Interview with Kevin Knull, CFP®, President of TaxStatus

Kevin Knull, CFP®, is President of TaxStatus, a fintech company that provides frictionless, continuous IRS account monitoring and consent-based access to IRS tax records for financial professionals and the clients they serve. He has dedicated three decades to the financial services and financial technology sectors. His leadership through executive roles at MoneyGuidePro, YCharts, Symetra Investment Management, Symetra Services, Inc., Hartford Financial Services, and CEO/President for four registered investment advisory firms has repeatedly resulted in outsized growth.

Perhaps most notably, he led MoneyGuidePro through a period of hyper-growth that resulted in the sale to Envestnet, a landmark transaction at the time. Beyond these roles, he has lent his expertise as a consultant to numerous public and private leading fintech and financial services firms. Knull authored the book Exploring Advice, written with contributions from 39 thought leaders to provide financial advisors a path to success by defining good financial advice, a quality financial plan, and the role of a fiduciary. As the President of TaxStatus and co-founder of Integrated Wealth Platform, he continues his goal of enhancing the quality of advice in the industry.

Interview questions:

Introduction | Kevin Knull, CFP®, is President of TaxStatus. Kevin can you please provide us with an overview of TaxStatus?

Career | So how did you become a subject matter expert in your field? Share some of the highlights from your career.

Ground Breaking Product | How is TaxStatus changing the game for financial advisors and their clients?

Let’s delve into some details to get a deeper understanding of the challenges surrounding tax-related identity theft, the role of technology in prevention, and practical strategies for protecting taxpayer data.

NPD Breach Impact
• How has the 2024 National Public Data breach changed the landscape of taxpayer data security?
• Could you describe the scale of the breach and what specific taxpayer data was exposed?

Identity Theft and Tax Fraud Risks
• What are some of the most significant consequences of identity theft that taxpayers should be aware of following a breach like this?
• How do fraudsters leverage stolen taxpayer information to file fraudulent tax returns, and why is this becoming a bigger problem?

Share an Example of a Tax Return Fraud Incident for the Client of a Financial Advisor
• Could you share an example of a tax return fraud incident?
• How did the client learn that their tax return had been filed by someone else and that their tax return was stolen?
• How hard is it to remedy that situation after it’s already happened?
• How could the tax fraud have been prevented?

Advice for Financial Advisors
• How can financial advisors proactively protect their clients from the risk of tax-related identity theft?
• What role does education play in preparing clients to recognize and respond to potential fraud?

Strengthening Fraud Prevention with Technology Solutions
• Could you elaborate on how technology-driven monitoring solutions like TaxStatus help prevent or quickly respond to tax-related identity theft and fraudulent returns?
• What should taxpayers and financial advisors look for in a tax monitoring solution?

Future of Fraud Prevention in Financial Services
• With so many data breaches occurring, what security practices do you recommend individuals and businesses adopt to safeguard sensitive information?
• How can taxpayers take advantage of the IRS Identity Protection PIN program to add an extra layer of protection?
• Given the sophistication of cyber threats today, where do you see fraud prevention technology headed in the next few years?
• What would you say to financial advisors or firms that are hesitant to adopt these newer fraud-monitoring technologies?

Growth Plans | What are TaxStatus’ plans for additional growth and innovation?
• We will continue to innovate and help advisors enhance the quality of advice through better data and tax and financial planning insights so they can render better outcomes for their clients.

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn

TaxStatus is a cutting-edge IRS account monitoring and tax data platform designed for financial professionals and the clients they serve, provided through a direct, two-way integration with the IRS.

TaxStatus is a one-of-a-kind, truly innovative solution in the financial services industry. The product solves three important problems for financial advisors: eliminating the friction in obtaining tax data, providing continuous IRS account monitoring, and providing insights and data necessary to provide improved tax and financial planning recommendations. The platform provides: (1) frictionless access to consent-based IRS tax data, allowing financial professionals to obtain their clients’ individual, business, and trust official IRS records digitally with ease and 100% accuracy, (2) continuous IRS account monitoring to ensure advisors and their clients are aware of any changes to an IRS account including filing status, refund status, taxes/penalties/liens due, audit activity, and even fraud alerts, and (3) unparalleled tax and financial planning insights covering thousands of data points per taxpayer, which surface advice opportunities specific to each client for hyper-personalized recommendations. With TaxStatus, businesses and individuals see official records in hours instead of weeks. In addition, TaxStatus analyzes over 3,000 datapoints per taxpayer to surface advice opportunities specific to each client for hyper-personalized recommendations, with all data delivered digitally. The result is the most complete and accurate financial picture for any taxpayer, which ultimately helps advisors deliver better financial plans, better advice, and better client outcomes. Learn more at TaxStatus.com.

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