In today's financial landscape, clients are seeking more personalized and higher-touch experiences that incorporate the full scope of their financial well-being. Tax planning and management services are rapidly becoming a fundamental expectation in the wealth management industry, shifting from a specialized value-add to an expected component of comprehensive advice. This is driven by both investor demand for simplified financial lives and a strategic recognition by firms that tax efficiency is a critical component of portfolio performance.
According to Cerulli, 76% of affluent investors believe it is important for their finances to be less complicated. Pairing tax advice with financial planning fulfills this need.
While financial professionals may recognize the significance of tax management, many lack access to a comprehensive suite of tax management tools which would allow them to implement the services necessary to deliver clients their ideal planning outcomes. ¹
Why Do So Many Advisors Exclude Tax Optimization from Their Service Offering?
Many advisors lack the time or expertise to effectively offer this service, are concerned about regulatory compliance, or lack the necessary support staff to do the heavy lifting. However, financial advisors who incorporate tax optimization into their services may see immediate and long-term benefits.
Tax management services help advisors:
- Attract new clients who are hesitant to change advisors because of tax considerations
- Demonstrate improved outcomes for existing clients
- Capture more wallet share and taxable client assets from new sources
- Better serve clients requiring asset reallocation due to personal circumstances
- Earn more referrals
When It Comes to Tax Management Platforms, Capabilities Matter
With so many options, what should a financial advisor look for when selecting a particular service platform?
To address client expectations and differentiate yourself from the competition, an effective tax management platform should:
- Offer daily optimization to maximize tax savings
- Be integrated to build scale and efficiencies
- Generate proposals and reports to help clients visualize the impact of tax savings
- Be seamless, offering account opening and a suite of tools for optimizing tax savings
- Incorporate functionality like tax transition, overlay management, tax loss harvesting, tax-efficient rebalancing, and client-directed activity options
Unified Managed Accounts (UMAs), which grew by 25.4% in 2024, are gaining market share because they allow for overlay management. This feature provides an overlay manager with total visibility into the portfolio to trade the account in the most tax-efficient manner possible.¹
Why It’s Important to Act Now to Retain and Attract Tax-Sensitive Clients
Beyond the portfolio benefits, tax management provides value and encourages more frequent and meaningful communication which ultimately strengthens the relationship between the advisor and their client.
We cannot conclude without mentioning the great wealth transfer. As one generation passes wealth to the next, the universe of potential clients in need of tax-optimized asset management expands. Market volatility also creates opportunities for tax loss harvesting and other tax-efficient activities. Financial advisors who don’t capitalize on the growing appetite for customized tax management support are compromising the long-term success of their business and also negatively impacting its valuation.
Tax Management is Wealth Management. Providing wealth management without tax planning is like running a high-performance race car with the parking brake engaged. No matter how powerful the engine (investment returns), the drag (taxation) will limit the car’s top speed and efficiency. Advisors need to focus on “releasing the brake” to ensure the client’s wealth can travel as fast and far as possible.
Adhesion now offers Tax Management Services (TMS), powered by AssetMark, to help our RIA clients deliver personalized tax management at scale for accounts of all sizes. TMS has a proven track record with advisors using the AssetMark platform, with more than 20,000 accounts enrolled by more than 2,600 advisors, with greater than $9.5 billion in AUM as of May 2026.
Over the last two calendar years, TMS’s daily tax optimization and always-on tax-loss harvesting delivered, on average, 1.42% in tax savings for clients in 2025 and 1.29% in tax savings in 2024.
The team at Adhesion Wealth is here to help you incorporate TMS into your practice and use it to win new business and retain existing client relationships.
We’d love to chat. Contact our team to schedule a brief consultation and learn more about what we can do for you.
1 The Cerulli Report—U.S. Managed Accounts October 2025
Tax Management Services (TMS) is designed to improve the after-tax return for the client’s account, consistent with the risk/return profile of the investment models based on the selected tax sensitivity. TMS may cause the account to deviate from the investment models and can affect the risk profile and performance of the account. A higher tax sensitivity account setting can have a higher deviation from the investment models than a lower tax sensitivity. Adding TMS customizations to the account can impact the account’s tax and investment results. Tax analysis proposal reports may vary over time. Actual tax management results are subject to change based on investment holdings, market conditions, timing, and other factors. Securities may be partially traded or not traded due to market movements and illiquidity, rebalancing, client activity, and other factors. The account may be invested in non-model securities intended to approximate the target investment models. AssetMark, at its discretion, will determine when to take tax management actions based on any client restrictions or other instructions, such as client withdrawals. The timing of trading in TMS accounts may differ from non-TMS accounts. If an investment strategy is closed, the closed strategy may no longer be TMS-eligible; and AssetMark may provide an alternative TMS-eligible strategy. The tax savings report is not a replacement for other tax reports for tax filing purposes. Investors seeking more information should contact their financial advisor.
8972739.1 | 07/2026 | 07/31/2028