A private wealth client with $13M in investable assets came to Rubiq after years at a major private bank. On paper, everything looked fine — a dedicated private banker, access to research, a branded client portal. In practice, he was tired of chasing down 1099s and K-1s every spring, and no one at the firm could answer the simplest question: what can I do to lower my tax bill?

Important Disclosure: This case study is a hypothetical illustration based on a composite of client experiences. Details have been modified to protect confidentiality. The results depicted are not guaranteed, may not be representative of all client experiences, and should not be interpreted as indicative of future performance. Individual outcomes will vary based on market conditions, tax situations, and other factors.

The Private Bank Problem

Private banks and wirehouses serve clients with $5M to $30M in assets — substantial portfolios by any measure. But even at this level, the experience often falls short. The client is one of hundreds on a banker's book. There are resources and research available, but no one tying it all together. And the product shelf is curated — not because every option was evaluated and the best ones selected, but because the firm's profit-sharing model among its investment partners determines which strategies make the menu.

This client's experience was typical of what we see:

  • Tax documents scattered across multiple custodians and account types, with no coordination at tax time and no proactive strategy to reduce the annual bill
  • An investment portfolio built from the firm's approved product list — solid but generic, missing the tax-efficient and alternative strategies that a $13M portfolio warrants
  • No integration between investment management, tax planning, estate planning, and liability protection — each lived in a separate silo with a separate contact
  • No accountability for outcomes — quarterly reports showed performance relative to a benchmark, but no one ever asked whether the overall plan was actually working
"He didn't leave because the returns were bad. He left because no one could answer the one question that mattered: what are we actually doing to protect and grow this in a tax-efficient way?" — Rubiq Advisory Team

Building a Tax-Efficient Investment Strategy

The first thing we addressed was the investment portfolio itself. The private bank had the client in a mix of mutual funds and model portfolios — reasonable holdings, but entirely off-the-shelf. There was no tax management layer, no loss harvesting, and no consideration of how the portfolio's structure interacted with his broader tax picture.

We implemented a long/short direct indexing strategy across his taxable accounts. Instead of holding index funds, we own the individual securities — allowing us to harvest tax losses on specific positions throughout the year while maintaining full market exposure. The short component generates additional offsetting losses, creating a persistent tax alpha that compounds over time. For a client in the highest marginal bracket, this approach can generate meaningful savings every single year — the kind of value his private bank never delivered because it wasn't on their menu.

Alternatives to Lower Portfolio Risk

The private bank portfolio was almost entirely public equities and fixed income — a standard 60/40 with minor tilts. For a $13M portfolio, this was a missed opportunity. We introduced a meaningful allocation to alternative investments — including private credit, structured notes, and interval funds — designed to reduce correlation to public markets and dampen overall portfolio volatility.

These aren't exotic instruments for their own sake. They serve a specific role: lowering the risk profile of the overall portfolio without sacrificing return expectations. The private bank had access to some alternatives, but the internal approval process and profit-sharing dynamics meant the best options often never made it to the client's desk.

Real Estate for Tax-Efficient Income

Income generation was a priority, but the client didn't want to create more tax liability in the process. We built a real estate allocation designed to deliver income with built-in tax efficiency — combining private REITs that generate distributions sheltered by depreciation with direct real estate strategies that take advantage of cost segregation and pass-through deductions.

The result was a durable income stream that didn't simply add to his taxable income the way bond interest or dividend-paying stock funds would. Instead, each dollar of real estate income carried its own tax shield — turning what had been a purely pre-tax exercise at the private bank into an after-tax income strategy that put more money in his pocket.

Estate Coordination

The client had an estate plan — trusts, wills, powers of attorney — drafted by a competent estate attorney. But no one at the private bank had ever looked at whether the investment strategy was aligned with the estate plan. Assets were titled inconsistently. Beneficiary designations hadn't been updated in years. The trust provisions assumed an asset structure that no longer matched reality.

We worked directly with the client's estate attorney to align everything. Account titling was corrected to match trust provisions. Beneficiary designations were updated to reflect current intent. Investment allocations were adjusted to account for the different tax treatment of assets held inside and outside of trusts. For the first time, the investment plan and the estate plan were actually speaking to each other.

Liability Protection: Tenants by Entirety

The final piece was one the private bank had never raised: liability protection. The client and his spouse held significant assets jointly, but the titling was standard joint tenancy — which offers no protection from individual creditors. A judgment against either spouse could reach every jointly held asset.

Because their state recognized tenants by entirety ownership, we restructured the titling of their jointly held assets into this form. Tenants by entirety shields property from the individual creditors of either spouse — only joint creditors can reach the assets. It's a simple, powerful form of protection that costs nothing to implement and provides meaningful insulation against professional liability, business disputes, or personal judgments. The private bank never mentioned it. Most don't — because asset titling doesn't generate revenue.

The Outcome

Within the first year of the engagement, the client had:

  • A tax-efficient investment portfolio powered by long/short direct indexing — generating persistent tax alpha that his private bank's approved product list could never deliver
  • A diversified allocation to alternatives that reduced portfolio risk and lowered correlation to public market drawdowns
  • A real estate income strategy built for after-tax efficiency — combining private REITs and depreciation-sheltered structures to maximize what he actually keeps
  • Full coordination between his investment strategy and estate plan — with titling, beneficiary designations, and trust provisions finally aligned
  • Liability protection through tenants by entirety — a zero-cost structure that shields jointly held assets from individual creditors, something the private bank never educated him on

The portfolio didn't change dramatically in size. What changed was everything around it — the tax efficiency, the risk profile, the estate alignment, and the protection layer. For the first time, someone was accountable for tying it all together. That was the difference.