James DiLellio’s Award-Winning Research Featured in ThinkAdvisor

In early November, James DiLellio, Pepperdine Graziadio Business School associate professor of decision sciences, along with Andreas Simon of the University of Southern California, were honored with a 2022 Best Papers Award by the CFP Board’s Center for Financial Planning at their sixth annual Academic Research Colloquium. They were recognized for their presentation of a paper titled “Seeking Tax Alpha in Retirement Income.” The paper details how financial advisors and their clients can generate a meaningful amount of “tax alpha” by rethinking the retirement income planning process. 

DiLellio was interviewed by John Manganaro at ThinkAdvisor about the research and explained how advisors should rethink the so-called “common rule” retirement account withdrawal strategy. This involves deeper consideration of the client’s ability or desire to bequeath assets to the next generation and greater attention being paid to the heir’s anticipated future tax burden. By taking a smarter approach, advisors and their clients can extend the lifetime of a given portfolio by several years. 

“Ultimately, our findings challenge the conventional wisdom advocated by many CPAs to defer taxes for as long as possible,” DiLellio said in the article. 

Read the full interview in ThinkAdvisor.