No matter what the size of their books, advisors say tax and estate planning support is important to them. When asked to to rate their importance, the 1,430 advisors surveyed for the 2005 Report Cards issued an average score of 7.6 and 7.7, respectively.

Yet advisors don’t seem to get the kind of support they would like. When asked to rank their firms on their support, average scores were not much more than passable — 6.4 and 7.1, respectively — although individual firms may have excelled.

There is no doubt the level of support varies across channels and firms. Although firms offer support, it may not be in-house support. And if it is in-house, the person offering the support, particularly in the field, may not be professionally trained in tax and estate planning.

Stephen Szikora, director of ethics, legal and regulatory affairs at the Toronto-based
Financial Planners Standards Council, which sets the curriculum for the certified financial planner designation, says many advisors rely on their product suppliers for assistance with tax and estate planning questions.

Some mutual fund and insurance companies have experienced tax and estate lawyers and
accountants at their head offices, and advisors can telephone these experts for help. But, says Szikora, if a company offers field support, many of those people are not lawyers and accountants. As a result, advisors often turn to local lawyers and accountants for help.

Part of the issue regarding the level of support may be cost. The cost to firms of finding and funding someone proficient in tax and estate planning can be high — especially if the firm’s model is bare-bones service.

Another factor, says Szikora, is that tax and estate planning has only recently become a high-profile specialty within the legal profession. Szikora is a member of the Canadian chapter of the international Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, known as STEP Canada, which was formed in 1998. Forty per cent of STEP Canada’s members are identified as working in the trustee, insurance or financial area.

All the big banks have estate planning arms and most of those employees are STEP Canada members. This is reflected in the advisor ratings: account managers gave their firms the highest ratings for estate-planning support, an average of 7.0.

A third factor may be that advisors have successful relationships with specialists at the few mutual fund and insurance companies that have developed support teams. The tax and estate planning group at Toronto-based AIM Funds Management Inc. is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Burlington, Ont.-based AIC Ltd. and, more recently, Mackenzie Financial Corp. of Toronto have likewise followed in AIM’s footsteps.

Jamie Golombek, AIM’s vice president of taxation and estate planning, says that during the past 10 years, advisors have become more sophisticated in their understanding of tax and estate matters. In the beginning, he says, advisors called with very basic questions about RRSPs. Now, they’re asking about issues such as the tax implications of individual pension plans.

“Advisors don’t have to know everything,” says Florence Marino, assistant vice president of tax and estate planning at Manulife Financial Corp. in Kitchener, Ont. She notes that most insurance advisors concentrate on sales, so they can’t be expected to know everything about the ever-changing, highly technical world of tax and estate planning.

CFP-designated professionals are expected to have fundamental knowledge of all areas of financial planning that could affect a client, says Carolyn Fallis, director of professional affairs for the FPSC. However, she notes, “CFPs should be aware of their limitations. It’s referred to in our practice standards as a guideline.”

It’s very common for advisors to develop a “seamless team” of professionals, Fallis says, which may include tax and estate planning lawyers and accountants from product suppliers or private practice.

This idea of the advisor as a tax and estate planning “quarterback” is also put forward by Advocis’s Chartered Life Underwriter Institute. “We would say to the public, if an advisor has a CLU designation, he or she is now qualified to give advice on tax and estate planning — in particular, the insurance applications that would go along with those two subjects,” says Kristan Birchard, chairman of the Toronto-based institute.

Birchard says the advisor has to know the “triggering events” that would require consulting other professionals such as lawyers and accountants. IE