Tax Planning and Consulting
Avoid unpleasant surprises.
Everybody is familiar with that last-minute scramble. Your tax filing is due, and you’ve put off gathering the necessary paperwork.
Or you have it, but you have yet to send it to your accountant. The fact is that nobody likes to pay the tax man. But waiting until the eleventh hour not only postpones the inevitable; it can cost you, sometimes a lot. Tax planning is like many other things in life: the earlier you start, the more options are available. Proactive tax planning is a year-round activity that can help you realize significant tax efficiencies and avoid unnecessary, wealth-eroding taxation.
Key Considerations
Delay.
While there are some tax-saving moves you can still make on the eve of a tax filing deadline, those likely to be most valuable require transactions to be planned weeks – if not months – ahead of time. Fail to consider this, and you could be on the hook for many thousands of dollars in legally avoidable tax liability that you will never get back.
Risk.
Sometimes when you take a chance, things work out in your favor. This is rarely true when you neglect tax planning. Not only do
you lose out on potential savings, but you can also expose yourself to hefty penalties for late payment and/or late filing. There is also the very real risk that you could find yourself subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a circumstance that planning would have helped your avoid.
Complexity.
Tax laws are notoriously convoluted, especially in the U.S. Add layers of state and local taxing authorities and it only gets worse. Beyond that, your particular business or circumstances may qualify for tax credits, deductions or other benefits that are not widely available – or known to all tax practitioners.
Expertise
At Singer & Falk, we engage in year-round proactive tax planning with all of our high net worth and business clients.
After all, while almost everyone is willing to pay their fair share, money spent on taxes is not available for other purposes. We look at long-term financial objectives and consider which strategies will best support achieving them. In crafting flexible strategies for our clients, we consider the applicability of the following, among other things:
- 1031 exchanges for investment properties
- Capital gains
- Charitable giving
- Compensation timing and structure
- Depreciation of business assets and real estate
- Funding for retirement, education and other life events
- Gain and loss maximization
- International taxation, compliance and reciprocity
- Life events, such as retirement and education
- Multi-state tax liabilities
- Trusts and other wealth-protecting structures
We view tax planning as a year-round activity, but we seldom limit our recommendations to a single year. The best tax savings are realized through complex, multi-year strategies, constantly reevaluated as circumstances change. Contact us when you are ready to look at how tax planning can bolster your overall financial situation.
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