Drawing on almost 1,000 financial advisor-client meetings over the past year, this paper examines what clients are actually saying about taxes, where they’re saying it, and what it reveals about their relationship with their CPA. The findings also point to a clear opportunity for tax professionals — the clients with the most anxiety are the ones whose CPAs are least engaged, and what those clients want is well within any firm’s reach.
Key takeaways
Tax strategy shows up in every meeting
The first point that the data makes clear is that the demand for year-round tax dialogue already exists. Tax strategy was discussed in at least 79% of meetings every month of the year, with April ranking among the months in which there was the highest frequency of tax strategy discussions. February too showed a notable spike in discussions, likely driven by pre-season client reviews.
Indeed, clients initiate tax strategy discussions at a meaningfully higher rate than they initiate conversations on other topics, with advisors starting the conversation roughly two-thirds of the time overall. Tax strategy discussions occupied an average of 8.68 minutes per meeting, representing approximately 16% of a typical 52-minute session.
Clearly, clients are already bringing this into the room — the question is whether their CPA is there to meet them.
Clients bring specific fears, goals, and triggers
The topics that clients raise are not abstract or academic. They are concrete, predictable, and tied to real-life events. Knowing what clients fear, what they want, and what life events drive their tax conversations gives any CPA a clear roadmap for proactive outreach.
For example, the most commonly expressed client tax fear was owing more than anticipated, with capital gains from a significant sale ranking second. Interestingly, those fears ranked #2 through #10 were separated by a margin of less than 3 percentage points, suggesting that anxiety is broadly distributed rather than concentrated in one area.
You can access the full white paper, "The Year-Round Tax Advisor" here to learn more about how your clients maybe thinking about you, their CPA, and what opportunities there maybe to strengthen your relationships.
Methodology & Credits
This report was published jointly by the Thomson Reuters Institute and Jump, an AI-powered operating system for financial advisors that is used by more than 30,000 financial, insurance, and tax professionals across the United States.
Jump Insights draws on aggregated, anonymized data from complete advisor-client interactions across the United States from advisors and firms who have opted into data sharing. No individual client or firm data is ever identifiable or used for commercial purposes.
To learn more, visit jump.ai.
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