Retirement Plans Built Around Your Tax Situation, Not Around It

What an Accountant Does in Retirement Planning (and Why It's Different from a Financial Advisor)

This is a question we hear often, and it's worth answering directly. A financial advisor helps you choose investments inside a retirement account. An accountant helps you decide which type of plan to set up, how much to contribute for maximum tax benefit, and how your retirement plan fits within your business structure and income.

Those are two different jobs. You may need both professionals at different stages — but if you're a small business owner who doesn't yet have a retirement plan in place, the accounting side comes first. The plan type, contribution limits, and deduction timing all have significant tax consequences that need to be addressed before any investment decisions are made.

We help business owners in Minneapolis, Edina, and across the Twin Cities set up qualified retirement plans including:

• SEP-IRAs
• SIMPLE IRAs
• Profit-sharing plans
• 401(k) plans

Each plan type carries different contribution limits, administrative requirements, and tax treatment. We match the structure to your business, your income, and your goals — then coordinate the setup with your existing tax strategy so the deduction works exactly as intended.

Every Year Without a Plan Is a Year of Deductions You Can't Recover

For self-employed individuals and small business owners, retirement contributions are among the largest tax deductions available. A sole proprietor contributing to a SEP-IRA can deduct up to 25% of net self-employment income. A business owner with a 401(k) and profit-sharing plan can shelter significantly more. These deductions reduce your taxable income dollar for dollar — and once a tax year closes, that opportunity is gone.

We work with business owners who come to us having gone years without a plan in place, often because they weren't sure where to start or assumed it was more complicated than it needed to be. Getting a plan established is almost always straightforward. What matters is doing it with the right structure from the beginning, so contributions are optimized and the plan remains compliant as your business grows.

If you're a business owner in the Twin Cities who has been putting this off, the right time to act is before the end of your current tax year.

Retirement Income and Tax Strategy for Individuals

Retirement planning isn't only a business owner concern. For individuals approaching or already in retirement, the tax decisions around retirement income are just as consequential.

We help individual clients navigate:

• IRA and Roth IRA contributions — determining eligibility, deductibility, and whether a conversion makes sense given your current and projected tax brackets
• Required minimum distributions (RMDs) — calculating the correct distribution amounts and planning the timing to minimize tax impact
• Retirement income tax strategy — coordinating withdrawals from taxable accounts, traditional IRAs, Roth accounts, and Social Security to reduce your overall tax burden across retirement years
• Tax withholding on retirement income — adjusting withholding on pension and IRA distributions to avoid underpayment penalties

For clients who have been with us for years, this work is a natural extension of the tax planning relationship. For new clients, it's a place where having a CPA who understands your full financial picture makes a measurable difference.