Attract, Engage & Work with Families with Taxable Estates and Their Advisors

For decades many of us, as wealth strategies planners, have wondered not only how but if we should attract, engage and work with affluent families and those with complex taxable estates. Their advisors are more protective. The solutions are more complicated and create larger liability. Though the fees may be greater, are they enough to cover the time and effort – especially if we only do it occasionally? The Laureate Center for Wealth Advisors has the training and education needed to attract, engage, and implement work in the taxable estate arena. You owe it to yourself and your clients to…

Robert Keebler: Planning for Concentrated Stock Positions, Plus Half Off Bob’s Teleconference

Reposted with Permission from Robert S. Keebler, CPA, MST, AEP Planning for Concentrated Stock Positions: Variable Forward Sales, Charitable Remainder Trusts and Exchange Funds The detrimental effects of concentrated stock portfolios are well documented. Not only do they subject the investor to a high level of risk, but their volatility tends to drag down returns. Fortunately, a number of strategies have been developed to address the problem. This is the last in a three-part series of columns explaining those strategies. In the first column I explained how asset volatility drags down returns, quantified the benefits of diversification and provided a…

How Do You Convince Clients to Actually Do GRATs (and Other Estate Tax Planning)?

Most practitioners know about the estate tax planning “window of opportunity” that may be closing soon. We’ve only got the $5.12 million gift tax exemption until year-end and President Obama’s budget proposal has targeted “loopholes” like GRATs and valuation discounts. You would think these urgencies would be enough to convince high net worth clients to move forward with advanced-level planning (like Dynasty Trusts, GRATs, LLCs, installment sales and completed gift DAPTs) — but it’s still difficult to get people to take action! Having run into this client procrastination problem too many times, I realized that this has less to do…

Paul Hood on Wandry v. Commissioner: A Significant Taxpayer Win in another Defined Value Case

Reproduced with Permission by and Courtesy of Leimberg Information Services, Inc. (LISI) and L. Paul Hood, Jr.. For information about how to subscribe to LISI, click here. “Congratulations to counsel to the taxpayers for a slam dunk taxpayer victory! You should read this opinion. It is an important extension of defined value gifts and proves that one doesn’t need a charitable or marital “wrapper” for these things to work properly as I have argued in published articles for almost ten years. In my opinion, the bottom line is that properly designed and implemented defined value transfers are more legitimate now…

4 Estate and Tax Planning Steps to Take in an Uncertain Year

Regardless of whether Congress acts on taxes by year-end, estate planning attorney John Scroggin says taxpayers shouldn’t dally Reposted from AdvisorOne.com | By Michael S. Fischer, AdvisorOne Planners will not know before year-end what changes on the tax front are in the works for 2013, according to John Scroggin, a business, tax and estate planning attorney and a popular speaker at advisor conferences based in Roswell, Ga. A last-minute deal in a post-election lame duck session of Congress, similar to the one in 2010, is highly unlikely. That means planning this year will have to take place in a vacuum,…

Steve Oshins on Weddell v. H20, Inc: Nevada Supreme Court Affirms Creditor Protection Benefits of Nevada LLCs

Reproduced with Permission by and Courtesy of Leimberg Information Services, Inc. (LISI). For information about how to subscribe to LISI, click here. “Prohibiting the creditor from exercising the debtor’s management rights reflects the principle that LLC members should be able to choose those members with whom they associate. Thus, the historical rationale for charging order protection was to protect the other members of an LLC where one member has a personal creditor problem. However, as asset protection planning has evolved and the competition among the states to have the most protective asset protection laws has intensified, the asset protection planners…

Leimberg Information Services: 60-Second Planner on Fifth Circuit Affirms Chilton on Inherited IRAs

Reproduced with Permission by and Courtesy of Leimberg Information Services, Inc. (LISI). For information about how to subscribe to LISI, click here. Nationally renowned CPA, Robert S. Keebler, recently produced an audio recording for Leimberg Information Services on the court ruling in the Chilton case pertaining to Inherited IRAs. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE LEIMBERG 60-SECOND PLANNER RECORDING Special thanks to Robert S. Keebler and Stephan Leimberg for sharing this valuable information! Additionally, Robert Keebler is gearing up for his upcoming Learn it Live 2-day IRA seminar in Green Bay, Wisconsin on May 14-15, 2012 and just announced a…

How to Help Your Clients’ Adult Children

Reposted from RegisteredRep.com | By Kevin McKinley Giving the young adults in your clients’ families a little time and attention can be beneficial for everyone involved. Most advisors are most interested in working with individuals who have the most money to manage. This usually means those who are about to retire or have just done so. But many of these clients have one thing on their minds that may be even more important and worrisome to them than their money: their fully-grown (if not yet fully-matured) children. Helping the next generation get off on the right financial foot could be…

Tax Expert Marty Shenkman: Two Tax Mistakes to Avoid With Clients in 2012

Despite the uncertainty of where estate, income and capital gains rates will be this year, you still need to plan. Reposted from AdvisorOne.com | By Marlene Y. Satter, AdvisorOne Martin Shenkman of Shenkman Law in Paramus, N.J. doesn’t hesitate to tell it like it is about tax planning in 2012: “This is not a normal year,” he says. However, that’s no excuse for what he sees as two huge mistakes that advisors and their clients often make as they quiver with uncertainty over what Congress may or may not do this year regarding taxes. Those two mistakes? Acting like an…

Senate Highway Bill S.2132 Brings Back Mandated 5-Year Rule for Payout of Inherited IRAs

A special thanks to Robert Keebler of Keebler & Associates, LLP for bringing to our attention the Senate Highway Bill S.2132, which brings back the mandated 5-year rule for Inherited IRAs (with some exceptions). This obviously has a lot of estate planning professionals on edge to see what’s going to happen with respect to retirement benefit planning for clients this year and beyond. The entire Bill can be found on the Library of Congress’ website. To view S.2132, click here. Robert Keebler has a phone call into Senator Baucus’ office to confirm and will be posting more updates in the…