Justin Fitzpatrick
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Handling Rental Properties and Rental Income in a plan
Published December 8th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Many financial plans include investment properties and rental income. Entering a rental property and its associated income resources correctly in a plan involves getting the asset and the income stream right. Entering Rental Income Rental income should be entered as an item in the âOther Incomeâ section of the plan. Typically, you'll enter this as a
What tax filing status options does Income Lab cover?
Published December 9th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Any Income Lab plan with only one person in it will automatically be modeled as subject to âSingleâ tax brackets, and any plan with two people in it (a joint plan) will be modeled as subject to âMarried Filing Jointlyâ tax brackets. If one person in a joint plan has a specified date of death before the end of the plan, then the modeled tax brackets
How does Income Lab model state income tax?
Published December 17th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Personal income tax at the state level can be a very important part of some retirees' expenses. Income Lab strives to model all state personal income tax structures that are likely to affect retirees and workers. This includes correctly modeling tax rates, thresholds, deductions, and exemptions, especially as they relate to retirement income. While
How can I annotate in-app during a meeting?
Published January 14th, 2026 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Sometimes, when presenting an Income Lab plan to a client, advisors want to be able to âmark upâ the screen with highlighting, underlines, shapes, and even writing. Luckily, in today's world, this is easily accomplished. While the Income Lab software itself doesn't offer this functionality, there are many good options that work well with Income Lab
Are Income Lab guardrails based on Guyton-Klinger guardrails?
Published November 13th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Income Lab Risk-Based Guardrail are not Guyton-Klinger Guardrails (and that's a good thing!) The first type of âguardrailsâ for retirement income that many people encounter are Withdrawal Rate Guardrails, such as those proposed by Jonathan Guyton and William Klinger in a series of articles in the early 2000s (the so-called âGuyton-Klinger Guardrails
Why does adding opportunity cost change lifetime Social Security benefits so much?
Published October 29th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Adding an Opportunity Cost (or, âdiscount rateâ) to lifetime Social Security benefit calculations can have a large effect on the calculation, even if the opportunity cost is fairly low. The reason is that, over a long period of time (such as a 20-30+ year retirement), the opportunity cost compounds. For example, $1 received 35 years from now at a 0%
How does Income Lab incorporate inflation into tax calculations
Published November 14th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Each year, certain tax amounts and thresholds are adjusted for inflation. Since future inflation adjustments are not known ahead of time, it is important to project these values in a plan using the plan's assumed inflation rate(s) to properly project tax calculations in the future. For tax values that do not adjust for inflation over time (i.e., va
How are the statistics on the Insights dashboard calculated?
Published December 4th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
The Insights dashboard shows a variety of statistics and measures for each year of the plan. Below, you'll see how these measures are calculated. Stats Section All statistics shown in the Stats section of the Insights dashboard reflect total annual numbers. Beginning-of-year values are used for balances, and the sum of all cash flows is used for inc
How are tax calculations adjusted for inflation when projected into the future?
Published November 18th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Each year, certain income tax amounts and thresholds are adjusted for inflation by the US Federal government (and certain states, if the state has personal income tax). Since future inflation adjustments are not known ahead of time, Income Lab software projects these future tax values in a plan using the plan's assumed inflation rate(s). However, n
Excluding an investment account from income plan calculations
Published December 8th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
By default, any investment account you include in an Income Lab plan will be included in all calculations of the income plan. However, there are certain times when you want to see an account in certain parts of the software - especially Life Hub, the plan's Balance Sheet, and the assets section of the Insights dashboard - but exclude it from use as
How to use the Investment Strategy explorer in Decision Lab
Published November 6th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
The target asset allocation of a plan has large effects on all part of a plan, including: Portfolio balance at retirement (nest egg) Spending capacity / Retirement paycheck Retirement income guardrails Portfolio volatility Income volatility The Investment Strategy exploration tool in Decision Lab gives advisors a focused way to explore the core ques
AI Transforms Financial Planning: Income Lab's Revolutionary Tools
Published November 10th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
In the rapidly evolving landscape of financial planning, AI tools are transforming how professionals approach client services and practice management. Income Lab's suite of AI-powered solutions represents a cutting-edge approach to streamlining financial planning workflows. Revolutionizing Financial Planning with AI Tools Financial advisors today fa
Are people really willing to adjust spending?
Published October 29th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Retirement income plans with guardrails imply that when things change enough, for better or worse, people will adjust their behavior. The lower guardrail - the guardrail that says âwe're running too hot now and it's time to trim back spending or make some other change to cool things downâ - can be particularly important because changes in spending i
How does Life Hub account for partial years?
Published December 10th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
The values shown in Life Hub reflect different things for balances and for cash flows. These differences can be important to understand when viewing the first and second years' values. Balances (asset and liability values):Â Current Year: The current balance of assets and liabilities Future Years: Estimated beginning-of-year balances for assets and
Why don't Social Security benefits start when they should?
Published November 6th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Here's a common situation: you have an Income Lab plan where Social Security benefits are claimed at 62. But then you go to the Cash Flows > Income Sourcing screen and see that they don't start until age 67. Or maybe you see a few months of benefits here and there before age 67, but there are a bunch of gaps. What's going on? The reason you see t
How do Investment Fees Work in a Plan?
Published November 11th, 2025 by Justin Fitzpatrick
Setting Investment Fees There are two places you can enter investment or advisory fees in the software: Default Fees Plan-Level Fees To set fee defaults, go to the âSettingsâ section, found in the horizontal bar at the top of the screen (next to âReportsâ). Then choose "Default Values" and open the âFees & Expensesâ accordion section. Â Â Fee le