Common FAQs

Most firms focus solely on your investment portfolio. At RTB, we address the "Advice Gap" by serving as your Strategic Partner. We proactively coordinate your investments, tax planning, business advisory, and estate goals into one unified strategy. We believe that what you keep is just as important as what you make.

It means you stop being the middleman. We seek to work with your CPA and attorneys to ensure your retirement plans, business exit, and personal investments are all speaking the same language. We are able to lead the coordination so your plan is executed with precision, not fragments.

Yes. Our goal is to bridge the communication gap between generations. We seek to ensure your heirs are prepared for the responsibility of wealth and that your family’s values are preserved alongside your assets.

This is a great question. A CPA typically focuses on "Tax Filing"—reporting what happened in the past for compliance. We focus on "Proactive Tax Planning"—looking through the windshield to identify moves today that lower your tax bill for the next decade. We don’t replace your CPA; we act as the coordinator to ensure your investment moves don't create unexpected tax headaches.

Tax-Alpha is the "hidden" return generated by sophisticated tax management. By using strategies like Tax-Loss Harvesting (offsetting gains with losses) and Asset Location (placing high-tax investments in protected accounts), we aim to increase your net, after-tax return without taking on additional market risk.

Yes. For qualified investors, we evaluate private market opportunities—such as Private Credit, Real Estate, and Private Equity—that offer lower correlation to the stock market and the potential for higher yields in exchange for longer holding periods.

These are "super-charged" retirement structures for high-income business owners. They allow you to contribute significantly more than a traditional 401(k)—often resulting in six-figure annual tax deductions—while rapidly accelerating your personal wealth.

Absolutely. This "combo plan" is the gold standard for tax reduction. By pairing a 401(k) Profit Sharing plan with a Cash Balance plan, you can maximize your tax deductions while providing a meaningful benefit to your team. We specialize in the Advanced Design required to pass IRS nondiscrimination testing while keeping the majority of the contributions for the owners.

In a Cash Balance plan, the "interest" credited to accounts is typically a fixed rate (e.g., 4%) or tied to a benchmark like the 30-year Treasury rate. As your Strategic Partner, we manage the underlying investments to meet or exceed this rate, ensuring the plan remains properly funded while minimizing the owner's investment risk.

It means we have licensed advisors who are legally and ethically required to put your interests ahead of our own at all times. Unlike brokers who may be incentivized to sell specific products, our independent structure ensures our advice is conflict-free and focused entirely on your goals.

This is a strategy for high earners to move up to $40,000+ (depending on plan limits) into a tax-free Roth environment each year. If your company’s 401(k) allows for after-tax contributions and in-plan conversions, it is one of the most powerful ways to build tax-free wealth.

Yes, but they require precision. With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of 2025, we look for "Gap Years"—the window between retirement and RMDs—to perform multi-year conversions. This "fill the bracket" strategy moves assets into a tax-free environment now, protecting your heirs from the "tax bomb" of inherited traditional IRAs.

Standard advice—withdrawing from taxable accounts first—is often inefficient. We use Proportional Withdrawals and "Bracket Management" to pull from different "tax buckets" simultaneously. Our goal is to keep you in the lowest possible tax bracket each year, avoiding the "Tax Cliff" where RMDs push you into higher surcharges (like Medicare IRMAA).

A major liquidity event requires planning before the deal closes. We provide strategic modeling to minimize the tax hit on business exits or real estate sales, helping you maximize the net proceeds that stay in your pocket.

A successful exit requires more than just a high sale price—it requires a tax-efficient structure. Beyond standard stock vs. asset sale analysis, we explore advanced tools such as Section 1202 (QSBS), which may allow for an exclusion of up to $15 million in gains (under 2026 OBBBA rules), or Section 1042 rollovers for sales to an ESOP.

In a traditional Installment Sale, you are tied to the buyer’s ability to pay you back over time. A Deferred Sales Trust (DST) adds a layer of protection and flexibility. You sell your asset to a third-party trust, which then sells it to the buyer for cash. The trust reinvests that cash into a diversified portfolio of your choosing. You only pay taxes as you receive payments from the trust, allowing the "pre-tax" principal to stay invested and growing.

Under current law, Section 1031 is strictly for "like-kind" real estate. However, for business owners who own the real estate their company operates in, a 1031 exchange is a powerful way to peel off the property and reinvest the proceeds into a passive income-producing property (like a NNN lease) without paying immediate capital gains.

A CRT provides you with income today and a tax deduction—ideal for diversifying a high-gain asset. A CLT is the inverse: it pays a charity for a set term, and the remainder passes to your heirs. In 2026’s environment, CLTs are powerful for transferring asset appreciation to the next generation with little to no gift tax.