Tax Planning
Thoughtful tax planning goes beyond your tax return. We consider taxes across your income, investments, and financial planning decisions, using tax-sensitive strategies to help you keep more of what you earn.
Tax Planning That Looks Beyond a Single Year
For many people, taxes are something that happens once a year, when the return is filed. By then, most of the decisions that shaped what you owe have already been made. Salary, investment income, business income, and gains from selling an asset are each taxed differently, and the timing of each decision can matter as much as the decision itself.
Our tax planning starts with your returns. Using tools that analyze past filings and connect securely to your IRS records, we look at where your income comes from, how it is taxed, and how that may change in the years ahead. From there, we look for opportunities to manage what you pay over time, such as recognizing income in lower-income years or easing the impact of a high-income year, and we coordinate that work with your investments, withdrawals, and charitable giving. The goal is not always to pay less tax this year. It is to manage what you pay across the years in a way that supports your broader plan. Every strategy is reviewed with your CPA before it is implemented.
Your Income Varies from Year to Year
Bonuses, business income, or a planned sale create high-income years, and you want to plan around them rather than react at filing time.
A Major Event Has Tax Consequences
Exercising stock options, selling a business, or receiving an inheritance raises tax questions you want answered before you act.
Retirement Is Approaching or Underway
Withdrawals, Social Security, and required minimum distributions all affect what you owe in taxes, and you want them coordinated.
How We Approach Tax Planning
Tax planning works best throughout the year, not just at filing time. Here’s how we turn your returns into a plan that works alongside the rest of your finances.
Gather Your Returns
We start by collecting recent tax returns and, with your permission, connecting securely to your IRS records to understand what has happened in prior years.
Map Your Income
We identify where your income comes from, how each source is taxed, and how your tax picture may change as your life and plan evolve.
Identify Opportunities
We look for ways to manage what you pay over time, from the timing of income and gains to tax-aware investing and charitable strategies.
Coordinate and Implement
We review each strategy with your CPA before it is implemented, then revisit your tax picture as the year unfolds.
Inside Tax Planning at Sunpointe
Taxes connect to nearly every financial decision you make, from how you invest to how you give. These are the areas where our tax planning focuses most, each one connected to the rest of your financial plan.
We use software that reads your returns and highlights planning opportunities, giving us a clear starting point and a consistent way to track changes from year to year.
When you have flexibility, we help you decide when to recognize income or gains, such as shifting income into a lower-income year or spreading it across several years.
Our team has used direct indexing as a tax-management strategy since 2009, and we consider the tax impact of portfolio decisions as part of how we manage your investments.
We help structure withdrawals tax-efficiently, coordinating which accounts to draw from, when to claim Social Security, and how to manage required minimum distributions.
Giving appreciated assets, making qualified charitable distributions, or combining several years of gifts into one can align your generosity with your tax plan. We help you evaluate each option.
We keep your financial records organized and provide consolidated reporting across accounts and entities, so you and your CPA have what you need at tax time and throughout the year.
Ready to Take a Longer View of Your Taxes?
Bring your most recent tax return and your questions. We’ll talk through where your income comes from, how it’s taxed, and where planning could make a difference in the years ahead.
Explore Related Services
Tax planning works best when it is coordinated with your financial plan, your estate plan, and your investments. Each of these services shapes your tax picture, and all of them are coordinated through your Sunpointe relationship.
Financial Planning
Your financial plan shows how tax decisions fit with your goals, from retirement income to major purchases, and we model the trade-offs before you commit.
Estate Planning
Gifts, trusts, and inheritances all carry tax implications. We work with your estate attorney so your estate plan and tax strategy support each other.
Portfolio Management
Tax-aware investing is built into how we manage portfolios, including our team’s long-standing use of direct indexing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about tax planning.
Call us at 314-880-0821 or send a message.
No. Sunpointe is not a tax preparation firm. We focus on tax planning: analyzing your returns, identifying opportunities to manage what you pay over time, and coordinating those strategies with your investments and financial plan. Your CPA prepares your return and reviews every strategy before it is implemented, and we work alongside your CPA throughout the year.
Sunpointe’s tax planning includes analyzing your tax returns, mapping where your income comes from and how it is taxed, and identifying opportunities such as timing income and gains, tax-aware investing, tax-efficient retirement withdrawals, and charitable strategies. The goal is to manage what you pay across the years in a way that supports your broader financial plan.
Sunpointe works alongside your CPA rather than replacing them. We share our analysis and proposed strategies, and every recommendation is reviewed with your CPA before it is implemented. Your CPA handles preparation, filing, and decisions about deductions, while we focus on how tax decisions connect to your investments and long-term plan.
Beyond tax planning, Sunpointe provides consolidated reporting across your accounts and entities and keeps your financial records organized. That administrative work gives you, your CPA, and your other advisors a clear, current view of your finances, which makes tax planning and preparation easier to coordinate.
Many tax decisions affect more than one year. Recognizing income in a lower-income year, spreading a gain across several years, or timing withdrawals in retirement can change what you pay over time. Looking across years lets Sunpointe weigh this year’s tax savings against future years, so the strategy supports your long-term goals rather than a single filing.
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