CPAs can take the lead in boomer financial planning.

• Author: Marchant, Amy
• Position: Personal Financial Planning

The baby boomers are rolling toward retirement, and there is much concern about the strain they will put on Social Security and the relatively few active workers who will support them. For CPA personal financial planners, however, this demographic event could be quite profitable: The boomers (defined as those born in the years 1946-1964) will need a wide range of financial planning services and have the money to pay for them.

The following statistics demonstrate the boomers' size and financial power:

* Over the next 20 years, 80 million boomers will retire (Social Security Administration, "Nation's First Baby Boomer Receives Her First Social Security Retirement Benefit" (February 12, 2008), available at www. ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/babyboomerfirstcheck-pr.htm).

* Americans over age. 50 earn nearly $2 trillion annually, control over $7 trillion in wealth, and own 77% of all financial assets in the United States (Ken Dychtwald, cited in L'Allier and Kolosh, "Preparing for Baby Boomer Retirement," Chief Learning Officer (June 2005)).

* Americans over age 50, though only one-quarter of the population, account for almost half of U.S. consumer spending (Capgemini, "The Boomer Effect: The Impact of Baby Boomer Retirement on Corporate America" (January 22, 2007), p. 6, available at www.us. capgemini.com/babyboom/) .

* Boomers spend $241 billion on insurance and financial services, ranking fourth after housing, transportation, and food (id., 8).

* High-spending boomers are expected to inherit $17-20 trillion from their frugal Depression-era parents (id., 10).

Boomers have in common some particular retirement problems, all of which present opportunities for a savvy CPA financial planner.

The Keep Working/Retire Early Contradiction

A critical trend for CPAs to understand and be prepared to address is the disconnect between many boomers' stated intentions to work past the traditional retirement age and the current reality that relatively few workers actually do work past retirement age.

According to the AARP, 80% of boomers say they plan to work at least part-time after retirement age (Roper Starch Worldwide, "Baby Boomers Envision Their Retirement: An AARP Segmentation Analysis" (February 1999), p. 6, available at http://assets.aarp.org/ rgcenter/econ/boomer_seg.pdf). However, people typically retire today at age 62, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (cited in Weston, "7 Pitfalls Retiring Baby Boomers Must Avoid," available at...