Tax & Compliance
Tax Planning & Strategy
By the time the return is prepared, almost every decision that mattered has already been made.
Tax preparation is a historical exercise. By February the year is closed, the transactions have happened, and a preparer’s remaining discretion is narrow.
Tax planning happens while the year is still open, when decisions can still be made differently. It is where essentially all of the value is.
What we actually work on
Structure. Whether the entity is right for the current profit level, whether an S-corp election makes sense, whether reasonable compensation is set defensibly, and how multiple entities should relate to each other.
Timing. Whether to accelerate a purchase into this year or defer it, whether to bill in December or January, whether to take bonus depreciation or spread it. These are usually the difference between a good year and an expensive one.
Vehicles. Retirement plan selection is one of the largest levers available to a profitable owner, and the right answer differs enormously between a solo 401(k), a SEP, a SIMPLE and a defined benefit plan.
Credits. Businesses routinely fail to claim credits they already qualify for, because claiming them requires documentation nobody was keeping.
The quarterly rhythm
Clients on recurring plans get a projection each quarter: where the year is tracking, what the liability looks like, and what actions are still available.
The important one is the autumn checkpoint. That is when there is still time to make a capital purchase, adjust compensation, fund a plan, or accelerate a deduction. Everything after December 31 is arithmetic.
What we will not do
There is a category of tax strategy that is aggressive, heavily marketed, and reliably expensive once it is examined. Captive insurance arrangements, conservation easement syndications, and various offshore structures fall into it.
We do not put clients into these. The strategies we use are the ordinary ones, applied deliberately and documented properly — which in practice produces better after-tax outcomes than the alternative, because they survive scrutiny.
Common questions
When should planning happen?
Continuously, with formal checkpoints each quarter and a substantive one in the autumn while there is still time to act. Planning in February is mostly just reporting.
Is this worth it if we are a small business?
The threshold is profit, not size. Once net profit is consistently in six figures the available strategies usually more than cover the cost of planning them properly.
What kind of strategies are we talking about?
Unglamorous, durable ones — entity structure, reasonable compensation, retirement vehicles, timing, depreciation elections, credits you already qualify for. We do not sell aggressive schemes; they tend to cost more than they save.
Do you coordinate with our financial advisor and attorney?
Yes, and it works considerably better when we do. Retirement and estate decisions have tax consequences that are easier to optimise together than separately.
Often paired with
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