Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with the news that the CFP Board is considering waiving the bachelor’s degree requirement to be eligible for marks, and is expected to make a decision in early 2027, renewing the debate over whether the bachelor’s requirement represents an unnecessary barrier to entry into the financial planning profession or an essential baseline standard for knowledge and critical thinking skills (though the decision might ultimately be driven by CFP Board’s goals for overall growth in the number of CFP certificants).
Also in industry news this week:
- Experienced advisors are moving to new firms at a faster rate, with a 16% increase in senior advisor attrition from 2024 to 2025
- Advisory firms are now under the clock to implement new policies under the SEC’s comprehensive Regulation S-P, with the deadline for smaller firms fast-approaching in June
From there, we have several articles on tax:
- Several effective tax planning strategies for high-net-worth clients, from tax-aware long-short investing to private placement life insurance and annuities to strategies for pre-liquidity business owners
- How the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) expanded the Section 1202 Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) rules allowing shareholders of QSBS-eligible companies to exclude up to $15 million in capital gains
- How investors with portfolios that can’t be rebalanced without incurring significant capital gains can transfer those funds into a more tax-efficient ETF wrapper via a Section 351 exchange
We also have a number of articles on practice management:
- How advisory firm founders can adapt as their firms demand different roles from them, while minimizing the risk of burnout or role misalignment
- Why leadership capacity is about more than ‘just’ a lack of time – and why, while a lack of leadership capacity often manifests as a hiring and team retention shortfall, it may need to be solved with different resources
- Why growth opportunities for a firm’s support staff may be the key to long-term growth and team retention
We wrap up with three final articles, all about college sports in the midst of March Madness season:
- Why the odds of picking a 100% perfect NCAA bracket (for all 63 games in the NCAA basketball tournament) are so extremely low that we’ll likely never see it done in our lifetimes
- How structural changes to the business college sports, including allowing payments for athletes’ Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and greater ability to transfer between schools, have reduced the number of unlikely “Cinderella” teams making extended runs in the NCAA basketball tournament
- When a college athlete receives payment for their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), it has the potential to be a life-changing opportunity – but only if they handle it thoughtfully (which most 18-22 year olds could use a lot of trustworthy guidance to learn how to do!)
Enjoy the ‘light’ reading!
