Commonwealth Independent Advisor

Steve Johnian

Steve Johnian is a retirement sales consultant on the Retirement Consulting Services team at Commonwealth Financial Network®, member FINRA/SIPC, the nation's largest privately held Registered Investment Adviser–independent broker/dealer. With the firm since 2013, Steve consults with affiliated advisors on business development, product options, sales strategies, competitive positioning, new client/prospect situations, and best practices related to building a successful retirement book of business. A former competitive boxer, he attended UMass Lowell and held positions in client services, quality control, annuity services, and specialty services at Putnam Investments.

Information about securities-registered professionals may be found at FINRA BROKERCHECK.

Recent Posts

Can You Answer These Unusual IRA Questions?

The Value of Benchmarking a Retirement Plan

How to Run a Successful Retirement Education Campaign

Required Minimum Distributions: A Primer for Financial Advisors

When Are Roth IRA Distributions Tax-Free?

Can You Answer These Unusual IRA Questions?

Posted by Steve Johnian

February 18, 2020 at 10:00 AM

The rules and regulations for IRA-based retirement plans can get complicated. But, if you have clients with a significant amount of assets in retirement savings, you’ll want to be prepared to answer unusual IRA questions and help them steer clear of common errors. Here are a few you may encounter, with answers to help you be better prepared.

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Topics: Retirement Income Planning

The Value of Benchmarking a Retirement Plan

Posted by Steve Johnian

August 28, 2019 at 1:30 PM

Although benchmarking a retirement plan is not mandated, there are key reasons why this best practice is important. ERISA requires plan fiduciaries to ensure that expenses are reasonable, so plan sponsors must monitor expenses to keep them in check and to ensure that the services provided are carried out effectively.

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Topics: Retirement Consulting

How to Run a Successful Retirement Education Campaign

Posted by Steve Johnian

April 3, 2018 at 10:00 AM

Many employees struggle with saving for retirement for a variety of reasons. For starters, they face incredible inertia when it comes to simply enrolling in a retirement plan. Lack of financial knowledge is another big barrier that stymies their ability to properly manage their day-to-day personal finances and—for those who have enrolled in a retirement plan—put enough aside for their future and properly allocate their investments.

As these problems tend to spill over into the workplace, retirement education campaigns can go a long way to break down some of the barriers that prevent employees from adequately preparing for retirement—while also increasing employee productivity at work.

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Topics: Retirement Consulting

Required Minimum Distributions: A Primer for Financial Advisors

Posted by Steve Johnian

March 7, 2018 at 1:30 PM

As you are likely aware, there are varying rules when it comes to required minimum distributions (RMDs) from retirement accounts—both IRAs and qualified plans. As you also know, for your clients who have reached the age when they need to start taking retirement income, these rules can be quite confusing. To help you provide some clarity to your RMD conversations, I’ve created this brief primer that answers common questions, highlights frequent scenarios, and points out errors to avoid.

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Topics: Retirement Consulting

When Are Roth IRA Distributions Tax-Free?

Posted by Steve Johnian

August 2, 2017 at 1:30 PM

In your retirement plan business, you likely have clients who aren't eligible to contribute directly to a Roth IRA. That is, those with a modified adjusted gross income of more than $133,000 (single) or $196,000 (married filing jointly) in 2017 will be completely phased out and will have to turn to other retirement savings strategies (e.g., the backdoor Roth IRA). But it's also likely that you have clients whose incomes are below the established thresholds. For those individuals, a Roth IRA can be a powerful retirement tool. Let me explain.

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Topics: Retirement Consulting

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