Wealth Advisor for High-Income Professionals | VP @LoganFinancial | USA Lacrosse World Champion | Book an Intro Meeting: https://teapawt.net/t.co/BRdbBamQ4B
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Joined July 2024
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Your RSUs vested and your employer already withheld taxes on them...
So you're covered, right? Not always.
Companies commonly withhold federal tax on vesting shares at a flat 22%. That's the IRS supplemental wage rate. Once your supplemental wages for the year pass $1 million, the rate jumps to a mandatory 37%.
The catch is that 22% has nothing to do with your actual bracket.
For 2026, a single filer hits the 35% bracket above $256,225 of taxable income. Married couples get there above $512,450.
Meaning...many tech and biotech professionals are getting 22% withheld on income that's really taxed at 32%, 35% or 37%.
Quick illustration with simple math. A $100,000 vest withheld at 22% sends $22,000 to the IRS. If that income is actually taxed at 35%, the bill is $35,000. That's a $13,000 gap, and it shows up in April.
Short version: the withholding is a down payment, not the final bill.
The fix depends on the person, but the conversation can cover making quarterly estimated payments, adjusting your W-4 so your paycheck withholds more, or selling extra shares at vest to cover the difference.
With clients, I like to run the numbers before the big vests hit, not after the return is filed.
Daniel Logan, MS, AAMS retweeted
Days like today are uncomfortable.
If you're a long-term investor, it's important to keep some perspective.
The S&P 500 is roughly 5% off its October 6 high. Since 1980, the average drop at some point during any given year has been about 14%.
If you're 50, you could potentially live through 30 or more of these intra-year declines, and five to ten more bear markets, meaning drops of 20% or more.
Volatility is the price of admission.
No one knows what tomorrow holds or how the year will finish.
On days like today, remember your long-term plan.
Try not to think in terms of days. Think in terms of years, or even better, decades.
Daniel Logan, MS, AAMS retweeted
Many people hear backdoor Roth and think it's a loophole...
In many cases, it's not. It's a common routine move for high earners. But it's also one you may get wrong.
Quick refresher...
If your income is too high to contribute to a Roth IRA directly, you can make a nondeductible contribution to a traditional IRA and then convert it to a Roth. If that's the only IRA money you have, the conversion is mostly tax-free.
The trap can be the pro-rata rule. When you convert, the IRS doesn't let you pick which dollars move. It looks at all your traditional IRAs together, including SEP and SIMPLE IRAs, valued as of December 31 of the year you convert.
Meaning, if you have $7,000 of after-tax money and a $93,000 rollover IRA from an old job, only about 7% of your conversion is tax-free. The other 93% is taxable.
Plenty of people find this out after they've done it. And since 2018, a conversion can't be undone.
Pre-tax IRA balances can play a role in how certain retirement planning strategies work. That's why it's important to look at the big picture before making a move.
Days like today are uncomfortable.
If you're a long-term investor, it's important to keep some perspective.
The S&P 500 is roughly 5% off its October 6 high. Since 1980, the average drop at some point during any given year has been about 14%.
If you're 50, you could potentially live through 30 or more of these intra-year declines, and five to ten more bear markets, meaning drops of 20% or more.
Volatility is the price of admission.
No one knows what tomorrow holds or how the year will finish.
On days like today, remember your long-term plan.
Try not to think in terms of days. Think in terms of years, or even better, decades.
Many people hear backdoor Roth and think it's a loophole...
In many cases, it's not. It's a common routine move for high earners. But it's also one you may get wrong.
Quick refresher...
If your income is too high to contribute to a Roth IRA directly, you can make a nondeductible contribution to a traditional IRA and then convert it to a Roth. If that's the only IRA money you have, the conversion is mostly tax-free.
The trap can be the pro-rata rule. When you convert, the IRS doesn't let you pick which dollars move. It looks at all your traditional IRAs together, including SEP and SIMPLE IRAs, valued as of December 31 of the year you convert.
Meaning, if you have $7,000 of after-tax money and a $93,000 rollover IRA from an old job, only about 7% of your conversion is tax-free. The other 93% is taxable.
Plenty of people find this out after they've done it. And since 2018, a conversion can't be undone.
Pre-tax IRA balances can play a role in how certain retirement planning strategies work. That's why it's important to look at the big picture before making a move.
Daniel Logan, MS, AAMS retweeted
Your RSUs vested and your employer already withheld taxes on them...
So you're covered, right? Not always.
Companies commonly withhold federal tax on vesting shares at a flat 22%. That's the IRS supplemental wage rate. Once your supplemental wages for the year pass $1 million, the rate jumps to a mandatory 37%.
The catch is that 22% has nothing to do with your actual bracket.
For 2026, a single filer hits the 35% bracket above $256,225 of taxable income. Married couples get there above $512,450.
Meaning...many tech and biotech professionals are getting 22% withheld on income that's really taxed at 32%, 35% or 37%.
Quick illustration with simple math. A $100,000 vest withheld at 22% sends $22,000 to the IRS. If that income is actually taxed at 35%, the bill is $35,000. That's a $13,000 gap, and it shows up in April.
Short version: the withholding is a down payment, not the final bill.
The fix depends on the person, but the conversation can cover making quarterly estimated payments, adjusting your W-4 so your paycheck withholds more, or selling extra shares at vest to cover the difference.
With clients, I like to run the numbers before the big vests hit, not after the return is filed.
Sources: IRS Publication 15 (2026), Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide, section 7 (supplemental wage withholding, 22% and 37% over $1 million), and IRS Publication 15-T (2026); IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (2026 tax rate tables).
Disclosure: This is a hypothetical story and not indicative of any specific situations or client. It is presented only as an example and not intended as investment advice. Investing involved risk and there is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful.
Daniel Logan, MS, AAMS retweeted
My wife and I just got back from a wedding on the Amalfi Coast.
We flew Delta into Naples, and the flights were paid for with miles...
It got me thinking about my clients. A lot of them have traveled for work for 30 years and built up a serious balance of airline miles. What many don't realize is that those miles often don't transfer to your kids when you're gone. A few programs allow it with approval, but most don't make it easy.
So if you've been saving them for someday, this might be the year to book the once-in-a-lifetime trip!
My wife and I just got back from a wedding on the Amalfi Coast.
We flew Delta into Naples, and the flights were paid for with miles...
It got me thinking about my clients. A lot of them have traveled for work for 30 years and built up a serious balance of airline miles. What many don't realize is that those miles often don't transfer to your kids when you're gone. A few programs allow it with approval, but most don't make it easy.
So if you've been saving them for someday, this might be the year to book the once-in-a-lifetime trip!
This is the time of year where many clients are feeling very charitably inclined...
And at our firm, we're always glad to help them carry out those gifts. If you give to charity every year, writing a check might be the least efficient way to do it.
Say you own shares you bought years ago for $10,000 that are now worth $50,000.
If you sell them and donate the cash, you owe capital gains tax on $40,000 first.
If you give the shares directly to the charity, you generally skip that gain. If you've held them more than a year and you itemize (very key here), you can generally deduct the full $50,000 market value. For appreciated stock given to a public charity, that deduction is capped at 30% of your AGI, and anything over that can carry forward.
The other piece is bunching.
Ever since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) roughly doubled the standard deduction, most folks aren't itemizing anymore. The 2026 standard deduction is $32,200 for married couples. If your giving plus your other itemized deductions don't clear that, your donations don't do much for you on the tax side.
That's where bunching can come in. Instead of spreading your deductions out evenly, you bunch them all into one year so you clear the standard deduction and itemize in that specific year.
A donor-advised fund may help. You put several years of giving into the fund in one year, itemize that year, take the standard deduction in the off years, and still send grants to your charities on your normal schedule.
Short version: consider giving shares of stock, not the cash, and think about your giving in multi-year blocks.
Disclosure: Raymond James and its advisors do not offer tax or legal advice. You should discuss any tax or legal matters with the appropriate professional. This is a hypothetical story and not indicative of any specific situations or client. It is presented only as an example and not intended as investment advice. Investing involved risk and there is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful.
If you plan on being at your company for a while, selecting the automatic increase option in your 401(k) can be a great way to put more money away over time without having to remember to do it yourself.
Many companies offer it, where your contribution goes up by about 1% a year.
Keep in mind each increase means a slightly smaller paycheck, so it's worth making sure it still works with your budget. Plans also set it up differently, so I'd check when the increases kick in and whether there's a cap.
Your contributions still count toward the IRS limit on employee contributions, which is $24,500 for 2026 (not counting catch-up contributions).
Peter Mallouk has a diversification analogy I really like.
Think about the restaurants in your neighborhood. If you had to bet on which specific ones will still be around 30 years from now, that's a pretty difficult bet.
But you can probably bet there WILL be restaurants around 30 years from now, and that they'll be charging more than they do today.
That's the idea behind owning a diversified set of securities instead of trying to pick the one or two that are going to make it.
I get questions on living trusts pretty often...
So I wanted to lay out the basics.
A living trust (also called a revocable trust) is a legal document you set up while you're alive. It holds the assets you put into it for your benefit during your lifetime, and when you pass, a successor trustee distributes them to your beneficiaries or keeps managing them based on your instructions.
"Living" just means it's created while you're alive, vs. a testamentary trust which is created in a will and takes effect after death. "Revocable" means you can change it or cancel it any time as long as you're mentally competent.
Typically you're the initial trustee and the beneficiary, so you keep full control of the assets. If you become incapacitated or pass away, the successor trustee steps in.
One reason people set one up is it can help you avoid probate, which is the court-supervised process of administering someone's estate after they die. Depending on your state, probate can be slow and expensive. That only works for assets actually titled in the trust, so most people still pair it with a pour-over will.
It can also help you stay in control of your assets, plan for incapacity + keep things more private, which makes life easier for your loved ones.
For a lot of families, a living trust is a key piece of a sound estate plan.
Disclosure: Raymond James and its advisors do not offer tax or legal advice. You should discuss any tax or legal matters with the appropriate professional.
I get asked a lot how much someone should keep in the bank vs. invested...
Short version: it really depends on your income needs, goals, and time horizon. But the way I usually walk people through it is 4 buckets.
Bucket 1 is your checking account. I'd say enough to comfortably cover 1-2 months of expenses (housing, groceries, travel). Keep it in cash and it gets refilled with each paycheck.
Bucket 2 is the emergency fund, 3-6 months of expenses set aside for unexpected costs or life events. A high-yield savings account or money market fund can be a good fit here. I'd always refill this one before putting more into long-term investments.
Bucket 3 is your retirement accounts, so 401(k)s, 403(b)s, IRAs and Roth IRAs. These are meant for the long haul and it's generally best to leave them alone until retirement + let the market grow your wealth over time.
Bucket 4 is a taxable brokerage account. It's flexible and there are no early withdrawal penalties, so it can be a bridge if you retire before you can access your retirement funds penalty-free.
Keep in mind this is just a guide. But I think it's powerful when you match it to your time horizon.
Amount of my day spent on each task:
-Meeting with current clients = 3 hours
-Meeting with prospective clients = 2 hours
-Financial planning work = 2 hours
-Correcting "HAS" to "HSA" when discussing Health Savings Accounts = 100 hours
For many high earners, neglecting a taxable brokerage account can be a big mistake.
The flexibility is incredible.
I’m a fan of having a monthly automatic investment set up, and revisiting it periodically.
Taxable brokerage account = the future flexibility account
It gives you the ability to use it whenever you want and has favorable tax rates if you hold longer than 1 year
You also can borrow from this account quickly, easily, and for very favorable rates
Build this account
Not every dollar should go to retirement
But for most high earners, you should be be able to max retirement accounts and invest a ton here per year