Meeting Sponsor for August 1, 2011 - Beverly Brautigam

Past President Beverly Brautigam sponsored today’s meeting.  She indicated that, although most of the members know she is a CPA, they don’t know what she does for a living.  That being said, she admitted to not being into marketing!

She has had some people ask how she managed a tax season when she was President and reminded us that she sold her tax preparation practice in 2006.

She has two aspects of her professional life.  She is an investment advisor and also deals with the tax aspects of divorce. 

As an investment advisor, she handles everything from 529 plans for kids/grandkids, IRA rollovers, general financial planning and has some employee groups where she conducts employee meetings to educate them on asset allocation and choices within their 401(k) plans.

Her broker/dealer is HD Vest, wholly owned by Wells Fargo Bank.  All 7,000 brokers nationally are tax people – mostly CPAs who consider the tax ramifications of the recommended investments.  It’s an independent firm with no proprietary products and no quotas for its brokers – which she thinks is extremely important, along with confidentiality.

The other aspect of her business is helping divorce lawyers state wide with the tax issues in divorce.

In fact, she and Past President Hal Bartholomew (her husband) have taught an 8-hour course, Tax Issues in Divorce, since 1985 for the CA CPA Education Foundation and annually update their textbook.

Beverly has been a court appointed expert and an expert witness in many cases in several counties.  More and more she’s hired as a neutral CPA when the parties are involved with mediation or the collaborative process rather than the litigation model.

That’s what she’s up to when not working on Rotary business, selling wine or having swim bbq parties in her backyard.