Ameriprise Financial recently forged an unusual alliance with pop psychologist and self-help guru Dr. Phil. During a three-part series called The First Wives' Club the talk show host offered newly divorced women gifts from a number of firms...
Congregation Con man: James Upshaw didn't need fancy performance charts in order to convince 144 people to entrust him with a combined total of $3.2 million he just assured them his financial advice came directly from God. Upshaw, a thief with...
After stepping into the ring last spring with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer over fund disclosure practices, American Funds recently knocked the AG on the canvas; Edward Jones, another Lockyer target, hasn't been so lucky. In November...
Americans pride themselves on their philanthropy. Our economic contributions to charity and volunteerism far exceed those of other countries in the developed world. This has been true since the 17th century when Cotton Mather announced to the...
is a word that no trustee wants to see next to his name. Yet one consequence of recent natural disasters, most notably Hurricane Katrina, will be a surge of litigation against trustees for failing to adequately insure the assets under their...
So, is estate planning an endangered profession or what? The sword of permanent estate tax repeal has been hanging over planners' heads for more than a year now, seeming to threaten many with the loss of their main livelihoods. And just as it...
Trustees face many challenges as we begin the year 2006. First, trust institutions are grappling with the anti-money laundering (AML) and bank secrecy act (BSA) requirements of various federal agencies. Second, all trustees both institutional and...
Two in 2005 had enormous ramifications for estate planning. The first was actually a nonevent; the dog didn't bite the man: The Republicans failed to eliminate permanently the estate tax or even reform it in any way. While the threat of permanent...
Many estate planners these days see the estate planning marketing glass as half empty and leaking. An ever-increasing portion of their clients and prospects even the wealthy ones simply don't find traditional estate tax planning either necessary...
The year 2005 saw a lot of legislative and Treasury Department action in the employee benefit area. This is nothing new. Since the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) came into being in 1974, the laws and Internal Revenue Service's...
