Financial advisory firms are gearing up to do more hiring in the months to come, according to a recent Fidelity Investments survey. But adding staff this year may be trickier than just posting ads and waiting for the resumes to pour in. Two...

Independent broker/dealer Harrison Douglas Inc. has filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities and Exchange Commission to terminate its registrations and close the firm, after it was “unable to pay an adverse...

Advisors are expecting the summer doldrums to kick in for the stock market and the economy over the next few months, according to Rydex|SGI’s Advisor Confidence Index. The index, which surveys 150 RIAs on their views of the U.S. economy and...

Variable annuities get a bad rap for a reason: they're so often used to abuse seniors. Despite a big coordinated effort among regulators to stamp out such abuse in recent years, plenty of fraudsters still manage to fly under the radar. Take one...

Consider other issues when the decedent dies during the term of a qualified personal residence trust and a grantor retained annuity trust

Whenever a client comes to us after the death of a loved one, particularly in the case of a surviving spouse, he's typically quite overwhelmed. Generally, we find that our clients fall into two categories those who don't know where to begin with...

The challenges of dealing with the choice of tax regimes for 2010 decedents can approach you from many fronts. The tax consequences of the different regimes, the interpretation of formula clauses and the changes in funding due to the imposition of...

Our company, Fiduciary Trust Company International, was appointed executor of an estate of a client who died in 2010. Our client's wife had died in 2005. The value of the estate was approximately $50 million, consisting of a marital trust created...

In March 2009, Bernard L. Madoff pleaded guilty to federal charges involving a Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme, money contributed by new investors is used to make payments to existing investors. At some point, the perpetrator can't bring in enough...