The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a seminal report on tax information collection and exchange practices in 82 countries. The principal achievement of this long-awaited report, Tax-Cooperation Towards a...
Over the past few years, our clients' estate and life insurance planning have become far more complicated than they bargained for. Even if clients' personal situations and objectives were relatively static, which is a bold presumption, factors...
Advisors often have trouble convincing the wealthy to make charitable gifts while they're still alive. Indeed, for years, Ann Landers, the famous personal advice columnist, prodded her friend Warren E. Buffett, one of the richest men in the world...
Two recent legislative developments may enhance the attractiveness of Internal Revenue Code Section 529 savings accounts over other methods of saving for higher education expenses for certain individuals. One increased the kiddie tax age to 18...
Many advisors assume that domestic asset protection trusts (DAPTs) self-settled trusts established in the United States typically to protect trust assets from a beneficiary's creditors are created exclusively for high-risk professionals, such as...
In theory, a trust is administered to effectuate a grantor's intentions for establishing it. In practice, most trusts don't accomplish this goal. That's usually because the operative documents fail to provide sufficient guidance. Trustees are left...
Whatever happens to estate taxes, there will still be a strong need for putting together trusts and insurance policies that enable your clients' assets to survive their death intact.
As estate planners, we love helping people, and as attorneys, we need to bill hours. So when we can help people and bill hours at the same time, you'd think that we would be elated. Not necessarily. A large part of our practice in recent years has...
One of the most financially attractive exit strategies for the owner of a closely held business is to sell his company stock to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). An ESOP-assisted buyout can serve as a successful business succession plan...
