A straight second opinion on your retirement taxes.
Most returns get filed. Very few get planned. Jim Swiech, CPA takes your current plan, sets it side by side with a fully optimized one, and shows you the difference in plain English, with the math behind every number. One question gets answered straight: are you leaving retirement tax money on the table? No pressure, no pitch.
Free. No obligation. Bring your 1040 and leave with a clear read.
Prefer we reach out? Ask for your second opinion.
Leave your name and email and Jim will reach out within one business day to set up your free call. Phone is optional. There is nothing to upload here: you bring your 1040 to the conversation.
What a second opinion looks at
The retirement tax traps that hide in a perfectly filed return.
Roth conversion windows
The low-tax years between retiring and your first RMD are often the best chance you'll ever get to move money into a Roth. Miss the window and it closes for good.
The Social Security tax torpedo
The way other income drags more of your Social Security into being taxed. A quiet spike in your rate that catches most retirees completely off guard.
The widow's penalty
When one spouse passes, the survivor often jumps to single brackets on nearly the same income. We plan for it now, while both of you can still act on it.
RMD stacking
Required distributions that pile onto pensions and Social Security later in retirement and push you into a higher bracket than you ever paid while working.
The New York pension exclusion
New York treats retirement income differently than the IRS does. There are state-level breaks a lot of returns leave sitting on the table every single year.
Your drawdown order
Which accounts you pull from first, and in what order, can change your lifetime tax bill more than almost any other decision you'll make in retirement.
Why my read on your return is different.
I'm a CPA who spent years building my own retirement planning models, a system I call Continuum, because the off-the-shelf software could not answer the questions that actually decide a retirement. That is the difference here. Your second opinion is not a report a program spits out. It is your current plan set against an optimized one by someone who understands every line of the math and will walk you through it.
I'll show you the math behind every recommendation, in writing. Not a verdict you have to trust: the actual reasoning on paper, so you can check the work yourself.
I plan for the survivor, not just the couple. Most planning quietly assumes you both live to 90. I run the years where one of you is on your own, because that is where the brackets turn hard.
I'll put a number on what doing nothing costs you. Your current path set against a coordinated one, in plain figures, so the choice is informed instead of a guess.
I model New York's rules line by line, not just the federal return: the pension exclusion, how the state treats Social Security, the breaks Albany quietly leaves on the table.
I'll tell you when the answer is 'your current plan is fine.' If there is nothing worth changing, you will hear that straight, and we are done. No invented problems.
You get the verdict and the proof behind it, in plain English. The models do the heavy lifting in the background. What lands in your hands is a clear answer and the math to back it up.
How it works
Three easy steps. Your tax return never leaves your hands.
1. Book a free call
Grab a time that works. It's a real conversation with Jim, not a sales pitch and not a junior staffer reading a script.
2. Bring your latest 1040
Have your most recent tax return handy. Nothing to upload and nothing to send. Your return stays with you, and we read it together on the call.
3. Get a straight read
Jim sets your current plan against an optimized one and tells you plainly whether you're leaving retirement tax money on the table, with the math shown behind every number. No jargon, no runaround.
Here is the deal: if a second opinion turns up measurable valueworth acting on, we will show you exactly what it is. If it doesn't, there's no further engagement and no hard feelings. Either way you walk away knowing where you stand.
18+ years helping Western New York families make sense of complex tax and retirement decisions. Based in Lockport, most clients are within an hour's drive. The whole idea here is simple: take the retirement-uncertainty load off your shoulders, with a friendly team that actually plans ahead.
Bring your 1040. Get a straight read.
One free call. Real numbers off your own return. You will know whether you're leaving retirement tax money on the table, and what to do about it if you are.
Complimentary, with no obligation.