For CPAs, Financial Advisors, and Wealth Managers
Your client's entity question isn't your job. But "you should talk to a lawyer" sends them somewhere you don't control, and they don't always come back.
I work as the legal piece of an advisory team. You keep the relationship. I answer the structure and tax questions and hand back something written that you can both work from.
What I Get Referred
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Entity classification and elections. What an S-election actually commits your client to, before they make it
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Restructuring without a taxable event. Converting, moving states, rolling entities under a holding company
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Inbound structuring for non-US owners. Withholding, reporting, treaty positions
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Trust and entity coordination. When the estate plan and the operating agreement contradict each other
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Multi-state registration. Whether your client actually has to register where they're operating
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Beneficial ownership reporting. Who has to be reported and what triggers an update
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Business sale structuring. Asset versus equity, and what each does to the tax bill
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Documents that don't match reality. Operating agreements describing a business your client no longer runs
How it works
Advisor Consultations: $250. Book directly, with or without your client on the call. If your client engages me afterward, the fee is credited toward their written plan.
You'll get a written recommendation with reasoning, not a verbal answer your client half-remembers. You can read it, keep it in the file, and work from it.
What I Don't Do
I don't prepare tax returns. I don't give investment advice. I don't do estate planning.
I'm the third leg, not a competitor. Your client stays your client.
I also don't pay or accept referral fees, in either direction. Independence is the whole value of the recommendation.
Where the Judgment Comes From
Years in litigation, watching what happens to documents that were fine on the day they were signed. Responsibility for anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing policy at a law firm in Bermuda, which is where you learn to ask what a bank sees rather than whether a structure is clever. And an LL.M. in Taxation, earned at night while running my practice.
Your client's lawyer picks the structure. Their accountant finds out what it cost a year later. I'd rather they hear both at once.