Integrating Tax, Risk and Asset Management
FG Tax Services is a critical component of the client experience at Financial Gravity. Each potential tax savings strategy is weighed against investment allocations, insurance coverage and legacy structure to create a holistic plan. Proactive tax planning is where Family Office thinking begins.
Tax Management That Looks Forward
For most clients, tax work looks backward and puts numbers in boxes. A return records what has already happened, and by the time it is prepared most of the choices that shaped the bill have expired. The client learns the result and has little power to change it. By contrast, when Family Office thinking is employed, April 15 becomes a validation of a plan instead of a surprise.
FG Tax Services helps individuals, families and business owners identify the strategies available to them, put those strategies in place and document them properly. It then prepares returns that reflect the plan, and keeps tax decisions connected to the investment, insurance and legacy strategies carried out by the other Financial Gravity companies.
How a Family Office Director Uses FG Tax Services
A Family Office Director is the tax professional or financial advisor who leads a client’s plan and coordinates the various specialists on the design team. Tax consequences touch nearly every financial action, so the Family Office Director treats them as a primary planning discipline. FG Tax Services supplies the research, the specialist strategies and the capacity to act on them.
The Family Office Director brings in FG Tax Services early and makes sure its work fits the rest of the plan:
Asset Management→
HALO™ places each holding in the type of account where it is taxed least, and the timing of gains and losses is set with the client’s full tax picture in view.
Enhanced Markets→
The tax treatment of an annuity or insurance contract is understood before the contract is purchased.
Legacy Services→
The tax effect of a transfer, gift or conversion is measured before the decision is made.
What You Keep Is What Matters
Every client’s situation is unique, but the vast majority can benefit from proactive tax strategies, which work to increase the most important performance item in wealth management: after-tax compounding. These are the areas where planning most often changes the result.
Proactive tax planning
A written plan sets out the strategies a client will use this year and in the years ahead. It is built from the client’s actual income, holdings and goals, and it is revisited as those inputs change.
Business owner strategies
The way a business is structured, how its owner is compensated and how its retirement plan is designed all affect tax liabilities. FG Tax Services reviews each one, and plans in advance of an exit transaction.
Retirement income planning
Which account a client draws from, and in what order, determines how much of each withdrawal is kept. An effective plan manages tax brackets across the entire arc of retirement, including when a Roth conversion makes sense.
Investment tax coordination
Where a holding is kept and when a gain or loss is realized are consequential tax decisions. FG Tax Services coordinates with FG Asset Management to optimize what the client keeps.
Tax preparation and filing
Returns are prepared by people who understand the big picture. Documents are exchanged and signed through a secure client portal.
What the Client Experiences
What changes when tax planning is designed with Family Office thinking:
No surprises at filing time
The year’s tax is projected while there is still time to act, so the return confirms what the client already expects.
Decisions are pre-tested for tax consequences
A sale, a withdrawal or a large purchase is evaluated proactively, not dealt with as an extraordinary item.
A saving in one place is not lost in another
Investment, insurance and legacy decisions are downstream from tax strategy.
The return reflects the plan
The people who prepare the return know the strategies behind it and the records that support them.
New tax law becomes action
When the rules change, strategy reviews examine options to minimize tax liabilities.
Tax Planning With a Purpose
Tax consequences should inform every financial decision. What a client does not pay unnecessarily compounds, year after year, for the client and for those who come after. FG Tax Services makes sure tax decisions are made proactively, documented properly and reported accurately.
A Taxes First, Then Math™ Analysis Is the Right First Step
Taxes First, Then Math™ is a status quo analysis of your current holdings. It examines your costs of products and advice, looks for inefficiencies in asset location or turnover, weighs your diversification across accounts, and computes your maximum downside risk in a bear market. For most clients, this is the first time they will have ever seen this vital information. The Analysis is complimentary.
Start With the Analysis, a Call or a Question
Your Taxes First, Then Math™ Analysis is grounded in our Control the Controllables® philosophy, and can give you valuable insights into your current situation.
If you would rather talk first, please schedule a call. Family Office Directors are located across the country, and also meet remotely. A discovery conversation is complimentary.
If you have any questions, we’re here to help. Please tell us who you are and what you’d like to know, and we’ll get right back to you with the answers.
Request a Taxes First, Then Math™ Analysis
Taxes can materially reduce investment gains over time, but often don’t get the attention they should. The right investment program starts with tax considerations. Wise investors also carefully consider all the costs of managing their money, and they use diversification to solve for a wide range of risks that go far outside the ones in their portfolio.
On top of all that, many investors simply do not know what their maximum downside loss exposure is. Do you? Can you say just how risky your portfolio really is?
It costs nothing to find out if your portfolio is right for you. Get your Taxes First, Then Math™ Analysis with no obligation. After all, a quality second opinion never hurt anyone.
Six Companies, One Coordinated Whole
The FG companiesEvery Family Office Director directs the specialized expertise of the Financial Gravity companies — tax, asset management, risk, legacy, and family office services working together in the client’s best interest.