Tax Planning Built for Business Owners Who Can't Afford to Leave Money on the Table

Running your own business gives you income flexibility most employees will never have — and far more tax planning opportunity than most business owners ever use. At F3 Capital, we work with self-employed professionals, small business owners, and entrepreneurs across New Hampshire to turn that opportunity into a concrete advantage: lower tax liability, stronger retirement savings, and a financial plan that accounts for what happens when you're ready to step back.

Why Business Owner Tax Planning Is a Different Problem

Most financial planning frameworks are built around W-2 earners with predictable income, employer-sponsored retirement plans, and a clear separation between personal and business finances. If you own your business, that framework doesn't fit. Your income fluctuates. Your deductions are more complex. Your retirement savings are entirely your responsibility — and so are the decisions about what happens to the business itself when you're done running it.

 

Tax planning for business owners in New Hampshire requires a different set of tools, a broader view of the balance sheet, and coordination between your financial plan, your tax strategy, and your business structure. That's what we bring to the table.

Retirement Plans That Work as Hard as You Do

One of the most underused advantages of business ownership is the ability to contribute significantly more to a tax-advantaged retirement account than a traditional employee can. The right plan structure depends on your income, your business entity type, and whether you have employees — but the options are worth understanding in full before you assume a simple IRA is sufficient.

 

We help business owners evaluate and implement the retirement plan structures that fit their situation:

 

  • SEP-IRA: Contributions up to 25% of net self-employment income, with a 2025 limit of $70,000. Simple to administer, highly effective for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs.
  • Solo 401(k): Allows both employee and employer contributions, with the potential to shelter more income than a SEP-IRA at lower income levels. Includes a Roth option for tax-free growth.
  • SIMPLE IRA: Designed for small businesses with employees. Lower contribution limits but straightforward to manage.
  • Defined Benefit Plan: For high-income owners who want to contribute well above standard limits. Actuarially determined contributions can reach six figures annually for the right candidate.

 

Choosing the wrong plan — or failing to maximize the right one — can cost tens of thousands of dollars in avoidable taxes over a career. We model the options so you can make the decision with full information.

How Our CPA Partnership Changes the Outcome

Most financial advisors refer you to a CPA and hope the two conversations eventually align. At F3 Capital, our planning team includes Maria, a CPA who is integrated into the process from the start. That means your tax strategy and your financial plan are built together — not reconciled after the fact.

 

For business owners, this integration matters more than it does for almost anyone else. The decisions that affect your tax bill are often the same decisions that affect your retirement savings rate, your business cash flow, and your eventual exit value. Having a financial planner and a CPA working from the same plan, rather than parallel plans that don't speak to each other, produces better outcomes across every dimension.

The Full Scope of Business Owner Financial Planning

Entity Structure and Tax Efficiency

The way your business is structured has a direct impact on how much you pay in self-employment tax, how you can take distributions, and what deductions are available to you. S-Corp election, for example, can reduce self-employment tax meaningfully for owners above certain income thresholds — but it introduces payroll requirements and additional complexity. We work alongside your CPA to evaluate whether your current structure is still the right fit as your income grows.

Tax-Efficient Compensation Strategy

For business owners, the distinction between salary, owner's draw, and distributions isn't just an accounting question — it's a tax planning decision. How you pay yourself affects your Social Security earnings record, your retirement plan contribution limits, and your effective tax rate. We help you think through compensation structure as part of a broader plan, not as an afterthought at year-end.

Roth Conversions and Tax Diversification

Business owners often have years of irregular income — high-revenue years followed by leaner ones, or a significant income drop in the years before a business sale. These income valleys are often the best windows for Roth conversions: moving pre-tax retirement savings into a Roth account while your marginal rate is lower than it will be later. We map your projected income across multiple years to identify the conversion windows that make the most sense for your situation.

Business Succession Planning

What happens to your business when you're ready to leave it? Whether you're planning to sell, transition to a family member, or bring in a partner, the financial and tax implications of that transition are significant. A well-structured succession plan can reduce capital gains exposure, create liquidity on your timeline, and protect the value you've spent years building. We coordinate with our estate attorney partner to make sure the succession plan and the personal financial plan are working together — not pulling in opposite directions.

Key Person Insurance

For small businesses where one or two individuals drive the majority of revenue, the sudden loss of that person creates both a personal and a business crisis simultaneously. Key person insurance is a business-owned life insurance policy that provides the company with capital to survive a transition, buy out a partner's interest, or recruit and train a replacement. We evaluate whether key person coverage makes sense for your business structure and, if so, how to structure it so the premiums and proceeds are handled correctly from a tax perspective.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What's the difference between a SEP-IRA and a Solo 401(k) for self-employed business owners in New Hampshire?

    Both allow significantly higher contributions than a traditional or Roth IRA, but they work differently. A SEP-IRA is simpler to administer and allows contributions up to 25% of net self-employment income. A Solo 401(k) allows both employee and employer contributions, which can result in a higher total contribution at lower income levels. The right choice depends on your net income, whether you have employees, and whether you want a Roth option — all of which we model before recommending a structure.

  • Can a financial advisor help with business succession planning, or is that just for attorneys?

    Succession planning is a legal, financial, and tax problem simultaneously. An attorney handles the legal documentation, but the financial and tax structure of the transition — how the sale is structured, how proceeds are invested, how the plan coordinates with your personal retirement income — requires financial planning input. We work alongside our estate attorney partner to make sure both sides of the transition are addressed in a coordinated way.

  • When does an S-Corp election make sense for a small business owner?

    An S-Corp election can reduce self-employment tax for owners earning above a certain threshold — often cited around $40,000–$50,000 in net profit — because it allows a portion of income to be taken as a distribution rather than wages. However, it also introduces payroll requirements and additional administrative costs. Whether it makes sense depends on your net income, your state tax situation, and your business structure. We evaluate this alongside your CPA as part of the planning process.

  • How does business ownership affect Social Security planning?

    Self-employment income is subject to self-employment tax, which funds your Social Security earnings record. The level of income you report — and how you structure compensation if you operate as an S-Corp — directly affects your eventual Social Security benefit. We factor your business income history and projected earnings into your Social Security optimization strategy so the two plans are aligned.

  • What is key person insurance and does my business need it?

    Key person insurance is a life insurance policy owned by the business on a critical employee or owner. If that person dies or becomes disabled, the business receives the death benefit — providing capital to manage the transition, buy out a partner's interest, or sustain operations while a replacement is found. Whether your business needs it depends on how concentrated your revenue is around one or two individuals and what your buy-sell agreement requires. We evaluate the need and help structure the coverage correctly.

  • Is tax planning for business owners something you do separately from financial planning, or is it part of the same process?

    It's the same process. At F3 Capital, tax strategy isn't a separate engagement — it's built into the financial plan from the start. Because our team includes a CPA, we don't treat tax planning as something that happens in April and financial planning as something that happens the rest of the year. For business owners especially, those two disciplines are too interconnected to manage in isolation.