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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 11, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I don't think CPA is going to do that. A CPA would say "talk between yourselves and decide what you want, then tell me and I'll tell you how to do it". So would any professional. If I hire a painter and I tell him I want the wall in teal and my wife wants it in beige then the painter won't mediate between us, he'll say "well, figure out between yourselves which color you want and call me when you have it".

Depends on the CPA’s specialty. If he does estate planning, trusts, etc then he might.

Sounds like you’re already retreating from talking confidently about “all of those roles” to “I don't think CPA is going to do that” and returning back to extrapolate upon all of those roles from your head-canon of the tax accountant.

So would any professional.

While one can always find low-performing financial advisors, financial planners, tax accountants, tax attorneys, and estate lawyers out there, a lot of being a professional in higher-paying client-oriented work (such as the roles mentioned above) involves proactively thinking on behalf of your client(s), describing and outlining options and tradeoffs for your clients.

Or at least, being able to convincingly portray you’re doing so even if you’re not, and telling them in the early stages “talk between yourselves and decide what you want, then tell me and I'll tell you how to do it" does not quite lend such a portrayal. Especially when what they think they want may be against their best interests or straight-up unlawful to implement.

After all, that’s what you’re supposedly there for, to share your knowledge as a knowledge-based professional—not a painter just looking to complete a wall.

The work of a tax accountant can involve a lot more than punching in numbers into TurboTax/H&RBlock for a couple if they’re not explicitly one-off flat fee clients. Even in just execution (much less planning) there can be a lot of decisions to be made with regard to a given year’s tax realization and how, and two members of a couple can have quite different opinions on how such things do, can, and/or should work.

Sure, if you pay enough, you can find a CPA which would work as your family relationship consultant. Heck, I can see a sum where I would agree to do the same (it'd be a lot of money, but still a finite sum). But that's not a typical financial advisor/CPA and not one that I have ever seen. Maybe I am just too poor to see any really good ones. But so are likely 90% of other people then.