Tax Planning That Happens Before the Year Is Over
Your tax return records decisions you already made. Tax planning is the work of making better ones while the year is still open, and it is the organizing idea behind everything we do here.
Tax Preparation Looks Back. Tax Planning Looks Forward.
Most people have someone who files their return, and almost nobody has someone whose job is to reduce what that return says next year. Those are two different roles. Tax planning in Fort Smith, AR means sitting down in June or September, looking at where your income is coming from, what you are holding, what you plan to sell and what you intend to give, and making choices while those choices still have room to move.
We do the planning side. We do not prepare returns, and we work alongside whoever files yours rather than asking you to change anything about that relationship. What makes the planning credible is the background behind it: Melanie Radcliff is a CPA/PFS who practiced public accounting for 25 years before founding this firm, so the person building your investment strategy has spent a career reading the document it lands on.
Step 1: Read the return
We start with your most recent filing and your account statements, because the return shows us what is actually happening rather than what a questionnaire says should be.
Step 2: Find the moving parts
We identify which decisions ahead of you carry tax consequences worth planning around, and roughly what is at stake in each one.
Step 3: Build the multi-year view
Tax strategy rarely fits inside a single calendar year, so we map the sequence across several, then adjust as law and circumstances change.
Where Proactive Tax Strategy Usually Finds Room
Tax-efficient financial planning is not one technique. It is a set of them, applied when your situation calls for it, and skipped when it does not.
Two portfolios holding identical investments can produce very different tax bills depending on which account holds what, so we look at whether your income-generating holdings sit in taxable or tax-deferred space. This applies to anyone with a mix of brokerage, IRA and Roth accounts.
Asset location across your accounts
When a position is down, selling it may create a loss that offsets gains elsewhere in the same year, and we watch for those opportunities as they appear rather than in December. Most relevant to clients with taxable investment accounts.
Tax-loss harvesting
The year you recognize a gain often matters as much as the gain itself, particularly when your income varies or a low-income year is coming. This applies to anyone holding appreciated assets they have been afraid to touch.
Capital gains timing
A large single-stock position can be unwound on a planned schedule instead of all at once, using loss offsets, gain timing and charitable strategies to spread the tax effect across years. This is common among corporate professionals and retirees in Northwest Arkansas holding company stock, stock purchase plan shares or deferred compensation.
Concentrated employer stock
How you give can matter as much as how much, whether that means giving appreciated shares instead of cash, grouping several years of gifts into a donor-advised fund, or using a qualified charitable distribution once you are eligible. This applies to anyone who gives regularly and itemizes, or wishes they could.
Charitable giving strategy
Where new savings go, how business income flows and how Arkansas treats certain retirement income all shape the picture, so state and federal planning happen together rather than separately. This applies to every Arkansas resident, and especially to business owners.
Account structuring and Arkansas considerations
What People Ask Before They Start Tax Planning
What is the difference between tax planning and tax preparation?
Tax preparation reports what already happened, and tax planning changes what will happen. A preparer works with a closed year, while planning happens during the year, when there is still time to shift income, harvest a loss, time a sale or restructure a gift. Both matter, and they are not substitutes for each other.
Do you prepare my tax return?
No. We are a wealth management firm that plans around returns rather than a tax preparation practice, so your return continues to be filed by your preparer. We are glad to share our analysis and reasoning with that person so the filing reflects the plan.
Do I have to leave my current CPA to work with you?
Not at all, and most of our clients keep the preparer they already trust. Our role is the forward-looking strategy, and we coordinate directly with your CPA rather than competing with them. If you do not have a preparer, we can talk through what to look for in one.
Can a financial advisor actually help me lower my taxes?
A financial advisor with a CPA background can plan investment and income decisions with their tax consequences in view, which may reduce what you owe over a period of years. Nobody can promise a specific dollar figure, and any advisor who does is telling you something they cannot know. What we can do is show you where the opportunities appear to be in your own numbers.
How do I know whether tax planning is worth paying for?
The introductory tax analysis is how you find out, and it costs nothing. We read your actual return and statements, tell you what we see, and if the planning would not change enough to justify the fee, we will say so. Situations with concentrated stock, business income, several retirement accounts or a retirement date within a few years usually have the most room in them.
