Your return reports the past. A plan changes what it says.
Forward-looking tax planning for business owners and retirees in Blue Bell and across Montgomery County. Your accountant files what already happened, and files it well. My work happens before the year closes, while the number can still move.
The window most people miss
The middle row is the part you can act on, and it does not last. Rates shown are examples, not your situation.
Filing is not planning, and a good accountant will say so.
What a return does
"Here is what you owe for last year."
Accurate, necessary, and entirely about a year that has finished. By the time the return is prepared, every decision that could have changed it has already been made.
What planning does
"Here is what to do before December, and why."
The same facts, reached early enough to act on. I work alongside your CPA rather than instead of them, and the conversation happens while the year is still open.
Six places the bill is actually decided.
Tax is not one decision in April. It is a series of them across years, and the sequence matters more than any single move.
The years between the last paycheck and the first RMD
Income drops, required distributions have not started, and for a few years you control your own bracket. It is the most valuable window most people have and the easiest one to sleep through.
Roth conversions, sized to the bracket
Not whether to convert, but how much, in which year, and paid for from where. The answer changes with your income and it is worth rerunning every autumn.
The order you draw from accounts
Taxable, tax-deferred and tax-free spend very differently. The sequence decides the bill across your whole retirement, not just the one in front of you.
Cliffs that cost more than a bracket
IRMAA is triggered by income from two years earlier, and a few hundred dollars over a line can cost far more than the income that crossed it.
A business sale, planned before the letter of intent
Entity type, basis, instalment terms and Section 1202 are decided long before closing. After the LOI is signed, most of the good options have already gone.
What Pennsylvania does differently
A flat 3.07% with no standard deduction, retirement income generally untaxed at the state level, and no conformity with the federal small business stock exclusion. Local rules, and they change the maths.
The largest tax bill of your life arrives with the sale.
For most owners in Montgomery County the business is the biggest asset and the sale is the biggest single taxable event they will ever have. What it costs is set by decisions taken years earlier: how the company is held, what basis you have, whether the proceeds arrive at once or over time, and whether the stock qualifies for the federal small business exclusion.
Pennsylvania does not follow that federal exclusion, which surprises owners who have read about it and assumed the whole gain is covered. Knowing that early changes what you do; learning it at closing does not.
Run the Sale Numbers
Alan Rhode, CFP®, CPWA®, CVGA®, CEPA®, RLP®
Based in Blue Bell. Working with your accountant, wherever they are.
I am in Blue Bell, in Montgomery County, and I work with owners and retirees across Greater Philadelphia, Chester and Bucks counties. Tax planning runs best as a three-way conversation with whoever prepares your return, so I coordinate with your CPA rather than asking you to relay it. Meetings happen by Zoom or phone, which is why plenty of the people I do this for are nowhere near Pennsylvania.
Modern Wealth does not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This page describes planning work done alongside your own tax preparer, and nothing here is a recommendation for your situation.
Let's look at the year while it is still open.
A free thirty minute call, by phone. No pitch and no obligation, just a clear read on where you stand and whether we are a fit.
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