Financial Planning and
Investing
That Matters
Why Tax Planning Matters
Our team offers annual tax planning as part of our comprehensive financial planning service. While often overlooked, robust tax planning is one of the most valuable pieces of a complete financial plan, and we are excited to offer it to you.
What is Tax Planning?
Tax planning refers to our review of your tax return to identify potential planning opportunities - both now and in the future - to keep your lifetime tax liability as low as possible. This is different than tax preparation (usually done by your CPA or an online service like TurboTax), which is focused on keeping you compliant with what the government thinks you owe each year.
Why is Tax Planning Important?
Taxes touch every part of your financial life. Your tax return is a financial fingerprint: it’s completely unique to you, complete with valuable clues and information, all of which is buried in dozens of pages and hundreds of numbers. Understanding your return equips us to have more valuable and actionable conversations with you. Additionally, we can demystify the world of income taxes and help you understand this important piece of your financial picture.
Who is Tax Planning For?
Everyone! Regardless of your income sources or filing status, nearly anyone who pays income taxes can benefit from having a professional review of your tax return to identify relevant planning opportunities. At worst, we’ll review your return and conclude you are taking advantage of available tax saving opportunities. That’s great news! Alternatively - and more frequently - we’ll identify a handful of tax saving opportunities, both in the current year and in future years.
What Kind of Opportunities Might Be Identified?
We will evaluate a number of opportunities during tax planning, including topics like most tax efficient retirement vehicles, charitable giving strategies, realizing capital gains, Roth IRA conversions, tax credit eligibility, and more. We can run projections to see how potential changes (e.g., filing status, dependents, the sale of a business, stock option exercises, etc.) may impact your upcoming tax liability.
What Do We Need From You?
An electronic PDF copy of your most recent tax return. That’s it. Get us a copy of that most recent tax return, and we will take it from there.
Cambridge does not offer tax advice.
Connecting You to Your Investments:
Investing Client
Invest with confidence, knowing that multiple entities are working toward protecting your financial assets.
You have the freedom to choose to interact with your financial professional through a fee based or commission relationship, or both, based on your financial needs.
Financial Professional
A registered representative is licensed to sell securities, provides financial guidance to their clients and is typically paid a commission when you purchase a financial product.
An Investment Advisor Representative (IAR) provides financial guidance to their clients and is generally paid a fee for either managing assets, giving advice, or both.
Investment Firm
A broker-dealer facilitates the buying and selling of securities on behalf of the registered representative licensed with the firm and holds responsibility for regulatory compliance and adherence to securities laws.
A Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) processes the fee-based business of IARs licensed with the firm and holds responsibility for regulatory compliance and adherence to securities laws.
Custodian and Clearing Firms
Custodian and Clearing Firms provide the trade execution, clearing, custody and other services for securities and related transactions.
An independent broker-dealer can choose a non-affiliated clearing firm to provide the trade execution, clearing, custody and other related services for clients of their financial professionals. A clearing firm may also be a registered broker-dealer. Clearing relationships are typical throughout the industry and allow your financial professional to focus on helping you achieve your investment goals while taking advantage of the clearing firm's safeguards for the physical protection of your assets.
Regulators
The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is an agency of the U.S. government that oversees the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which in turn oversees broker-dealers, clearing firms, and your financial professional. Both the SEC and FINRA require members to comply with various rules intended to regulate and oversee the operation of financial markets and the sales practices of financial professionals. Regulators aren't associated with, and do not endorse Cambridge. You can review the regulatory standing of Cambridge and each associated financial professional by visiting FINRA's BrokerCheck.
Certified Financial Planner ™️,
Sustainable Investment Advocate & Author
Christian is committed to helping his clients pursue their financial goals and lifetime dreams by bringing sound financial knowledge and trustworthy advice to a lasting relationship with each individual, family and business he serves.
