RCS Financial Planning

RCS Financial Planning

RCS Financial Planning was founded in 2017 by Ted Toal, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ with more than 25 years in financial services. The firm emerged from Toal's conviction that retirement income is a process problem, not a product problem — a belief sharpened during his earlier career inside mainstream brokerages. The practice serves over 200 clients from its Annapolis, Maryland base, operating as a fee-only fiduciary with no commissions and no sales agenda. The firm's strategy rests on tax-coordinated retirement-income planning rather than portfolio performance alone. It constructs spending guardrails — not single-number withdrawal rates — and sequences withdrawals across IRAs, Roth accounts, brokerage accounts, pensions, and Social Security to manage lifetime tax liability. Named federal employer systems CSRS and FERS form a distinct practice vertical, coordinating TSP withdrawals, FEHB decisions, and survivor benefit elections. The firm serves couples approaching or in retirement, women navigating single-filer retirement, and federal employees, typically those with $1 million or more in investable assets. Geographic reach extends from Maryland and the DMV region to clients served virtually nationwide. RCS Financial Planning manages over $240 million in client assets (per the firm's website, accessed 2026). The leadership team includes Amanda Clouser, a dual CFP® and CFA charterholder who joined after corporate roles at S&P, ING Direct, and TIAA. The advisor headcount remains small by design, supporting a process built around semi-annual income-plan recalibration — incorporating actual spending, actual returns, current tax law, and life changes — rather than annual performance reports. No adjacent foundations, club memberships, or separate investment vehicles are disclosed. RCS operates as an extremely narrow specialist: a pure retirement-income fiduciary for a specific demographic cluster. That focus creates a structural differentiator distinct from generalist RIAs. The firm's intellectual property is a repeatable decision process that answers the question "How much can I confidently spend this year and twenty years from now?" rather than a portfolio-management playbook. Succession is not publicly addressed, but the addition of Clouser as a second credentialed principal suggests a deliberate talent architecture.