Case Study

How to Use High Income Tax Strategies to Start a Profitable Firm

Goals Goals

  • Launch a tax planning service, including prep and quarterlies
  • Increase revenue with strategic use of tax planning software
  • Become comfortable in the tax space after 13 years in accounting

Key Benefits Experienced Key Benefits Experienced

  • 35% of firm revenue now comes from high-margin tax planning
  • CFO clients can now be upsold into a new, valuable service  
  • Scaled quickly, now needs to hire first team member

I didn’t want to fumble through building a business for three years to get to a point where I could sustain it. Corvee is what allowed me to quickly exit corporate America and jump full time into my business.”

BRETT ARNOLD, CPA

Brett Arnold, CPA, outsourced CFO and owner of Luca Financial Solutions, had over 13 years of experience working for corporations before jumping into the world of entrepreneurship and launching his own firm. While his main revenue generator is still CFO work, tax planning is rapidly catching up. Here’s how he’s growing his firm today.

Accountant Learns New Paradigm With High Income Tax Strategies

At the time of joining the 7 Figure Firms coaching program in July 2020, Mr. Arnold had no experience in tax, just 13 years in the world of corporate accounting. As he explained it, “I was comfortable in accounting. I was able to do complex CFO things, but understanding tax strategies was new to me.”   

As he began learning about tax planning, he invested in Corvee software. Having never done a tax plan outside of the software, he began to dive into Corvee Tax Planning and learned high income tax strategies by exploring the software, learning as he went along. “It was similar to how I learned more about tax prep just by using tax prep software. I paid attention to the inputs to see what the outputs would look like. For example, if I put a specific number into a field, where did it end up later on? It’s very educational.” 

The videos inside 7 Figure Firms were also very helpful in educating him on different aspects of tax planning. As he grew more comfortable, the biggest struggle was still just getting started. “The hardest aspect in my journey was actually getting on a sales call with my first tax planning prospect, because many times accountants like me believe they need to have everything figured out before speaking to a client. It’s very hard to be prepared for any and every question a client might ask when it comes to tax planning. I had to get past that fear, just to begin.”

Mr. Arnold prepared himself with the basics, the core strategies and eventually high income tax strategies, but some clients occasionally threw him a curve ball and he had to be comfortable with not knowing the answer right away. “You can always find answers, but there could be uncertainty going into a sales call that you may not have all the answers. That part is scary.”

He’s kept busy over the past year learning more advanced strategies for high net-worth individuals that go beyond core tax planning strategies.

The software has also been helpful for me to be able to learn the nuances and the caps on certain retirement benefits or the little details of strategies that went over my head a year ago.”

During this time, his firm has gone from 100% CFO work to 65%, with tax planning rising to 35% of his total work. By next year, he expects tax planning to be at least 50% of his revenue.

How His Tax Planning Process Works

Mr. Arnold began a newsletter and has been getting leads for tax planning from it. His process is to speak with a client and get the information he needs to make a tax planning proposal by asking specific questions. He can generally quote them a proposal on how much he can save them based on that discussion. 

Sometimes clients are hesitant about the one-time fee Mr. Arnold charges for the tax plan. In those cases, he learned to be open to doing monthly fees to make it easier on the client in order to close the engagement. Next, he gives them a longer interview questionnaire, where they can plug in detailed information that goes straight into the tax planning software.

Mr. Arnold enjoys Corvee’s many helpful features, such as the ability to send and receive documents. “Document management is much easier,” he said. “I can go back and forth with clients all in one place.” He also utilizes the tagging feature to organize documents.

From there, he is able to make a complete, finalized tax plan with the help of automatic calculations that run thousands of strategy combinations. “Most people get excited when I tell them how much I can save them,” he noted.

The software helps me produce a deliverable that is typically 30 to 40 pages, with references to the IRS tax code and the detailed calculations.”

Mr. Arnold can also push for quarterly and tax prep afterward, including helping clients implement the tax plan itself. “I never saw myself becoming a tax planner, but the money is simply too good to not be.
To him, Corvee is a tool that helped him build a business quickly and successfully.

I didn’t want to fumble through building a business for three years to get to a point where I could sustain it. Corvee is what allowed me to quickly exit corporate America and jump full time into my business.”

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