Not since the advent of the pill have so many baby boomers been caught with their pants down.

So say the vast majority of CPAs (albeit, in other words) who see their clients as woefully unprepared for the financial rigors of retirement.

By “vast,” I mean 92 percent. By “pants down,” I mean caught by surprise and less than ideally positioned for a post-retirement trek that four out of five of our reader survey respondents predicted will last at least 21 years. Forty percent, in fact, said boomers had better be ready to fund themselves for at least 26 years after they retire.

CPAs can expect the so-called “silver tsunami” to start hitting their shores this year. It may have already begun when, a few weeks ago, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling filed for Social Security benefits. The 62-year-old New Jersey grandmother was born January 1, 1946, in Philadelphia — the first of 80 million boomers to be born from 1946 to 1964. She’s now the first of the generation to be eligible for benefits.

Our survey is uncovering some of the reasons the bulk of the Boomers will likely face financial hardships just as they expect to start kicking back and relaxing. Eighty-one percent of our survey respondents believe their clients have inadequately funded their IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. Fifty-three percent say their clients don’t follow through on their plans, and slightly more say client portfolios are unbalanced or improperly invested. A third say clients fail to follow professional advice.

Maybe the economic boom of the last 50 years has left the boomers a little too optimistic. Fifty-six percent of our respondents said their clients have unreasonably high expectations for their investments’ rates of return. Just under half said they used six percent to seven percent as a rule-of-thumb rate for the upcoming 20 years. Only 25 percent expected a rate of eight to 10 percent. Almost as many — 19 percent — tell boomers they can count on only four percent to five percent.

Between sloppy portfolios, underfunded plans and low rates of return, 47 percent say boomers are going to have to work longer than they currently expect.

Gary Davis, CPA, a partner with Davis & Brandel CPAs, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, cut to the crux of the problem: “We should also be known as the Grasshopper Generation,” he quipped. “Play all summer and don’t think too much about the winter.”

Ron Dickinson, president of Dickinson & Clark CPAs in Council Bluffs, Iowa, gives boomers a little more credit, saying, “Many have a general idea whether they have enough pensions, Social Security and investments, but they don’t understand the long-term implications of inflation and taxes.”

And that brings up a related issue: Who’s advising boomers as they slouch through the late autumn of their lives?

We found that only 37 percent of our CPA survey respondents provide savings and investment advice, and only 20 percent are working with funds, REITs, etc. But 57 percent are involved in retirement planning, the spend-down side of the retirement process.

The survey didn’t reveal much enthusiasm for partnering with third-party financial service providers. Sixty-five percent said those providers were too “sales-oriented,” 35 percent said they weren’t as concerned as the CPA with what’s best for the client and nearly half (48%) feared that a mistake on the provider’s part could hurt the CPA’s relationship with the client.

The clear need for better financial counseling, the lack of confidence in the providers of financial services and the perceived independence of the CPA add up to a final statistic that seems almost inevitable: 86 percent of respondents thought CPAs will become at least somewhat more involved in personal financial planning over the next three to five years.

That’s a major shift in the function of the CPA. And it comes not a moment too soon. The boomers are lining up, and they sure aren’t babies anymore.

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