Tax Advisory Training That Helps You Put Tax Knowledge Into Practice
Level Up Quest helps CPAs, Enrolled Agents, tax preparers, and tax professionals develop the skills to move beyond tax preparation and confidently deliver tax planning and advisory services.
Learn how to identify planning opportunities, evaluate strategies, explain recommendations in plain English, lead better client conversations, price advisory work, and follow through with implementation.
NASBA & IRS-Approved CPE/CE · Weekly Live Sessions · Practical, Real-World Training
What Is Tax Advisory Training?
Tax advisory training teaches tax professionals how to go beyond preparing and filing tax returns and provide proactive guidance that helps clients make better tax decisions.
Knowing tax strategies is only part of the job. An advisor also needs to know how to recognize an opportunity, determine whether it fits the client, evaluate the potential impact, explain the recommendation clearly, guide the client through the decision, and help make sure the strategy is properly implemented.
Tax knowledge provides the foundation. Advisory requires learning how to apply that knowledge with real clients.
How Level Up Quest Builds Better Tax Advisors
Three connected pieces, working as one system. Not three separate ideas.
Know What to Look For
Tax Frameworks help you recognize planning opportunities and work through them when client situations change.
Know How to Advise
The LEAD Framework gives you a repeatable process for moving from conversation to evaluation, recommendation, implementation, and verification.
Practice Doing It
Learn → Practice → Apply through the Weekly Sprint, live workshops, scenarios, calculations, and client conversations.
Knowing Tax Isn't the Same as Delivering Advisory
Tax education can give you technical knowledge. Advisory requires a different set of skills on top of it.
Knowing Tax
- Understand tax law
- Learn technical concepts
- Know available strategies
- Understand rules and requirements
Delivering Advisory
- Identify the opportunity
- Ask the right questions
- Evaluate whether it fits
- Explain it clearly
- Make a recommendation
- Guide the client through the decision
- Implement and follow through
- Verify the result
Implementation Is Where Value Happens.
A Framework for Turning Tax Knowledge Into Advisory
Level Up Quest uses the LEAD Framework to teach tax professionals how to move a client from the first conversation through evaluation, advice, implementation, and results.
Listen
Understand the client's situation, ask better questions, uncover needs, and identify potential planning opportunities.
- Ask
- Discover
Evaluate
Gather the information, determine which strategies actually apply, calculate the potential impact, and consider feasibility and risk.
- Compare
- Calculate
Advise
Explain the recommendation in plain English, show the client the potential impact, recommend a course of action, and guide the client through the decision.
- Recommend
- Decide
Deliver
Implement the strategy, track what needs to happen, maintain appropriate documentation, follow through, and verify the result.
- Implement
- See the tax savings
LEAD is a connected process, not four separate skills. It shows that Level Up Quest teaches a repeatable advisory process you can use with every client.
Know What to Look For When Client Situations Change
Clients bring you situations. Frameworks help you know where to take the conversation next.
Each Level Up Quest Tax Framework is built around a specific client situation, giving you a structured place to start the conversation.
How the system works
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Client situation
“We’re expecting a baby. What should we be thinking about for taxes?”
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Use a situation-specific framework
CHILD Framework
The framework built for this type of client situation.
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Know how to lead the conversation
A structured starting point
- Know what to ask.
- Know what to investigate.
- Know where to take the conversation next.
DIFFERENT SITUATIONS. DIFFERENT FRAMEWORKS.
The same approach extends across the recurring situations tax professionals see again and again.
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Client has or is considering an S corporation
S-Corp Framework
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Client is expecting a baby or has dependents
CHILD Framework
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Client receives stock options
Stock Option Framework
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Client has self-employment income
Schedule C Framework
The library keeps growing as new recurring client situations are identified.
When a client brings you a situation, you have somewhere to start.
Advisory Is a Skill. Skills Need Practice.
“I’m thinking about buying a rental property.”
One client statement can open the door to an advisory conversation.
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Learn
Recognize the trigger
The concept being learned
Members learn to recognize this as a planning trigger, a signal that something is changing in the client’s financial life and worth investigating before jumping to an answer.
Don’t start with the tax answer. Start by understanding what the client is trying to do.
Connects to LEAD: Listen — the stage where advisory begins.
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Practice
Sample training exercise
Work the situation
Scenario. Your client mentions they are thinking about buying a rental property. Before you say anything about taxes, work through what you need to know first.
Your turn
What would you ask this client next?
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“What are you hoping this property will do for you?”
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“When are you planning to buy?”
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“How do you plan to use the property?”
What else would you need to know before giving advice?
Illustrative exercise shown as a designed representation — not a screenshot of member activity. Example questions only, not a complete checklist.
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Apply
Take it to the client
What goes back to your practice
The next time a real client says, “I’m thinking about buying a rental property,” you recognize the trigger — and you know how to begin the advisory conversation.
The takeaway- Recognize the trigger
- Ask better questions
- Investigate before recommending
One exercise doesn’t make you a rental-property expert. It builds the reflex.
Learn it → Practice it → Apply it
Level Up Quest training is designed around application, not just information. Members learn the concepts, practice using them, receive feedback, and develop the confidence to apply what they learn. To see this approach in practice, browse the Level Up Quest resource library.
Live Zoom workshops use this same Learn → Practice → Apply approach. The CHILD Framework workshop currently in development is being designed around this same model. Participants will work through client scenarios and practice what to do when a client says, "We're expecting a baby. What should we be thinking about for taxes?"
You Don’t Just Watch. You Participate.
Advisory is built through practice, not just watching. The Weekly Sprint gives members a place to learn something practical, work through it with other tax professionals, and turn it into something they can use with clients or in their firm.
- Learn Practical tax strategies, client advisory, firm improvement, and AI.
- Practice Knowledge checks, scenarios, role-play, and group problem-solving.
- Participate Ask questions, share ideas, discuss real situations, and learn from other tax professionals.
- Progress Set action steps, share wins, stay accountable, and keep moving forward.
You might be asked to…
- Answer it “Test what you just learned.”
- Discuss it “Share how you’d approach it.”
- Solve it “Work through a scenario or problem.”
- Apply it “Take something back to your clients or firm.”
The format changes based on the week’s topic. Not every Weekly Sprint includes every activity.
Also in the learning environment: interactive workshops, e-courses, and CPE/CE opportunities.
CPE Doesn't Have to Be Passive
Level Up Quest offers NASBA & IRS-approved CPE/CE through interactive training. Members work through scenarios, practice client conversations, ask questions, and participate in live sessions.
You earn CPE/CE while developing advisory skills you can actually use with clients.
Who Is Tax Advisory Training For?
CPAs · Enrolled Agents · Tax preparers · Solo tax practitioners · Tax professionals moving into advisory · Tax firm employees developing client-facing skills · Tax firm owners developing an advisory practice and team
Solo Practitioner
Become a stronger advisor yourself.
Tax Professional / Employee
Develop advisory and client-facing skills.
Firm Owner
Become a better advisor while developing people and systems that allow advisory work to happen beyond the owner.
Become a Better Advisor. Build a Stronger Tax Firm.
Learn From Someone Who Built a Tax Firm
Phuc Ly, EA, is the Founder of Level Up Quest and a tax advisory educator and mentor. After more than 20 years in the tax industry, Phuc built a tax firm from the ground up, grew it into a 17-person, seven-figure practice, and sold the firm in 2023. Today, he helps tax professionals become better advisors and helps tax firm owners develop the people and systems needed to deliver advisory at scale.
Tax Advisory Training FAQ
Ready to Become a Better Tax Advisor?
Build the tax knowledge, client communication skills, frameworks, and implementation process to confidently deliver advisory services.