Partner content by Tal Binder, Founder and CEO of Gelt.
For years, a large multi-generational family office had followed the traditional model for their tax operations: build an internal team, keep full control, and rely on long-tenured staff for continuity.
By 2024, this approach started to show serious cracks:
Talent Shortage: After two retirements and one failed senior hire, the office faced a revolving door of tax staff.
Rising Costs: The four-person tax team carried an annual overhead of $1.2 million, including salaries, benefits, and technology spend.
Risk Exposure: Despite heavy investment, the office suffered multiple amended filings and missed planning opportunities due to outdated processes.
Scaling Pressures: With new private investments and an expanding philanthropic foundation, tax complexity outpaced internal capacity.
The CFO recognized that they were overpaying for underwhelming results and needed a more strategic solution, which prompted them approaching us.
3-Steps To Restructure Tax Operations
Instead of recruiting again into a shrinking talent pool, we guided the family office toward a leaner, more resilient model:
1. Strategic Outsourcing
We transitioned compliance and planning to our Gelt tax team, with a dedicated partner-level advisor for family office structures. This reduced in-house staffing from four FTEs to one senior finance professional who now coordinates strategy, achieving a 40% lower cost than the prior in-house model.
2. Embracing Technology
We applied technology in three key ways: implementing AI-powered compliance reviews to detect filing errors before submission; introducing proactive tax-saving alerts tied to capital calls, cross-border distributions, and gifting events; and using automation for quarterly estimated payments to eliminate manual tracking.
3. Family-Office Alignment
We structured the service to match family governance, with quarterly board presentations, monthly check-ins, and custom reporting for trustees. And we integrated with the family’s philanthropy arm to optimize charitable deductions and foundation compliance.
Results: Leaner, Smarter, and More Strategic
With this new model, the family office now operates with confidence, saving over $500,000 annually through reduced headcount, lower overhead, and captured planning opportunities.
They experienced zero missed deadlines or amended returns in the first year under the new structure. And with improved clarity and governance, board members now receive consistent, data-driven reporting on tax exposures and opportunities.
Aside from existing benefits, they now operate a future-proofed structure that can scale with acquisitions, new family branches, and evolving regulations.
“We realized we were spending over a million dollars a year on an in-house tax team—and still missing opportunities. Partnering with Gelt not only saved us more than half a million annually, it gave us sharper insights and a structure that will serve the next generation.”
— Family Office CFO
From Cost Center to Strategic Advantage
This case illustrates the new reality that family offices - and many family businesses - can’t ignore: tax operations no longer need to be an expensive in-house function.
With the right partner, families can reduce overhead, gain access to deep expertise, and turn taxes into a strategic lever for wealth preservation and growth.
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Tal Binder is the Founder and CEO of Gelt, an innovative company that combines expert CPAs from top‑tier firms with advanced AI technology to deliver comprehensive tax solutions for family offices, businesses and high‑net‑worth individuals across the United States.
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