Built a Business, But Not a Retirement Plan? Here’s What to Do Now

You’ve built a successful business, but now the big question is, how do you turn that into a retirement plan? If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you’ve spent years reinvesting in your business, but what happens when it’s time to step away? Can you sell it? Can you create passive income from it? Or should you start saving in other ways right now? In this episode, we’re breaking down strategies for business owners who need to turn years of hard work into long-term financial security.

 

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Transcript: 

 

You've built a successful business, but now, the big question is, how do you turn that into a retirement plan? If you're like many entrepreneurs, you've spent years reinvesting in your own business, but not in yourself. This week on Plan With The Tax Man, let's talk about that. Let's get started. Hey, everybody, welcome into the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with Tony and myself as we talk investing, finance, and retirement.

Of course, Tony Mauro is the man to turn to here in the Iowa area at Tax Doctor, Inc. He's a CPA, CFP, and an EA of 30 plus years experience, and a great resource for you to tap into if you've got questions about this week's topic, for example, which is what to do now, if you've sunk all of your efforts and your money into your business. And Tony is a business owner. I know you can probably relate, as many of us can. So it's a great question was we actually got a question in from a listener who's also a business owner kind of posing this, and you and I thought it'd be a good idea to have that conversation. How you doing?

I've been good. Well, there's been good here, and just getting ready for tax season as we tape this.

Yeah, yeah. It's coming fast and furious, so of course, as you're aware, but I'll share it with the listeners so they can kind of set the table for them, if you will, Dan, a longtime listener and a business owner sent a question that might sound familiar to others who are in the same situation, Tony. He says, "I haven't saved much for retirement, because I'm self-employed and I've always pumped most of my money back into the business. But now, I'm not sure how to turn that into retirement income, as it's creeping up on me fast. Have you worked with folks in a similar situation?" And obviously, Tony, I'm sure that you have. So let's talk about some of the key aspects to that. First of all, what'd you think about the question?

I think it's a good question, and almost every one of our business owners are in the same predicament or if we're doing, whether it's just their tax return or their monthly accounting for them, they all face this. And so, it is something on business owners' minds. And what happens to us all as owners is, as we get into our...

It's our baby, right? We pump everything into it.

They pump everything into it, but I kind of rebut that. Because what they say is, "All my money is in my business." And then, I start asking questions to them when we're trying to do some planning and say, "Well, what's your business worth?" "I don't know," they say. And I said, "Well, even if it's worth, let's say, X, you may not get all of that money up front for it and you may not get what you think." Everybody, since it is our babies, thinks it's worth well more than it actually is.

Our kids better looking than anybody else's kid, right?

So it is difficult, and we also try to put some numbers to it and tell them, "Well, if your business is worth," I'm just going to use an example, "a million dollars, could you live on that?" And number one. Number two is is, "What if it took 10 years to get that million? Maybe you better start doing some other things in lieu of. Because I think the business itself is icing on the cake, but I wouldn't just count on it