Mariner Wealth Advisors and executive retirement planning after the last paycheck

What does executive retirement planning cover, and who needs it?

Executive retirement planning covers every taxable dollar between your last paycheck and your first required distribution. Take Hypothetical: Sofia, 63, widowed, a recently retired COO of a regional insurer. She has $110,000 of income before she makes a single choice: $90,000 of NUA cost basis plus about $20,000 of dividends. After the last paycheck, most of an executive's taxable income is chosen, not earned.

The plan runs until required distributions begin: at 73, or at 75 if your birth year is 1960 or later. In between it schedules deferred-comp installments, sales of former employer stock, Roth conversions, the Social Security claim (full retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or after) and Medicare at 65.

Filing status matters here. A widowed executive files single once the joint-return years end, and the same income then meets narrower brackets and lower IRMAA thresholds: $109,000 single versus $218,000 joint for 2026.

Who usually needs this? Anyone whose retirement income comes from four or more sources, each taxed differently. Sofia has a 401(k), former employer stock, a taxable account and Social Security still ahead. With that many levers, the order you pull them in changes the tax bill.

How Mariner Wealth Advisors builds the plan, step by step

Six steps, each with a named owner and something you can hold in your hand at the end.

The habit that follows from an evidence-based approach: before Mariner Wealth Advisors suggests a sale of company stock or a conversion, it diversifies the concentrated position first, so the income plan never depends on one share price.

Step 3 is where numbers change decisions. Compare the two-year totals, not the first year alone. Sofia converts in the year she is 63, and her income that year sets her premium at 65. In the table, her base MAGI is $110,000 before any conversion, and about $20,000 the following year.

Converting $120,000 at once puts her MAGI at $230,000, which means $649.20 a month at 65 and $202.90 at 66. Converting $25,000 now and $95,000 next year gives MAGI of $135,000 and then $115,000, and she pays $284.10 in both years. Two years of premiums cost $10,225.20 against $6,818.40 (using 2026 thresholds, for illustration). That's $3,406.80 less for the same $120,000 converted.

The decision rule behind Step 4 is short. In every year from age 63 on, total your expected MAGI before any Roth conversion and find the next IRMAA threshold above it. Size the conversion to stop just below that threshold, unless the bracket savings of converting more clearly outweigh the higher premium two years later.

• Step 1, inventory: Mariner Wealth Advisors lists every income source and its tax character (ordinary or capital gain, taxable now or later). You receive a single list you can check against your statements.
• Step 2, income map: our team builds a year-by-year projection from retirement to the first RMD. You get it as a one-page table.
• Step 3, Medicare lookback: from age 63 on, we check each year's expected MAGI against the IRMAA thresholds that will set your premium two years later.
• Step 4, Roth conversions: we size them to stop just below an IRMAA threshold, unless the bracket savings clearly outweigh the surcharge.
• Step 5, Social Security: we choose the claim age with you. Claiming at 62 cuts the full-retirement-age benefit by 30%, so the early years need another source of cash.
• Step 6, yearly review: we rerun the map with the updated thresholds. Illustrations use a fixed assumed return (for example, 5% a year for illustration), never a market forecast.

What can't executive retirement planning do?

It can't fix a premium surcharge that comes from voluntary income. The Medicare work-stoppage appeal on Form SSA-44 corrects premiums based on wages you no longer earn, but it doesn't cover Roth conversions, NUA distributions or stock sales. Sofia's $230,000 year would carry a $5,355.60 surcharge at 65 with no appeal.

Executives trip over this more than anything else. They assume the appeal will undo a high premium, but it covers lost wages, not income they chose to realize.

The IRMAA comparison also has a limit. Spreading conversions lowers premiums only when income can be moved between years. If a large pension or fixed deferred-comp installments keep your MAGI above $205,000 every year, smoothing gains little.

No plan can promise returns. Thresholds and brackets change every year, so we redo the map annually. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

Two decisions stay separate. The NUA choice and any lump-sum deferred-comp election each have their own pages, and this plan only shows where they land on your return.

How does this plan connect to your stock, deferred pay and grants?

The retirement plan takes its income inputs from three other decisions, and each one changes the map. Stock sales, deferred-comp installments and post-retirement vesting all land in your MAGI, which IRMAA reads two years later.

Concentrated stock planning decides how fast former employer shares are sold, and every realized gain counts in MAGI for IRMAA two years on.

Deferred compensation planning fixes installment amounts at election time. Those payments become an income floor that the retirement plan has to build around, often for five or ten years.

Equity compensation advice covers grants that keep vesting after you leave under some plans. Those vests are taxed as wages in the year they land, so the income map has to show them.

Mariner Wealth Advisors keeps one income map for all three, so a stock sale and a conversion aren't planned for the same year by accident.

Starting a retirement plan with Mariner Wealth Advisors

Reach Mariner Wealth Advisors through the contact form on this website. We hold meetings by video or phone, so your location doesn't matter. In the first meeting we go over your retirement date, the income sources you expect and which decision has a deadline.

Bring the last two tax returns (Medicare looks back two years), 401(k) statements showing the cost basis of employer stock, deferred-comp distribution elections and your Social Security statement. Missing pieces are fine. Cost basis is the one that usually takes a custodian a few weeks.

Mariner Wealth Advisors requires $500K in investable assets to start, and we put our fees in writing at the outset. Mariner Wealth Advisors serves 590,000 clients and reports $9.8 billion in assets it manages for them, a figure dated 10/5/2026.