Let’s be direct: AI is one of the most powerful capacity tools tax professionals have seen in decades. Used correctly, it buys you time you can reinvest into high-value advisory: planning, structuring, audits, negotiations, strategy, client education, and relationship building. But here’s the catch that you as an elite tax practitioner already understand: aggressive planning requires rigorous defensibility. If you’re going to use AI to accelerate complex planning work, your defense file must be stronger, not weaker. This playbook gives you that: a practical framework that keeps you safe while you scale.

Why aren’t more veterans using the benefits they’ve earned? Part of the problem is awareness, and part of it is discomfort (for both veterans and advisors). After all, veteran benefits are rooted in service-connected health and trauma, placing them in a category that often feels more personal than financial. That alone can deter veterans from discussing their disability compensation and keep advisors from broaching the subject altogether. The result is financial plans that look optimized on paper but are built on incomplete assumptions and missed opportunities – opportunities that have been more than earned.

The mere mention of a WISP makes most tax professionals want to suddenly lose their internet connection. It sounds bureaucratic, technical, and deeply unfun. But here’s the good news: creating and maintaining a WISP does not have to feel like a compliance root canal. And ignoring it can turn into something far worse than an IRS audit. Let’s talk about why you need one, what it’s actually supposed to do, and how to get it done without wrecking your sanity in the middle of filing season.

Part of preparing to leave a high state tax is facing up to the fact that the tax collectors of high-tax states can be kind of clingy. There is more to changing your residence for tax purposes than simple steps like a new driver’s license and a change in voter registration.

For decades, accountants have been taught one core billing truth: Time equals value. You bill time, track time, manage time, and measure profitability by time. As a staff auditor, I recall conversations about "stay within the billable hours," but I always found it conflicting. If the scope grew, why wouldn't we charge for the additional time required? Over the past five years, I have seen this topic come up at summits and conferences. I even did a few presentations as I learned how to charge differently. Now, more firms are realizing that time-based pricing is killing their growth, profitability, and positioning. Time-based pricing cheapens your expertise, anchors your value to effort instead of outcomes, and commoditizes your knowledge. It is time for accountants to stop selling hours and start selling impact.

I can’t say that 2025 was anything less than tumultuous, or that 2026 isn't likely to be more of the same. Boechler, P. C., Jarkesy, Zuch, the Affordable Care Act, FBAR, and even long-gone FASIT and SDLIA are already starting the year. Come along for the ride!

The Health Savings Account (HSA) is a first line of defense tax strategy. Contributions are deductible and earnings are tax-free if used for qualified medical expenses. There are numerous features to the HSA that secure maximum tax benefits. Structured properly, an HSA can provide serious tax-free money to beneficiaries as well as the account holder. Before we review the implications of inheriting an HSA, let’s review some of the powerful features an HSA has that increases the value of the account.

Captive insurance remains one of the most closely examined tax planning strategies in use today, not because it is inherently flawed, but because small missteps can carry outsized consequences. Many taxpayers assume that careful formation and proper documentation are enough to protect the intended tax outcome. A recent Tax Court decision, Kadau v. Commissioner, serves as a reminder that those assumptions deserve closer scrutiny. The court’s analysis did not hinge on whether captive insurance can work, but on how a specific arrangement actually functioned in practice. For tax professionals advising clients who rely on micro-captives, the case raises important questions about where structures tend to break down, why some arrangements attract IRS attention while others do not, and what really separates a defensible captive from one that invites challenge.