Financial Advisor in Annapolis, Maryland

Fee-only fiduciary planning, based in Annapolis

Compound Advisory is a fee-only fiduciary registered investment adviser. We are paid one way: a transparent advisory fee from our clients. No commissions, no product sales, no revenue from insurance companies or fund sponsors. That structure removes a core conflict in this business before the first conversation starts.

We are based in Annapolis, and we should be honest about what that means. We do not keep a walk-in office downtown. Every meeting, whether you live in Eastport or Edgewater or out of state, happens over secure video. We built the firm this way on purpose. It keeps overhead low, keeps scheduling simple, and lets us work with the right clients instead of the nearest ones.

Our planning is built for households age 50 and up with $1 million or more in investable assets: federal employees and contractors, military retirees, business owners, and high earners across Anne Arundel County and the Baltimore-Washington corridor. If that describes your household, the first step is a complimentary Retirement Clarity Assessment. We review your accounts, your tax picture, and your income plan, and we tell you plainly what we see.

How Maryland taxes retirement income

Maryland is friendlier to retirees than its reputation suggests, but the rules reward people who plan withdrawals deliberately. Start with the good news: Maryland does not tax Social Security benefits. Whatever amount your federal return includes, the state lets you subtract.

Maryland also offers a pension exclusion for residents 65 and older, and for those who are totally disabled. Income from employer retirement plans, pensions and 401(k)-type accounts, can generally qualify up to a cap the state adjusts each year, and the exclusion is reduced by the Social Security benefits you receive. Traditional IRA withdrawals generally do not qualify. That distinction matters: two retirees with identical income can pay different Maryland tax depending on which account the money came from. Sequencing withdrawals around the exclusion is one of the quieter planning levers we use.

Military retirees get their own subtraction for a portion of retirement pay, with a larger amount available at age 55 and older. And every Maryland resident pays a county income tax on top of the state rate. Anne Arundel County sets its own rate, collected with your state return. That local layer is easy to forget when you model a Roth conversion: the conversion raises state and county tax in the same year, and a large enough one can also raise your Medicare premiums through IRMAA two years later.

One more Maryland wrinkle worth knowing: the state levies its own estate tax with an exemption well below the federal amount, plus an inheritance tax that exempts close family members. Households that sized their estate plan to the federal threshold alone can still leave a state bill behind. We flag it because it is easy to miss.

Sources: Comptroller of Maryland, marylandtaxes.gov

Federal employees, military retirees, and Naval Academy families

Annapolis sits inside the federal workforce's commuting orbit, and our planning work is built for it. For FERS employees, the retirement decision is really three decisions at once: when to claim the FERS annuity, what to do with the TSP, and whether to elect a survivor benefit. The survivor election deserves more attention than it usually gets. It is close to irreversible once made, and it affects whether a spouse can keep federal health coverage after the annuitant dies. We model it against insurance alternatives and the rest of the household balance sheet before recommending anything.

Military retirees and Naval Academy-affiliated families bring a parallel set of questions: the Survivor Benefit Plan election, how VA disability compensation fits into the income picture, and how Maryland's military retirement subtraction changes the state tax math. These benefits interlock. A decision that looks right in isolation can be wrong once all the pieces are on one page. Our job is to put them on one page.

Exit planning for Chesapeake-area business owners

The other Annapolis client we know well is the business owner: marine services, government contracting, professional practices, construction. Most tax-efficient exit structures run on a multi-year clock, so the best time to start is before you have a buyer. Entity structure decides which doors are open. C corporation stock that meets the section 1202 tests could potentially exclude up to $10 million of gain, or 10 times basis, from federal tax, but only if the holding period and other requirements were satisfied years before the sale.

For owners closer to a transaction, we work the sequencing: installment structures, charitable planning completed before a binding agreement, and coordinating the sale year with Roth conversions and Maryland's state and county brackets. Our exit planning runs alongside the retirement plan, because for most owners the business is the retirement plan.

Communities we serve

Most of our Maryland clients come from Annapolis and the surrounding towns: Severna Park, Arnold, Edgewater, Davidsonville, and Crofton, along with the rest of Anne Arundel County and the broader Baltimore-Washington corridor. The mix varies by town. Severna Park and Arnold skew toward federal and defense careers, Davidsonville and Edgewater toward business owners, and Annapolis proper toward all of the above. The tax code treats them the same. Their plans should not be.

Because we meet by secure video, geography is a starting point, not a boundary. We serve clients across the country, including former Marylanders who retired to lower-tax states and still want an adviser who understands where their pensions and property sit. If you are local and prefer to meet in person, tell us. We can usually arrange it. But the working rhythm of the relationship, reviews, tax planning, document sharing, runs virtually, and it works.

How to evaluate any financial advisor in Annapolis

Whether you hire us or not, apply the same screen to every firm on your list. First, ask how the advisor is paid. Fee-only means the client's fee is the only revenue. Fee-based sounds similar but is not: it means fees plus commissions, and commissions change incentives.

Second, read the firm's Form CRS, the short plain-language relationship summary advisers must give retail investors. It states in plain language how the firm charges and where the conflicts sit. Third, look the adviser up on adviserinfo.sec.gov, the SEC's public database. You can search by name or by CRD number and see registrations, history, and disclosures.

We invite that check. Compound Advisory LLC is CRD 334484. Look us up, read our Form CRS, then ask any advisor you interview three questions: Are you a fiduciary at all times, in writing? What is my total cost, including fund expenses? Who holds my money? Our clients' accounts are custodied at Altruist and Charles Schwab, never with us. Any advisor worth hiring answers all three without flinching.

Sources: SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure

Frequently Asked Questions