Tax Alpha

Tax Alpha: How to Add Measurable Value with Tax-Focused Financial Planning

Without comprehensive tax-focused financial planning, advisors, tax preparers and consumers alike are making costly mistakes. The short-sighted, often rear view, of taxes as a once-a-year task, rather than a pervasive feature of one’s financial life risks higher tax payments and delays financial independence.

Taxpayers who merely drop off files at their annual accountant meeting, or go solo with off-the-shelf software, fail to recognize the often costly consequences of inefficient, or non-existent, tax planning.

Accountants who limit their client services to filling out forms and making the best of the past year’s information, also limit their ability to reduce their clients' tax exposure. It's simply too late.

Financial planners who advise on investments, retirement planning and education saving, but fail to include tax planning in their counsel, can lead clients down the path toward greater tax liability that can result in less holistic and satisfied client engagement.

The comprehensive tax-focused financial plan uniquely informs and positions advisors to guide clients in all aspects of their financial decisions throughout the year – with no costly surprises come tax day.

This paper explores the comprehensive tax-focused financial planning model and its benefits to the client, tax preparer and financial advisor. 



Past Webinar: Tax-Focused Financial Planning,
Troy Thompson, CFP®, JD

Fee-only financial planners understand the importance of income taxes in the financial planning process. Our profession recognizes that we can’t even begin to think about financial planning and investing without considering the background tax treatment. This presentation explores the ways planners can to integrate tax planning more closely into their practices in order to create value for their clients and build better client relationships. Traditional tax service views tax preparation and filing as a once-a-year task. Financial planners are uniquely well situated to create value by playing an active role in clients’ year round tax planning. As teachers and coaches we help clients to understand the consequences of their decisions. The planner is in a position to identify opportunities and strategies for tax reduction across all areas of the financial plan.

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Past Webinar: Tax Alpha Roundtable – How to Add Measurable Value with Tax-Focused Financial Planning 

ACP members Jake Kuebler, Bluestem Financial Advisors, Kelly Adams, Harbor Light Planning, and authors of the white paper, Tax Alpha: How to Add Measurable Value with Tax-Focused Financial Planning, Jonathan Heller, KEJ Financial Advisors and Robert Walsh, Lighthouse Financial Advisors held a discussion exploring the comprehensive tax-focused financial planning model and its benefits to the client, tax preparer and financial advisor.

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