Tax Planning

​Tax planning is the proactive analysis of a financial situation or plan from a tax perspective. The purpose is to ensure tax efficiency. By employing strategies that align with the complex tax code, we aim to minimize your tax liability and maximize your ability to contribute to retirement plans and other wealth-building vehicles.

​The process involves a comprehensive review of your current financial situation, business structure, and long-term goals. We analyze your income, investments, and expenses to identify opportunities for deductions, tax credits, and legal tax deferment. The goal is to create a custom roadmap that reduces your tax burden before the year ends, rather than just reporting what happened after the fact.

​The main benefit is significant financial savings. By reducing the amount of taxes you owe, you free up capital to reinvest in your business, save for retirement, or preserve for future generations. Additionally, a solid tax plan provides peace of mind, ensuring you are fully compliant with the law while not paying a penny more than necessary.

​Tax preparation is a reactive process that looks backward at the past year to ensure compliance and file forms correctly. Tax planning is a proactive process that looks forward. It involves making strategic moves during the year—such as restructuring entities or timing income—to change the final tax outcome in your favor.

​Most CPAs are experts in accounting and compliance, meaning they are excellent at recording history but typically focus their model on accuracy and reporting rather than forward-looking strategy. Their primary focus is often on preparing accurate returns based on provided data. A dedicated tax planning attorney focuses specifically on the complex regulations and “loopholes” designed to minimize liability, a service that goes beyond standard preparation.

​While everyone should be mindful of taxes, professional tax planning offers the highest return on investment for business owners, high-income earners, and high net worth individuals These groups typically face more complex tax situations where strategic planning can result in saving thousands or even millions of dollars over a lifetime.

​Strategies often include selecting the optimal business entity (such as an LLC or S-Corp), implementing income-splitting techniques, and maximizing specific business deductions tailored to your industry. We also look at deferring taxation through methods like installment sales or optimizing contributions to retirement accounts to lower current taxable income.

​Absolutely. Choosing between a Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, LLC, or Corporation has massive tax implications. For example, some structures only allow for pass-through taxation while others might offer benefits regarding self-employment taxes. We evaluate your specific business model to determine the entity structure that offers the best balance of liability protection and tax efficiency.

​For individuals, especially those with significant assets, we focus on maximizing itemized deductions, harvesting investment losses to offset gains, and strategic charitable giving. We also review family wealth transfer strategies, such as gifting or utilizing trusts, to manage estate taxes and ensure wealth is passed on efficiently.

​Minimizing your burden legally involves “deductions, diminutions, dividing, and deferring.” This means taking every legal deduction available, reducing the taxable value of assets where appropriate, splitting income among family members or entities to use lower brackets, and pushing tax payments into future years where possible.

​Effective tax planning is not a one-time event that happens in April. It is a year-round discipline. We advise clients to review their plan quarterly or whenever a major financial event occurs—like buying property or selling a business—to adjust strategies in real-time. This prevents nasty surprises when tax season arrives.

​Trusts often face compressed income tax brackets, meaning they hit the highest tax rates much faster than individuals. Proper planning ensures that trust income is distributed or managed in a way that minimizes this impact. We integrate tax planning with your estate plan to protect intergenerational wealth from unnecessary erosion by the IRS.

​Best practices include keeping immaculate records, separating personal and business expenses completely, and consulting with a tax professional before making significant financial moves. Staying proactive is key. You should always know how a decision will impact your taxes before you sign the paperwork.

​At Copper State Planning, the initial meeting is absolutely free. We review your situation to see if we can save you money. If we proceed, our fee is structured so that it is always less than the expected amount of money we save you. Essentially, the savings generated by the plan pay for the service, ensuring you always come out ahead.

​Getting started is simple. You can fill out the contact form on our website to schedule your free assessment. We will guide you through the initial review and begin crafting a strategy to help you keep more of your hard-earned money.