Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Eric Sebold, Federal Benefit Consultant with Institute for Financial Awareness-Tax Savings Strategies for Long-Term Wealth

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Eric Sebold is the Lead Workshop Educator for the Institute for Financial Awareness, one of the fastest growing 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the DC/Metro Area.Eric is a widely sought out speaker pertaining to the world of Federal Benefits and Retirement Planning. He is a Certified Educational Consultant (CEC) and a Federal Employee Benefits Consultant. He is a well-versed workshop veteran, teaching courses in many agencies across the D.C. metropolitan area.Eric’s career in financial services started as a Chartered Federal Employee Benefits Consultant (ChFEBC). Eric is best known for his workshop entitled Federal Benefits Best Kept Secrets. Through his years of experience consulting for federal employees, Eric has developed tax saving strategies as well as estate conservation plans for hundreds of individuals throughout dozens of different agencies. He has also guided many federal employees through the complex steps of the retirement process. Eric has generously donated his time and expertise to the Institute for Financial Awareness.Learn more: http://www.ifaonline.org/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/eric-sebold-federal-benefit-consultant-with-institute-for-financial-awareness-tax-savings-strategies-for-long-term-wealth

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us, Eric Sebold, who's a federal benefit consultant with Institute for Financial Awareness, and we'll be talking about tax saving strategies for long-term wealth. Eric, welcome to the program.

Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate it. Hey, I think that no matter what time of year that we have a conversation, the word tax saving strategy is a welcomed conversation. So I'm excited to dive into this topic with you. But before we do, give us a little bit of your story and background. And how did you get into the industry? Perfect.

Thanks, Mike. Well, I really appreciate the opportunity to come out here and speak to you, folks. Really, my introduction to this industry and this business really came from a very personal level. I've got, you know, two parents that were working federal employees. I've got about 12 aunts and uncles on each, on both sides. So, big family, but a lot of federal employees integrated into that family. So really my first introduction into helping federal employees was on a very personal level in the sense that I was helping folks kind of go over their TSPs and these.

different things and the folks being my own family members. Yeah. So I have a longstanding relationship with the feds from a personal level, but now also after being 20 years in the industry, I've got a long, longstanding relationship with federal employees as a whole. So that's kind of where I came up from. And just being a child of federal employees, I love to do everything I can to kind of get back as much as humanly possible.

Yeah. When you have that driver, that's a family oriented, you feel pulled. not pushed. You know, you don't feel like, oh, I got to do this thing for the family. You feel like, hey, I want to serve my family. And then it starts expanding out and go, you know, once I got this polished up and dialed in for me and my family, who else needs this help? So what kind of tax strategies do you focus on? And how do they align with long-term financial goals? You know, taxes and tax-saving strategies can be intricate, but they can pretty be, in my mind, pretty simple as well. I mean, tax saving strategies in my mind aren't really just about paying less

taxes in the given year in which you're filing. They work best when you're, you know, you're deliberately aligning your long-term financial goals like retirement, wealth building, legacy or estate plan. And the key, I think, of taxes is as part of your overall investment in life strategy, not just a separate task. I mean, we really need to integrate those into our planning strategy as a whole, not just kind of focusing. on a year-to-year basis on, you know, how much am I paying in taxes this year and how can I pay less, but also looking at long-term strategies to mitigate against future taxation. You know, it kind of makes me think of like the domino effect.

If you make one change, it could just have massive changes down the line. And what you're talking about there is like taking a 360 degree view, like a holistic view, not just focusing on the one thing of taxes. Because if that's all you did, well, you're. you might not see the whole picture. You might miss the forest for the trees. 100%. And then also, we don't know what tax laws will change.

And we have to kind of, I don't know, maybe integrate ourselves into the changes that take place on an annual basis. So it's hard to plan, you know, fully from, you know, a 20 or 30 year perspective. But year to year, you should be doing some type of planning, especially with the changing tax environment on an annual basis. Yeah. And, you know, it also reminds me too of reactive. versus responding. So you need to be proactive, you know, and going, hey, maybe your tax person

needs to do more than fill in the blanks. Maybe they need to be proactively looking at, ooh, if you did this, that would be helpful for you versus, ooh, I got stung. I wish I had done things differently. So it's that long-term view in anything. But now we're talking about tax saving strategies. And I would venture to say there's not just two, right? So it's like, it's on going. And correct me if I'm wrong here, Eric, but the tax code has more than 10 pages to it. It's like thousands and tens of thousands of pages. How in the world is the typical person or business owner supposed to understand that? Exactly. I mean, honestly, I would say to all my clients, if you have trouble sleeping at night, just take a glance through there and you'll have no trouble

fall. But yeah, I mean, realistically, we really have to look at those different things and you know, and really focus on what makes the most sense, especially for you as individuals, because what might work well for you probably often doesn't work well for your neighbor or the person next to them. So really focusing on individual planning is key as well. So I think when people hear tax saving strategies, their eyes glaze over and they're like, I just don't know where to start. So what are some of the misconceptions people typically have that prevent them from moving forward to even looking at it? Because I think sometimes people can go, Yeah, it wouldn't apply to me, but what if it does?

Right. Another really good question. I mean, really a lot of people leave money on the table during tax time. And that oftentimes just getting money on an individual basis, or sorry, getting the most back on your return, I should say, on an individual basis is really working, you know, very closely, not only with a financial advisor, but also with a certified public accountant or a CPA just to make sure that you're covered on your basis. But again, a lot of people leave money on the table during tax time. but it's not always because they're doing anything wrong, but maybe just because they're operating on outdated and misunderstood ideas and strategies. I mean, we really focus on, especially for our federal employees, because we really feel like for a lot of people, especially retired federal employees,

they're actually paying, in my experience, the same, if not more, in taxes as retirees and they were while they're working. So we try to focus on those overlooked strategies and try to find ways that help mitigate against current and future taxation. Yeah, and I think that you bring up something powerful that people need to realize is if you are talking to one financial professional who says they know all things about all things, watch out. You've got to have a team. And I think whether it's your legal team, your tax team, your money team, your insurance team,

there's got to be those people that are knowing that they're experts in those areas, most importantly, making sure that everyone's on the same page, right? 100%. And that's why within our nonprofit, we always carry financial advisors, CPAs, estate planning attorneys, mortgage brokers. I mean, basically everything that an individual would need under the sun as it pertains to financial wealth and financial growth. Because like you mentioned, it's not just about having one financial advisor. I mean, you really need a team of individuals. I mean, just you could even break it down to the very rudimentary level of talking about, you know, your property and casually agent, your car insurance agent, your mortgage broker, your real estate agent. I mean, coordinating what you really, well, what we found to be the most effective is finding a financial advisor that can basically help you overseas all these micro advisors and look at planning from a macro level.

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, having that team approach, but trusting the team. then not just hearing them, but taking action or allowing that to move forward. So that's cool. So let's talk about the balance. I think that if you are imbalanced in life in any area, that's not a good thing. So how do you balance the immediate tax savings with that future look to create that financial security that people need?

Right. So balancing is a big part of financial planning as a whole. I mean, you've got to balance your immediate tax savings and long-term financial security. It's not just about, you know, letting today's tax breaks sabotage tomorrow's flexibility and growth. We really got to be flexible across the board. I think the key is thinking in layers, not either or when compiling your financial strategy. And, you know, maybe timing when that got out of the market or timing when to sell your home or to purchase a new home or whatever it may be. we really need to find that balance across the board as we look at our whole entire financial picture.

Yeah, and where do you find that typically, if you are talking to clients, typically they are kind of obsessing or overfocusing on a certain area that would lead to getting them out of balance? Right, especially focusing. I think a lot of people focus primarily on the savings aspect, their TSPs, their 401ks, their IRAs, save, save, save, save. And I've often found that the struggle for a lot of retirees or soon to be retirees is balancing the saving aspect of it, but also knowing that when you retire, what is my exit strategy? How will I spend this money? How will it be taxed? How will I sell this property? And, you know, really, obviously we have to focus on saving to get to our goals. But it's important,

especially within my, within our firm and within my, you know, federal base, it's the knowledge of how we will spend this money. What money do we spend first, I think is almost equally as important. That exit strategy of how and when we will receive these income streams is very, very, very important. Yeah. You know, it's, it really kind of makes me think of this. It's like when you play chess and you make a move and you leave your finger on the piece because you know it when you take your finger off, that's official. So you need to have those team members that are helping you out to go, ooh, what if I did this? I'm not going to do it yet. I'm not going to execute it,

but what's that domino effect? And so having that look forward and balancing everything out is huge. And then it really, really, to me, strikes me as the need for not wanting or settling for cookie cutter templated approach. So talk about the role of personalized tax planning. I mean, that's, I mean, really tax planning and financial planning, in my experience, is the opposite of cookie cutter. I mean, you should be focusing on a plan that is specific to your individual situation. As I mentioned previously, I mean, sit at the water cooler at work. Your situation may not be the same and probably is not anywhere near the same to the person next to you or the person next to them. So cookie cutter in our world just does not work.

I mean, you can listen to podcasts and all these different things and really where you're going to, going to get the most rubber to the road as it pertains to your tax planning strategies, your financial planning strategies is working with an individual. You know, one of the really key features, I think, within this whole new strategy of or implementation of strategy of these different advisors is now advisors across the country have opened up to us because now we've got these Zoom and teams and all these online meeting spaces. So it's not just about having someone in your local area down the street. I mean, you can really have access to a wealth of very knowledgeable advisors like ourselves,

where we can go over things like, again, tax planning, financial planning, investment strategies, whatever it may be, anything that focuses on what you need as an individual, you're not just subject to the person that's down the street for you. I mean, we've got, you've got open access to a lot of different advisors now. I think that's changed the game a bunch. Yeah, it really has. And maybe people don't even know that that's the case. So think about or what should people think about as a trigger or an opportunity or, you know,

I guess a trigger is the best word. At what point should someone consider restructuring their financial setup as it relates to tax savings and long-term wealth? Is it something that you're literally doing every single tax year, which may be so? Or is it something where there is some element of set it and forget it? I think there's some probably combination. the two, to be quite honest with you. But I would, I would, I know that with my clients at least, we're at least once a year. We are reviewing tax saving strategies with changing tax law. What's available for the following year. I mean, that's why the November is, you know,

the October, November, December, for us is a very busy time of year because it's more about, you know, the following year tax planning strategies and financial strategies and just getting those implemented. I think it's, I think it's more about what makes the most sense for the individual, but at least once a year, you should be speaking to someone about what makes sense in regards to tax strategies. Because, again, in my experience, this is the biggest obstacle that the retirees, at least that we work with, are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, is this, you know, sliding scale of deductions because for a lot of us when we're in our 60s and 70s, there's not a whole lot of deductions available to us. And, you know, for a lot of us, which we try to do, which is replicate our income and retirement, you know, versus compared to what we were working. I mean, we want to try to. Which is impossible.

It's impossible. But honestly, you know, surprisingly enough for a lot of federal employees, it happens, I think, more often than you think. And in that scenario, if we do replicate the same or similar income, you know, we maybe end up paying a lot more taxes as retirees than we are now. So really, to answer your question directly, at least once per year. you should be kind of reviewing these tax savings strategies. You know, I think when you hear about, you know, retirement planning, you think of, or even budgeting. I remember way back of the day, some budgeting counselor would say, every time you get your paycheck, cash it and put cash in this envelope for gas money or this envelope for food money.

You think about these days with buckets, you know, like we want some income bucket money. We want some tax favored, tax free. Talk a little bit about some. someone that should or how should someone view some of the tax buckets out there? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different buckets. I mean, first and foremost, for the, at least for a lot of my client base, the buckets really pertain to more of like a traditional IRA or traditional TSP versus a Roth IRA or Roth TSP.

And those buckets for are the most, I guess the most mainstream. It's either pre-tax or post-tax. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is this third bucket. that a lot of people are just not familiar with, which we, which are called in our world, non-qualified investments where we can save a dollar after tax and then potentially have that money taxed at a capital gains tax rate versus you're just your basic taxable income rate. So for a lot of people, it's more about, you know, obviously identifying your buckets. And what we don't want to do for a lot of people is if we shift from a traditional savings,

like a traditional IRA or traditional TSP, and then we shift to a Roth IRA or TSP. What we all need to know is that when we do that, we increase our taxable income, which again, then incurred, and then in turn will potentially decrease what we're taking home on a biweekly basis and, you know, increase our taxation across the board. So there's a happy medium, and we certainly don't want to bump ourselves into a higher tax bracket while we're implementing these strategies. So looking at those three buckets, again, I know a lot of people focus on the big two, but looking at the three buckets and identifying first and foremost from an age perspective, how long till we use this money? Maybe we need this before a 59.5 because both the

traditional TSPs and traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs generally aren't utilized or shouldn't be utilized until you're 59.5. So they have age restrictions and maybe we want to look at this third bucket because that's a vehicle that we can save in a very similar way, but potentially we can still access some of this money along the way. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think again, it comes back down to something very simple. Know the end before you begin. Look at that long-term wealth, see where you're at right now, know where those tax savings strategies could be factored in, and then at that point, start making the plan. And I think that, you know, what's to say, you know, trust but verify or measure twice cut once. Meaning, don't just think I did it once and

we're good to go. Annually, look and see where you're at. Look ahead. If you're see where you could be, where you are you on track. If you need to make adjustments, it doesn't mean that you had a wrong plan. It just means that some external things change. Let's make some tweaks. So Eric, wrap us up with some final thoughts on these tax saving strategies and then give us some information on how people can reach out and connect with you. Yeah, I mean, really personalized tax planning is very key and very, honestly,

is very important. And one of the most important things and often underestimated, of strong financial wealth management strategy. It's not just about filing your taxes correctly. It's also about proactively structuring your finances so you keep more of what you earn over time while also trying to focus on mitigating against future taxation. And again, yeah, that's kind of what I would leave everyone with

is at least once or twice a year, you should be looking at your financial picture, your tax picture, trying to find ways to mitigate against future taxation. I use the word mitigation often because avoidance is unavoidable. It's unavoidable. It's impossible. Yeah. You can lessen the taxes.

You can't eliminate. You can just lessen them. We can't avoid, but we can try to mitigate. And that's really what we want to focus the most on. So again, if anyone has any questions or concerns regarding what I've talked about or and really anything as it pertains to finances,

you know, feel free to shoot me an email. My email is very simple. It's my first initial E, followed by my last name, S-E-B-O-L-D at I-A-O-L-D at I-A-O-L-Nline.org. And we also can reach us at I-F-A-O-N-L-RG as well. Perfect.

Well, Eric, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. You too as well. I really appreciate the opportunity to come here and speak. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, Visit www.

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