David P. DiSanto is the CEO at Bentley Group. He has more than 30 years of accounting experience and specializes in privately held businesses and high net worth individuals.
He has lectured at numerous professional and academic institutions on subjects such as LIFO, pension and profit sharing plans, and wealth accumulation. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Rhode Island Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Aurora Civic Association. DiSanto is a cooperator for the Bristol County Savings Bank. He is also on the board of directors for the Alliott Group, a worldwide network of international accounting firms.
PBN: What services do you provide?
DISANTO: We assist both small and large businesses with management skills and business advice, including tax laws. A lot of what we do is assisting the small businessperson which many times has one boss wearing 18 hats. We offer a variety of services, such as human resource planning, to the small-business owner. We also offer wealth management services and asset planning.
PBN: With the year half over, how would you characterize it?
DISANTO: It’s been very good; no, excellent. There has been a need for our expertise in the local business world, as well as our knowledge of the entire financial advisory field. We provide a lot of services because we believe people prefer one-stop shopping for their needs and we can provide that.
PBN: What of your relationships with clients?
DISANTO: We are fortunate to have a great client base and this year they have done very well, in general. Some are in the precious metals business but for the most part our clients are a very diverse group. We think the diversity is to our advantage.
Regarding wealth management, that branch is doing well because of the baby boomer generation that is retiring right now.
PBN: How do you keep up with the changing tax proposals?
DISANTO: They seem to be changing a lot especially now, because of the election year. We know what is planned but things might change between now and then. It’s difficult because we, along with everyone else, get little time to prepare. Right now, Medicare could go up 3.8 percent and capital gains and estate taxes could change.
PBN: How do you view your company’s role?
DISANTO: We handle things like insurance and investing, and our goal is to offer a lot of necessary services to our clients and increase their profits. However, we also have to keep on the lookout for unknown tax issues so that we can prepare the client and make the proper adjustments, so they won’t find themselves short of money at the end of the year, so some of what we do is problem mitigation.
Our program of internal conferences and updates helps, but it remains difficult when the federal government is changing tax rules at the end of the year.
