If you’re like most registered reps these days, you’ve got some portion of your clients in a fee-based compensation arrangement. And, no doubt, you’ve been selling yourself as a full-service, top-to-bottom “financial...
Many estate-planning attorneys have used total return trusts to cope with falling yields in an effort to balance the income beneficiary's need for income against the remaindermen's need for growth. In a low interest rate environment...
A dynasty trust can offer significant benefits, but achieving these benefits is not simple. Crafting a well-constructed dynasty trust requires the planner to clear hurdles presented by various provisions of tax and trust law, including not only...
As a practicing trusts-and-estates attorney, I approached a book with a plot about an unusual bequest in a last will and testament and whose narrator was an 80-year-old lawyer with great anticipation. Jim Stovall's short (154 page) novel, The...
The Internal Revenue Code and regulations allow a beneficiary of a pension plan to stretch out required minimum distributions (RMDs) over her life expectancy. This is an important tax benefit, because the beneficiary is taxed only on payments as...
It's been a stable of estate planning for many years to have an irrevocable life insurance trust own life insurance. But advisors are careful to warn clients that if they transfer an existing policy to such a trust and die within three years of...
If you’re thinking of recommending a target-date fund to an individual or small-business client, or if any of your clients already own one—and considering their burgeoning popularity, they probably do—you better take a good, long...