Trilogy Financial launches an affiliated tax and consulting business

Trilogy Financial has launched Trilogy Tax & Consulting, an affiliated company that will prepare returns and provide consulting for the Irvine, California firm's individual, family and business-owner clients. The stated purpose is narrower than the name. The affiliate is meant to help Trilogy's advisors connect clients with tax professionals, identify tax planning opportunities, and integrate tax mitigation strategies into financial plans.

Jeff Motske, the firm's co-founder, president and CEO, described the addition as a continuation of building capabilities through Trilogy's affiliated businesses, and said that as clients' financial lives become increasingly complex it matters to offer services beyond traditional investment management. He tied the launch to the firm's ongoing focus on partnership, organic growth and delivering differentiated resources that help advisors serve clients better.

Plenty is left open. The coverage does not say how the tax unit will be staffed or how it will price its work. Nor does it say whether the people preparing returns will sit inside the affiliate or work alongside it as outside preparers, or whether the unit will take on households that are not already Trilogy advisory clients. Those details decide whether an affiliate becomes a second line of business or a referral service carrying the firm's name.

The case for bringing tax work inside is easy to make and slow to prove. Return preparation runs on a deadline, while the planning decisions that cluster around it, such as which entity holds a business, how much to convert in a given year, or when to realize a loss, tend to carry tax consequences an advisor would rather hear about first. An advisor absent from that conversation usually learns the outcome afterward.

Trilogy has a base to test the idea on. Founded in 1999, the firm runs 10 regional offices and reports more than $5 billion in advisory and brokerage assets, and in March 2024 it announced an investment by Toronto-based private equity firm Peloton Capital Management. Existing clients supply the first prospects, and a financial backer supplies room to run the experiment without the affiliate having to pay for itself in its first season.

Whether the tax team is employed by the affiliate or simply introduced by it is the detail that separates a business Trilogy owns from a service Trilogy advertises. A unit that hires and pays preparers has a profit and loss statement to defend and a reason to be folded into every plan review; an introduction desk has neither, and duplicates something clients can find on their own.