Mar 5, 2026
We are excited to welcome a friend of the show, Brent Sullivan
of The Tax Alpha Insider. We discuss all things Tax Alpha as the
investment puzzle is different when it comes to taxable investors.
I have been fortunate to have known Brent since the very beginnings
of his Tax Alpha Insider Newsletter, a highly successful, focused
publication in the wealth management space. I often say that he
could become the Michael Kitces of Tax Alpha. Brent is also behind
the first Tax Alpha Conference, Basis Northwest, in Seattle on May
28th and 29th, which I will be attending.
Brent has an interesting career background, both corporate and
entrepreneurial. As mentioned before, he is the Founder of The Tax
Alpha Insider, as well as the Basis Northwest Conference. He was
also a Software Engineer at Parametric, who is the godfather of
direct indexing. Before that, he worked in Investment Banking and
Asset Management. Brent holds a Masters of Engineering from Cornell
University (Financial Engineering/Statistics), as well as a
Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of
California, Riverside.
In this episode, we discuss all things Tax Alpha, as this is our
first interview with Brent. We talk about the reasons he decided to
launch this, why Tax Alpha is important now, and how this is one of
the best times in history to be a taxable investor with all of the
tools available. We discuss everything from householding/asset
location, to direct indexing, to tax-aware long-short, buffer
ETF’s, 351 exchanges, advisor launched ETF’s, assets that shouldn’t
be used for taxable investors, collars/variable prepaid forward
contracts, heartbeat trades/ETF share classes, box loans, tax alpha
as a volatility buffer, trader funds, etc. We also discuss the
impact of AI on advisors and taxable investing, as well as taking
the other side, why not just pay the taxes and keep things
simple.
Today's hosts are Steve Curley, CFA
(Co-Managing Principal, 55 North Private Wealth)
& co-host Chris
Cannon, CFA (CIO/Principal, FirsTrust).
Please enjoy the episode. You can follow us on Twitter & LinkedIn
or at investorsfirstpodcast.com
Learn more:
https://www.taxalphainsider.com/
https://www.basisconf.com/