7 Tax-Planning Moves Your Financial Advisor and CPA Should Coordinate
Sam's List Editorial | 2026-06-27
7 Tax-Planning Moves Your Financial Advisor and CPA Should Coordinate Plenty of affluent households have both a financial advisor and a CPA, and the two never talk. That gap is expensive. The advisor manages investments, the CPA files the return, and the tax-aware decisions that live between them fall through the cracks. Here are seven tax-planning moves your financial advisor and CPA should coordinate, and why siloed advice quietly leaves money on the table. None of this is advice for your situation, and every move has trade-offs that depend on your facts. The point is that these decisions are vetted made by your advisor and accountant together, not in separate rooms. 1. Roth Conversions Converting traditional retirement funds to a Roth can make sense in lower-income years, but it raises current taxable income. Your advisor sees the account; your CPA sees the tax bracket. Coordinated, they can time conversions well. Alone, they often miss the window. 2. Tax-Loss Harvesting Selling investments at a loss to offset gains is an investment decision with a tax consequence. The advisor executes it; the CPA reports it. When they coordinate, the harvesting actually matches your tax situation rather than happening in a vacuum. 3. Asset Location Which investments sit in taxable versus tax-advantaged accounts affects your long-term tax bill. This is squarely a joint decision, and it is one of the most overlooked sources of avoidable tax drag. 4. Required Minimum Distribution Planning As retirement accounts mature, required distributions affect both your income and your tax bracket. Coordinating withdrawals with other income lets the team manage the bracket rather than react to it. 5. Charitable Giving Strategy Donor-advised funds, appreciated stock, and qualified charitable distributions each have investment and tax angles. Your advisor knows the holdings; your CPA knows the deduction rules. Together they can give more efficiently. 6. Business Income and Entity Decisions If you own a business, decisions about income timing, distributions, and structure ripple into your personal investments and taxes. This is exactly where an advisor and CPA who talk can outperform two who do not. 7. Multi-Year Tax Projections The biggest win is simply looking ahead together. A shared multi-year view reveals opportunities, like filling up a low bracket, that neither professional sees from their own seat alone. Why Coordination Beats Silos The theme is integration. Tax-aware planning works vetted when investment and tax decisions are made with one view of your situation. Calculated...
