Stage 03 of 03 · The Odyssey Method
Grow. Plan the transaction before it closes.
The tax consequences of growth, decided while they can still be changed.
Expansion, acquisition, equity compensation, and an eventual sale each carry a tax consequence that is largely fixed at signing. This stage works those decisions before the transaction is complete rather than reporting them afterwards.
In depth
What grow actually involves.
Growth is where the largest single tax events in a client's life occur, and where the window to influence them is shortest. The consequence of a sale is substantially determined by how the entity was capitalized years earlier, how consideration is characterized in the agreement, and which elections were made before anyone was at the table. By the time a transaction is reported, the decisions that mattered have already been made.
The work is a pre-transaction analysis. We map the structure as it exists, model the tax consequences of the proposed deal against the alternatives actually available, identify which conditions have to be satisfied and when, and set out the sequence in which the decisions must happen. Much of that sequence runs backwards from closing, which is why it starts early.
Equity compensation is the recurring version of the same problem. A vesting schedule, an exercise window, and an alternative minimum tax corridor are all calendars, and they interact. Planning them across several years is ordinary tax work. Which securities a client should hold is not a question OSA answers, and no part of this stage is a recommendation about the investment merits of any position.
What we are optimizing for
Decisions taken while they are still open. The objective is that every tax consequence of a transaction is modeled, documented, and chosen before closing, rather than discovered when the return is prepared.
Capabilities
What happens in grow.
Composable. Activated against your facts, not bundled by default.
- Pre-transaction structuring
- How the deal is structured and how consideration is characterized drive the result. Modeled against the alternatives available, in the window when the documents can still change.
- Business exit and QSBS conditions
- Exit treatment depends on conditions satisfied long before a sale: issuance and holding history, asset composition, and the structural events that quietly break qualification. Identified and calendared early.
- Equity compensation timing
- Vesting, exercise windows, and the alternative minimum tax corridor laid out on one multi-year timeline, so recognition is scheduled rather than triggered by a default date.
- Acquisition and expansion planning
- The tax consequences of buying, building, or entering a new jurisdiction, including basis, allocation, and the state sourcing questions that arrive with the growth.
- Succession and transfer coordination
- Where a business is moving to the next generation or to a partner, the tax questions, information requirements, and professional coordination the transition will need.
- Annual recalibration
- Facts change and law changes. Positions are reviewed on a set cadence rather than revisited when something has already gone wrong.
Skipping this stage
The expensive failure. A transaction closes on terms nobody modeled, and the first full picture of its tax consequence arrives with the return, when no lever remains.
Begin
Find out where grow fits for you.
Thirty confidential minutes with a principal.
Engagements typically begin at $2M+ of annual income, or a comparable taxable event.