The first stage of a business is the Seed/Discovery, meaning you gather the industry knowledge, funding, and resources to get started. After this, you Launch the company and enter right into the Growth Stage. Here is where the company either makes it or not; if you’ve made it, I’m sure you remember it. Hopefully, it was a pleasant experience for you, but most stories aren’t like that. Now you’re into the Established stage, where things aren’t quite as stressful, and cash is finally starting to flow in! There are two possibilities from here: you go into Expansion or right to Maturity. Maybe the business is doing well enough for your needs, but the thought of putting more cash towards another bigger growth/expansion stage isn’t what you want. Either way, you’ve reached Maturity, and you’re looking toward the Exit/Retirement time.

For most of those early years, you’ve risked your savings and maybe even more to get here. Your savings account has started growing. You gripe about the taxes you pay and wonder how I will make up for all those years of non-retirement savings! 

Enter the IRS to save the day for you. You read the right! Whether you realize it or not, they recognize that you’ve also grown the economy for them besides making it on your own. You helped generate jobs, material purchases, marketing, legal work, and taxes; I’m sure you could name a bunch more.

How will the IRS help you? By playing their game their way! Everyone’s heard of a 401K plan, but what about the other plans out there? Maybe you’re familiar with them, but maybe not. But here’s where you could save on your taxes that are probably at the highest tax rate, get a deduction, and then pay the tax when you take the distributions out when you retire, probably at a lower tax rate. How do you beat that? IRS to the rescue.

There are a few types of retirement plans where you can put quite a bit of money away for yourself, but those are for another article.

As always, seek the advice of your financial professionals before implementing any method on your own.