On 10/26/2011 2:50 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
....

Very often, the "custodian of the IRA" and the "advisor" are pretty
much (or can be) the same entity.

Let's say the custodian of my IRA is a wirehouse known as BFIF (Big
Friggin' Investment Firm).

Let's say the Financial Advisor works for BFFF. In most cases, both
the name of the firm (the Custodian) and the name of the Advisor is
going to be on the client's statement. If the client calls the
Custodian and gives them the account number, they should be able to
connect them with the Financial Advisor responsible for the account.
That Financial Advisor should already know about the client's overall
situation or should at least be able to ask the correct questions in
order to offer advice, assuming he is following the FINRA Know Your
Client rules.

Now, granted, there are many cases where the client has opened an IRA
directly with a Mutual Fund company (your Vanguards, Fidelities, et
al) and may have opted not to pay for "advice" and may indeed not have
anyone legally able to give him advice.

IME it is extremely rare the investment adviser/custodian is also the
actual person in position to make actual tax advice. Not impossible,
but certainly not the norm for the average person. Of course, on
average, most folks don't really have either--the custodian is whoever
the employer uses in the employer program and the individual rarely if
ever talks to any of them--they may ask a HR person how the plan works
or get a selection/choice card once a year or so and that's about the
extent of involvement.

That again isn't to say that a self-employed individual or the very
astute (relatively) employee hasn't taken it upon themself to take
advantage of all available services, and has a personal relationship w/
either a specific representative of a large custodial company or w/ a
local but it's surely the exception rather than the rule.

Virtually everybody I know (and I myself) will still deal w/ the
custodian/investment side via the brokerage or investment advisor but
use an accountant or other tax service professional for tax advice and
possibly preparation as well. I suppose again like many things, there
are tendencies to follow different patterns in different locations of
the country, but the above surely is what I've seen/been accustomed to
rather than the combined-agent so-to-speak scenario.

All that said, my response to the suggestion that he "call the fund
manager" still stands. There is *no* way the client is going get any
advice from the "fund manager" - the person or persons that make the
investment decisions within the portfolio.
....

I didn't disagree w/ that at all; that's certainly correct and the
individual investor isn't even going to get to talk to them to ask;
they're just not publicly accessible, even other than as revealed by
annual reports and/or prospectus or the (very) rare other
announcement/mailing/report.

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