Your fee-only fiduciary wealth advisor for the sale of your business, the sale of your property, or the last day of your career, when the tax mitigation strategy matters as much as the portfolio decision.

A fee-only fiduciary is an advisor who's paid only by you. No commissions, no product revenue, no compensation from any third party. That's different from "fee-based," which sounds nearly identical but means the advisor charges you a fee and can still collect commissions from other parties. The distinction decides whose interests are sitting across the table from you.

It also cuts the other direction. Because I'm fee-only, when a commission-based product genuinely is the right tool, the commission goes to the client instead of to me. On one $3.7 million investment, that was $227,000 credited to my client rather than paid to my firm.

That was one client's situation, and it is not representative of what any other client should expect. Most of the time a commission-based product isn't the right tool. The amounts are usually far smaller, the arrangement only makes sense at certain account sizes, and none of it is a prediction of any result for you. I'm describing how I'm structured, not what you'd get.

One more thing worth knowing. In financial services, "fiduciary" means putting your interests before the advisor's own. In law it means treating the client as well as the lawyer would treat themselves. I like the lawyer's version better.

I'm paid one way: directly by you, as a percentage of the money I manage. Nobody else pays me. No commissions, no product revenue, no third party writing me a check for putting you in something.

What that costs depends on what you have and what you need, and you'll see the number in writing before you sign anything.

It also means good tax work usually shrinks my own fee, because my fee is calculated on the balance that work moves money out of. I'd rather that than the alternative.

You usually have more than one, and the right one depends on what you're selling, what else is on your return that year, and when you need the money. That's why the honest answer is that I'd have to look.

Most of the levers in the tax code work on timing: how the sale is structured, which year the gain lands in, and where the proceeds go next. Some of those choices have to be made before the sale. Others stay open for a while after it.

Here's the question worth taking to the advisor you already have. Ask them whether selling has to cost what they told you it costs, and what they'd want to see in order to answer.

Before, if you can. Before the sale, the timing is still yours: how the deal is structured, what year the gain lands in, and what else happens on that year's return. That's when you have the most options.

If you've already sold, call anyway, and soon. Under current rules, some options for the capital gain portion stay open for up to 180 days after a sale, and there's still a return to read and years ahead to plan.

I'd rather talk to somebody with an offer on the table than somebody whose wire cleared last week. But I'd much rather talk to the second person than not at all.

Start with the fact most people don't think about: almost everything you saved in your retirement accounts has never been taxed. The day you start taking it out, it gets taxed, and how much depends on choices you still control.

The years between your last paycheck and required minimum distributions are when you have the most say over your own tax bracket. That's usually where Roth conversions happen, spread over several years rather than crammed into one. Medicare looks back two years at your income, so each year's choices show up later too.

If you have a pension, the way you take it is usually a one-time choice. And if your retirement plan holds your employer's stock, rolling everything into an IRA by default can cost you a special tax election on that stock.

None of that is a recommendation for your situation, and what applies to you depends on your own circumstances. It's why I'd rather talk to somebody a year early than a year late.

It's a real tool, and it's a much smaller one than it's sold as.

Here's the math. You buy a position, it drops, your advisor sells it and immediately buys something similar to stay invested. Later the position recovers and you sell, and the gain you didn't pay earlier usually shows up then. Harvesting usually postpones the tax rather than removing it.

There is one legitimate benefit, and it's a good one: harvested losses give you the flexibility to rebalance a portfolio without triggering a tax event. That's genuinely useful. It just isn't the same thing as a tax plan.

The Investment and Tax Audit finds the gap between what you're paying and what you're getting: your all-in fees, how your assets are actually allocated, and the tax drag on your wealth across your whole lifetime rather than just last year.

Traditional tax planning looks backward at the year that already closed and asks how to legally owe the least on it. The audit looks forward. It examines tax-loss harvesting, investment allocation optimization, tax return matching, variable annuities, Roth conversions, charitable giving, and more.

Over a lifetime, taxes can be one of the largest costs an investor carries, which is why the audit looks forward and not just at last year.

No. I work alongside your CPA rather than instead of them. They file the return. I read it.

Reading it is the part that tends to go missing. Ask the advisor you already have whether they've ever asked to see your tax return. The answer tells you how much tax planning is actually happening.

If you don't have a CPA and you need one, I'll point you toward somebody good.

At a major independent custodian, in an account in your own name. Not in an account with my name on it. Yours.

I never hold your money. I advise on it. You can look at it any day you want, and if you ever decide to leave, it's already yours to take.

That distinction sounds small until the day you want to ask a hard question, and the person answering has nothing to hold over you.

This isn't for you if you want somebody picking hot stocks and calling it a strategy. It also isn't for you if you're comfortable keeping 40% of your money in bonds because that's what the standard chart says.

If what you want is a quarterly hot idea, a lot of movement, and the feeling that somebody is always doing something, we're going to frustrate each other.

And if you want somebody to tell you your current plan is great, I'm not the person to say it unless it's true. I'd rather lose you here than mislead you in a meeting.

Nothing, if you don't want to. There's no prep required and nothing to sign.

If you'd like the call to be useful faster, bring your statements, your account agreements, and your last couple of tax returns. Whatever you can gather is enough to start.

And if all you have is a nagging sense that something is off, that's enough too.