The relief efforts related to hurricane Katrina are doing what two decades of lobbying from the wealth advisory community could not: convincing legislators to let investors make tax-free donations from their IRA accounts. As part of an effort to...

Lovers of the links are in danger of slicing their nest eggs into the drink, according to a recent survey. Columbus-based Nationwide Financial Services found in a recent study that while golfers have saved nearly 75 percent more than nongolfers...

It sounds somewhat crass to say, but besides being a great destroyer of health, dementia can also destroy many a grand retirement plan. The fact of the matter is, after the age of 60, the risk of suffering from dementia increases. While only about...

Retirement benefits are typically left to the participant's surviving spouse with the expectation that she1 will do something with them: either roll the benefits over to her own retirement plan to continue maximum income tax deferral, or disclaim...

Only a minority of clients seem to be aware of the need to protect accumulated tax-qualified retirement benefits1 from potential future creditors. In my practice, it's often older physicians who want to make asset protection a centerpiece of their...

People who are too wealthy to qualify for either a deductible individual retirement account (IRA) or a Roth IRA have the option of contributing to a non-deductible IRA. Assuming they meet the basic criteria to contribute to an IRA,1 they can...

Thinking of starting a limited liability corporation? If so, you're not alone. About 80 percent to 90 percent of new practices choose that form of business structure, according to Philip Palaveev, senior consultant at Moss Adams, a Seattle...

The rapper Notorious B.I.G. had it right: The more money we come across, the more problems we see. If planning for wealthy people is daunting, planning for the ultra-rich those with net worth in excess of $50 million is exponentially more involved...

Buy/sell agreements are security blankets for small business owners, but the pacts can breed a false sense of the warm and fuzzies, if not properly handled. The agreements, of course, spell out how a business will proceed financially when faced...

There is one thing that can be deadly medicine to the financial health of even well-prepared clients: long-term care. This year, the number of men and women over the age of 65 who will need long-term care will hit nine million, or about 3 percent...