I’m excited to have Paul Allen on the podcast today. In this wide-ranging conversation we discuss his first exposure to the financial services industry which rubbed him the wrong way and sparked an interest in doing his own financial planning work. Later on, Paul wanted to help educate fellow members of his military community so he got his CFP so he could teach financial literacy classes, all the while wondering if there was a way he could just get paid to give financial advice instead of selling financial products.

Paul shares how he stumbled into the world of fee-only RIAs and tax practice around the same time with his tax practice, PIM Tax, rapidly taking off. He later merged with Sean Gillespie to form Redeployment Wealth Strategies to help him better divide his time and expertise. We spend time chatting about his tax training and expertise including getting the Enrolled Agent designation, the common challenges he sees in military tax returns, training and experiences you can get to learn more about tax preparation, and who might be a good fit for the tax side of the profession as opposed to the planning.

We also talk about his experiences and passions to help advance the profession through his work as the Program Director of CFP Program in Regent University’s School of Law. Paul shares about their focus there the traits he sees teaching the capstone course that set people up for success on the CFP exam.

Lastly, we round out the conversation around the Military Qualified Financial Planner (MQFP) designation including the goal of helping military and veteran families find great financial advice in a fee-only, fiduciary manner that is tailored to the military experience. I love Paul’s knowledge, passion, and depth of experiences and resources he shares in this episode.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pdallen64/

https://pimtax.com/

https://www.redeploymentwealth.com/

https://militarytaxexperts.org/

https://militaryfinancialadvisors.org/

https://explore.regent.edu/ma-financial-planning-law?

https://mqfp.org/