Platform Partners

Engagement note: Platform partners are coordinated through GTC™ on a per-engagement basis. Not every platform partner is engaged in every matter. Each partner’s scope, methodology, compensation, and role are calibrated to the client’s facts, advisor environment, engagement documents, and applicable professional requirements. Clients may use their existing CPA, counsel, investment advisor, and family office; GTC™ coordinates the MSO-specific workstream with those advisors. Legal, tax, investment, insurance, and compliance conclusions remain with the applicable independent advisor.

A coordinated platform. Not a referral list.

GTC™’s platform partners are coordinated across engagements as the facts and scope require — each holding a specific discipline that the MSO architecture may call for. Below, the named partners GTC™ coordinates with, and the role each plays in the structure.

Berkeley Research Group provides independent third-party analysis supporting the transfer-pricing and management-fee methodology that sits behind GTC™ engagements, coordinated per engagement. Legal and tax conclusions remain with the client’s independent counsel and tax advisors. Depending on scope, the work may include fair-market-value analysis, reasonable-compensation analysis, replacement-cost analysis, and arm’s-length documentation prepared at formation or transaction and refreshed as required during the operating years.

Why it matters: The IRS scrutiny of related-party management fees rests on §482 substantiation. BRG’s independent methodology provides documentation designed to support the management-fee framework for examination-readiness — across GTC™’s institutional MSO engagements where independent third-party transfer-pricing support is required.

Stout provides independent third-party reporting supporting the transfer-pricing and management-fee methodology behind GTC™ engagements — coordinated on engagements where its independent reporting is part of the agreed scope. Legal and tax conclusions remain with the client’s independent counsel and tax advisors.

Why it matters: Where an engagement calls for a second independent economic workstream, Stout provides an additional source of analysis and documentation rather than leaving the economic record with a single provider. The scope and use of each firm’s work are determined by the facts of the engagement and the responsibilities assigned to the participating advisors.

Schechter Wealth coordinates the institutional capacity behind insurance-funded structures supporting estate-tax liquidity, equalization across heirs with disparate asset profiles, buy-sell funding, and trust-coordinated continuity. Founded 1939; approximately 25 banking relationships familiar with MSO-coordinated funding structures.

Why it matters: When the architecture requires insurance-funded liquidity at the estate level, Schechter brings the institutional capacity to coordinate funding, banking, and trust architecture — designed to integrate with the family’s existing estate planning rather than to operate independently of it. Insurance design, funding, and implementation are evaluated separately and only where appropriate to the client’s estate, liquidity, and continuity objectives.

Mezrah Consulting provides the retention and continuity discipline behind GTC™’s deferred-compensation architecture — including the structural solution for S-corp shareholders, where standard NQDC typically boomerangs back. 30+ years of retention-structure practice; the discipline underlying the MSO Deferral Plan™.

Why it matters: Where the structure needs to deploy retained earnings into deferred-compensation retention arrangements for key personnel — including the S-corp shareholder pattern where standard NQDC fails — Mezrah’s methodology and operational discipline make the architecture work.

Working relationships across counsel, accounting, banking, and economics. Coordinated on engagement, not packaged.

Beyond the named platform partners above, GTC™ works with firms at the top of each discipline the architecture calls for — the same tier of independent professionals that the largest accounting and strategy-consulting firms retain for their own clients. Individual firms and matters are not identified; references are discussed where appropriate and permitted by the confidentiality obligations in place.

The point of the network is role clarity as much as the names. GTC™ provides a central coordination layer for the MSO-specific workstream rather than requiring the client or lead advisor to build the coordination process from scratch. Participating professionals retain their independent scopes, methodologies, engagement responsibilities, compensation arrangements, and professional judgment. GTC™ coordinates information flow, sequencing, implementation requirements, and the MSO documentation workstream across the engagement, with GTC™’s engagement fee structured at the transaction, annually, or monthly rather than front-loaded.

Independent §482, valuation, and damages practices

Berkeley Research Group and Stout, named above, are the independent economics firms behind GTC™’s §482 substantiation. Where an engagement calls for additional or specialized economic analysis, GTC™ works with other nationally recognized economics and valuation practices under the same coordination model.

References are discussed where appropriate and permitted by the confidentiality obligations in place. Legal opinions, tax-return positions, and compliance treatment remain with each firm and its independent professional judgment.

A standing bench of specialist counsel. Coordinated, not retained as employees.

GTC™ coordinates with a standing bench of specialist attorneys across federal tax structuring, family-office and estate counsel, M&A transaction counsel, and tax controversy. Legal conclusions remain independent of GTC™; the bench provides the counsel coordination that the MSO architecture requires.

The Counsel Bench is the standing roster of attorneys GTC™ coordinates with on engagement-specific structural and transactional work. Where the client prefers their own counsel, GTC™ provides MSO-specific specifications and coordinates with the family’s or firm’s chosen attorneys. Where additional specialist coverage is needed, the Counsel Bench includes engagement-ready relationships across:

— Federal tax structuring & entity counsel — entity design, transfer-pricing methodology review, §482 governance.

— Federal tax controversy — examination, dispute, and Tax Court representation.

— Family-office & estate counsel — dynasty trusts, SLATs, GRATs, ILITs, IDGTs, DAPTs, multi-generational architecture.

— M&A transaction counsel — pre-close MSO design, transaction document review, post-close governance.

— Regulatory & professional-practice counsel — CPOM, bar rules, dental and veterinary licensed-practice ownership rules.

— Pre-transaction architecture — structural alignment before LOI; coordination with banker, counsel, and PE sponsor counsel.

Counsel are not retained as GTC™ employees. The Counsel Bench is a coordination model. Legal opinions, judgment, and conclusions remain independent of GTC™ and are issued by the engaging attorney directly to the client.

One coordination point. The institutional bench works as a platform.

A sophisticated MSO engagement can involve several independent disciplines: economic analysis, tax and accounting, entity and transaction counsel, regulatory or professional-practice counsel, and, where the client’s facts require them, specialists in retention, estate planning, liquidity, valuation, or other related matters. GTC™ coordinates the MSO-specific workstream across the professionals engaged for the matter. The client and its advisors retain their respective engagements, professional responsibilities, and conclusions.

Platform partner relationships are durable, not transactional. The platform partners listed above are engaged in ongoing relationships with GTC™ — coordinated across engagements over multiple years, with consistent methodology and governance discipline. The platform is built through the relationships, not assembled deal by deal.

Calibrated to where you are.

For advisors, deal teams, and family offices evaluating the platform or a specific engagement.

For advisors earlier in the process

The Insights library is open access — technical briefs, field notes, and research on MSO architecture, §482 fee methodology, §1202 QSBS after OBBBA, and §531 accumulated-earnings posture, plus the Reference Edition on law-firm MSOs. Read before any conversation. No form, no gate, no follow-up.

Browse the Insights library →

What GTC™ does not do.

Defining the lane matters. Below: the boundaries of GTC™’s engagement so that advisors, deal teams, and family offices understand exactly what GTC™ provides and what stays with the client’s independent counsel and tax advisors.

×   GTC™ does not provide legal opinions.

×   GTC™ does not prepare tax returns.

×   GTC™ does not replace the client’s CPA, legal counsel, investment advisor, or family office.

×   GTC™ does not guarantee tax outcomes, audit results, §1202 eligibility, capital-gain treatment, estate-tax results, or investment performance.

×   GTC™ does not implement structures without coordination with the client’s independent legal and tax advisors.

No outcome promises. No pre-packaged structures. Each engagement is evaluated against the client’s facts, advisor environment, documentation, implementation, and applicable law. The platform provides the architecture and the coordination; the conclusions remain with the client’s independent advisors.