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How to Protect Your Heirs and Your Legacy from Bad Decisions and Outside Influences After working diligently for decades to achieve your financial goals, you understandably want to preserve your gains and leave an enduring legacy to the next generation. For better or for worse, though, your heirs have free will. Even while you’re alive… Read More »

Some view asset protection planning with a skeptical eye.  They believe there is a moral obligation to pay one’s debts.  They think that asset protection planning is immoral because it prevents a creditor from collecting on a judgment entered by a court. The truth is the U.S. justice system is unpredictable.  Defendants are faced with… Read More »

The practice of medicine is a profession fraught with liability.  It’s not just medical malpractice claims either – employment related issues (wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and discrimination), careless business partners and employees, and contractual obligations (personal guarantees, leases, business agreements, etc.), coupled with personal liabilities (divorce, vehicular accidents, rental real estate), add to the increased… Read More »

Protecting assets against loss has become a common goal of estate planning.  Asset protection trusts come in many different forms and can be used to protect property for the use and benefit of clients as well as their families and other beneficiaries.  In this issue you will learn how clients can easily integrate asset protection… Read More »

Estate planning is not only about having a plan in place to deal with what happens at your death, it is also about having a plan in place to deal with what happens if you become mentally incapacitated.  In this issue you will learn:   What happens without an incapacity plan. The essential documents for managing… Read More »

Your estate plan undoubtedly includes trusts that will continue for the benefit of your spouse’s lifetime and then for the benefit of several generations of your family.  Implementing and maintaining trusts that will cover the administration, investment, and distribution of trust property over the span of multiple decades is challenging and generally requires you to… Read More »

Many of us in the legal, financial and accounting worlds discover our new clients’ well-intentioned, yet disastrous, plans after the fact.  The widow has already transferred her house into her children’s names or an inherited IRA is drained to pay for a Porsche.  Observing the lost planning opportunity and the financial fallout is universally gut… Read More »

A will or trust contest can derail a client’s final wishes, rapidly deplete their estate, and tear their loved ones apart.  But it doesn’t have to end like this.  In this issue you will learn:  What a will or trust contest is Who can contest a will or trust When a will or trust contest… Read More »

Studies have shown that 70% of family wealth is lost by the end of the second generation and 90% by the end of the third.  Don’t let your loved ones become part of these statistics. You need to understand, and work to overcome, the disconnect that occurs between generations regarding the transfer of wealth.  In… Read More »

With the end of the year approaching fast, now is the time to consider ways to reduce your 2014 income tax bill. In this issue you will learn: How charitable trust-based planning can be used to reduce your taxable income. If you are the Trustee or beneficiary of an irrevocable, non-grantor trust (such as a… Read More »