By Dr. Tamara Patzer
In brief: With the top 1% of New York filers starting near $959,562, owners at that level usually have a lawyer, an accountant, an investment manager and an insurance agent. The risk a New Orleans tax attorney keeps pointing to is that none of them sees the whole picture. This feature explains how the gap shows up and how owners can close it.
By the time a New York owner reaches the top 1% of earners, which a 2026 estimate puts at about $959,562 of adjusted gross income for the state’s filers, the owner usually has a team. There is a lawyer for the company, an accountant for the returns, an investment manager, an insurance agent and, sometimes, an estate attorney. New Orleans tax and estate attorney Todd M. Villarrubia, author of Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™, says the weakness in that arrangement is not the quality of any one of them. It is the lack of anyone who sees the whole.
How Do Advisers End Up Working Alone?
Because each is hired for one job at one time. The company lawyer arrives when the business is formed. The accountant is chosen for the tax return, and the investment manager for a portfolio. The estate attorney comes later, often after a health scare or a birth. Each does good work in a lane.
The trouble starts when the lanes meet. Villarrubia’s book gives a plain example of the result: “The estate attorney might structure a generation-skipping trust that conflicts with the family’s planned liquidity event.” The trust may be well drafted, and the sale may be well planned, yet the two cannot both go ahead as written.
What Does That Look Like In Practice?
In the book’s telling, the same pattern appears in several forms. An estate attorney drafts the documents and never coordinates with the tax strategy. A financial adviser chases returns without fully weighing the tax or estate consequences. Each action is sensible, and the combined effect is not.
There is also a quieter version. Estate planning can fail because the lawyer does not understand the business. In Villarrubia’s words, “Estate planning strategies could be ineffective because your attorney doesn’t understand your business structure.”
Why Does This Matter More Near The Top?
Because the stakes and the number of moving parts both rise. For tax year 2023, a filer needed about $676,000 of adjusted gross income to land in the top 1% nationally, and that group paid about 38.4 percent of federal individual income tax, according to the Tax Foundation. An owner at that level has more entities, more states and more events to coordinate.
The estate side adds a threshold of its own: the IRS lists $15,000,000 per person as the 2026 basic exclusion amount. A company worth many multiples of that can put an estate over the line regardless of how the owner lives. The plan to deal with it touches the lawyer, the accountant and the family at once.
What Does A Coordinated Team Look Like?
The book describes the ideal as a group of specialists, each covering a field, who work as one. One line captures the intent: “While these individuals are valuable resources, they don’t form a cohesive team on their own.”
The attitude matters as much as the structure. Villarrubia writes that “your attorney should view your CPA and financial advisor as partners, not competitors.” A team that treats each other as competitors will protect its own work first. A team that treats each other as partners will protect the plan.
None of that requires a particular firm or model, and it does not mean replacing anyone who is doing good work. It requires someone with authority to convene the group, a shared document that shows the whole picture, and a habit of meeting on a schedule.
How Can An Owner Start Without A New Firm?
Three simple steps do most of the work:
- Put every adviser’s name and role on one page, and add the date of the last conversation with each.
- Share the same list of entities, owners, and planned events with all of them.
- Hold one meeting a year where they are in the same room, or on the same call.
The point is not that this fixes everything. It is that it shows where the gaps are. In a good meeting, the owner will hear one adviser say that another’s advice changes the picture. That is the sign it is working.
Villarrubia’s measure of the value is blunt: “the question is not whether they can afford coordination, but whether they can afford to operate without it”.
What Belongs On The Agenda Of An Annual Meeting?
A good agenda is short. It begins with changes in the family and the business since the last meeting: births, deaths, marriages, new entities, new states, a sale on the horizon. It then asks each adviser for anything in their field that touches another adviser’s work. Last, it assigns a name and a date to each follow-up.
The tone matters. The goal is not to find fault. It is to make sure that the lawyer knows what the accountant knows, and the reverse. One hour in a year, set aside on purpose, can save an owner from the quiet conflicts that otherwise surface at the worst moment.
What Is A Good First Email To The Advisers?
A short one. Name the three questions you want answered, name the advisers you want to hear from and propose two times for a call. Ask each to bring one concern about the others’ work. Keep your tone curious and not accusatory, because advisers who feel blamed will protect themselves. Copy everyone on the same message so nobody learns about the meeting second-hand. After the call, write a half-page summary of decisions and send it to the group the same day. Advisers who see that you follow up tend to treat the meeting as part of the job, not an interruption.
Common questions
Do I Need A Family Office?
Not every family does. The book says the right answer depends on the number of entities, the states involved, and the stage of the family.
Who Should Convene The Advisers?
Usually the owner, with help from whichever adviser has the best view of the whole.
What If My Advisers Resist Meeting?
That is information. A professional who will not talk to the rest of the team may not be the right fit for a complex plan.
Sources
- SmartAsset, Income Needed to Be in the Top 1% in Every State (2026)
- Tax Foundation, Who Pays Federal Income Taxes? Tax Year 2023
- Internal Revenue Service, What’s New: Estate and Gift Tax
About the author. Dr. Tamara Patzer is a publisher and former newspaper editor. She was on the staff of The Charlotte Sun when it was named a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for its Hurricane Charley coverage.
About the source. Todd M. Villarrubia is an attorney with an LL.M. in Taxation and a Juris Doctorate. He is an Accredited Estate Planner, a Board Certified Expert in Estate Planning and Administration, and a Fiduciary Investment Advisor Representative. He is the author of Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™.
Wealth Planning Law Group
101 W. Robert E. Lee Blvd., Ste 404, New Orleans, LA 70124
Phone: 504-982-8207 | Email: todd@lawealthplan.com
Website: Wealth Planning Law Group
Disclaimer: Attorney advertising. Sponsored feature written on behalf of Todd M. Villarrubia. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Results vary.
