Prepare for a Possible Change to Tax-exempt Status of Charities

Jul 01, 2011

When planning for charitable gifts, especially those accomplished using strategies that result in the gifts unfolding over an extended time, donors and those advising them need to consider the possibility that the rules on how those gifts are...

Jul 01, 2011

Many charitably inclined clients abstained from making significant outright donations to charity or creating or funding charitable remainder trusts (CRTs) during the recent economic and tax law uncertainty. They still may be reluctant to donate...

The New Investment Alternative

Jul 01, 2011

Long-term care (LTC) insurance can be an attractive investment alternative for high-net-worth individuals for two reasons: (1) It has a multi-million dollar upside if extended health care is needed, and (2) there's little or no cost if care...

Individuals With Special Needs

Jul 01, 2011

Although the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 reduced the importance of estate tax planning for many, it didn't obviate the need for estate plans for non-tax reasons such as asset protection...

Driving Miss Daisy

Jul 01, 2011

How do we deal with a client's diminishing capabilities? We need to encourage families to engage in important discussions about allowing an agent to determine when a client's diminished capabilities render her unable to make certain critical...

Valuable Resources

Jul 01, 2011

As practitioners in the world of estate planning and elder law, we're all aware that America's aging population faces countless and challenging legal issues. Beyond our normal scope of expertise, there are a plethora of issues that the elderly...

How to Look When It's Time to Leap

Jul 01, 2011

Switching firms is a huge decision so do your due diligence well. Consider these two scenarios...

Comings & Goings: July 2011

Jul 01, 2011

Robert Jenkins has been appointed president of the Financial Research Corporation, an asset management research and consulting firm. Jenkins previously held positions at Fidelity Management & Research and Fidelity Investments...

When Bad Firms Happen to Good Advisors

Jul 01, 2011

There is a theme that seems to repeat itself in the broker/dealer industry: quality advisors join shops that, deliberately or not, peddle bad investments and get caught, and those good advisors suffer for it. We've written about this before, in...

Uncorrelate Me

Jul 01, 2011

There's a lot of money being thrown into the alternative investment space nowadays. You see the trend reflected in the market capitalizations of exchange-traded products designed to offer returns uncorrelated or negatively correlated to the equity...