CPAs and Advisors Partnering to Make Your Financial Life More Efficient

CPAs and financial advisors rarely communicate, much less strategize for clients together, according to the Harvard, Rice, and Berkeley-educated investment advisor Daniel Rogowski, based in McKinney. A Five Star Wealth Manager for five years running who has been featured in Fortune, Texas Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal, the Texas Hill Country native and Eagle Scout wanted to change that. “I would have never thought, when I was younger, that I would be an advisor. I started college wanting to be a doctor and working in banking as a means to pay tuition. I tell all my clients, ‘I got sucked into finance and it never let me go.’” But he and his clients knew there was a missing ingredient.

Analytics and Alternatives

“I’m a mega nerd,” said Rogowski. The U.C. Berkeley-trained data scientist studying machine learning relishes applying the methods to the field of investing. In these precise, exacting standards, he sees integrity. “In finance, there’s often no analytical rigor. It can feel like some advisors pick their stocks by throwing darts at a board. I don’t stock pick. I want to maintain an analytics focus while keeping clients’ best interest at heart.”

Rogowski worked at Merrill Lynch before striking out on his own and becoming an independent fiduciary. When he left, he took a few sophisticated financial planning tools with him. His clients can now custody at multiple banks, while having access to alternative investments like private credit and private equity. Structured notes protect investments from market downturns, he told us, but they’re often considered the purview of the wealthy. But no rule dictates that only billionaires should benefit.

Rogowski put those tools, and many others, within reach for clients who had often never heard of them. “There’s nothing fancy about buying the S&P 500 within a structured note rather than a fund, but it makes a substantial difference over the long-run in a portfolio. That’s risk management,” he said. But even the best investment advisor can only go so far alone.

Taxes and Texas

It all came down to tax season. To put it simply, “You want your CPA to sit with your advisor and give feedback,” said the advisor. Many effective tax-mitigation strategies are based on investments, but CPA-level expertise optimizes tax planning. Understanding the efficiencies to be gained from integration with a CPA, Rogowski went on a mission. He scoped a CPA search to the best in the field and was magnetized to John Harman. With 35 years of experience, Harman’s McKinney-based firm Harman CPAs & Associates’ stellar reputation stood out. Focused on quality of service, Harman was just as eager to remain an industry leader by offering undeniably superior experience, and Harman Rogowski & Associates was born.

Born to a humble economic background in Fort Worth, Harman graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in accounting. He would then explore the world, traveling to Africa for work as a CPA, toiling while surrounded by men wielding machetes and witch doctors guarding payroll. Before founding his CPA firm, he ran a real estate company, and worked in tax software developing with Lacerte (later acquired by Intuit).

“Most CPAs don’t usually build a connection with clients, but John’s clients want to come back to have a chat with him because he’s so fascinating,” said Rogowski. “He’s able to carry a conversation with you and talk about traveling the world, but he’s doing math while having the conversation with you and doing a return. He’s a very talented mathematician who never got into that field.”

Similarly, Harman sang Daniel’s praises. “Most kids from the Texas Hill Country don’t end up at Harvard,” said Harman of his partner. After graduating from Harvard, he came home and earned an MBA from Rice University in Houston and is now enrolled in postgraduate studies at Berkeley.

Money in the Bank

In more ways than one, tax preparation is a numbers game. John Harman says his team prepares around 2,000 returns a year, and does taxes for around 900 businesses. Aside from investment advice, he finds tax breaks his clients may qualify for based on the changing rules each year and much more, routinely finding errors in previous returns filed with some of the major tax preparation services his clients used in prior years. One client paid more than $80,000 in taxes “over what she should have based on the options she was granted by her company,” he said. “We got that money back for her.”

Other clients benefit from suggestions around strategies such as tuition reimbursements and how to put your children on the payroll. But tax planning is just that, a proactive plan best implemented early. “Tax planning is a year-long process,” said Harman. In his partner’s view, it’s much more.

“A lot of CPAs want to file your return, get it out the door, and collect the fee. They don’t tell you you could have been an S-Corp or taken a Section 179 to buy this car,” he said. “The CPA doesn’t have an incentive to tell you that. Every minute spent giving you tax advice is a minute not filing a return, which is how they make money. On both of our businesses, planning and investment advice, we want to be advice-based instead of transactional,” he said. With combined expertise, the two synergize to client advantage.

In the future, Harman Rogowski & Associates hopes to continue to scale up, bringing a law firm on board to help with estate planning, wills, and other sophisticated tax plans. “We want to be the one resource for clients in their financial life they know they can trust,” said Rogowski. The upshot is money in the bank.