Latest / Financial Planner Search / Disinherit the Government, Not Your Kids with Dean Owen | Financial Planner Search
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- Chase: All right, Mr. Dean Owen, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I've been really looking forward to meeting you. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, Chase. Chase: So let's jump right in. Tell us about your practice and what you specialize in, Dean. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Well kind of a center of the country, Paduka, Kentucky, fly over country. it's nice, great place to be, to live and raise family. just CPA firm been in started in ninety nine, started with the financial services about two thousand three and it's just been a big dead run. I just moved we just moved into a brand new building out on the interstate and just living life. Chase: Congratulations. So tell me the origin story. What inspired you to to do this in the first place? Take me back. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: go all the way back to nineteen ninety, I was in the military and my wife and I went from Connecticut to Seattle and I could not afford to pay my taxes. We went from a position of not having to pay rent to paying rent, and then of course she lost a job. So I kind of got in trouble. And the military had a command financial specialist program. So I normally that's a kind of a punishment, you know, if somebody's bouncing checks all over town, the CO we'll make them go through the course. I actually asked for that course. and I just fell in love with the the financial stuff and the tax stuff. And there was some really, really cool tax breaks for people on submarines and I was on one and nobody could explain it. So I I needed to dig I had to dig dig really deep and do a deep dive into what the section twenty twenty one s had to dive deep into the employee business deductions and from there just started teaching taxes and helping my buddies with taxes, became a command financial specialist, became the Vita site coordinator, and just loving that part of the job. I was special forces and all that stuff and I love that part of the job too. But then of course after the first Gulf War there was a pretty big downsizing and I kind of made a decision I was gonna head go back to college finish up an accounting degree and get into the tax profession. And and it's just that was a whirlwind. So finished undergrad in ninety-six, ended up going back to graduate school and finished that up in ninety nine, got to CPA in ninety-eight, and started my business in ninety nine and with the help of some really great friends and coaches, just we have been on a tear. to where the last five years accounting today is not as noted that I'm one of the top hundred and fifty CPA financial advisors in North America. Chase: Wow, so that experience of almost going broke and then also being in the military at that time. How did being in the military and that other experience shape the way you approach your practice today and the way you deal with clients? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: it helps me tell stories. It helps me relate. I was raised in a very blue-collar environment, so I'm not a guy that was, you know, kinda came straight out of high school, went to college, got a CFP or whatever, and then just started open opening doors. I spent a number of years in private industry and a number of years in the military, and I think that helps me relate a whole lot more than a lot of guys can 'cause I've I've been in the trenches where the where my clients tend to come from. Chase: And so on that note, can you describe the kind of person who comes to you? Who is it typically? Paint me a picture. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: well typically my clients are conservative evangelical patriots. That's that's who I am, that's who my clients are, my tribe are, that's who I fit really well with. outside of that demographic, I'm probably not the right fit. So but inside that demographic, you know, we have a lot of meals together with my team and we always say a prayer before we do that. we talk about faith, we talk about you know divine intervention and things that God's done for my clients' lives, He's done in my life, and there's just been some really, really big things that, you know, God has done that no w no other man could do. Chase: How does your how does your faith influence the way you you treat your clients and your and your business? What how does that philosophy influence what you do? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Well, it it kinda goes it goes back to this commandment to give Caesar what is Caesar's, but not a penny more. So you know, it w money's job is to build God's kingdom, to provide for our substance, and then provide enjoyment. Those are its three purposes. And we talk about building God's kingdom takes money. So the more of it we save from in taxes, then the more we have to give to our churches, give to our places of worship. and build a kingdom here. Chase: And did that have anything to do with your decision to go independent and start your own business back in the day? What was the what was the story there? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Now this it's an interesting one because it applies to the AI story today. went through a big downsizing in the military. I thought that was just unlucky. Went to college and then went to Price Waterhouse as an auditor. six months later they were eliminating a third of their auditors. I thought I was a bad bad penny, bad luck. Went to Air Products to be a controller, that got me home. Back to where my hometown. But six months later they were eliminating a third of the controllers in North America. So that was the second half of the nineties for me. And I I thought at the time it was just very, very unlucky, but it wasn't. It was the advent of computers. the military started using computers, they were able to downsize. Price Waterhouse figured out how to use laptops on audit, make everyone 50% more productive, so lay off a third of your auditors. Air products figured out how to do accounting on the internet, so everyone's more efficient, so you don't need as many. And and looking backwards, I can see that. The only time I was out of a job during the nineties was the two times I chose to go back to undergraduate and then graduate school. But I had some pretty big transitions there. And I think we're gonna do the same thing here now with AI. But I Chase: What's your prediction for that? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: yeah. I thought I was unlucky, but I thought, well, if I'm on the overhead side of the qu fence, then there's always gonna be somebody wanting to cut my salary out, but if I'm on the producing side, Then nobody cuts their production. So that's what caused me to start and decide that I was gonna go down this path as I was coming out of graduate school. Chase: Now you mentioned that you think we're going to see similar changes with the advent of AI. How do you see that playing out? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: I think it's gonna turn a whole lot faster and a whole lot larger magnitude than what we saw in the nineties with the internet. The internet was truly revolutionary. AI is too. AI but with the internet we had to worry about phone modems and build all the computers and get people used to them and all that kind of stuff. now we've already got the computers built, so it's the transition is gonna be much, much faster. But I see it as good. I believe mankind is basically good. And so there will be some bad, but just like the internet, most of it's good. There's a little bit of bad, and that's what we're gonna see with AI. you know, but AI is not just you know talking to Chat GBT, it's self-driving semis and lots of automation that there's gonna be major work shifts. Fortunately, the trucking industry hires drivers from the same labor pool. as construction firms. So as if folks are losing those jobs in the trucking field, they'll be able to pick them up in the construction field. And that's probably how we're gonna balance out some labor shortages we have. Chase: Yeah, I wanted to ask because this is actually coming up in every interview that I do. Everybody it's on everybody's minds and no one's quite sure how it's gonna play out. But yeah, I like the way that you describe it. so when when people first come to you, what are some of the questions that your clients will typically ask when they meet you for the first time? What's keeping them up at night? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: we do more storytelling than we do advising. I think we need to be financial educators, not advisors. So we try to put everything on the table, weigh it out accordingly, and help clients make the decisions that's best for them. the other big one is tax. we embed tax planning at a very, very deep level into every financial conversation. I really don't believe you can be a very good financial advisor if you're not a tax advisor. It's not how much money you make, it's how much how much do you get to keep. And I see lots and lots of mistakes where people are in a low tax bracket and they're not doing Roth conversions and using up that low tax bracket and they're disinheriting their children in in favor of the government. And I tell people frequently, let's come up with a plan to disinherit your the government and not your kids. So and that's that's largely tax planning. Chase: Disinherit the government and not your kids. I like that. you mentioned storytelling. Can you tell me more about that? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Well, it's how do you relate to someone who's maybe scared of their money, they don't understand finance and all that kind of stuff. so typically when I see a client come in, a couple come in, and he's in his late sixties, early seventies, and she is too, and they're coming in talking to a financial advisor, what's really happening there is he's deciding Who's gonna be the money husband when she when he's gone and she's still here? she doesn't know very much about money or fiduciary, so we're gonna do what's right for clients ahead of our own selves. And when they get comfortable with that, then they start to understand that let's talk about these large IRAs and 401ks, and let's talk about systematically moving money from that that to a Roth in a very systematic way. And we do that with a scalpel, not a chainsaw. And over the years work them into a point where their entire retirement is tax free. And then of course when they're gone and that goes to their children, their children inherit the Roth it's tax free. And they may not inherit as many absolute dollars, but you don't inherit an IRA. You inherit what's left over in the IRA after taxes. So we're able to put generally put the kids in a much better cash position, how much spendable cash are they gonna have? and that takes it takes years. years of planning and systematic making decisions. you know there's different tax brackets, but there's also Medicare brackets. So the more you make the more you have to pay in Medicare. And typically those clients are in that age where you know we gotta look at both of those because at 63, that's gonna determine how much your Medicare premium is when you're 65. So lots of decisions around that that time frame, th that process and oftentimes people are in their peak earning years in their early sixties, so it's not a good time to do Roth conversions. So it's it's about timing and I tell everybody you need two tax returns a year. One to satisfy the IRS to keep happy. Another one to pass I mean, to protect us from the IRS, that comes late in the year, it's a projection for What decisions do we need to make before the end of the year and make those decisions and make those things happen? Chase: And so when when people first find you, when people first come to you, what are some of the questions they typically ask when they meet you for the first time? What's keeping them up at night? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: it's about relationships. it it centers a whole lot more about their their personalities, my personalities. do we fit? Do we have a common belief system, common values? anything in the finance space we can do. So it's not a matter of are we limited, we're not. But it's you know, values and looking at portfolios from the standpoint of we don't want a bunch of Chinese tech companies in there and you know, trying to focus on what do what do we share in our beliefs? I'm a big believer in US investing. I'm not very big on international. I know some people disagree, but if you look at any five year ro rolling gross period, since nineteen hundred the United States beats everybody. So you know, it's just seems to make sense to do what has worked before and it will continue to work again. Chase: So how how does that conversation usually look, that first conversation? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: it's just it's a get to know you conversation. I want to know about them, know about their tax situation, of course, and their financial situation, but more about what about their kids? sometimes families will have a problem my problematic child. My my brother's one. so how do you deal with that? it's maybe someone's not gonna be independent when they they're never gonna be able to live i live independent. How do we do the planning for that? Are the kids all in great shape? what tax bracket do they think the kids are in? And mom and dad n usually doesn't know exactly how much money the son-in-law and daughter make, but they've got a pretty good idea. So then we gotta look at who's who's better off to pay the tax. If the kids, if you've got one kid that's a rocket scientist and the other one's a clerk at Dollar General, then how do we balance out their portfolios and inheritance so that They both get the maximum spendable cash. So you let the child that's rocket scientists inherit the the Roth, let the one that's clerk in Dollar General inherit IRA, because the one dollar general is going to pay a lower tax bracket. So a lot of conversations around that about, you know, what what does their personal life look like, need, what desires do they have? What what do they want? You know, what's what what do they want their pat their story to be when they're done? Chase: It sounds like legacy is a really big part of these conversations. Very common. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: It is. It is. yeah. We ta and we talk a lot about generational wealth for generational health. You know, if my office I when I built my build building, I put in a gym and a hyperbarbolic chamber because I want my employees to be healthy. And I and you know clients need to understand if they're not taking care of their health, it doesn't matter what happens with their money. Is if your health goes, your money's irrelevant. So how do you take care of that? I periodically asked questions, when was the last time you had a checkup? And here it was pew a couple of years ago, but one client is named Mike, he was just petrified of doctors. but I asked him, so when was your last checkup? He hadn't seen a doctor in 35 years. And finally he went and he found the doctors found a number of pre-cancerous cases and issues that they were able to fix and was okay. But if he had not had that conversation, had not gone to see that doctor, it probably would have killed him. So, you're you're having the conversations are all over the place. And you know, money's to serve a purpose and what does that purpose look like for that client? And and have all the conversations about it's not just about having a bunch of money. that's always nice to have a bunch of money, but if you don't have the health and wellness to enjoy it, what's the use? What's the point? You know? you're you're not saving your money so you can make sure your kids get a nice inheritance, you know. I although that the original book textbook does tell us that a good man will leave enough for his children and his grandchildren, so to have an inheritance. So Yeah, d being good stewards of money is important. Chase: So what is a typical situation that you helped lead someone through? t can you do you have any stories that pop up where you help someone get from point A, not great, to point B Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Yeah. Chase: feeling pretty good? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Yeah. We t the some of the big franchise chains, they have they are very, very cookie cutter solutions. They everybody's gonna get basically the same thing. And there's not very much they're able to do because of the way they're regulated and the way the industry regulates them. so we're able to build portfolios that fit, that make sense. we manage those and b the big one is the tax planning that goes alongside the financial planning and the legacy planning. And you know, taking a couple that has half a million dollars or so in IRAs and then systematically over a number of years, and it may take ten years or more, of doing fairly significant Roth conversions, keeping them just under the twenty-two percent or the next Medicare tax bracket and just doing those conversions and then as they're running through the year we're living off the rough and then at the end of the year, you know, the taxable income is going to be low, but then we can make a very conscious decision how much do we want to convert. That's that's a really big part of what we do. But it's also the long-term care planning. I'm not very big on annuities. I I think they're oversold a lot, but there is a time and a place for all things under the sun. one of those is we use a fixed annuity for long term care planning. It's It's a horrible investment, but it provides phenomenal long-term care coverage. also if you've got a child that doesn't need to inherit a large large amount of cash, you know, there's another place for a fixed annuity. But those are pretty limited cases, but when you know those needs come up, they're important to have those access to those products. Chase: So you when you talked about this client of yours who you were you told him, Hey, you should go and visit the doctor, it's been thirty five years, you gotta take care of your health. How often do you find yourself having those conversations with your clients where you're helping them with life things and health things, giving them advice in other areas, instead of, just talking about the numbers? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Yeah, we we'll have that conversation with every client every year, at least once a year. And it's not probing, it's not getting in their business. It's just, hey, have you when when was the last checkup? How's your health? do we need to plan for that? Because of course, met with a client earlier today and she's should have been she should have passed away. She had several medical conditions. And so working up through that so that if she does go away, how is he gonna be left? Or if he goes away, how's she gonna be left? you know, your health decisions or health conditions go into Social Security planning significantly. You know, if he's somewhat older and she's somewhat younger and he was definitely that hybrid a high income earner, should we hold him to seventy before he starts his social security? Because when he passes, she'll be able to get his social security and give her some longevity insurance. do they have longevity in their family? my wife's family, they all live to a hundred years old. So that's a little bit different planning for me than we would be for somebody else. But you know, you gotta get into all that kind of stuff with people. And sometimes those conversations are not pleasant, but they're important. I I absolute hate asking a client, hey, how are your kids? Are they do they get drug problems? Are they, you know, other kind of problems when you think about I hate asking those questions, but I have to if I'm gonna do my job well. Chase: And then how often do you ha do you find clients coming to you to talk about things outside of financial planning? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: very frequently I tell people we're a financial psychologist. You know, it's because money is money's not the most important thing. It never should be. But it is the most one of the top five for everyone. And you know, we don't Chase: Yes. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: talk about money openly. It it's very, very personal. And we're getting beep in p people's financial underwear drawer. So Chase: I like that analogy. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Yeah, you gotta y you gotta have the you gotta have those conversations if you're really gonna help people. Chase: So we have a pretty clear vision and painting of who you work with, Dean. What's a list of traits of someone who you absolutely would not work with if they came to you today and said, Dean, I want to work with you and you would say no. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: And we do turn away probably twenty percent of the folks that come in because our values don't align. we don't have investment minimums. You know, I I think we you know when you get somebody that's small, I think we need to help them grow into being a a wealthy taxpayer. But you know, if our values don't align, we're I'm not a fit. I think clients need financial advice and tax advice that comes from the same value perspective as they do. And if our values don't align, then we're not gonna line up. and and I don't mean that negatively, it's just, my values will offend some people and that's not gonna be that's not gonna be a good relationship. So that's the number one thing we look at. the other thing is we tend to do very well with blue collar world because I came from I came from a very poor, poor blue collar environment. my dad finally got us out of poverty when I was in high school, but it took until then. So I understand money and I understand a a fear and a a fear of scarcity. And I also some understand that you have at at certain p points in time you gotta help a client move from a mindset of scarcity to a mindset of abundance and you know, make decisions from there. So that's that's who we work with. Not a lot of work for Mostly the mass affluent. we have some very high net worth families. we do really well with business owners that are going through transitions. I've helped a number of go through pri sell their business to private equity for very big sums of money. So helping them work through that and get it done in ways that there's lots of capital gains and very little ordinary income. So but you know, I'm a regular guy. I ride horses or I used to ride motor motorcycles, I don't do that anymore. But just Yeah, I was raised a redneck kid in western Kentucky. Chase: Awesome. That's a very unique story and I lo and I love it. Where do you typically find your clients or how do they typically find you? what's your Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: we do a show on fr with the Freedom Chamber every Wednesday. I just d did one a little earlier today. And you can find that at fre freedomchamber.net or you go to our website, ONCPA.com and under resources there's a Freedom Chamber and there's about a year's worth of shows there. Please look at the most recent ones because they're the ones I did when I started first started got kind of became kind of bonehead mode, but later got got it down. so that yeah. So that's you know, those guys are doing God's work and I glad I enjoyed being able to plug in with them. I also do some things with the Christian Employers Alliance. for many business owners, if you don't know who they are, you need to look th look them up. They're they're doing God's work. so those are the channels that usually bring folks make but that's that's what makes my telephone ring. Chase: So when it comes to your practice, what's your what's your vision, Dean? Where do you see it going in the next one to three years? What are you, what are you working on? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: I see significant growth. I mean we we just moved into a new building that we built purpose built for this for what we do. and I'm seeing quite a bit of revenue growth and seeing a lot of c new clients and a lot of new faces and helping a lot of people and making a lot of friendships. Chase: Awesome. Love it. So as your practice has grown, are there any programs or training or people who have had a lot of influence on how you serve your clients and how you approach your business? Is there anyone you'd like to shout out? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: probably the broker dealer at Bantax, they're designed around the CPA financial advisor. That's who it's a culture. and it's a different culture than you would find at one of the franchise change places. it's very much like a family. They've been a b very bright spot, very bright part of my my history and I look back very fondly with that. had a few people come and go, but of course I've been in business twenty seven years. So there's been a lot of names that have come and gone and and I I've got a phenomenal team, love to death. just I wish I could find more of Chase: Awesome. So let's say, Dean, that I wanna I wanna become your client today. So walk me for wal walk me through what it was what does that look like? What does onboarding look like? What happens in the first four to eight weeks and what does it look like working with you over the course of a calendar year? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Okay, so we first get together and have some conversations. We do a lot of meetings on Zoom and seeing if there's a fit where we can help. can I save them more in taxes than they're paying in fees? That's important to me, because then my fees are not fees, they're investments. You know, if you give me a dollar and I save you three, that wasn't a fee, that was an investment. so can I do that? Can I deliver that value? Sometimes I can't. I met with a client yesterday that I was not going to be able to do that for them. So it great culture, but still just wasn't a good fit. onboarding is typically part of my operations team. They do all the paperwork. I really don't know how I used to be the tech guru, now I'm the tech dinosaur. So you know the the girls take care of everything for us. They're they're phenomenal. they get all the paperwork done. And then typically when the first quarter we have a quarterly statement that comes out. I'm gonna ask a client to come in and go we want to go through that with them. And of course there's the personal conversations are always going on in the background. And then every quarter client gets a call and says, Hey, do we need to talk? Is there anything going on that you need that we need to know about that we can help with? and if not, that's fine, no problem. But if there is something and oftentimes clients are I need to call, I need to call but this gets in the way, this gets in the way, this gets in the way. But then our outreach is enough to bring that conversation to the table and we can help figure out what are they struggling with. we spend a lot of time talking about how to make sure your affairs are in order so that your kids don't go through a nightmare. when my pre when my mom passed, dad went to a nursing home for three years and they had absolutely nothing done and it was a bloody nightmare. So I can tell that and relate that story to some clients that lived through that, but then I'm pretty adamant with clients that hey, we're not gonna leave your kids in that situation. We're not gonna do that to them. What you know, let's get our affairs in order. And yeah, I know people don't like talking about wills because they feel like they're bringing something on themselves, but if you pass away without a will, you you've everyone has a will, either the one you prepare or the one the state prepared. Which one is it? Which one do you want? you you you get a choice, but you need to make the choice. So if you don't if you decide not to decide, you still have made a choice. Chase: So, Dean, for someone listening who wants to get in touch with you, what should they do next? Where should they go? Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: go to ONCPA.com. That's O W E N C P A dot com. There's a landing page there. Put your name, email address in it, and connect with my team. And we'll help you start f formulating a plan to disinherit the government and not your kids. Chase: Excellent. Awesome. Dean, thank you so much for taking the time with me today. Dean Owen CPA, MST PFS: Thanks, Chase. I appreciate it.