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L. K. Benson & Company
Lyle Benson left a CPA partnership in 1994 to launch a fixed-fee RIA that acts as personal CFO for high-net-worth families through cycles of transition.
L. K. Benson & Company
Lyle K. Benson, Jr. founded the firm in 1994 after building a financial planning practice inside a larger CPA firm for fifteen years. His conviction was that a partnership structure serving a broad client base could not deliver the depth that individuals required. Three decades later, the firm is deliberately small — a handful of CPAs and CFPs — and explicitly targets clients navigating transition events: retirement, sale of a business, divorce, inheritance, or the death of a spouse. The firm structures portfolios around each client's financial plan rather than chasing benchmark outperformance. It builds and manages portfolios through Charles Schwab custody, coordinates with existing money managers, or provides recommendations for self-directed investors — always emphasizing diversification and low cost. Its core differentiator is tax integration: the team prepares federal and state returns for individuals, partnerships, S-corporations, LLCs, and trusts internally, then feeds those tax projections into year-end planning and estimated payments. The firm explicitly declines to buy or sell individual stocks and bonds, rejecting tactical trading in favor of strategic asset allocation. L. K. Benson does not disclose assets under management or total deployment. The firm bills clients through fixed quarterly retainers based on complexity rather than asset percentage; new engagements start at a minimum of $10,000 annually. Project work such as standalone tax returns or one-time financial plans is billed hourly, with rates ranging from $175 to $540. As of August 2025, the firm relocated its sole office from Towson to 9690 Deereco Road in Timonium, Maryland. The team includes Benson's son Chris as a Principal — an implicit succession signal — alongside remote tax professionals in Virginia and Wyoming, reflecting a hybrid operating model adopted well before the pandemic normalized remote financial work. L. K. Benson's structural edge is that it is not structurally optimized for growth. By capping its client base and charging flat fees, the firm sidesteps the asset-gathering incentive that pushes most RIAs toward scale. That architecture allows it to act as a true multi-family office substitute for clients who value tax and estate coordination over access to proprietary investment products. The tradeoff is an absence of institutional infrastructure: no dedicated deal-sourcing, no internal alternatives team, and no published track record beyond the planning and compliance work it handles in-house.
General information
Firm type
Multi Family Office
Year founded
1994
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Timonium
Corporate office
9690 Deereco Rd, Suite 430, Timonium, MD 21093, United States
Principals
Lyle K. Benson, Jr.
President & Founder
Chris Benson
Principal
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at L. K. Benson & Company?
Founder Lyle K. Benson, Jr., a CPA, PFS, and CFP, sets the investment philosophy alongside his son Chris Benson, also a CPA/PFS and Principal of the firm. The firm does not employ dedicated investment analysts or portfolio managers. Instead, it creates investment policy statements for each client, constructs diversified portfolios through Charles Schwab custody, and coordinates with clients' existing money managers when applicable. The firm explicitly avoids individual stock and bond selection, relying on broad market exposure and periodic rebalancing.
Is L. K. Benson & Company structured as a single family office or a multi-family advisory practice?
It operates as a multi-family advisory practice serving high-net-worth individuals and families rather than a single-family office tied to one source of wealth. The firm functions as a 'personal CFO' for multiple unrelated client families, handling financial planning, tax preparation, investment coordination, and estate planning integration. Its revenue comes entirely from client-paid fixed fees or hourly charges — no commissions, referral fees, or product revenue — reinforcing its fiduciary separateness from any single household.
Does L. K. Benson manage portfolios internally or outsource investment management?
The firm plays a hybrid role. For clients who lack an existing advisor, it builds and manages portfolios directly through Charles Schwab, using broad diversification and low-cost instruments. For clients who already have money managers, L. K. Benson serves as coordinator, developing an overall strategy and monitoring the external managers' performance and asset allocation. For self-directed investors, the firm provides written recommendations that the client executes independently. In all cases, the investment strategy flows from a financial plan, not from a house view on markets.
What investment stages or asset classes does L. K. Benson target?
The firm constructs portfolios across public equities, fixed income, and cash equivalents — the standard liquid asset classes available to retail investors. There is no evidence of direct investments in venture capital, private equity, real estate syndications, or alternatives. The firm's deliberate disavowal of individual stock-picking and its reliance on strategic asset allocation through Schwab custody suggest it remains confined to publicly traded securities and mutual funds or ETFs. Its primary value-add is the integration of that portfolio with tax and estate planning, rather than sourcing non-correlated alpha.
Does L. K. Benson participate in fund commitments or direct deals?
No. The firm states plainly that it does not try to beat the market, does not predict the future, and does not buy or sell individual securities for clients. It deploys client capital entirely through diversified, low-cost portfolios — consistent with a planning-centric RIA that treats investments as a component of a broader personal balance sheet rather than a hunting ground for alpha. There is no public record of the firm committing to private funds, co-investment vehicles, or direct operating-company stakes.
Where does L. K. Benson's underlying client wealth come from?
The firm does not disclose any single wealth origin for its client base, because it does not serve one family. Its public materials reference business executives with stock options, real estate developers, venture capital investors, self-employed individuals, and business owners as typical clients. Many engagements begin during a transition — a business sale, an inheritance, or the dissolution of a marriage — suggesting a concentration of wealth created through entrepreneurship, professional services careers, and multi-asset estate accumulation rather than a single industry vertical.
How is the firm handling succession planning given Lyle Benson's founding tenure?
Succession appears to be in motion but not fully resolved. Chris Benson, the founder's son, holds the title of Principal and is a CPA/PFS — a credential track mirroring his father's. The firm has also added remote tax and planning professionals in multiple states since 2020, suggesting a deliberate broadening of the team beyond the founding generation. However, no formal timeline or external leadership announcement has been made, making this a live question for family clients evaluating long-term stewardship.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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