In-Person Retirement Tax and Income Planning at Our Naperville Office

Because the biggest retirement decisions are personal, and personal decisions are easier to get right across a table than over a call-center line. A local advisor learns your actual life — your house, your family, your worries — and is there in person when markets get scary or a big decision lands. In an era when most firms are pushing you toward an app or an 800-number, we think your money deserves a real relationship.

Because retirement planning is a multi-decade relationship, not a transaction, and trust is built face to face. With our pre-retiree and retiree clients we deliberately stay local — meeting face to face at our Naperville office, knowing our clients as neighbors, and being genuinely reachable. Plenty of firms are racing to be virtual; for this work we’d rather be the advisor you can actually sit down with.

Because the shift from saving for retirement to living off your money is the hardest, highest-stakes financial transition most people face — and it’s a different skill than growing a 401(k). We focus on the 50–75 household preparing for or living in retirement, so the questions you’re asking are the ones we answer all day: when to claim Social Security, how much you can safely spend, and how to draw income tax-efficiently.

Because taxes are one of the biggest controllable costs in retirement, and an investment plan that ignores them leaves real money on the table. Tax planning, preparation and filing are included in our fee — returns are prepared and filed through a partner tax firm, with Heritage coordinating the work — so the strategy and the tax return actually match — Roth conversions, withdrawal sequencing, and charitable giving timed to lower your lifetime tax bill, not just this year’s. Most advisors give loose tax “advice” and stay hands-off; we don’t.

It’s the most common frustration we hear: your advisor hands you an allocation once a year but has never shown you a Social Security claiming strategy, an income-withdrawal plan, a Roth conversion roadmap, or a tax plan. Often it’s because they’re built to manage investments, not to do comprehensive retirement planning — it may be outside their training or their firm’s model. A real retirement plan answers “what do I actually do, and when?” — and that’s the whole job here.

Yes. David Fortosis is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, and CFP Board requires him to act as a fiduciary, in your best interest, at all times when he provides financial advice to you. That covers advice about insurance and annuities as well as your investments and retirement plan.

For ongoing advisory relationships, we charge an asset-based management fee that ranges from .65%-1.25% per year of assets managed directly by Heritage Wealth. Our ongoing advisory services include investment management, retirement planning, tax strategy and annual tax preparation coordinated through our partner firm.

No — and it’s one of the best-kept secrets of retiring in Illinois. The state fully exempts Social Security, pension income, and withdrawals from 401(k)s and IRAs from its flat 4.95% income tax. The trade-offs are some of the country’s highest property taxes and an Illinois estate tax that kicks in at a much lower threshold than the federal one — both of which are worth planning around, and both of which most advisors never mention.

A few things specific to here: Illinois doesn’t tax your retirement income, but DuPage County property taxes are high, so how you hold and draw your money matters. There’s also an Illinois estate tax with a far lower exemption than the federal one, which can surprise families who only planned around the federal number. These are exactly the local details a real plan accounts for.

No — we serve clients across Naperville and the surrounding DuPage and Kane County suburbs, and we’ll meet in person at our Naperville office. Naperville is our home base and the community we know best.

There can be a window between the day you stop working and the day Social Security and required distributions begin, when your taxable income is lower than it may be again. Converting in those years means paying some tax now to reduce taxable income later. Whether it makes sense depends on your accounts, your income and your plans, so we model it as part of your retirement plan rather than answer it on its own.

Choosing which accounts to draw from and in what order, timing Social Security, deciding whether Roth conversions make sense, and planning charitable giving, so that the plan and the tax return match. Annual tax preparation, coordinated through our partner firm, is part of our ongoing advisory services.