In retirement, taxes are the biggest cost you can still control.
Most advisors don't touch taxes. Your CPA handles one year at a time. Nobody's thinking about the full arc of your retirement, which is where the real tax decisions live.
Your CPA handles April. We handle the next thirty years.
Taxes in retirement can be the single largest controllable cost of the next thirty years. Bigger than healthcare. Bigger than housing. And almost entirely dependent on decisions you make before the tax year starts, not after it ends.
Roth conversions, withdrawal sequencing, IRMAA thresholds, RMD planning, those decisions require looking at your taxes across ten or twenty years at a time. That's not what a CPA does, and it's not what most advisors do either. It's what we do.
The scope, specifically.
The concrete work included in the Tax Planning pillar. Scannable for the evaluator, substantive for the reader who wants detail.
Multi-year tax strategy.
We project your taxes across the full arc of retirement and make decisions that optimize across years, not just the current one. Year-by-year, decade-by-decade.
Roth conversion planning.
When, how much, in what tax year, modeled year by year based on your brackets, your RMD horizon, your Medicare thresholds, and your estate goals. Often the most valuable single discipline in retirement.
Withdrawal ordering.
Which accounts get drawn first, taxable, traditional, or Roth? The answer is usually not obvious and is often worth six figures over retirement.
IRMAA planning.
Medicare premiums are tied to income, and the bracket jumps are large. We plan around IRMAA thresholds rather than hitting them by accident.
RMD strategy.
Required minimum distributions at 73 can push you into brackets you didn't expect. We plan around them, often years in advance, not the year they hit.
Coordination with your CPA.
We don't replace your CPA, we work with them. You keep the tax professional who knows you; we bring the multi-year strategy your CPA isn't structured to build.
Tax decisions touch every other pillar, at the same time.
Every dollar saved in taxes is a dollar that strengthens your income plan. Roth conversions, withdrawal sequencing, and bracket management aren't abstract tax moves. They're how we protect and extend the income you're counting on. A Roth conversion isn't a tax decision: it's an income decision, an investment decision, a Medicare decision, and an estate decision all at once. That's why tax planning belongs inside the whole plan, not beside it.
Shapes the income stream
Withdrawal ordering and Social Security timing decide your taxable income for decades. Tax strategy and income strategy are the same discipline.
Drives placement
Where each holding sits, taxable, traditional, Roth, determines lifetime tax bills. Asset placement is a tax decision and a portfolio decision at once.
Decides what heirs receive
Roth vs. taxable changes what your kids inherit and how much they keep after taxes. Tax decisions during your life are estate decisions for theirs.
Controls IRMAA brackets
Your taxable income from two years prior sets Medicare premiums. Crossing an IRMAA bracket by a dollar can cost thousands.
Real questions we answer with real plans.
A sample of the conversations clients have with us under this pillar. Not hypothetical, the actual shape of the work.
Concrete outcomes, not a sales sheet.
- Multi-year Roth conversion strategies timed around IRMAA cliffs.
- Withdrawal sequencing that keeps you in lower brackets for longer.
- Coordination between your CPA's April filing and our thirty-year projection.
- Capital gains harvesting and charitable giving strategies.