Practice Management

Not a day goes by without my office receiving multiple inquiries about or affluent client acquisition: What does it take to become a rainmaker?

Wall Street seems to have cleaned up its act. Or maybe it's just that people aren't losing buckets of money in the stock market anymore.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Jan. 24 approved a new code of procedures that govern arbitrations at the NASD Dispute Resolution. The changes were a long time coming: Some of them have been sitting at the SEC since 2003.

Baby boomers are hunkering down for retirement. They are putting computer to spreadsheet, as it were, and running asset and cash flow projections, with frequent stops in Monte Carlo. And after they factor in commonly suggested assumptions about...

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), which so radically redefined the rules for supporting organizations, also transformed the rules for donor-advised funds (DAFs). The PPA for the first time accords DAFs express recognition in the Internal...

Distributable net income (DNI) has long been a complicated concept for fiduciaries, who in making distributions must consider the income tax consequences to both the trust or estate and its beneficiaries. When fiduciaries also must contend with...

In 2006, courts spoke to two important issues in trust administration. The Dumont case was overturned,1 providing a brief respite for trustees that own large stock concentrations. And Rudkin was affirmed,2 seeming to confirm that, at least in the...

Advisors promote trusts as an indispensable component of the estate plan. We tout the importance of trusts for credit shelter and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax planning. We proclaim that trusts protect assets from creditors, including...

An individual relative or friend might be more appropriate to serve as a trustee than a professional. In praising corporate trustees, commentators have identified three areas in which they can excel: cost, competency and conflicts between...