Cover Your Assets with Logan and Don

You spent decades saving for retirement, planning the lifestyle, and looking forward to finally calling your own shots. But retirement doesn't mean the IRS stops making the rules.

This week on Cover Your Assets with Logan and Don, we expose the tax surprises that can take a serious bite out of your retirement savings. From required minimum distributions (RMDs) and Roth conversion strategies to Social Security taxation and Medicare's IRMAA surcharges, we break down how seemingly small decisions can have expensive consequences.

We also tackle the often-overlooked widow's penalty, the tax burden inherited IRAs can create for your children, and why your financial advisor and CPA need to be working together—not operating in separate silos.

You planned for retirement. But has your advisor planned for the IRS? Because building wealth is only half the battle. Keeping more of it, protecting your spouse, and leaving a stronger legacy require a strategy that looks beyond your account balance.

Plus, join Logan and Don on October 24 for their complimentary event, Avoiding the Retirement Tax Trap, at the AC Hotel in Tempe. Two sessions: 8:30 AM and 10:30 AM. Reserve your seat at sunvalleywealth.com/register.

You spent decades building your retirement savings. But how much will you actually get to keep—and is your financial plan prepared for what comes next?

This week, Logan and Don expose the retirement tax traps that can catch even diligent savers off guard, from required minimum distributions (RMDs) and Roth conversion opportunities to Social Security taxation and rising Medicare premiums.

They also tackle the bigger picture: turning savings into sustainable retirement income, evaluating investment allocation and asset location, coordinating with your CPA, and protecting the legacy you leave behind through thoughtful estate planning.

And perhaps the most important question: Is your advisor proactively connecting all these pieces, or are costly opportunities being overlooked?

Retirement is not just about what you have saved. It is about what you keep, how long it lasts, and what you leave behind.

What are you actually getting for the advisory fee you pay?

This week, Logan and Don look beyond portfolio performance and ask what a financial advisory relationship should really deliver.

From proactive communication and retirement income planning to investment management, tax strategy, estate planning and coordination with your CPA and other professionals, your financial life should not operate in separate silos.

If you are scheduling the meetings, spotting the problems, chasing the paperwork and making sure everyone communicates, are you getting comprehensive advice—or managing the relationship yourself?

Plus, Logan and Don discuss the shift from accumulating wealth to creating retirement income, why having investments is not the same as having a retirement plan, and the importance of making sure your estate plan actually works with the rest of your financial life.

Stop managing your advisor. Start expecting advice.

You may know what you own—but do you know why those investments are held in those particular accounts?

This week on Cover Your Assets, Logan and Don break down the often-overlooked difference between asset allocation and asset location, and how where investments are held can affect taxable income, tax efficiency and what you ultimately get to keep.

But that’s only part of the conversation. They tackle RMDs, Roth conversions and tax-loss harvesting, then shift from accumulating money to actually living on it: Where will your retirement paycheck come from? What happens when markets fall? And could being too afraid to spend become its own retirement risk?

Logan and Don also ask a deceptively simple question: What is your advisor actually doing for the fee you pay every year? They discuss risk, hidden costs, Social Security, ongoing planning and why “nothing changed” should be an intentional decision—not evidence that nobody looked.

And finally, they turn to estate planning, including the mistake that can undermine even a beautifully drafted trust: failing to properly fund it and coordinate your assets and beneficiaries with the plan.

Because retirement planning isn’t one account, one investment or one decision. The pieces need to work together.

This week on Cover Your Assets, Logan and Don go beyond the account balance to talk about what a retirement plan should actually be doing for you.

They start with advisor accountability: Is your advisor proactively revisiting your plan, taxes, beneficiaries and changing needs—or has the relationship quietly slipped onto autopilot?

Then, they tackle the shift from accumulating money to creating a retirement paycheck, including Social Security, withdrawal strategies, market risk and why the same investment returns can produce very different outcomes once you begin taking income.

Taxes are another major piece of the puzzle. Logan and Don discuss Roth conversions, RMDs, IRMAA and tax-sensitive planning, including why the years before required distributions begin may present planning opportunities—and why it’s important to run the numbers rather than simply default to doing nothing.

Finally, they turn to estate and legacy planning and why a complete retirement plan should consider not only how you live on your money, but what happens to it—and the people you care about—when you’re gone.

Because retirement planning isn’t just about what you’ve saved. It’s about your income, your taxes, your strategy and what comes next.

Market volatility has a way of exposing weaknesses in a retirement plan. If every market drop leaves you anxious about your income, your future, or whether you can afford to stay retired, the problem may not be the market—or your emotions. It may be how your money is structured.

This week on Cover Your Assets, Logan and Don look at what it really means to take control of your retirement. They break down how Roth conversions can help manage future taxes, why a properly structured estate plan protects more than just your assets, and how giving different parts of your portfolio different jobs can help keep short-term income needs from being dictated by long-term market swings.

They also tackle one of the biggest reasons investors stay stuck with an advisor who may no longer be serving them: the fear that moving accounts will be complicated, stressful, or trigger unnecessary taxes. Logan and Don pull back the curtain on how transfers actually work—and why the harder question isn’t whether your money can move, but whether it’s currently positioned to support the retirement you want.

Because markets will move. Tax laws will change. Life will change. A well-built retirement plan should be designed to help you stay in control through all of it.

A million dollars on a statement may look like a retirement plan — until you need it to pay the mortgage, buy groceries and fund your life for the next 30 or 40 years.

You can’t take an account statement to the grocery store. You need income. So when the paycheck from work stops, where exactly will your retirement paycheck come from?

Which accounts will produce it? What happens when the market drops? And do you actually have a strategy — or are you hoping the numbers work out?

This week on Cover Your Assets, Logan and Don break down the critical shift from accumulating money to turning those savings into reliable retirement income — and why those are two very different jobs.

They also look at how taxes, Social Security, investments and estate planning need to work together, why the IRS may have a bigger claim on your retirement accounts than you realize, and how to tell whether your financial advisor is actually planning for your retirement or simply managing your investments.

You worked hard to build the accounts. Now you need a plan for how they are going to pay you.

You have an advisor. A CPA. A 401(k). Maybe an estate plan.

But is anyone actually connecting the dots?

This week on Cover Your Assets, Logan Marcus and Don Spini expose the costly gaps that can happen when your financial professionals work in silos — and why a collection of accounts isn’t the same thing as a retirement plan.

Plus: the little-known 401(k) option that may give you access to professional management while you're still working, how to build a paycheck designed to last through retirement, and why Roth conversions could help keep the IRS from becoming your biggest silent partner.

Your money doesn’t live in separate boxes. Your financial plan shouldn’t either.

You pay the advisory fee year after year—but what are you actually getting for it?

This week on Cover Your Assets, Logan Marcus and Don Spini challenge listeners to look beyond investment performance and ask whether their advisor is actually delivering the planning, communication, strategy, and support they’re paying for.

They break down how to turn retirement savings into a reliable lifetime income plan, manage market and sequence-of-returns risk, and coordinate Social Security and withdrawals. Then, they tackle taxes and measured Roth conversions, including how proactive planning can help manage future RMDs, Medicare premiums, and retirement taxes.

Finally, they turn to estate planning—why it’s about more than what happens when you die, how proper planning can protect your family during incapacity, and why a trust needs to be properly coordinated and funded to actually work.

Your investments, income, taxes, and estate plan shouldn’t operate in isolation. Your retirement deserves a plan that connects them all.

What if one of the biggest opportunities in your retirement plan has been there all along?

Most people assume they have to choose from the limited investment options offered inside their employer's 401(k) until they retire. But depending on your employer's plan, you may be able to continue contributing, keep your employer match, and have your 401(k) professionally managed—all without rolling your money out of the plan.

In this week's episode of Cover Your Assets, Logan Marcus and Don Spini explain this little-known retirement planning strategy, discuss why forgotten "orphan" 401(k)s deserve another look, explore how Roth conversions can help reduce future taxes, and explain why your estate plan isn't complete unless it's properly funded.

Retirement isn't about managing accounts in isolation. It's about connecting your investments, taxes, income strategy, and estate plan into one coordinated financial roadmap. The question is: Is your advisor helping you connect those dots?