Tax Planning

We don't prepare returns — that's your CPA's job, and we work closely with theirs. What we do is build a year-by-year plan that puts the right dollars in the right accounts, at the right time, taxed at the lowest legal rate.

Strategies we use

• Roth conversions — "filling the bracket" in low-income years to lock in today's rate and reduce future RMDs. See The Roth Conversion Decade.
• Tax-loss harvesting — systematically realizing losses in taxable accounts to offset gains elsewhere without changing your market exposure.
• Asset location — placing tax-inefficient assets (bonds, REITs) in tax-deferred accounts and tax-efficient assets (index ETFs) in taxable accounts, so each dollar works in the right wrapper.
• Backdoor and mega-backdoor Roth — for high earners phased out of direct Roth contributions, or with plans that allow after-tax 401(k) contributions with in-plan conversions.
• Qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) — direct IRA-to-charity transfers after age 70½ that satisfy RMDs tax-free.
• Donor-advised funds and appreciated-stock gifting — bunching deductions and avoiding capital gains tax on long-held positions. See Charitable Planning.
• Capital gains timing — realizing gains in low-income years, spreading them across tax years, or coordinating with loss-harvesting.
• Social Security timing — coordinating claiming age with other income to avoid unnecessary taxation of benefits.
• Medicare IRMAA planning — keeping modified AGI below the cliffs that trigger higher Part B and D premiums.
• State-of-residence planning — domicile choices have meaningful tax impact, especially for retirees and high earners with flexibility.

Special situations

• Liquidity events — business sales, secondary offerings, RSU vesting, stock-option exercises. Planning ahead of the event is where most of the value is.
• Concentrated stock positions — exchange funds, staged sales, direct indexing, and charitable strategies.
• Small business owners — entity structure, retirement plan selection (SEP, SIMPLE, Solo 401(k), cash balance), and owner-compensation strategy.
• Inherited IRAs — navigating the SECURE Act's 10-year rule, timing distributions to minimize lifetime taxes.

How we coordinate with your CPA

Tax planning only works if the plan makes it to the return. We send a year-end summary of planned actions — conversions, gain realizations, QCDs, charitable gifts — to your CPA before year-end, with enough time to adjust withholding or estimated payments. We're happy to introduce you to CPAs we know and trust if you don't have one.

The math that matters

Over a typical retirement, the difference between a well-coordinated tax plan and a decent-but-uncoordinated one is routinely six figures — sometimes seven. The compounding is real and the decisions are usually small. We do the modeling so you can see the tradeoff before you act.