Tax projections and clear answers in Franklin

A tax advisor answers questions and projects what is coming, while a preparer records what already happened. The Haven site lists the advisory work as “personalized tax education, clear answers to your tax questions, and detailed liability projections.”

A liability projection is an estimate of your tax for a year that hasn’t ended. It starts from your last return and adjusts for what has changed: a raise, a business that grew, a sale of property, a parent moving in. The result tells you roughly what you will owe, which feeds straight into how much to pay in estimates and if those payments reach the safe harbor described on our tax planning page.

Education is the other half. Rules like the 2025 to 2028 deductions for tips, overtime and seniors, or the higher $2,000 threshold for Form 1099-NEC, are easier to plan around once you understand them. We explain them in plain language and in terms of your own return, so the projection makes sense to you and the next decision is yours to make with the facts in hand.

A CPA is a state-licensed accountant; a CFP® professional is certified by the CFP Board in financial planning. Haven has one of each: Mike Swartz is a CPA and Chris Bryant holds the CFP® mark.

In Tennessee, the Board of Accountancy requires a CPA candidate to hold a bachelor’s degree with 30 semester hours of accounting and 24 of business, pass the Uniform CPA Exam and the AICPA ethics exam, and meet an education and experience rule. That rule is 150 credit hours plus one year of experience, or, from January 1, 2026, 120 hours plus two years. Licenses are verified through the Department of Commerce and Insurance.

The CFP Board requires a bachelor’s degree, its registered coursework, the CFP exam, 6,000 hours of experience or 4,000 through an apprenticeship, and agreement to its Standards of Conduct.

For a client, the pairing means a tax question can be answered with the wider financial picture in view, and a financial question can be checked against its tax cost before anything is decided.

Yes, when giving financial advice. The CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct says a CFP® professional “must act as a fiduciary” when providing financial advice to a client, which means putting the client’s interests first.

Chris Bryant holds the CFP® certification, so that standard applies to the financial advice he gives clients. It is a duty attached to the advice relationship, set out in writing by the certifying body, and anyone can read it on the CFP Board’s website.

The pages of this website are a different thing. They explain how the firm works and summarize public rules from the IRS, the Tennessee Department of Revenue and the professional boards, with the source named. They are information only. Nothing here is legal, tax, investment or financial advice for your situation, and reading it does not make you a client. Advice comes from a conversation in which we know your facts, after onboarding, and it is given to you directly. Questions about the law itself belong with an attorney.

Yes. Coordination with the other professionals who advise you is part of the advisory service, and the firm states it plainly: “we collaborate closely with your professional network of advisors.”

Tax touches decisions that other people often handle. An investment advisor chooses when to sell. An attorney drafts an estate plan or a business agreement. A lender structures a loan. Each of those choices can change your tax bill, and the change is easier to manage when the people involved compare notes before the decision rather than after the return.

In practice we share the projections and the tax figures that matter to the other advisor, with your permission, and we ask them for what we need in return. Documents move through the secure client portal rather than loose email attachments. You stay in the middle of it: nothing is shared without your say, and each professional keeps their own role. Our part is the tax view, informed by a CPA and a CFP® professional, delivered in time to be useful.