Wealth Planning

Clients are bombarding you with cost-basis questions. There's a steady stream of new directives from It's becoming impossible to find a couple hours a day to figure out the office's NCAA pool. But it might behoove you to put down the brackets and...

Want to goose your revenues? Of course you do. But how? For an increasing number of advisors, one solution is targeting small companies' 401(k) plans. There are a host of services you can provide, anything from setting up the plan and choosing the...

Pay close attention to the customer when you’re picking stocks. No, not your customer (though that’s probably a good idea, too)—the customer of the company whose stock you want to buy. Here’s why: Companies that get high...

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are expected this week to adopt a rule change that effectively kills the use of private annuity trusts to postpone taxes on the sale of appreciated property.

Are you stressed? According to a recent poll, the job of financial advisor is the third best in the country in terms of long-term growth potential and income, but the tradeoff is higher stress.

"Parking" a Series 7 license at a broker/dealer when you're not performing any brokerage functions for the firm has been a longstanding -- though illegal -- practice on Wall Street. Firms have used under-the-table agreements as a way of retaining...

Christopher R. Hoyt, professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, and Bruce D. Steiner, attorney in the New York office of Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen, P.C., give us this lowdown on Notice 2007-5, 2007-5 IRB 1. With...

The star-studded movie Bobby has put the untimely death of Robert F. Kennedy back in the news of late. But really, the Kennedys, even those long-deceased, are always interesting as are their wills. And Bobby Kennedy's will is particularly...

Businesses intended to remain family-held after the death of the founder need planning that goes far beyond the orderly and tax-efficient transfer of ownership interests. For ownership transfers to succeed, owners and leaders of family firms also...

For years, practitioners have employed the estate-planning strategy known as sale to a grantor trust.1 Yet there's still substantial uncertainty and debate about one critical aspect: the detrimental income tax consequences that can result when a...