Our 7 Point Income Tax Review Includes:

1. Review your 1040: Are you maximizing your deductions and credits? What is causing the leakage? How can we improve your 1040? 

2. Review your savings plan: How you are saving can have a major impact on your current and future tax liability. 

3. Review your investments for tax-efficiency: Do you know your overall after-tax rate of return? Taxes are a cost to investing and can erode your portfolio's return over time. 

4. Review your charitable giving: Are you donating in the most tax-advantaged way? Proper charitable planning can be a win-win for your taxes and the causes you support. 

5. Review your tax-harvesting plan: Harvesting losses can help offset gains elsewhere in a portfolio. What is the best plan for tax-loss harvesting? How might an active tax-harvesting strategy impact your State income taxes?

6. Review your company plans:  If you have deferred compensation, Restricted Stock, or a large pre-tax 401(k) balance, proper income tax planning is extremely important. 

7. Outside the box: Do you have a concentrated stock position you want to unwind but minimize the capital gains taxes? Have you considered changing your home state's residency? Could a trust own asset in another state to avoid your home state's income tax? Do you have a rental property you want to sell but avoid the tax on the gains? It's time to think outside the box. 

Minimizing income taxes is a high priority for clients, after all you never want to pay more in taxes than you must. Every dollar saved in taxes is one more dollar that can be invested, gifted to charity, or left to the kids. Here are some of the tax and financial planning strategies we review with our clients:

• Restructuring your investment portfolio to produce a higher after-tax return
• Shifting income to dependents in a lower tax bracket
• Maximizing qualified plans and IRA contributions
• Analyzing company plans to defer income
• Using tax smart ways to gift assets to charity
• Using back-door Roth IRA strategies
• Creative ways to shelter gains on stock or real estate
• No-load annuities to shelter earnings from income taxes
• Life insurance to provide tax-deferral
• Donor advised funds for charitable giving
• Deferred compensation
• Tax-loss harvesting

Careful tax planning can free up money that you can use to achieve your goals. Though we do not prepare tax returns, as part of our financial planning relationship, we will review your tax returns for opportunities and work diligently with you to  help you identify the most appropriate income tax minimization strategies. 

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