Commission checks, hospitality seasons, equity events, a business sale. The money is real — it just refuses to arrive on a schedule. Standard financial advice quietly assumes a salary. Yours shouldn't.
A Park City real estate agent's year can ride on four closings. A restaurant owner lives two different lives between January and May. A founder gets a decade of pay in one wire transfer. I started my working life up here — behind a jewelry counter at the outlets — and the first financial lesson this town taught me was that the paycheck-shaped advice in magazines wasn't written for the people I knew. This is the version that is.
I'm Ryan Hammett, an independent fiduciary based down the canyon in Layton. A large share of the households I work with in Park City, Heber, and Midway share one trait: their income is lumpy. Not small — lumpy. And almost every financial mistake I see up here traces to the same root: running a lumpy financial life on salary-shaped assumptions. What follows is education, not advice — a map of the architecture that works.
Households with steady paychecks get their income smoothing done for them by an employer. On irregular income, you have to build the smoothing yourself — and that's the whole trick. The structure has three parts:
All income — commissions, distributions, seasonal surges — lands in one holding account. Not the account you spend from. The reservoir absorbs the lumps.
A fixed monthly transfer from the reservoir to your spending account, sized to your baseline budget. Your household lives on a paycheck even though your clients don't pay you like one.
When the reservoir exceeds its target, the excess has pre-assigned jobs — tax set-aside, retirement, investing, the next goal — in writing, decided in a calm month.
Why this matters beyond comfort: every bad money decision on irregular income happens in a trough. Selling investments at the wrong moment, taking expensive debt, skipping the retirement year, underpricing your work out of fear — all trough behavior. The reservoir exists so that a slow season is a data point, not an emergency.
Nobody withholds for you. April belongs to whoever planned for it.
The mechanics worth knowing: the IRS expects tax as income arrives, through quarterly estimated payments. The safe harbor rules make this manageable — pay in at least 100% of last year's total tax (110% if your AGI topped $150,000), or 90% of the current year's, and you avoid underpayment penalties even if the year surprises you. On unpredictable income, anchoring to the prior-year number turns a guessing game into a fixed quarterly bill, with a true-up conversation when a big quarter lands.
Two more pieces of the current landscape worth a conversation with your CPA: the 20% qualified business income deduction for pass-through businesses — real estate teams, restaurants, guide services — was made permanent in the 2025 tax law, which finally makes long-range entity and income planning around it durable. And bunching charitable giving through a donor-advised fund in your big years lets the generosity follow the income — deduct in the feast year, grant it out over time.
Park City's version of retirement planning often isn't gradual — it's a business sale, a development deal, an equity event. One honest paragraph for founders and early employees, because the rules just changed in your favor: for qualifying C-corporation stock issued after July 4, 2025, the QSBS exclusion became meaningfully more generous — 50% of gain excluded after a three-year hold, 75% after four, 100% after five, with the per-issuer cap raised to $15 million and the company-size limit raised to $75 million in gross assets. Whether your stock qualifies is a question for your CPA and attorney — but it's a question to ask years before a sale, because the clock runs on holding periods.
No employer match arrives on its own up here. The tools that replace it: a solo 401(k) (2026 employee deferral up to $24,500, plus employer profit-sharing contributions on top) or a SEP-IRA (simpler, percentage-of-income based) — with the contribution decision made annually, in proportion to the year you actually had. Good years fund hard; lean years fund light; the habit never skips. For irregular earners the flexibility is the feature: the plan flexes, the discipline doesn't.
Bigger than the salary guidelines say. Many irregular-income households target six to twelve months of baseline expenses, sized to a realistic worst stretch — an off season plus a slow spring. The buffer isn't idle money; it's the machine that turns lumpy income into a steady personal paycheck.
Lean on the safe harbor: pay in at least 100% of last year's tax — 110% if AGI topped $150,000 — or 90% of the current year, via quarterly estimates. Anchoring to prior-year makes the quarterly bill fixed and predictable; your CPA trues it up when a big quarter lands.
Qualified Small Business Stock can exclude substantial gains on qualifying C-corp stock. For stock issued after July 4, 2025: 50% excluded after three years, 75% after four, 100% after five, with a $15 million per-issuer cap and a $75 million company gross-asset limit. Qualification is a facts-and-circumstances call for your CPA and attorney — raise it years before any sale.
Not always — fair question. When wealth sits in a business or property rather than investment accounts, flat-fee or hourly planning often fits better. Kimberlite offers all three, published to the dollar and billed only in arrears; the structure should fit your finances, not the other way around.
Before it closes — ideally a year or more. That's when structure, QSBS qualification, installment options, and charitable timing are still open doors. Afterward, most are shut. CPA and attorney on structure; advisor on what the after-tax proceeds are for.
A free 30-minute conversation about your income's actual shape — and whether the reservoir, the tax calendar, and the plan are doing their jobs. No pressure, no pitch.
Schedule a Free Intro Call Up the canyon: Park City & the Heber Valley · Equity comp instead? The RSU field guideEducational content only. This article is provided by Kimberlite Financial Services for educational and informational purposes. It is not personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Tax rules — including safe-harbor thresholds, the QBI deduction, and QSBS provisions — are complex, change over time, and depend heavily on individual facts; figures reflect publicly available information as of July 2026 and may become outdated. Consult a qualified CPA and attorney before acting on any tax or transaction-structuring strategy.
Kimberlite Financial Services, LLC (Firm CRD# 342159) is an investment adviser registered with the Utah Division of Securities. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results.