What do all of the financial professionals do and how are they different?

[Anonymous]

What is the difference between:

--Tax Attorney
--Tax Accountant
--Financial Planer
--Estate Planner

[Anonymous]

Guessing here but…

- tax lawyer maybe handles legal cases regarding taxes
- tax accountant does taxes for people or businesses
- financial planner helps people with personal finance; investing, saving
- estate planner helps people write wills and where their assets will go after death

[Anonymous]

Well, there is a very wide spread of what these folks do even within each category.

I'm a lawyer who litigates tax cases. I'm a fed. I pretty much learn whatever tax issue I need to understand for any given case. I'm good at tax, and it interests me, but I'm more of a litigator than a tax attorney. Most tax attorneys don't litigate -- they plan and execute strategy, usually for corporations or very, very rich people looking to minimize tax burden.

Tax accountants, often CPAs, do everything from preparing very basic returns for individuals up through preparing very complex returns for business entities up through planning complex strategy.

Both accountants and lawyers represent clients before the IRS. The IRS hears very simple appeals with like $200 at issue and hears extremely complex appeals with like $500 million at issue. And everything in between.

I'm not totally sure exactly what financial planners do -- I think that industry is full of a lot of sketchiness. Lots of legit folks in there, but lots of sketch as well. A lot of them are just selling investment products and have little to no actual knowledge of or even experience in finance. I'd love more info about this if others know a lot about it.

Advice regarding the drafting of a will should be given by a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the difference between:

--Tax Attorney
* knows the tax laws/rules (can explain them to clients)

--Tax Accountant

* helps clients with implementing the tax rules (obviously sort of has to know them but needs to act on advice of tax attorney when things are in doubt)


--Financial Planer

* helps clients achieve their financial goals (buying a house, college savings, identifying insurance needs, retirement). Some of them will manage your savings for you (and get paid a lot for that)

--Estate Planner

* figures out how to avoid estate tax (which hardly anyone has to worry about). This should be a lawyer. If you are talking more broadly about any lawyer writing a will then they are trying to anticipate situations that might arise after your death and put down on paper solutions that you would want.

[Anonymous]

Analyst

[Anonymous]

A financial planner is the hub of your financial strategy. They help you put together a financial plan. Typically, they have accounting/tax and estate planning/lawyer contacts who can complement their services.

If you don’t need a financial plan or investment advice, use tax and estate planning resources as you find necessary. If you’re a typical worker, you’re less likely to need an accountant than an estate attorney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, there is a very wide spread of what these folks do even within each category.

I'm a lawyer who litigates tax cases. I'm a fed. I pretty much learn whatever tax issue I need to understand for any given case. I'm good at tax, and it interests me, but I'm more of a litigator than a tax attorney. Most tax attorneys don't litigate -- they plan and execute strategy, usually for corporations or very, very rich people looking to minimize tax burden.

Tax accountants, often CPAs, do everything from preparing very basic returns for individuals up through preparing very complex returns for business entities up through planning complex strategy.

Both accountants and lawyers represent clients before the IRS. The IRS hears very simple appeals with like $200 at issue and hears extremely complex appeals with like $500 million at issue. And everything in between.

I'm not totally sure exactly what financial planners do -- I think that industry is full of a lot of sketchiness. Lots of legit folks in there, but lots of sketch as well. A lot of them are just selling investment products and have little to no actual knowledge of or even experience in finance. I'd love more info about this if others know a lot about it.

Advice regarding the drafting of a will should be given by a lawyer.

+1 Just adding that tax attorneys often work closely with M&A attorneys for structuring deals.

I’m a tax attorney working at a cpa firm and do everything from writing opinions/consulting on tax positions, to assisting with tax compliance.