Professional athlete nearing retirement, structuring the final three seasons

The background

Léa M. reaches out to me through a mutual friend, also an athlete. She is 29, a professional competitor in an individual discipline. Her last major season is approaching, and she knows she will retire within 18 to 24 months. She wants to go back to university in parallel, then launch a technical coaching business.

Financial position at the outset:

• 2024 income: €220,000 (bonuses, sponsorships, prize money)
• Projected 2025 income: €260,000
• Projected 2026 income: €90,000 (a partial final season)
• 2027 income: unknown, likely close to zero
• Assets: €150,000 in a current account and a Livret A savings account, no other tax wrapper
• No life insurance contract (assurance-vie), no PER (French personal pension plan), no PEA (French equity savings plan)
• Current marginal tax rate (TMI, tranche marginale d’imposition): 45%

The priority issues

1. Capture the tax benefit before the window closes. Two years at a 45% TMI, then likely an 11 to 30% TMI for the following three to five years. This is the moment to deduct aggressively.

2. Build a “transition cushion.” Léa needs to be able to live for two to four years without significant income while she studies and launches her project, without drawing on long-term capital.

3. Protect a portion of the capital over 20 years so she does not reach her forties with zero retirement wealth.

The strategy put in place

2024 (partly retroactive) and 2025, the full-income years

PER, maximum contributions:

• Ceiling calculated on professional income: roughly €28,000 the first year, roughly €35,000 the second.
• Total contributed over 2 years: roughly €60,000.
• Tax saved: roughly €27,000.

Life insurance (assurance-vie), opened immediately:

• Premium contract (0% entry fees), initial payment of €80,000, then €5,000 per month.
• Allocation: 30% euro-denominated fund, 70% long-term unit-linked funds.
• Goal: the 8-year seniority threshold is reached at age 37, right around the time she may need to draw on it as a supplementary resource.

PEA:

• Opened to lock in the start date of the 5-year holding period for tax purposes.
• Initial payment of €20,000, built up progressively through world-index ETFs.

Exceptional income smoothing:

• Article 163-0-A of the French tax code applied to the exceptional 2025 bonus: income-splitting mechanism (quotient) applied, bringing the effective TMI on that bracket down from 45% to 33%.
• Gain: roughly €14,000.

2026, the pivotal year

• PER contributions paused (as the TMI drops, it becomes more advantageous to preserve the contribution ceiling for later or to use unused carried-forward allowances).
• A “transition cushion” pocket opened: €80,000 across diversified savings accounts (Livret A, LDDS, LEP) plus term deposits.
• This cushion covers 2.5 to 3 years of living costs with no income.

2027 onward, the transition

• A SASU (a French simplified single-shareholder company) set up to receive future coaching and image-rights income.
• PER contributions resumed as soon as the TMI climbs back above 30%.
• Monthly life insurance payments continued to preserve the automatic savings habit.

The projected outcome

Indicator	Without advice (hypothesis)	With the strategy
Tax avoided, 2024-2025	0	roughly €41,000
Assets held in tax wrappers, end of 2026	0	roughly €160,000
Cushion available for the transition	€200,000 (current account)	€80,000 plus €160,000 in usable wrappers
Projected retirement wealth at age 50	,	roughly €450,000

What Léa says

“I used to think wealth advisors were for retirees. Once I understood that my last two or three seasons could work for the twenty years that follow, I realized it was almost too late, but that I still had real room to act. Camil understands the rhythm of an athletic career, and that matters.”

What this illustrates

Professional athletes face an exceptionally harsh tax reality at the end of their careers. The last two or three years at a 45% TMI often generate more cumulative tax than the ten years before them. This is exactly the moment when activating a PER, a solid life insurance contract, and income-smoothing mechanisms (163-0-A) can transform the trajectory of what comes after.

Failing to plan for it means losing the equivalent of several years’ salary to unoptimized taxation. In this respect, Léa’s case is the rule, not the exception.

Case presented with the client’s consent. First name changed, figures rounded to preserve confidentiality.