Interactive Planning Guides
Visual decision-making tools for tax, retirement, and estate planning.
These guides and flowcharts are designed to make complex financial topics easier to understand. They are reviewed at least once a year or earlier if tax laws, policies, or contribution limits change.
Featured Diagnostic Tool
Open Enrollment Planning Guide
Open enrollment is right around the corner. Use this interactive checklist to evaluate health insurance choices, HSAs/FSAs, group life and disability insurance, and employer benefits to optimize your selections for the upcoming year.
Financial Foundations
Establishing & Maintaining an Emergency Fund Discover key considerations for determining how much cash to keep on hand, where to hold it, and how to build a reliable safety net against unexpected expenses. View Guide → Master List of Goals Before building a portfolio, we build a roadmap. A comprehensive interactive checklist to help you identify and prioritize your top targets across retirement, tax reduction, family milestones, and wealth transfer. View Guide → Important Numbers A quick reference for the current tax year, including tax brackets, capital gains, and standard deductions. View Guide → Important Milestones From age 50 to 75, a guide to the age-based milestones that trigger retirement planning decisions. View Guide → Important Dates A calendar of the key tax and financial deadlines you need to track throughout the calendar year. View Guide →
Retirement & Social Security
RMD Tables Summary Reference for RMD ages, life-expectancy factors, and the rules governing required distributions. View Guide → Considering Social Security A framework to help determine the optimal timing for claiming your Social Security benefits. View Guide → Medicare Eligibility Understanding the timeline and rules for enrolling in Medicare Part A and Part B cleanly. View Guide → Pre-Retirement Issues A comprehensive final master checklist covering cash flow shifts, health insurance gaps, pension coordination, and structural blind spots before you transition. View Guide → Social Security Benefit Reduction Rules An essential flowchart mapping out early filing penalties, the annual earned-income limits, and the exact provisional income cliffs that trigger taxation on your benefits. View Guide → Avoiding Medicare IRMAA Surcharges Track how your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) impacts your Part B and Part D premiums, map out the exact surcharge brackets, and evaluate appeal criteria for life-changing events. View Guide → Pension Option Decisions Navigate the permanent choice between a guaranteed lifetime annuity payment structure, single vs. joint spousal options, or taking a lump-sum retirement rollover to your IRA. View Guide → Traditional 401(k) Rollover Decisions Evaluate the best options for a dormant employer plan—exploring the "Age 55 rule" for penalty-free access, tracking outstanding plan loans, and analyzing consolidation strategies. View Guide →
Income Tax Strategies
Roth Conversion Decisions A step-by-step logical tree to help evaluate if moving tax-deferred assets into a Roth IRA fits your current vs. future tax bracket strategy. View Guide → Roth vs. Traditional IRA A comparative side-by-side logical tree analyzing your current vs. future projected tax brackets to help determine the most efficient destination for your annual savings. View Guide → Deductible IRA Contribution Rules Determine if active participation in an employer-sponsored retirement plan or your spouse's plan limits your ability to claim a traditional IRA tax deduction based on Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) phase-outs. View Guide → Backdoor Roth Contribution Rules Navigate the multi-step mechanical process high earners must use to fund a Roth IRA indirectly, while safely steering clear of the IRS pro-rata rule and year-end aggregation traps. View Guide → Gains Harvesting vs. Roth Conversions An advanced multi-variable decision framework to determine which strategic move will minimize your lifetime tax impact: taking advantage of structural capital gains tax brackets or converting traditional assets into a Roth. View Guide → Tax Return Review (Retired) A tactical line-by-line diagnostic worksheet to cross-reference your Form 1040—verifying RMD compliance, checking custom senior deductions, and confirming accurate reporting for QCDs or capital loss carryovers. View Guide →
Accounts & Inheritance
Inherited Traditional IRA Rules Navigate the complex post-SECURE Act distribution landscape—determining your beneficiary status, tracking the 10-year payout mandate, and clarifying when annual RMDs must occur concurrently to avoid penalties. View Guide → Inherited Roth IRA Rules Understand how the SECURE Act 10-year payout window applies to inherited tax-free Roth assets—clarifying spousal rollover rights, minor child exceptions, and complex rules for twice-inherited accounts. View Guide → Reviewing Beneficiaries A vital checklist to cross-examine primary and contingent designations—verifying alignment with your will, protecting minor heirs, optimizing charitable asset splits, and avoiding inadvertent probate. View Guide →
Legacy & Giving
Creating an Estate Plan An essential checklist of documents and structural items for protecting your family and legal legacy. View Guide → QCD Rules Determine if you can directly use a Qualified Charitable Distribution to lower your taxable RMD balance. View Guide → DAF Decisions Analyze whether a Donor Advised Fund matches your ongoing tax and charitable giving timelines. View Guide → Updating an Estate Plan A diagnostic life-event checklist to determine if shifting family dynamics, multi-state property acquisitions, structural asset changes, or sunsetting tax provisions require updates to your wills and trusts. View Guide →
Insurance & Long-Term Care
Purchasing Long-Term Care Insurance Evaluate asset protection requirements, analyze medical underwriting bars, understand daily living (ADL) benefit triggers, and calculate tax-advantaged premium rules using your HSA or itemized deductions. View Guide → Common Long-Term Care Products A side-by-side comparative structural guide evaluating traditional premium policies against modern hybrid asset models, life insurance riders, annuity linkages, and 1035 tax-free exchange rules. View Guide →
