Working with your preparer
Whether you use our referral partner or someone you've worked with for years, the value is in the two sides communicating. We share what's happening in the portfolio; they tell us what it means for the return.
Tax Planning
Planning done before December 31, alongside the person who files your return.
Most tax work happens in the spring, when the year is over and the options have closed. By then a preparer can only report what already occurred. The decisions that actually change the number — when to convert, when to realize a gain, when to give — all had to be made months earlier.
To be clear about roles. Stonewell Financial Management does not prepare tax returns and does not provide tax advice. Your return is prepared by an independent enrolled agent under a separate engagement, with separate fees. What we do is make sure the planning side and the filing side are talking to each other during the year, rather than meeting for the first time in April.
Multi-year bracket planning
Looking at this year's return in isolation misses the point. A decision that raises this year's tax can lower the total across a decade — particularly in the low-income years between retiring and required distributions.
Coordinating conversions
Roth conversion decisions get modeled in retirement planning and executed in the portfolio, but the bracket headroom that determines how much to convert comes from the tax side. That number should come from your preparer.
Charitable giving
How you give changes what the gift costs you. Donating appreciated shares instead of cash, bunching several years into one, or giving directly from an IRA after 70½ are all structural choices worth making before the check is written.
Concentrated stock and equity compensation
Restricted stock, options, and a large position in one company carry tax consequences that arrive on a schedule. Planning the timing beats reacting to it, and unwinding a concentrated position usually takes more than one tax year.
Before year-end
Loss harvesting, charitable timing, conversions, and distributions all have a December 31 deadline. A planning conversation in the fall is worth more than any conversation in April.
The tax side connects to everything else — harvesting and asset location in wealth management, conversions and withdrawal order in retirement planning.
Ready to bring tax into the plan?
The best time to have this conversation is well before the filing deadline. If you're reading this in the fall, that's the right time.