The Top Six Estate Planning Concepts Your Future Ex-Spouse Doesn’t Want You to Know About

Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) Divorce can be ugly. But it’s a realistic possibility for anybody who is married. Therefore, estate planners must plan for it when designing their clients’ estate and asset protection plans. This article will highlight six concepts that can protect assets from a divorcing spouse and, in some cases, enhance or keep together the marital relationship — at least until the day of reckoning. The planning concepts described herein are listed in no particular order of importance. The “Floating Spouse Provision” – When designing a trust, unless there is a compelling…

The Top Eight Trust Jurisdictions If There Was a Jurisdictional Super Bowl

Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) The jurisdictional competition for state trust law supremacy is similar to the National Football League’s biggest annual event — the Super Bowl. Every year there are changes to state statutes that create more and more competition among the most proactive trust jurisdictions. The adrenaline and effort put forth by the trust promoters often equals or exceeds that of an NFL football player. If there were Jurisdictional Playoffs ending in a big game called the Jurisdictional Super Bowl, the question is, “Who would win the big game?” The Competitors Alaska, Delaware,…

The Top Seven Estate Planning Stories of the Past Half-Decade

Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) The past half-decade provided the estate planning community with plenty of drama and a lot of uncertainty and twists and turns. This article will briefly describe a number of estate planning-related stories, sometimes dramatic, and other times just plain unexpected and unpredictable. These stories will appear in reverse-order, David Letterman style. Obergefell: States Can’t Prohibit Same-Sex Marriages On June 26, 2015, by a 5-4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that a state can’t prohibit same-sex marriages and also must recognize valid out-of-state marriages. The rationale…

What’s Your Best Thing¹: A Music Lover’s Guide to Financial Success

By Jason Oshins, Financial Advisor, MBA Music is the perfect analogue for wealth planning. All parts are interrelated, with each component complementing the others. It requires balance, and once out of alignment, its results are compromised. This is true, irrespective of the music genre. For me, absolute perfection is represented by the Beatles. The lyrics complement the melody, the chorus complements the verses. Each player’s contribution complements the aggregate. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I recently had the gift of a day in the studio with another favorite band of mine, the English Beat. My…

Innovative Changes to Nevada Decanting Statutes Effective 10/1/2015

Download Printable Article By Steven J. Oshins Esq., AEP (Distinguished) There are 22 states that have statutes allowing the distribution trustee of an irrevocable trust to decant the trust. The trustee decants the trust by distributing the trust assets into a different trust with different terms for one or more of the same beneficiaries of the original trust. In most cases, this second trust is a brand new trust. Essentially, this gives the trustee a “do-over” to make changes to the trust terms that traditionally would not have been permitted prior to the ability to decant without a judicial modification….

Financial Advisor: Attract Generation X & Y Clients

Download Printable Article By Mark Dreschler, President & CEO at Premier Trust and Deborah Erdmann, QKA, CISP, Vice President & Trust Officer at Premier Trust Attracting and retaining the Generation X & Y children of your current clients is an important strategy for a financial advisor to retain assets.  According to the Investment Management Consultants Association, only 2% of children keep inheritances with their parent’s financial advisor. As your core baby boomer client base continues to age and draw down assets, you’re probably already thinking of ways to generate new revenue. In this article we will discuss how to grow…

Creating Your List – Things to Talk About With Your Clients in 2015

It happens to all of us. We go to a wonderful conference; we see a great webinar; we read an important article – and then we plan to change the conversation with referral sources and clients. So, when the inevitable challenges of our personal and professional reality comes in, we end up singing the same old songs of wealth, estate tax, financial, and asset protection planning – thinking months later, where did the change in conversation go? Successful practitioners explain to us that the way their practice found stability and growth was through finding planning that they could execute on,…

An Evidence-Based Approach to Investing

Download Printable Article By Jason Oshins, Financial Advisor, MBA Evidence-based medicine is defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.”[1] If possible, wouldn’t it be prudent to approach investing similarly? Wouldn’t it make sense to apply the concepts developed by Nobel Laureates? Well, you can. Philosopher Alfred A. Montapert famously said, “Do not confuse motion and progress.” Motion also creates the illusion of control. An excellent example of this is in the investment world.   Wall Street perpetuates the notion that successful investing requires stock picking and market…

Our Top 10 Best Articles on Financial & Life Insurance Planning

As part of our December 2014 Newsletter, we are featuring a special “Best Of” issue.  Below, you will find a list of our Top 10 Articles on Financial & Life Insurance Planning.  These articles are written by a variety of financial and estate planning professionals, as noted below. Some Magical Aspects of Life Insurance by Jonathan G. Blattmachr & Matthew D. Blattmachr Insurance as the Key Ingredient of the “New” Estate Planning Summary of a Live Presentation by Martin M. Shenkman, J.D., CPA/PFS, MBA, AEP (Distinguished) Life Insurance from the Estate Planning Attorney’s Viewpoint by Steven J. Oshins, J.D., AEP…

Stock Market Forecast

By E. Dryden Pence III, CPM®, AIF®, LPL Registered Principal, CIO Pence Wealth Management Securities and Advisory Services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC. | Volume 2, Issue 5 (May 2014) Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of periodic market watch articles provided by E. Dryden Pence III, whose investment advisory firm Pence Wealth Management has been recognized as one of the top in the United States byBarron’s, Forbes and The London Financial Times. Bottom Line Up Front: We think the US stocks are currently in a secular bull market—meaning it has legs, not in months but years….