Why Tax Planning Is a Must-Have for Business Clients

Threadline, positioned as a "regional boutique," was formerly Moss Adams Wealth Advisors, which merged with Baker Tilly, an advisory firm, in 2025. In March of this year, Moss Adams was spun off and rebranded as Threadline.

The independent RIA prioritizes collaboration among wealth managers and CPAs to analyze the effects of investments on future tax liability.

In the interview, Fisher, a leader of the Private Client Practice Group who notched nearly 20 years with Moss Adams, reveals when the right tax planning strategy "can make a difference of millions of dollars." "[For entrepreneurs], it becomes much more important … with a transaction or transition, where you have parallel paths of personal balance sheet and corporate balance sheet going through the process."

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: What advice have you for advisors about helping clients with tax planning?

JUSTIN FISHER: It's important for advisors to understand what the client's CPA or accountant plans to do for the client.

To coordinate [effectively], it's important for the advisor to sit down with them and really understand their goals and objectives for the client.

THINKADVISOR: What might the advisor discover?

FISHER: They may find a gap. The advisor could then say, for example, "Is estate planning some of what you're going to do for this client"?

If not, the advisor might have the skills and resources to do it. If they don't, they may want to bring in an estate planning attorney or an estate planning CPA.

THINKADVISOR: What's essential for an advisor to know when it comes to helping a small business with tax planning?

FISHER: [Broadly] you can't do the investment side without looking at the tax side if you're really going to deliver coordinated outcomes.

Maybe a client has $40 million or $50 million in private stock that has a bunch of different stock options around it. They have to work with a tax professional who understands that space and a wealth manager who does [tax strategies] all day long. It's a very complex tax area, and you can't just dabble in it.

For instance, you have to understand the tax impact downstream of a variable prepaid forward contract, designed to help with stock concentration, and what it could do for the client.

THINKADVISOR: Do business owners give high priority to tax strategies?

FISHER: Smart tax planning is always important. If you're a family, a business owner or an executive that has a complex balance sheet, there's never a time not to look at proactive tax planning.

You always want to be in the game from a tax planning and financial planning standpoint.

When you go through a transaction or a transition, the need becomes much more important because there are very meaningful financial planning, cash flow planning and tax planning strategies that can be put in place that can make a difference of millions of dollars.

THINKADVISOR: What sorts of strategies?

FISHER: You can have a situation where you put $10 million of stock into a generation-skipping trust from which you could get $100 million within five years. That way, you could move $90 million off your balance sheet.

THINKADVISOR: Are the personal and business taxes of business owners and corporate executives usually intertwined?

FISHER: A lot of businesses end up being S corporations or entities where the business tax outcomes and the business structure flow right through to the individual's tax planning.

That needs to be tightly coordinated within an investment and financial plan.

THINKADVISOR: Who is Threadline's target client?

FISHER: Business owners, company executives, family offices and high-net-worth families with complex balance sheets looking to grow and expand their wealth through coordination of accounting with wealth.

Because they're [typically] owners of a special asset, such as a business, we customize the balance sheet for each client.

The tax planning strategies we do relate to tax exposure that they have within their business, which is often multi-state and sometimes international.

THINKADVISOR: What's an example?

FISHER: Someone moving their residence and maybe their business as a part of that. So it's really important to have a very deep state and local tax team that understands the nuances from a tax standpoint.

You need to marry up a couple of disciplines within the accounting ecosystem to work together, or else you don't get the right outcomes.

THINKADVISOR: What's a common situation that you handle for clients?

FISHER: Owners going through a transition or transaction, which could be on the M&A side of selling a business and maybe divesting assets, or on the growth side, where they're trying to acquire.

We put together a transition plan, where you have parallel paths of their personal balance sheet and their corporate balance sheet going through the process.

THINKADVISOR: Would part of that be moving assets from one account to another as a tax strategy?

FISHER: Yes. High-net-worth clients, particularly those who own a business, may be looking to make a structural change in their balance sheet.

This is a good time to evaluate gifting and charity intentions. It could be gifting to the next generation or setting up a charitable foundation or a charitable trust for the client who's trying to hit their philanthropic goals.

It's an [opportune] time for that because as you're going from an illiquid asset, like a manufacturing business, to liquid assets, a form of cash or some other kind of payout, you have much more flexibility.