Why Your Financial Advisor Should Be Reviewing Your Tax Return
Sep 22, 2026
Why Your Financial Advisor Should Be Reviewing Your Tax Return Every Year
When was the last time your financial advisor asked to see your tax return?
If the answer is never, there may be an important piece missing from your financial planning.
Most people think of their tax return as something that gets filed away once tax season is over. Your CPA prepares it, you sign it, pay what you owe—or receive your refund—and move on.
But we look at a tax return differently.
At Fit Wealth, one of the documents we ask clients for is their tax return because it can provide an incredibly valuable snapshot of their financial life.
It shows us what happened last year.
More importantly, it can help us decide what we should do differently this year and in the years ahead.
In this episode of The Fit Wealth Show, Amanda and Shawn Hanquist discuss why your financial advisor should review your tax return, what they should actually be looking for, and how proactive tax planning can influence your investments, retirement strategy, charitable giving, business planning, and more.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE: Why Your Financial Advisor Needs to Review Your Tax Return
Your Tax Return Is More Than Tax Paperwork
Your tax return tells a story.
It can show how much you earned, where your income came from, how your investments affected your taxable income, the retirement contributions you made, capital gains you realized, charitable deductions you claimed, and ultimately how much you paid in taxes.
In other words, it can be one of the most comprehensive financial documents you receive each year.
When tax season ends, many people think:
“Great. My taxes are done.”
From a financial planning perspective, we think:
“Great. Now what can we learn from them?”
Because the goal shouldn't simply be to accurately report what already happened.
The goal is to use that information to make more informed decisions about what happens next.
Tax Preparation vs. Tax Planning: What's the Difference?
This distinction is important.
Your CPA or tax professional plays an incredibly valuable role. Tax preparation generally focuses on accurately reporting your financial activity, complying with tax laws, and correctly filing your return.
Tax planning looks forward.
Instead of only asking, “Did we report last year's taxes correctly?” tax planning asks questions such as:
Could we structure income differently this year?
Are there retirement contribution opportunities we're missing?
Should we consider a Roth conversion?
Could our investments be managed more tax efficiently?
Are there better ways to approach charitable giving?
How will an upcoming retirement, business sale, inheritance, or other major event affect our taxes?
Your tax return provides the information that helps start those conversations.
Tax preparation tells us what happened. Tax planning helps us decide what should happen next.
You need both.
What Should a Financial Advisor Look for on Your Tax Return?
Reviewing a tax return isn't simply about trying to find errors.
We're looking for planning opportunities.
Here are several areas your financial advisor may want to consider.
- Changes in Income
Did your income increase significantly?
Did it decrease?
Was there a large bonus, business distribution, capital gain, or other one-time event?
And perhaps most importantly:
Should we expect it to happen again?
Changes in income can influence everything from retirement contributions and Roth conversion opportunities to investment decisions and charitable giving strategies.
Understanding your income today helps us make better decisions about tomorrow.
- Retirement Contributions
Your tax return can help provide insight into the retirement contributions you've made and whether your current strategy still makes sense.
Depending on your circumstances, questions might include:
Are you taking full advantage of available retirement plans?
Does the type of account you're contributing to still make sense?
Could a business retirement plan be structured differently?
Are there opportunities you're not currently using?
Saving more isn't automatically the answer.
The goal is to determine how your retirement contributions fit into your larger tax and financial strategy.
- Roth Conversion Opportunities
A lower-income year can sometimes create an opportunity to intentionally recognize income through a Roth conversion.
That doesn't mean a Roth conversion is appropriate simply because one is available.
The bigger question is how paying taxes today compares with the potential tax consequences of leaving those assets in a pre-tax account for the future.
Your current and projected tax picture matters when making that decision.
- Investment Income and Capital Gains
Your investment portfolio and your tax return should not be treated as two separate worlds.
Interest, dividends, capital gains, and capital losses can all affect your tax situation.
Reviewing your return alongside your investments may lead to questions such as:
Could your portfolio be more tax efficient?
Are investments being held in the appropriate types of accounts?
Are there capital loss carryforwards available?
Are there opportunities for tax-loss harvesting?
Should realizing a gain be coordinated with other income or deductions?
An investment decision can be perfectly reasonable from an investment perspective while creating an unintended tax consequence.
That's why coordination matters.
- Charitable Giving
If charitable giving is an important part of your financial life, your tax return can help determine whether there are more strategic ways to give.
Depending on your age, assets, goals, and circumstances, planning might involve strategies such as donating appreciated securities, using a donor-advised fund, or making Qualified Charitable Distributions from an IRA when eligible.
The objective isn't simply to generate a tax deduction.
It's to coordinate your generosity with the rest of your financial plan.
- Opportunities for Business Owners
For business owners, tax planning can become even more important.
Your business and personal financial lives are often deeply connected.
Your return can help start conversations around your business income, estimated tax payments, retirement plan design, compensation, entity structure, and how you're moving wealth from your business into your personal financial life.
A business owner shouldn't wait until tax filing season to discover what happened.
The more proactive these conversations become, the more opportunity you may have to make intentional decisions before December 31.
Nearly Every Major Financial Decision Has a Tax Component
Think about some of the biggest financial decisions you may make:
Selling investments.
Retiring.
Starting Social Security.
Selling a business.
Completing Roth conversions.
Taking Required Minimum Distributions.
Buying or selling real estate.
Giving to charity.
Passing wealth to your family.
Taxes don't sit in their own isolated category beside these decisions.
They're woven through nearly all of them.
That's why we believe your financial advisor should understand your tax picture—not because your advisor necessarily prepares your tax return, but because it's difficult to provide comprehensive financial advice without understanding how taxes affect your decisions.
Asking for Your Tax Return Isn't Enough
There's another distinction that's important.
Your advisor asking for your tax return doesn't necessarily mean they're doing tax planning.
What happens after they receive it?
Are they analyzing it?
Are they identifying potential opportunities?
Are they discussing what may change this year?
Are they coordinating with your CPA when appropriate?
Are they incorporating what they find into your investment and retirement strategy?
Simply uploading a tax return to your financial advisor's portal isn't the goal.
The value comes from turning that information into actionable financial planning.
Your CPA and Financial Advisor Shouldn't Operate in Silos
Your CPA and financial advisor serve different roles, but those roles frequently overlap around major financial decisions.
Your CPA may understand exactly what happened on your tax return.
Your financial advisor may understand your investments, retirement goals, cash flow, estate plan, and upcoming financial decisions.
When those two worlds communicate, you can make decisions with a more complete picture.
At Fit Wealth, that's a significant part of what we mean when we talk about wealth coordination.
We're not looking at investments in isolation.
We're looking at how your:
- Cash flow
- Tax strategy
- Investments
- Retirement planning
- Business planning
- Risk management
- Estate planning
work together.
Your tax return can connect nearly every one of those areas.
The Return Is the Starting Point, Not the Finish Line
Once your taxes have been filed, don't simply save the PDF and forget about it.
Ask what your return tells you.
What changed last year?
What opportunities might exist this year?
What major financial decisions are coming?
Could an upcoming retirement, business sale, inheritance, bonus, charitable gift, property transaction, or other life event change your tax picture?
And perhaps most importantly:
Is someone looking at all of these decisions together?
That's the difference between simply managing investments and having a coordinated financial strategy.
Want to Hear the Full Conversation?
In this week's episode of The Fit Wealth Show, Amanda and Shawn go deeper into what they look for when reviewing a client's tax return, the difference between tax preparation and proactive tax planning, and why this review matters for both retirees and business owners.
Why Your Financial Advisor Needs to Review Your Tax Return
If your financial advisor has never asked to see your tax return—or asks for it but you've never received meaningful planning recommendations afterward—this episode will give you several questions worth asking.
And if you're looking for a financial advisor who considers your investments alongside your taxes, retirement strategy, cash flow, business, and overall financial picture, visit fitwealthadvisors.com to learn more about working with Fit Wealth.
Advisory services are offered through Fit Wealth Advisors, LLC d/b/a Fit Wealth, an Investment Advisor in the State of Nebraska. Insurance products and services are offered through Fit Wealth Insurance, LLC, an affiliated company. All content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide tax or legal advice or serve as the basis for any financial decision. It is not intended as a projection of current or future performance or an indication of future results. Purchases are subject to suitability, including a review of an investor's objectives, risk tolerance, and time horizon. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital.