We've been getting a lot of calls from financial advisors about reverse mortgages, and, clearly, we're not the only ones. According to a survey of 111 banking institutions by the Mortgage Bankers Association, there was a 28 percent increase in...
Florida has evolved into a U.S. tax and creditor protection haven, seducing wealthy individuals to migrate south. One of the biggest draws is that Florida imposes no income tax on individuals and trusts.1 As of Jan 1, 2006, there's also no...
We read with great interest GRATs: On a Roll by Julie K. Kwon and Daniel J. Loewy in the June issue. Their article concluded that short-term rolling GRATs can, depending on the circumstances, meet wealth transfer objectives better than a single...
Although trusts are, according to many theories, hundreds of years old, their provisions have changed more in the past 30 years than in the previous 300 years. The catalysts are not only increasingly complex laws, but also the fact that trusts are...
Many practitioners believe asset protection planning and estate planning are mutually exclusive. To some extent, this may be true; on rare occasions, clients may present issues so narrow that they can rightfully be classified as one sort of...
Offshore trusts are popular estate-planning tools for a various reasons, especially legal impunity. Some offshore jurisdictions don't recognize foreign judgments, and creditors have limited time to make claims on trusts established there.1 No...
So what exactly are fraud, fraudulent conveyance, deceit and fraudulent transfer and when are attorneys accountable? Being a trustee entails risk of personal liability. Being one of a number of trustees can increase the risk. In the legendary...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in July affirmed the Tax Court's findings in Strangi II that the bona fide sale exception to Internal Revenue Code Section 2036(a) didn't apply to transfers of assets to a family limited partnership ...
While President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were suffering scathing criticism for their slow response to the crisis Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans and the Gulf region, the Internal Revenue Service and Congress were...
Advisors take note: Baby Boomers and their parents need to do some serious talking. According to a new study, Americans in their 70s are more at ease talking about estate-planning issues than people in their children's generation are. This is the...
