Business Owners
Your company is the largest line on your balance sheet. It should be planned like it.
A decision inside the company changes what is possible at home, and the reverse is just as true. Planning either one in isolation is how owners end up paying for the same problem twice.
Take how you pay yourself. It sets your tax bill, it sets what you can contribute to the retirement plan, and it sets the earnings a buyer will eventually value the company on. One choice, three consequences, usually made by whoever asked about it last.
My work is to hold all of it in one view: the company, the people you are trying to keep, the plan you sponsor, and the household that depends on all three. As your business grows and circumstances change, it’s worth revisiting whether the strategy still fits.
What we plan together
Six areas, planned as one. Where we start depends on what is loudest right now.
Entity and compensation structure
How you pay yourself, and what that choice may mean for taxes now and for the value of the company later. Coordinated with your CPA.
Retirement plan design
A plan that serves employees and still moves meaningful dollars to the owner, sized to what the company can sustain.
Key person and key employee risk
Who the company cannot afford to lose, and what happens to it if you are not there.
Tax-aware planning
Coordinated with your CPA, looking at the multi-year picture rather than one filing at a time.
Succession and exit
Internal buyer, family transfer, or outside sale. Each takes different lead time and produces a different number.
Personal wealth and household planning
Investments, insurance, education funding, and estate considerations, sized to a household whose income is tied to one company. Coordinated with your attorney and CPA.
Four issues we commonly see business owners face.
Not exotic problems. These are the ones that show up again and again.
The plan was designed for a smaller company
A retirement plan designed for fifteen employees may deserve another look when you reach sixty. Growth can change how contribution limits, testing, and the match formula affect both the business and its owners.
Succession is treated as a document, not a plan
A buy-sell agreement in a drawer is not a transition plan. The funding, the tax treatment, and the buyer’s ability to pay are the parts that decide the outcome, and they are the parts that go stale fastest.
Everything personal is on hold until the company sells
Waiting concentrates all of the risk in one event. Building assets outside the business along the way gives you options, including the option to turn down an offer that arrives at the wrong time.
The advisors have never spoken to each other
Good advice in isolation can still add up to a bad result. Getting the CPA, the attorney, and the plan provider working from one set of assumptions is often the highest-value thing I do in the first year.
One plan for the business and the household.
Planning is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process that changes as your business and your life do.
Understand the business and the household
Both sides on the table before any advice gets given.
Build one integrated plan
Business planning, the retirement plan, tax, and personal wealth in a single strategy.
Prioritize and implement
Two or three moves this year, executed with your CPA and attorney.
Revisit as circumstances change
A new partner, a strong year, a health event, an offer for the company.