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Financial Planning > Tax Planning

LPL Adds Tax Planning Service for Advisors

By Jeff Berman

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What You Need to Know

  • LPL Financial's tax planning service uses in-house tax professionals to serve clients' tax management needs.
  • The offering is designed to help advisors meet growing investor demand for holistic advice.
  • Outsourced tax planning complements LPL’s high-net-worth offerings including advanced estate and philanthropy planning, the firm says.

LPL Financial on Tuesday announced a new tax planning service using the firm’s in-house tax professionals to help advisors better serve clients’ tax management needs.

Noting the rapid pace of change in tax rules and their complexity, LPL said its new service “enables advisors to have tax planning discussions with clients more confidently.”

The new service helps advisors proactively address what LPL said is a question on every client’s mind: “Am I paying more than I have to in taxes?”

The service pairs LPL’s tax professionals with advisors to consult and create proposals to improve their clients’ financial outcomes, the firm said.

The tax professionals can help advisors identify clients who would benefit from the service, create a detailed analysis of their tax situation and offer roadmaps to maximize investment outcomes and improve tax efficiency, LPL said.

LPL’s in-house tax professionals can support advisors “through an entire range of services, from addressing ad hoc technical tax issues to providing detailed, customized tax planning scenarios and one- to three-year illustrations,” the firm said.

With the new service, advisors can now “offer sophisticated tax planning by leveraging LPL’s tax professionals without hiring their own, which can be a potential growth driver by adding a valuable service that clients aren’t getting elsewhere,” the company said.

“LPL’s Tax Planning Services can serve as an extension of the advisor’s team,” said Kraleigh Woodford, LPL senior vice president, planning and advice services.

“We believe that there is an opportunity for financial advisors to differentiate themselves by offering in-depth strategies that can proactively preserve and enhance client portfolios,” she said in a statement.

With Tax Planning Services, “advisors can now confidently deliver customized tax analysis and planning services to clients directly, instead of referring tax-related issues to accountants or other tax specialists,” she noted.

“We believe advisors who can increase their value proposition and offer a one-stop-shop solution can ultimately strengthen client outcomes and enhance overall satisfaction,” Woodford added.

Although outsourced tax planning support can “help deepen an advisor’s service offerings, it’s also ideal for those looking to better serve high-net-worth clients and complements LPL’s robust high-net-worth offerings and capabilities,” according to LPL.

Those other LPL offerings include an alternative investments platform, trustee services, an advanced estate and philanthropy planning team, complex life insurance planning, comprehensive reporting tools, an annual tax guide, tax management capabilities within LPL’s unified managed account platform, Model Wealth Portfolios, and discounted access to tax planning software, LPL said.

Tax Planning Services is just one of LPL’s comprehensive tax-related resources that it said are “designed to assist our advisors with delivering holistic investment and tax management advice to their clients.”

LPL serves almost 22,000 financial advisors, including advisors at about 1,100 enterprises and at approximately 550 registered investment advisor firms across the United States, it said.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Jeff Berman

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