up in value upon the death of one spouse. Your wife’s death makes her father’s purchase price for the shares irrelevant. Absent that fact, you would have to know the original purchase price by your father-in-law.
How would you go about finding out the purchase price? You would at least have to know (or be able to reliably estimate) the date the stock was purchased. Armed with that information, you could find out what the stock was trading for at that time using reference materials (such as the stock tables from a daily newspaper or Standard & Poor’s reports available at your public library). A friendly stockbroker could help you as well, although a brokerage might prefer to restrict this service to its paying customers.
If you can’t pinpoint the date of the purchase, pick a reasonable trading price for the shares in the period you believe the purchase was made; an average of the high and low for the month or quarter in question would probably pass muster with the IRS.
Carla Lazzareschi cannot answer mail individually but will respond in this column to financial questions of general interest. Write to Money Talk, Business Section, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or e-mail carla.lazzareschi@latimes.com
