The Steward's Desk · Tax planning
One reports the year you already lived. The other shapes the years you haven't lived yet. Knowing which is which explains a lot about April.
Jesse Plunkett, CEPA®, CRPC®
July 12, 2026 · Meet your advisor · 
Tax preparation takes the year you already lived and reports it accurately: gathering the documents, applying the rules, filing the return, and keeping you out of trouble. It's essential, skilled, deadline-driven, and almost entirely backward-looking. By the time a return is being prepared, nearly every number on it is already locked.
That last part surprises people. Filing season feels like the moment taxes happen, but it's really the moment taxes get recorded. The decisions that determined the bill were made across the previous twelve months, usually without anyone thinking of them as tax decisions at all.
Tax planning works on the years that haven't happened yet. It looks at this year and the next several together and asks where income, withdrawals, and deductions should land so the total bill across all of those years comes out lower. The unit of success is your lifetime tax bill, not any single April.
In practice, the moves are less exotic than the phrase suggests. Timing a retirement account withdrawal to fill a low bracket instead of spilling into a high one. Converting to Roth in the window between retiring and required minimum distributions, which start at 73 or 75 depending on your birth year under the SECURE 2.0 Act. Putting tax-inefficient investments in tax-advantaged accounts. Bunching charitable gifts into a higher-income year. Each one is ordinary on its own; the value comes from doing them on purpose, in the right years, and in the right order.
Bunching is a good illustration of why the multi-year view matters. Tax Policy Center's analysis of IRS Statistics of Income data shows the share of individual returns claiming itemized deductions fell from 31% in tax year 2017 to roughly 10% by 2022, once the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act roughly doubled the standard deduction. For most households that means a year of ordinary charitable giving now produces no tax benefit at all. Concentrate two or three years of gifts into one, though, and that single year can clear the standard deduction while the others take it. Same total given, different result, and the only variable is timing, which is exactly the kind of thing a return being prepared in March can no longer change.
| Tax preparation | Tax planning | |
|---|---|---|
| Looks at | Last year | This year and the next several together |
| Happens | Mostly January through April | All year, with mid-year and fall checkpoints |
| Produces | An accurate, on-time return | Decisions that change what future returns say |
| Done by | Your CPA or tax preparer | Your advisor and CPA, coordinated |
| Which do you need? | Almost everyone needs preparation. Planning earns its keep when your income is high, your accounts are varied, or a transition like retirement or a business sale is coming. | |
They're teammates, not rivals. I don't prepare returns, and a good CPA's filing-season workload rarely leaves room for multi-year projections. So we split the field: I handle the forward look and share it with your CPA, your CPA files the return and flags anything the plan should absorb, and you get one coherent picture instead of two professionals pulling in different directions.
If you've ever opened a finished return, winced at the number, and wondered whether something could have been done differently: that's the planning conversation, and the best time for it is now, not next April.
Bring your latest return to a short call, or don't. Either way, we'll find the planning conversation worth having.
Often, yes, because the jobs are different. Your CPA files an accurate return for the year that already happened. Tax planning works on the years that haven't happened yet: timing income, withdrawals, conversions, and giving so future returns look better. The two roles reinforce each other, and I coordinate with your CPA directly.
No. Your CPA or tax preparer files your return, and I stay in my lane. My job is the forward-looking side: the decisions across the year that shape what shows up on that return. When we work together, I share the planning picture with your CPA so nothing pulls in two directions.
The timing and location of income. That includes which accounts you draw from and in what order, whether to convert to Roth in a lower-income year, where different investments sit for tax efficiency, and when to time charitable gifts. None of it changes your tax rate; it changes how much of your income the higher rates ever touch.
All year, with two windows that deserve extra attention: mid-year, when there's still time to adjust income and withholding, and the fall, before year-end deadlines close most moves for good. Waiting until filing season means looking at a year that's already locked; by then the planning options for it are gone.