Last year, Warren Buffett threw down the gauntlet: Here's what philanthropy looks like on the grandest scale. Together, he and Bill Gates have set out to change the world using a private foundation through which $60 billion of their money will...
Financial families, defined as owners who manage their wealth as business, focused their attention in 2006 on enhancing their wealth strategies and strengthening their relationships with advisors as well as like-minded financial families. Whether...
With continuing confusion about transfer tax repeal or reform, estate planners have at least one constant and true certainty: compliance. Recently, requirements have increased dramatically, adding to the growing burden of estate planners' duties...
If there was a theme in international estate planning in 2006 it might be local is global. Countries (principally in Europe) made changes that were largely local in nature but had implications for foreigners. Expect to see these changes play an...
If I had to rank the 23 perpetual trust jurisdictions, top honors would be awarded in this order: South Dakota is number one; Delaware is a close second; and both Alaska and New Hampshire are tied for third place.1 What does such ranking mean to...
Baby boomers are hunkering down for retirement. They are putting computer to spreadsheet, as it were, and running asset and cash flow projections, with frequent stops in Monte Carlo. And after they factor in commonly suggested assumptions about...
For those of us interested in retirement benefits and who isn't? there was a lot of change in 2006, including the enactment of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act (TIPRA) and the Pension Protection Act (PPA); the issuance of a key...
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), which so radically redefined the rules for supporting organizations, also transformed the rules for donor-advised funds (DAFs). The PPA for the first time accords DAFs express recognition in the Internal...