Your Amazon Benefits & Career: Financial Planning for Employees and Executives
Brian Thorp
Brian Thorp is the founder and CEO of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. Prior to founding Wealthtender, Brian spent nearly 22 years in multiple leadership roles at Invesco. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress.
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Do you work at Amazon? Get the resources you need and expert insights from financial professionals who specialize in helping Amazon employees make the most of their compensation package and benefits.
Whether you’re a new Amazon employee or you’ve moved up the ranks into a management or executive leadership role over a multi-year career, it’s important to make smart money moves with your income and employee benefits. For example:
✅ Do you know the right moves to make to get the greatest value from the Amazon benefits available to you?
✅If you’re thinking about leaving Amazon for another job or planning to retire from the company in a few years, are you taking the right steps today to ensure you will receive all of the compensation and benefits that you’ve earned?
Get the Most Value from Your Amazon Benefits and Compensation Package
Throughout the year, Amazon provides its employees and executives with updates about their benefits ranging from health insurance and health savings plans to retirement plans like a 401(k), deferred compensation plans, and stock options. While the company offers many useful resources and access to knowledgeable staff who can assist with questions, you’ll also find financial professionals not affiliated with Amazon who specialize in helping Amazon employees make the most of their income and benefits.
Whether you work in the Amazon headquarters in Seattle, Washington, another office location around the country, or remotely from home, you may have questions about your compensation package and benefits better suited for a financial professional who can offer unbiased advice and guidance.
For example, sensitive topics like discussing the steps you should take before quitting your job at Amazon to work elsewhere, protecting yourself in advance of a corporate layoff, or deciding when you should plan to retire are all conversations that may be more comfortable with a trusted financial advisor.
Should you hire an Amazon specialist financial advisor or an advisor close to home?
You’ll likely find dozens of nearby financial advisors well-suited to help you reach your money goals with a personalized plan. But it may be more difficult to find a financial advisor who specializes in serving Amazon employees.
Fortunately, many financial advisors offer virtual services so you can meet online no matter where you (or they) live.
This means you can choose to hire a specialist financial advisor who lives hundreds of miles away if you decide their knowledge and experience working with Amazon employees is a better fit to help with your unique needs.
💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with Amazon employees to help them make smart decisions to get the most value from their compensation and benefits, reduce their money stress, and prepare for a comfortable retirement.
🙋♀️ Do you have questions not yet answered? Use the form below to submit questions anonymously and watch this article for updates with answers to your questions. You can also reach out to the financial advisors below to set up an introductory call or contact them with your questions by email.
💸 Smart Money Insights for Amazon Employees & Executives
This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:
- Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Amazon Employees & Executives
- Get Answers to Your Questions About Your Amazon Benefits and Career
- Quick Facts & Resources for Amazon Employees
- Browse Related Articles
Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Amazon Employees & Executives
Answers to Employee Questions with Zack Gutches, CFP®, CPA
Zack Gutches is a financial advisor based in Aurora, Colorado who specializes in offering financial planning services to Amazon employees. Zack helps his clients get the most value from their Amazon benefits and compensation package so they can enjoy life and feel confident about their financial future.
Q: As a financial advisor with experience helping Amazon employees save for their retirement, how do you help them make the most of their employee benefits?
Zack: While Amazon has amazing benefits, they are often looked at in a vacuum. The real art and skill is being able to analyze and coordinate them with every other piece of your financial puzzle to create a cohesive financial plan that is working for you and you’re maximizing the resources available to you in alignment with your specific values and goals.
Q: When you first speak with an Amazon employee, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals?
Zack: What level are you and what is your tenure? How have you handled your RSU’s in the past? Do you have a concentrated position in vested Amazon stock? Tell me more about your tax-accumulation strategy you’ve employed to-date.
Q: Is there a particular benefit available to Amazon employees you feel isn’t as well utilized or understood by employees as it should be?
Zack: For sure the After-tax 401k with the In-Plan Roth Conversion. Amazon was a bit late on the scene to begin offering it to its employees, and I see low adoption with it even for employees that would make excellent candidates to harness its amazing tax powers. While the exact amount each employee can put in to the After tax 401k depends on their specific salary, missing out on ~$40,000 per year of additional Roth (tax-free) dollars really adds up.
Q: Beyond Amazon employee benefits for retirement savings, are there other types of benefits offered by the company that you find valuable to discuss with your clients (e.g., stock, education savings, health savings)?
Zack: The Health Savings Account (“HSA”) is a big one. HSA’s are the most tax-advantaged accounts in existence. They can be either a triple OR quadruple tax-benefit account depending on income, Amazon puts a match into the HSA, they don’t have income limitations like Roth IRA’s do, they can turn into traditional IRA’s after age 65, be used to pay for Medicare or Long-Term Care expenses in retirement, or they can be used to pay the non-subsidized COBRA health insurance premiums if you happen to get laid off but still want to keep the Amazon health insurance coverage while you find a new job.
Q: For Amazon employees thinking about leaving the company to accept a job elsewhere, what actions do you recommend they take before resigning and shortly thereafter?
Zack: Amazon provides life insurance at 2x your annual salary. This life insurance coverage tends to not be portable, meaning it doesn’t come with you when you leave, exposing you to a potential gap in coverage until you either get enrolled at your next company, or explore an outside, portable life insurance policy. If you hold Amazon stock at a gain in your 401k, I also educate on how rolling that 401k elsewhere may sacrifice the ability to do a Net Unrealized Appreciation (“NUA”) transaction down the road.
Q: For Amazon employees approaching retirement age, how do you recommend they prepare to make the transition from living off their salary to relying upon other sources of income?
Zack: Retirement is a huge change. You can read about it all you want, but it’s one of those things you have to experience firsthand to truly grasp how big of a change it is (a lot like becoming a Parent). I have my clients directly deposit their wages into their Investment Portfolio, then automate transfers to their Checking account so they get used to living ‘from their portfolio’ years before retirement happens. Your asset allocation MAY also need to change too since risk is a function of time horizon, and Sequence of Return Risk comes into play within retirement.
Q: For Amazon employees who have managed their finances on their own to this point, what would you suggest they consider to help them decide if they should begin working with a financial advisor at this stage in their lives?
Zack: A question I frequently ask prospective clients is how good of friends they are with TED. Time, Expertise, and Desire. If you are lacking 2 or more of the 3, it may make sense to seriously explore a partnership with a qualified Certified Financial Planner, and one who will fill in the specific gap(s) of any of the 3 criteria you lack.
Q: What are some of the unique financial planning challenges you commonly see among your clients who are Amazon employees and how do you help them overcome these obstacles?
Zack: The under withholding on RSU’s and being surprised what you owe at tax time. RSU’s are legally required to be withheld at 22% for Federal income taxes, which is often below the marginal tax rate of highly compensated Amazon employees and executives. As a CPA, I not only file my client’s tax return for them, but I also run an annual tax projection to prepare the portfolio’s cash flow and allocation for any tax liabilities, avoid surprises (and hefty underpayment penalties), plus develop proactive tax strategy before the year is over and it’s too late.
Q: What questions do you recommend Amazon employees ask financial advisors they’re considering hiring to help them decide if they’re a good fit?
Zack: Are you a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER TM professional? Do you have the ability to receive compensation from any sources other than the direct fees I would pay you as a client? Are you a fiduciary at all times? If so, will you put it in writing? What’s your experience with navigating RSU’s, concentrated stock positions, and tech professionals? And most importantly, what are your primary values, and why do you do what you do for a vocation?
Q: Is there anything that comes up frequently in your initial meeting with Amazon employees that surprises you?
Zack: That RSU’s have to be withheld at 22% (because they are deemed Supplemental Wages), and there is often confusion around the True-Up match feature on the 401k for those that like to put in more than 4% of their compensation to the 401k.
Q: For highly compensated Amazon employees and executives, are there any special benefits you believe it’s important to take into consideration when preparing their financial plan?
Zack: Concentration risk. Not only at the asset-level (for those who hold their Amazon RSU’s after vest), but also at the income-level (especially for those who have a large percentage of their compensation via RSU’s relative to their salary).
Q: Is there a particularly memorable experience or a moment you recall with a client who worked at Amazon when you realized they have unique opportunities and circumstances when it comes to their financial planning needs?
Zack: Amazon has great corporate partnerships with benefits that are often overlooked. 1 example is a client had most of their investible portfolio in Amazon (all with huge unrealized capital gains embedded), and the bank Amazon partners with not only provides favorable interest rates, but they allow you to pledge your Amazon shares towards a portion of the down payment on the mortgage to avoid selling Amazon shares and unnecessarily having to pay 30.8% taxes (in this client’s instance) on the gains when this client already had adequate cash-flow to service the mortgage payment!
Get to Know Zack Gutches, Financial Advisor for Amazon Employees:
View Zack’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit his website to learn more.
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About the Author
Brian Thorp
Founder and CEO, Wealthtender
Brian and his wife live in Texas, enjoying the diversity of Houston and the vibrancy of Austin.
With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress.
To make Wealthtender free for readers, we earn money from advertisers, including financial professionals and firms that pay to be featured. This creates a conflict of interest when we favor their promotion over others. Read our editorial policy and terms of service to learn more. Wealthtender is not a client of these financial services providers.
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