Misconceptions of Estate Planning – and Some Efficient Solutions
We start out with best intentions. Why does it all go haywire? Poor planning; wishful thinking. The tangle of details, brambles and thorns, eating...
Learning to Love: The Rising Desire for Life Insurance
It needs to be said, but I’ll soften the indecorous ‘I told you so’ with smoothly digestible Latin: Quod erat demonstrandum. QED: ‘And so it is...
Good Policies Gone Bad: When to Let Go of a Universal Life Plan
David Lee Roth once said that he’d never owned anything better than a dog, a radio or a bicycle. No mention made of Dave’s favored flavor of life...
Give It Away Now: Shrinking Swollen Estates Before It’s Too Late
“Holiday gift-giving gives me a pain in my big broad – Bertie! Stop that!” So said my supervisor just a moment ago, chastising her cat, this...
Here Comes Tax-y Claus: ‘Tis the Season for Giving – And Protecting Your Estate
It seems pretty certain, as far as we know, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will soon be spending business hours in the White House. What will...
The Long Goodbye: Delaying Retirement, Working Forever, and Life Insurance in a Postmodern World
Memo to management: I intend to perish at my desk. Request extra vigilance from cleaning staff. Old dad would have thought I was nuts. After...
Freeze Frame: Tools for Estate Planning, Come What May
I’m feeling like Odysseus today: strapped to the mast with a big-n-tall belt bought in the stoa of Ithaca, wondering if the siren melodies of...
To Have and Have Not: Proposition 19 and Its Estate Planning Implications
We all know the hopeful if half-witted saying: one door closes and another one opens. In the case of regulatory legislation aimed at tax...
Stealing a March: Estate Planning in the Pre-Biden Window
An article I read not long ago claimed the wealthy have been “panicking” for six months, harrying their estate planners ahead of dread changes to...
Climb Every Mountain: The Disciplined Path to Retirement
Saving for retirement is like climbing a mountain, which most will never attempt. I’ve done it in miniature, a few years back. I won’t claim that...
Time for You to Decide: Brookings Presents a Proposal for Expanding the Estate Tax
The other night, I was reading up on the concept of verisimilitude. I try to avoid philosophical inquiries, which make head and stomach both spin...
Backhanded Blessings: Pandemic Helping Families to Plan for Succession
I like a good aphorism – a clever phrase or limerick that teaches me wisdom, nearly eternal, without needing to read all those books. The best of...
Who Knows Where the Road Will Lead Us: Pre-Election Tax Anxiety and Estate Planning
Our topic today is estate planning and tax issues in the pre-election environment. One candidate wants to raise ‘em, another hopes to do...
Do Resuscitate: Stretch IRA Strategy Still Works for Some Clients
It’s best to keep up with the trend – that’s what the people say. Well, not quite everyone agrees. Sometimes, wise old birds remember when things...
Estate-Planning Strategies to Fill the Void Left by Stretch IRA’s Extinction
Despite the widespread rumors, I am not a dinosaur. My colleague Rebecca, her very name recalling literature’s most troublesome spirit, often has...
An Inferno’s Opportunities: Pandemic Creates Good Environment for Roth IRA Conversions
Hard times bring great opportunities. There, I’ve said it for you – that hoary old chestnut you’re too wise to speak. The principle holds true...