Recent declines in the real estate and credit markets provide a unique opportunity in valuations of promissory notes. At first blush, the fair market value (FMV) of promissory notes, secured or unsecured, appears to be easily determined. Treasury...

Clients are worried about missing the rally, but they are even more worried about downside risks. How should financial advisors address clients' concerns and show their value?

A Schwab survey, released this morning, shows 59 percent of financial advisors at major full-service firms like the idea of going independent.

A daughter is a daughter for trust purposes — even though she never was adopted and is not genetic descendant

Yesterday, The New York Post reported that Merrill Lynch advisors are annoyed by Bank of America’s efforts to get them to offer their clients BoA checking accounts, mortgages and other retail-banking products. Today, the Wall Street Journal...

The anticipated sale of the ING broker/dealer network was made official early this morning as the struggling Dutch parent company shed the three independent firms to a private equity firm for an undisclosed amount.

Often, grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents and the like want to help disabled relatives by leaving them some money. That's why every attorney familiar with drafting special needs trusts (SNTs) advises his clients (typically the parents of the...

There are various theories proposed for determining situs of partnership interests for U.S. federal estate tax purposes when those interests are held by a non-resident alien (NRA)1 and the partnership is a domestic (U.S.) partnership or holds U.S...

Certain definitions are critical when determining whether an obligation exists to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR): The term financial account generally includes bank accounts, security accounts, security derivatives or...

In the U.S. world of estate planning, it would be difficult (some might say impossible) to find an attorney who is not familiar with trusts. In that same world, however, it would be nearly as difficult (some might say improbable) to find an...