Wealth Planning

Solid university endowments can survive economic storms

High-income households may be as worried about their financial health as less affluent households, a survey of American savings habits suggests.

Milwaukee pitcher Scott Schoeneweis is trying to keep prying eyes out of records detailing his dead wife’s demise. Problem is, he’s asking the Arizona courts to seal otherwise public records. The unlikely moral of this story, so far...

Financial advisors with entrepreneurial clients—first-generation wealth creators—best take heed of Obama’s recently introduced plans to bring back the federal estate tax. Obama’s plan would actually raise taxes on farmers...

Senator Tim Johnson (R- S.D.), incoming Senate Banking Committee Chair, began floating an amendment last week that would eliminate from Senate regulatory reform legislation the application of a fiduciary standard to investment advice provided by...

Even the Internal Revenue Service has now informally agreed: death does not trigger gain.

An installment sale to an irrevocable grantor trust is a popular estate-planning tool that allows the grantor to freeze the growth of an appreciating asset by selling it to a grantor trust in return for a promissory note. The sale is ignored for...

Recent private letter rulings issued by the Internal Revenue Service1 have created concern among estate-planning attorneys regarding the best way to draft trusts that are intended as potential receptacles of IRA or other qualified plan benefits...