Business Owners
You're probably looking for a tax strategist. That's where this starts.
Most businesses don't make it past the first year or two. If yours did, and it's working, you've landed in a situation almost nobody helps with. Your tax decisions, the decision to put more into the business or not, your cash flow, and the legal layer of entity type, insurance, and contracts are all connected, and they're all in your face at once. When there is help, it's scattered across chairs that don't talk to each other. And a typical financial advisor, whose work is funds and stocks and ETFs, isn't much use to you, because that isn't what you need.
Why business owners are their own thing here
Two reasons.
The first is that everything is interconnected, and nobody's holding the whole picture. You write the tax checks yourself instead of having them withheld, so you feel every dollar and you're more aware of your taxes than almost anyone. Lowering that bill sits at the center. But the tax strategy touches the decision to reinvest, which touches cash flow, which touches how you're paid, which touches the entity and the protections around it. Decided one at a time by different people, each answer is right for its piece and wrong for the whole.
The second is that almost nobody is both a financial planner and a tax advisor, and fewer still speak entrepreneur. David is a founder and runs a small business himself, so the trade-off between putting a dollar back into the company or somewhere else is a felt reality, and only then an accounting question. The tax playbook for an owner is much thicker than it is for an employee, and it takes both jobs at one table to use it.
What's actually on the table
- 01
The tax bill
For most owners this is where it starts. Lowering it means planning the year on purpose: how you're paid, what the business deducts, which retirement plan fits, whether the entity still fits, and what gets decided before December instead of discovered in April. Tax planning explains the mechanisms.
- 02
Reinvest, or not
For a lot of owners the business is where a dollar works hardest, and investing outside of it may not fit at all. That's a planning decision, and it's one we're agnostic about: equity in your own company, real estate at scale, or a portfolio of public companies. The main branch is that you own equity in something, and the plan is built around whichever one is yours.
- 03
Cash flow and owner pay
What stays in the business and what comes home, in what form, on what rhythm, with the tax consequence of each choice known ahead of time.
- 04
The legal layer
Entity type, the insurance that belongs around the business and the family, the contracts, and how those layers protect what you've built. Decided in the plan, with your attorney drafting what needs drafting.
The part of financial planning you may not need
Financial planning has been sold to the public as one thing for so long that most people can't separate it from having someone manage investments in publicly traded companies. Those are different jobs. Financial planning is the whole picture, and for an owner it can leave the management of a public-market portfolio out of the equation entirely if that doesn't fit you.
That's how it usually goes here. An owner comes through The Keystone Method, the Owner version, where the plan, the taxes, and whatever investments there are get decided at one table over about six months. Then most owners continue as Tax Advisory clients, with the whole tax life managed for one monthly fee and the returns prepared by the same person who planned the year. Wealth Advisory is there for the day there's a lot of money outside the business, at an exit or in retirement, and that day may be a long way off or never. Nothing about that is a failure of the relationship. It's the shape of an owner's life.
What the conversations end up being about
This isn't part of the offer, and it isn't financial planning in the textbook sense, but it's worth knowing before you call. With a close relationship and a fiduciary obligation to help you be more financially secure, the conversations with owner clients end up going where the largest asset is: the business. Operations. Marketing and how clients actually arrive. Putting artificial intelligence to work inside a small company, which David does in his own and gets asked about constantly. If it helps the business grow, it's inside the obligation as David sees it, and it tends to come up at the same table where the taxes get decided.
Real estate investors
Everything on this page applies to a real estate investor too. An investor sees the title "financial advisor," decides it's for someone else, and is usually right about that advisor. The tax advisory and the planning are a different matter, and the playbook is thick there too. The page for real estate investors.
Before you decide
Questions people ask.
Bring the rest to the Explore Call.
Do I have to move my investments to work with you?
No. For many owners the right answer is that the money stays in the business, and the plan says so.
Is this business coaching?
No. It's financial planning and tax advisory. The conversations go where your largest asset takes them, and for an owner that's the business.
I have a CPA. What happens to that?
Your call. Inside Tax Advisory the returns are prepared and signed by David Talley, an Enrolled Agent, through Talley Tax, by the person who planned the year. If you keep your CPA for the returns, we coordinate with them and the planning still happens here.
What does it cost?
Keystone Owner is a flat $12,000, refundable in full at any point during the engagement, for any reason. Tax Advisory afterward is one monthly fee. The pricing page has the schedule.
Tax advisory, tax planning implementation, and tax preparation are provided through Talley Tax, a separate business owned and operated by David Talley. Tax advice is given by Talley Tax. Talley Wealth and Talley Tax work in concert, and they are separate entities. Securities and advisory services are offered through Cambridge entities as described in the site footer; Talley Tax is not affiliated with Cambridge. Talley Wealth advisory services do not include tax preparation unless a separate Talley Tax relationship is established. About Tax Advisory.
The next conversation
Where to start
Bring the tax question, because that's the one you have. Fifteen minutes by phone with David, and if it makes sense to keep going, the Strategy Session is where the planning begins. The pricing page has every number, including Keystone Owner.