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602-954-8766

Serving Fountain Hills, Arizona

Financial Planner in Fountain Hills, AZ

Most planning advice is written for people who are still saving. If you are already drawing income, the questions are different: which account to spend down first, what a second state does to the return, and what happens to the plan when there is one of you instead of two.Phoenix office, about 30 minutes down the Beeline

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CFP® Board-Certified Retirement Income Is the Focus Fiduciary Standard Licensed in Arizona, California & Colorado

Planning for Households Already Drawing Income

Zachary Holly is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ with over 15 years in practice. The discipline is retirement income: the order accounts are drawn in, the tax cost of that order, and whether the plan still works if the first few years go badly or if one spouse outlives the other by fifteen years.

Fountain Hills has a higher share of retired households than almost anywhere else in the Valley, and a large number of them keep a second home in another state. Both facts change the planning. Advice built around accumulation does not transfer cleanly to a household whose earned income stopped four years ago.

CFP®
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, a fiduciary planning credential held for over a decade
15+
Years in practice
3
States licensed: Arizona, California, and Colorado

On This Page

What You'll Find Here

Written for households at or near the point where the accounts start paying them, rather than the other way round.

  • Three situations this page is written for
  • 5 planning considerations specific to Fountain Hills
  • 8 mistakes retired households make, and why
  • Common questions, answered directly
  • What the first conversation covers

Who This Is For

If This Is Roughly Where You Are

01

Already Retired, Drawing From Several Accounts

An IRA, maybe a Roth, a taxable brokerage account and Social Security. The money is arriving, but the order it arrives in was set by convenience rather than by a plan, and the tax bill each year is a surprise rather than a decision. Retirement income planning is where the sequencing work sits.

02

The Snowbird or Recent Arrival

Part of the year here, part of it somewhere else, or a move to Arizona that happened recently enough that the old state still has questions. Domicile, where a distribution is sourced, and which state gets to tax what are not abstract points when two states both think they have a claim. Zach is licensed in Arizona, California and Colorado.

03

Planning for the Survivor, Not Just the Couple

A plan that works for two people can fail for one. The survivor keeps the larger Social Security benefit and loses the other, files as single at roughly half the bracket widths, and may inherit an IRA with a ten-year clock on it. That case deserves to be modelled while both of you are here to look at it. Protecting what you have built covers the ground around it.

Fountain Hills-Specific

5 Things That Change the Math in Fountain Hills

The town’s tax structure and the makeup of its households put a few items on the list that would not appear in Chandler or central Phoenix.

1. The Town Levies No Primary Property Tax of Its Own

Fountain Hills is one of the few incorporated municipalities in Arizona that does not levy a primary property tax, funding itself largely through sales tax and state shared revenue. You still pay Maricopa County, school district and fire district levies, so the bill is not zero. It does mean the local cost structure here is unusual, and a retirement budget copied from a friend in another Valley city will not transfer.

2. A Large Share of Households Are Already Drawing Income

The median age here is close to sixty, well above the Maricopa County figure. That shifts the whole conversation from "are we saving enough" to withdrawal sequencing, Medicare premium tiers, required minimum distributions and what the plan looks like on one income instead of two. Those are the questions this practice does most.

3. Two Residences Means Two Sets of Tax Rules

Splitting the year is normal here. Which state you are domiciled in, how many days you spend where, where your doctors and your vehicle registration and your voter registration are, all of it can matter if a former state decides to look. The planning is straightforward if it is done before the year in question and awkward if it is done after.

4. RMDs and the Medicare Premium Cliff

Required distributions push taxable income up whether you need the money or not, and the IRMAA surcharge on Medicare premiums is a cliff rather than a slope: a dollar over a threshold moves the whole premium to the next tier, based on a return filed two years earlier. Planning around it means looking at this year’s income with an eye on a bill that arrives in two.

5. Charitable Giving Directly From the IRA

A qualified charitable distribution sends money from an IRA straight to a charity, counts toward the required distribution, and stays off the return entirely, which is usually better than taking the distribution and deducting the gift. For households that give anyway and no longer itemise, it is the most under-used tool on this list.

The intro call is free and takes 30 minutes. If the sequencing is already right, Zach will tell you that.

Schedule Your Free Intro Call

What to Watch For

8 Mistakes Retired Households Make

These are the ones that show up most often in a first review, and every one of them is reversible if it is caught early enough.

Drawing From the Wrong Account First

The default is to spend taxable savings, then the IRA, then the Roth. Sometimes that is right. Often it wastes years of low-bracket room that will never come back, and leaves an IRA large enough that the required distributions push the survivor into a higher bracket a decade later.

Treating the Required Distribution as the Plan

The RMD is a legal minimum, not a recommendation. Withdrawing exactly that amount every year is a decision made by the IRS rather than by the household, and it usually leaves conversion room unused in the early years and a tax problem stacked up in the later ones.

Never Modelling the Single-Survivor Year

One Social Security benefit stops, the bracket widths roughly halve, and a plan that looked comfortable for two can be tight for one. It is an uncomfortable model to build and it is the one most worth having on paper.

Letting Beneficiary Designations Go Stale

The designation on the account overrides the will. Ex-spouses, deceased siblings and blank contingent lines turn up in first reviews regularly, and the SECURE Act’s ten-year rule means who inherits an IRA now changes the tax outcome substantially.

Assuming Residency Is Settled Because the Move Happened

Domicile is a question of facts, not of intention, and a state that stands to lose revenue is entitled to examine those facts. The documentation is easy to assemble at the time and difficult to reconstruct three years later.

Holding Too Much Cash After a Scare

Moving to cash after a bad quarter feels like risk management and is usually the opposite over a thirty-year retirement, because it converts a temporary decline into a permanent one and hands the rest to inflation. The answer is a drawdown order that lets a bad year be absorbed by the part of the portfolio built to absorb it.

No Plan for Long-Term Care

Care in the Phoenix metro can run six figures a year, and it usually arrives for one spouse while the other still needs the household to keep running. A plan without a line for it has an unfunded liability in it, whether the answer is insurance, earmarked assets, or a decision made deliberately to self-fund.

One Spouse Handling All of It

In most couples one person deals with the accounts. If that person goes first, the other inherits a system they have never operated, usually at the worst possible moment. A written plan both of you have read is the fix, and it costs nothing.

Why It Matters

What the CFP® Mark Actually Certifies

Anyone can use the title "financial advisor". The CFP® certification requires coursework, a six-hour exam, thousands of hours of real planning experience, and a fiduciary obligation to act in the client’s interest. Zach has held it for over a decade.

It matters more, not less, for a household already drawing income. The decisions at this stage are largely irreversible: a claiming election, a beneficiary designation, a year of conversion room that has passed. More on what the certification requires.

CFP® Certification Requirements

  • Approved college-level financial planning coursework
  • Pass the comprehensive CFP® exam (6 hours)
  • 6,000 hours of professional planning experience
  • Signed ethics declaration & CFP Board standards
  • 30 hours continuing education every 2 years

How We Work

How the Planning Work Actually Runs

Four steps, and a written plan at the end rather than a product recommendation.

1

Free Intro Call

30 minutes, no obligation. You describe where the income is coming from now and what has prompted the question. Zach gives you an honest read on whether this is work he should be doing.

2

Comprehensive Review

Every account, every beneficiary designation, both residences, the Social Security claim already made or still to make, and the actual spending rather than the estimate of it.

3

Your Written Plan

A withdrawal order year by year, the conversion room worth using and the years to use it in, the IRMAA thresholds to stay under, and the single-survivor case modelled alongside the joint one.

4

Ongoing Partnership

Tax law moves, thresholds are indexed annually, and health changes rearrange the plan quickly. Zach reviews on a schedule and is reachable in between.

Serving Fountain Hills and the Northeast Valley

The office is at 1300 E. Missouri Avenue, Suite 230, Phoenix, AZ 85014, about thirty minutes from Fountain Hills by way of the Beeline and the 101. Clients who would rather not make the drive meet by video, which is also how the planning continues through the months spent in another state.

Fountain Hills Rio Verde Fort McDowell North Scottsdale Scottsdale Mesa Phoenix Metro

Where to go next

Planning pages and articles for Fountain Hills

Every topic on this page has a page of its own. These are the ones Fountain Hills households ask about most.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to drive to Phoenix for meetings?

Not usually. The office is at 1300 E. Missouri Avenue, Suite 230, Phoenix, AZ 85014, about thirty minutes away, and clients who want to meet in person do. Most reviews happen by video, and that is also what keeps the planning going during the months spent out of state.

How much does a financial planner in Fountain Hills cost?

The practice is fee-based. The first 30-minute conversation costs nothing and exists to work out whether there is a fit. Ongoing fees scale with the complexity of the picture: two states of residency and several account types is more work than one state and one IRA. You will have the number before committing to anything.

I am already retired. Is it too late for planning to help?

No, and the largest single item is usually still available: the order accounts are drawn in, and the conversion room in the years before required distributions begin. What is genuinely gone is the room in years that have already passed, which is the argument for looking now rather than next year.

We split the year between Arizona and another state. Which one taxes us?

It depends on domicile and on the facts behind it: days spent in each place, where the drivers licences and registrations are, where the doctors and the bank are, and where you vote. Arizona is usually the favourable answer for a retired household, and the documentation to support it is easy to assemble at the time and hard to rebuild later.

What is a QCD and does it apply to us?

A qualified charitable distribution goes from an IRA directly to a charity, counts toward the required minimum distribution, and never appears in taxable income. It applies if you are over the eligible age, give to charity anyway, and no longer itemise, which describes a lot of households here.

Are you a fiduciary?

The CFP® certification carries a fiduciary obligation to act in the client’s interest when providing financial advice, and Zach has held it for over a decade. The services offered and the capacity they are offered in are set out in the Form ADV Part 2B linked in the footer of this page.

What happens in the first meeting?

It is a conversation, not a pitch. Zach asks which accounts the income is coming out of, whether the Social Security claim is made or still ahead of you, and what prompted the call. Often the useful answer is that the sequencing is already sound, in which case he will say that rather than find something to change.

Ready to Look at the Withdrawal Order?

Schedule a free 30-minute intro call with Zachary Holly, CFP®. No commitment and no pitch, just a clear conversation about how the income is being drawn and whether it could be drawn better.

Schedule Your Free Intro Call

Licensed in Arizona, California & Colorado  ·  1300 E. Missouri Avenue, Suite 230, Phoenix, AZ 85014  ·  602-954-8766

Three ways to reach Zach

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CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional Securities offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc. (CRD# 23131), member FINRA/SIPC Licensed in Arizona, California, and Colorado Check this advisor on BrokerCheck Form ADV Part 2B (PDF)