Financial wellness starts with income, not a portfolio

Both, under one roof. The BAB Group is a CPA firm, and investment advisory and financial planning services are offered through Alphastar Capital Management LLC, a SEC-registered investment adviser, with our team acting as Investment Advisor Representatives. That means the same team that prepares your tax return can also manage your portfolio and retirement plan — so your tax strategy and your investment strategy are built together instead of by two advisors who never talk to each other.

A CPA typically looks backward — filing accurate returns and reporting what already happened. A wealth manager looks forward — building and managing your investments toward a goal. When those are separate relationships, decisions get made in isolation: an advisor might recommend a move that creates a tax problem your CPA never sees coming, or vice versa. Our tax-centric approach means retirement withdrawals, Roth conversions, IRA rollovers, and portfolio changes are all evaluated for their tax impact before you make them, not after.

Both. We work with small business owners and their families throughout the wealth-building years — cash flow, tax planning, retirement account strategy, risk management — and then carry that same relationship through the transition to and through retirement, including income planning, Social Security timing, and eventually estate and legacy planning.

It means every planning decision — retirement income, IRA and 401(k) rollovers, annuities, investment allocation, estate planning — is filtered through the question "what does this do to your tax bill, this year and in the years ahead?" Most financial plans are built first and taxed second. We build tax strategy into the plan from the start.

Yes. Business transition and exit planning is one of our core business solutions. We start by understanding your goals for the business, your family, and your legacy, then build a plan — often years in advance — aimed at the best tax outcome when you eventually sell or transfer the business, including how that ties into your personal retirement and estate plan.

A 1031 exchange lets a real estate investor defer capital gains tax by reinvesting sale proceeds into a similar (like-kind) property rather than cashing out. It's one of the strategies we help clients evaluate as part of tax-advantaged wealth planning, particularly for clients holding investment or rental property.

Yes. Rolling over an old employer plan or an inherited IRA has tax and investment implications that are easy to get wrong — timing, direct vs. indirect rollovers, and how the rolled-over funds should then be invested. We walk clients through the rollover itself and how it fits the broader retirement income plan.

Sequence of returns risk is the danger that a market downturn in the early years of retirement — when you're also withdrawing income — can permanently damage a portfolio's ability to recover, even if average long-term returns are fine. It matters far more in retirement than during your working years, because you're no longer adding new money to ride out the dip. We cover this in more depth in our Sequence of Returns Risk guide.

We have offices in Alpharetta, GA; Fayetteville, GA; and Tampa, FL, and we serve clients virtually across the Southeast.

Reach out through the contact form on this page or call one of our office numbers. Most engagements start with a conversation about where you are today and what you're trying to accomplish — there's no cost to have that first conversation.