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Strategic Tax Planning for UHNW Families

Your tax strategy should work alongside your investment, estate, business, and wealth planning decisions.

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Who We Serve

We work with individuals and families whose wealth creates increasingly complex and interconnected tax considerations.

Founders
& Business Owners

Preparing for or navigating the sale, recapitalization, or transition of a privately held business.

Families With Concentrated Stock

Managing highly appreciated or concentrated positions while considering diversification, pre-IPO planning, liquidity, charitable giving, and long-term tax implications.

Multi-Generational Families

Coordinating tax, trust, estate, and wealth transfer strategies across generations.

Executives
& Key Employees

Navigating equity compensation, deferred compensation, stock options, restricted shares, and other complex compensation arrangements.

  • 70+

    Tax Professionals

  • $260B+

    Assets Under Management & Advisement 1

  • 25+

    Offices

Our Tax Services

Our tax professionals work across your broader financial picture, helping connect tax decisions with your investments, business interests, estate plan, and long-term goals.

Planning &
Projections

Year-round proactive planning can help identify tax considerations before important decisions are made.

  • Multi-year tax planning and projections
  • Income, gain, deduction, and loss monitoring
  • Estimated tax payment planning
  • State residency planning
  • Cash flow forecasting
  • Federal, state, and local tax considerations

Investment-Integrated
Strategy

Tax and investment decisions can be closely connected and incorporated into portfolio planning and implementation.

  • Tax-aware investing
  • Custom tax-loss harvesting
  • Capital gain management
  • Tax-efficient income strategies
  • Charitable giving considerations
  • Concentrated and highly appreciated assets

Business &
Liquidity Events

Pre-transaction tax strategies can impact Founders, Business Owners, and Shareholders well before a liquidity event.

  • Pre-transaction tax planning
  • Liquidity event modeling
  • Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) analysis
  • Business ownership and entity considerations
  • Multi-state tax considerations
  • Coordination with legal, tax, and transaction advisors

Charitable &
Estate Strategy

Tax planning can play a role in how families transfer wealth and support the causes that matter to them.

  • Charitable giving strategies
  • Trust and estate planning coordination
  • Gift and estate tax considerations
  • Wealth transfer planning
  • Trusts, foundations, and family entity planning

Talk to Our Team

Let’s discuss how Cresset can help you navigate your wealth and achieve your goals.

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What Family Office Tax Planning Involves

For ultra-high-net-worth families, tax planning extends well beyond preparing an annual return.

It is a forward-looking, multi-year process that considers how decisions across investments, income, business interests, estate planning, and charitable giving may affect your broader financial picture.


As wealth grows, tax complexity can grow with it. Multiple entities, trusts, residences across states, illiquid assets, concentrated investments, closely held businesses, and significant liquidity events can create interconnected tax considerations.


Rather than addressing these decisions after they occur, Cresset integrates tax planning with your broader wealth and investment strategy. Our tax professionals work alongside your advisory team to evaluate opportunities, model potential outcomes, and coordinate implementation throughout the year.

Tax Strategies Knowledge Base

Explore in-depth resources designed to help you navigate complex financial decisions, from IPO planning and business exits to tax strategies and concentrated stock.

How We Work With You

Effective tax planning is an ongoing process. At Cresset, tax professionals work alongside investment and wealth strategy specialists to consider tax implications within your complete financial picture, while coordinating with your existing CPAs, attorneys, trustees, and other professionals to keep your broader team aligned.

  1. Understand Your Tax Picture

    We begin by reviewing your current tax situation, investment portfolio, entities, trusts, business interests, compensation, and other relevant financial information.

  2. Identify Planning Priorities

    Our team evaluates upcoming decisions and potential areas for further analysis, from investment gains and liquidity needs to business transactions, charitable giving, and wealth transfer.

  3. Model Potential Strategies

    Where appropriate, we model potential tax outcomes and evaluate strategies within the context of your broader wealth plan.

  4. Coordinate & Implement

    We work across your Cresset team and with outside CPAs, attorneys, trustees, and other advisors to help coordinate next steps and establish an ongoing planning cadence.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best tax strategies for high-net-worth individuals?

There is no single tax strategy that is appropriate for every high-net-worth individual or family. The right approach depends on factors such as income, investments, business interests, estate planning goals, charitable intentions, liquidity needs, and state of residence. Strategic planning may consider tax-aware investing, capital gain management, charitable giving, trust and estate strategies, business and liquidity event planning, and other opportunities based on an individual’s circumstances.

What is strategic tax planning?

Strategic tax planning is a forward-looking approach to evaluating how financial decisions may affect taxes over multiple years. Rather than focusing only on the current year’s tax return, it considers investments, income, business interests, estate planning, charitable giving, and other financial decisions together.

What is the difference between tax planning and tax preparation?

Tax preparation generally focuses on accurately reporting transactions and financial activity that have already occurred. Tax planning looks ahead, evaluating potential decisions before they are made and considering how those decisions may affect a family’s broader financial and tax position.

For UHNW families, the two can work together. Proactive planning throughout the year can inform how transactions are ultimately reflected in tax filings.

Do wealth managers do taxes?

Some wealth management firms provide tax planning or tax preparation, while others rely entirely on outside professionals. Cresset provides tax planning and advisory services through an integrated team that works alongside investment and wealth strategy professionals. Tax preparation and compliance services may also be available, subject to the scope of the engagement.

Cresset can also coordinate with a family’s existing CPA or other tax professionals rather than replacing them.

What is a family office for tax purposes?

A family office can help coordinate the financial needs of individuals and families with significant and complex wealth. From a tax perspective, this can mean connecting tax planning with investment management, trusts and estate planning, business interests, charitable giving, entities, and other areas of a family’s financial life.

The goal is to view tax considerations as part of the family’s broader financial strategy rather than as an isolated annual exercise.

What tax planning should happen before I sell my business?

Tax planning should ideally begin well before a potential business sale. Early planning may provide more time to evaluate the structure and timing of a transaction, QSBS eligibility, estate and wealth transfer opportunities, charitable strategies, state tax considerations, and the potential tax consequences of different transaction structures.

Bringing tax, legal, investment, and wealth advisors together early can also help ensure decisions made before the transaction align with the owner’s longer-term financial and family goals.

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Tax Strategy Insights

Strategic guidance for navigating complex tax considerations, from investment decisions and business transitions to estate and wealth planning.