Tax Planning Services

Posted Saturday, July 26, 2025

Tax Planning Services

Accurate estimated tax payments come from proper tax planning. There is nothing worse than the fear of the unknown- having cash in the bank, but not knowing how much is yours and how much is Uncle Sam’s. Let’s take the mystery out of the unknown and have WCG CPAs & Advisors be your tax advocate and tax strategist, and do some tax planning, and dial in those eventual tax liabilities and subsequent estimated tax payments.

Tax planning has two distinct complications- when should tax planning happen? And what does it entail? Tax planning is more than a December scramble — it’s a year round discipline. Looking around on December 31 at something to buy just to grab a quickie tax deduction is not tax planning, and it certainly is not a tax strategy. It is operating in crisis mode. Said differently, many taxpayers, business owners and real estate investors react to tax deadlines instead of proactively managing their “taxable surface” (as one client said years ago) throughout the year.

Ok, that’s the elevator speech and we’ve hit the ground floor. What does tax planning entail? WCG CPAs & Advisors splits the concept of “tax planning” into three separate categories-

  • Tax Projections
  • Tax Advisory
  • Tax Strategy

Each of these has a distinct scope of work and deliverable. Let’s bang out the general scope and associated fee with the following table, and then a whole bunch of gibberish explaining it all. Please read on!

Planning Level Scope Included on
Advisory Platform		 Ala Carte Fee
Projections Household, tax liability calculation based on projected data All 600
Projections Business, PTET / franchise tax calculation based on expected profit Telluride, Copper 350
Projections Multi-state apportionment and tax calculations 150 to 250 each,
add-on		 150 to 250 each,
add-on
Advisory Decisions to affect tax positions 90 Mins w/
Business Advisory		 1,000 to 1,500
Strategy Series of scenario based outcomes over years needs to be analyzed Quoted

Not About The Money

When people say it is not about the money, it is all about the money, right?

WCG CPAs & Advisors believes in a lot of things that buck the traditional CPA firm approach. Having each service line stand on its own is one such thing. For example, a lot of firms will discount bookkeeping services and then puff up the tax preparation invoice to subsidize the combined service. We don’t like this approach, and it also marginalizes the people on our accounting services (bookkeeping) team.

Same with tax planning. Sure, we could puff up the tax preparation invoice and then offer “free tax planning.” Nonsense. Not everyone needs tax planning, and as such, they are overpaying for tax return preparation. Same with baggage fees- everyone hates them, except those who do carry on and don’t want to subsidize your pallet of luggage for a weekend in New York City.

No one works for free. So if another CPA firm is offering tax planning separate from tax return preparation, they are making up for it somewhere. Only free donuts are honorable (and worth having).

Tax Projection Services

Our Tax Projection Services simply takes your expected household income including W-2 wages, retirement income, investment income, business income and rental income, and projects your tax obligations for the year by creating a mock tax return. We factor in any changes in household like marriage, children born or launched, etc. Yes, this is mostly re-active. Tax Advisory and Tax Strategy Services are more proactive and are detailed later.

Tax Projection Service for both your household and your business is included in all our advisory platforms- business advisory services, tax patrol services and investor patrol services. It is available for our tax-only individual engagements for a fee of $600, and $950 for both individual and business tax projections including pass-through entity tax (PTET) and franchise tax (and various state versions) calculations.

Sidebar: Payroll planning is not included with Tax Projections. In other words, reasonable owner salary recommendations and optimization, plus 401k, fringe benefit and health insurance matters as they relate to payroll processing are considered Tax Advisory Services.

Data Gathering

The initial process goes like this-

  1. You send relevant household data to us like most recent pay stubs for you and your spouse (if applicable) including your most recently filed tax returns if WCG did not prepare them.
  2. You complete our Simplified Tax Planning worksheet (the “STP) either with our fillable PDF or secure online form. It is intentionally short to get the basics out of the way so our pre-planning meeting can be productive.
  3. We stare at it, scratch our heads for a bit, and then schedule a pre-planning meeting with you to review.

Pre-Planning Meeting Agenda

  1. For our business owners or contractors, we will confirm your business profit projections, discuss your 401k / SEP IRA ambitions, confirm health insurance premiums and related matters, and estimate your Accountable Plan reimbursements.
  2. For our rental property owners and real estate investors, we will confirm your rental profit and loss projections, review your short-term rental loophole and real estate professional status matters to determine passive activity loss limitations, and any changes in your circumstances (selling a rental, taking a rental offline for renovations, construction an ADU, etc.). Any big plans on 100% bonus depreciation in connection with a cost segregation study?
  3. Confirm amounts and dates of estimated tax payments for both you, the human, and your business including any pass-through entity tax (PTET) deduction payments.
  4. Answer any initial questions you might have.

The pre-planning meeting usually lasts about 40 minutes. In addition to the mini agenda above, we have an extensive questionnaire to get the creative juices flowing… which get pumped into our tax projection software-

  • What is your business income after expenses (profit) for this year? How about next year? (pro-tip: aligning deductions with spikes in income makes sense)
  • How about your rental property income? Any changes from last year like converting a short-term rental into long-term?
  • Any other income such as interest, dividends, capital gains, rental income, pension income, real estate property sale, etc.?
  • What will be your Roth IRA contribution? Traditional IRA? What are your current pre-tax versus post-tax contribution strategies?
  • What will be your solo 401k contribution? Will there be a discretionary employer contribution made by the business? Does your solo 401k allow for Roth contributions?
  • How much cash can you separate with for retirement planning? $20k? $50k? $100k?
  • Are you leveraging a Health Savings Account (HSA)? (pro-tip: max out your HSA, it is a retirement account of sorts)
  • What is your state of residency? Any changes? Will you retire in another state?
  • Are you or will you qualify as an expatriate, Foreign Earned Income Exclusion?

Tax-Planning-StrategiesAnd these questions are just jumping off points or conversation starters for Tax Projections Services and in some cases, Tax Advisory. In preparation for your pre-planning meeting, you should review our tax reduction strategies and start to generate a list of questions.

Your unique situation will take us down various roads, and more questions and answers will come up. Also.. and this is important.. we might not arrive at the answer you like or want but it will be accurate nonetheless. The sooner you have an answer the sooner you can begin warming up to its consequences (good or bad).

Afterwards, we create a tax projection worksheet using a mock tax return and estimated tax payments if applicable.

One of our objectives with Tax Projections Services is to achieve tax neutrality on your tax returns by aiming for a $1,000 refund from the IRS and $500 refund from the state. How do we do this? If you are an S Corp shareholder, we increase your income tax withholdings to land on tax neutrality. Otherwise we create a schedule of estimated tax payments.

Tax Projections Delivered

  • We deliver your tax projection worksheets and estimated tax payments (if applicable). We highlight concerns or questions. For our Vail, Telluride and Aspen Business Advisory Platforms, we will update and deliver your payroll plan as well.
  • From there, we strongly recommend a post-planning meeting to confirm the data inputs, review the tax projections line by line and answer any additional questions you might have. If there are changes to your payroll plan, we review those and obtain approval as well. We can also record a 5-7 minutes Loom video. Up to you!

Multi-State Apportionment

Should your tax footprint span multiple states then an additional tax projection fee might be incurred. For example, you are a consultant living in Colorado and your only client is in California. You will likely have a California income tax obligation given your revenue concentration, and you will also have a Colorado obligation. Generally, how these states interact is that you pay California tax, and Colorado gives you credit (to a limit) of the taxes paid to another state. There are a zillion examples- please visit our state apportionment web page to learn more.

Each additional state beyond your resident state might add $150 to $250 in tax planning fees.

SALY Tax Projections

For those advisory platforms (Vail, Telluride, Aspen, Keystone, Copper, Breck and Investor Patrol), if we do not have your data by July 31, then we cannot complete tax projections for the year. Instead, we will create tax projections based on the previous year assuming “same as last year” or SALY in nerdy accounting vernacular. We will not scramble in November and December to crank out some tax projections that could have been done in the summer. Time is just way too compressed with holidays and whatnot, and the tax team has other duties such as end-of-year planning, payroll bonus processing and roll forwards and other verifications.

Yes, we leave room for exceptions- a good example is a real estate agent or someone who is paid via commissions, and income streams are lumpy and bumpy.

End of Year Wrap Up

For our Business Advisory platforms (Vail, Telluride, Aspen) where WCG is processing payroll. we must obtain or confirm a series of things for your W-2 preparation. Specifically, we review employee (including your) 401k deferrals, self-employed health insurance, HSA contributions made by the business, and disability and long-term care premiums. These must be penny perfect, especially the 401k stuff.

Next, we review your payroll plan for the upcoming year. Two things can complicate the new payroll plan as we roll into the new year-

  • Compression- this happens when payroll processing started after operations. For example, you were in business for all 12 months, but started payroll in April. 9 months of payroll covering 12 months of business is compressed. Next year, payroll amounts including pay and withholdings will likely be less since we have more months to spread it out.
  • Short-Year- this happens when you start your business mid-year such as May, and next year will have more business profits. This usually requires an increase in payroll amounts.

At times we see the “short-year” effect with rental property owners as well but in a different way- first year expenses getting your short-term rental online won’t repeat and perhaps you missed the busy season with the purchase date. More importantly, a cost seg study is a one and done. All in all, you could have a big fat loss in year 1, and a material rental profit the following year that moves your tax needle.

Tax Reduction Strategies

Discover practical strategies for reducing taxes while keeping you on the right side of things.

Tax Planning Questionnaire

The STP is a fillable PDF or secure online form to help gather pertinent information for tax projections.

Pass-Through Entity Tax

PTET for short allows you to pay state income taxes with business dollars creating a federal deduction.

Tax Advisory Services

Tax Advisory Services is one step beyond tax projections, and is a proactive process to help you make a one and done decision. It is marrying your facts with the various tax reduction strategies to identify tax opportunities which align with your risk profile allowing you to find comfort with informed decisions.

No, our mother didn’t write that (neither did AI). Who did? Nearly two decades of walking this rock preparing tax returns and working with business owners and rental property investors wrote that cheesy line. Conversely, tax projections determine tax obligations given your facts. A sorting of the bodies, if you will.

While tax projections are required to build upon, they are not advisory in nature and cannot answer questions like-

  • How much should I pay myself as an S Corp owner? How does 401k deferrals and self-employed health insurance affect this? HSA? Long-term care? Disability?
  • Should I exercise my ISOs this year or next?
  • If I sell my Tesla stock, how do my tax projections change? Should I sell some now, some later and some even later?
  • Should I do a cost segregation study on that rental I bought three years ago? Should I use 100% bonus depreciation on all asset classes, or only use one or two of the classes available (5- 7- and 15-year)? Should I amend my tax returns or use a Form 3115 with a IRC Section 481(a) adjustment?
  • Piggybacking on the above, what is my internal rate of return? How does my cash flow improve assuming a certain cost of equity or return on investment?
  • Should I purchase a vehicle for my business? If so, this year or next year? How much will I save in taxes?
  • How much tax will I save if I put my children on payroll? My spouse?
  • I want to leverage the Augusta rule for renting out my house. Tell me the tax savings based on reasonable rent and my marginal tax rate.
  • If I defer income recognition by delaying certain events and / or pre-pay certain expenses (accelerating deductions such as rent and insurance), how do my taxes change using different scenarios?
  • Piggybacking on the above, how close am I to losing “cliff-like” tax credits like premium tax credit, child tax credit, dependent care credit, student loan interest deduction and education? If I max out my 401k contribution, do get under the phaseout limits?
  • Should I convert my traditional IRA to a Roth IRA this year—or spread it out? Can you give me an analysis of each?
  • Should I bunch my charitable donations or use a donor advised fund? Why? Can you show the differences in taxes today, and into the future?
  • Should I pare down debt now or later? Combo? Does it make sense given my marginal tax today versus tomorrow?

Tax Advisory Services are quoted as Planning Projects based on expected hours to complete and an hourly rate of $375 with a 2-hour minimum. In our experience, most Tax Advisory engagements are four hours or less. You can budget around $1,000 to $1,500 which includes meetings before and after the project. Tax Advisory is great for those spikes of questions that only come up once in a while- pay as you go sort of thing.

Some of the questions are straightforward, and a $1,000 planning project fee seems a tad high. However, it is rare that we are only tackling a singular issue- so many things are intertwined. Having said that, we also offer a quickie version of Tax Advisory which is 40 minutes for $250. See big button below.

Sidebar: WCG CPAs & Advisors has been built from the beginning to buck the traditional CPA firm norms such as time billing in favor of value-based fees. We despise time billing with the heat of a thousand suns (ok, a bit dramatic) but for some tax matters, we have no choice.

Tax Advisory Services are typically handled by WCG Partners or Senior Tax Managers. This stuff is crazy like the glue and trains, and requires a deep knowledge of the tax code plus the finesse to explain the nuances and subtleties. It is expensive, Yes, but the anxiety of not knowing or the costs of incorrect decisions is worse. Did we throw one too many pitches on that last one?

Our Business Advisory platforms (Vail, Telluride, Aspen) include 90 minutes of Tax Advisory Services in addition to Tax Projections Services. Discussions are usually overlapped with the ones above for tax projections- one stone, two birds. Are we hyper accurate with nutty time recordings? Not really- again, we despise this billable time stuff. All the same, we must pick a time number to keep us on the right track.

Another silly consideration to keep in mind- Building wealth is your primary and perhaps only mission; not saving taxes. If we can do both, Yay! However, paying taxes provides value to your assets, such as a business or rental property. As such, paying taxes gives you access to capital, and access to capital helps build wealth (or do the things you want to do).

We can also do Tax Advisory as an add-on to our Tax Patrol Services or Investor Patrol Services platforms. This is usually a $750 add-on.

Tax Projections Versus Tax Advisory

When do we go from tax projections to tax advisory? It is tricky and it mostly hinged on “making a decision” with the advice we provide. Here are some examples-

Tax Projections Tax Advisory
I did a cost seg which came in at $120,000 of eligible property for bonus depreciation. I plan to deduct it all. Should I use 100% bonus depreciation on all asset classes, or only use one or two of the classes available (5- 7- and 15-year)?
I purchased a heavy truck for $90,000. I plan to deduct the max. Should I purchase a heavy truck this year or next? Should I do the max depreciation, or plan it out?
I max’d out my Roth 401k. Should I max out my Roth 401k or pre-tax 401k, assuming a 22% marginal tax rate in retirement and a 8% rate of return?
I received $30,000 in capital gains this year from selling stock. Should I realize more gains this year or defer to next year to optimize my AGI and avoid triggering NIIT or AMT?
I sold the rental on Elm Street for $450,000. I have the option to do an installment sale on the Elm Street rental over 5 years. Should I take it? (follow-up from WCG- Did you risk adjust the purchase price?)

There are 6,772 other examples that we came up but don’t want to bore you. Where do we go from here? Easy! Your job is to extract the most out of your WCG CPAs & Advisors tax planners. Our job is to have the awkward scope conversation.

Quickie Tax Advisory

As an alternative to the Planning Project above, if you need a quickie Tax Advisory session, you can schedule a 40-minute consultation for $250 with one of our Partners. This is a nice way to ask some advisory-esque questions that perhaps don’t require the depth and complication of a 2-hour project.

Quickie Tax Advisory Session

Click the button below to schedule an amazing 40-minute paid consultation with a WCG CPAs & Advisors Partner.

Schedule Me!

Tax Strategy Services

Effective tax strategy is more than minimizing your tax obligations or “taxable surface” with a one-off or static decision. Rather, tax strategy is about aligning tax advisory with your long term financial, business and real estate objectives, and generating a tax strategy plan that encompasses multi-year and multi-scenario based outcomes.

tax straegyAgain, it is not a point-in-time decision but rather a series of actions over the short- and mid-term. Here are some examples-

  • Can you help me develop a 5-year Roth conversion strategy to reduce future RMDs, and tell me the tax impact for each year and in total?
  • Assuming a different marginal tax rate at retirement, can you model a 100% pre-tax, a 100% post-tax and a 50-50% pre- and post-tax retirement contributions on my cash flow now and during retirement?
  • If I can spend $200,000 each year on the purchase of a short-term rental for five years, and assuming maximum cost segregation and 100% bonus depreciation, what are my tax savings and what are is my time value of money on improved cash flow?
  • Should I accelerate or stretch depreciation based on my projected income trajectory? Can you give me a tax strategy using various tracks or scenarios?

Similar to Tax Advisory, Tax Strategy Services are quoted as Planning Projects based on expected hours to complete and an hourly rate of $375. As you can image, these projects could vary wildly in complexity requiring more time and effort including discussions with you.Tax Advisory is typically $1,000–$1,500, whereas Tax Strategy is usually $1,500 to $3,000 and includes a customized Tax Strategy Plan deliverable.

How are Tax Strategy Services different than Tax Advisory? The line is blurry for sure! Tax strategy is usually more complex and involves layered decisions and actions. We also write a report, the tax strategy plan, that is delivered and reviewed with you. From there we can update the tax strategy plan as your circumstances and risk-profiles change.

How are Tax Strategy Services the same as Tax Advisory? Both aim to provide comfort in your decision-making process and to reduce your FOMO. The fear of missing out on amazing and wonderful tax deductions that others can’t help but brag about to you at the cocktail party and as reinforced by your bartender.

Tax Planning Services Levels Summary

As mentioned above, WCG CPAs & Advisors splits the concept of “tax planning” into three separate categories-

  • Tax Projections- simple tax liability calculation based on your projected data. We call this “your facts, your tax.” This is included with all advisory platforms (business, tax patrol, investor tax patrol).
  • Tax Advisory- a decision, or a few decisions, needs to be made based on tax consequence. This is project based, and is quoted based on the scope. Advisory engagements receive 90 minutes of tax advisory.
  • Tax Strategy- a series of what-if, scenario based outcomes over several years needs to be analyzed to make decisions today, and along the way. This too is project based and quoted.

Managing Your Email Expectations

Email can be an effective communication tool, and it is especially good for questions that require thought and good for memorializing conversations. While email is a chore for most people it can also be a distraction. Your WCG team is no different.

As such, we have two big rules that you need to be aware of-

  • The tax team, for example, only checks emails on Mondays and Thursdays. While there is no such thing as an accounting emergency, only poor planning, should you be needing a quicker response, then call us!
  • Next, if our response to your email inquiry will take more than 5-10 minutes to write, then we will default to either a) picking up the phone and calling you out of the blue or b) sending you a calendar link so we can discuss it. Email is horribly inefficient. Having said that, we leave room for the expat or the person who works challenging hours or the person in a secure military facility, and needs some love from their tax professional but can only do email. But it cannot be the default.

Given the nuances of tax planning, and even basic tax projections, email is typically not effective or efficient. Sure, if the answer is simple, we are not going to complicate the uncomplicated and schedule a silly meeting just to say, “Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” Like you, we have better things to do.

Conversely, we are not going to explain how the sausage gets made in an email. Internally we call this the PB&J concept. Who loves a PB&J? Everyone! But to explain how to make one in an email would take 45 minutes. What bread to use. Triple decker? Put the jelly on the PB side, or other side? Jam or jelly? Cut it or no? Horizontal or diagonal? Pros and cons of each. Proofreading. We could discuss all this during a conversation in about 12 minutes and come away more fulfilled with your yummy sammy.

When we have our amazingly productive and efficient conversation via Teams or phone call, we will always send a recap email to memorialize all the goodies. While no one likes to read anyway, this recap email also gets captured by our workflow software allowing all other team members to view the recap as necessary.

Financial Advisor Questions

So many things appear to be tax return related or even business advisory related, but they are outside of our purview. While we appreciate the trust that you have in us, not all things with a dollar sign are handled by your tax professional or business consultant. Several examples come from 401k and investment planning such as-

  • Should I maximize my 401k plan and / or IRA contribution? This is a financial advisor question.
  • Should I do pre-tax or Roth (after-tax) contributions? This too is a financial advisor question. Having said that, we have strong feelings towards Roth contributions. Read more about Roth Versus Pre-Tax here.
  • What will my tax bill be if a make a 401k plan or IRA contribution? Ah, this one we can answer!
  • I want to convert some traditional IRA money into a Roth IRA. How much can I do before going into the next tax bracket? This one we can answer as well.
  • I inherited an IRA from my mother. Do I have to take distributions on this account? If so, how much? This is back to being a financial advisor question.

Your job is to ask us anything, and our job is to say “we are unable to help but we know who can.” While we have two CFPs and former financial advisors on our team, we must stay in our lane and defer to those who provide financial planning and retirement advice on a daily basis.

Pass Through Entity Tax Election Planning

Way back in 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed with a lot of cool tax deductions like corporate taxes going to 21% and the Section 199A qualified business income deduction. But life is one big equalizer, and Congress wanted to limit state and local taxes (SALT) to $10,000. This means either state income taxes or real estate taxes, or both, were severely muted. People in South Dakota owning a $600,000 house were like “what’s the big deal?!” People living in Oregon (second highest state income tax rate next to California) owning the same house were like “WTF, over?!”

Courtesy of Wolters Kluwer

So! States got creative, and created a state tax that was deducted on partnerships and S corporations (otherwise called pass-through entities, or PTE for short) resulting in lower federal taxable income. This tax was in turn credited to the small business owner resulting in lower state income taxes being reported on Schedule A. This is a workaround to the SALT limit, and nearly all states have enacted legislation to do just that.

The IRS took note to the workaround, but understood it was perfect legit. The IRS through Notice 2020-75 states,

“Certain jurisdictions described in section 164(b)(2) have enacted, or are contemplating the enactment of, tax laws that impose either a mandatory or elective entity-level income tax on partnerships and S corporations that do business in the jurisdiction or have income derived from or connected with sources within the jurisdiction. In certain instances, the jurisdiction’s tax law provides a corresponding or offsetting, owner-level tax benefit, such as a full or partial credit, deduction, or exclusion.”

The IRS continues by stating this practice is permitted under the notice until it can legislate this practice into regulations.

There are all kinds of rules, and not every business owner will benefit from the PTET or pass-through entity tax deduction. As such, the tax planning for determining the efficacy of using this tax deduction is challenging.

Tax Reduction Strategies

One of our primary focuses at WCG is ensuring you are paying the least amount of taxes allowed by law. Some of our other primary focuses are helping you build wealth and leverage the most of your financial worlds for you and your family. However, these focuses or objectives are not isolated; they are very much related to each other and intertwined.

We can discuss several tax reduction strategies in the abstract such as borrowing against your unrealized gains, state deferrals and residency changes, 401k and retirement plans, cost segregation, adding spouse or children to payroll, 1031 exchanges, conservation easements, among other fun stuff in the form our Tax Advisory services (see above).

However, if we want to see the actual tax savings or results in the form a customized plan with a series of analysis and tax savings calculations, then this will be considered Tax Strategy services.

End of Year Tax Moves

Here is a list of things to consider as December 31 rolls around.

Tax Reduction Strategies

Discover practical strategies for reducing taxes while keeping you on the right side of things.

Tax Planning Questionnaire

The STP is a fillable PDF or secure online form to help gather pertinent information for tax projections.

Tax Planning Season

Tax planning season is here! Let's schedule a time to review tax reduction strategies and generate a mock tax return.

Tax Planning Services
Bookkeeping Services

Tired of maintaining your own books? Seems like a chore to offload?

Accounting Services

Tax Planning Consultation

Did you want to chat about this? Do you have questions about WCG’s tax planning service levels including tax strategy?

The tax advisors, business consultants and rental property experts at WCG CPAs & Advisors are not salespeople; we are not putting lipstick on a pig expecting you to love it. Our job remains being professionally detached, giving you information and letting you decide within our ethical guidelines and your risk profiles.

We see far too many crazy schemes and half-baked ideas from attorneys and wealth managers. In some cases, they are good ideas. In most cases, all the entities, layering and mixed ownership is only the illusion of precision. As Chris Rock says, just because you can drive your car with your feet doesn’t make it a good idea. In other words, let’s not automatically convert “you can” into “you must.”

Let’s chat so you can be smart about it.

We typically schedule a 20-minute complimentary quick chat with one of our Partners or our amazing Senior Tax Professionals to determine if we are a good fit for each other, and how an engagement with our team looks. Tax returns only? Business advisory? Tax strategy and planning? Rental property support?

Text WCG Offices

Text WCG Offices

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Chat our amazing team

Call Our Team

Need to speak to a tax professional now? Give us a call 719-387-9800 and we'll get you connected.

Chat with a tax pro

Chat With a Tax Pro

Taxes can be tricky. Chat with a WCG human now and get questions answered.

Tax Planning Frequently Asked Questions

What is the purpose of tax planning?
Tax planning helps estimate and manage your tax liabilities today and tomorrow, removing the uncertainty of how much of your cash belongs to you versus the IRS.

When should tax planning be done?
It’s a year-round activity—not a December scramble—and should be done proactively, not reactively.

What are the three categories of tax planning at WCG?
WCG divides tax planning into Tax Projections, Tax Advisory, and Tax Strategy—each with a different scope and purpose.

What does the Tax Projections service include?
It includes mock tax returns based on your projected income, factoring in changes like marriage, new dependents, or income shifts.

How much does a household tax projection cost?
For our tax-only engagements, it costs $600 for individual projections and $950 for both individual and business projections, including PTET and franchise taxes.

What is Tax Advisory at WCG?
Tax advisory focuses on one-time decisions like stock sales or Roth conversions and is quoted at $375/hour with a 2-hour minimum.

What is the difference between Tax Advisory and Tax Strategy?
Advisory focuses on single decisions, while strategy evaluates multi-year, scenario-based plans aligned with long-term goals.

What if I have a quickie tax advisory question that doesn’t rise to the level of a planning project?
We offer a 40 minute consultation for $250 that is wide open for your Q&A pleasure.

Who should consider Tax Strategy services?
Taxpayers, business owners and real estate investors with complex, long-term financial or business goals, such as multi-year Roth conversions with lifetime changes in taxes or cash flow ROI combined with cost segregation analysis.

Are Tax Projections included with WCG advisory platforms?
Yes, all business, tax patrol, and investor advisory services include tax projections.

What data does WCG need to start tax planning?
Pay stubs, prior tax returns, and completion of the Simplified Tax Planning (STP) worksheet.

What happens during the pre-planning meeting?
We review your income, retirement plans, real estate activity, estimated tax payments, and answers initial questions.

How are Tax Projections delivered?
Via a PDF tax projection worksheet to your ShareFile folder, including updated payroll plans and estimated payment schedules as separate PDFs—with an optional follow-up meeting or Loom video.

What if you have income in multiple states?
WCG can calculate multi-state apportionment for an additional $150–$250 per state.

What is a SALY projection?
If data isn’t received by July 31, WCG uses “same as last year” assumptions to build tax projections for our advisory engagements.

What’s included in year-end wrap-up for payroll clients?
We confirm 401k deferrals, HSA contributions, insurance premiums, among other things, and plan payroll for the following year (especially if income is changing or you had a compressed year).

How does WCG approach email communications?
The tax team checks emails only on Mondays and Thursdays and prefers calls or meetings for complex matters (10-minute rule… if we cannot answer in 10 minutes, we call or schedule a meeting).

What is the Pass-Through Entity Tax (PTET)?
PTET allows businesses to pay state income taxes at the entity level to create a federal deduction, bypassing SALT limits.

What’s an example of a Tax Advisory question?
“Should I sell Tesla stock now or later?” or “Should I convert my traditional IRA to a Roth this year?”

How does WCG price Tax Advisory and Tax Strategy services?
They are quoted as Planning Projects depending on scope and hours required. Tax Advisory is typically $1,000–$1,500, whereas Tax Strategy is usually $1,500 to $3,000 and includes a Tax Strategy Plan deliverable.

After almost 6 years with this CPA group, there is NO ONE else we would trust to do our taxes.

L. Matisek

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We've worked with multiple bookkeepers and accountants over the years and WCG has completely blown us away.

N. Sellden

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As a novice business entrepreneur they provided me with the tools to both structure and tax my business efficiently

Mayon Hight

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They've made my taxes a breeze and are worth every dime I pay them for the peace of mind their services provide.

Lynn Shannon

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The good folks at WCG have impressed me, as being highly competent, patient & friendly.

Fred LeBlanc

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They've made my complicated business life simple and I'd recommend them to anyone with a slightly complicated-to-overwhelmingly complicated tax strategy!

Nic J

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For nearly nine years, I have had the privilege of working with WCG and their team of exceptionally knowledgeable and experienced CPAs.

Alex Hickman

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Amanda - WCG CPA - You guys have been invaluable in helping us get this business and tax planning setup properly and executed correctly.

Lance Dodd

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WCG is extremely knowledgable, timely and attune to the unique aspects of our businesses.

Carl Protsch

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WCG CPAs are professional and a pleasure to work with.

Nakapan P.

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They go beyond the call of duties to assist me not only with Tax return matters but with any questions on other personal and company tax matters.

Juan Mayorga

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I've always dreaded tax season, but WCG has made things so easy, even as we changed to an S corp. So happy we found them!

Paige de Kock

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It was great to find an accounting firm eager to take on new clients, answer initial questions in depth, and support our “keep it simple” philosophy.

Stuart B.

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Working with WCG was so easy, shout out to Sally Rhoades who handled my complicated tax situation this year wonderfully and was available for all my questions.

Stefani Cinto

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I am so thankful to be a client of WCG CPAs & Advisors.

Carol Kersten

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It's a wonderful and rare treat to find a company like WCG these days with their high level of service, personal approach, and deep knowledge of accounting.

Jeffree Hilton

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Such a great firm. Great communicators, great attention to detail and overall great people.

Jeff Owens

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