Wealth.com is the estate and tax planning launch partner for Claude for Financial Advisors, which Anthropic announced today.
We also released a Wealth.com connector for Claude, built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the open standard Anthropic created for connecting AI applications to outside systems and data. Firms already on the Wealth.com platform can enable it in their existing Claude workspace, under their own firm AI policies, at no additional cost from Wealth.com.
This post covers what that means in practice: where answers to estate and tax questions come from, four real-world advisor workflows transformed by this approach, and how to learn more.
Where the answers live
Estate and tax questions have defined answers, and those answers sit in specific places.
What a trust says about the disposition at the first spouse’s death is set by an executed document. Who holds authority under a health care directive is set by that directive. Whether an account is titled in a trust is a fact in a firm’s records. What a $200,000 Roth conversion produces for a specific household in a specific tax year is arithmetic under that year’s federal and state rules.
Three sources hold all of that: the executed documents, the firm’s records, and a tax calculation engine loaded with current federal and state data. None of them are public, and none of them are reachable by an AI assistant on its own. That is precisely the problem MCP was built to solve, and it is why we built on it.
Wealth.com holds all three, and this integration connects them.
What each side brings
Claude reads and reasons across a client’s documents, records, and tax figures. An advisor can ask a question in the language they would use with a colleague, across several hundred pages of documents, and follow the answer wherever it leads. They can hold a line of inquiry across a dozen turns, move from an estate question to a tax question without switching tools, and follow their own thinking rather than a navigation tree someone else designed. Conversation becomes the natural surface for working through what matters.
Wealth.com brings the records and tax engine those answers come from.
Document intelligence with page-level citations. Locating the provision that governs distributions at a specific age inside a 60-page restatement is work we have built specifically for estate documents. Every answer comes back with the page it came from, so an advisor can work from the provision itself rather than from a description of it.
A deterministic tax calculation engine. Given the same inputs and the same tax year, it returns the same figures every time, using published federal and state tax data.
The firm’s records, with their context intact. Titling, beneficiary designations, and the relationships between accounts, trusts, and individuals are preserved, including where those relationships have not yet been established.
Neither piece does the job alone. Claude works through a question the way an advisor would, and Wealth.com ties each answer to its source.
Four walkthroughs
1. Preparing for a prospect meeting from a stack of documents
An advisor has a first meeting with a prospective client in an hour. The prospect sent over a revocable trust executed in 2016, a first amendment from 2021, a will, a durable power of attorney, and a health care directive. That is a few hundred pages, most of it boilerplate, none of it read.
The advisor brings the documents into Claude and asks, in plain language:
What happens at the first spouse’s death?
Does the survivor have full control of the assets, or does the trust split into subtrusts?
When do the children gain control of their inheritance?
Who is the successor trustee, and in what order?
Who can make health care decisions if the client cannot?
Each answer comes back with a citation to the page it came from, including whether the governing language sits in the original trust or in the 2021 amendment, which is exactly the kind of thing a fast read misses. Ask for the disposition structure and it returns as a flowchart.
The advisor walks into the meeting with three informed questions instead of a request to send more paperwork.
2. Finding the provisions worth raising before the client raises them
Same documents, but a different question. Instead of asking what the plan does, the advisor asks what is worth a conversation.
This surfaces the things that tend to sit unexamined in an estate plan for years:
A co-trustee requirement nobody flagged, which means the person the client believes can act alone cannot.
A beneficiary holding authority over future trustee appointments, which changes who controls the trust over time.
A signature page that may never have been executed on an amendment the family believes is in force.
Distribution ages that do not match what the client described in conversation.
None of these are unusual. All of them are the difference between a review meeting where the advisor is reporting and a review meeting where the advisor is advising. Each one comes back with a citation, so the advisor can read the provision before deciding whether to raise it.
3. Understanding an existing client household
For clients already on the platform, an advisor can work through the broader financial picture the same way: what the household owns, how each asset is titled, where wealth is concentrated, and how beneficiary designations are recorded.
The part that matters more than people expect is what Wealth.com preserves about the gaps. If a relationship between an account, a trust, and an individual has not been established in the firm’s records, the answer says so rather than filling the hole with an assumption.
An advisor asking, “Is this account titled in the trust?” needs to be able to distinguish between “no” and “we do not have that recorded.” Those two answers lead to completely different next steps.
4. Working through a tax planning conversation
An advisor pulls up a summary of a client’s filed return covering income, deductions, total tax, and federal and state tax rates. Then the conversation moves to what happens next:
Roll the filed return forward under the applicable year’s tax law to see what the same income profile produces under current rules.
Evaluate a Roth conversion at several amounts to find where the marginal cost stops being worth it.
Back out a one-time event, such as a business sale or a concentrated position liquidation, to get a baseline that reflects what the household actually looks like going forward.
Build an initial estimate for a prospect who has not shared a return yet, using available financial information and stated assumptions, with those assumptions visible in the output.
Every figure in those scenarios comes from our calculation engine and the applicable federal and state tax data.
How to tell where an answer came from
Every figure the connector returns is attributed to one of three sources:
The firm’s record, meaning data the firm maintains in Wealth.com.
A cited page of a client document, with the page reference included.
The calculation that produced it, with the tax year and rules applied.
Each also carries the date through which the information is current, so an advisor can tell whether they are looking at something reconciled last week or last quarter.
What this does not do
It does not draft estate planning documents, and it does not give legal advice. Document analysis tells an advisor what a plan currently says. Changing what it says is legal work.
It does not file tax returns or give tax advice. The scenarios are planning estimates built on stated assumptions, and they belong in a conversation with the client’s tax professional.
It does not know what is not in the documents or the firm’s records. If a trust was amended and the amendment was never uploaded, no system reading the uploaded documents will know about it.
See it live at Future Proof
Wealth.com co-founder and chief growth officer Tim White and Drew Parker, financial services lead at Anthropic, are demonstrating the integration at booth 235 at Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach on .
NEW YORK, NY – September 8, 2026 –Wealth.com, the industry’s leading AI-powered estate and tax planning platform, today announced that &Partners has selected Wealth.com as its enterprise-wide estate planning platform. The deployment gives more than 100 &Partners advisors access to a consistent, technology-enabled way to review existing estate documents, visualize estate plans, identify gaps and planning opportunities, create client-ready reports and guide clients through the estate planning process.
One of the industry’s fastest-growing hybrid broker-dealer and RIA platforms, &Partners has built its model around advisor ownership, flexibility and concierge-level support. The firm selected Wealth.com following a competitive evaluation, citing the platform’s breadth, intuitive advisor and client experience, clear visualizations, enterprise-grade security and scalability, and commitment to implementation and long-term adoption.
“Estate planning is already embedded in many of the decisions our advisors help clients make, from beneficiary designations and gifting to charitable planning and legacy goals,” said Matt Doran, Partner and Leader of Advanced Planning at &Partners. “We wanted a platform that could make those conversations more consistent and actionable without compromising the flexibility our advisors value. Wealth.com gives advisors the technology, visual clarity and support to bring estate planning into the ongoing advice relationship.”
Through Wealth.com, &Partners advisors can more easily understand how a client’s estate plan is structured, explain complex relationships visually and turn identified gaps or opportunities into clearer next steps. The platform also supports more connected conversations across investments, taxes, beneficiary decisions, charitable planning, gifting and legacy goals, helping advisors address a client’s financial life more holistically.
The enterprise rollout began in August and formally launches across the full &Partners advisor population today. The implementation pairs firmwide platform access with live product education, a launch webinar, recorded enablement content and continued Wealth.com support at &Partners events. Wealth.com also traveled to the firm’s Nashville headquarters to create an advisor testimonial and enablement video series focused on integrating estate planning into real client conversations.
Early engagement has included advisors using Wealth.com for their own estate plans and extending the offering to staff. The rollout is designed to make estate planning part of the advisor’s ongoing relationship with clients rather than a separate, point-in-time referral.
“&Partners has built its model around combining advisor autonomy with institutional-quality support, which makes this enterprise deployment especially meaningful,” said Tim White, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Wealth.com. “The best technology does more than check a box. It has to help advisors understand complexity, communicate it clearly and act on it with clients. We are proud to support &Partners with both the platform and the enablement needed to make that happen at scale.”
By pairing enterprise-grade technology with a deliberate adoption program, Wealth.com and &Partners aim to create a repeatable estate planning experience across a rapidly growing advisor network while preserving the flexibility that is central to the &Partners model.
Less than a decade ago, tax planning software for financial advisors barely existed as a category.
Today it is one of the fastest-growing segments of the advisor tech stack, for good reason. Tax planning touches nearly every dimension of a client’s financial life, and advisors who can deliver it at scale have a measurable competitive advantage.
Now in 2026, the tax planning category is well established and offers multiple credible options competing for a place in your tech stack.
More choice is beneficial for financial advisors, but it also means you need a solid understanding of what your firm needs and what each solution can provide to make the right decision.
The best tax software for your practice depends on what kind of planning you do, how complex your clients are, and what you need the software to actually connect to.
This article lays out the criteria that separate a capable tax planning tool from a comprehensive planning platform.
Start with Planning Orientation, Not Features
Before you start scanning through feature lists, start by asking, “What is this software designed to do?”
This is a better starting question than “What are all the things it can do?” because some software is built first and foremost for fast and accurate tax return review. Others, however, are designed for forward-looking scenario modeling that connects current decisions to multi-year outcomes.
These are different solutions solving different problems.
Beyond that starting point, you also want to understand whether the platform helps you model what happens next or only summarizes what already happened.
Advisors serving high-net-worth clients, business owners, or clients approaching retirement transitions need a solution that accurately summarizes a client’s current situation while also providing forecasted data that can support faster planning decisions.
Evaluate the AI Architecture, Not Just the AI Marketing
Every tax planning solution available to advisors now uses AI in some capacity. However, the use of AI can mean vastly different capabilities, and there are meaningful architectural differences advisors should understand before evaluating each solution.
OCR-based extraction reads tax documents and pulls figures accurately. It’s fast and reliable for reviewing tax returns, but it lacks the ability to understand context. Its job is primarily to assist with data management.
Generative AI, on the other hand, surfaces insights and recommendations from client data. The probabilistic nature of this implementation means that while powerful, it can also introduce variability in outputs. You can ask the same question with the same data twice and receive a different result each time.
The third application is purpose-built AI designed specifically for financial advisors, combining document intelligence with structured tax logic. Using a deterministic system, this approach can help identify planning opportunities, surface actionable recommendations, and connect tax strategy to outcomes across disciplines for multi-year tax modeling. It also offers explainable outputs that remain consistent over time.
Three questions to ask about any platform you’re reviewing:
Can the platform read trust documents, corporate returns, and state filings, or only federal 1040s?
How does the system handle conflicting data inputs?
What is the accuracy standard for multi-year projections?
Scope Matters: Multi-Year, Multi-State, and Multi-Entity
Tax planning for an individual household is table stakes. Where tax planning software truly creates value today is by providing capabilities that help advisors navigate complex situations.
If you have clients with private investments, real estate holdings, S-corps, and LLCs, then you need a platform that can handle complexity without requiring manual workarounds.
Surveying the clients you serve and understanding what they need is one of the best ways to determine which tax planning solution fits your firm. If you have clients with complex financial situations, it’s almost certain that you’ll need a solution that supports multi-year scenario modeling, state tax projections, and income and distribution modeling across entity structures.
Practices that work with business-owning clients or family offices should weigh these capabilities heavily. A platform that handles W-2 households well but requires workarounds for pass-through entities will create a two-tier workflow: one process for simple clients and another for complex ones.
Make Client Experience Part of Your Evaluation
The foundation of great tax planning software is that it produces accurate analysis. But advisor software has another audience beyond the advisor: your clients.
Whether through generated reports or a shared screen during a meeting, your tax planning software will eventually be in front of your clients. That means the quality of the client experience should be part of your evaluation.
For example, can you update scenario modeling live as you adjust assumptions, or do you have to tell a client you’ll get back to them after a meeting? Does your tax planning software give clients a way to securely submit documents directly, or are you still relying on third-party solutions that break the workflow?
A client portal that serves as a digital home for both tax returns and estate documents creates a fundamentally different experience than PDF delivery. It shifts tax planning from a seasonal deliverable to an ongoing, visible part of the client relationship.
Integration Is the Multiplier
Possibly the most important consideration when evaluating tax planning software is understanding how the software fits into your larger financial planning process.
When it comes to a tax platform, the connection that matters is how well tax scenarios connect to estate outcomes. Significant planning opportunities, such as Roth conversions timed to estate transfers, charitable strategies structured around trust distributions, or business succession events that affect both income and estate tax implications, all require a view that spans both disciplines.
A siloed tax planning solution will always require the advisor to be the connector. What your firm needs instead is an integrated platform that makes the connection automatic.
A Framework to Use When Comparing Tax Planning Software
When comparing tax planning software, score each platform against these six criteria:
Analysis capabilities. Does the platform only help you understand what already happened, or does it also model next steps? Software built around return review and software built around forward-looking scenario modeling serve different planning functions, but your clients need both capabilities.
AI architecture. Not all AI is the same. Document extraction and generative AI both serve useful but different purposes. Purpose-built tax logic combines these capabilities to create projections that can inform real client decisions.
Client scope. Can the platform handle complex client needs like multi-year projections, state tax modeling, and entity structures? A solution that works well for W-2 households but requires workarounds for business owners will create planning headaches for your team.
Client experience. Tax planning should support the advisor-client conversation, not just your back-office analysis. Evaluate whether the tax platform includes a persistent, secure place for clients to access their financial documents over time and communicate with your team.
Pricing model. Per-upload and per-credit pricing can create friction as you grow, generating unpredictable annual costs and limiting how often advisors choose to use the software. Flat, household-based pricing offers more predictability, especially when it comes as part of an all-inclusive price.
Integration depth. A tax planning solution that’s connected to estate planning analysis helps you move beyond analysis and into real strategy. Evaluate whether your tax scenarios link to estate outcomes and whether the platform reduces the number of disconnected systems in your stack or simply adds another subscription.
If you are looking for a platform that was built to score well across all six of these criteria, Wealth.com’s Tax Planning was designed for exactly that.
The Great Wealth Transfer is usually framed as a story about scale. Cerulli Associates projects that $124 trillion will transfer through 2048, including approximately $105 trillion passing to heirs and $18 trillion going to charitable organizations. Nearly $100 trillion is expected to originate with Baby Boomers and older generations.
But the amount of money changing hands is only part of the story.
The next generation is unlikely to invest all of that wealth in the same way as the generation transferring it. Younger investors are showing greater interest in private equity, venture capital, private credit, cryptocurrency, direct real estate, commodities, collectibles, and other assets outside the traditional mix of publicly traded stocks and bonds.
As reported by The Daily Upside, 88% of Gen Z and millennial investors surveyed by Bank of America expect to increase their allocations to alternatives in the coming years. Younger respondents already allocate approximately 15% of their portfolios to alternatives, and 58% report owning digital assets.
These findings reflect a specific high-net-worth population, not Gen Z and millennials broadly. Bank of America’s 2026 Study of Wealthy Americans surveyed 1,431 U.S. respondents who were at least 21 years old and had at least $3 million in investable assets, excluding their primary residence.
The shift is not hypothetical. In July 2026, Cerulli estimated that U.S. financial advisors already allocate approximately $2.2 trillion to less-than-fully-liquid private capital. Cerulli expects advisor-intermediated ownership of those investments to grow by another $2 trillion over the next five years.
As these trends converge, the Great Wealth Transfer will become more than a transfer of money. It will become a transfer of assets that may be harder to identify, value, access, sell, divide, and manage.
A transfer of investment philosophy
Traditional discussions about generational wealth often focus on asset retention.
Will the children continue working with their parents’ financial advisor? Will the assets remain at the same firm? Will the next generation maintain the portfolio that created and preserved the family’s wealth?
Those are important questions, but they can overlook a more fundamental change. Many younger investors are not simply inheriting their parents’ assets. They are bringing a different philosophy to how wealth should be invested.
Bank of America’s research found that 77% of ultra-high-net-worth respondents, defined as those with more than $25 million in investable assets, believe that private markets offer greater investment opportunities than public markets.
Some heirs will receive alternative assets directly, including family businesses, private-company interests, investment properties, mineral rights, art, or collectibles. Others will inherit portfolios of traditional investments and then redirect part of that wealth into alternatives.
Either path can change the estate-planning equation.
A plan built primarily around brokerage accounts, retirement assets, life insurance, and a family residence may not fully address a balance sheet that also includes private funds, multiple business entities, cryptocurrency wallets, illiquid real estate, or valuable physical assets.
Why alternatives create a different estate-planning challenge
Alternative investments are not inherently better or worse for an estate plan. They are simply different.
Many publicly traded investments have observable market prices, established custody systems, and active secondary markets. Alternative assets may depend on private agreements, specialized valuation methods, restricted transfer processes, physical possession, or unique forms of digital access.
FINRA warns that alternative and complex products can be difficult to understand, may provide less information to investors than publicly offered investments, and can have limited secondary markets. In some cases, an owner may be unable to sell an investment when desired or may only be able to sell at a meaningful loss.
Those characteristics have implications that extend well beyond portfolio construction.
The asset may be missing from the financial picture
The first challenge is often visibility.
Traditional investments are generally reflected on account statements from financial institutions. Alternative holdings may be distributed across LLCs, partnerships, private funds, online platforms, digital wallets, physical storage facilities, and separately maintained legal agreements.
A client may own a minority interest in a private company, cryptocurrency on multiple exchanges, a direct blockchain wallet, shares in a venture fund, a vacation property, mineral rights, or a valuable collection. Some of those assets may not appear on the advisor’s portfolio-management system or the client’s most recent estate-planning summary.
That creates a basic but serious problem: an estate plan cannot effectively address an asset that no one has identified.
For advisors, maintaining a reliable inventory of alternative holdings is not merely an administrative task. It is foundational to understanding the client’s complete financial and estate-planning picture.
The ownership structure may determine the transfer
Alternative assets are frequently owned through entities or governed by private agreements.
A private-company interest might be held individually, through an LLC or other entity, or in a trust. A family business may be subject to a shareholder agreement or buy-sell agreement. A private fund may restrict who can receive an interest or require the manager’s consent before ownership changes.
These agreements may contain rights of first refusal, eligibility requirements, valuation provisions, purchase options, or restrictions on transferring an interest to a beneficiary.
The IRS itself directs estate-tax examiners reviewing closely held business interests to examine governing entity documents, rights of first refusal, buy-sell agreements, ownership records, and the valuation methods applied to the interest.
A will or trust may state who should receive an asset, but the asset’s governing agreement can affect whether that transfer is permitted and what process must be followed.
That makes coordination critical. The client’s estate documents, entity agreements, ownership records, beneficiary designations, and stated intentions must tell a consistent story.
Valuation becomes more complicated
Publicly traded securities generally have an observable market value. Alternative assets may not.
The value of a private business, limited partnership interest, investment property, art collection, carried interest, or other specialized holding may depend on appraisals, financial statements, market comparisons, contractual rights, and professional judgment.
For federal estate-tax purposes, the IRS generally requires property to be reported at fair market value. It also expects supporting information such as appraisals and specifically identifies closely held businesses, partnership interests, jewelry, antiques, automobiles, collectibles, and art as assets that may require additional valuation work.
Valuation affects more than a potential estate-tax calculation. It can influence insurance planning, charitable strategies, asset sales, business succession, and how property is divided among heirs.
It can also create family tension.
One beneficiary might receive a private-business interest with a high estimated value but no clear path to liquidity. Another might receive publicly traded investments that can be accessed and diversified immediately. The assets may appear equal on paper while carrying very different levels of risk, control, income, and flexibility.
A thoughtful estate plan should account for those economic differences, not simply compare estimated dollar values.
Liquidity may not arrive when the family needs it
An estate can be wealthy on paper and still lack usable cash.
Private funds may have multiyear holding periods. Investment properties can take months to sell. Family businesses may produce income but have no active market. Some private investments may also involve future capital calls or other continuing obligations.
At the same time, an estate may need cash to pay debts, taxes, administrative expenses, property costs, professional fees, or distributions to beneficiaries.
FINRA notes that many alternative and complex investments have limited secondary trading and may not be sellable when an investor wants to exit.
Without adequate liquidity planning, a family may be forced to sell an asset at an unfavorable time, borrow against other property, or use liquid assets intended for another beneficiary.
The relevant question is therefore not only, “What is the estate worth?” It is also, “How much of that value will be available when the family actually needs it?”
Digital assets require both authority and access
Cryptocurrency and other digital assets introduce an especially modern planning challenge.
A traditional financial institution has procedures for identifying a deceased account owner and working with an authorized representative. Direct blockchain assets can operate differently. Control may depend entirely on possession of a private key.
ACTEC’s 2025 guidance distinguishes between cryptocurrency held through an exchange and cryptocurrency held directly on a blockchain. With direct holdings, loss of the private key can make the asset inaccessible, with no conventional password-recovery process or centralized help desk.
Legal authority is another component.
The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act was developed to govern fiduciary access to digital property when an owner dies or becomes unable to manage it. The act extends traditional fiduciary authority to digital property, including virtual currency, while imposing additional requirements for access to certain electronic communications.
That means a digital-asset plan must address several questions:
What assets exist?
Where and how are they held?
Who has legal authority to manage them?
Where are access instructions stored?
How will the owner protect those instructions during life?
How will an authorized person gain access after death or incapacity?
A provision in a will or trust is not enough if the fiduciary cannot locate or access the asset. At the same time, casually sharing private keys can create serious security risks while the owner is alive.
The legal plan, custody approach, security process, and practical succession instructions must work together.
Equal treatment may not produce an equitable result
Alternative assets can also challenge the assumption that an estate should be divided by giving each beneficiary an identical percentage of every asset.
A brokerage account can usually be divided with relative ease. A family business, investment property, private-fund interest, or collection may not be divisible in the same way.
Family members may also want different things.
One child may want to operate the family business, while another wants liquidity. One beneficiary may feel an emotional connection to a family property, while another sees taxes, maintenance, and financial risk. One heir may understand cryptocurrency or private markets, while another may be uncomfortable taking responsibility for those assets.
Equal and equitable are not always synonymous.
Planning should consider who wants each asset, who is prepared to manage it, what obligations come with ownership, how other beneficiaries will be treated, and what process should apply when family members disagree.
Preparing heirs is as important as preparing assets
The increasing complexity of family portfolios arrives at a time when many wealthy families already question whether the next generation is prepared.
Among ultra-high-net-worth respondents in Bank of America’s study, 79% involve their advisors in estate-planning conversations with their heirs. Yet only 36% believe their heirs are very prepared to receive an inheritance.
The broader estate-planning foundation is also uneven. Bank of America found that only 46% of wealthy respondents had a will, living will or advance directive, and durable power of attorney. Although 55% had a trust, only 33% said they understood trusts well.
Alternative assets can make this preparedness gap more consequential.
An heir may inherit a concentrated private-company position without understanding the company’s governance or financial condition. A beneficiary may receive an interest in an illiquid fund with continuing capital obligations. A family member may become responsible for real estate with significant debt, taxes, or maintenance costs.
Preparing the assets is only half the work. Families must also prepare the people who will receive or manage them.
That preparation requires more than disclosing a future inheritance amount. It should help the next generation understand:
What the family owns
How the assets are structured
Why the family holds them
What risks and responsibilities accompany ownership
Who will have decision-making authority
Which professionals can provide guidance
What the family ultimately hopes its wealth will accomplish
Those conversations are more effective when they are intentional.
A Merrill Center for Family Wealth study of individuals from families with at least $50 million in assets found that 78% of recent family wealth discussions arose spontaneously, and 26% of those who participated later regretted the conversation. When families co-managed assets, 54% identified limited governance, including unclear roles and decision-making authority, as a major challenge.
Estate planning can create the structure those conversations often lack.
The advisor’s role is becoming more central
Financial advisors do not need to become attorneys, private-business appraisers, cryptocurrency custodians, art specialists, or real estate operators.
They do need to recognize when those capabilities are required.
The advisor often has the broadest view of the client’s portfolio, goals, family relationships, cash-flow needs, risk profile, and professional team. That perspective makes the advisor well positioned to identify gaps and coordinate the right specialists.
The advisor can help connect decisions that are often made separately:
The investment strategy
The ownership structure
The estate documents
The tax plan
The liquidity plan
The succession strategy
The family’s expectations
A sophisticated trust cannot solve for an asset that was never identified. A business valuation does not solve a liquidity shortage. A carefully selected investment is not fully planned for when no one knows who will manage it after the owner’s death or incapacity.
The advisor’s value is in helping turn those separate decisions into a coherent strategy.
A five-part framework for advisors
As alternative investments become a larger part of client portfolios, advisors can incorporate five practices into the estate-planning relationship.
1. Build a complete ownership map
Identify the client’s traditional and alternative holdings.
For every significant asset, document what it is, where it is held, who legally owns it, how it is titled, who currently manages it, and where the relevant agreements or access instructions can be found.
The goal is not merely a list of estimated values. It is a map of the client’s ownership and control.
2. Match each asset to its transfer path
Determine what governs the disposition of each asset.
That might be a will, trust, beneficiary designation, deed, operating agreement, partnership agreement, buy-sell agreement, transfer-on-death registration, or platform-specific process.
Any inconsistencies should prompt coordination with the client’s estate-planning attorney, tax professional, or other relevant specialist.
3. Stress-test liquidity and concentration
Evaluate how much of the estate could realistically be converted to cash, how quickly that could occur, and what costs or restrictions might apply.
Model potential taxes, debts, administrative expenses, capital obligations, property costs, and beneficiary distributions. Consider how the plan would function if markets were weak or a significant asset could not be sold on schedule.
4. Prepare heirs and fiduciaries
Help the client decide when and how to involve children, beneficiaries, trustees, executors, business successors, and other decision-makers.
The goal is not necessarily to reveal every financial detail immediately. The goal is to ensure that the people who will eventually inherit or manage the assets understand their future roles and know where to seek help.
5. Treat the estate plan as a living strategy
Alternative portfolios can change rapidly.
A new private investment, business transaction, property acquisition, cryptocurrency wallet, marriage, birth, relocation, or liquidity event can alter the client’s estate-planning needs.
Establish a regular review cadence and identify the events that should trigger an earlier conversation. Estate planning should evolve alongside the portfolio, not trail it by several years.
The Great Wealth Transfer will reward coordinated advice
The Great Wealth Transfer will not be a passive movement of assets from one generation to another.
It will also transfer investment philosophies, ownership responsibilities, family expectations, and portfolios that are likely to contain a broader variety of private, illiquid, physical, and digital assets.
The central challenge will not be choosing between traditional and alternative investments. It will be ensuring that every asset, regardless of form, is visible, properly owned, accessible, manageable, and aligned with the family’s intentions.
That work sits at the intersection of investment management, estate planning, tax strategy, liquidity planning, family governance, and financial education.
For advisors, this creates an opportunity to deepen relationships across generations. Firms that help families prepare both their assets and their heirs will be better positioned to preserve wealth, reduce conflict, and remain relevant as responsibility moves from one generation to the next.
The Great Wealth Transfer may help fuel a historic expansion in alternative investing.
It will also produce a Great Complexity Transfer. The advisors who recognize that early will be best equipped to guide families through it.
Turning complexity into a clearer picture
Technology can help advisors bring this growing complexity into view. Wealth.com integrates with more than 20 trusted platforms and enables clients to connect alternative assets such as cryptocurrency through Coinbase, private-company equity data through Carta, real estate information through Zillow, alternative investment data through Arch, and external financial accounts through Yodlee.
Wealth.com’s estate visualizations can then help advisors and clients understand what is owned, how it is owned, and how those assets may transfer across generations.
Uniform Law Commission and ACTEC digital-asset guidance.
Merrill Center for Family Wealth, family wealth conversation research.
This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, tax, or investment advice. Individuals should consult their own legal, tax, and financial professionals regarding their specific circumstances.
PHOENIX, July 29, 2026:Wealth.com today announced a strategic partnership with FMG Suite, the leading marketing technology platform for wealth management and insurance organizations. Under the partnership, Wealth.com will serve as the Exclusive Technology Founding Partner of FMG’s Institutional Intelligence program.
FMG’s network of more than 80,000 advisors and insurance professionals, as well as the enterprises that support them, will gain access to compliance-friendly estate and tax planning content. Resources will include emails, social media posts, blog articles, downloadable resources and educational marketing assets designed to help advisors engage clients around two of the fastest-growing areas of holistic financial planning.
The partnership will also introduce Wealth.com-powered estate and tax planning website tools, digital experiences and website templates for advisors. FMG’s website team can implement these assets on an advisor’s behalf, creating a turnkey solution that helps firms educate prospects, strengthen client relationships and support business growth.
As part of the partnership, Wealth.com will also develop Estate Snapshot, a website-ready tool powered by Ester®, its proprietary artificial intelligence. Prospects will be able to securely upload estate planning documents, which Estate Snapshot will analyze to generate a concise, one-page summary. This will help advisors prepare more effectively for prospect meetings while creating a new lead generation opportunity.
“Institutional Intelligence is designed to help advisors activate specialized expertise across every marketing channel,” said Susan Theder, chief marketing officer at FMG. “Wealth.com brings exceptional estate and tax planning expertise to the platform, giving advisors ready-to-use resources they can personalize, distribute and use to deepen client relationships.”
Estate and tax planning have become increasingly central to holistic financial advice, yet many advisors still struggle to consistently create timely, compliant educational content around these complex topics.
By combining Wealth.com’s planning expertise with FMG’s leading marketing platform, the partnership gives advisors professionally developed resources they can publish immediately or customize to match their firm’s brand. This makes it easier to educate clients, strengthen relationships and create more meaningful planning conversations.
“The advisors who consistently educate clients are the ones who build deeper relationships and create more opportunities for meaningful planning conversations,” said Tim White, co-founder and chief growth officer at Wealth.com. “FMG has long been the gold standard in advisor marketing, and by combining FMG’s platform with Wealth.com’s estate and tax planning expertise, we’re giving advisors ready-to-use resources that help them educate clients, engage the next generation and differentiate their firms with far less effort.”
The partnership is available immediately at no additional cost to FMG subscribers with access to its Content Library. Wealth.com and FMG will also demonstrate the new capabilities during LPL Focus, taking place Aug. 9–11, 2026.
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About Wealth.com
Wealth.com is the industry’s leading AI-powered estate and tax planning platform, empowering thousands of wealth management firms to modernize how planning guidance is delivered to clients. Purpose-built for financial institutions, Wealth.com is the only tech-led, end-to-end platform that enables firms to scale estate and tax planning with efficiency, consistency and measurable client impact.
Trusted by some of the largest names in finance, Wealth.com combines proprietary AI, enterprise-grade security and deep legal and tax expertise to support the full spectrum of client needs, from foundational estate plans to advanced estate and tax analysis and reporting. With Wealth.com Tax Planning, firms can deliver more integrated, proactive planning through a single platform.
Wealth.com has been widely recognized for innovation and leadership, earning Top Estate Planning Technology and Top Estate Planning Implementation at the 2025 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards, as well as the #1 estate planning market share in the 2025 Kitces AdvisorTech Study.
About FMG
FMG is the leading marketing and growth platform for financial advisors, insurance professionals and enterprises, empowering them to scale compliant, client-centered marketing that drives organic growth.
Trusted by more than 80,000 financial professionals reaching over 45 million U.S. investors, FMG is consistently ranked number one in market share and customer satisfaction in the T3 Software Survey Report and has been recognized by WealthManagement.com as Best Marketing Automation Platform.
An independent study found that enterprises using FMG achieved Net Promoter Scores nearly four times the industry average, along with improvements in lead conversion, client retention and time saved on marketing tasks. FMG is defining the future of organic growth for financial services firms. For more information, visit fmgsuite.com.
Trump Accounts stopped being a hypothetical on July 4, 2026. One year after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA, created them, families can now open accounts, claim the $1,000 federal seed contribution, and start making contributions. Advisors are already fielding two questions: “Should my client open one?” and “How does this fit into the estate plan?”
The first question is easy for eligible newborns or for others who may be eligible for philanthropic gifts: the contribution is free money, and there is no reason to leave it unclaimed. The second question is where advisors can immediately add value to their clients. A Trump Account is a traditional IRA wearing a new label, and that single fact drives almost every estate and tax planning consequence that follows.
What is a Trump Account?
A Trump Account is a tax-advantaged investment account for children under age 18 who have a Social Security number. Under IRS guidance, it is a traditional IRA established for the child and designated as a Trump Account at the time it is opened. The child is both the beneficiary and the legal owner. Only one funded Trump Account is allowed per child.
The account was created by the OBBBA, signed into law on July 4, 2025, and accounts became available on July 4, 2026. Families start the process by filing an election with the IRS, either through Form 4547 or the online tool at trumpaccounts.gov.
Here is how Trump Accounts compare with the accounts advisors already use for minors:
Feature
Trump Account
529 Plan
UTMA/UGMA
Custodial Roth IRA
Earned income required
No
No
No
Yes
Annual contribution limit
$5,000 from all sources, indexed after 2027
Gift tax annual exclusion as a practical limit; five-year superfunding available
None, although gift tax rules apply
Lesser of earned income or the annual IRA limit
Federal seed money
$1,000 for eligible newborns born from 2025 through 2028
No
No
No
Tax on growth
Tax-deferred; ordinary income tax applies upon withdrawal
Tax-free for qualified education expenses
Taxable annually under kiddie tax rules
Tax-free if qualified
Investment menu
U.S. equity index funds and ETFs only, with expense ratios of 0.10% or less
Options available within the plan menu
Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Withdrawals before age 18
Generally prohibited
Available at any time; taxes and penalties may apply to nonqualified earnings
Permitted for the benefit of the minor
Contributions may be withdrawn at any time
Removes assets from contributor’s estate
Yes, as a completed gift
Yes, with a five-year election available
Yes
Yes
Eligible for annual exclusion
Yes, if safe-harbor requirements are met
Yes
Yes
Yes
How do Trump Account contributions work?
The total that can be contributed to a Trump Account is $5,000 per child per year, combined across most sources, with the cap indexed for inflation after 2027. During the growth period, which ends on December 31 of the year before the beneficiary turns 18, contributions can be made without regard to the child’s earned income. Beginning January 1 of the calendar year in which the beneficiary turns 18, most special Trump Account rules fall away and the account is generally governed by traditional IRA rules.
The sources differ in ways that matter later:
Federal seed, or pilot program. A one-time $1,000 contribution for U.S. citizen children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, claimed through the IRS election. It does not count toward the annual cap, and it will be taxable when withdrawn.
Individual contributions. Anyone can contribute, including parents, grandparents, and family friends. There is no earned income requirement for the child. These contributions are after-tax and nondeductible, which means they create basis that comes out tax-free later.
Employer contributions. An employer may contribute up to $2,500 per year per employee, indexed for inflation, splittable among an employee’s children. These are excluded from the employee’s income, are pre-tax, and count toward the $5,000 cap. Employees may also redirect pay pre-tax through a salary reduction arrangement.
Qualified general contributions. Eligible governmental entities and Section 501(c)(3) organizations may fund contributions for a defined qualified class of beneficiaries through the Treasury-administered framework. These contributions are not subject to the ordinary $5,000 annual limit and generally do not create basis.
Notice the pattern: every dollar entering the account carries a tax character that determines its treatment decades from now. That is the recordkeeping burden discussed below.
How are Trump Accounts taxed?
Growth is tax-deferred. Investments are generally limited to mutual funds or ETFs tracking qualifying broad indexes composed primarily of U.S. equities, without leverage and with annual fees and expenses of no more than 0.10%.
Withdrawals are generally prohibited before age 18. Starting January 1 of the year the beneficiary turns 18, traditional IRA rules apply. Pre-tax amounts, including the federal seed, employer contributions, and charitable contributions, and all earnings are taxed as ordinary income. Withdrawals before age 59½ typically face a 10% penalty unless an exception applies, such as certain education expenses, a first-time home purchase of up to $10,000, birth or adoption costs, disability, or qualifying medical expenses. Required minimum distribution rules apply as well. After-tax individual contributions come out tax-free.
Three consequences deserve more attention than they are getting:
The deferral trade-off. Trump Accounts convert what would have been long-term capital gains in a taxable account into ordinary income. For a high-bracket family choosing between a Trump Account and a plain taxable brokerage account invested in the same index fund, deferral is not automatically a win. The taxable account gets a step-up in basis at death and preferential capital gains rates; the Trump Account gets neither. The account’s advantages concentrate in the free federal seed, the pre-tax employer dollars, and decades of compounding without tax drag.
The kiddie tax. Withdrawals of pre-tax amounts count as unearned income to the child. A withdrawal at 18 or 19, while the beneficiary is still subject to the kiddie tax, can be taxed at the parents’ marginal rate rather than the child’s. Timing withdrawals with an eye to the kiddie tax exposure is an important financial planning consideration.
The basis-tracking problem. Because after-tax contributions create basis while government, employer, and charitable contributions do not, accurate records of every contribution source must survive from the child’s birth to a withdrawal that may happen 40 years later. One helpful quirk is that Trump Accounts are not aggregated with the owner’s other IRAs when calculating the taxable portion of a withdrawal, so the usual pro-rata aggregation rule does not contaminate the analysis. But the burden of proving basis still lands on the account owner, and by extension on the advisor who wants the client’s Form 1099-R to be right.
Estate planning considerations for Trump Accounts
This is where most coverage stops and where the real questions start.
Contributions are completed gifts, but the cap does the limiting
A contribution to a child’s Trump Account is a gift to the child. Unlike gifts to 529 plans or UTMA accounts, the gift is not automatically a gift of a present interest, meaning that it does not qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion and contributions may be subject to gift taxes. In Revenue Procedure 2026-25, the IRS provided that under certain circumstances, a gift to a Trump Account would constitute a gift of a present interest.
This safe harbor is met when the taxpayer is an individual, the only taxable gifts made by the taxpayer during the calendar year are cash contributions to one or more Trump Accounts, the taxpayer’s total gifts during the calendar year to each individual who is an account beneficiary do not exceed the annual exclusion amount, the contributions do not generate gift or GST tax liability, and the taxpayer is not otherwise required to file a gift tax return.
Even if the safe-harbor provisions have been met, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient in 2026, so the $5,000 account cap, not the gift tax, is the binding constraint. An individual who wants to move meaningful wealth out of their estate will exhaust a Trump Account’s capacity almost immediately. For estate reduction at scale, the Trump Account is a rounding error next to annual exclusion gifting programs, 529 superfunding, or lifetime exemption gifts under the new $15 million exemption, or $30 million for married couples, that took effect January 1, 2026.
The account belongs to the child from day one
Unlike a 529, where the account owner retains control and can change beneficiaries, a Trump Account is owned by the child. The contributor gives up control permanently. That is a feature for estate inclusion purposes because the asset is out of the contributor’s estate, and a drawback for families who value flexibility. There is no mechanism to redirect the money to a sibling, claw it back, or gate it behind trust terms.
If the beneficiary dies, the account is in the child’s estate
Because the child owns the account, the balance is includible in the child’s gross estate at death and passes under the beneficiary designation or, absent one, under state law and the custodial agreement. IRS guidance on beneficiary designations for minors’ accounts is still developing. Advisors should flag this as an open item and revisit it as guidance lands.
After 18, every traditional IRA planning issue applies
Once the beneficiary reaches adulthood, the family has options: keep the account as a Trump Account under general IRA rules, roll it to a traditional IRA or eligible workplace plan, or potentially execute a Roth conversion, on which further IRS guidance is expected. A conversion in the beneficiary’s low-income years, such as ages 18 to 25 before peak earnings, may be the single most valuable planning move available, turning deferred ordinary income into tax-free growth at the lowest rates the beneficiary may ever see.
When the account owner eventually dies with a balance, the SECURE Act’s post-death distribution rules apply, meaning most non-spouse heirs must empty the inherited account within 10 years. Beneficiary designations, trust-as-beneficiary drafting, and distribution timing all become live issues, exactly as they are for any traditional IRA. An asset created at a child’s birth in 2026 could still be generating estate planning work in 2096.
Children with disabilities: the ABLE rollover
A beneficiary with a qualifying disability may roll Trump Account funds into an ABLE account at age 17. For families with special needs planning in place, this rollover should be coordinated with the existing special needs trust structure before the window opens.
Keeping the whole picture coherent
A Trump Account is one more asset that has to fit inside a family’s larger plan: wills, revocable trusts, beneficiary designations, 529s, custodial accounts, and insurance. The failure mode is predictable. Assets accumulate across accounts with inconsistent beneficiary designations, and no one notices until a death forces the issue. This is precisely the visibility problem Wealth.com’s platform is built to solve. Advisors can see every account, designation, and document in one place and catch the inconsistencies while they are still inexpensive to fix.
Considerations for business-owner clients
Business-owner clients should evaluate whether a Section 128 Trump Account contribution program belongs in their benefits strategy. Under Section 128, an employer may contribute up to $2,500 per employee per year, indexed after 2027, to the Trump Account of the employee or the employee’s dependent, provided the contribution is made under a separate written Trump Account contribution program. The exclusion is per employee, not per child, and the contribution counts toward the beneficiary’s $5,000 annual non-exempt contribution limit.
Employers may also allow pre-tax salary reduction contributions through a Section 125 cafeteria plan, but only for contributions to a dependent’s Trump Account, not the employee’s own account. Contributions are excluded from the employee’s gross income and are generally expected to be deductible by the employer if otherwise deductible as compensation or employee benefit expense. Advisors should coordinate with payroll and benefits counsel because current guidance does not clearly exclude these amounts from FICA or FUTA wages.
Trump Account vs. 529 plan: which should clients fund first?
For most families, the order of operations looks like this:
Claim the federal seed. If the child was born between 2025 and 2028, file the election. This costs nothing.
Capture employer dollars. If the client’s employer offers Trump Account contributions, that is pre-tax compensation the client otherwise forfeits.
Then prioritize by goal. Education savings still favor the 529. Tax-free qualified withdrawals beat tax-deferred ordinary income, and superfunding, which allows five years of annual exclusion gifts at once, makes the 529 the stronger estate-reduction tool. A custodial Roth IRA beats both for children with earned income. The Trump Account’s niche is general-purpose, no-earned-income-required investing for a child, with free government and employer money attached.
The honest summary for clients is to take the free money, use the employer channel if it exists, and review the alternatives before directing discretionary after-tax dollars here instead of a 529 or Roth.
Action items for advisors in 2026
Screen the client base for children and grandchildren born January 1, 2025, or later. Every eligible child without an election on file is leaving $1,000 unclaimed.
Talk to business-owner clients about the employer contribution as a benefits and retention play: up to $2,500 per employee per year, excluded from employee income.
Set up basis records now for any account receiving after-tax contributions. Do not wait for the custodian’s reporting to mature.
Add Trump Accounts to the estate plan review checklist, including beneficiary designation status, coordination with trusts, and the ABLE rollover window for special needs families.
Watch for IRS guidance on Roth conversions, rollovers to outside custodians, and beneficiary designation mechanics. Several important details remain unsettled.
Frequently asked questions
Are Trump Account contributions tax deductible?
No. Individual contributions are made after-tax and are not deductible. They create basis that is withdrawn tax-free later. Employer contributions are pre-tax and excluded from the employee’s income.
Who is eligible for the $1,000 government contribution?
U.S. citizen children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, with a Social Security number. Families claim it by filing an election with the IRS through Form 4547 or at trumpaccounts.gov.
Can grandparents contribute to a Trump Account?
Yes. Grandparents and other individuals may contribute, subject to the account’s combined $5,000 annual limit. These contributions are gifts to the child. Under Revenue Procedure 2026-25, certain cash contributions may qualify for a safe harbor that treats them as present-interest gifts eligible for the annual exclusion, provided all applicable conditions are satisfied.
What happens to a Trump Account when the child turns 18?
Starting January 1 of the year the beneficiary turns 18, withdrawals are permitted and traditional IRA rules apply. The account can remain a Trump Account, be rolled to a traditional IRA or eligible retirement plan, or potentially be converted to a Roth IRA, pending further IRS guidance.
Is a Trump Account better than a 529 plan?
They serve different goals. For education, a 529’s tax-free qualified withdrawals and superfunding option usually win. The Trump Account’s advantages are the federal seed, employer contributions, and availability without earned income. Most families should claim the free money in a Trump Account and direct additional education savings to a 529.
What happens to a Trump Account if the beneficiary dies?
The account is the child’s asset and is includible in the child’s estate. After age 18, standard inherited IRA rules, including the SECURE Act’s 10-year rule for most beneficiaries, govern what heirs must do with the account.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal or tax advice. Several aspects of Trump Accounts remain subject to further IRS guidance; details described here reflect guidance available as of July 2026.
David Wood, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Gateway Financial Partners, saw a gap the industry doesn’t talk about enough: referrals to estate planning attorneys mostly go out the door and never come back. As an early adopter of Wealth.com, David found a way to close that gap, using it to enhance the client experience while reaching the next generation of assets behind the money. The stakes became real for one advisor a month ago: she helped a client complete a durable power of attorney through Wealth.com, and twenty-four hours later, that client passed away. For David, it’s the clearest proof of why he calls it one of the best pieces of technology in the industry, not just for the client experience today, but for capturing the next generation of assets tomorrow.
PHOENIX – June 24, 2026 –Wealth.com, the industry’s leading AI powered estate and tax planning platform, today announced that registration is now open for EstateCon 2027, its annual conference dedicated to advancing the future of estate planning, tax planning and wealth management.
Taking place February 1-3, 2027, at the award-winning Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Montelucia in Scottsdale, Arizona, the second annual EstateCon will bring together advisors, tax professionals, technology leaders and industry innovators for three days of education, collaboration and thought leadership focused on the next generation of planning.
Building on the success of its inaugural event in 2026, which sold out in-person and attracted more than 1,500 virtual attendees from all 50 states, EstateCon has quickly established itself among the industry’s premier gatherings dedicated to advanced planning. The 2026 conference attracted senior leaders from across the financial services ecosystem, including executives from each of the nation’s five largest banks, its three largest broker-dealers and many of the industry’s leading custodians and technology providers. Following the event’s success, Kitces.com named EstateCon to its list of the best financial advisor conferences to attend in 2026.
“Estate and tax planning are no longer niche services – they have become essential components of the modern advisory relationship,” said Tim White, co-founder and chief growth officer of Wealth.com. “Our first conference brought together the leadership of the largest institutions in finance. Planning that once sat at the edge of the advisory relationship now sits at its center, and it’s becoming a primary way modern firms win and keep clients.
As wealth management firms prepare for the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, navigate rapid advancements in AI and respond to increasingly complex client needs, EstateCon provides a dedicated forum for exploring the strategies, technologies and ideas shaping the future of advice. Attendees will gain practical insights from leading experts across wealth management, estate planning, tax planning and technology while connecting with peers and industry leaders who are redefining how planning is delivered. The conference will feature:
More than 15 hours of CFP® continuing education credits
Educational sessions focused on estate planning, tax planning, AI and advanced planning strategies
com’s annual Product Keynote showcasing the latest innovations shaping the future of planning
Networking opportunities with leading wealth management firms, technology providers and industry partners
In-person and virtual attendance options
EstateCon is designed to help advisors translate complex planning concepts into meaningful client outcomes. Sessions will explore how forward-thinking firms are leveraging estate and tax planning to deepen client relationships, improve retention, strengthen multigenerational engagement and deliver more comprehensive advice. The event is expected to attract attendees from across the wealth management ecosystem, including registered investment advisors, broker-dealers, banks, trust companies, family offices and financial technology firms.
Registration for EstateCon 2027 is now open. To learn more and register, visit Wealth.com/EstateCon.
