How Executives Can Minimize the Retirement Tax Hit

For many highly paid executives, retirement isn’t just about capping off a career, or figuring out what they are going to do for the next phase of their lives. It’s also about juggling large payouts from the stock awards and deferred compensation they may have accumulated over the years.

Executives can minimize the tax hit and smooth out income from such corporate perks in the early years of retirement, financial planners say, but it is important that they start the process one to two years before they plan to leave. Among other things, advisers recommend that executives take an inventory of what their short-term cash-flow needs will be in retirement and review company policies on how and when they can draw down deferred pay.

By 

LIZ MOYER

Nov. 1, 2015 10:05 p.m. ETThe Wall Street Journal
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The Executive Paycheck Myth

Every religion has a creation myth.

Pay-for-performance is the fundamental tenet of the American approach to executive compensation. While groups in Britain and Switzerland have proposed capping executive pay, investors and regulators in the United States are mainly concerned when there’s a mismatch of pay versus performance. As long as a company is doing well, the sky’s the limit.

Congress has embraced pay-for-performance. As mandated by the financial reform law known as the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rules earlier this year to make it easier to compare actual pay with actual performance. The rules will require public companies to provide a table comparing the amount of compensation paid to top executives with the total shareholder return of the company. Total shareholder return measures the change in the company’s stock price, plus any dividends paid out to shareholders.

By  VICTOR FLEISCHER NOV. 4, 2015 NEW YORK TIMES

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