Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Ira Koyner Founder of Triathlon Partners Discussing Long – Term Tax-Efficient Investing

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Ira Koyner’s successful thirty-year career as an accomplished financial services professional has been driven by sound risk management, effective communication, and a commitment to education.Ira Koyner is a devoted husband and father, he knows providing for your family is more than a responsibility; it is a priority. The cost of day to day expenses, paying for several college educations, funding retirement, and providing lifetime financial support for his son with special needs are his priorities. He is grateful to have them. These priorities are not a burden, but rather a part of a rich and prolific life. Financial goals envelop more than responsibilities. They are the journey and destination, fueled by hard work, perseverance, and success. Creating a financial plan that protects your family and secures your financial future doesn’t have to be overwhelming. As your dedicated financial advisor, he is committed to fostering a transparent client-advisor relationship. He is proud that his firm is independent, and not tied to a massive conglomerate’s products, platform, and rigidity. His clients have access to over thirty life and annuity companies, several structured note and alternative investment platforms, and dozens of issuers. Triathlon Partners is located in Weston, CT, in the heart of Fairfield County CTLearn more: http://www.triathlonpartners.com/TRIATHLON PARTNERS LLC, is a registered investment adviser. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.Investment Advisory Services are offered through TRIATHLON PARTNERS LLC, a registered investment adviser. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents in all appropriate jurisdictions.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with Ezra Koiner, who's the founder of Triathlon Partners, and we'll be talking about long-term tax-efficient. investing. Iro, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited about

today. I think we've got some great topics to discuss. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's always great when you can hear long-term tax-efficient investing. We want to talk about being in the game for a long time and making sure we're making moves that are tax-efficient. So get us started with, you know, talking about, is it even possible to build a portfolio that protects against major losses, volatility, and still, you know, has some of that tax-efficient side of things? Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, this is all part of my firm's diversification program.

We believe in product diversification. Diversification means you want to have less volatility in your portfolio. So we add products that lower your volatility and not only lower your volatility, but are tax-efficient, right? So lower volatility means your loss. are less and they're less frequent, but when you can save on taxes, you get the power of compounding, right? And then when you can withdraw money without paying taxes, that's even better, because taxes are really the number one cut in after inflation on people's retirement spending. You know, it's kind of like that little example you hear, you know, like the little long-term drip, drip, drip.

you know, it can really erode boulders and rocks and taxes really quietly erode long-term returns. So what are some of your favorite approaches when you make recommendations to clients for that tax-efficient growth over time? Right. So it's really great that these tax-efficient products are also in products that offer lower volatility. And when I'm talking about lower volatility, it's because of the way the products are set up. So let me just explain. They're set up on basically this concept called point to point. Now, even though we're talking a long-term product that we're going to try to get invested for 20, 25, 30 years, depending upon your age, the way they work is for every investment year, the market or the underlying investment starts at a certain level. And then at the end of the year, it ends at a certain level, right? And then when there's a new year, it starts all over again. But we're going to go back to that invested year.

And from the beginning to the end, it's going to have that return. And that return should be your return on the underlying asset, on your investment. But there's some clauses in this. And the clauses are to your benefit net. If the return for the year is negative, your investment is not negative or is not as negative. There's some products that guarantee a zero floor, meaning you can't lose money in the investment in any year. There could be ones that have a 10% buffer, which mean the first 10% of the loss, they reimburse you.

So imagine, like, imagine you're investing your hard-earned money and year after year. And any year that has a 10% loss or less, you haven't worn that. Plus, your actual investment was 0% for that year. How much money would you have when you're ready to retire? Yeah, that's a piece of mind. Right. There are ones with 15 or 20% buffers. Right.

So that's great. And because this is a long-term investment, you're not taxed on the money until you withdraw it, right? Until you withdraw it when you're ready to retire. And you don't have to take it out all at once. So these products are called registered indexed annuities. I'm a very big positive on this. I think they're fantastic. You've got to be careful which carrier you buy.

them from. You know, there are also things called fixed index and annuities. I prefer the Rilers. And there's something that I'd like to talk about is called a structured note. A lot of people haven't heard of structured notes, right? But they are tremendous. What they actually do is they have a barrier, which means, I'll just give an example. If the barrier is 30%, at the end of the maturity, of the note, the market or the investment is down less than 30%. It's negative and it's down less than 30%. You get 100% of your principal back. Right?

That's a lot of protection. If it's down more than 30%, your loss was one to one, just as if you were low in the market. So it's the same on a big down, but it has this protection. And that protection is fantastic. but it gets even better because these products have a participation multiplier, meaning that at the end of the maturity, let's say it's five years. There's a multiplier, let's say it's 1.5. If the underlying investment, which is usually an index like the S&P 500, is up, let's say 40% after five years, which is the average return,

on the S&P 500, you get 1.5 times 40%. So you're getting a 60% return after five years. Wow, you're getting 20% more on the top side in this scenario, or one and a half times on the top side, to be exact. And you have this protection, protection and higher gains. You can't get anything better than that. And because it's a five-year product, it's a long-term capital gain. It's not a short-term capital gains.

We all know that you want long-term gains, right? Better taxes. So, you know, from that standpoint, these are powerful, powerful investment products. Yes, for sure. You know, I feel like a lot of times people are kind of almost have a misunderstanding on tax-deferred vehicles like IRAs and things like that. and 401Ks, things like that, because you put the money in, you haven't been taxed, and they kind of see that balance growing and they think, oh, I'm getting, you know,

close to retirement. I've got X number of dollars, but that's not the case. We know that there has to be that tax is paid. What are some of the biggest misunderstandings you've seen your clients have about those, you know, taxes and how to deal with them? And then how do you help educate them to clarify that? Right. Well, I mean, 401Ks, IRAs, they're great examples.

And they're great products to invest in. You just have to be realistic. When you look at that account statement, one third of that money is the federal governments. Just look at it that way. Federal and state government, you're not getting it there. And the thing about them is because money was put in without paying any taxes. When your beneficiaries get these accounts, they have to pay taxes on it. So taxes have never escaped from them.

Now, there's some things we can do that are, you know, right for the certain people. One of my favorites is you can actually take a 401K money. And it is possible to transfer it into a life insurance policy that you will not pay taxes on. Right? It could be so, and it won't be subject to income. It won't be subject to a, state tax, but if you're looking at getting leverage money that would be taxed, and especially if your high net with an individual and gets estate tax as well, you're looking on passing

like 35 cents on the dollar to your beneficiaries, and we can put that in a structured product with professionals that know what they're doing. We can help you get that out of your estate and get into an insurance product, which you can use for the death benefit or use for basically tax-exempt cash flow, which is fantastic. Think about the money you're saving from not having to pay taxes. Now, not everyone can do it. You have to work to make sure you're in the right income level and the right structure of what your 401K is. But it's something that a lot of advisors aren't interested in doing. But again, if I could save my clients, money on taxes, we are several rungs up on the

ladder to reaching your goals before we even put a dollar to work in the market. Yeah. You know, I think that's so many times people just want answers right away. And they hear someone mention structured this, IOL, that, annuity, this, fixed index. And they Google and go, oops, that's what I heard. it's it's all how to put it together in the right way and how it's structured and properly place it in your retirement plan. So, you know, I think that the encouragement is get with someone that knows what they're doing to help you understand how to do that. Because when

you start talking about triggering taxes, you know, you could be making a decision that impacts you now and for a long time. So with that thought in mind, how do you determine when it makes sense to pay taxes now versus defer taxes to later when you're working with your clients? Well, I mean, it's actually a decision you have to make every year. I mean, I don't mean to create more stress or anxiety for everyone out there. But, you know, these products, it's really about a tax game. If you're a business owner, you have a good year, you have a bad year. Well, in the bad year, when you're in a lower tax bracket, that's when you might want to consider

taking assets out of taxable products and putting it in like a Roth IRA, right? If you're having a good year, you might want to make sure you're maximizing your contributions to tax deferred accounts like a 401K because you're in a high tax bracket. You want that deduction. That deduction means a lot, a lot more to you than when you're in a lower tax bracket. So it's really about managing all of that, you know, getting on time. of your income in November, not waiting until January or April to file your taxes and to do all the legwork. But beginning ahead of the game is really that preparation. It can save you hundreds of

thousands of dollars over the course of, you know, several years of doing this, right? It's important. And it's also important to have a mix of products that, you know, don't have limits like Roth IRAs to contribute. You know, people, you know, sort of view life insurance with a, you know, not favorably, but life insurance is very powerful and there are a lot of powerful investments in life insurance, like I mentioned, with the protection of people don't realize you can essentially take money out of a life insurance without having to pay taxes. There's no W-2. You're borrowing money against the life insurance policy. And it's really, if you're structured properly and dealing with a professional and knows what's going on, you can really create a massive cash flow for yourself. And, you know,

bottom line is when you're, and why it's great is because the bottom line is, insurance is something you need when you're younger, when you have a family and you have responsibilities. And when you get older, well, you don't really need the insurance death benefit part. But how do you make that death benefit work for you while you're alive? And we have the solutions to do that. Yeah, that's a good point because a lot of times people think insurance is you die, you get the amount. But there's living benefits. And I think that's something that people need to factor that in.

And, you know, we were talking about two losses and risk and volatility. And I think a lot of investors or clients fear missing out on, you know, upside. But then they don't want to hear about the downside. So how do you balance peace of mind with growth opportunities? Well, that's, you know, one of the great things about the products I look at. They, you know, these protections do come at a cost, right? The structured notes not so much, but these Rylas, they're caps on how much you can earn every year. But there are different strategies in there that these caps are between 15 to 20%.

You know, I've even seen high as 25 on some, on, on, on, on some, depending upon the market dynamics of the time. And, you know, I've never heard anyone complain. I've only made 15%. I've only made 18%. They'll let you hear it when they're down 5. But, you know, that's something to remember. Down 5 up 18, you know, well, down 0 up 18 is much better.

Even if, you know, you look at it on the long term, you have to sort of temper expectations. But, you know, realistically, I go back to it and people think they remember losses, they sting, they hurt. And if you can reduce the losses, the number of losses and the size of losses that you can have over your total investing career or investing life, accumulating life of savings, you're really going to be very happy. And when we look at recent downturns in the market, what I really want to prevent my clients doing is calling me up and saying liquidate it all. I'm afraid the market's going to, you know, really, really, really tank here. And most of the time they do that, the market's already down 15 or 20 percent, right? And that's a problem because the market, it continue to go down. But if you don't put your money back in the market, when the market goes up,

you haven't recoup your losses. So if we're able to minimize the losses, while the market's going down, you're less tempted to get out of the market, right? In fact, you're probably a little emboldened that the market's down 20% and you might only be down 10, right? So keeping your money in the market is very important.

Timing the market is something you just cannot do. It is impossible to do. In my trading days that we used to have an expression, you can't pick bottoms when I was on these big Wall Street trading floors. You know, when you pick bottoms, you get dirty fingers. That's the only thing you get. So, you know, from that standpoint, don't try and pick bottoms. Don't try and pick tops. You know, just stay the course.

And when you stay the course and you have a plan, the results are going to come your way. Yeah. That is, you need to respond versus react, and that's what you're, to sum up what you just said there, that just readily resonates powerfully there. So can you walk us to an example where a client avoided some losses in a downturn and yet still participated in some of the recovery and kind of, you know, wrapped in some of the tax-efficient strategies that you're working with them on? Sure.

I mean, there's a classic example, right? I mentioned before, people get divorced. Their tax brackets just collapse, right? Their tax at much higher rates, right? Alimony isn't even tax deductible anymore. So from a standpoint, you want to make sure, you know, if you have a conservative investor, you want to make sure, number one, because their salary can sometimes put them into that higher tax bracket very easily if they're higher income earner, anything they're going to

all earn in fixed income, like a U.S. bond at 4%. They're going to take home 2.5%. That's not good enough. That's not something that's going to grow. That's not diversification. It's not keeping up with inflation. So what we do is we put them into a product like a Rilah, where it has that floor, but you have these gains.

You have a sufficient amount of gains when they're, because these caps are high enough that you're going to outperform these bonds. right. So number one, we took his tax bracket. We took his income potential and we take his risk profile. And when the market collapsed, we're able to go into these products and restructure them. And he even gets to the point of, hey, I got some extra money. I've got a nice bonus. I want to put the money to work now. Right. He uses then the volatility of the market of going up and down to his advantage because he can be patient on the side. market dips, not picking the bottom. When it goes down, 10%, he can buy some. If it goes down another 10%, he's not bothered because he got it. What he thinks is, is it a good price? Because

his core portfolio is performing. He's not panicking out of his core portfolio because he knows it's overperforming the market. And if you have a client who believes the market is going up long term, you can turn volatility into your friend. You don't have to, right, the diversification lowers your volatility. And therefore, when volatility hits the market and you can get things at better prices, you can take advantage of that. Would you ever, you know, volatility is supposed to be shunned. No, you have to embrace it at times because that's how you're able to really make your money grow.

faster. Yep, 100%. Well, Ira, this has been real eye-opening. I just love your measured approach to recommendations and educating your clients. And if someone is interested in reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way that they can do that? Well, check out our website. My contact information's all there. You can make an appointment's right on the site. www. TriathlonPartners.com, as well as check out my YouTube channel, Triathlon Partners TV. It has a ton of information, information videos about all different financial products, from insurance, structured notes, to strategies for business owners on how to save on taxes. It's just a tremendous resource, and I wish more people knew about these products.

Because, again, my firm's goal is to engage, educate, and empower our clients. with the knowledge to make confident decisions that best meet their financial objectives and goals. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you again today. Thanks for having me anytime and have a blessed day. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.com. EntrepreneursRadio.com.