July 14, 2009
Dear Sir or Madam:
As as RIA I feel that this regulation is going to be extremely burdensome on to our firm and others similar to ours. This type of regulation will do nothing to enhance the customer's relationship and will hinder it with everyone possibly having to be looking over their shoulder about who could come walking in the door. This is the kind of legislation that will limit how many people will be able to work with RIA's who are fiduciarily bound to do what is in the client's best interest. This type of audit will have a large effect on our firm who has many small accounts that are SIMPLE IRA's and will take a long time to audit. This added cost will have to be shouldered by those account holders, who are already worried about their retirement.
You are considering this at the same time that the house is passing legislation to possibly restict 401k plans to being administered by RIAs.
Sincerely,
Nathan A Raabe