contributed by Peter Dougherty, CFP®, CRPC®, EFP (Spain) of BISSAN Wealth Management

You take a long trip in your car on I-95 as you listen to the car radio. Occasionally, you encounter a local radio station that plays great music. Then you drive beyond the broadcasting range of their radio tower. The signal of the next town’s radio station starts to come through on your radio, though it’s not clear reception either.

Do Americans who live in Spain face something similar as it relates to their finances?

Peter Dougherty thinks so. Peter is the financial planner at BISSAN Wealth Management who offers financial guidance to Americans living in Spain. But instead of unclear radio reception from broadcasting towers, he believes Americans receive incomplete, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting advice about the financial rules and regulations they need to follow in the United States and Spain.

As Mr. Dougherty says, “It’s much easier for Americans who live in the United States to comply with IRS and other U.S. regulations. For those who live outside the US, the situation is more complex. Within Spain, the financial landscape is also complicated for these expats. Spain’s regulatory environment simply aligns much better for residents of the European Union who move there than for Americans who do so. When you add cultural and language differences to this equation, it adds up to a long list of financial challenges for any American living in Spain.”

Unfortunately, unlike radio stations, these Americans can’t simply drive to the next town where they’ll get clearer reception. That’s why Peter works as a financial planner at BISSAN Wealth Management in Spain. To be effective in his work, Mr. Dougherty became certified as a European Financial Advisor in Spain. Later, he added certifications as a European Financial Planner in Spain, a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor® in the United States, and earned a master’s degree in Spanish taxation from Nebrija University. But he didn’t stop there: he became a Certified Financial Planner® professional in the United States this month.

Peter chose to work at BISSAN Wealth Management to blend his skills with the talent of local experts who know Spain. It’s an effective combination. Uniting a native English speaker who understands finance in the U.S. and Spain with a successful Spanish financial firm enables BISSAN to provide clear and complete financial guidance to Americans in Spain.

As Dougherty says, “BISSAN’s method for helping families with their financial plans is second to none. We sort through all the static to deliver just the right frequency to our American clients.

Unlike other firms, who begin the conversation talking about ‘investment returns’, BISSAN begins by asking about you. We learn about your financial goals, what you’d like to accomplish. It could be retirement, funding your children’s education, buying a home, etc. We ask about your income and assets to help fund these goals. Maybe you’ll collect social security in the U.S. or Spain, maybe you still have retirement accounts or real estate in the U.S., etc. We quantify these goals in our inventive optimization model to determine your future cash outflows and parks the moneys necessary for these expenses 5 years before they’re due. Once future outflows are safely covered in this way, the market’s ups and downs won’t be a concern like they once would have been.”

Dougherty concludes: “because Spain and the U.S. broadcast on their own frequency, having a financial planner with an antenna in both countries is vital. By now becoming a CFP®, I’m ensuring that the financial signals I receive from the U.S. continue to remain strong and clear.”

Peter Dougherty is a financial planner at BISSAN Wealth Management who helps Americans in Spain. He holds an MBA in Finance and a BS in Economics in the United States and a MS in taxation (Máster en Fiscalidad y Tributación) in Spain. He is the author of two financial planning books: “The Dougherty Code: Secrets of Financial Planning in Spain” and “La Hoja de Ruta Fiscal y Financiera para los españoles en EE.UU.” (Spanish). For more information: financial-planning-in-spain.com

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