When to Move From DIY Taxes to a CPA

Long Angle is a private, vetted global community of accomplished entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals who have reached meaningful financial milestones and want to navigate wealth with peers who understand their challenges, opportunities, responsibilities, and ambitions.

Hosted by the founders of the Long Angle community, Navigating Wealth is a podcast for founders, executives, and investor operators who have built significant wealth. Each episode features a guest with an unusual career journey and deep expertise across some aspect of the economy, investing, family, health, or lifestyle.

In this episode, Tad Fallows, Sriram Gollapalli, and Matt Shechtman discuss the inaugural 2025 Long Angle Professional Services Benchmarking Survey. The hosts analyze spending patterns and satisfaction levels across financial services, personal services, and family-related services for individuals with $5M to $200M in net worth.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why 20% of high net worth individuals don't use CPAs and 42% are considering switching

• The surprising dissatisfaction gap between personal trainers (9.3/10) and personal assistants (6.7/10)

• AUM vs. fee-based wealth management models and why satisfaction varies dramatically

• Estate planning costs ranging from $9K to $35K for similar services

• The challenge of finding quality personal trainers and virtual vs. in-person service delivery

• Whether the future lies in à la carte services or bundled family office solutions

• Public vs. private school decisions among wealthy families (nearly a 50/50 split)

Links:

• 2025 Long Angle Professional Services Survey: https://www.longangle.com/research/high-net-worth-professional-services

• Long Angle Community: https://www.longangle.com/apply-now-nw

• Subscribe to Navigating Wealth's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.longangle.com/navigating-wealth-podcast

Chapters: 

00:00 - Welcome to Navigating Wealth: Professional Services Survey

02:27 - CPAs & Tax Preparation

15:07 - Wealth Management: The AUM Pricing Dilemma 

24:28 - The Family Office Satisfaction Model

25:24 - Personal Trainers: Highest Satisfaction at 9.3/10

25:48 - Personal Assistants: The Low Satisfaction Problem

29:08 - What Makes Executive Assistants Valuable 

31:01 - Finding Quality Personal Services 

37:44 - Estate Planning 

38:41 - The Estate Attorney Search & Price Variance 

41:14 - Why Estate Planning is So Hard To Evaluate 

42:01 - Key Takeaways & Next Steps 

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