Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant Having worked with so many estate planning attorneys and support staff members, time and time again, I have seen that one of the major breakdowns in firm systems comes with the lack of proper job training. Things start to slip through the cracks and while one or two details won’t make or break the success of your firm, the compound effect of multiple staff members not trained right and doing their job duties as originally intended will become one of the biggest challenges for any brilliant estate planning attorney trying to manage…
The Hot, New Product to Sell to Your Clients: Medicaid Trusts
Download Printable Article By Louis W. Pierro, Esq. Asset protection planning has become a focal point for Trust and Estates attorneys, surpassing estate tax planning in many practices. Asset Protection Trusts (APT’s) take their names from being Domestic (DAPT’s) or Foreign (FAPT’s), but the largest market for asset protection planning is the middle class, with health care creditors posing the greatest risk. The most used APT is designed to qualify the Grantor for Medicaid, and is referred to as a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT). In 1993, major federal legislation changed the rules regarding trust funds used by Medicaid applicants…
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…
One of the Most Important Documents that Most Estate Planners Don’t Have
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant If you’re an estate planning attorney with your own law practice, there’s a good chance that you don’t have one of the most important manuals in your practice: an Employee Handbook. In fact, this may also be the case for other estate planning professionals as well, such as CPAs, financial advisors, or life insurance agents. The fact is, if you have your own business and you have employees working for you, an employee handbook is a must-have necessity as part of your business for all of the reasons laid out below. What…
Estate Planning to Elder Law: It’s As Natural As Growing Old
Download Printable Article By Louis W. Pierro, Esq. Are you looking for new services to offer your estate planning clients? Have revenues recovered since the permanent $5 million estate tax exemption was enacted? Prepare your office for the age wave and build your practice using skills you already possess as an estate planner. Living longer and in greater numbers is only a piece of the aging puzzle. The way we age is about to undergo a radical transformation, as Baby Boomers begin to turn 70 in 2016 at the rate of 10,000 per day. How we die has also changed…
Traps of Swap Powers
Download Printable Article By Martin M. Shenkman, CPA, MBA, PFS, AEP, JD Swap powers have proliferated like Tribbles (you are a Trekkie aren’t you?). Most trusts that are created are structured to be grantor trusts so that the income is taxed to the settlor creating the trust. That continues to reduce the settlor’s estate by the tax paid on income inside the trust. Grantor trusts often include a swap or substitution power that permits the settlor to swap cash into the trust for appreciated trust assets. Swaps are a key to obtaining the new tax planning holy elixir of basis…
Open Another Office!
Download Printable Article By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law You may be thinking I’m nuts. It may have taken you years of your blood, sweat, tears, time and money to get your current office up and running smoothly and profitably (or you’re still in the process of getting that done). So why would you want to open another office? There are lots of good reasons. Here are a few: Gain access to a larger audience of potential clients (particularly if your current market has a…
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….
7 Tips For Being the “Boss” of Your Boss
Download Printable Article By Kristina Schneider, Executive Assistant An executive assistant is probably one of the most important support staff members that any busy professional could possibly have, regardless of his or her profession. One of the things that we hear all the time from our boss, Phil Kavesh, is that his executive assistant is actually his boss. Of course, this doesn’t give us, as executive assistants, the same kind of “power” that a normal boss might have over an employee. What being the boss of your boss means is that you are supporting your boss and directing his or…
Harvesting Capital Losses
Download Printable Article By Robert S. Keebler, CPA/PFS, MST, AEP (Distinguished), CGMA The recent volatility in the stock market should reinforce the idea that it’s not what you earn that counts, but what you keep. In 2013 the top tax rate on dividends and long-term capital gains increased from 15% to 20%. When the 3.8% surtax on net investment income is added, the total tax rate on interest, rents, dividends, annuities, royalties, non-business capital gains and passive activities can increase the total tax rate to as much as 23.8% for long-term capital gains. Over time, taxes can have a profound…