Two audiences, one page, and we should say so. The athlete has a compressed earning window, income allocated and taxed by almost every state played in, and a retirement plan written into a collective bargaining agreement they did not negotiate. The agent has commission that arrives on a contract schedule rather than a payroll one, with no withholding and no employer plan. And NIL has pushed the whole problem down to eighteen.
What is actually different about your money
Start with the shape of the money rather than the size of it. A playing career pays most of what it will ever pay inside a window of a few years, and the period afterwards is longer than the period during — often by decades. Everything difficult follows from that one sentence. The standard of living established inside the window has to be funded from outside it. The career can end on an injury, a roster decision or a rule change rather than on a date anybody chose, which means the plan has to work at a career length nobody can predict. And the people around the money — family, advisers, friends with a business idea — arrive in the same window, all at once, usually at the youngest and least experienced point of the whole arc. None of that is a character flaw. It is a structure, and structures can be planned for.
Then the tax, which is where the arithmetic gets strange. States generally tax nonresidents on income earned within their borders, and for athletes that is done by duty days — days spent working in the state over total working days in the year. Play a full season and the income gets sliced across nearly every state on the schedule, each with its own return, its own rate and its own definition of a working day; some cities impose their own tax on top. California is at the demanding end of that list. The top state bracket is 12.3%, and taxable income above $1,000,000 carries an additional 1% Behavioral Health Services Tax — renamed from the Mental Health Services Tax for years beginning on or after 1 January 2025 — for 13.3% combined. The Franchise Tax Board applies the working-day method to nonresidents and reaches endorsement income connected to California appearances too, and a payer must withhold 7% on non-wage California-source payments above $1,500 in a year to a nonresident, expressly including athletes and entertainers. One more rule is worth knowing before any deferral is agreed: under 4 U.S.C. § 114 no state may tax a nonresident's retirement income, and that protection extends to non-qualified deferred compensation paid in substantially equal periodic payments over a period of not less than ten years. How a contract is structured therefore has consequences long after the last game — which is a question for a CPA who does multi-state athlete returns and for the lawyer negotiating the deal, not for us.
The retirement plan itself is usually a creature of a collective bargaining agreement: eligibility measured in seasons or credited service, terms that change with each round of bargaining, and an administrator that answers to the union and the league rather than to any adviser. Get the summary plan description in writing from the players' association's benefits office and read it before anyone tells you what it says. Everything outside the CBA is yours to build: endorsement, appearance and camp income usually arrives on a 1099 with no withholding at all, which makes a solo 401(k) or SEP available and quarterly estimated tax compulsory. That is precisely the agent's situation as well. Commission follows the contract's own calendar — a signing bonus on one date, base compensation across a season, escalators later, and clawbacks if a deal is renegotiated or a client is released — so a good year and a good month have nothing to do with each other, no employer sponsors a plan, and the retirement structure exists only if the agent builds it.
What you are usually sold
This audience is approached earlier, harder and by more people than almost any other, and the approach usually arrives through someone trusted rather than cold. The recurring items: a very large permanent life insurance policy presented as a tax-free retirement plan; private deals — a restaurant, a club, a friend's company, a real estate syndication with a twelve-page deck and no audited financials; and bundled arrangements where investment advice, bill payment, taxes and lifestyle management come under a single fee that is not itemised. Plenty of the people offering these are competent, and business management as a service is a legitimate profession. The problem is the bundle: when one fee covers six services you cannot tell what the advice costs, and when the same firm both recommends the investment and collects from the product, no one in the room is required to put you first.
For a college athlete the version is different but the shape is the same: an agency offering free tax help, a collective's agreement that needs signing today, a marketing rep with a template contract. Nobody has to sign anything on the day it is offered. Deals of $600 or more with associated entities are reported through the NIL Go platform to the College Sports Commission under the House settlement, your school's compliance office reviews eligibility, and your own attorney reads the contract. Ask everyone in the room how they are paid. What a fiduciary duty actually obliges.
None of that is illegal and not all of it is wrong. But you are entitled to know how the person recommending it is paid, and to compare. Our standard · our fees, published · the difference between an RIA and a brokerage.
What we do instead
We are a fee-only registered investment adviser in Norwalk. We do not represent anyone to a team, we sell no insurance, we take no commissions and we publish what we charge. What we do for someone in this situation starts with a number that has nothing to do with the contract: what does the household actually cost to run for a year, and what does it need to cost in the decades after the playing income stops. Everything else — how much can be spent, how much must be invested, what a purchase really costs when you price it against the years it has to last — comes out of that one calculation. Tax goes to a CPA who handles multi-state athlete returns, and that is a genuine specialty rather than a preference; plenty of excellent CPAs have never filed a fifteen-state allocation. Contracts, agency agreements and NIL deals go to your own attorney.
Then the structures, in the order they actually apply. The league or association plan under the CBA, obtained in writing from the benefits office, understood before anything is elected and not rolled anywhere reflexively at the end of a career. A solo 401(k) or SEP-IRA for the 1099 income — endorsements, appearances, camps, clinics, and for an agent, commission — where the 2026 ceiling across all sources for one person is $72,000. A cash balance layer where there is a business with several years of high, stable profit behind it, which describes some agencies and some post-career ventures. Quarterly estimated tax as a standing habit rather than an April event: federal payments are required once you expect to owe $1,000 or more, and California runs its own instalment pattern of 30%, 40%, nothing and 30% — with no prior-year safe harbour at all once California AGI reaches $1,000,000. Solo 401(k) · cash balance · why the order of returns matters when withdrawals start early.
NIL deserves its own paragraph, because the people in it are the least served and the easiest to help. The IRS is direct: income from NIL activities is generally taxable, including non-cash compensation — merchandise, gift cards, a car, services received. Where the athlete is an independent contractor it is self-employment income reported on Schedule C with self-employment tax on Schedule SE, and estimated payments on Form 1040-ES; a Form 1099-NEC arrives only above the $2,000 reporting threshold for 2026, and income is taxable whether or not any form ever shows up. So a nineteen-year-old with no withholding is usually the first person in their family to face quarterly estimated taxes, and often the first to face a state return outside California. The practical work is dull and it works: set aside a fixed percentage of every payment on the day it lands, keep every receipt and mileage log, put the school's compliance office between you and every agreement, and open a Roth IRA. NIL income is compensation for IRA purposes, the 2026 contribution is the lesser of $7,500 or what you earned, a minor uses a custodial account, and — stated as an arithmetic illustration and not as a projection of anything — a dollar contributed at nineteen has forty more years of compounding available to it than the same dollar contributed at fifty-nine. Roth versus traditional · how compounding actually works · when you are the first in the family with this problem.
The retirement structures that actually apply to you: League plans (union CBAs), Solo 401(k), Cash balance, deferred compensation, jock-tax filings. Which of those fits depends on how you are paid and whether anyone else is on your payroll — the plan chooser walks through it, and this guide compares them honestly.
A first conversation, at no cost
Fifteen minutes on the phone. If your question has a short answer you get it on the call, and if we are not the right firm for you we will say so.
Where professional athletes and their agents are in Los Angeles and Orange County
We work across both counties from a principal office in Norwalk. These are the county guides, each naming the cities where this audience actually concentrates:
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Questions
What is the jock tax, and do I really file in that many states?
"Jock tax" is shorthand for an ordinary rule applied to an unusual schedule: states tax nonresidents on income earned inside their borders, and for a travelling athlete the allocation is done by duty days — days worked in the state over total working days. A full season across a dozen states can therefore produce a dozen nonresident returns, each with its own rate and its own rules about what counts as a working day, plus a handful of cities with their own tax. California applies the working-day method and also reaches endorsement income tied to appearances here. A resident of California generally claims a credit for net income tax paid to another state, but the credit has limits and a few states are handled in reverse. This is specialist CPA territory and worth paying for; we coordinate with yours rather than guessing at it.
I have NIL income. What do I actually have to do?
Four things. One: assume it is taxable — the IRS says NIL income generally is, including non-cash items like merchandise, gear, gift cards and free services. Two: if you are paid as an independent contractor, that is self-employment income on Schedule C, with self-employment tax on Schedule SE and estimated payments on Form 1040-ES; the obligation exists whether or not a 1099 ever arrives, and the 2026 Form 1099-NEC threshold is $2,000. Three: keep records as you go — contracts, receipts, mileage, travel — because reconstructing them in April is how deductions get lost. Four: run every agreement past your school's compliance office and your own attorney before you sign. Eligibility and disclosure rules move constantly; deals of $600 or more with associated entities are reported through NIL Go to the College Sports Commission under the House settlement, which received final approval on 6 June 2025. We do not advise on eligibility and never will — that belongs to compliance and counsel.
Can a college athlete open a Roth IRA?
If there is earned income, generally yes, and this is one of the genuinely valuable things on this page. IRA contributions require compensation, and self-employment income from NIL activity is compensation for that purpose. For 2026 you may contribute the lesser of $7,500 or your total compensation for the year. Anyone under eighteen uses a custodial IRA opened by an adult, which converts to their own at the age of majority. Two practical notes: net self-employment earnings, not gross receipts, are what count, so your CPA should confirm the number; and a Roth makes particular sense when current income is modest, which describes most college athletes even in a good NIL year. Roth versus traditional, decided properly.
I am an agent, not an athlete. What is here for me?
The half of the page about irregular income, which is your entire financial life. Commission arrives on the contract's schedule rather than a payroll calendar — a lump on signing, instalments across a season, escalators years later, and clawbacks when a deal is renegotiated or a client is released. No employer sponsors a plan for you. The work is therefore: a household budget built on a conservative baseline rather than last year's best month, quarterly estimates paid on a schedule, a solo 401(k) or SEP funded in the good years, and a cash balance layer considered only once the profit has been high and stable for several years. If you have staff, the state mandate applies to your agency like any other California employer and the industry guides cover that side. Industry guides · the owner's own money.
What happens to the league plan when I stop playing?
Ask the players' association's benefits office, in writing, before you elect anything — the terms come from the collective bargaining agreement, they differ by sport and by era, and eligibility is usually measured in seasons or credited service rather than years of age. Two warnings that apply generally. First, do not roll a plan balance anywhere reflexively at separation; different plan types carry different early-access and creditor-protection features and some of them do not survive the trip into an IRA. Second, where deferred compensation is involved, the structure of the payments matters for state tax long afterwards — 4 U.S.C. § 114 protects a nonresident's retirement income, including non-qualified deferred compensation paid in substantially equal periodic payments over at least ten years. Both of those are decisions to model before the paperwork, with your CPA in the room. Rollover mistakes.
What does this cost, and is there a minimum?
There is no minimum to open an account. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Investment management is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year, billed quarterly, and it is published on the site — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
Do I have to have a lot saved already?
No, and that is deliberate. Most firms set a minimum precisely to avoid people at the start of this. We built the opposite: $0 to open, and the same fiduciary standard whether the account is four figures or seven.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.