Member Spotlight: Tara Thomas | Helping Dealership Families Work Through Ownership and Control
Succession Planning Resource 
Tara Thomas, CPA, CSP®, shares how a succession planning framework helps dealership families navigate ownership and leadership decisions.
Profile Snapshot
Tara Thomas
CPA, CSP®
Nashville, Tennessee
Tara Thomas sees a recurring misconception among advisors and business owners: succession planning is often treated as a decision tied to retirement or a handoff to the next generation. That view overlooks the ongoing work of addressing how business decisions affect the owners, their families, and the people preparing to lead.
“It’s a much bigger process than just a decision that needs to be made at a single point in time,” she says.
As a Tax Partner in Forvis Mazars’ dealership tax practice, Tara serves automotive retail clients whose holdings range from one dealership to more than 50. Most are closely held businesses, often with several owners and generations involved. Each brings its own expectations about how the business should operate and what should happen next.
Many of these owners have successfully grown their stores while finding that managing a larger family business requires a different set of capabilities.
“They know how to run a dealership, but not all of them have the skill set to manage a large, complex family business,” Tara says.
Why She Joined ISPA®
Tara’s tax practice already placed her close to decisions about ownership and how clients organized their businesses. The International Succession Planning Association® (ISPA®) gave her a framework for approaching the broader succession questions in those relationships more deliberately, building on her tax expertise when decisions also involved family expectations or changes in leadership.
When the Business Outgrows Familiar Approaches
Tara often sees families approach succession with confidence in what worked previously. A parent learned the business from an earlier generation and expects to prepare a son or daughter the same way. Bringing the next generation into the stores can feel like sufficient progress toward an eventual handoff.
Growth complicates that expectation. As more people become involved, a change in leadership can expose weaknesses in methods the family has relied on for years. In Tara’s experience, clients often ask for a defined succession process after informal efforts have stopped working.
Other circumstances force the discussion sooner. One owner may want to sell while another wants to keep growing. Family members entering or leaving the business can also change what the owners need to decide together.
For the advisor, these are reasons to examine whether the family’s existing methods can support the decisions now facing the business.
When a Hierarchy Leaves Room for Disagreement
In one ongoing family-business engagement, Tara found more disagreement about decision authority than had been apparent at the outset. A hierarchy existed, but the leaders held different views about who made decisions and how the business should be run.
At the time of the interview, the situation remained unresolved. The process had revealed an issue that required further work before the family could determine a path forward.
Tara describes an approach centered on understanding each stakeholder individually: what that person expects and what they want for the future. Giving those perspectives attention also requires care in how she positions her role.
“We’re trying to help the entire family, the entire group,” she says.
That distinction matters when a decision benefits family members differently. Tara wants each person to feel heard while understanding that the work concerns the continuation of the family business as a whole. Assuming that the visible hierarchy represented a shared understanding would have left the underlying disagreement unexplored.
What Changed After Joining
Since earning the Certified Succession Planner™ (CSP®) designation, Tara says clients bring her into ownership changes and decisions about business structure earlier. Annual tax compliance remains an important part of those relationships; her involvement also extends to discussions while the owners are still evaluating what to do.
She connects that earlier involvement to knowing which succession issues to flag and which questions to ask. The framework gives her a way to examine considerations outside the immediate tax question, including whether family members’ expectations have actually been discussed.
“They want us at the table when they are discussing a variety of business decisions, not just what numbers are going on our tax return this year,” Tara says.
She describes clients being able to turn to one advisor who “understands the whole picture,” including how the business operates and how family dynamics affect its decisions. That broader understanding makes her an established point of contact when succession questions arise.
The change she describes is qualitative: earlier participation in consequential decisions and a broader advisory role within existing client relationships.
Asking What the Family Has Assumed
For Tara, the ISPA® framework provides a starting point for examining the areas a family needs to consider. Working through it can reveal subjects that have never been discussed, even when clients believe their planning is well underway.
“We assume we know how everybody feels about this, but have we ever asked?”
A family’s confidence in its plan needs to be examined alongside the perspectives of the people affected. Their expectations may differ in ways that change which decisions require attention first.
Tara also values being able to adjust the depth of the conversation. Areas the family has addressed may need less time, leaving room to examine what remains uncertain. The framework helps her keep those considerations in view without treating every family’s circumstances as identical.
Giving People Time to Reconsider the Answer
When Tara describes stronger transitions, she emphasizes the willingness to enter planning with an open mind. Some stakeholders arrive convinced they know the outcome and see the process as a series of steps to complete. That certainty can create obstacles when another path deserves consideration.
She also recognizes why reconsidering an answer can be difficult. An owner may have spent much of a career working toward the independence and authority they now hold. Bringing in a partner or transferring ownership to a family member can change daily life, including access to capital and the ability to make decisions alone.
“A lot of times, that younger generation is really eager to get in there and take control, while the older generation is really hesitant to let it go,” Tara says. “And both processes take time.”
Allowing time gives stakeholders an opportunity to understand those changes and consider alternatives. In her experience, families create more room for a workable transition when they can acknowledge their personal concerns while evaluating what the business needs over the long term.
Tara enjoys working with dealers’ entrepreneurial energy, even when the conversations become tense. Helping a family work through a difficult decision is a part of the role she finds particularly fulfilling. It requires patience with people whose commitment to the business can coexist with very different ideas about its future.
Client and Referral Focus
Tara’s work is particularly relevant to closely held automotive dealership businesses facing ownership or generational change. Situations within that focus include:
- A new generation’s involvement is prompting questions about leadership and future ownership.
- Co-owners want different futures for the business, such as selling or continuing to expand.
- Growth has made the family’s informal planning methods less effective.
Business and estate-planning attorneys, wealth advisors, and other professionals serving dealership owners may find that her combination of tax expertise and succession planning knowledge complements their work.
Tara’s experience shows how a clear framework helps an advisor ask the questions a family needs to consider while its ownership and leadership decisions are still taking shape.
Continue Exploring ISPA® Resources
See how advisors apply succession planning in their work with business owners and families in the ISPA® Member Spotlight series. Advisors interested in succession planning education can explore the Certified Succession Planner™ (CSP®) program and the resources available through ISPA® membership.
Categories: : ISPA® Member Spotlight
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