Financial Planning for Dow Employees
While working at Dow, you may have questions about the retirement plans, healthcare benefits, stock compensation, and savings opportunities available to you. By coordinating company benefits with your outside assets and long-term goals, our wealth management team helps you better understand your options and make more informed financial decisions.
Save More through Dow Employees' Savings Plan (ESP)
Dow Employee's Savings Plan 401(K)
Whether retirement is years away or quickly approaching, having a thoughtful savings strategy can make a meaningful difference over time. Our advisors help Dow employees evaluate how to use pre-tax, Roth, and after-tax savings opportunities within the Dow Employees’ Savings Plan to build long-term wealth in a tax-efficient manner.
How we help Dow Employees with their 401(k):
- Coordinate pre-tax, Roth 401(k), and after-tax contribution strategies based on your goals and tax situation
- Help maximize Dow’s company match, including the 100% match on the first 4% of eligible contributions and the additional 50% match on the next 2% contributed to the plan
- Evaluate Roth conversion opportunities using after-tax retirement savings
- Actively manage investment funds using strategies based on Nobel-Laureate research —no more passive set-and-forget approaches to savings and investments
- Coordinate retirement plan investments with outside brokerage accounts and additional assets
- Help employees diversify concentrated Dow stock exposure within retirement accounts when appropriate
Retirement planning involves more than simply contributing to a 401(k). Our team works with you to coordinate retirement savings, tax planning, and investment management into one integrated strategy.
Learn More About Maxing Out the Employee Savings Plan (ESP), or get your questions answered in a
Complimentary meeting with one of our Dow specialists >
Understanding Dow’s Additional Retirement Benefits
Dow also offers additional employer-funded retirement benefits that can increase long-term savings potential.
Eligible employees may receive company matching contributions, additional nonelective company contributions, and student loan matching contributions tied to qualifying student loan repayments.
For certain executives and highly compensated employees, Dow may also offer supplemental retirement and deferred compensation arrangements that create additional tax and retirement planning opportunities.
Planning Around Dow Stock and Incentive Compensation
For many Dow professionals, compensation extends beyond salary and annual bonuses. Incentive compensation, company stock, and equity-related benefits can become an important part of long-term wealth accumulation.
As Dow stock positions grow over time, it becomes increasingly important to coordinate those holdings with your broader investment portfolio to avoid overconcentration risk and improve tax efficiency.
How we help Dow Employees with Company Stock and Compensation Planning:
- Dow Annual Performance Awards (APAs) – Through tax planning, savings prioritization, and benefits eligibility assessment, our advisor can help maximize your annual performance bonus.
- Stock Options – Accumulating Dow stock over several years can overweight your portfolio and create concentration risk. Still, it can also offer tax optimization opportunities such as Net Unrealized Appreciation.
- Performance Shares & Restricted Stock Units – After performance shares and restricted stocks vest, there are several mistakes Dow Chemical employees make that can cause them a huge tax liability. We work to ensure that the correct forms and strategies are in place to make sure a simple mistake doesn't amount to significant consequences.
- Coordinate executive compensation and deferred compensation elections with retirement income planning
- Help employees understand the long-term tax impact of retirement distributions and stock-related decisions
Evaluating Dow’s Healthcare and Insurance Benefits
Protecting your family and preparing for unexpected events is an important part of a comprehensive financial plan. As fiduciary advisors, we do not sell insurance products. Instead, we help employees evaluate the coverage already available through Dow and determine whether additional protection may be appropriate.
Dow offers healthcare, disability, retiree healthcare, life insurance, and tax-advantaged healthcare savings opportunities that can affect both current cash flow and long-term retirement planning.
How We Help Dow Employees Navigate Healthcare Planning
With each plan comes various trade-offs and opportunities. We walk you through each plan, plan your contributions for healthcare costs and future retiree medical costs in the most tax-efficient manner, and help you maximize your take-home pay and available benefits. Dow offers low-deductible and high-deductible plans for healthcare through Aetna.
- Compare the High Deductible Medical Plan and Low Deductible Medical Plan based on healthcare needs and long-term savings goals
- Coordinate HSA and FSA contribution strategies alongside retirement and tax planning goals
- Help employees understand Dow’s Retirement Health Care Assistance Plan (RHCAP) and retiree healthcare reimbursement opportunities
- Evaluate retiree medical elections, Medicare-related planning decisions, and long-term healthcare costs in retirement
- Review disability and life insurance coverage options available through Dow
Getting More From Your Finances Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated.
Meet with one of our Dow specialists to get started >
Navigating Job Uncertainty or Workforce Reductions at Dow
Career transitions can create uncertainty, especially when they involve restructuring, organizational changes, or unexpected employment decisions. Whether you are evaluating a voluntary separation package, considering retirement, or preparing for a potential role change, understanding the financial impact of those decisions is important.
Our team works with Dow employees to help evaluate available benefits, retirement options, healthcare considerations, and long-term financial implications during periods of transition. We help employees understand how employment changes may affect retirement savings, deferred compensation, stock holdings, healthcare coverage, and future income planning.
If you are unsure how a role change, separation, or workforce reduction could affect your long-term financial goals, we can help you evaluate your current financial picture and prepare for the next stage of your career with greater clarity and confidence.
Facing a severance from Dow?
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Relocating for a New Role at Dow
Dow has continued expanding and investing in both its Midland and Houston operations, including planned moves into new Houston office space in the CityCentre development.
Relocation opportunities can create both career advancement opportunities and important financial decisions. A move to a different office location or business unit may affect taxes, housing costs, compensation, retirement planning, and overall cash flow.
Before making a relocation decision, it is important to understand how the move may affect your broader financial plan. We help employees evaluate relocation packages, cost-of-living changes, tax considerations, and long-term financial tradeoffs associated with career transitions and geographic moves.
Navigating Promotions and Career Growth at Dow
Promotions often bring increased compensation, additional incentive opportunities, and more complex financial planning decisions. As income grows, employees may become eligible for additional savings opportunities, deferred compensation programs, and executive benefit arrangements.
Without adjusting savings elections, tax strategies, and investment planning, employees can unintentionally miss opportunities to improve long-term financial outcomes.
We help Dow professionals coordinate compensation changes, retirement savings strategies, tax planning, and executive benefits as their careers evolve.
High-Income Earners Make This Simple Mistake in Their 401(k) Contribution Calculation ALL the Time.
Learn More >
Leaving Dow to Start a Consulting Business or Second Career
Many professionals choose to continue working after leaving Dow, whether through consulting, independent contracting, or part-time business ownership. Transitioning from employee to business owner can create new planning opportunities as well as additional tax and retirement considerations.
Our team helps former employees structure retirement income, evaluate healthcare coverage options, and coordinate tax-efficient savings strategies for self-employment income.
We also help clients navigate:
- Solo 401(k), SEP IRA, and self-employed retirement plan strategies
- Estimated tax payments and self-employment tax planning
- LLC and liability planning considerations
- Cash flow and retirement income coordination during career transitions
- Compensation and contract structure considerations for consulting work
Learn more about setting up a consulting practice here >
Evaluating a Job Opportunity Beyond Dow?
Being recruited for a new role can be exciting, but comparing compensation packages is not always straightforward. Salary is only one part of the equation. Retirement benefits, healthcare coverage, deferred compensation opportunities, equity awards, and long-term incentives can significantly affect the overall value of an offer.
With experience evaluating corporate benefit programs and executive compensation arrangements, we help Dow employees compare opportunities side-by-side to better understand the financial tradeoffs involved in changing roles.
Whether you decide to remain at Dow or pursue a new opportunity, we help you evaluate benefit elections, retirement planning opportunities, and compensation strategies so your financial plan continues to align with your long-term goals.
Getting More From Your Finances Doesn’t Have to be Difficult.
Meet with one of our Dow specialists to get started >
Planning Retirement From Dow
Most people only retire once, so they do not have prior experience to rely on when making important financial decisions. We have helped many corporate professionals navigate retirement transitions involving pensions, retirement income planning, healthcare decisions, and executive compensation strategies. Our team helps Dow employees understand retirement elections, timing considerations, and tax implications so they can make more informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes.
We’ll also help you answer common questions like:
- Which savings account should you draw from first, and when should you take Social Security?
- How do Dow pension elections work, and which payout option may make the most sense for your situation?
- If you continue consulting after retirement, how should your finances and tax planning change?
- How should your investment strategy evolve once you begin relying on retirement income?
Leveraging Your Dow Employees' Savings Plan 401(K)
As retirement approaches, many employees begin asking how to transition from accumulating retirement savings to creating dependable retirement income. Determining which accounts to use first and how to structure withdrawals can significantly affect taxes and long-term retirement sustainability.
Our team helps Dow employees coordinate retirement account withdrawals, evaluate tax-efficient distribution strategies, and align investment decisions with broader retirement income goals.
Understanding Dow Pension Benefits
Depending on hire date and employment history, Dow employees may participate in different pension structures, including the Dow Employees’ Pension Plan (DEPP) or the Personal Pension Account structure.
For many long-tenured employees, pension benefits are tied to factors such as credited service, pensionable compensation, and age-based accrual percentages. Other employees may participate in a cash balance-style pension structure that continues receiving annual interest credits until benefits begin.
Because retirement timing and payout elections can materially affect retirement income, understanding these decisions before making irrevocable elections is important.
Evaluating Pension Payment Elections
One of the biggest retirement decisions many employees make involves how and when to begin pension benefits. Depending on the applicable pension structure, employees may have access to several payout options, including single life annuities, joint and survivor annuities, and in certain situations lump sum distributions.
Retirement timing can also affect pension values, deferred compensation distributions, healthcare coverage, and taxable income. In some cases, delaying or accelerating retirement by even a short period of time may meaningfully affect long-term retirement outcomes.
Before making a final election, we help employees evaluate the financial tradeoffs associated with their available pension and retirement income options.
Utilizing Deferred Compensation and Executive Benefits
For certain executives and highly compensated employees, deferred compensation plans and supplemental retirement benefits may become an important part of retirement income planning.
These benefits can create significant tax implications depending on distribution timing, retirement dates, and payout elections. Coordinating these decisions alongside Social Security, investment income, and retirement cash flow planning can help improve after-tax retirement outcomes.
Transitioning Into Consulting or Independent Work
After retiring from Dow, many professionals choose to continue working through consulting or independent contracting opportunities. Moving from employee compensation to self-employment income can create additional retirement, tax, and cash flow planning considerations.
Our team helps clients navigate:
- Solo 401(k), SEP IRA, and self-employed retirement plan strategies
- LLC and liability planning considerations
- Estimated tax payments and self-employment tax planning
- Coordinating retirement income while continuing to work
- Compensation and contract structure considerations for consulting work
Learn more about planning for consulting and self-employment transitions >
Choosing the Right Retirement Timeline
The timing of retirement can have a meaningful impact on pension benefits, deferred compensation distributions, healthcare coverage, taxes, and long-term retirement income.
By coordinating retirement timing with your broader financial plan, we help employees evaluate these tradeoffs and determine a retirement timeline aligned with their long-term financial goals.
Making the Transition Into Retirement Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated
Meet with one of our Dow specialists to get started >
Going Abroad for a Dow Assignment
If your career at Dow takes you abroad on an expatriate assignment, there are many financial factors to consider before making a move. As specialists in both U.S. company benefit plans and financial planning, we can help U.S. citizens and residents looking to optimize their savings and finances on the road to retirement wherever they are in the world.
Accumulating assets in multiple countries can make it difficult to know where to seek guidance from, so our table below may offer some guidance.
Your Situation Entails:
Work With a U.S. Advisor Like WJW
Working with an advisor in the U.S. such as Willis Johnson Wealth can help you navigate the financial, tax, and legal guidelines you’re obligated to by your citizenship.
Work With A Foreign Advisor
If you’re not a U.S. citizen or resident, it may be more beneficial to work with an advisor in your home country or the one you’re stationed in. If you’re planning to retire in the U.S. or become a U.S. citizen, working with a U.S. advisor such as Willis Johnson Wealth can help you navigate the financial, tax, and legal guidelines.
Work With a U.S. Advisor Like WJW
Due to certain legal restrictions, U.S. advisors, such as Willis Johnson Wealth, are prohibited from managing certain foreign assets.
If you’re planning to return to or retire in the U.S., Willis Johnson Wealth can help you convert your assets and leverage them accordingly.
Work With A Foreign Advisor
If most of your assets are outside the U.S., it may be best to work with an advisor in the country that holds the assets to have the most flexibility in your options.
If you have assets in the U.S. and other countries, you'll likely need financial experts in each country. Willis Johnson Wealth can offer guidance on your domestic assets and help with converting or considering various foreign assets.
Work With a U.S. Advisor Like WJW
By working with an advisor in the U.S., such as Willis Johnson Wealth, you can avoid the pitfalls surrounding the financial, tax, and legal guidelines you’re obliged to by your citizenship and your time abroad. If you're planning to return to the U.S., you'll want a domestic advisor to ensure that everything converts appropriately for your U.S. tax return upon your arrival back home.
Work With A Foreign Advisor
Suppose you're not a U.S. citizen or resident and are working in a non-U.S. country. In that case, it may be more beneficial to work with an advisor in the country you’re stationed in to get the proper guidance and education you need for your finances and taxes.
Dow professionals who prefer to keep their assets in a foreign country may benefit from working with an advisor in that country who's well-versed in the foreign country's tax, financial, and legal guidelines. Similarly, for Dow employees on the company's international benefit plans, we recommend reaching out to your HR department or an advisor with expertise in your benefit plans and guidelines to understand how to utilize them.
Learn How to Avoid Common Financial Mistakes Expats Make Here >
Getting More From Your Finances Doesn’t Have to be Difficult.
Speak to one of our Dow specialists about your situation >
