Retirement Income & Tax Planning

The decade leading into retirement and the first decade of retirement are the highest-leverage years of your financial life. The decisions you make about how and when to draw income — and from which accounts — can change your lifetime tax bill by six or seven figures.

A Plan Built Around the Tax Code

Retirement income planning at FSG starts with the tax return. We project your taxable income year by year through retirement, identify the brackets you'll move through, and design a withdrawal and conversion strategy that fills the low brackets and avoids the cliffs (IRMAA, Social Security taxation, capital gains thresholds, NY state surtaxes).

Defined Benefit Plans for Business Owners

For successful small business owners — especially those over age 50 with strong, stable income — a properly designed defined benefit pension plan can allow well into six-figure annual deductible contributions, dramatically larger than what a 401(k) or SEP allows. We design these plans, coordinate with the actuary and third-party administrator, and integrate the contributions into your broader tax and investment plan.

What We Cover

• Defined benefit and cash balance pension plans for high-income business owners
• 401(k), Solo 401(k), SEP, and SIMPLE plan design and administration coordination
• 1031 exchanges for tax-deferred real estate reinvestment
• Social Security claiming strategy and break-even analysis
• Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) planning and Qualified Charitable Distributions
• Withdrawal sequencing across taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts
• Roth conversion ladders during the gap years between retirement and RMDs

One Team, One Plan

Your investment advisor, your tax preparer, and your retirement plan designer are the same firm. That means the strategy on paper is the strategy that actually shows up on your return.