Click on any item below for more information.
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All clients of White Lighthouse Investment Management are entitled to have an account on our private file server. Your account can be accessed at this link: https://wlim.sharefile.com. If you have forgotten your username or password or would like an additional account for your spouse or other family member, please let us know. As a best practice for the security of your information we strongly recommend that you enable 2-factor authentication with your ShareFile account. It is now required and ShareFile will force weak passwords to be changed.
Your quarterly reports are generally ready before the end of 2nd working day of each quarter and will be copied to your private folders. Historical reports are also retained. The completion of the quarterly reporting is announced but a short email, where you will also find the quarterly newsletter attached. Additionally, every client has online access and receives paper or electronic account information directly from the custodian bank or brokerage firm where the accounts are established. If you notice any discrepancies or have any questions about our reports, please contact us as soon as you can, and we will research the questions.
White Lighthouse Investment Management does not hold custody of your assets, and receiving reports from both us and your custodian is for your protection.
In addition to quarterly reporting, other information available on ShareFile includes:
Prior Newsletters
The latest ADV forms filed with FINRA for both Individuals and the Firm
Trade Errors and Proxy Voting Policies
Proxy Votes
Reference Material (e.g., how to read our reports)
Clients may also store information in their private folders, especially if this is information, they would like us to keep on record.
If there is any other information you would like to see in the public section of this system, please let us know.
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The SEC (US Securities Regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission) requires us to circulate, at least annually, our latest Privacy Policy and to inform you that our ADV Part 2 Brochures are available. You may request any of these documents in electronic or paper format. We will leave our Privacy Policy at the end of each newsletter and allow this to serve as a regular reminder of our updated ADV forms. These filings change periodically throughout the year and for any material changes we will also announce them in our newsletter.
In the United States, if you would like to read additional disclosure and background information on any investment advisor, broker or firm, you can find more information at this link: http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/IapdMain/iapd_SiteMap.aspx
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October 15th is the annual deadline for filing of the FBAR reports for US citizens who have non-US financial accounts worth more than $10,000 at any time during the year. For Overseas Americans, this form seems rather intrusive, but it is mandatory and the fines for failure to file and failure to report income from these accounts are severe. The FBAR form is being replaced by the new form FINCEN 114.
Starting back on July 1, 2013, these forms must be submitted electronically, paper versions of the forms will not be accepted in the future. Please check with your tax preparer to see if you or they will be filing the FBARs for you. Below are some links where you can read more. The first one is ironic. The place that you go to file your forms is headed by “Financial Crimes Enforcement Network”; as though having accounts overseas makes you guilty until proven innocent by filing your forms:
FINCEN link – Where forms can be filed:
https://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/main.html -
(Formerly 72 and previously 70.5 and for individuals who turned 70.5 in 2019 or earlier.)
Most US taxpayers who have IRA, 401k, 403b or similar accounts will be required to make an annual distribution by December 31st from their accounts or face a 50% penalty of the required amount from the IRS. For many of these accounts the broker will calculate the RMD amount for you and remind you about making the distribution. We can help to manage this process for you and arrange for the distributions to be sent out by check, transferred to a bank account, or transferred to an investment account. We generally make these distributions, unless otherwise requested or needed for income, in the 4th quarter. Monthly, quarterly, or on-demand distributions can also be arranged.
RMD amounts are re-calculated each year based on the account value on December 31st and IRS tables related to the ages of the account holders. Some accounts (e.g., inherited IRAs) often do not have RMD calculations from the broker since these can have somewhat more complicated distribution formulas. Other accounts such as Roth IRAs are not subject to RMDs.
If you have any questions about Required Minimum Distributions, please let us know.
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If you are a US taxpayer with earned income in 2024 or 2025 you might be able to contribute to an IRA account and this contribution may be tax deductible. If your employer pension plan is not tax qualified in the US (e.g., most plans outside the US) then regardless of your income, you will be able to make a “deductible” contribution to your IRA account. There are many different types of IRA accounts, Traditional, Roth, SEP etc. The general contribution limit for employees is $7000 in 2024 and 2025 per individual per year and $8000 for both years if you are over 50 years of age
You generally have until April 15th of the following tax year to contribute, though this deadline can be extended for SEP (generally for self-employed or employees of the self-employed) IRA contributions.
IRA Accounts are a great way to supplement your retirement savings. For many clients, we help to make regular annual IRA contributions from their brokerage accounts to their IRA accounts. If you would like assistance with this or if you have any questions on whether your current year contributions have been made, please get in contact.
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At White Lighthouse Investment Management, we encourage all clients to meet all their tax reporting and payment requirements in whichever local, state, or federal jurisdictions they must report and pay tax to. We are not tax advisors. We do not file tax returns for clients and cannot offer legal advice in respect to taxes though we know many competent advisors who can.
What we can do is help you and/or your tax advisor(s) to determine your taxable events for any given time-period using reporting directly from your bank or brokerage firm and/or from our own reporting systems. Don’t ever hesitate to ask for our assistance here as our information systems contain a vast amount of information and flexibility in reporting with respect to your accounts.
At White Lighthouse Investment Management, we do have an in-depth understanding of US taxes and use this knowledge to help our clients make good decisions. In addition, we understand the complications of cross-border rules with respect to US citizens and taxpayers that live overseas, non-Americans living in the US, and mixed nationality couples. We also have a good working knowledge of the Swiss taxation system.
Additionally, we can engage in tax planning both inside your investment portfolio and outside. This may have to do with what types of investments to buy or sell which investments belong in which accounts, the timing of events or gift and estate taxation. This type of planning work can be done together with you or in conjunction with other professionals such as tax advisors or estate planning attorneys.
If you have accounts with us in the United States, your most common tax reports (1099s) are generally ready by the middle to end of February. These will include dividends, income, capital gains, and losses and now my management fees that have come out of taxable accounts. Other information that will be reported will be IRA distributions. For IRA contributions, the form 5498 is generally produced by your brokerage firm but this is often done well after your tax return has been filed. If you have contributed don’t forget to report it to your tax advisor.
For Swiss resident account holders who have accounts at Swissquote, by default, we started last year to request the bank to produce their official tax report. The bank charges 100 CHF plus VAT for this report. A few clients have opted out of this which may make sense when there are very few taxable events in each year. If you would like to opt out or confirm if you have done so already, please let us know.
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White Lighthouse Investment Management (WLIM) Inc and White Lighthouse Investment Management Sarl are both regulated by FINMA, the Swiss Financial market supervisory authority. For our clients and staff who live in Switzerland, work in Switzerland or work with clients in Switzerland, there are specific requirements that we must fulfil. At the bottom of this page you will find links to help you find where you can review which firms are registered with FINMA and which advisors are listed in one of the Swiss Advisor Registries.
FINMA encourages financial service providers based in or serving clients in Switzerland to make their clients are aware of the risks associated with financial instruments. Advisors should ensure clients have a thorough understanding of these risks before making investment decisions or hiring a portfolio manager to make decisions on their behalf. While we at White Lighthouse are regularly communicating information to our clients through disclosure documents, contracts, investment policy statements, newsletters, and other more personal communications, another document that FINMA recommends for clients is the Swiss Bankers Association Brochure, "Risks Involved in Trading Financial Instruments".
We would like to remind our clients of the existence of this document and while we understand it is long and cumbersome to read, we encourage all our clients to stay educated and to come to us with questions at any time. Below you can find some additional context of the Swiss Regulatory environment for Financial Service Providers:
FINMA's Role: FINMA's guidelines stress the importance of transparency and client education in financial services. They require financial service providers to be aware of the characteristics and risks of the financial instruments they offer and the require individual and firms to go through extensive training and have a regular and documents compliance program.
SBA's Brochure: The "Risks Involved in Trading Financial Instruments" brochure from the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) provides general information on risks and is a useful resource clients and advisors alike for understanding those risks.
Advisors' Responsibilities: Advisors must ensure their clients have a sufficient understanding of the risks before making investment decisions. They can use various means to fulfil this obligation, including:
Providing general risk information: This should include information about the specific financial instruments being considered and any associated risks.
Disclosing costs and fees: Clients should be aware of all costs associated with the investment.
Referring to relevant documents: This may include the SBA brochure or other relevant documents. It is suggested but not a mandatory requirement to provide a link to the SBA brochure specifically.
FINMA’s website provides extensive information on all the firms licensed and registered in Switzerland. At this link, https://www.finma.ch/en/finma-public/authorised-institutions-individuals-and-products/, you can find all the firms authorized in Switzerland by FINMA. For example, by typing in White Lighthouse (or any firm name), you will see WLIM Sarl listed as a portfolio manager in Switzerland and supervised by the Self-Regulatory Body OSFIN. You can also see that WLIM Inc has an authorized Representative office, as a portfolio manager, in Lausanne. Scrolling further down, you will find regularly updated lists, by category, of firms regulated by FINMA. At the same link above, you can also find some individuals and firms that appear on warning lists.
Additionally, all our advisors in WLIM Inc. who serve clients in Switzerland are listed in one of the three advisor registries, specifically https://registre.arif.ch/en/registre/. The other two advisor registries are:
https://www.regservices.ch/en/client-advisor-search/
https://www.reg-fix.ch/en/advisers-search
As of May 2025, WLIM Inc. is one of only seven firms foreign to Switzerland that have gone through the process of registration, and the only one from the United States. Many advisors, compliance officers and others outside of Switzerland, and even some inside of Switzerland are unaware of the regulations on serving Swiss clients or sadly are voluntarily flouting the rules.
To legally serve clients in Switzerland for portfolio management, investment advice, the distribution of products and the execution of financial transactions, virtually every individual and/or their employer must be properly registered. At WLIM we take our compliance obligations very seriously to serve our clients and employees properly and thank our Swiss Risk and Compliance officer for his diligence in supporting our firm’s compliance efforts and educating our team.
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White Lighthouse Investment Management (WLIM), an independent investment management and financial planning firm, is committed to safeguarding the confidential information of its clients. We hold all personal information provided to our firm in the strictest confidence. These records primarily include identity information, such as name, address, date of birth, social security or taxpayer identification numbers, as well as other information that we collect from you in order to provide our services. We do not disclose information to unaffiliated third parties, except as permitted by law and as required to provide our services, such as to communicate with your custodian for matters related to accounts under our management.
Our policy on safeguarding your personal information is listed below.
We limit access to information only to those who have a business or professional reason for knowing, and only to unaffiliated third parties as permitted by law. For example, federal regulations permit us to share a limited amount of information about you with a brokerage firm in order to execute securities transactions on your behalf, or so that our firm can discuss your financial situation with your accountant or lawyer.
We maintain a secure office and computer environment to ensure that your information is safeguarded against unreasonable risk. WLIM abides by its Data Security Policy, which is reviewed annually and updated as needed and which addresses the protection of physical and electronic information for our clients and the firm.
The categories of non-public, personal information that we collect from a client depends upon the scope of the client engagement. They may include information about your personal finances, transactions between you and third parties, and information from other sources as needed to provide our services on your behalf.
When an unaffiliated third party requires access to your personal information, such as custodians, your consultants, and auditors, we also require strict confidentiality in our agreements with them and expect this information to be kept private. Federal and state regulators may also review firm records as permitted under law.
We do not provide your personal information to mailing list vendors or solicitors for any purpose.
Personal information about you will be maintained during the time you are a client, and for the time required thereafter as required by federal and state securities laws, and as consistent with the CFP Board Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility. After this required period of record retention, all such information may be destroyed.
Click here to download our Privacy Policy.
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White Lighthouse Investment Management, Inc. has developed a Business Continuity Plan on how we will respond to events that significantly disrupt our business. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions is unpredictable, we will have to be flexible in responding to actual events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you with this information on our business continuity plan.
Contacting Us
If after a significant business disruption you cannot contact us as you usually do (by phone or email), you should call our office manager, Kathleen Quintero (201-394-9067) or go to our website at white-lighthouse.com/who-we-are and contact another member of the team. If you cannot access us through either of those means, please contact your custodian or use your on-line log in to access your accounts.
Our Business Continuity Plan
We plan to quickly recover and resume business operations after a significant business disruption and respond by safeguarding our employees and property, making a financial and operational assessment, protecting the firm’s books and records, and allowing our customers to transact business. In short, our business continuity plan is designed to permit our firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption.
Our business continuity plan addresses data backup and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees, and regulators; their funds and securities if we are unable to continue our business.
Varying Disruptions
Significant business disruptions can vary in their scope, such as only our firm, a single location of our firm, the business district where our firm is located, the city where we are located, or the whole region. Within each of these areas, the severity of the disruption can also vary from minimal to severe. Since our firm is a “virtual firm” and our employees are all in different locations, the likelihood of this type of disruption affecting our whole business is minimal. If the significant business disruption is so severe that it prevents us from remaining in business, our clients can contact the custodian directly by phone, access their account online or if available use their checking and debit card capabilities to access funds.
For more information
If you have questions about our business continuity planning, you can contact us at 508-471-4431 or email lachowitz@white-lighthouse.com or kquintero@white-lighthouse.com.
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White Lighthouse Investment Management Inc. is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an investment adviser. Brokerage and investment advisory services and fees differ and it is important for you to understand these differences. Free and simple tools are available to enable individuals to research firms and financial professionals at investor.gov/crs. This site also provides educational materials about broker-dealers, investment advisers, and investing and we recommend that you visit this site as part of your decision-making process on choosing a financial services provider. We are happy t answer any questions that you may have about our firm, pricing and services.
Our complete Customer Relationship Summary, also known as ADV Part 3, can be found by clicking on this link.
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