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Strategy

Transaction and Exit Planning

For sales, recapitalizations, redemptions, and other events where tax structure materially affects outcome.

The problem

In a sale, recapitalization, or redemption, structure is not a detail that follows the deal — it materially affects what the deal is worth. Transaction & Exit Planning brings tax into the room before terms are set, when the structure can still change the outcome.

Who it’s for

Built for a specific kind of decision.

  • Business owners approaching a sale, recapitalization, or redemption
  • Operating companies and investors structuring a liquidity or ownership event
  • Owners who need the tax consequences understood before terms are negotiated

Scope of work

What the engagement covers.

Pre-transaction planning

Tax analysis brought in before terms are set, while structure can still change the result.

Structure alternatives

Deal structures compared on their actual after-tax outcome, not just headline value.

Timing implications

The effect of timing on the position — holding periods, elections, and the windows that close with a year.

Post-close follow-through

Execution carried through close and into the returns that have to reflect it, so nothing is left unfinished.

How Fortress works

One method, applied to this work.

The Fortress Hold Method is our way of turning complex tax facts into durable positions — a deliberate, five-step sequence built to hold under audit, professional review, and time.

Transaction engagements are sequenced to the deal: define the facts early, evaluate exposure while it can still be acted on, and coordinate execution through close.

  1. 01Define the facts
  2. 02Evaluate exposure
  3. 03Build the structure
  4. 04Coordinate execution
  5. 05Monitor change over time

Related insights

Analysis

2026 · 4 min

"No Tax on Tips" Is Now Final: What the April 2026 Regulations Settle for Employers

Treasury and the IRS finalized the new tip deduction in regulations published April 13, 2026, fixing an exhaustive list of 71 tipped occupations and narrowing what counts as a qualified tip. The deduction belongs to workers, but the compliance burden lands on employers — payroll systems, W-2 coding, and occupation classification all change for 2026. This is a reporting project for any business with a tipped workforce.

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Tax Alert

2026 · 9 min

The 1% Remittance Transfer Tax: Cash and Money-Order Transfers Are Taxed, Electronic Transfers Are Not

New Internal Revenue Code §4475, enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, imposes a 1% excise tax on outbound remittance transfers funded with cash, a money order, a cashier's check, or any similar physical instrument, for transfers occurring after December 31, 2025. Account-funded and card-funded transfers are excluded from the tax under §4475(d). The sender owes the tax, but the remittance transfer provider must collect it and becomes liable if it does not. Providers report on Form 720 with semimonthly deposits — the first was due January 29, 2026 — and on April 13, 2026 Treasury and the IRS published proposed regulations (REG-114499-25; announced April 10, 2026 in news release IR-2026-48) with comments due June 12, 2026. Notice 2025-55 supplies limited deposit-penalty relief that runs only through the third quarter of 2026.

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Analysis

2026 · 4 min

Domestic R&D Is Deductible Again — and the Catch-Up Window Closes July 6, 2026

OBBBA created IRC § 174A, restoring immediate expensing of domestic research costs for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024 — undoing the capitalization regime that strained cash flow since 2022. The procedural rules in Rev. Proc. 2025-28 also open a retroactive catch-up for prior years, but the small-business election and the recovery of previously capitalized amounts run on a hard deadline: the earlier of July 6, 2026, or the refund statute of limitations. For research-intensive businesses, this is a 2026 action item, not a year-end one.

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Related industries

Sector environments where this work most often changes the answer.

All industries

Start here

Start with the situation, not the transaction and exit planning brochure.

We begin by defining the facts and the timeline before recommending scope. If transaction and exit planning is the right fit, we will say so — and if it is not, we will say that too.

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A licensed CPA firm with CPAs on staff. Typical first response within one business day.