High Income Financial Planning
Escape punishing high income tax traps imposed on you because you are focussed on other priorities like your career. Maximise your hard-earned money to build wealth while maximising your lifestyle. Provide security for your family and work towards early retirement on your terms. High income financial planning eliminates administration hassle and delivers smart investment decisions.
Tired of high tax, complexity, with no clear plan?
Financial planning for High Income helps you to gain clarity over your future. You know where you are going, and where blind spots could cause problems.
Too busy to get started?
Focus your attention, assets and high income for the maximum impact and long-term security. You will cut out the noisy distractions to truly understand what is important to get results.
Yearning to escape the cycle of growing income but not assets?
Take disciplined action towards your financial freedom. We handle the reminders, paperwork, checking everything so you can make straightforward decisions.
What is high income financial planning?
You have worked hard to build a high income – and have a very comfortable lifestyle. As a high earner your demanding role leaves no time to tackle important financial planning – yet you still pay enormous amounts in tax, potentially losing thousands in unclaimed tax relief. You deserve financial independence so you can work on your terms, not until your employer decides you can stop. Focused high income financial planning builds a disciplined system that handles all the administration, maximises tax efficiency, and puts your wealth to work harder. The result is complete certainty that you will never run out of money, your family will be protected if the worst happens, and you can stop working so hard while maintaining the lifestyle you have earned..
- How can you reduce the enormous tax problems that come with your high income?
- How you can stop your career controlling you – find the earliest you can retire, if your situation changes?
- Avoid neglecting important but non-urgent financial matters: would clarity help you to stop making imperfect choices with your money?
- How can you make smarter investment decisions avoiding haphazard approaches that hold you back?
High income clients we work with
We provide specialist high income financial planning to people who earn at least £150,000 (often significantly more). We provide high income financial planning for:
- Executives of multi-national companies (examples include Google, Amazon, Uber, financial institutions like international banks, insurance, City professionals)
- Senior professionals (doctors, lawyers, solicitors, accountants, insolvency practitioners)
- Academics (professors, senior lecturers, scientists)
- Professional athletes and creatives (actors, authors, online influencers)
“I was happy with the service I received. The process was educational and interesting and I learned a lot about how to improve my financial security. I am a busy professional and do not always have the time to put my full focus into important considerations with my money. There were many areas where small improvements could be made to make my finances more secure or efficient, but the most important aspect was to set up a strategic plan for the future. I have now taken positive steps to improve my position and feel I am on track towards retirement when I am ready.”
Richard Pearman, Company Director
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR HIGH INCOME
Your high income will not last forever. Right now, you face punishing tax rates and have no time to plan properly, which means you are leaving thousands on the table every year. You want to stop working so hard eventually – perhaps retire early, work part-time, or simply regain control over your time – but fear you have not accumulated enough to maintain your lifestyle without that lucrative yet stressful career. Expert high income financial planning captures every tax-saving opportunity, builds a disciplined investment strategy, and gives you absolute certainty about when you can afford to step back on your terms.
HIGH INCOME FINANCIAL PLANNING
Remove the uncertainty from your financial life
YOUR LIFESTYLE
You live well and enjoy your money, but this leads to concern about whether this might not last. What happens to your family if you die suddenly? Without proper planning, the government takes a large chunk of your wealth while your children lose the education, property support, and inheritance you intended for them. Expert planning protects your family’s lifestyle no matter what happens and maximises what you pass to the next generation.
TAX ISSUES
You are paying enormous tax bills – potentially up to 62% or even 71% with student loans – while losing thousands in unclaimed pension relief. The tapered annual allowance means you could be facing tax charges on pensions you thought were tax-efficient. Strategic planning captures every available relief through salary sacrifice, pension carry forward, and spousal allowances to keep more of what you earn.
CAREER DECISIONS
You want to stop working so hard but fear you have not accumulated enough to retire early without regret. Your stressful, all-consuming career controls you, yet you are afraid of giving up that lucrative income opportunity. Expert planning reveals exactly when you can afford to retire – potentially years earlier than you think – giving you the certainty to make informed career decisions on your terms.
SIMPLER ADMINISTRATION
Your demanding career leaves no time to tackle important financial planning, leading to imperfect decisions and missed opportunities. You neglect non-urgent matters that could save you thousands because other priorities always take over. We build a robust system that handles all the administration, prompts you to take the right actions, eliminating hassle, checking the details, freeing you to focus on what truly requires your attention.
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
You do not know how much you need to be certain you will never run out of money, so you keep working instead of pursuing other projects. Fear of making a mistake keeps you trapped in that stressful career even though you may have accumulated enough capital without realising it. Detailed projections show you exactly what is required to maintain your lifestyle forever, giving you the confidence to pursue the life you want.
SMARTER INVESTMENT DECISIONS
Your haphazard investment approach delivers mixed results because you lack time to manage this properly. Without a disciplined philosophy, your wealth is not working hard enough to fund future lifestyle spending or early retirement. A systematic investment strategy puts your money to work harder without daily involvement, delivering long-term security and the reliable base you need to live how you want.
HASSLE FREE HIGH INCOME
Your demanding career leaves no time for financial planning, which means you are making imperfect decisions and missing obvious tax-saving opportunities worth thousands. You neglect important but non-urgent matters because other priorities always take over, leading to haphazard investments and unclaimed reliefs. We build a robust system that handles all the administration, captures every tax advantage, and gives you complete clarity about when you can afford to stop working so hard – potentially years earlier than you realise.
HIGH INCOME FINANCIAL PLANNING – KEY CONCEPTS
⇓ Click on any image to find out more
Welcome to our Prosper service.
Our goal is to help you achieve your full potential using our award winning financial planning and wealth management services.
We believe that everybody deserves to live a secure and fulfilled life and this belief is what our Prosper service was built around.
The service focuses on three main areas…
CLARITY
Our Prosper service is designed to help you gain complete clarity over your present and future financial positions. We use our planning software to show how different scenarios will affect your long-term security.
FOCUS
By developing a comprehensive Financial Plan, we enable you to take control of your finances and focus on getting you to your goals as quickly as possible.
FREEDOM
With a Financial Plan in place, you can sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that your money is being looked after by regulated experts with a track record for growth and a genuine dedication to customer care.
See what our High Income clients have to say…
WELL-BALANCED, CLEAR COMMUNICATION
“We are very happy with the service we received from Woodruff Financial Planning; Dan’s in-depth questions got to the root of what was important to us. The process and the different scenarios he took us through made us see what options were available and what was achievable. The resulting Financial Plan showed clearly what position we would be in at retirement.
We couldn’t think of anything else they could have done to make the process any easier. With well-balanced, clear communication we would definitely recommend Woodruff Financial Planning to ease you into retirement with confidence.”
Kevin & Sharon Gaughan, Halstead, Essex
“I interviewed 3 other firms before choosing you. You were more open in the initial discussion and I had a better feeling about your organisation than the others.”
“You so clearly value your clients with a reassuring flow of communication backed up by very robust and well-considered advice."
"You are professional but also supportive on a personal level."
"You are very approachable, knowledgeable and friendly. You are always responsive to any questions."
%
of our clients say our advice is easy to understand
%
of our clients say they trust us to look after their best interests
%
of our clients say we are responsive to their questions
%
of our clients say we care about their needs
%
of our clients would recommend us to a friend
%
of our clients say they get value from our service
Click below to learn more about how our Prosper service works
OUR PROCESS
Designed with you in mind.
The discovery meeting allows us to find out about you and also helps you to decide if you want to work with us. We ask a series of questions to understand what’s important to you, and what your primary goals are for the future. We use visualisations to explain the Financial Planning process so you can evaluate how it could benefit you. We send you a Service Proposal to explore the issues from this meeting and explain how our service will work for you.
In the fact find meeting we gather the data we need to understand your finances. We conduct a comprehensive data analysis of your income, expenses, assets, and liabilities, so we can examine current and future spending patterns. We need comprehensive details to fully evaluate your position so we can plan for your future. We help you to make sense of your money and fill in any gaps in your data. We will follow up with further queries to your product providers.
Your financial plan examines your current finances, based on reasonable assumptions about the future. We assess possible gaps in your planning you might not consider, so you can be in a more secure position. We compare the current position with different scenarios, so you will immediately see the benefits of any improvements we have recommended. This is a highly collaborative and interactive stage and puts you at the centre of your financial decisions.
Your financial plan will give you a series of recommendations to improve your financial security, and also work towards a better lifestyle. With a clear financial plan in place to achieve your goals, we can implement an investment management portfolio or arrange any appropriate financial products to meet any needs we identify. We'll do the administration so you can sit back and relax as we work hard to help you achieve the life of your dreams.
REVIEWING YOUR PLAN
You will receive regular contact from us with investment valuations every 3 months (although you also get access to our portal for daily valuations if you prefer). You will be offered at least one annual meeting to review your Financial Plan and investment portfolio, making the necessary adjustments for your current circumstances so that you remain on track to achieve your goals. We'll also update you with tax data, and make sure you use tax allowances as early as possible for maximum benefit.
Frustrated at paying so much tax?
Fed up of mediocre investments?
Unsure when you can stop working so hard?
High income: This FREE mini guide gives you valuable insight into the issues facing people like you: decisions over your career, tax, family, retirement, investment, estate planning and administration.
Get your free mini guide to High Income
Fill out the form below
Got a Question? Call 01206 919101
High Income Financial Planning – your questions answered
What is high income financial planning?
High income financial planning has a particular emphasis on your needs. We help you to gain clarity on your current position, and show you where your finances are going if you continue working in your high income profession, business, or specialist employment. We work with many high income financial planning clients. This might include top business executives, high earning professionals like partners in law firms or accountancy practices, barristers, business owners, doctors, academics, sports people or creatives like actors and musicians.
High income financial planning for business owners helps you to focus your attention on the best way forward, and show you how to maximise your resources; this of course includes your high income. This might mean minimising tax, maximising your lifestyle while you have high income, or planning for retirement. Our ultimate aim is financial freedom for you the high income professional. Read about our Prosper service for high income professionals.
Financial planning tips for high earners
Financial planning for high earners is often focussed on saving tax – after all, you are likely to pay tax at the very highest rates. The starting point is that you should claim all available tax allowances. It is surprising how many high earners fail to do this, often because they are busy, or just do no know that these allowances are available. The first allowance you should use is your pension allowance – £60,000 per tax year, and up to £180,000 using carry forward. After that, you have £20,000 available for saving into an ISA – double this is you are married. High earners can use other allowances such as your savings allowance and the dividends allowance. You might also benefit from your capital gains tax annual exempt amount. Once these allowances are exhausted, consider using tax-efficient investments such as Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs).
The most important thing is to partner with a financial planner who understands high earners. Take a look at our Prosper Service. It was designed to help busy people like high earners, who want to maximise their future.
What are the challenges for high income financial planning?
Your career controls you, leaving more responsibility and less time
Haphazard investment decisions with mixed results
Fear of running out of money keeps you working longer than necessary
Missing obvious tax-saving opportunities worth thousands because you are too busy
High income financial planning usually deals with 2 main challenges: time and tax. Most high income clients are busy people – after all, you do not become a high earner by luck. Most high income financial planning clients are extremely busy; they are very capable, but often financial planning falls behind due to work and family pressures. We find that having a trusted financial planner to work with you can mean tat you focus your attention and resources in the most efficient way. Financial planning does not have to take lots of time, provided you are efficient with your decisions.
Tax is another major challenge for high income financial planning. You are an easy target for tax, and you probably pay the worst rates, especially for income. Financial planning aims to recoup some of this tax by taking smart decisions. Often you can reclaim tax by investing in the right way. You should also aim to grow your assets in tax-free ways however you can.
How much do you need to earn for high income financial planning?
High income financial planning focusses on those who earn the top 10% or even 5% of income. Typically, that starts at £100,000, but many of our high income financial planning clients earn much more than that. Many high income financial planning clients have large earnings, with large bonuses on top. This typically puts you into the 45% income tax band. You might have high income, and with that comes very high tax. You do not necessarily have high net worth or assets. High income financial planning aims to get you to build enough assets so that one day you can stop earning and spend more time doing what you want with your time.
What are the tax problems with high income financial planning?
The 62% effective rate above £100,000 and 71% with student loans
The tapered annual allowance reducing to £10,000 at £360,000 income
Unclaimed higher-rate pension tax relief
Salary sacrifice opportunities are only available until April 2029
High income financial planning has an emphasis on saving your tax. You are likely to pay massive amounts of tax on your high income. This will mean you probably lose out at various stages. This means the loss of child benefit, the personal allowance, the reducing of interest allowances, the loss of pension allowances. You get taxed at the highest income tax rates. Our high income financial planning aims to help you to keep more of your income, and prepare for the future sensibly. Alongside high income financial planning you will also need to prepare for higher taxes in other areas such as investments, rental property, and savings.
Investing and high income financial planning
The importance of a disciplined investment philosophy for long-term security
Creating a system so money works harder without daily involvement
How haphazard approaches deliver mixed results when you lack time to manage properly
High income financial planning helps you to manage your investments efficiently. You are already taxed highly on your earned income, and it can be easy for this high tax to apply to your investments too. High income financial planning helps you to invest wisely, and tax-efficiently, using allowances such as your pensions, ISAs, savings, dividends, and capital gains.
Pensions and high income financial planning
Pension carry forward allows contributions up to £220,000 outside of tax
National insurance savings through salary sacrifice (employer may add their savings too)
The complexity of whether to refuse pension payments to avoid annual allowance charges
Weirdly, pensions are often overlooked for high income financial planning. This is especially useful when you receive large bonuses, possibly towards the end of a tax year. High income financial planning should help you to maximise the income you keep by placing it in tax-efficient plans like pensions, which could be very useful in later life. There are complex tax calculations to perform each tax year, and we can help with this.
Is high net worth financial planning the same as high income financial planning?
High income financial planning is related to high net worth financial planning, but they are not exactly the same. Clearly, those with high income are often those with high net worth, but not always so. If you need high income financial planning, you might not yet have a high net worth. Your high income may provide you with a good lifestyle, but tax and expenses may mean that you have not yet built up assets into a high net worth. High income people often have high liabilities, which can hod back their creation of assets. High income financial planning focusses on how to make the most of your income, avoiding tax and preparing for the future.
How do high earners avoid tax?
It is getting more difficult for high earners to avoid tax, especially as you are taxed at the worst possible rates in your income. High income financial planning tries to use all available allowances so you can shelter as much as possible from tax. This typically includes using income tax allowances where possible, paying into pension plans and ISAs. We might also examine opportunities to use more specialist tax planning for high income such as Venture Capital Trusts. In our experience, most people who come to use for high income financial planning do not use their available allowances properly. We focus on taking the tax planning opportunities each and every year. Over time, this adds up to spectacular tax savings for high earners.
How much do I need to retire early as a high earner?
Many high earners do not exit early because they do not know how much they need to be certain they will not run out of money. You may have accumulated enough capital without realising it, especially since you will pay far less tax in retirement. We use detailed projections to show you exactly when you can afford to stop working – potentially years earlier than you think. Our case studies show clients retiring 7 years earlier than planned by investing their budget surplus strategically. The key is establishing financial independence first, so you can work on your terms while retaining the security of knowing you can stop at any stage. See our free High Income mini guide.
What happens to my family if I die suddenly as a high earner?
Your employer benefits are often not enough to maintain your family’s lifestyle. Have you assessed whether your death-in-service cover truly meets what your family needs if the worst happens? We analyse whether your partner and children would be financially secure, ensuring proper tax-efficient protection is in place. Additionally, without proper estate planning, the government takes 40% of your wealth in inheritance tax, reducing what your children inherit for education, property deposits, and their future security. See our free High Income mini guide.
What are the hidden tax traps for high earners?
The UK tax system is not a simple progression – it contains punishing traps for the unwary. When your income exceeds £100,000, you start losing your personal allowance, pushing your effective tax rate to 62%. With student loans, this can reach a staggering 71%. The tapered annual allowance reduces your pension allowance from £60,000 to just £10,000 once income exceeds £360,000, creating unexpected tax charges on pension contributions. Many high earners also fail to reclaim higher-rate pension tax relief, losing thousands annually. Salary sacrifice remains available until April 2029 and can save both income tax and national insurance. See our free High Income mini guide.
How can high earners simplify their financial administration?
Your busy schedule means you neglect important but non-urgent financial matters, leading to imperfect decisions and missed opportunities. You are competent and capable – that is why you earn high income – but the pressure of other priorities means financial planning falls behind. We build a robust system that handles all the administration, prompts you to take the right actions regularly, and focuses your attention on important issues so you can make the right decisions. Just as your career success relies on repeatable processes and systems, your financial planning needs the same disciplined approach.
Should I continue paying into my pension if I face the tapered annual allowance?
This requires careful analysis specific to your situation. Some high earners pay large tax charges on pension contributions due to the tapered annual allowance and wonder whether to take Pay in Lieu of Pension instead. The answer depends on comparing pension contributions against investing the extra pay after tax into ISAs, potentially using your non-earning spouse’s allowances. We model different scenarios to show you the optimal strategy for your circumstances, balancing tax efficiency against retirement timing and asset control.
Can I work less without giving up my high income lifestyle?
Most high earners want to work less but are afraid of giving up the high income opportunity. Your career has become stressful and all-consuming, controlling you rather than working for you. Financial planning establishes when you have true freedom – whether that means working on your terms, taking more personal time, working part-time, or earning consultancy income. We put your assets to work so you get the achievements without working every hour possible, unless that is what you want.
Do you co-ordinate with my other advisers?
Absolutely. As a high earner, you likely work with solicitors, accountants, and tax advisers who handle specific aspects of your affairs. We actively co-ordinate with your professional team to ensure your financial planning aligns with your legal, tax, and business strategies. This collaborative approach prevents conflicting advice and captures opportunities that emerge when specialists work together – such as inheritance tax planning with your solicitor, pension strategies with your accountant, or investment timing around business transactions.
Many high earners come to us precisely because their other advisers, while excellent in their own fields, do not provide comprehensive financial planning. Your accountant or solicitor may deal with your issues, but few truly understand the complete financial planning picture that high earners need. We act as the co-ordinator who simplifies your financial life, manages the administration, and ensures all your advisers work towards the same goals – giving you clarity and freeing you to focus on what truly requires your attention.
How often will I speak to my financial planner?
For most high earners, you will have at least one meeting a year for a full strategic review (financial planning and investment management), with additional contact whenever something significant changes.
Your annual review is where we update your financial plan, check progress towards your goals, revisit your exit and retirement scenarios, and adjust for tax or legislative changes.
In between, you can contact us whenever you face a major decision – such as changing your job, investing excess cash, buying or selling assets, or considering an exit – and we will schedule further calls or meetings as needed.
Our aim is to be available when decisions arise, not just at a fixed review date, so you are not left making big choices about your employment or personal finances on your own.
We also offer regular check in from your adviser, based around key points like quarterly investment valuations, tax year planning, and liaising with your accountant for tax returns.
Read what our clients think of our service...
See what sets us apart from other independent financial advisers...
Unit 16, Park Lane Business Centre, Park Lane, Langham, Colchester, Essex CO4 5WR
A DIFFERENT APPROACH
We focus on so much more than just your financial planning. We aim to help you reach your full potential, achieve your goals and help you live the life of your dreams.
Click below and discover our Prosper service.
