Board Certified In Estate Planning - BCE
Categories: Education, Regulations, Real Estate, Trusts and Estates
We often hear about certain professions being “board certified,” such as surgeons, psychiatrists, and accountants. Who are these boards, and why do professionals have to be certified?
Boards are professional associations that try to maintain standards in order to protect and serve the general public, i.e...you.
The Institute of Business & Finance (IBF) certifies brokers, advisers, and financial planners who are involved in any kind of estate planning. To be certified, you need to have two years of experience in any type of financial services and complete a 60-hour training course. So you can hopefully rest assured that, if your estate planner is board certified, you will be in relatively good hands.
Estate planners help their clients to preserve and distribute their “wealth” (should there be any) upon their demise. It could involve preparing a will, minimizing estate taxes, recommending the right amount of life insurance, choosing an executor, and/or filing the final tax returns. The planner might even help manage a client’s properties or financial obligations if he or she becomes incapacitated. Or, um...decapitated.
The real challenge of an estate planner might be after a client’s death (see the aforementioned decapitation thing), when they have to handle all the complaints from the heirs who feel they just got gypped in the will.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is AICPA?6 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is the AICPA alright people when you think wild and [People dancing in a club]
crazy parties rock stars jumping into swimming pools from the seventh floor [Man jumps off rooftop into swimming pool]
teenagers in skimpy swimsuits running down the halls of hotels you don't think
of the AICPA why because it stands for the American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants and their parties are just different [Group of people sipping cocktails]
yeah the AICPA is responsible for setting US accounting standards it
sets ethical standards so there isn't a CPA somewhere writing off weekly [Roosters preparing to fight]
trips to a cockfighting arena as, you know travel expense it sets all kinds of
professional standards as well like common tax practices, financial statement
auditing practices and quality control for accounting firms so that no matter
which accounting office you visit the coffee in the lobby can't be cold [Man drinking coffee]
come on AICPA you can do better than that all right well the AICPA also puts
together and grades the exam you have to take if you want to become one of those [Boy studying for exam]
accountant people the uniform CPA exam ...Fail to pass that
baby and you may only be able to get a job counting actual beans not the [Man counting beans on conveyor belt]
financial ones so yeah the AICPA is the wizard behind
the curtain of the world of CPA-ing certified public accounting yeah they're
they're just concerned with a different kind of green like AC/DC green [Man singing AC/DC into microphone]