This Company Aims to Disrupt the Trillion-Dollar Retirement Industry — By Fixing a Costly Blind Spot

Benzinga Money is a reader-supported publication. We may earn a commission from the advertisers associated with this article. Read our Advertiser Discloser. For decades, retirement planning has been marketed as an investment game: pick the right funds, beat the market, and stay invested long enough. But a growing body of research suggests one of the biggest retirement risks for many Americans isn’t market performance at all — it’s taxes.Despite trillions of dollars under management across the retirement industry, most Americans approach retirement “tax-blind,” with little clarity around how much of their savings they’ll actually keep after required withdrawals, capital gains, and future tax brackets are factored in.Finance Advisors is building a consumer platform designed to address that problem. The company offers a free matching tool that connects Americans with vetted financial advisors who specialize in tax-aware retirement planning, a level of sophistication historically reserved for high-net-worth households.Rather than selling products or portfolios, Finance Advisors focuses on improving outcomes by helping consumers find fiduciary advisors whose planning centers on after-tax income, withdrawal sequencing, and long-term tax efficiency.A Platform Built From Inside the IndustryFinance Advisors was founded by Jake Romine, a longtime wealth-management marketing executive who has worked closely with advisory firms since 2018, most recently serving as CRO of a registered investment advisory firm founded by a former PayPal executive.Earlier in his career, Romine was exposed to the incentive structures that dominate much of the retirement industry, including product-driven compensation models and sales-first priorities. That experience helped shape Finance Advisors’ core thesis: most Americans don’t need more financial products; they need better planning and better-aligned incentives.The platform was designed to surface advisory firms that operate as fiduciaries — advisors who are legally obligated to act in their clients’ best interest — and who focus on tax-aware retirement strategies rather than commission-based solutions.The Retirement Industry’s Tax ProblemTaxes quietly determine whether a retirement plan succeeds or fails. The difference between financial confidence and shortfall often comes down to how efficiently savings are converted into income over time.Affluent investors have long structured retirement plans around strategies such as:Roth conversion timingTax-efficient withdrawal sequencingTax-loss harvestingLong-term bracket managementEstate-conscious wealth transferYet most Americans never gain access to these approaches, even after accumulating meaningful savings.Finance Advisors’ average matched household holds approximately $1.4 million in investable assets, a level at which modest improvements in tax efficiency may compound into meaningful long-term value.Small Improvements, Large Long-Term ImpactAcademic and institutional research highlights how after-tax planning can materially affect outcomes over time.MIT researchers analyzing nearly a century of market data found that tax-loss harvesting may generate approximately 1.10% per year in tax alpha, with benefits remaining around 0.85% annually even under wash-sale constraints. Vanguard research has similarly found tax-loss harvesting benefits ranging from 0.47% to 1.27% per year, depending on investor circumstances.For a household with $1.4 million in assets, incremental improvements of that magnitude — sustained over a multi-decade retirement — can significantly alter cumulative outcomes. Importantly, these strategies are generally most applicable to higher-income investors in higher-tax states and are not suitable for all portfolios or income profiles.Recent advancements in fractionalized trading and direct indexing technology have made certain tax-aware strategies more accessible than in the past, but implementation still depends heavily on advisor expertise and portfolio structure.Disclaimer: These examples are illustrative only and not recommendations. Not all investors benefit from tax-loss harvesting or similar strategies. Outcomes vary by income, tax situation, portfolio structure, and advisor implementation. Consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions.Why Fiduciary, Tax-Aware Advice MattersBeyond taxes, investor behavior and allocation errors remain a persistent drag on retirement outcomes. DALBAR’s long-running research shows that while the S&P 500 returned approximately 9.22% annually, the average equity investor earned closer to 5.02%, largely due to timing mistakes and poor decision-making.Finance Advisors’ approach is built around a simple idea: the right advisor doesn’t try to outperform the market — they help clients keep more of what they’ve already earned through discipline, planning, and tax efficiency.Find Out If You Have a Hidden Tax OpportunityFinance Advisors is free to use and designed for Americans approaching retirement who have built meaningful savings and want clarity around taxes, income, and long-term planning.If you’ve accumulated assets and haven’t reviewed your retirement plan through a tax-aware lens, there may be opportunity hiding in plain sight.Discover how much you could improve and get matched with a retirement tax specialist today.Invest With Finance Advisors TodaySources:DALBAR, Inc. — Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB)Vanguard — Tax-Loss Harvesting: Why a Personalized Approach Is ImportantMIT / SSRN Working Paper (ID 3351382)Benzinga is compensated for publicizing this content. 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