End-to-End Tax Planning & Estate Planning Services

A financial advisor focuses on growing and managing your investments, retirement income, and overall financial strategy, while an estate planner specializes in legal structures like wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations to control asset transfer after death. Sentinel bridges both worlds—we coordinate the financial side of estate planning (account titling, tax-efficient withdrawal strategies, beneficiary coordination) and collaborate with estate attorneys when legal instruments like trusts or complex documents are needed. This integrated approach ensures your financial plan and estate plan work seamlessly together.

Minimizing taxes requires strategic coordination across your taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free accounts. We analyze your entire portfolio to design withdrawal sequences that reduce your lifetime tax liability—using techniques like Roth conversions during low-income years, tax-loss harvesting to offset gains, Qualified Charitable Distributions to satisfy RMDs tax-free, and carefully timed Social Security claiming strategies. By modeling your tax brackets across decades and adjusting annually, we help ensure you keep more of what you've saved.

A will directs asset distribution after death, but it doesn't avoid probate—a public, court-supervised process that can delay transfers and expose your estate details. Trusts, by contrast, allow assets to pass privately and immediately to beneficiaries, bypass probate entirely, and offer greater control over timing and conditions of inheritance. If you have significant assets, minor children, blended family concerns, or privacy priorities, a trust is often the more protective choice. We review your situation to determine if a trust serves your goals and coordinate with attorneys for proper setup.

Estate plans generally remain valid across state lines, but state-specific laws—particularly around estate taxes, inheritance taxes, and trust recognition—can significantly impact your strategy. For example, Connecticut has an estate tax exemption lower than the federal level, while Maryland imposes both estate and inheritance taxes. If you relocate, we review your plan to ensure beneficiary designations, account titling, and trust structures align with your new state's rules. We serve clients across nine states and proactively monitor for changes that could affect your legacy.

We work as an extension of your existing tax team, not a replacement. Our role is to model multi-year tax scenarios, propose strategies like Roth conversions or tax-loss harvesting, and design withdrawal sequences that reduce lifetime tax liability. We share projections and strategies with your CPA so they can execute the reporting and ensure compliance. This collaboration ensures your investment decisions and tax filings are perfectly aligned—maximizing efficiency while avoiding costly mistakes or missed opportunities.

Yes. Blended families require especially careful planning to ensure both current spouses and children from prior relationships are protected fairly. We help structure trusts, beneficiary designations, and asset titling to honor your wishes while minimizing conflict and unintended disinheritance. Common strategies include qualified terminable interest property (QTIP) trusts, life insurance to equalize inheritances, and staged distributions. We collaborate with estate attorneys to create legally sound structures that preserve family harmony and ensure everyone you care about is provided for.

We recommend reviewing your estate plan every three to five years, or immediately after major life events—marriage, divorce, births, deaths, significant asset changes, relocations, or changes in tax law. Outdated beneficiary designations, old account titling, or misaligned trust provisions can unintentionally disinherit loved ones or trigger unnecessary taxes. We proactively monitor your plan for consistency and alert you when updates are needed, ensuring your estate structure evolves as your life does.

Roth conversions allow you to pay taxes now on tax-deferred accounts, converting them into tax-free Roth IRAs that grow and distribute without future tax liability—for you or your heirs. This strategy is especially powerful when you're in a lower tax bracket, expect future tax rates to rise, or want to leave a tax-free inheritance. Roth IRAs also avoid Required Minimum Distributions during your lifetime, giving your assets more time to grow. We model conversion strategies across multiple years to minimize the tax impact while maximizing long-term family wealth.