Specialized service
Tax strategy that compounds.
A single year of smart tax planning saves a number. A decade of coordinated tax strategy — layered across income, investments, business, and estate — compounds into something that often dwarfs your advisory fees over a lifetime.
Why people come to Premier for tax strategy
If your tax planning feels reactive instead of strategic, you’ve probably noticed…
- Your taxes show up as a surprise every April instead of a planned line item.
- Your CPA does great compliance work but doesn’t coordinate with your investment decisions.
- Your Roth conversion windows pass unused because nobody’s tracking them.
- Your capital-gains decisions get made in isolation from charitable, estate, and income planning.
We do the multi-year planning your CPA doesn’t have the scope to do alone.
What's included
Everything one team handles for you.
Multi-year tax projection
A 5-year rolling forecast of your tax situation. We see the tax cliffs and conversion windows before they arrive.
Tax-aware investment management
Asset location, tax-loss harvesting, dividend planning. Same portfolio decisions, structured for after-tax outcome.
Roth conversion planning
Year-by-year analysis of conversion opportunities — sized to your bracket and your long-term plan.
Charitable strategy coordination
Donor-advised funds, QCDs, appreciated-stock gifting, bunching strategies — coordinated with your CPA, your attorney, and your portfolio.
Business owner tax structures
S-corp election analysis, retirement plan design (Solo 401(k), defined benefit), real-estate strategy, deductions you’re missing.
Annual planning meeting with your CPA
Three-way call every fall. Your CPA, your Premier advisor, you — aligned on the moves to make before year-end.
How we work
The Premier Method — applied to Tax Strategy.
The same four steps every Premier client experiences. Adapted to the specific work of Tax Strategy.
Listen
A full review of the last three years of tax returns. We map every account, every existing deduction, every missed opportunity.
Plan
Coordinate
We brief your CPA on the plan, run quarterly checkpoints, and coordinate any in-year tax-positioning moves with your portfolio.
Communicate
Annual review every November — the tax-planning version of a year-end physical. Plus real-time response when a life event changes the tax picture.
What it looks like in practice
Three engagements. Three different starting points.
Pre-retirement Roth window
Optimizing the 5-year tax-bracket gap before Social Security
A 64-year-old couple, three years from claiming Social Security, with a $4.2M IRA. Their CPA was filing returns competently but not modeling the once-in-a-lifetime low-bracket window before Required Minimum Distributions started.
Built a 5-year Roth conversion ladder that filled the 22% bracket each year without spilling into the 24%. Coordinated the conversions with charitable bunching in years 2 and 4.
Projected lifetime tax savings of more than $400,000 versus the original glide path — with no change to lifestyle or spending.
Business sale year
Sequencing a $9M exit to minimize the tax bill
An owner planning a Q3 business sale, expecting a $9M lump sum. The CPA was modeling federal liability but not coordinating with the personal portfolio, estate, or state-residency considerations.
Pre-funded a donor-advised fund in the high-income year. Restructured the sale to allow partial seller-financing in a lower-bracket subsequent year. Coordinated with a tax-residency move that had been informally discussed but never planned.
Realized a net effective tax rate roughly 9 points lower than the CPA’s baseline projection on the sale — legitimately, with every move documented.
Inherited IRA navigation
Walking a beneficiary through the new 10-year rule
A 56-year-old in her peak earning years inherited a $1.8M IRA from a parent. Under the SECURE Act, she had to drain it within 10 years — but her advisor was simply suggesting equal annual withdrawals.
Modeled the 10-year withdrawal alongside her own retirement income plan. Pushed larger withdrawals into the early years (before her own retirement income kicked in) and into years where her bracket was projected to be lowest.
Estimated lifetime tax savings of roughly $180,000 vs. an even-withdrawal default — without any product purchase or fancy structure. Just planning.
How we compare
Premier vs. the alternatives.
| Premier | Robo-advisor | Big-4 brokerage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compensation | Fee-only, AUM-based, no commissions | Low flat % (~0.25%), algorithmic | Mix: commissions + product revenue + advisory fee |
| Relationship | Same advisor & team for decades (20-yr avg tenure) | No human advisor (or paid-tier call center) | Assigned advisor; often reassigned every 18–24 months |
| Scope of work | Investment + tax + estate + business coordinated together | Investment allocation only | Investment-led; tax/estate often siloed or via product cross-sell |
| Conflicts | None — fiduciary, fee-only, no proprietary funds | Low — limited to their fund universe | Yes — proprietary products + commission-eligible securities |
Working together
How we charge, and who this is for.
How we charge
Fee-only. AUM-based. No commissions.
Transparent percentage tied to your assets under management. No commissions, no proprietary products, no soft-dollar arrangements. Discussed openly in your initial conversation and disclosed in writing in your engagement letter and our Form ADV.
Who this is for
Typically $1M+ in investable assets.
Most clients arrive with $1M or more under management. Some start smaller with a clear path — a business sale, an inheritance, a vesting event. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you straight — and point you toward who is.
Common questions
Questions we get from prospective clients.
Are you a CPA? Do you prepare my tax return?
No. We’re not a CPA firm and we don’t prepare returns. We do tax STRATEGY — the multi-year planning and coordination — alongside your existing CPA who handles compliance and filing. Most engagements start with a three-way call between us, your CPA, and you. Most CPAs love it because they finally have a strategy partner to coordinate with.
Can you guarantee tax savings?
No advisor can. What we CAN do is identify the planning opportunities your current setup is missing — and quantify what acting on them would mean over your remaining tax life. Most prospective clients come away from our first review with two or three specific strategies that would more than cover our fee for the year, and we’ll tell you that straight in the first conversation.
What happens if my advisor leaves the firm?
Why fee-only? What's wrong with commissions?
Commissions create a conflict of interest that even the most ethical advisor can't fully neutralize: if you're paid more for selling Product A than Product B, you'll naturally see more reasons to recommend Product A. We chose to remove the conflict structurally rather than try to manage it with good intentions. Fee-only means our compensation moves only when your assets do.
Do you work with my existing CPA and attorney?
Always. Your existing CPA and estate attorney know your history. We’re not in the business of replacing those relationships. What we DO is the coordination most firms skip — making sure your investment, tax, and estate decisions actually align with each other instead of contradicting each other in ways nobody notices until it costs you.
Becoming a client
A 30-minute tax-strategy conversation, no pitch.
Bring your last tax return. We’ll look at it together for 30 minutes and tell you straight which planning moves are worth your attention. No product pitch. No follow-up call cadence. If we’re a fit, we’ll say so. If we’re not, we’ll point you toward who is.
Most chosen
Schedule a conversation
30 minutes. By phone or video. No prep needed.
Lower commitment
Request the wealth guide
A 24-page PDF on what "fiduciary" actually means — and how to evaluate one.
Direct line
Call us directly
707.443.2741 · 8 AM – 5 PM PT. A human answers, not a menu.
No pitch. No pressure. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you who is.