Your Financial Plan Is Not Your Estate Plan, and Dentists Need Both

Key Takeaways

  • Financial planning and estate planning serve different purposes, and dentists need both.
  • Financial planning focuses on building, managing, and transitioning wealth during your lifetime.
  • Estate planning determines what happens to your assets and practice if you become incapacitated or pass away.
  • Misalignment can create tax inefficiencies, liquidity problems, and practice succession conflicts.
  • Your dental practice is often your largest asset, so coordination between financial and estate plans is critical.
  • Both plans should be reviewed annually and after major life or business changes.

As a dentist, you spend your career helping patients think about their teeth in the long term. Your financial life deserves the same approach.

Many dentists assume that because they have retirement accounts and a will in place, they are fully “covered” when it’s time to hang up their handpiece. In reality, financial planning and estate planning serve very different purposes. One helps you build and manage wealth during your lifetime. The other determines what happens to that wealth, and often your practice, if you become incapacitated or pass away.

When they aren’t aligned, gaps form. And those gaps can be costly.

What Financial Planning Actually Does

Financial planning is the ongoing process of organizing your money around your goals. For dentists, that usually includes retirement planning, tax strategy, debt management, investment oversight, and coordinating major business decisions with personal objectives.

It’s not static. As your practice grows, as your income increases, as you bring on partners or begin thinking about a transition, your financial plan should evolve alongside those changes.

A strong financial plan answers questions like:

  • Are you saving efficiently for retirement?
  • Is your investment strategy aligned with your timeline?
  • Are you overexposed to risk through your practice?
  • How will a future practice sale support your lifestyle goals?

This planning focuses on decisions you make while you’re alive and actively working.

What Estate Planning Is Designed to Do

Estate planning, by contrast, is about control and protection when you are no longer able to make decisions yourself.

It includes documents such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives. It also involves beneficiary designations, guardianship considerations, and structured plans for transferring business ownership.

Estate planning answers a different set of questions:

  • Who makes financial or medical decisions if you cannot?
  • Who inherits your assets and how?
  • What happens to your dental practice?
  • Can your family access liquidity if something unexpected occurs?

Without estate planning, state law decides many of these outcomes. With proper planning, you do.

Why Dentists Need Both, And Why They Must Align

Financial planning builds wealth. Estate planning directs it.

But here’s where it becomes more nuanced: the way assets are accumulated affects how they transfer. Retirement accounts, practice equity, investment portfolios, and real estate holdings all carry different tax treatments and transfer rules.

If your financial plan isn’t coordinated with your estate plan, several problems can arise:

  • Retirement assets may pass inefficiently.
  • Practice succession plans may conflict with ownership structures.
  • Heirs may face unnecessary tax burdens.
  • Liquidity shortages can create stress during already difficult circumstances.

For dentists especially, your practice is often your largest asset. If your estate documents do not reflect your partnership agreements or transition plans, your family and your partners could find themselves in legal and financial confusion. Alignment matters.

Where Dentists Commonly Fall Behind

Even highly successful dentists tend to delay one side of this equation.

Sometimes estate planning gets postponed because it feels uncomfortable or unnecessary. Other times, financial planning becomes outdated after major life events, such as marriage, children, expansion, bringing on an associate, or preparing to sell.

Another common issue is assuming that a succession conversation equals a succession plan. Without formal documentation and a coordinated tax strategy, intentions alone are not protection.

If it has been several years since you reviewed either plan, that alone is reason to revisit both.

How to Reevaluate Your Position

You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. But you do need clarity.

Start by asking:

  • Do my retirement projections still match my intended timeline?
  • Is my practice transition structured to support my personal financial goals?
  • Are my estate documents current and aligned with my business structure?
  • Have I coordinated beneficiary designations with my broader strategy?

Financial and estate planning should be reviewed at least annually and always after major professional or personal changes. When integrated properly, they create a unified roadmap: your income supports your goals, your goals support your legacy, and your legacy is protected.

Bringing the Plan Full Circle

At Edwards & Associates, we provide comprehensive financial planning specifically for dentists. Because we work exclusively in the dental space, we understand how practice value, transition timing, entity structure, and retirement income planning all connect.

When estate planning is needed, we regularly coordinate with and introduce our clients to estate planning attorneys who understand the unique dynamics of dental practices. That collaboration helps ensure your financial plan and your estate documents are aligned, and not working at cross purposes.

If it has been several years since you reviewed your financial plan, or if your estate documents were drafted without considering your practice’s long-term transition strategy, it may be time for a coordinated review. Your practice deserves a plan. Your family does too.

The New Roth Catch-Up Rule: What Dentists Should Know

Key Takeaways

  • What dentists need to know about the new SECURE 2.0 Roth catch-up contribution rules
  • How dental practice owners can prepare for retirement plan changes starting in 2026
  • Roth catch-up contributions explained for dentists and other high-income professionals
  • Financial planning tips for dentists navigating SECURE 2.0 updates to 401(k) and retirement savings

Retirement rules are changing, and if you’re age 50 or older (or will be soon), this might affect how you save in your 401(k) or other retirement plans. On September 15, the IRS finalized regulations under the SECURE 2.0 Act that add a new wrinkle: certain catch-up contributions must now go into Roth (after-tax) accounts instead of traditional pre-tax accounts.

Here’s what’s happening and what you should watch for:

What’s Changing

  1. Mandatory Roth treatment for higher earners: Under the new rules, if your prior-year wages from your employer exceeded $145,000 (subject to indexing for annual inflation), any catch-up contributions you make beginning in 2026 must go into a Roth account. This means you will pay taxes on them now rather than later. This is a significant shift for high earners who have relied on pre-tax catch-up contributions.  
  2. Higher catch-up limit for ages 60-63: SECURE 2.0 also includes an increase in the catch-up contribution limit for people who turn 60, 61, 62, or 63 during the year. The new “super catch-up” limit is 150% of the standard catch-up amount. For 2025, that means $11,250 instead of $7,500. In doing so, the law gives older savers an opportunity to boost savings more steeply.  
  3. Implementation timeline & flexibility built in: The final regulations become effective November 17, 2025, and generally apply to contributions made in tax years beginning after December 31, 2026. However, during 2026, the IRS allows “reasonable, good-faith interpretation” of the rules, giving plan administrators some flexibility in the transition. Plans without a Roth option face a tough reality: participants subject to the new rule may not be allowed to make any catch-up contributions (pre-tax or Roth).  

Why This Matters for Dentists & Practice Owners

These changes may seem technical, but they have real implications for your tax, retirement, and practice decisions:

  • Possible higher tax hit in peak earning years: If your wages exceed the $145,000 threshold, your catch-up contributions must go into a Roth account. That means no upfront tax deduction, potentially increasing your adjusted gross income (AGI) and affecting eligibility for other deductions, credits, or phase-outs. For dentists in high-margin years, the difference can be meaningful.
  • Catch-ups require Roth access: Beginning in 2026, high earners can only make catch-up contributions into a Roth account. If a plan doesn’t offer a Roth option, those participants can’t make catch-ups until the plan is amended. Practices should review plan design now to avoid limiting savings.
  • Planning assumptions shift: Until now, many planners assumed catch-up contributions would remain pre-tax, and in effect, act as a tax deferral. These new rules force planners to rethink projections of after-tax income in retirement. Because Roth withdrawals are typically tax-free, the shift may benefit those who expect to be in a higher tax bracket in retirement, but it’s a gamble.
  • Opportunity for older savers
    The “super catch-up” for people ages 60-63 gives a window to increase savings significantly later in your career. For dental professionals closing in on retirement or looking to accelerate contributions, that is a useful tool, but it must still adhere to the Roth rule if you’re above the $145,000 wage threshold.

What You Should Do Now

To adapt to these changes and ensure your retirement strategy stays on track, here are steps to consider:

  • Review your retirement plan offerings: Talk with your plan administrator or financial advisor to confirm whether your plan offers Roth contributions. If not, it may be time to evaluate adding one.
  • Model both scenarios: Run projections under both tax-deferred vs. Roth catch-up assumptions. See how much after-tax income you’d net under expected tax rates in retirement. Consider tweaks to your non-retirement savings or charitable planning to offset the tax change, if required.
  • Phase in changes: With the good-faith window in 2026, you might be able to ease into the changes. But don’t assume unlimited flexibility.
  • Communicate with your compensation and benefits teams: If you run a dental practice with associates or employees, these changes will affect them too. Make sure plan design, employee communications, and payroll systems are ready well before 2026.
  • Stay current on indexing and thresholds: The $145,000 threshold will be indexed for inflation. What applies now may change, requiring recalibration year to year.

Starting in 2026, higher earners aged 50 and up will no longer enjoy the luxury of making catch-up contributions in a tax-deferred bucket. That means paying the tax now rather than later. For dentists, whose best earning years often come later in a career, this shift could bite if not anticipated. But with careful planning, design updates, and scenario modeling, it’s still possible to adjust your strategy so your retirement goals remain intact, and maybe even enhanced with the right moves.

If you’d like help modeling how this change affects your situation, whether as a practice owner or in your personal retirement projections, we’re ready to help you explore the best path forward.

Understanding the New IRS Rules for Retirement Account Withdrawals

The IRS has made important changes to how you must withdraw money from your retirement accounts. Knowing these new rules is important for good tax and financial planning. Here’s a simple overview of what’s changed and what it means for you.

Key Changes in the Rules

  • Raising the Age for Withdrawals: In the past, you had to start taking money out of your retirement accounts at age 70½. This was later moved to age 72, and now, starting in 2023, it’s been moved to age 73. In 2033, this age will increase to 75. These changes give you more time to grow your savings before you have to start taking money out.
  • Changes for Inherited Retirement Accounts: Before, if you inherited a retirement account, you could spread the withdrawals over your lifetime. Now, if you inherit an account, you might have to empty it within 10 years. This rule applies to accounts inherited after December 31, 2019.
  • Who Is Affected by the 10-Year Rule?: The 10-year rule mostly applies to people who aren’t considered “eligible beneficiaries.” Eligible beneficiaries include spouses, minor children, disabled or chronically ill individuals, and those close in age to the person who passed away. If you’re an eligible beneficiary, you can still spread the withdrawals over your lifetime. If not, you’ll need to withdraw all the money within 10 years.
  • Annual Withdrawals: If the original account owner had already started taking money out, the person inheriting the account will usually need to continue taking money out each year. This prevents you from letting the money grow for 10 years and then taking it all out at once.

What Should You Do?

  • Update Your Beneficiaries: Make sure your retirement accounts list the right people to inherit your money according to your wishes.
  • Consider Roth IRA Conversions: Converting traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs might help your heirs save on taxes. Roth IRAs don’t require withdrawals during your lifetime, and your heirs can withdraw the money tax-free.
  • Plan for Taxes: The new rules can make taxes more complicated. Planning ahead can help you avoid paying too much.
  • Think About Using Trusts: Setting up trusts can give you more control over how your money is distributed to your heirs.

These changes bring new opportunities and challenges, so careful planning is important. For advice tailored to your situation, contact us. We specialize in helping people like you navigate these rules and make the most of your retirement savings.