10 Questions to ask a Financial Planner before hiring

1. What experience do you have?

Find out how long the planner has been in practice and the number and types of companies with which she has been associated. Ask the planner to briefly describe her work experience and how it relates to her current practice. Choose a financial planner who has experience counseling individuals on their financial needs.

2. What are your qualifications?

The term "financial planner" is used by many financial professionals. Ask the planner what qualifies him to offer financial planning advice and whether he is recognized as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional or CFP® practitioner, a Certified Public Accountant/ Personal Financial Specialist (CPA/PFS), or a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC). Look for a planner who has proven experience in financial planning topics such as insurance, tax planning, investments, estate planning or retirement lanning.

Determine what steps the planner takes to stay current with changes and developments in the financial planning field. If the planner holds a financial planning designation or certification, check on his background with CFP Board or other relevant professional organizations.

3. What services do you offer?

The services a financial planner offers depend on a number of factors including credentials, licenses and

areas of expertise. Generally, financial planners cannot sell insurance or securities products such as mutual funds or stocks without the proper licenses, or give investment advice unless registered with state or Federal authorities. Some planners offer financial planning advice on a range of topics but do not sell financial products. Others may provide advice only in specific areas such as estate planning or on tax matters.

4. What is your approach to financial planning?

Ask the financial planner about the type of clients and financial situations she typically likes to work with.

Some planners prefer to develop one plan by bringing together allof your financial goals. Others provide advice on specific areas, as needed. Make sure the planner's viewpoint on investing is not too cautious or overly aggressive for you. Some planners require you to have a certain net worth before offering services.

Find out if the planner will carry out the financial recommendations developed for you or refer you to others who will do so.

5. Will you be the only person working with me?

The financial planner may work with you himself or have others in the office assist him. You may want to meet everyone who will be working with you. If the planner works with professionals outside his own practice (such as attorneys, insurance agents or tax specialists) to develop or carry out financial planning recommendations, get a list of their names to check on their backgrounds.

6. How will I pay for your services?

As part of your financial planning agreement, the financial planner should clearly tell you in writing how she will be paid for the services to be provided.

Planners can be paid in several ways:

A salary paid by the company for which the planner works. The planner's employer receives payment from you or others, either in fees or commissions, in order to pay the planner's salary.

Fees based on an hourly rate, a flat rate, or on a percentage of your assets and/or income.

Commissions paid by a third party from the products sold to you to carry out the financial planning recommendations. Commissions are usually a percentage of the amount you invest in a product.

A combination of fees and commissions whereby fees are charged for the amount of work done to develop financial planning recommendations and commissions are received from any products sold. In addition, some planners may offset some portion of the fees you pay if they receive commissions for carrying out their recommendations.

7. How much do you typically charge?

While the amount you pay the planner will depend on your particular needs, the financial planner should be able to provide you with an estimate of possible costs based on the work to be performed. Such costs should include the planner's hourly rates or flat fees or the percentage he would receive as commission on products you may purchase as part of the financial planning recommendations.

8. Could anyone besides me benefit from your recommendations?

Some business relationships or partnerships that a planner has could affect her professional judgment while working with you, inhibiting the planner from acting in your best interest. Ask the planner to provide you with a description of her conflicts of interest in writing. For example, financial planners who sell insurance policies, securities or mutual funds have a business relationship with the companies that provide these financial products. The planner may also have relationships or partnerships that should be disclosed to you, such as business she receives for referring you to an insurance agent, accountant or attorney for implementation of planning suggestions.

9. Have you ever been publicly disciplined for any unlawful or unethical actions in your professional career?

Several government and professional regulatory organizations, such as the National Association of  Securities Dealers (NASD), your state insurance and securities departments, and CFP Board keep records on the disciplinary history of financial planners and advisers. Ask what organizations the planner is regulated by and contact these groups to conduct a background check. (See listing at right.) All financial planners

who have registered as investment advisers with the Securities and Exchange Commission or state securities agencies, or who are associated with a company that is registered as an investment adviser, must be able to provide you with a disclosure form called Form ADV Part II or the state equivalent of that form.

10. Can I have it in writing?

Ask the planner to provide you with a written agreement that details the services that will be provided. Keep this document in your files for future reference.

7 ways to Protect Your Privacy

"7 Ways to Protect Your Privacy"  

The last few years have witnessed an all-out assault on your personal and financial privacy. Credit-reporting agencies, schools, Internet marketers, medical clearing-houses, and dozens of other private organizations all now maintain detailed records on us. However, by far the worst offender has been the U.S. government.

1. Keep your mouth shut.  Libertarian, tax, and investment conferences are regularly attended by government moles who are looking for mouthy braggarts.The first law of privacy is: Keep your mouth shut, particularly when you're in public, on the phone, or sending faxes or e-mail. In fact, electronic communications are now so vulnerable to interception by government agencies, private investigators, and other snoops, that you shouldn't say anything in these communications you wouldn't want published on the front page of the New York Times or recorded by the IRS. 

2. Don't flaunt your wealth, particularly if you have a lot of money. If you own a fancy home, make sure it looks as modest as possible from the outside. Don't drive a brand-new luxury car, and don't pay for a new apartment or house in cash. The IRS regularly searches car-purchase and property records. If they suspect tax evasion – real or imagined – they can freeze your assets, and seize your car and home. When traveling overseas, you have to be even more careful. Driving a fancy car or dressing like a "rich" American – i.e., the way you normally dress – can make you a target for robbers, kidnappers and anti-American terrorists. Also limit your credit card use. Every time you use your credit card, thieves could steal the number and rack up huge charges. It could take months or even years to get it all sorted out. 

3. Shred or burn important documents. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it's 100% legal for snoops to rummage through your curbside trash and keep any papers they find. So never throw any important papers in the trash without shredding them – including bank and credit-card statements, utility bills, letters from Social Security or other government agencies, information from your stock broker, etc. Make sure and use a cross-cut shredder ($100-$150) which reduces documents to confetti, rather than a less-expensive shredder that cuts paper into strips which can be pasted back together. For ultra-sensitive documents, nothing beats burning them.

4. Isolate sensitive computer files from snoops. As we use our computers more and more to keep sensitive records and correspondence, it becomes more important to protect them from snoops. 

The #1 threat to your sensitive files is your modem, fax, or DSL Internet connection – anything that electronically connects your computer to the outside world. Thanks to cookies, e-mail wiretaps, and other techniques, when you're browsing the web or reading your e-mail, snoops at the other end can download files from your computer hard drive. The only sure way to protect yourself is by keeping all sensitive information on a different computer (or at least a different hard drive with its own, separate operating system) than the computer you use for web browsing. In other words, you use Computer #1 to browse the web and send e-mail; and you use Computer #2 for word processing, accounting, and storing important information. Computer #1 has no important files or sensitive information. Computer #2 has no electronic connection to the outside world. To minimize expenses, your two computers can share the same keyboard and monitor, by the addition of a network hub (about $100). 

5. Keep your web browsing and e-mail private. Whenever you contact a company or organization on the Internet, the computer at the other end will often insert a "cookie" into your computer – enabling merchants and government agencies to keep track of your web browsing. The information that can be collected about you in this way is absolutely mind-boggling and includes your name, address, phone number, detailed information on the type of computer you are using, your Social Security number, credit-card numbers, a list of your friends and business contacts, and much more. To keep your web browsing private, use an anonymous connection service, such as Anonymizer (http://www.anonymizer.com).  

Another alternative is Hushmail, based in Anguilla, which offers a free e-mail service that allows you to encrypt e-mail using ultra-powerful 1024-bit encryption. For further protection, encrypt your e-mail, using high-level, 1024-bit encryption software, such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). http:// www.pgp.com 

Zero Knowledge Systems (ZKS) offers software called "Freedom" which also uses 1024-bit encryption and which: Allows you to use multi-pseudonyms that can't be traced to your real name Prevents the receipt of Internet cookies Provides multi-layers of encryption  

6. Keep your home address and phone private. This is the single most important step you can take to protect your privacy. Government snoops can't nose around your home, bug your computer, or listen in on your calls, if they don't know where you live or what your phone number is. To keep your home address private, rent or buy your home in the name of an out-of-state corporation (Delaware and Nevada corporations are best). Also put your utilities in the name of the corporation, as well as your phone, and magazine and newspaper subscriptions. This is precisely what TV personalities, professional athletes, and film stars do to protect their privacy. And it's not expensive. A Delaware corporation can be set up for as little as $150 and maintained for $50 a year! Receive all mail personally addressed to you at a nearby mail drop, such as Mail Boxes, Etc. (about $15 a month), or an Executive Office Service ($50 to $150 a month), or at the address of a friend who owns a nearby business (free). Then use this address for your driver's license and car registration. Naturally, your car will also be registered in the name of your corporation. Properly set up, a Delaware or Nevada corporation can also dramatically lower your taxes, if you're an independent contractor. (Please consult your attorney.) For a private home phone, use a company name when setting up a new phone account, rather than your own, and make sure and get caller ID, complete blocking. To add a further level of phone privacy, purchase a prepaid cell phone – such as those offered by Trac Fone through Blockbuster, WalMart, and Staples. No name, address, credit check, etc. is required to set up an account, and you can buy phone cards for cash to add more time.  

7. Keep your medical records more private. Information in your medical files can be used to deny you insurance, jobs, and legal benefits. It could be even used by a government just slightly more authoritarian than the one we now have, to take away your children or commit you to a mental hospital. Unfortunately, each time you see a doctor or check into a hospital or clinic, they will usually demand your Social Security Number, which in turn will be used to file and locate your medical records. You can protect yourself from unwanted snooping by getting an alternative Medical photo ID from ID Network (IDN). No SSN is required, and medical records are kept in your own handwriting.

The Crucial Importance Of Privacy Philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand once commented that the development of civilization and freedom are inseparable from the increase in personal privacy. In a primitive society there is no privacy or freedom. The tribe knows all and controls everything you do. But in the civilized society, we each have a crucial zone of privacy shielding us from outside snooping and control. Privacy is about keeping more of what you earn – protecting the sensitive information in your computer - avoiding being hassled by the IRS or police – protecting your children – and minimizing your chances of a 2 am visit by a machine-gun-toting SWAT team.  

The battle for your privacy is the battle for your freedom. Ultimately it is a battle we will win. Twenty years from now we'll look back at intrusive Big Brother government the same way we now look at dinosaurs: Huge and ferocious, but dead.