A CFP® professional who builds tax strategy into your financial plan from the start — not as an afterthought at year-end.
Most financial plans treat taxes as someone else's problem. We don't. At Allen Financial Partners, tax strategy is woven into every layer of your financial plan — your investments, your retirement income, your estate, your business structure. Because the decisions you make today about how money moves through your life have a compounding effect on how much you actually keep over time.
We're a fee-only, fiduciary firm. That means we have no financial incentive to recommend one approach over another. Our only obligation is to give you the guidance that's genuinely in your best interest.
Tax planning isn't a once-a-year conversation. It's a discipline that runs through every financial decision you make — and the difference between reactive and proactive planning can mean tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a financial lifetime.
Here's what integrated tax strategy looks like in practice:
- Investment tax efficiency: Structuring your portfolio to minimize unnecessary capital gains and maximize after-tax returns across taxable and tax-advantaged accounts.
- Roth conversion planning: Identifying the right windows — often in early retirement — to convert pre-tax dollars at lower rates before required minimum distributions push you into a higher bracket.
- Retirement income sequencing: Deciding which accounts to draw from first, and in what order, to reduce your lifetime tax burden in retirement.
- Tax-loss harvesting: Capturing losses in your portfolio to offset gains, reducing your current-year tax exposure without disrupting your long-term investment strategy.
- Business owner tax planning: Structuring compensation, retirement contributions, and entity decisions to reduce self-employment and income tax — legally and sustainably.
- Estate and gift tax coordination: Aligning your estate plan with your tax plan so wealth transfers to the next generation as efficiently as possible.
Tax Strategy for Families Building Across Generations
For families thinking about the long game, tax planning isn't just about this year's return. It's about how wealth moves between generations — and how much survives the journey.
We work with families at every stage of that journey, from parents building taxable and tax-advantaged accounts alongside their estate plan, to adult children inheriting IRAs and navigating the rules around inherited retirement accounts. We also work with families where multiple generations are clients, which gives us a fuller picture of how financial decisions at one generation affect another.
If you're thinking about generational wealth — not just accumulation, but transfer — tax strategy is one of the most powerful levers available to you.
Tax Planning for Business Owners
Running a business creates tax complexity that a standard financial plan doesn't account for. Business owners face decisions about entity structure, owner compensation, retirement plan design, and the eventual sale or transition of the business — each of which carries significant tax implications.
We work with business owners to build tax strategy that spans both sides of the ledger: your business finances and your personal financial plan. That includes identifying opportunities to reduce taxable income through retirement contributions, structuring compensation between salary and distributions, and planning for the tax consequences of a business sale or ownership transition well in advance of when it happens.
If your current advisor is only looking at your personal portfolio, you may be leaving real money on the table.
Step 1: Review Your Current Tax Picture
We start by understanding where you are — your income sources, account types, current tax bracket, and any near-term decisions that carry tax consequences. This gives us a baseline to work from.
Step 2: Identify the Gaps and Opportunities
Most people are surprised by how many planning opportunities exist that their current approach isn't capturing. We map those out clearly, in plain language, without jargon.
Step 3: Build It Into Your Financial Plan
Tax strategy isn't a separate service — it's integrated into your comprehensive financial plan. Every investment decision, every retirement income strategy, every estate planning move is evaluated through a tax lens.
Step 4: Review and Adjust Over Time
Tax law changes. Your income changes. Your life changes. We revisit your tax strategy regularly to make sure it's still doing the work it's supposed to do.
How We Work With You on Tax Strategy
Tax strategy is one of the highest-leverage areas of financial planning — and one of the most consistently overlooked. If you're ready to work with a CFP® professional who treats tax planning as a core part of your financial life, not a footnote, we'd like to hear from you.
Our Process
Step 1: Understand Your Full Picture
Before any tax strategy conversation begins, we look at your income sources, account structures, retirement timeline, estate intentions, and business situation if applicable. Tax planning without context produces narrow answers.
Step 2: Identify Your Highest-Leverage Opportunities
Not every tax strategy applies to every client. We identify the decisions — Roth conversions, account sequencing, income timing, entity structure — that will have the most meaningful impact on your specific situation.
Step 3: Build It Into Your Plan
Tax strategy is not a separate document. It lives inside your comprehensive financial plan and gets revisited as your life and the tax environment change. We coordinate with your CPA or tax preparer when appropriate to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Step 4: Review and Adjust Over Time
Tax laws change. Your income changes. Your family changes. We revisit your tax strategy regularly so that your plan stays current and continues working in your favor.
Ready to Stop Leaving Money on the Table?
Tax strategy is one of the highest-leverage areas of financial planning — and one of the most consistently overlooked. If you're ready to work with a CFP® professional who treats tax planning as a core part of your financial life, not a footnote, we'd like to hear from you.
Tax Strategy FAQs
Do you prepare tax returns?
We don't prepare tax returns, and we're not a CPA firm. Our focus is forward-looking tax planning — identifying strategies that reduce your lifetime tax burden and integrating them into your broader financial plan. We work collaboratively with your CPA or tax preparer and can help coordinate that relationship.How is tax strategy different from what my accountant does?
Your accountant is typically focused on accurately reporting what happened last year. Tax strategy is about shaping what happens going forward. The two functions complement each other — but they're not the same thing. A financial planner focused on tax strategy is asking: what decisions can we make now to reduce what you'll owe over the next five, ten, or twenty years?Is tax strategy only relevant for high earners?
It's most impactful for people with complexity — multiple account types, business income, a pending retirement, or an estate they want to transfer efficiently. That complexity exists at many income levels. If you have a mix of pre-tax and after-tax savings, a business, or retirement income to manage, there's almost certainly planning work worth doing.What does fee-only mean for tax strategy advice?
It means we're compensated only by you — not by commissions, product sales, or referral arrangements. When we recommend a tax strategy, it's because we believe it's right for your situation, not because it benefits us financially. That distinction matters, particularly when advice involves moving money between accounts or restructuring how assets are held.Can you help with tax planning if I live outside of Arizona?
Yes. We serve clients across nearly every U.S. state. Most of our planning work happens virtually, and tax strategy in particular translates well to a remote relationship. If you're in Prescott, Flagstaff, Scottsdale, or Phoenix, we're also available to meet in person.
