Wealth Planning

About eight months ago, my wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). We immediately started to learn everything we could about the disease, so that we could make informed decisions concerning treatment, lifestyle and other critical issues...

David T. Leibell and Daniel L. Daniels of Cummings & Lockwood LLC in Stamford, Conn. report: On June 14, 2007, the Internal Revenue Service released for public comment a discussion draft of a redesigned Form 990, Return of Organizations Exempt...

Helping a client with estate planning usually means a discussion of trusts, life insurance, and various gifting strategies, which ostensibly will protect the client's family and finances in the decades after his death. Yet one related topic that...

Everybody is a wealth manager these days. But just what does the term wealth manager mean anyway? The term used to be solely the domain of trust departments in blue-blood firms, such as J.P Morgan. But now everybody is getting into the action...

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Trust is an obvious component of a successful relationship between an advisor and a client. But there are some areas of the relationship where advisors may be jeopardizing that trust, and without even knowing it. The way advisors talk to clients...

If you’re like many advisors, a chunk of your paycheck comes from 12-b1 fees in some form or another. But chances are you’re not collecting those fees for marketing purposes, as originally intended when SEC rule 12b-1 was written back...

The subject of workplace water-cooler conversations could become increasingly financial in nature. That’s because, when it comes to retirement planning, employees with 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans want more financial planning...

When so-called relationship managers (read sophisticated financial planners) leave a firm, so do some of their biggest clients. So it’s obviously in the interest of the private banking and wealth management firms that employ them to make...