Wealth Planning

If last year's federal budget process teaches anything, it's this: Nothing's a sure thing. True, several of last year's most interesting proposed items dividend and capital gains tax reductions, for instance made it into the final budget. But...

The phrase helping people quit dredges up all manner of images, most of them having to do with substance-abuse therapy. For many advisors that's apt, because the process of easing a client into retirement can feel like an intervention at times...

The bluesman Rev. Gary Davis once famously sang, They tell me it'll kill me, but they won't say when. He was referring, of course, to a very specific sort of denial, but advisors know too well that his words are easily applied to the general...

But a lot had to happen before they could take their place in the driver's seat. For starters, the neophytes (who were in their 20s at the time) needed to demonstrate to their father they had the right stuff to handle such a lofty position...

The word conjures up all manner of restful images a man napping in a hammock, a woman playing bridge with her friends, a visored couple strolling towards a green on a sun-splashed golf course. But please note: the financial advisor does not figure...

Perhaps the hardest words an advisor has to speak are these: I don't know. Sure, they have the advantage of making an advisor look confident and ethical enough to speak the truth, but they also leave the speaker feeling inadequate. Experience is...

For most families, the arrival of children marks the happiest stage of life, but unfortunately, the feelings of unadulterated bliss tend to be very short-lived. If diapers, late-night feedings, babysitters and countless trips to the doctor are not...

When Brian, a successful young North Carolina businessman, notified the planned giving department at a mid-size Southern university that he had irrevocably named them as the remainder beneficiary on his $1 million charitable remainder unitrust...

In most years the tax code is a must read in the worst sense of the phrase: advisors feel compelled to bone up only because it's pretty much an obligation to do so. This year, this is doubly true. Last year's relatively exciting tax overhaul...