Kyler Nielsen, CFP

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Fort Worth, TX
Kyler Nielsen, CFP

Financial Advisor at RiverBranch Wealth Advisors, A private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC, in Fort Worth, Texas

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10/21/2026

Before you pull the trigger on rolling over that 401k plan from your old employer into an IRA, pause.

That seemingly routine rollover can close the door on a tax strategy that you’ll only get one chance to evaluate.

This decision point often appears with long-tenured employees who’ve accumulated substantial company stock inside their employer-sponsored retirement plans.

When they retire or change jobs, they may roll the entire account into an IRA.

The rollover may simplify the account, but it can also cause you to lose the ability to use a potentially tax-friendly strategy called net unrealized appreciation, or NUA, on your company stock.

How NUA works:

Instead of rolling the shares into an IRA, the shares may be distributed into a taxable brokerage account.

• You’ll generally recognize ordinary income on the cost basis of the shares distributed from the plan.
• The appreciation that occurred inside the 401k plan is generally taxed at long-term capital-gains rates when the shares are eventually sold.

Consider this example Imagine you’re an employee with:
• $5 million of company stock inside your 401k plan
• A cost basis of $1 million
• Approximately $4 million of embedded appreciation

When you’re evaluating an NUA strategy, you’ll typically have two paths forward.

Path 1: Complete a routine rollover

There’s generally no immediate tax impact if the rollover is completed correctly, tax deferral continues and future distributions from the IRA are generally treated as ordinary income. However, NUA treatment on the employer shares would no longer be available.

Path 2: Consider an NUA strategy

You could move the company stock into a taxable account and recognize ordinary income on the cost basis. The embedded appreciation would generally be taxed at long-term capital-gains rates when the shares are sold and the remaining retirement plan assets that aren’t employer stock can generally be rolled into an IRA as part of the distribution.

The difference between ordinary income and capital-gains tax rates gets most of the attention, but an NUA analysis should go much deeper.

• Can your cash flow absorb the ordinary income tax generated by the stock’s cost basis?
• How do current ordinary income rates compare with the rates you’d expect in the future?
• How quickly do you need to reduce your company-stock concentration?
• How could it affect your estate-planning goals? Charitable giving can be impacted too!

Most rollovers are treated as account-consolidation decisions. Employer stock can turn the rollover process into a one-time tax decision as well.

NUA isn’t appropriate in every case - the important thing is evaluating it while the option still exists, rather than discovering after the rollover that the decision can no longer be revisited or reversed.

If your 401k plan holds company stock, do you know its market value and cost basis?

10/01/2026

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a client tell me that they don’t pay enough in taxes.

It’s one of the most common pressure points that I hear from people. And yes, paying taxes can be painful. But oftentimes, I think people allow taxes to dictate every financial decision in their lives, and frankly, that can be even more expensive.

It’s a common concern I see often from people who’ve accumulated large amounts of company stock. The stock has appreciated and selling would create a large capital gain. Holding it just feels like the more comfortable choice because they don’t have to pay the taxes on it now.

Meanwhile, the value of that stock continues to fluctuate. It could keep appreciating, which just compounds the capital gains “problem” further, or it could decrease in value, at which point you may be kicking yourself for your decision to hold on to the stock when you could’ve sold it earlier at a higher price.

At some point, avoiding those capital gains taxes can mean accepting much more single-stock risk than you’d choose otherwise.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, ask yourself this question:

“If this money were sitting in cash today, would you use all of it to buy your employer’s stock?”

If the answer is no, the tax bill may just be the cost of moving some assets toward a portfolio that better reflects your actual goals and the level of risk you actually want to take in your investments.

This doesn’t mean you should log into your account and hit “sell all.” The sales may need to be spread across tax years, coordinated with charitable giving opportunities, paired with offsetting capital losses, or timed around other events that require liquidity.

Sometimes, paying taxes is evidence that an investment worked! “Making peace with the tax man”, as my dad told me once, gives you the freedom to reduce risk, create liquidity, and make decisions based on where you’re going rather than the tax bill you’re trying to avoid.

Are you planning for the lowest possible tax bill this year or a more resilient financial position over the next five years?

09/10/2026

An incredibly popular take, and one that resonates really well with most people, is the concept of avoiding lifestyle creep. I can’t count how many LinkedIn posts I’ve read about avoiding it entirely whenever you get a raise or hit a large wealth milestone.

But as an advisor, isn’t some level of “lifestyle creep” the intended outcome of my job?

My main focus has always been helping clients achieve their financial and lifestyle goals. That may mean going on exotic vacations, affording a second house, achieving the freedom to eat at more expensive restaurants, or maybe even purchasing a piece of luxury jewelry or two. It could also mean working fewer hours, helping parents or kids financially, or having the flexibility to take longer vacations or change careers.

I think people miss this: there’s a stark difference between accidental spending expansion and intentionally using money to improve your life. Building wealth with a structured and consistent plan gives you the ability to enjoy your money without creating financial stress.

What part of your lifestyle are you intentionally trying to improve as your wealth grows?

08/19/2026

Something I’m really big on is that wealthy parents should consider giving to their children earlier in life rather than waiting until they can inherit.

It’s a fact of life - at some point, you will pass, and you may leave your kids with a nice nest egg for their own retirement. But let’s fast forward a bit - at what age are they really getting that money?

Average life expectancy in the U.S. is about 79, and the average age at first birth is about 28. That means many inheritors may be close to 60 by the time they receive that inheritance.

By that point, many of the major life-defining financial events have already happened:
• They may have already purchased their “forever” house
• Their own kids may already be done with college
• They may have already spent years grinding to pay off student loans or credit card debt

Meanwhile, they receive a significant amount of money after the fact, when they are already in their peak earning years. That same money may have helped them:
• Pay down stubborn high-interest debt
• Invest more for their own future
• Help create an exit strategy from a job they hate
• Start a business they’re more passionate about
• Slow down and scale back so they can spend more time with their kids while everyone is young and healthy

The timing of the transition that wealth can make a huge difference in your future family’s trajectory. Simply hoarding cash until you die just to pass it on can feel like a missed high five.

I’m not saying you should sacrifice your own financial security - that obviously should come first, but if your plan already shows you have more than enough, it’s worth asking:

“Would this money have more impact after I’m gone, or while I’m still here to see what it helps make possible?”

08/18/2026

Are you actually rich, or are you just earning a lot?

The tension of “feeling broke” at a high income is really a structure problem. You may earn a strong salary, receive an annual bonus, and have meaningful equity compensation, yet:

• Your net worth isn’t growing
• You’re carrying high-interest debt
• You increase your spending with each pay bump
• Your cash flow still feels tight

It’s very possible to earn $400k/yr and still live paycheck to paycheck - I’ve seen it in real conversations myself.

That income gives you the ability to build wealth, but it doesn’t build wealth for you automatically. That’s why high income and financial confidence don’t necessarily coincide. Confidence tends to grow when there’s a process in place for turning your salary, bonuses, and equity compensation into cash reserves, diversified investments, and real career flexibility.

A larger paycheck can improve your lifestyle – an intentional planning process can turn what you earn into tangible wealth.

08/12/2026

Some investors will owe capital gains tax for 2026 without selling their investment or receiving any actual cash from it.

At the end of this year, Qualified Opportunity Zone investors may be forced to recognize deferred capital gains without selling any of their interest in the investment or receiving any liquidity.

For context, a QOZ basically allows people to invest in distressed local businesses and real estate projects, and in exchange those investors get to defer taxes owed from other investments and may qualify for additional tax benefits, but that’s not my point here.

The thing that I think people should take away is this:

Unstructured tax deferrals can create future liquidity problems.
Suppose you’re a corporate exec that sold $500k worth of company stock and deferred the gain through one of these QOZs. At the end of this year, you now have to recognize the gain, even if you still own the fund, regardless of whether the QOZ has given you a single cash distribution yet or not.

Meanwhile, you may have competing priorities in the background! Additional RSU vests you’ll owe more taxes on, college expenses, planned home purchase etc..

Deferring the tax bill can buy you some time, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to prepare for it. This is why I think that every tax deferral strategy should have a corresponding liquidity plan! You should at least always know about how much you’re going to owe, and how much cash you have to pay it!

08/10/2026

One of the easiest financial tips I'll give to anyone who is looking to improve their overall situation is as simple as setting up automatic contributions and savings to their investment and retirement accounts.

It’s just human nature to not make a contribution to an investment account or an IRA whenever you get paid - it’s so much easier to leave that money in your checking account to spend it at brunch on Saturday morning. (Bottomless mimosas, anyone?)

Set your investing up to where it occurs automatically so you don’t even have to think about it. You probably won’t notice any changes at first, but if you keep at it long enough and you don’t touch it, you’ll notice a difference over time!

07/24/2026

Go to any internet personal finance forum and you'll find hundreds of people confidently telling strangers exactly what they should do.

The problem? Most of them don't know ANYTHING about the person asking the question. (Dunning-Kruger effect, anyone?)

Income, taxes, goals, family situation, assets, career plans, nothing.

Popular advice =/= good advice.

Good advice actually fits the person receiving it.

07/21/2026

The best meetings you have are the ones where you don't even touch your slide deck.

I sat down with somebody for about an hour and 15 minutes recently and had a full-blown conversation with them about where they are and ultimately where they want to be headed from a money perspective. He's doing very well at a pretty young age, a couple of years older than me. He's a high earner, with multiple forms of equity compensation, two kids, and a handful of lofty goals that he wants to hit:

• Fully funding both kids' college educations
• Being able to become entirely work optional within 12 years
• Continuing to be able to afford more expensive vacations and experiences, like taking his kids to Disney World every year

And we talked through a whole bunch of different things to see about getting him there:
• Making sure his emergency fund was up to par and fully funded
• Building up specific investment accounts for him to draw from in those early years of work optionality
• Talking about pre-tax vs Roth vs after-tax 401k contributions and which ones make more sense now and at different points in the future
• How to continue using a small inherited account to kickstart his kids' college education funding
• How to think about his vesting RSUs and whether he should diversify or not, and building a framework for how to use those to hit his work optionality goal

Not at a single point in that conversation did we talk about how the market has done this year, what interest rates are going to do, or what's going on geopolitically in the world right now. Nothing about GDP growth or corporate earnings or any of that stuff.

Just him, his goals, and building the framework to hit those goals on a blank excel spreadsheet.

He said it was one of the best meetings he's ever sat in on.

07/20/2026

Warren Buffett recently said that investors increasingly prefer gambling.

Owning a large amount of "winning" company stock can make it tough to recognize when you’ve joined them.

Buffett also noted that "it’s becoming tougher to find attractive values when so many market participants prefer speculation." He pointed out that meaningful investment opportunities can be rare, which makes patience and discipline especially important.

For those of you receiving equity comp, that discipline can become harder as company stock rises. As the stock performs well, continuing to hold can feel like the "patient" choice, and sometimes that works!

Other times, doing nothing leaves you with far more company stock than you’d choose to buy with the same amount of cash.

You don’t need to make a new decision every time shares vest. You can (and should) have a pre-determined rule structure in place that will help guide your action with each vest and liquidity event.

A strong market can reward risk for longer than expected, but that doesn’t mean the risk still isn't there.

Before your next vesting date, consider this: "If this stock award had arrived as cash, how much of it would you use to buy your company’s stock today?"

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