By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) It finally happened. California passed SB 131 in its 2023 legislative session which, among other things, sadly contains a provision treating all so-called Incomplete Non-Grantor Trusts (“ING Trusts”) as grantor trusts taxed to the settlor. This takes away a key tool planners have used for many years to reduce California state income tax on taxable income not sourced to California. The legislation is effective retroactive to January 1, 2023, so many California residents were wrongly punished for following the law that existed prior to the date this legislation passed. It remains to be…
Most Estate Planning Websites Are Designed to Fail
By Tom Foster, Owner and Founder of Foster Web Marketing The websites for most estate planning law firms suffer from a common problem. It’s a problem that is completely obvious to visitors and potential clients, but it often goes undetected by the lawyers that own the website. In the lawyers’ eyes, their websites appear to be attractive and contemporary, with all the bells and whistles needed to attract, convert, and retain their ideal clients. However, in the eyes of their visitors, their websites are falling flat. So, what’s going on? What is this problem that’s so pervasive that it affects…
5 Commonly Overlooked Uses of Life Insurance
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law Now that estate taxes apply to less than 0.2% of Americans, I have had life insurance agents (as well as financial planners, CPAs, and attorneys) ask me whether there’s any need for life insurance anymore in clients’ planning, beyond the still standard needs for replacing the income of a head of household or funding a business partner buy-sell agreement. Over my 40+ years of experience in advising clients on estate, tax, and financial planning, I have seen and utilized…
The Top 35 Overlooked Best Practices for Executive Assistants
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach and Kirsten Allen, Executive Assistant Working for our boss, estate planning attorney Philip Kavesh, we combined have over 28 years of executive assistant experience. Throughout this time, we have been able to gain numerous best practices and good habits for providing administrative support to a busy executive. Also through our time in interfacing with many busy attorneys, we have interacted and even worked side-by-side with our fair share of assistants that either lacked the skills, experience, knowledge, training, or personality to be able to properly support their bosses. So we have seen what works…