Tax preparation is typically done after the tax year and is focused on accurately reporting what happened in your financial life and the impact on the amount of tax you will be refunded or need to pay. Effective Tax Planning should be happening throughout the year. The purpose is to help drive decisions that legally minimize the amount you pay in taxes during that year and over your lifetime.

Tax planning can help with decisions such as:

1. Exercising stock options and making 83b elections
2. Implementing Charitable giving strategies like donor-advised funds and bunching charitable deductions
3. Harvesting capital losses and gains
4. Roth Conversions
5. Comparing the value of pre-tax versus Roth contributions
6. Utilizing available tax credits.

It is often valuable to run several scenarios as the tax code is complicated and, in many places, non-linear.