How to Master Client Acquisition Through Tax Management

Key Takeaways

• Advisors need to take advantage of opportunities where they see them; this means putting in the hours to understand new complexities that clients cannot deal with alone.
• With several major new tax laws in recent years, now is the time for advisors to differentiate themselves as capable tax managers.
• Alison provides a seven-step tax management roadmap to determine where advisors can serve clients better.

Clients have a plethora of choices of financial advisors, so it can be hard to stand out as the expert they should trust. In a recent workshop featured at Horizons 2026, Dave Alison, CFP®, EA BPC®, shared his playbook on how advisors can do exactly that and convert more prospects into lasting clients.

Value of Tax Management in Financial Planning

According to Alison, taxes are only increasing in complexity, and clients are in need of an advisor who can help them navigate and simplify the process. Simply put, advisors must ensure they are addressing a client’s needs now — and tax planning is in great demand.

Alison also highlighted the type of clients in need of these services. High net worth and ultra-high net worth clients pay substantial amounts in avoidable and unnecessary taxes. With these types of clients in need of tax management services, this poses a tremendous opportunity for business growth to any advisor capable of offering them.

An Advisor’s Tax Management Journey

Alison also shared his process with the audience, detailing a seven step “tax management journey” that he and his firm employ to ensure they are covering all possible tax management needs with their clients.

The process begins with advisors educating clients on the order of money. When discussing this topic, Alison said, “I share with my clients that there’s an order to how they should accumulate their wealth, and then there’s an order to how they should think about taking distributions from the accounts they have.” He went on to highlight the benefit of beginning client relationships with this information because all clients stand to gain from it, regardless of which phase of life they find themselves in.

The next part of the process is measuring a client’s tax bracket. “In America, we’re in a pay-as-you-go tax system. The more money you make...the more taxes you pay. But that’s not the end of the story. The more money you make, the higher the marginal rate on the next dollar.”  

Here, Alison emphasized the importance of taking advantage of the flexibility in United States tax code. By choosing which years to realize capital gains or defer income, individuals have a great deal of power over how much they pay in taxes. Any strong tax management plan will be sure that clients are using as much of the lower brackets as they are able.

Top Tax Planning Tips for Financial Advisors

Alison offers several more important tax tips as part of his tax management journey that can help advisors ensure clients are achieving the best possible outcomes. These tips include:

• How to avoid marginal tax traps
• Allocating tax-sensitive assets
• Gifting strategies
• Whether to pay now or pay later
• Determining a client’s dynamic bracket

All of these and more can be found by viewing Alison’s workshop, now available on Knowledge Hub+!
 

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