Answer Tax Season Before The First Phone Call.
The 1099 Letter is one page that tells each client which tax forms to expect, from which custodians, for which accounts — and when it is actually safe to file. Written in your firm's voice, signed with the advisor's name, ready for the CPA's folder.
Built and used every week by Micah Shilanski and Matthew Jarvis, the advisors behind The Perfect RIA.
The Most Predictable Fire Drill On The Calendar.
No part of the year is more predictable than tax season, and none generates more inbound confusion. Which accounts make which forms. Why the consolidated 1099 is not there yet. Whether the Roth counts. Whether to file now. Multiply by every household, every February, forever — or answer all of it once, on one page, before the first form mails.
The default February
“Any updates?”- The client doesn't know which forms are coming, or from where.
- They file in early February off whatever arrived first.
- The corrected 1099 lands in March. Hello, amended return.
- The CPA discovers the accounts one form at a time.
- “Did we pay estimated taxes this year?” Nobody remembers.
- Every one of those questions becomes a call to your office.
With the letter
Answered- “Here are your accounts, and the form each one produces.”
- “The Roth generates nothing this year — that's normal.”
- “Issuers correct 1099s into March. We file after they settle.”
- “You paid $18,480 in estimated taxes. It's listed, with dates.”
- “Hand this page to your tax preparer.”
- The call you get in February is a thank-you.
Form expectations shown are the letter's actual logic — taxable accounts produce a 1099, retirement accounts a 1099-R when distributions occurred, and a quiet Roth shows a dash. Every delivered letter computes from the household's actual accounts; the estimated-payments figure is an example.
A Letter, A Table, And A Filing Plan.
It reads like a letter because it is one — written in your voice, personalized per household, and built from their actual accounts. Here is the shape of it.
A simplified excerpt, using the demo household. On the delivered letter your firm's own prose fills every paragraph, an estimated-tax-payments table totals what was paid during the year, and your logo, title and disclaimer frame the page.
- A letter, in your voice
- Salutation, intro, reminders and closing are written by your firm once in Settings — with variables for the household, tax year and advisor that fill in bold on every copy.
- Every account, every form
- Account, type, owner, custodian and the expected form — 1099 for taxable accounts, 1099-R for retirement distributions, 5498 where it applies.
- The quiet Roth, handled
- An account producing nothing this year prints a dash instead of disappearing, so nobody wonders whether something was missed.
- Estimated payments, receipted
- Every estimated tax payment made during the year, with dates and a bold total. A receipt for planning work the client forgot happened.
- The filing calendar
- Forms available by February 16th. Issuers correct into March. File in late March or early April to avoid amending. The advice that saves the do-over.
- Built for the CPA's folder
- One page that tells the tax preparer exactly what to expect before the first form arrives — with your firm's name at the top of it.
- Overrides when you know better
- Any account's form can be set by hand, from 1099-DIV to 5498-SA, and per-account notes print in the Notes column.
- The right tax year, automatically
- Before April 15 the letter reports last year; after, the current one. Or pin the year manually in Settings.
- Your firm everywhere
- Your logo, your title, your prose, your disclaimer — signed with the advisor's name above the footer.
- Live until you freeze it
- The letter recomputes when account data changes, and every delivered version is saved as a timestamped snapshot with your meeting notes.
The Letter Arrives Before The Confusion Does.
Value-Adds work when they answer a question the client was about to ask. Nothing on the calendar is more askable than tax season — and this is the only page in the packet that clients hand to another professional with your name on it.
It answers the call before the call
Which forms, from which custodians, and when to file — the three questions behind nearly every February voicemail, settled before the first form mails.
It travels to the CPA
Most value adds live in the client's drawer. This one gets handed to another professional — who sees your firm being proactive, with your logo at the top of the page.
It makes invisible work visible
The estimated-payments table is a receipt for planning the client forgot happened. Dated, totaled, in bold — proof of value no market return can take credit for.
Your team runs it, not you
Forms are inferred from account types, the prose is written once in Settings, and the letter assembles itself for every household in the Surge packet.
One Sentence In It Saves A Do-Over.
Issuers correct 1099s into March. Every advisor knows it; almost no client does. So clients file the first week the software opens, the corrected form lands three weeks later, and someone pays to amend a return that never needed amending. The letter's one sentence — wait until late March — quietly deletes that entire loop.
A client who knows what is coming does not call to ask about it. A client who files at the right time never learns what an amended return costs. Both of those are the letter working.
Every word is your firm's — salutation, intro, reminders, closing — edited once in Settings and personalized per household with bold-filled variables. The tax year resolves itself on an April 15 cutoff, and the accounts table computes from account types, with per-account overrides when you know better.
The First Value-Add Of Every Year.
The tax letter is the classic first-quarter deliverable in the Perfect RIA system — timed to land as tax season opens, before the first form mails. It wins twice: the client feels guided through the one season they dread, and the office stops fielding the questions a page could have answered.
It rides in the Surge Packet next to the Homework Sheet, the net-worth statement and the retirement-income one-pager — the same packet, in the same order, for every household on the calendar.
And it is the packet's most repeatable page. The prose is written once. The accounts refresh themselves. The letter regenerates every year with the new tax year in bold — the work happens once, and the value shows up every February after.
SurgeTK is built by The Perfect RIA, the team that popularized Surge and Value-Adds and teaches them to advisors across the country.
Send It Before The Forms Land.
The 1099 Letter proves itself on a schedule no other Value-Add gets: the IRS provides the deadline and your clients provide the questions. Beat both once, and the letter sells itself. The test costs one household.
Have your team enter one household by hand.
Accounts with types and custodians — that is all the letter needs. Add estimated tax payments if you helped make them. Manually, just the one.
Write your letter once in Settings.
Salutation, intro, reminders, closing. The variables fill in each household's name, tax year and advisor in bold, on every copy.
Deliver it before the first form mails.
Then count the February calls that never come, and ask the CPA what they thought of the page with your logo on it.