CFP Board Candidate Open Forum

  • 1.  Tax Planning - study tips

    Posted 12-04-2021 13:30
    Hello,

    I just completed the Kaplan Tax Planning course and found it to be quite difficult. I just felt like there were so many concepts that I didn't fully grasp, and by the time I'm halfway through the next course, I'll have forgotten most of what I learned. 

    Would love to hear any tips or advice anyone has for nailing down these tougher topics. 

    Thanks.

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    Jonathan Chan
    Wealth Strategy Associate
    UBS
    (310)896-6964
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  • 2.  RE: Tax Planning - study tips

    Posted 12-04-2021 14:02
    Hi Jonathan,

    I felt the same way about tax planning,  retirement planning, and estate planning. It common to feel this way after being exposed to the materials the first time.

    Don't worry,  the review course will help solidify things.

    Bob

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    Robert Edry, MBA, WMCP(R), CLTC(R)
    Prudential Advisors
    Bedford, NH 03110
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  • 3.  RE: Tax Planning - study tips

    Posted 12-05-2021 05:16
    Hi Jonathan, I felt similarly when I went through it. Like other areas, I feel Kaplan goes really deep into topics to help give you the full picture of how it can relate to a client's situation IRL, but for purposes of the exam, they go deeper in that course than what you'll actually need to know. You'll have plenty of time to review it before the exam and the review course will really help narrow down the scope of the exam. You'll also be surprised how much you do remember later on.

    After the capstone, I took about a week or two study break while I waited for my exam prep materials to come in & recharge before the intense final stretch. I took a mock exam after this period  to see what I had retained and I was actually very surprised at how much I did.

    Hope this helps!


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    Scott Brooks
    CSS
    Wilmington Trust
    Woodbury NJ
    (856)889-6941
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  • 4.  RE: Tax Planning - study tips

    Posted 12-06-2021 10:41
    Exactly what Bob said. Tax planning is hard (and I'm an Enrolled Agent), Retirement planning is hard (so many plan types!), Estate planning is hard (lots of tax stuff here).

    When working on my Enrolled Agent, I used a provider called Surgent. At the time, they basically only offered a question bank, but had a really high success rate. Their philosophy was that you don't need to read books to learn taxes, you just need to do tons of properly formatted questions to get it. The idea is that as you do questions and read their explanations, repetition will help with remembering and then things will make sense as to why the tax law works the way it does - basically going from memorization to understanding.

    I am a math professor part time and it works the same way there. I tell my students to read the section and follow their examples, making sure to understand each step and why something was done. But the real learning happens doing the homework. Missing questions, figuring out why and what to do correctly, trying again, etc.

    To extend that here, you really need to do questions repeatedly. I know I answered you in the other thread about reviewing and extend that here too. Even though you are working on the next course, take an hour once or twice a week to go into the Tax course and create a 20-30 question quiz from all sections. Your brain will think "this must be important so I should remember it" and you'll hopefully start remembering stuff long term.

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    Aaron A. Anderson, CFP®, CFA, EA
    Partner
    DFS Advisors, LLC
    Mooresville, NC
    https://www.dfs-advisors.com
    980-444-0330
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  • 5.  RE: Tax Planning - study tips

    Posted 12-06-2021 16:34
    Hi Jonathan,

    I agree with what Robert and others have said. It's OK that you may not retain a lot of the information in your core courses. The review course will help "fill in the gaps" for the exam.

    How do the Kaplan core courses work? Is it like Dalton where you take a midterm/final and they require a passing grade before you can complete the courses?

    With Dalton, I took a "review readiness quiz" before starting the review course (which shows how much you retained from your core course) and what I'd consider a "really low score" of 35% and above is considered "good" (where they recommend you follow their regular weekly schedule, without any additional study time). My friend scored in the low 30s (he felt fairly nervous about the exam at that point), I scored 38% (I felt just "OK" about the exam at that point), and we both studied a lot and both passed the November exam. I think as long as you don't wait too long between completing the core courses and starting the review you should be fine. But if you wait too long, you may be relearning some of the materials almost "from scratch again."

    I agree with what people nave commented in other posts: Don't rush to take the exam. If you feel like you're not ready, it may be better to postpone to the next exam window. I hope that like Dalton, Kaplan gives you a "exam readiness quiz" that can "predict" now well they think you'll do on the exam. I felt like in my own particular case, it was accurate. I feel like that was a much more accurate gauge of whether you'll pass the exam than the core courses.

    Good luck in your studies!

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    Guo "Wilson" Liu
    Candidate for CFP® Certification
    Passed the November 2021 CFP® Exam
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