Accounting
LGBTQ financial planning for second Trump administration
Financial planners who work with LGBTQ clients are helping them prepare for a potential rollback of civil rights under President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration.
Expressing empathy for
“Being a great listener” and understanding that “people are going to have unease about investments specifically” when they believe that their rights are under attack can go a long way, said Lindsey Young, founder of Baltimore-based registered investment advisory firm
“It’s just recognizing that it could be a hard time,” Young said. “It’s just saying, ‘I’m here to help you.’ Saying that is really important.”
READ MORE:
Marriage rights are rightfully getting “a lot of attention when it comes to the political battle for human rights, and rightfully so,” according to Leighann Miko, founder of Los Angeles- and Portland, Oregon-based RIA firm
“Often as planners, we default to our technical skills to plan the risk away,” Miko said. “While helpful and usually the reason our clients seek us out, it’s equally important to provide a safe space for our clients to express their fears and concerns, especially as it relates to their financial lives. As a marginalized community that has had to fight tooth and nail for basic human rights, LGBTQ clients are exhausted. Be patient, be willing to see things through a different lens, and listen with empathy.”
Even before the election, LGBTQ advocates had been tracking a surge in
For 2.7 million LGBTQ people over the age of 50, the rankings for the best states to retire in vary greatly from a list that doesn’t take their civil liberties into account,
“Including even a minimal consideration of a state’s treatment of LGBTQ people would result in a different ranking of states altogether,” MAP wrote in the report. “MAP’s research team decided to compare Bankrate’s analysis to our publicly available data on state policy to illustrate how state rankings can change dramatically when you incorporate laws and policies that shape the lives and experiences of LGBTQ people. Our findings show strikingly different results and highlight a very different set of considerations for LGBTQ adults deciding where to spend their golden years.”
READ MORE:
As inviting as a new state may seem when considering policies, clients will need to weigh factors such as whether their residence may affect their pension and a possible higher cost of living if they depart from a southern state to a coastal state like California or New York, Young noted. Since fear can lead to
“The big thing is to say, ‘Let’s step back and run the numbers.’ I think there’s a temptation among many people to say, ‘I’m going to move, I’m going to get out and we’ll figure it out when we get there,'” Young said. “If they were to move, it actually makes them feel much more confident with that move, as opposed to just panicking.”
In terms of the possible challenges to same-sex marriage, advisors and their clients could seek second-parent adoptions, update the beneficiaries listed in a will or a trust or purchase life insurance to cover estate taxes if one of the spouses dies, Miko noted. Those possible steps come on top of other necessary ones, if there is a Supreme Court decision overturning same-sex marriage rights or if individual states pass their own restrictions, she said.
“Many of the pre-2015 safeguards will have to be implemented once again, which still don’t quite level the playing field compared to legally recognized marriage rights,” Miko said. “For example, a non-married partner does not automatically inherit assets upon the death of a partner, and, in community property states, the surviving partner would not receive the tax benefit of a full step-up in cost basis on the inherited asset, such as a home.”
READ MORE:
She and Young pointed out how marriage affects the policy of unlimited gifts between spouses without estate taxes and the requirement for clients to get current and valid power of attorney and advanced health care directive documents on file.
“The good thing is that there are many LGBTQ estate attorneys who have been doing this for decades,” Young said. “That provides the best protection against potential changes in the law.”
Big Four firm PwC announced new agentic AI capacities, including a model that proactively identifies areas of value leakage and acts inside the tools teams already use to fix them itself.
The new solution,
The software, which is supported by PwC’s recently released
The system connects directly into ERP environments, continuously monitors key metrics, and acts inside the tools teams already use. For example, a supply chain agent might detect rising shipping costs and automatically reroute deliveries to reduce spend. Finance agents can spot and correct billing errors before they reach the customer. Clients typically see measurable efficiency gains in the first quarter, with continued improvements over time as the system learns and adapts.
“Too many transformations still rely on one-off pilots and stale data, stretching the gap from insight to impact and suffocating ROI,” said Saurabh Sarbaliya, PwC’s principal for enterprise strategy and value. “Agent Powered Performance flips the economics by distilling PwC’s industry transformation playbooks into AI agents that turn static insights into compounding gains, without rebooting each time.”
Agent Powered Performance is platform-agnostic and built on an open architecture so it can work across different LLMs based on client preferences and task-specific needs. It works with major enterprise platforms including Oracle, SAP, Workday and Guidewire.
Agent OS Model Context Protocol
PwC also
By integrating this standard, agent systems registered as MCP servers can be used by any authorized AI agent. This reduces redundant integration work and the overhead of writing custom logic for each new use case. By standardizing how agents invoke tools and handle responses, MCP also simplifies the interface between agents and enterprise systems, which will serve to reduce development time, lower testing complexity, and cut deployment risk. Finally, any interaction between an agent and an MCP server is authenticated, authorized and logged, and access policies are enforced at the protocol level, which means that compliance and control are native to the system—not layered on after the fact.
This means that agents are no longer siloed. Instead, they can operate as part of a coordinated, governed system that can grow as needs evolve, as MCP support provides the interface to external tools and systems. This enables organizations to move beyond isolated pilots toward integrated systems where agents don’t just reason, but act inside real business workflows. It marks a shift from experimentation to adoption, from isolated tools to scalable, governed intelligence.
Research Composer
Finally, a PwC spokesperson said the firm has also launched a new internal tool for its professionals called Research Composer, a patent-pending AI research agent embedded in the firm’s ChatPwC suite, designed to accelerate insight generation by combining web data with PwC-uploaded content.
Professionals will use the Research Composer to produce in-depth, citation-backed reports for either the firm or its clients. The solution is intended to enhance the quality of client work by equipping teams with research and strategic analysis capabilities.
The AI agent prompts users through a step-by-step research workflow, allowing them to shape how reports are packaged—tailoring the output to meet strategic needs. For example, a manager in advisory services might use Research Composer to evaluate white space opportunities across industries or geographies, drawing from internal reports and up-to-date market data.
Eide Bailly, a Top 25 Firm based in Fargo, North Dakota, is growing its presence in the Pacific Northwest by adding Traner Smith, based in Edmonds, Washington, effective June 2, 2025.
Traner Smith’s team includes two partners and 16 staff members and specializes in tax compliance and advisory services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Eide Bailly ranked No. 19 on
Eide Bailly already has offices in Seattle, but hopes to grow further in the Pacific Northwest. “We’re pleased to welcome the talented team at Traner Smith to Eide Bailly,” said Eide Bailly managing partner and CEO Jeremy Hauk in a statement Monday. “Their expertise with high-net-worth individuals, real estate and privately held businesses aligns well with our strengths, and their client-centric approach is a perfect cultural fit. Having an office in Edmonds, Washington, is a great complement to our existing presence in Seattle. Together, we’re poised to deliver even greater value to families and businesses in the Seattle metro area.”
“Joining Eide Bailly is a natural next step for us — it provides access to deeper technical resources in areas like state and local tax, national tax, succession planning and international tax while allowing us to continue the personalized service our clients value,” said Kevin Smith, a partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
“With this expanded support and platform, we’re excited to grow our reach, elevate what we do best, and help more clients than ever before,” said Shane Summer, another partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
Eide Bailly has announced several other mergers in recent weeks. Earlier this month, it added
In 2023, Eide Bailly added
Top 100 firm
“We began working with Knuula in Spring 2024 to streamline our engagement letter process,” said Don Murphy, Managing Member of BMSS. “It quickly became clear that Knuula was not only a strong solution for us, but also an ideal partner in advancing industry-wide automation.”
While the specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, a spokesperson with Knuula said that, after this investment, BMSS and a collection of 21 of their partners now own 13% of the company. The investment represents not some passive revenue deal but an active collaboration between the two companies, with the spokesperson saying they will be working closely together on things like product development, new features, improvements, and networking.
The deal comes about a year after Knuula integrated with QuickFee, a receivables management platform for professional service providers, which allowed users to have engagement letters directly connecting to their QuickFee billing platform, tying the execution of the letter directly to the billing process.
“We’ve long sought to partner with a firm focused on strategic innovation in the accounting space,” said Jamie Peebles, founder of Knuula. “To develop a perfect solution for large firms, it is ideal to have a partner that is willing to work closely together and iterate quickly. This requires constant feedback between our two teams. The IT team from BMSS worked with our development team constantly and helped us iterate rapidly. We also had consistent input from partners, manager, and administrative staff to help us make valuable changes to Knuula. BMSS was a perfect partner for us.”
PwC AI agent acts proactively to preserve value
Eide Bailly merges in Traner Smith
BMSS announces investment, collaboration with Knuula
New 2023 K-1 instructions stir the CAMT pot for partnerships and corporations
The Essential Practice of Bank and Credit Card Statement Reconciliation
Are American progressives making themselves sad?
-
Accounting1 week agoEssential Strategies for Maintaining Data Security in Modern Bookkeeping
-
Finance1 week agoAmerica failing its young investors, warns financial guru Ric Edelman
-
Economics6 days agoCPI inflation April 2025: Rate hits 2.3%
-
Finance1 week agoPowell may have a hard time avoiding Trump’s ‘Too Late’ label even as Fed chief does the right thing
-
Economics1 week agoTariff receipts topped $16 billion in April, a record that helped cut the budget deficit
-
Economics1 week agoChecks and Balance newsletter: The election of Pope Leo XIV goes beyond American politics
-
Personal Finance5 days agoHouse Republicans advance Trump’s tax bill. ‘SALT’ deduction in limbo
-
Economics4 days agoViolent crime is falling rapidly across America