Dollars & Sense Blog Series

It’s Tax Time: Work with Your Advisor to Go Beyond Gathering Documents to Prepare

By Brian Brady, CFP®
Vice President, Wealth Advisory and Communications

As wealth advisors, we believe in orchestrating collaboration between our clients’ key financial professionals. Tax season reminds us of the significance of this coordinated approach to wealth management.

While document collection is a basic service any advisor should provide, true value emerges from strategic planning meetings where you, your advisor, and your CPA collaborate on your unique tax strategy. These discussions can help align investment decisions, tax strategy, and long-term financial goals.

Every client’s situation is different, but here are some of the more common key discussion points for team meetings:

Investment Structure Optimization
Our coordinated meetings are anchored by a portfolio review, where we examine recent and planned changes to your investment strategy. We’ll typically discuss the tax implications of rebalancing, evaluate tax-loss harvesting opportunities, and assess whether your current investment vehicles are optimally structured for tax efficiency. This includes analyzing the impact of private equity investments, exploring opportunities in tax-advantaged sectors, and evaluating the timing of significant transactions.

Business Planning Integration
For business owners, we will rely on your CPA to analyze how business decisions impact your personal tax situation. We can cover evaluating business structure options, discussing strategies for income timing, and exploring opportunities for retirement plan integration. Your tax professional will address succession planning considerations and their tax implications, ensuring business decisions and your personal financial goals align. Our role is to ask questions and help you think through different scenarios based on what we know about you, your family, and your business.

Retirement and Legacy Planning Coordination
Proactive tax and investment planning is crucial for retirement and estate strategies. In our team meetings, we’ll review existing retirement accounts, look for strategic opportunities like Roth conversions, evaluate the tax efficiency of your charitable giving strategy, and assess estate planning techniques like establishing trusts, planned giving, and estate tax strategy. If applicable, we can also coordinate with your CPA and estate attorney on multigenerational planning opportunities and discuss how changes in tax law might affect your legacy plans.

The collaboration between you, your wealth advisor, and your CPA helps to ensure thorough coordination. Your CPA provides tax expertise, we manage investment strategy and overall financial planning, and you receive thorough guidance aligned with your goals.

Consider scheduling annual or biannual team meetings to maintain strategic alignment throughout the year, although the fall season is usually the optimal time to meet. These sessions help us proactively identify opportunities and address potential challenges before they arise and well before the end of the tax year.

Remember: Effective wealth management requires coordination between all your trusted advisors. By fostering open communication and regular collaboration, your wealth advisors can help optimize your tax position while advancing your broader financial objectives.

Please reach out to our team if you would like to learn more about this service we provide to our clients.