How the work
actually happens
and what makes it different
The MicroTax approach is built on two methodologies, the F.A.S.T. Steps Method and the VFO Opportunity Engine, and a structural argument for why this work is fundamentally different from what a CPA, a wealth manager, or a traditional family office delivers.
The strategies are not exotic. The reason they aren't applied is structural, nobody on the client's team has the mandate to design them. The methodology exists to give that mandate to someone whose job is to hold it.
This page introduces both methodologies and the three comparison essays that follow. The methodologies explain how the work is structured. The comparison essays explain why the structure matters, and what it produces that the alternatives don't. Read in the order presented, the five pages constitute the full architectural argument behind the firm.
Two methodologies, one architecture
F.A.S.T. Steps is how we sequence the work over time. The Opportunity Engine is how we surface what to work on. Together they form the operating system of every client engagement.
The F.A.S.T. Steps Method
A four-stage advisory framework, Foundational, Advanced, Strategic, Tactical, that ensures the right work happens in the right order. Foundational shelters before strategic vehicles. The basics before the §7702 layer. Tax savings funding the next stage's advisory work. The sequence is the discipline.
Explore the F.A.S.T. method →
The VFO Opportunity Engine™
A proprietary advisory intelligence framework that systematically scans a return across 200+ strategies. Identifies dormant opportunity worth $10K–$80K+ per year that compliance-only engagements never surface. The work humans do better when the framework has already eliminated the obvious.
See the Opportunity Engine →
Why the structure matters
Methodology alone is necessary but not sufficient. The structural argument is what explains why this work produces materially different outcomes than the alternatives, and which alternative makes sense for which client situation.
MicroTax vs Traditional CPA
A CPA files returns. A strategic advisor designs tax positions. These are different jobs done by different people on different sides of the calendar. Why this isn't a critique of CPAs, and what the structural difference produces in dollar terms.
Read the essay →
MicroTax vs Wealth Manager
Why AUM-based wealth management and coordinated advisory are structurally different products, and why "comprehensive planning" labels typically describe the former rather than the latter. The fee model is the tell.
Read the essay →
MicroTax vs Traditional Family Office
The same model, organized differently. What the VFO model takes from the traditional family office, what it changes, and the income tier at which the trade-offs make sense in either direction.
Read the essay →
Four stages, in order
The full methodology is at F.A.S.T. Steps Method. The summary here exists so this page works as a stand-alone introduction.
The stages run in order. A client at Stage 03 has already completed 01 and 02; a client whose Foundational layer isn't right cannot be moved into Strategic work until that's fixed. The discipline is in the sequence.