Latest Updates

1. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Congress has made a policy decision to stage the effectiveness of the law over time, giving financial institutions and other market participants the ability to prepare.
2. Codification of the Economic Substance Doctrine
Taxpayers may properly structure any legitimate transaction in order to save taxes, provided that any transaction is in fact what it appears to be in form.
3. What Split-interest Strategies Make Sense in a Low Interest Rate Economy?
There are proposals in Congress to require a minimum term of ten years for a GRAT. Individuals inclined to utilize a GRAT ought proceed immediately before the window of opportunity closes.
4. Waiver of the 60-Day Tax-free Rollover Requirement
Does the accumulated experience of rollover waiver letters give us any basis for predicting how likely a particular client’s request is to be approved?
5. Planning Early to Lessen the 3.8% Medicare Tax on Investment Income
Because higher income taxes and capital gains taxes may be just around the corner, reducing the 3.8% tax takes on hightened importance.
6. Reprising Ralph
Will the cumulative premiums paid under a term contract constitute a basis in such a contract that may be carried over as the initial basis of the new universal life contract received in exchange for the term contract?
7. What Planners Need to Know to Cope with the Coming Retirement Wave
For many, it is already too late. Millions simply do not have sources of income sufficient to enable them to retire comfortably, or at all.
8. Are Annuities Right for Your Clients
As the baby boom generation continues to age and the American economy continues to undergo structural change, planners need to be aware of the implications even when their clients refuse to be.
9. States Fix Formula Clause Problem Created by Temporary Estate Tax Repeal
If the words and concepts used in a formula to define the size of a bequest are no longer part of the Internal Revenue Code, do they have any meaning in interpreting and administering the estate?
10. Deductions for Life Insurance Premium Payments to Welfare Benefit Plan Denied
In recent years welfare benefit funds have been used as vehicles in tax-abusive schemes to generate current employer deductions for contributions that in reality are funding disguised deferred compensation arrangements.
11. Domestic Asset Protection Trusts: New Chart Ranks the States
Many estate and asset protection planners are using DAPTs to make some of their clients’ assets look unreachable to potential creditors. The choice of jurisdiction can have a significant effect on the timing and degree of protection.
12. US Senate Budget Committee Resolution Provides Two-Year Extension of 2009 Estate Tax Levels
Congress will continue to face enormous pressure to act on estate tax legislation this year.
13. A Guide to Retirement Plan Fees & Expenses
Surveys retirement plan fees and expenses to assist plan sponsors in achieving a greater understanding of their plan operations.
14. Making Sure a Bequest Benefits the Intended Recipient
Clients drafting a will should be aware of the financial health of those receiving their assets. If not, they could face the situation in which assets that they worked hard to acquire could be taken from the intended beneficiary to pay creditors.
15. Estate Planning Lessons From Michael Jackson`s Death
As we all know, Michael Jackson died last summer. Although the stories of his unusual lifestyle and abuses have flooded the media, it appears that his estate plan was rather conventional. But there are some important lessons to be learned.
16. Activity in Parallel Universe Reveals Vast Untapped Market for Life Insurance on Earth
Since the subject involves a vast untapped market for life insurance, through which a family can effectively achieve a second step-up in basis of property passing at death, it warrants a careful analysis.
17. New Law Revamps Health Care Delivery System
The new law revamps the nation’s health care system and includes more than $400 billion in revenue raisers and new taxes on employers and individuals.
18. Life Insurance Valuation
Reviews the circumstances in which life insurance valuation is called for, and the various measures that are used.
19. Termination of Policy Subject to Loan Triggered Taxable Income
Financial advisors should be sure that clients understand the potential tax consequences when loan-encumbered policies lapse, or are surrendered or terminated.
20. Estate Planning For Families With A Special Needs Child
The parents of a special needs child are faced with a unique estate planning challenge.
21. Inherited IRA Held Exempt from Bankruptcy Estate under Federal Exemption
This is a significant case in which inherited IRA assets are protected from creditor attachment under bankruptcy.
22. The Transfer for Value Tax Trap
As a general principle, the proceeds of a life insurance policy paid by reason of the insured`s death are exempt from federal income tax. The transfer for value rule is an exception to this general principle and is discussed in this article.
23. High Net Worth Clients: How to Find Them, How to Service Them
Here, as always, knowledge is power. For prospecting HNWs, the first thing to know is where and how to find them, so that is where we begin. However, once you`ve found them the key thing is to know their psychology.
24. Estate Planning in Uncertain Times
The definitive guide to advanced estate planning in uncertain times.
25. Failure to Use Inside Procedure Spoils 1035 Exchange
The transaction was not characterized as a 1035 exchange because there was no direct exchange or assignment of the original contract.
26. The Will Approach
The will approach is based upon one of two major assumptions. At the time of the interview, either the prospect has a will or doesn`t - there`s no middle ground.
27. Do Not Pitch
HNWs have been hit on so often that their first reaction to any financial advisor is mistrust. Your mission is to overcome that mistrust. How do you do it?
28. Liberalized IRA to Roth IRA Conversion Rules in 2010
Certain high income clients who have not previously made deductible IRA contributions ought consider opening a traditional IRA this year and contributing the largest allowable nondeductible contribution they can manage.