Stage 02 of 03 · The Odyssey Method
Protect. Separate what is exposed.
The tax consequences of how you hold what you own.
Ownership, entity, and transfer decisions all carry tax consequences. This stage models them and coordinates the plan with the attorneys you engage to draft and implement any legal structure.
In depth
What protect actually involves.
Most people at this income hold significant assets in their own name, often titled in ways nobody has reviewed since acquisition. Changing that has tax consequences: transfers, valuation, basis, entity classification, and reporting. Those consequences should be modeled before anything moves.
Exposure runs across two spheres. The commercial sphere is operating liability, professional exposure, and partnership disputes. The personal sphere covers family and transfer questions. Both are shaped by ownership decisions, and both are easier to plan before a claim or a transition than after one.
OSA provides the tax analysis and the coordination. Entity formation, trust drafting, and advice on creditor protection are legal services, provided only by separately engaged counsel. No structure makes assets untouchable, and we do not suggest otherwise.
The standard we work to
Every ownership change modeled for tax before it is made, and documented well enough that a reviewer years later can see exactly why it was done that way.
Capabilities
What happens in protect.
Composable. Activated against your facts, not bundled by default.
- Entity structure review
- The tax consequences of separating operating activity from held assets, including classification, elections, and the reporting each entity will carry.
- Trust tax analysis
- How revocable, irrevocable, and grantor trusts are taxed on your facts, so the structure your attorney drafts is chosen with its income, gift, and estate tax consequences known.
- Timing and sequencing
- Transfers planned while nothing is pending, with the tax cost of each step modeled in advance. Timing affects both the tax result and how a structure is later viewed.
- Family and transfer questions
- Gifts, intra-family transfers, and ownership between spouses and generations each carry tax consequences. Identified early and coordinated with your counsel.
- Titling and ownership review
- How each asset is actually titled, reconciled against how you believe it is titled. This is where most plans are quietly already broken.
- Estate and transfer alignment
- The protection structure and the transfer plan designed together, so that one does not undo the other a decade later.
Skipping this stage
Assets are retitled or moved into entities without a tax analysis, and the cost arrives later as a gain, a lost election, or a reporting failure nobody anticipated.
Begin
Find out where protect fits for you.
Thirty confidential minutes with a principal.
Engagements typically begin at $2M+ of annual income, or a comparable taxable event.