A Day in the Life of Bryan Allendorf, Head of Private Client Tax Services of BGA Tax Specialists

My desk, to be honest, is a labyrinth of files and papers, each as important as the next.  Private client work must surely be one of the most paper laden practice areas with versions of draft documents, lengthy explanatory letters, detailed financial analysis, draft accounts, etc.  I know the state of play on each of my files, just as I know the histories of my clients and their aspirations and fears.

I understand the barriers that most clients feel to legal jargon and formalities surrounding corporate tax planning or returns, tax and financial planning for professionals and executives, personal tax returns and preparing returns for deceased individuals and estate administration.  In meeting and talking with clients, I do my best to overcome these obstacles: if a client fails to understand, then I have failed.

Today’s diary is the usual mixture of seeing clients, researching, drafting and dealing with other advisors.  I head the Tax Strategies area, which includes the people side of tax law.  I deal with those concerned they or their business is paying too much tax or not receiving all of the tax credits and rebates they should, wanting to sell their business or buy a new one, wanting to save tax during their lifetime and upon death or make provision for family – all types of human emotion and all aspects of the human condition. 

A big benefit of working in tax is the variety of projects one can expect to work on.  Depending on the are of tax one focuses on, one could expect to work on an income tax minimization strategy one minute, a GST project the next, a major corporate reorganization and the details of a purchase or sale of a business the next.

Little compares to the complexity of my clients.  I love sitting and listening to all the exciting deals and transactions swirling around me.

IT has revolutionised the tax-planning world.  Computers and the Internet have completely changed the researching drafting tax opinions and strategies. The nature of my work is a constant flow of phone calls, emails and less today, faxes.

In client meetings I take instructions, give advice, help my clients to understand the limitations and the possibilities available to them. I look at immediate and future concerns.  I spend the rest of my time thinking up ways to expand beyond the limitations to make the law fit the plans of the individual.

I spend time explaining the same types of corporate tax planning, operations and benefits of trusts, Will planning, etc. again and again but to each set of clients it is completely new and fresh.  In tax there is no “one size fits all” for tax planning; situations are as individual as the people that make them.  I deal with secrets and lies; histories of sibling rivalry, settling of old scores; wealth passing to the humble and helpful; each as important as the next. 

I try and see at least one set of clients a day as I really enjoy the contact that this brings.  In private client tax planning the emphasis is on “private”.  In order to offer the best advice I have to know all my clients’ affairs.

My daily work is about juggling the expectations of my clients within the confines of the law and the reality of the human condition.

I often have a square peg problem: I want to give my children everything, but without paying tax and maintaining control during my lifetime.  I place it into a round whole solution:  I set up trusts whereby the parents are trustees, the children beneficiaries.  I regularly have clients who comment that they hadn’t expected to have so much fun planning for their business or their retirement, or that the tax planning was so easy.  I actually have as much fun as my clients and work very hard to make the complex simple.

It really is an amazing profession!

A Practice Devoted to Taxation

I was recently told that tax specialists are a “distress purchase”.  I am pleased to report that my clients have found this quite amusing.

It is not often that tax planning, estates and trusts, business valuations and financing are seen as a sufficiently sexy side of the law to warrant such attention!

One of the best ways in which I can provide a good service to my clients is to put myself in my client’s position.  Tax is an area where clients are most grateful for our efforts as specialists.  Clients often don’t really care about whether accountants come up with some ingenious new auditing approach.  Save them a few thousand bucks in tax though and you become a superhero overnight!

Being a tax professional has given me the opportunity to fully utilize my skills both as an accountant and as a tax specialist. It has also given me the opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest individuals in the business community. When working with my colleagues, it gives me a feeling of accomplishment and success when we can take an idea from a concept and take it all the way through implementation and defence if audited.

The biggest challenge facing tax professionals today is the pace of change. Developments seem to occur more frequently today not only with tax laws but with business models that are evolving. This means a professional must continue to learn, develop and enhance their tax skills. With constant new proposals and changes appearing in Budgets, separate Bills or even Press releases, constant effort must be made to stay absolutely current.

Today’s truism is that tax planning today is a much more demanding job given the size of dollars involved in terms of income and wealth, our clients are more educated and have greater access to information.  As a result they have higher expectations of tax professionals and are more experienced buyers of services.  Today’s Tax Experts must hit the ground running and demonstrate technical, knowledge and competence earned thru experience.

We at BGA Tax Strategists are committed to providing state of the art tax advise and expertise to a select group of wealthy individuals, families and organizations whose values mirror many of our own.