By Robert S. Keebler, CPA, MST, AEP (Distinguished), CGMA In the world of finance, “Alpha” is often referred to as the value a money manager generates by exceeding a particular benchmark. In the world of financial planning, Tax Alpha® is best defined as the value financial advisors add by reducing the tax burden on portfolio income – “After all, it is what you keep not what you earn that counts.” A thorough knowledge of the intersection between tax and finance will allow an advisor to substantially reduce a client’s overall tax burden. The heart of Tax Alpha® for most clients…
Top Five Reasons to Situs Your Irrevocable Trust in a Different Jurisdiction
Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins, J.D., AEP (Distinguished) Most estate planners automatically situs their clients’ irrevocable trusts in the jurisdiction in which the client resides without considering the possibility of using a different jurisdiction. This is often done for no reason other than the fact that it is customary to do so. However, in many situations this decision causes a loss of potential benefits that may have been obtained by exploring the use of a different trust situs. Following are some of the common reasons to situs an irrevocable trust in a different jurisdiction: Reason #1: State Income…
Trusts Aren’t Just for The Rich Anymore
By Jonathan G. Blattmachr & Matthew D. Blattmachr Many people associate trusts with the very wealthy, because they are often used in the media and pop culture in the context of two other words: “fund” and “baby”. The reality is that a trust is a helpful estate planning instrument for most of your clients, not just the wealthy. Clients with $250,000 to $1 million in investable assets should consider a trust to help tackle their estate and financial planning challenges. Another reason trusts are commonly associated with the rich is because in the past for many families the cost of…
Referring Advisors – Shelf Life?
By Joseph J. Strazzeri, Esq. Each year we conduct the same exercise of compiling a list of each advisor that referred us a client over the last two years – noting how many clients were referred, those that we met with, those that retained us, and the associated total revenue. Some of the results are what we expected to see, but often we are shocked that many were one-time referrals and worse, too many great referral relationships have drifted away. “I worked with him once, but . . .” After many industry events and presentations, filtering through an unknown number…
Happy Labor Day!
All of us at The Ultimate Estate Planner just want to wish you and your family a very safe and relaxing Labor Day holiday weekend! We hope that you utilize this holiday to take some time away from work, enjoy your friends and family, eat some delicious food, and do something that you love and that makes you happy! As you should (hopefully) be doing, our office will be closed on Monday, September 1st. Here’s just a glimpse at what’s ahead for our team members this weekend: TABATHA is going camping at Yosemite National Park with her husband and 6…
Happy National Dog Day!
The staff at The Ultimate Estate Planner are most-certainly pet lovers. We all have pets, but 3 out of the 4 of us are dog owners, which is why we must take a brief moment out of our busy day to celebrate NATIONAL DOG DAY and shamelessly post a picture of our beloved furry friends! Megan’s Dog, Diesel (a 5-year-old Black Lab Terrier Mix) Kristina’s Dog, Klare (a 3-year-old Yorkie Cairn Terrier Mix) Melissa’s Dog, Kuma (a 3-year-old Black Lab) Oh, and just because we don’t want Tabatha and her kitties to feel left out, we will go ahead and…
GREAT NEWS!—Marketing Session Added to The Ultimate Level Program
By popular demand, we are pleased to announce that we have added a MARKETING SESSION to both of our upcoming 2-day Ultimate Level events. We are just 4 weeks away from our Dallas program and we only have 4 spots left. For more information about the Dallas event, click here. If you can’t make the Dallas event or prefer to attend our Orlando event in October, we still have room and you still have time to do so. For more information about the Orlando event, click here. During this MARKETING SESSION, Phil will be providing attendees ideas and strategies for…
Hello and Goodbye (for Now!)
We’ve got a lot of exciting things going on at The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc. First, we are excited to welcome Melissa Towle to our team. She started with us on August 11th and will be helping us out with receptionist duties, order fulfillment, customer service, teleconference administration, and much more. We are happy to have her with us! One of Melissa’s major roles for us for the next few months is to help cover the duties of our Director of Operations, Megan DeLaGarza, while she is out on maternity leave. Megan’s last day is today, August 12th. All of…
Watch a Complimentary Webinar on Recent Updates for Inherited IRAs
Robert Keebler, CPA, MST, AEP (Distinguished), CGMA, and Michael J. Jones, CPA recently presented a webinar for Trusts & Estates Magazine, discussing recent updates on Inherited IRAs. The update includes a discussion of the recent Supreme Court decision in Clark v. Rameker case. Trusts & Estates has generously agreed to allow us to share a complimentary link to the archived webinar. To view this On-Demand Webinar, click here.
Farewell and Best Wishes, Sally!
It is with great sadness that we must wish our team member, Sally Kashanchi, farewell today. Today is her last day with us before she heads out into the world to further her education and continue to grow in her career opportunities. All of us wish her the best in all of her future endeavors and will miss all of our fun times with her! We will be slightly short-handed for one week before we will announce the addition to another team member! Stay tuned!