High W-2 income is the hardest income to plan around. Most preparers will tell you there's nothing to do. That's because most preparers don't know about the rentals, the RSUs, the equity events, the cost seg study, the STR loophole, the entity restructure on the side business — the moves that actually shift the W-2 picture. We do.
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Three real things real $250K+ households told us in the last 90 days. Anonymized, verbatim where possible.
"Our W-2 taxes are getting slaughtered. We thought setting up our LLCs would help. We just didn't know enough."
$450K HHI · 5 rentals · Apr 2026
"TurboTax sucks. After $250K, you shouldn't be doing TurboTax. You want to start finding ways to avoid taxes, not just pay them."
$290K W-2 + side LLC · Mar 2026
"I'm not looking for compliance. I can do compliance. I'm looking for strategy. I'm looking for someone to protect what I'm building."
$520K W-2 + RSUs · Feb 2026
The Tax Analysis surfaces every one of these and dollarizes the impact. Here's the typical playbook when you're in this segment.
Accelerated depreciation on the components of the property (carpet, fixtures, parking, landscaping) gives you front-loaded losses. One rental study often generates $15K–$40K of paper losses that offset W-2 income via the STR loophole or real estate professional status.
Short-term rentals (average stay under 7 days) bypass the passive-loss rules. With material participation, the rental loss offsets W-2 income directly. This is one of the only legal ways to use real estate to lower W-2 tax.
If the side income clears $50K, the side business probably should be an S-corp. Even on $80K of net side income, the S-corp savings can be $5K–$12K. We model it against W-2 reasonable comp benchmarks.
RSU vesting bumps you into higher brackets. Sometimes ISO/NSO exercise triggers AMT. Sometimes QSBS Section 1202 exclusion is on the table. We model the vesting calendar against the bracket math and write the sell plan.
Mega-backdoor Roth, HSA + LPHSA, after-tax 401(k), NQDC if you have it, Cash Balance plan if you have side-business income. The stacking is where $20K+ of deferred-tax shelter usually lives.
Rentals in personal name limit deductions and expose your other assets. We model the LLC titling fix and surface what the prior preparer should have caught. Liability protection plus a cleaner tax picture.
Anonymized. Numbers are modeled year-one savings from recent engagements with $250K+ households.
"Our W-2 taxes are getting slaughtered." Cost seg on the highest-basis property, LLC titling fixes on two more, and a 1031 path their old preparer never raised. Year-one estimated savings $30K–$40K, recurring.
Single Airbnb running short-term-rental scope. Material participation documented. Cost seg study run. STR loophole generated $28K of paper losses against W-2 income in year one.
Tech executive with significant RSU vests every quarter. Rebuilt sell plan to manage brackets, opened mega-backdoor, restructured side LLC as S-corp. Year-one savings $19.5K, recurring annually.
Multi-entity scope (rentals + side LLC + W-2), multi-state if rentals are out of state, full advisory delivery. The featured tier and what 70% of our clients land on.
3-year scope · multi-entity · multi-state · cost seg + STR + 1031 modeling · RSU + equity comp planning · retirement stacking · ranked next-step list.
If you have 3+ entities, syndication positions, or $1M+ HHI, we'll route you to Strategic ($10K) on the Discovery call. If your situation is simpler (one rental, no equity comp), Standard ($2.5K) may fit.
The Discovery call is where we look at your W-2 picture, your rental picture, your equity comp, and your side income. If we don't see real opportunity, we say so. If we do, we'll have you in the analysis within 48 hours.
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