About The Nest Planner

The Nest Planner is a free educational resource for the tax side of retirement planning — built for higher earners weighing a Roth conversion. We translate dense rules from the Internal Revenue Code into plain English and pair them with tools, like our conversion calculator, so you can see what the numbers look like for your own situation before you ever talk to a professional.

What we are — and what we are not

The Nest Planner is a publisher of educational content — not itself a registered investment adviser, a CPA firm, or a law firm. The site does not manage money, prepare returns, or sell the investments it describes, and nothing here is personalized advice; using it creates no client or advisory relationship. (Its author, Casmir Mason, separately leads an advisory firm, North Pine Capital — see below.) Think of it as a well-sourced starting point before you bring specific questions to your own CPA, tax attorney, or fiduciary advisor.

How we research and write

Our standard is to build from primary sources — the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury regulations, and official IRS guidance — and to cite the specific sections so you can verify them yourself. A few principles guide every page:

• Mechanics and risks, not just upside. Each strategy page explains how the provision actually works, who qualifies, and where the limits and dangers are.
• Current to the tax year. Figures like brackets, contribution limits, and surcharge thresholds change annually; we date our pages and update them.
• Plain English over jargon. If a concept needs a term of art, we define it — see the glossary.
• No hype. We don't promise outcomes. Tax results depend on your facts, the structure used, and law that can change.

Who is behind The Nest Planner

Trust on a topic like this should rest on transparency about who is writing and why.

Casmir Mason — Founder & CEO, North Pine Capital

Casmir Mason has spent his career inside the very strategies this site explains. As chief financial officer of a private family office, he structured tax-advantaged investments across energy and real estate — overseeing the finances of Pheasant Energy, a non-operated oil & gas and mineral interest firm, and Moore Acquisition Partners, a real estate investment firm. The depletion, depreciation, intangible-drilling-cost, and self-directed-IRA techniques covered on The Nest Planner aren't theory to him; they're tools he has put to work with real capital.

He now leads North Pine Capital, a multi-family-office advisory firm built to bring that institutional, tax-first playbook to high-net-worth individuals and families — investors who qualify for these strategies but have never had a family office to run them.

He writes The Nest Planner to put the mechanics in the open: the same primary-source research he relies on professionally, in plain English, so you understand the trade-offs before you ever sit down with an advisor.

Our commitment regardless of credentials: every factual claim traces to a citable source, every strategy discloses its risks, and we tell you when something requires a professional rather than implying we can be one.

Why you can trust what you read here

• Sourced. Tax claims link to the IRC, Treasury regs, or IRS publications.
• Transparent about limits. We flag investment risk, qualifying requirements, and the parts that demand individualized analysis.
• Independent of the transaction. We don't earn a commission on whether you convert or invest, so the content can stay focused on helping you understand the trade-offs.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or feedback are welcome at hello@thenestplanner.com. We take accuracy seriously — if you believe something here is out of date or wrong, please tell us.