Confession: I used to say that paying taxes is a rich person's problem. Honestly? I still believe that. It's not even a joke — it's just true. If you're stressing about your tax bill, it means something worked. Money got made. Somewhere along the way you stopped bleeding and started earning. So here we are. Officially taxpayers. And I'm genuinely, truly happy about it. 🎉 But nobody warns you about the next problem: once you're actually generating taxable income like a functioning adult, you need an accountant who does more than photocopy last year's return with new numbers plugged in. Turns out that's somehow harder to find than the money was to make in the first place. We're on our third CPA firm in a few years. Big name, forgettable service. It's like dating — great logo, terrible communication, ghosts you right before something important. Here's my theory, and someone please tell me I'm wrong: The US tax industry has a weird gap in the middle. CPAs do compliance — they file the form, they don't want to own the strategy. Tax attorneys do structure — but they bill like you're being deposed, and they only show up once things are already on fire. Nobody in the middle wants to say "here's what I'd do if I were you" and sign their name to it. Everyone will give you an idea. Almost nobody will give you a position they're willing to defend if the IRS calls. Genuine question, not rhetorical — argue with me in the comments: Is this just how the US market works — compliance and structuring are permanently different professions, different insurance, different billing models, deal with it? Or is this industry sitting there, fat and slow, just waiting for someone to build the CPA-slash-strategist-slash-"I'll actually stand behind this" firm that treats advice like a product instead of a liability to avoid? Someone here has to have already solved "advisor who has skin in the game." Who is it? Asking for a friend who just discovered that a big tax bill is basically a trophy.