Posts by Shawn Janes

Good to Know By September, the best year-end tax planning is already moving — and 2026 is not a year to run on autopilot. It’s the first full year every provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is in effect at once, and several of the most useful ones come with a clock.[1] The…

Good to Know Most planners treat Medicare as a box the client checks at 65 and a problem for an insurance agent after that. That’s a mistake this year. On April 2, CMS finalized its Contract Year 2027 rule for Medicare Advantage and Part D, and the changes land right in the retirement-income plans you’ve…

Good to Know Almost every retirement plan you have ever built rests on one quiet assumption: that a client’s spending will climb year after year, in lockstep with inflation. New research says that assumption isn’t merely conservative — it’s usually wrong, and it may be telling your clients they can’t afford a retirement they can…

Good to Know Most firms decide how much service a client receives by looking at one number: assets under management. It’s clean, it’s easy to defend, and it’s often wrong. The client who pays you the most is not necessarily the client who needs the most — and building your calendar around AUM quietly over-serves…

Good to Know Most CFP® professionals read the Fitness Standards exactly once — years ago, on the way to the marks — and never again. The rules that decide who is fit to hold the certification feel like someone else’s problem right up until they aren’t. This year, that’s worth revisiting. On June 1, 2026,…

Good to Know Walk into almost any failed financial plan and you will rarely find a flawed spreadsheet. The asset allocation was reasonable. The tax strategy held up. The insurance recommendation fit the need. What went wrong happened after the meeting ended—in the quiet months when the client was supposed to act on advice they…

Good to Know Many planning failures are not technical failures. They are communication failures. A recommendation may be mathematically correct while still being poorly understood by the client. Complex conversations involving retirement income, taxes, estate planning, or long-term care frequently overwhelm clients with too much information at once. Behavioral finance research suggests information overload reduces…