Medical device sales professionals
Your income resets every quarter. Your plan shouldn't.
Quota, accelerators, a bonus that lands after the year you earned it. Based in Mandeville, Louisiana, GGM Wealth Advisors helps experienced medical device sales reps and regional managers plan around pay that rarely arrives the same way twice.
Sound familiar
What people in your position bring us
Commission that arrives in lumps
Quota attainment, accelerators and quarterly payouts mean cash flow can swing from one quarter to the next. A budget built on a base salary may leave a strong quarter spent and a slow one tight.
The withholding gap
Employers commonly withhold federal tax on bonuses paid separately at the 22% supplemental rate. If your marginal rate is higher, that withholding may fall short, and the difference may show up at filing.
A 401(k) built for steady pay
Deferral percentages, match timing and annual limits can interact in unexpected ways when most of your pay arrives late in the year. The plan's match formula decides what actually works.
A comp plan that changes every January
New quotas, new territory, different accelerators. Last year's income may be a poor guide to next year's, which makes it hard to know how much to treat as dependable.
1099 or distributor income
Independent reps may handle their own estimated tax payments and their own retirement plan, with no employer payroll department doing it for them.
Disability coverage that may not count commission
Group coverage often replaces a share of base pay. Whether commission and bonus are counted depends on the policy, and your income depends on being able to travel and sell.
A move to a competitor or a new territory
Commission on orders already placed, restrictive covenants, benefit gaps and unvested pay all deserve a look before you give notice, not after.
Equity, when your package includes it
Some device companies add RSUs, options or an ESPP, mostly at senior levels. Those decisions have their own timing and tax rules, and our Medtech executives page covers them in depth.
Where we start
Where we usually start
You already have people: a CPA who files your return, perhaps an attorney, a benefits portal, and a 401(k) from each employer. What is often missing is anyone connecting those pieces to how your pay actually behaves. With your permission, we organize the picture and bring the right questions to your CPA and attorney before deadlines close. We do not provide tax or legal advice.
Hypothetical: A 44-year-old regional sales manager receives a $60,000 year-end bonus. The employer withholds 22% for federal income tax, which is $13,200. If the household's marginal federal rate is 32%, the tax on that bonus would be $19,200, so about $6,000 could come due at filing. The example leaves out Social Security, Medicare and state taxes, and actual results depend on filing status, deductions and total income.
From there, planning often means estimating the year's tax before the bonus lands, deciding how much of lumpy income to treat as dependable, and setting retirement contributions and a savings pattern that could hold up in a slow quarter. Whether those steps fit depends on your comp plan, your plan documents and your tax situation.
The work that follows
What we usually end up covering
- What this involves →
Tax strategy
Most tax advice assumes you own a business. When your income is a paycheck, the levers are fewer, and using them depends entirely on timing.
- What this involves →
Retirement income
It is the question most people ask late and quietly. Answering it properly takes an afternoon, and the answer changes how you feel about the next ten years.
- What this involves →
Disability planning
For a surgeon or interventional specialist, the ability to do one specific job funds everything else. Group coverage rarely protects it as well as people assume.
- What this involves →
Executive compensation
Deferral elections, bonus timing, benefit choices, severance terms. Each one is a decision, and most of them default if you leave them alone.
- What this involves →
Equity compensation
Vest dates arrive whether or not anyone has thought about them. The work is deciding, ahead of time, what you sell, what you hold, and what the tax bill will be.
- What this involves →
Investment management
Allocation is a consequence of what your money has to do and when. Reversing that order is how people end up with a portfolio that has nothing to do with their life.
Free tool
At what age does work become optional?
The question most people ask late and quietly. It has a specific answer, and five inputs will get you close enough to know whether the date is where you assumed. If a business is the asset that funds it, there is a field for what a sale would net.
- Age today
- 45
- Invested
- $1,200,000
- Added each year
- $90,000
- Spending target
- $180,000
- Work becomes optional
- 61
Further reading
Where this comes up in more detail
Withholding on a bonus is only an estimate of the tax you will owe. Our guide to tax planning for high-income earners covers the timing decisions that remain when most of your income is paid through payroll, and why RSU withholding can fall short shows how the same supplemental-rate arithmetic works on a larger scale. If part of your income is self-employed or paid on a 1099, see how the Solo 401(k) contribution limits work. Once the usual plans are full, our guides to the Backdoor Roth IRA for high-income earners and deferred compensation planning explain what else may be available, and our retirement income planning service describes how we connect those choices to the life you want to fund. If you are weighing a new employer, read planning around a job change. If your package includes RSUs or options, our Medtech executives page covers equity decisions in depth. Our office is in Mandeville, and our Mandeville office page describes the Northshore and greater New Orleans area we serve from there.
How this starts
Three steps, and the first one costs you 30 minutes
Step 01
Tell us your story
About 30 minutes, no cost, no obligation to do anything afterward.
- How you got to this point, in your own words. Career, family, the decisions that shaped the last ten years.
- What keeps your attention at odd hours. Usually it is more specific than money in general.
- What success looks like to you. Not a number we hand you, the version you would describe to a friend.
- Who is already in your corner: your CPA, your attorney, anyone else we should be working alongside.
Straight about money
The first meeting is free
If we go ahead together, planning carries a fee, and you will know the number before you commit to anything. For households with more than $1 million in assets that we manage, the planning fee is typically waived.
Straight answers
Medical device sales professionals: common questions
Federal withholding on a bonus paid separately is commonly calculated at a flat 22% supplemental rate, or 37% on supplemental wages above $1 million in a calendar year, according to IRS Publication 15. That is a withholding method, not your tax rate. Your actual tax depends on your total income, filing status and deductions, so if your marginal rate is above 22%, withholding may fall short and the difference may be due at filing. Options such as adjusting withholding elsewhere or making estimated payments may exist, so it is worth reviewing with your CPA before the bonus is paid.
It depends on the plan. Some employer matches are calculated each pay period, so reaching the annual limit early may reduce the match on later paychecks unless the plan includes a true-up. Others match on annual contributions. Check your plan's match formula and whether it has a true-up, then compare that with when your commissions usually arrive. The IRS sets the annual limits and changes them over time, so confirm the current figures before you choose a percentage.
Self-employed reps may have access to plans such as a Solo 401(k), depending on whether there are employees and how the business is structured. Self-employed income also generally brings self-employment tax and quarterly estimated payments. Our guide to Solo 401(k) contribution limits explains how those plans work, and your CPA can confirm which plan and deduction rules apply to you.
Start with what you would leave behind: commission on orders already placed, how your company pays after separation, and any unvested equity or deferred pay. Have an attorney review non-compete and non-solicitation terms. Then look at the practical gaps, such as when your health coverage ends and the next begins, what to do with your 401(k), and whether the new base, quota and ramp period can cover your household's fixed costs. These items interact, so it may help to look at them together before you give notice.
GGM Wealth Advisors is based in Mandeville, Louisiana and serves the Northshore and the greater New Orleans area from there, but you do not need to live nearby. We currently work with clients in Louisiana, Florida, and Colorado among the states where we are registered. Most of the relationship runs over video and email, which tends to suit reps who cover large territories and travel.
This material is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as tax, legal, or investment advice. Neither GGM Wealth Advisors nor Cambridge provides tax or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation. Estimates are illustrative, based solely on the figures you enter and simplified assumptions. Your actual results will differ.
Let's start with a conversation
Bring whatever is on your mind: a commission statement you are unsure about, a bonus coming in December, a comp plan for next year, or an offer from a competitor. Nothing to prepare, and you will leave with something useful whether or not we end up working together. You can also call (985) 789-5013.