According to the CNBC Millionaire Study, up to one third of individuals with a minimum of $1 million in assets have not yet engaged a professional for estate planning purposes. While having an estate planner is important for people of all wealth levels, it becomes all the more important when someone has assets above this [...]
There is a myth out there that only the wealthiest of entertainers are in need of advanced estate planning strategies. This is not true, because every entertainer could benefit from putting these plans in place before they hit "the big time". Being skyrocketed into the spotlight highlights the paramount importance of planning, because spending habits [...]
It's common knowledge that people do better with their health when other aspects of their life are low on the stress scale. Even a perso who suffers from serious illness is likely to combat it more effectively if other issues like health insurance, financial concerns, and legal problems are kept to a bare minimum. This [...]
If you want your loved ones to have an easy experience with your estate after you pass away, one of the most popular methods of doing this is by avoiding probate. Leaving as much as possible to your loved ones is possible with some common estate planning methods that can also help avoid costly probate [...]
There are some situations where it simply makes sense for a child to buy out a share in the family business. The other option is for the parent to gift shares or to leave shares in a will, trust, or foundation. The challenge is that these same parents might need capital to rely on in [...]
While most estates will not owe federal estate or gift tax because of the fact that you can give away or leave much behind without tax consequences, you should still be aware of the estate tax. More people are growing their wealth into a position of needing to plan for estate taxes. Even if you’re [...]
Many retired individuals have access to both a tax-deferred account and a tax-free IRA. As a result, common advice from financial advisors includes suggestions for leaving the Roth behind to your children as it allows a tax-free withdrawal system over the course of their life. This is not always true, however. If you instead use [...]
In the post-recession era, family businesses have become extremely important. Many disenfranchised workers took the opportunity to launch their own companies during this time, and now home businesses make up 50 percent of gross domestic product and nearly 60 percent of all jobs in the U.S. Despite this rapid growth in the home business [...]
Several of the country’s biggest health insurance companies are planning to merge, but this is raising concerns about a serious lack of competition in the Medicare marketplace. According to a new report, in fact, there is not enough competition anywhere in the country when it comes to Medicare. Research comes from the Commonwealth Fund, which [...]
It is expected that the IRS will shortly announce changes to the transfer of corporate shares, limited liability corporation interests, and limited partnership interests to family members. In 1990, rulings pronounced the elimination of discounting the valued of such transferred assets, but it looks like these benefits could be in jeopardy entirely. The courts have [...]
