Business Advisory and Accounting Partners

Most business owners have a retirement plan. Far fewer know whether it's the right one — or how much deduction they're leaving on the table each year.

Here's what surprises people: the plan type can matter as much as the contribution amount. A SEP IRA and a Solo 401(k) can share the same employer contribution cap, but the Solo 401(k) adds an employee deferral the SEP doesn't — which for an S-Corp owner paying $110K in W-2 wages can mean tens of thousands more in deductible contributions.

Owners in their 50s and 60s can go further with a cash balance or defined benefit plan — annual contributions reaching well into six figures, fully deductible, often paired with a 401(k) profit-sharing plan.

The catch: the plan document must be in place before December 31. Starting the conversation in July gives you room to choose the right structure and coordinate it with your year-end numbers.

Business Advisory and Accounting Partners, powered by Harness, reviews retirement plan structure as part of our mid-year advisory cadence — connecting the plan decision to your entity structure, owner compensation, and year-end tax projection.

Read more on our blog: https://busadvisory.com/capital-gains-tax-planning-high-net-worth-investors-reduce-taxes/

Most high-income investors know capital gains taxes are expensive. Fewer have a plan for reducing them before the year ends.

The effective federal rate on long-term capital gains at the top income level is 23.8% — the 20% preferential rate plus the 3.8% net investment income tax that applies once modified AGI crosses $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers. Add state taxes in a high-tax state and the total cost of a gain can easily reach 30% or more.

The strategies that reduce that cost are not exotic. They require knowing your current tax picture well enough to act before December 31:
- Tax-loss harvesting: realizing losses to offset gains, with careful management of the wash-sale rule
- Holding period management: identifying positions approaching the one-year mark where deferring a sale converts a short-term gain taxed at 37% into a long-term gain taxed at 23.8%
- Charitable giving: donating appreciated securities directly to a donor-advised fund eliminates capital gain recognition entirely on the donated amount and generates a deduction at full fair market value
- Asset location: placing high-income-generating assets in tax-deferred accounts to reduce the net investment income subject to the NIIT

None of these require changing your investment thesis. They require connecting your investment decisions to your tax picture before you execute them — which is exactly what most investors are not doing.

Read more in our latest blog here:
https://busadvisory.com/capital-gains-tax-planning-high-net-worth-investors-reduce-taxes/

Business Advisory and Accounting Partners, powered by Harness, works with high-earning individuals and households on capital gains planning as part of an ongoing individual tax advisory engagement — integrating investment decisions with Roth conversions, retirement income, charitable giving, and business income.

Schedule an individual tax planning conversation: https://busadvisory.com/individual-tax-advisory-planning/

Planning to bring someone on this summer? The most expensive hiring mistake isn't who you pick — it's choosing 1099 vs. W-2 based on what's simpler instead of what's accurate.

Worker misclassification is one of the IRS's most active enforcement areas. If someone who should be a W-2 employee gets paid as a contractor, the back taxes and penalties can reach all the way to their first day of work — not the day you fix it.

And classification is only the first question. One hire can also affect:
- Work Opportunity Tax Credit eligibility (28-day certification window, no do-overs)
- Whether your Solo 401(k) still works
- Your year-end projection, owner pay, and estimated payments

Summer hiring done right is a growth move. Done without a tax plan, it's often next year's cleanup. Read more in our blog:
https://busadvisory.com/hiring-this-summer-tax-planning-checklist-before-you-add-payroll/

Business Advisory and Accounting Partners, powered by Harness, builds pre-hire planning into your year-round advisory cadence — connecting the hiring decision to everything it affects downstream.

High earners often assume Roth conversions do not make sense for them. The income is too high, the bracket is too elevated, the tax hit is too immediate.

That framing misses the real question.

The question is not whether conversions are cheap. It is whether paying tax at today's known rate on a partial conversion is better than paying tax at tomorrow's unknown rate on a mandatory distribution you cannot control.

For high earners with large pre-tax balances, required minimum distributions starting at age 73 will generate substantial taxable income regardless of preference. If those balances are growing, future RMDs may push you into the same or higher bracket you are trying to avoid today.

The case for a partial Roth conversion often has nothing to do with finding a cheap year. It has to do with smoothing a lifetime tax picture that will otherwise be shaped entirely by RMD timing.

Mid-year is the right window to model this. By July you have enough actual income data to project your full-year bracket accurately, and enough runway to execute a conversion before December 31. The key inputs: current and projected income, existing pre-tax balances, ability to fund the conversion tax from outside the IRA, and downstream effects including IRMAA and the net investment income tax.

Business Advisory and Accounting Partners, powered by Harness, works with high-earning individuals and households on multi-year Roth conversion strategy as part of an ongoing individual tax advisory engagement — integrating conversion decisions with retirement planning, investment timing, and income management.

Read more on our blog:
https://busadvisory.com/roth-conversion-planning-high-earners-how-to-decide/

Most business owners find out their tax bill in April — long after every decision that could have changed it was already made.

There's a better way to run the year. A mid-year tax projection, built in July from your actual numbers, tells you where you're headed while you still have time to steer.

Here's a glimpse of what a good Q3 projection surfaces:
- Whether your estimated payments are actually on track — or quietly building an underpayment problem
- The planning moves still on the table before December 31 (most of them require lead time that disappears after October)
- The one IRS safe harbor detail that decides whether penalties apply, quarter by quarter

Why July specifically? Because you have six months of real data behind you and six months of runway ahead. That window doesn't stay open.

We break the whole thing down — the five inputs, the safe harbor math, and a real (fictional) owner example — in our latest article.

👉 Read the full breakdown:
https://busadvisory.com/q3-tax-projection-simple-forecast-prevents-year-end-tax-panic/

Want your own projection built around your actual numbers? Let's talk.

Business Advisory and Accounting Partners, powered by Harness — any firm can file what happened; as your tax advisory partner, we help you plan what comes next.

📞 (727) 530-0036 | 🌐 busadvisory.com

The tax rules that governed your last decade of decisions just changed — and most business owners have no idea what's now on the table.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act reshaped the 2026 tax landscape, and the moves you make before December 31 will decide how much of it actually reaches your bottom line. A few things worth knowing:
- One major deduction that used to expire is now permanent — and it changes how you should think about entity structure and owner pay.
- A key equipment write-off is back at 100%, with a limit raised into the millions. Timing your next purchase matters more than you'd expect.
- If you're in a high-tax state, a quiet change just gave you room you didn't have last year.

None of these are automatic. They only work if you plan for them intentionally — and the planning window closes at year-end.

We break down exactly what's changed and what to do about it here:
https://busadvisory.com/2026-tax-law-changes-what-business-owners-must-know-now/

Want to know how these changes apply to your numbers specifically? Let's talk. Business Advisory and Accounting Partners powered by Harness works with owners year-round to turn tax law into decisions — not just awareness.

📞 (727) 530-0036 | 🌐 busadvisory.com

Hot dogs, fireworks, and a well-earned day off. That's the plan today.

Happy Independence Day from all of us at Business Advisory and Accounting Partners powered by Harness. Enjoy every minute of it.

Most small business owners think they have a tax advisor. What they actually have is a tax preparer — and the difference costs them more than they realize.

Proactive business planning is not about filing accurately. It is about modeling decisions before you make them, reviewing owner compensation against IRS guidance annually, adjusting estimated payments as your year unfolds, and connecting every major business move to where you actually want the business to go. It is a structured cadence — not a once-a-year conversation in April.

The business owners who build the most wealth from their companies tend to have one thing in common: they stopped treating advisory services as an expense and started treating them as an investment in their most important asset.

We just published a full breakdown of what proactive business planning actually looks like in practice — including the five components of a real advisory cadence and a framework any owner can use to assess whether you are getting strategic value from your current relationship.

Read the full breakdown here:
https://busadvisory.com/what-does-proactive-business-planning-look-like-2/

Business Advisory and Accounting Partners powered by Harness helps growth-minded business owners plan ahead, keep more of what they earn, and build long-term value in their most important asset.

Last week I had the pleasure of getting together with an amazing group of advisory-driven firms at our annual Legends in the Making peer group retreat in Austin, Texas.

A few great days of sharing, learning, and pushing each other to build better practices. This group never disappoints.

Always one of the highlights of my year — thank you to everyone who showed up. Let’s keep the tradition going.

Most small business owners think they have a tax advisor. What they actually have is a tax preparer — and the difference costs them more than they realize.

Proactive business planning is not about filing accurately. It is about modeling decisions before you make them, reviewing owner compensation against IRS guidance annually, adjusting estimated payments as your year unfolds, and connecting every major business move to where you actually want the business to go. It is a structured cadence — not a once-a-year conversation in April.

The business owners who build the most wealth from their companies tend to have one thing in common: they stopped treating advisory services as an expense and started treating them as an investment in their most important asset.

We just published a full breakdown of what proactive business planning actually looks like in practice — including the five components of a real advisory cadence and a framework any owner can use to assess whether they are getting strategic value from their current relationship.

Read it at the link below.
https://busadvisory.com/what-does-proactive-business-planning-look-like/

If you want to talk through how this applies to your specific situation, Business Advisory and Accounting Partners powered by Harness offers an advisory fit conversation with no obligation:
https://busadvisory.com/schedule-your-advisory-fit-meeting/