We are on our way to the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) Personal Financial Planning Technical Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Licensed CPA's and CFP's have to complete 60 hours of continuing education every single year in order to maintain a professional licence.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to attend a conference featuring the 'best in the financial planning business' and after the market shenanigans of the last three years, we need to hear what the 'best' will have to say.

Somehow, I do not think it will be any more than we already know, but for most practitioners it will provide validation and continuity.

Today, we sit at the Bermuda airport waiting for the Delta plane to arrive from Boston, which then turns at the triangle and heads out on the one flight to Atlanta each day.

We are anxious because we have seen the weather patterns, and a vicious northeaster is beating up the East Coast of the United States.

Having lived in the cold, ice and snow of New Hampshire for more than 30 years, we are well aware of the impact these storms have.

The last time, a year ago, we attempted to fly out to a conference, the plane never showed up, and we never got off island. Today, we are lucky. The Boston outbound plane outruns the weather and shows up in Bermuda more or less on time.

We continue to wait in the airport boarding area, however, while the local authorities decide if the rain has let up on the local landscape sufficiently to allow us all to reach the plane.

No thought seems ever to be given to the fact that many of departees have connecting flights. We had two hours originally to meet our transfer in Atlanta to Phoenix, now it has been reduced to less than one hour. It is a fact - island time is island time, and too bad about the rest of the world.

Finally, we board, take off in rain from Bermuda and reach Atlanta as the weather clears, just enough time to make the connecting flight, where we also luck out.

For a minimum cost (less than dining for two in Bermuda), we are able, for the first time in our lives, to upgrade to First Class. Excitement abounds. We are tall people and the thought of another five hours cramped in seats where your knees are practically reaching your forehead had been met with resignation.

Instead a hot meal, complimentary cocktails, and hot serviettes are proffered prior to a meal with real cloth napkins, and real silverware - except for the plastic knives - another sign of the times and permanent changes in the way we travel. For once only, we see how the other ten percent lives - one could grow to like this way of life!

The sky and weather clear in Atlanta. At top speeds, we race west across the vastness of United States continent chasing the sunset.

A glorious display of the 360-degree edge of the earth spectrum band in full colours, deep shocking pink red to lighter pink orange to mystical yellow, to lighter blue to greenish, to grey and deep blue navy.

Far above, floats a tiny sliver of Mr. Moon.

It is a sight I have never seen before, and truly magnificent. Slowly, it fades to black - far below lights from cities and towns twinkle as those living similar lives whom we will never meet on this earth go about their daily rituals.

Today, I have some sense of how astronauts feel - how finite we are and how tiny. Do our lives really matter to anyone but our families and ourselves, in the very, very grand context of things?

We will land in Phoenix at night. Hard to comprehend what it really looks like during the day.

In reality, a large, large group of low-lying buildings in what appears to be giant sand pit. For everyone used to and loving the radiance of colour and sparkle of our own aquamarine ocean, it is a depressing sight.

Phoenix has weather going for it - unmitigated sunshine 350 days a year or more, low or no humidity, low tax structure - although that is changing, and hundreds, maybe thousands of gold courses.

With only six inches of rain a year, instead of luminous complexions, one has cracked and bleeding skin.

The city will face a daunting task in the next ten years to provide enough water for the massive development currently taking place, not unlike one of the severe challenges facing tiny Bermuda.

Phoenix also aggressively markets itself and its neighbour Scottsdale as a comprehensive convention and conference centre.

In fact, our own Bermuda Princess Hotel chain has a gorgeous hotel in Scottsdale.

Thus, in the middle of the winter, thousands of conventioneers from all sorts of trade associations and various professional groups wend their way west for some sun, fun, and serious industry education and networking.

So, too, am I here with Financial Planning and Taxation Issues in the 21st century being one of the paramount draws.

The financial environment is changing radically and dramatically.

Bermudians, dual-passport holders, and other nationalities owning assets in the United States, Bermudians who have US passports and have never lived or worked in the US, those offshore visitors frequently visiting the United States, having US beneficiaries, doing business in the US and other related matters are going to be faced with a slew of new (or more routinely enforced) regulations regarding taxation implications, trust structures and estate planning.

Where in the past, it did not seem to much matter if you had ties somehow to the US, or other tax regime countries; today it does.

Just how these issues may impact financial lives in Bermuda will be discussed in more depth in future Moneywise articles.

Major concerns of financial planner professional associations are the viability of retirees savings, with the ability of the average retiree to fund a fulfilling retirement lifestyle and the state of the small investor's mental tenacity as well as his/her physical portfolio after three years of a bear market.

What can a good planner do and say to make the investor feel better today about investing in capital markets?

Add to these items, the longevity probability factor.

US Internal Revenue Service has raised top age in distribution mortality charts for retirement plans to 115 years.

With the advent of the purported first human clone, that number may still be unrealistically low.

Stay tuned for the second part of this report on the dominant topics at the United States AICPA Personal Financial Planning Technical Conference.

@EDITRULE:

Martha Harris Myron CPA CFPT is a Bermudian, a Certified Financial PlannerT(US license) practitioner and VP and Manager, Personal Financial Services, Bank of Bermuda. She holds a NASD Series 7 license, is a former US tax practitioner, and is the winner 2001-The Bermudian Magazine - Best of Bermuda Gold Award for Investment Advice. Confidential Email can be directed to marthamyronnorthrock.bm

The article expresses the opinion of the author alone, and not necessarily that of Bank of Bermuda.

Under no circumstances is this advice to be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell investment products or as a promotion for financial plans. The Editor of the Royal Gazette has final right of approval over headlines, content, and length/brevity of article.