How Much Does a CPA Cost for Complex Returns and High-Net-Worth Investors
Written By: Ryan Morrison
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Four in five Long Angle members use a CPA. Of those, 42% are considering switching - and another 4% are thinking about stopping altogether. That level of dissatisfaction sits alongside an average satisfaction rating of 7.1 out of 10, the lowest of any financial service in the survey. The problem isn't primarily what people are paying. It's what they're getting for it, and whether what they're getting is what they assumed they signed up for.
This post draws on the 2025 Long Angle High-Net-Worth Professional Services Survey, conducted among 114 Long Angle members with a median net worth in the $10M-$25M range, alongside a roundtable discussion among the Navigating Wealth hosts who analyzed the findings. It covers what verified high-net-worth investors actually spend on CPAs, wealth managers and estate attorneys - and what the satisfaction data reveals about where most of the friction lives.
TL;DR
Median CPA spend among Long Angle members is $3,000/year; satisfaction averages 7.1/10, the lowest of any financial service in the survey
42% of CPA users are considering switching - driven primarily by slow responsiveness and a lack of strategic counsel, not by cost
49% of members use their CPA for filing only; 47% use them for both filing and tax strategy - most dissatisfaction lives in the gap between what clients expect and what CPAs define as their job
32% of members use a wealth manager; of those, 56% pay AUM and 33% pay a flat annual fee - median annual spend is $10,000
52% of members have a trust and estate attorney - usage rises sharply with net worth but is not correlated with age
Personal trainers score 9.3/10 satisfaction at $5,000/year - the highest of any service in the survey
What the Survey Actually Shows About CPA Costs
The median annual spend on CPA or tax services among Long Angle members is $3,000. That number is easy to benchmark against - but it obscures significant variation based on return complexity, number of entities and how many K-1s flow through a given return.
A useful heuristic that emerged in the survey discussion: roughly $10-$15 per page of tax return. A 400-page return with multiple K-1s and multi-state filings should run somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000. When members compared notes, they found wide inconsistency - one person paying $6,000 for a 400-page return with 30 K-1s, another paying $10,000 for a 200-page return. Part of that variance is complexity, but part of it is that CPAs structure their fees differently with no shared framework. Some charge per K-1, others charge a flat rate that absorbs K-1s, and clients rarely know which model they're in until they see the bill.
For high-net-worth investors with complex private market portfolios - those with dozens of K-1s, multiple entities filing in several states and a mix of W-2 and pass-through income - comprehensive tax planning and return preparation can run $2,000-$7,500 per year, with costs higher in major metros and for returns with foreign reporting requirements. The $3,000 median in the survey reflects a broad sample including members with relatively straightforward returns.
Why K-1s and Multi-Entity Returns Drive Up Cost and Confusion
K-1s are the single biggest source of pricing opacity in the CPA relationship at this wealth level. A return for someone with W-2 income and a standard stock portfolio is a materially different job from a return with a dozen K-1s from private fund investments, a real estate partnership and an S-Corp. The complexity compounds: multiple states, depreciation schedules, passive activity tracking and basis calculations all add time that translates directly to fees.
As Tad noted in the discussion: "I think my tax return was something like 500 pages last year, and I don't consider myself exceptionally complex." For someone in the Long Angle demographic with several private market investments, 500 pages is not unusual. The key question to ask any CPA before engaging them: do they charge per K-1, and if so, how much? The answer tells you more about what you'll actually pay than any stated hourly rate.
The $3,000 Median and How to Use It
The survey median of $3,000 is a useful floor check, not a target. If your return is several hundred pages with multiple K-1s and multi-state filings, paying $3,000 is a signal worth investigating - either your CPA is pricing your complexity incorrectly, or they are only providing processing services and not actual planning. Neither is necessarily wrong, but you should know which one you're buying.
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The Real Reason CPA Dissatisfaction Is High
The top two complaints among Long Angle members who are dissatisfied with their CPA are that their CPA is slow to respond and not strategic or proactive. Cost is not the primary driver. This matters because it points to a structural mismatch rather than a pricing problem.
Matt Shechtman put it plainly in the discussion: "A lot of CPAs would probably tell them upfront, oh, we don't do that at all. We take inputs and make outputs. And if people knew that upfront, then there would probably be a lot less consternation." The survey data confirms this: 49% of members use their CPA solely for filing, while 47% engage them for both filing and tax strategy. The dissatisfaction is concentrated among people who assumed strategic counsel was included when it wasn't.
The distinction matters at this wealth level. Someone earning $1M or more annually is not going to notice the difference between a $4,000 and a $7,000 tax preparation fee. What they notice is whether their CPA is proactively flagging timing decisions on charitable contributions, identifying structure choices before they become locked in or calling them in Q3 rather than October. That's a fundamentally different engagement than showing up in February with documents and waiting for the return.
The survey also found a notable consistency between satisfaction and switching intent. Three-quarters of CPA users say they're satisfied or extremely satisfied - yet 42% are considering switching. This gap likely reflects a "good enough but open to better" posture: members aren't furious, but they've compared notes with peers and suspect there's a higher standard available.
What to Ask a CPA Before Engaging Them
The scope conversation needs to happen before any engagement letter is signed. Specifically: does the CPA include strategic tax planning, or are they providing filing services only? How do they handle K-1s - per form, bundled, or absorbed into a flat fee? Do they proactively reach out during the year when a decision has tax implications, or only during filing season? Will they communicate with a wealth manager or estate attorney if coordination is needed?
Most CPAs will answer these questions directly. Many will also clarify that planning is not part of their model, which is useful information. If you want strategy and your CPA only does processing, you need a different provider - not a different CPA firm necessarily, but possibly a tax attorney or a separate tax strategist in addition to the filing CPA.
When Tax Strategy Requires a Tax Attorney, Not a CPA
There's a category of decisions - structuring around a business exit, navigating aggressive deduction strategies, responding to an IRS audit - where a CPA is the wrong call and a tax attorney is the right one. Tad's observation from the discussion applies here: "Just because the CPA recommended it is no defense. The IRS is still mad at you for going through it." When the stakes involve legal interpretation of gray areas in the tax code rather than filing accuracy, attorney privilege and legal expertise matter in ways that CPA credentials don't cover.
The survey data captures this tension in the dissatisfaction numbers. Members who feel their CPA isn't being strategic may actually need a tax attorney for the planning layer and a CPA for filing - a split engagement model that the most complex situations often warrant.
Wealth Management Fees - What the Survey Found on AUM vs. Flat Fee
Just 32% of Long Angle members use a wealth manager. Of those, 56% pay a percentage of assets under management and 33% pay a flat annual fee. Median annual spending is $10,000. One in four of current wealth management clients is considering switching, and nearly one in five is considering stopping altogether - making wealth management the financial service with the weakest retention in the survey.
The retention problem reflects a structural incentive argument that Matt articulated well: "The client doesn't want to be charged extra just because they have more money, which makes sense. And the advisor doesn't want to be paid significantly less than their peers." The AUM model charges more as assets grow, with no necessary corresponding increase in work. At $10M, 1% AUM is $100,000 per year. At $20M, it's $200,000. Most of the underlying portfolio management work does not double.
The fact that a third of members who use wealth managers are already on flat-fee structures is meaningful. The conventional narrative is that fee-only and fixed-fee advisors barely exist at this wealth level. The survey suggests otherwise. Sriram's experience post-exit was illustrative: a fixed-fee advisor at $4,000-$6,000 for the first year to help establish strategy, with additional hourly time for specific decisions. That model - an initial engagement at a set price, retainer-style for ongoing work - is what a growing cohort of advisors are offering.
For more on how wealth management fee structures work across the HNW demographic, see Wealth Management Fees for High-Net-Worth Individuals.
What Fee-Only Financial Advisors Actually Charge
Fixed-fee and hourly wealth advisors exist at meaningful scale. Rates for a comprehensive initial engagement typically run $5,000-$10,000. Ongoing advisory retainers for periodic check-ins and plan updates tend to run a few thousand dollars per year, with additional hourly rates for project-specific work. Some advisors structure this as a transparent initial fee plus an hourly rate - the model that Matt compared favorably to how high-end law firms bill.
The challenge is finding them. Unlike AUM advisors who are well-represented through every major brokerage channel, flat-fee and hourly advisors tend to build practices through referral rather than distribution. Peer referral is the most reliable discovery mechanism at this wealth level - asking someone a few years ahead of you in a similar financial situation who they use and whether they'd recommend them.
When the Self-Managed Path Makes More Sense
70% of Long Angle members do not use a wealth manager. The hosts discussed why that's not irrational: with low-cost index funds, direct access to private market opportunities through communities like Long Angle and accessible Monte Carlo planning tools, the case for a 1% AUM fee on a $10M portfolio is harder to make than it was ten years ago. The calculus shifts when complexity requires active management - concentrated positions, illiquid private market portfolios, tax-loss harvesting at scale, or coordination across multiple entities. For someone with a straightforward allocation to index funds and a few private funds, the value proposition of an ongoing AUM advisor is genuinely thin.
Comparing notes on professional service costs is one of the most common uses of the Long Angle community - and one of the most useful.
When members share what they're paying their CPA, their estate attorney or their wealth manager, they often find they're either overpaying for a narrower scope than they assumed, or underpaying in ways that reflect gaps in service quality. That kind of peer-level benchmarking is hard to find anywhere else.
Estate Planning - The 52% Gap and Why It Persists
Just over half of Long Angle members - 52% - have a trust and estate attorney relationship. That figure climbs sharply with wealth: 44% of those under $5M, 43% of those at $5M-$10M, 57% of those at $10M-$25M and 69% of those at $25M+. Strikingly, the survey found no correlation between age and estate planning usage. Asset complexity, not life stage, appears to be the primary driver of whether someone engages an estate attorney.
The estate planning gap is harder to explain than the CPA gap because the financial stakes are more obvious. For anyone above the federal estate tax exemption threshold who will likely remain there by the time they pass, the absence of a plan is a structural problem, not a gap in attention. Sriram's experience is instructive: after interviewing four attorneys, he received quotes ranging from $9,000 to $35,000 for essentially the same scope of work - a revocable trust, updated will and health care proxies. Hourly rates across the same four interviews ran from $400 to $1,200. The survey's median annual spend of $5,000 covers ongoing relationships, not initial setup.
"You may never know how good it was," Sriram noted in the discussion. "When it's used - it's like, okay, hope it worked out." That observation captures the evaluation problem precisely. Estate planning is a service where competence is almost impossible to assess before the work is tested, and where the person who would most benefit from a good plan isn't around to verify whether it held up.
The most reliable path to finding a competent trust and estate attorney at this complexity level is peer referral - specifically, someone who has used that attorney for a situation similar to yours: multiple entities, private investments and a family structure that requires real planning rather than a template. The survey supports project-based billing as the norm: 57% of estate planning clients are billed per project, with roughly a third on hourly arrangements.
Personal Services - Why Trainers Score 9.3 While Personal Assistants Score 6.7
Personal trainers are the highest-rated service in the entire survey: 9.3 out of 10 average satisfaction, with almost three-quarters of clients reporting they are extremely satisfied. The median annual cost is $5,000. Personal assistants, by contrast, score 6.7 with a median annual cost of $18,000 - the same satisfaction rating as lawn care and rental property managers.
The gap is not primarily a value problem. Tad described specific high-leverage use cases where a personal assistant makes a material difference: navigating insurance denials through the medical system, managing household scheduling across multiple children's apps and activities. Those are genuinely high-value functions. The problem is discovery and setup. There is no reliable marketplace for personal assistants at the level of specificity this demographic needs - someone who can work fractionally, handle complexity and work remotely without a significant onboarding investment.
Personal trainers are different in a structural way. The relationship is in-person by default, which builds accountability and rapport quickly. The result is visible and fast - the service either works or it doesn't within a few weeks. Personalization - cited consistently as the most valued quality - is a natural function of in-person work. The challenge is simply finding one who fits the constraints: the survey discussion highlighted that even with a strong intent to hire, Tad spent significant time reaching out to dozens of trainers before finding someone who met basic availability and location requirements.
The highest-rated personal services in the survey - trainers at 9.3, sports coaches at 8.4, therapy at 8.3 - share a common characteristic: they are relationship-driven, in-person or nearly so, and clients have complete freedom to stop using them at any point. The lower-rated services - personal assistants at 6.7, rental property managers at 6.7 - tend to involve remote relationships, harder-to-evaluate quality and more friction to exit.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a CPA cost for a high-net-worth individual?
The median annual CPA spend among Long Angle's verified high-net-worth member base is $3,000, but cost varies significantly with complexity. Investors with complex private market portfolios - dozens of K-1s, multiple entities and multi-state filings - typically pay $5,000-$15,000 or more for combined preparation and planning. A useful working benchmark is $10-$15 per page of return; a 400-page return with significant K-1 complexity should run $4,000-$6,000 with most competent providers.
Why are so many high-net-worth investors considering switching CPAs?
The 2025 Long Angle survey found that 42% of CPA users are considering switching, with the top complaints being slow responsiveness and a lack of strategic or proactive counsel - not absolute cost. The core issue is a scope mismatch: 49% of members engage their CPA for filing only, but many assume the relationship includes strategic tax planning. When it doesn't, dissatisfaction builds even if the filing itself is competent.
What should I ask a CPA before hiring them?
Before signing an engagement letter, ask explicitly: does the engagement include strategic tax planning or only filing? How are K-1s priced - per form or bundled? Will the CPA proactively reach out during the year when a decision has tax implications? Will they coordinate with a wealth manager or estate attorney if needed? Most CPAs will answer these questions directly. Many will also clarify upfront that planning is outside their scope, which is useful to know before the relationship starts rather than after.
Is a fee-only financial advisor better than AUM-based for high-net-worth investors?
Neither is categorically better. AUM fees create an incentive misalignment at higher asset levels - a $20M portfolio at 1% generates $200,000 in annual fees with no necessary corresponding increase in advisory work. The 2025 Long Angle survey found that a third of members who use wealth managers are already on flat annual fee structures, suggesting more availability than conventional wisdom implies. The right structure depends on what you actually need managed versus advised, and how actively the advisor earns the fee.
When do you need a trust and estate attorney?
Earlier than most people act on it. The Long Angle survey found that 52% of members overall have an estate attorney, but usage rises to 69% among those with $25M+. Age is not the driver - asset complexity is. If your net worth is above the federal estate tax exemption and you hold private investments, multiple entities or real estate, the urgency is real regardless of your age. The survey median spend is $5,000/year for ongoing relationships; initial setup for a revocable trust and updated documents runs $9,000-$35,000+ depending on provider and complexity.
Will AI replace CPAs for complex high-net-worth returns?
For document processing and data extraction, AI is already transforming CPA firm workflows. Black Ore's Tax Autopilot, now broadly available and used by 40% of the top 20 CPA firms, processes complex K-1-heavy returns in minutes rather than days. For the strategic layer - interpreting gray areas, representing clients with the IRS, building multi-year positions - human judgment remains essential. The relevant question for HNW clients is whether their CPA is using AI-driven efficiency to spend more time on planning, or simply processing more returns at the same fee structure.
How do personal assistant costs compare to other personal services?
The 2025 Long Angle survey puts personal assistant median cost at $18,000/year with a satisfaction rating of 6.7/10 - the lowest of the personal and family services measured. By comparison, personal trainers cost $5,000/year with a 9.3/10 satisfaction rating and therapy runs $5,000/year with an 8.3/10 rating. The personal assistant satisfaction gap appears to reflect discovery and setup challenges more than underlying value - the use cases that work well (medical navigation, complex household scheduling) are high-leverage, but finding and onboarding the right person remains difficult.
Final Thoughts
The central finding from the 2025 Long Angle Professional Services Survey is not that high-net-worth investors are paying too much for professional services. It's that most dissatisfaction comes from a mismatch between what clients assume they're buying and what providers define as their job. CPAs are not strategic counselors by default. Wealth managers charging AUM fees are not necessarily providing proportionally more value as portfolios grow. Estate attorneys are hard to evaluate until the plan is tested, which typically happens after the client is gone.
The survey's most actionable finding is that this mismatch is solvable. Asking the right questions at engagement - about scope, about K-1 pricing, about what's included - resolves most of the ambiguity before it becomes dissatisfaction. And comparing notes with peers who are navigating identical situations and have already made the same hiring decisions is the most reliable way to calibrate whether your current setup is actually good or just unfamiliar.
High-net-worth professional service decisions rarely come with clear reference points - until you have access to peers who've already made them.
Long Angle members benchmark CPA fees, share wealth manager referrals and compare estate planning scopes directly with people at the same wealth level and complexity. That kind of candid, peer-sourced intelligence is what the community is built on. If you're navigating these decisions without that context, you're working with incomplete information.
The 2025 Professional Services Survey is one of several Long Angle research assets available to members. Membership is selective and requires verification of investable assets.
