July 1, 2009
We advise clients of the fees in an advanced written notification, which already have been agreed to in a letter of agreement, calculate them and seek their review of the fees before submitting them to a custodian who also reviews the fees to see if they meet regulatory standards. With this much communication plus a third party, the custodian, also reviewing the procedures, it seems unnecessary to conduct an annual audit of this procedure at considerable expense. That expense would have to be passed on to the client since the fees already are very competitive and calculated to cover the services performed relative to the assets under management. Clients personal preferences are expressed in a Statement of Investment Policy that is drawn up before a penny is invested and changes from time to time as the client situation changes. We take seriously our fiduciary responsibility to conduct ourselves as our clients wish us to conduct ourselves, acting prudently and in the sole interest of the client in the management of each client's monetary situation. The additional cost would be prorated by the total dollars under management and collected at the same time the fees were collected.
Phil Taggart
Taggart Financial Group, Inc.