'Walking man' has expert help in managing windfall

Bill Laitner | Detroit Free Press

DETROIT — Imagine thousands of total strangers sending you donations totaling $360,000 — and a car dealer giving you a shiny new car.

Quite a windfall. So, wouldn't you owe some income tax?

Nope. Not a penny, according to financial experts advising James Robertson. He's the hard-walking commuter whose sudden celebrity, triggered by a Free Press article on Feb. 1, primed the creation of three pages on GoFundMe.com as well as offers of dozens of free vehicles.

The welcome news for Robertson — he owes zilch on taxes — and the details behind it form a key part of the help he's getting from financial managers. Their advice has lessons for anyone who comes into sudden riches: Beware of covetous relatives and friends, investment hucksters and your own prodigal impulses — to quit a job, buy real estate, get a divorce, take extravagant trips, even start abusing drugs or alcohol.

Instead, start out with expert advice, especially at this time of year — tax season. On March 5, Robertson's team of experts met to discuss how to manage his new wealth, including his pile of fresh cash, said Craig Skulsky, a certified public accountant and trust expert at Troy-based Tobias, Vandeputte & Skulsky.

"Our understanding is that none of that will be taxable" because none of the donors can take a tax deduction for giving to an individual, and because none of the gifts was a large amount, Skulsky said.

As for his shiny new car, Robertson would've owed tax on the $35,000 Ford Taurus if he'd won it in a sweepstakes or on a TV game show; but because it was a gift from Suburban Ford in Sterling Heights, Robertson owes not a penny on that either, Skulsky said.

He's one of Robertson's dream team of financial experts, led by Rebecca Sorensen, a senior vice president for wealth management at UBS Financial Services in Birmingham.

Sorensen's first advice for a windfall recipient like Robertson is to hit the pause button. Whether a client got lucky in the lottery, inherited a chunk of change or rolled over a pension into a big lump sum, "I usually tell people, don't make any changes for as much as a year," she said. That means stashing a windfall somewhere that's safe, like a money-market account, while you find reputable advisers, Sorensen said.

Among those helping Robertson? Oakland Integrated Healthcare Network is having him sign up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act — so-called Obamacare — because Robertson opted out of a medical plan at work to avoid paying the paycheck deductions. Julie Day at nonprofit Lighthouse of Oakland County is "helping James learn budgeting, bill paying and so on, things James never did before because he rarely had any extra money to worry about," Sorensen said.

At the core of the advisers' plan is a trust — a legal holding tank where Robertson will stash most of his new wealth. The owner of assets held in a trust can typically dip in for modest amounts anytime but big withdrawals need approval by one or more trustees, who can be financial advisers, bank officers or family members. Most people figure trusts are only for wealthy people, but anyone can have a simple one written by a lawyer for less than $1,000, using it to hold cash, stocks, bonds or even real estate and gold.

"James Robertson is an incredibly kind, gracious man (and) very appreciative of all that's been done for him," Sorensen said.