By Michael S. Seltzer CLU, ChFC, Verite Planning Solutions
Most weeks my inbox looks like a catalog I never ordered. A solar partnership with a first-year write-off on the cover. An energy deal that leads with bonus depreciation. A charitable structure that turns a gift into a multiple of the check. A private fund with a tax slide stapled to the back. The attachments keep getting longer. The claims keep getting larger. Someone always needs an answer by Friday.
I am not a CPA. I have spent my career on the planning side of high-net-worth families — insurance, liquidity, estate design, and the conversations that sit next to a balance sheet. Verite Planning Solutions is built for that work. We are an “event-driven” planning team. The typical client is not looking for a quarterly portfolio meeting. They are staring at something that changes the plan, maybe changes their life: a business sale, a recapitalization, a large bonus or an event that vests stock options, an inheritance, a partner buyout, a decision about a closely held company. That is when the offerings start showing up in the inbox.
Inside the firm we have attorneys, financial professionals, life insurance specialists, property & casualty insurance experts and an employee-benefits team. Around that core is a network we use on purpose — other advisors, counsel, and CPAs — for the parts of a file that are not within our core competency. The tax work on these offerings belongs to the client’s accountant and tax attorney. Our job is to be additive to the client’s existing advisors. Our mission is to support their CPA’s, attorneys, investment advisors etc. Last summer’s tax law made some of these strategies easier to sell and more in demand. It did not make them easier to understand.
If you feel a little over your head when one of these decks lands in your inbox you are not alone. Most of the advisors I talk to feel the same way. What I have learned, reviewing these files with the client, their CPA, and their tax attorney, is that we do not have to become tax lawyers. We have to get good at a smaller job: slowing the conversation down, identifying what is actually being offered, and knowing which questions belong to us and which belong to the people who already prepare the return.
I should say this early, because much of this piece is about caution. When a strategy is properly vetted and implemented, some of these strategies are genuinely useful. They can give a high-net-worth client more flexibility around a tax bill that would otherwise crowd out the rest of the plan. There are good ones out there. They are just not all good, and they are not good for every client. The work is telling those two facts apart.
What I had to relearn after the new law
The tax law changes that shows up in the most emails is “bonus depreciation”. In plain English, as an example, the business can often write off the full cost of qualifying equipment in the year it starts using it, instead of spreading that cost over time. That rule is now permanent.
That sounds simple. The first thing I learned is that the strategy is almost never that simple.
The write-off belongs to the business, not to the client as a person. If the client owns the deal through a partnership or an LLC, the benefit only helps them if they can actually use it on their return. That depends on how much they put in, how much they can really lose, whether they are involved in the business, and what else is already on the return. We cannot just look at the year-one number and stop.
The second thing I learned is that implementation timing is not the subscription date. The equipment has to be up and running in the year someone wants the deduction. Signing papers in November and funding in December does not put a machine to work. If the project slips into next year, the illustration on page three is next year’s story.
The third thing is the one that took me longest. A big deduction today often has another side. When the asset is sold, sometime in the future, some of that write-off can come back as ordinary income. A deck that shows a large first-year benefit and a clean capital-gain exit has not finished the conversation. I now ask about the way out as early as I ask about the way in. That is the same habit we already have on insurance and estate work.
There were other changes last summer — Opportunity Zone rules, a more generous break on certain small-company stock, easier interest deductions inside leveraged companies. If the sponsor is mixing three ideas, I ask them to pick the one they are actually selling.
What is actually landing in the inbox
Our clients are not seeing one product. In the same week they may be shown private equity or a co-invest, private credit, a real estate fund or a 1031 property, an Opportunity Zone vehicle, an energy partnership, a solar or other energy-credit deal, a charitable structure, and an interval fund that promises simpler reporting and a little liquidity. Some of those belong in a portfolio conversation. Some belong in a tax conversation. A few belong in both. Treating them as the same product is how a client buys the wrong one.
Solar and charitable files are in that mix now as often as the funds. One might be a project the client owns. Another might be a purchased credit, a donor-advised fund, or a trust that leaves something to charity. I do not need to be the expert on each wrapper. I do need to notice they are different products, and that a gift is not an investment. If the sponsor cannot say which one they are selling, we are not ready to bring it to the client’s CPA.
The LLC conversation I used to wave through
On a lot of these deals, the sponsor will ask the client to form a new LLC and subscribe through that entity.
Some of the reasons are practical, and those I already understood. An LLC can keep operating risk away from the rest of the family. It is a clean place for capital calls, later gifts, or a sale of the interest. Many accountants would rather see the activity in its own box than mixed onto the personal return with everything else.
What I had to learn is that the way the interest is held can change whether the client can use a loss against salary, other types of income and investment returns, or whether that loss sits unused. Certain energy interests can work one way if the client holds them directly and another way if the client is only a limited partner. An LLC is not a magic label. It depends on the client’s rights and on the work they actually do. Signing an operating agreement in January does not make someone active for the year.
I also ask a simpler question than I used to: who is actually on the hook. Cash the client put in counts. Debt their LLC is truly obligated to pay may count. A loan sitting inside the deal that nobody at the table has guaranteed often looks bigger on the slide than it is in real life. “We’ll put it in an LLC so we can take the deduction” is not a plan. It is a hope with an operating agreement attached.
The question I now ask before anyone talks about return
Can this client use the benefit this year, on this return?
That starts with a simpler question the deck almost never asks: which tax are we planning for? A large W-2 and bonus year is not the same problem as a business sale. Equity that is about to vest is not the same problem as an estate that will be due later. Most of what lands in my inbox is built to touch ordinary income. It does not automatically shelter a capital gain. It does not, by itself, pay an estate tax. If we cannot name the bill we are trying to plan for, then we are shopping.
The client who gets most of these emails is often a high-income W-2 earner — an executive, a partner who takes a salary, a physician. That is also the hardest profile for a first-year write-off. If they are not meaningfully involved in the new activity, the loss often cannot be realized. It sits until there is other passive income or until the whole activity is sold. Credits can work the same way. The illustration rarely says that. A busy professional who will not be running the project should hear it before they wire funds.
That sounds obvious. It is the question the pitch deck is designed to skip. A first-year loss only offsets other income if the client is doing real work in the business — not reading updates and joining an annual call.
I do not administer those tests. I have learned enough to know they exist, that they are tested every year, and that “my brother-in-law is in this too” is not evidence. Before the client forms an LLC or signs the subscription, we write down what work they will actually do and who will keep track of it, and we put that note in front of their CPA. If no one can describe the work, we ask the accountant to model the benefit as unused for now.
This is the part that feels closest to the insurance work I already know. We do not let a product illustration stand in for the insured’s facts. We should not let a tax illustration stand in for the client’s facts either.
How our team looks at one of these
We use a short list. It is the same list whether the email is about equipment, a fund, or a gift.
First: what is this? A write-off, a credit, a delayed gain, a charitable gift, or just a portfolio investment? If the sponsor cannot pick one, we pause.
Second: when does it happen? When is the equipment running, the project built, the gift complete, or the clock started? We match that date to this tax year — not to the email date.
Third: how do they own it? In their own name, jointly, through an existing company, or a new LLC? Who signs the debt? Does the client have any real role, or only a check?
Fourth: can they use it? That question belongs to the client’s CPA. Our job is to get a clean file onto that desk — the offering memo, the LLC papers, and an honest picture of the client’s year — so their existing advisors are not starting from a sales deck.
Fifth: how does it end? A sale, a credit that can be pulled back, a gift that has to stay a gift. Year-one math that ignores the way out is unfinished.
Last: would it exist anyway? Is there a business, an operator, and a reason to own this without the tax page? If the only reason to write the check is the deduction, we are not ready.
What the saved dollars are for
Here is the part I care about as a planner, once a strategy has cleared the client’s advisors. A tax benefit is not the plan. It is cash that did not leave the family this year.
For a high-net-worth client, that retained money is often the difference between a priority that stays on the list and a priority that gets funded. A lower tax bill can make room to finish an estate design that has been waiting on liquidity. It can take down a line of credit. It can fund a life insurance premium the family already agreed they needed. It can go into a diversified account instead of sitting in a checking account waiting for April. Sometimes it is simply optionality — a year with more flexibility than the year before.
That is why I am willing to spend time on these files. Done well, for the right client, some of these strategies are not a side bet. They are a way to keep more of what the family already earned and put it to work on the rest of the plan. The mistake is treating the tax page as the win. The win is what those dollars let the client do next.
I try to name that next use before anyone celebrates the deduction. If we cannot say where the retained earnings are going — estate, debt, coverage, investment, or a reserve the family actually needs — we do not yet have a planning reason. We have a tax result looking for a home.
Disclosure: Educational content only. Not tax, legal, accounting, investment, or insurance advice, and not a recommendation of any product or strategy. Individual results vary. Consult your own qualified advisors before acting. Vérité Planning Solutions and its professionals may receive compensation in connection with insurance or related products. Views are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of Digital Wealth News.
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Author Bio: Michael S. Seltzer is a founding partner of Verité Planning Solutions, bringing more than four decades of experience advising high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and business owners through complex financial events.
He specializes in the design and execution of premium-financed life insurance strategies, helping clients secure substantial coverage while preserving liquidity. His work often centers around pivotal moments — business sales, private equity exits, and generational wealth transfers — where precision, coordination, and long-term planning are critical.
Michael is known for simplifying complex structures and guiding clients through both initial strategy design and ongoing maintenance. His approach integrates tax-aware planning, asset protection, and legacy considerations into a cohesive framework, ensuring each strategy performs as intended over time.
Prior to founding Verité Planning Solutions, Michael co-founded a boutique investment bank affiliated with a national law firm, where he advised on high-stakes transactions and capital strategies. He is a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU®) and Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC®), and is an active member of the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU) and Forum 400.
Michael contributes thought leadership on estate planning, tax strategy, and financing structures, and has been featured in Forbes Finance Council. He is based in Miami, Florida, where he continues to advise clients through some of their most significant financial decisions.
