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The current approach used by museums in the United States to manage art market ownership risks is problematic and should keep pace with current trends. This white paper cites the evolution of title risks involving museums, including the impact of defects in legal titles, breaches of donor-restricted gifts and donated art previously pledged to banks as loan collateral.

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 maintained the gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes that were scheduled to sunset prior to 2013 and increased the exemptions for all three taxes to $5.25 million, making new or additional gifts to trusts a more attractive option in estate planning.

The reinstatement of the charitable IRA rollover by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 provides a window of opportunity for certain donors to make significant charitable gifts on a tax-favored basis. To take advantage of this provision, a donor must be at least 70½ years old, and distributions must be made directly from the IRA trustee/custodial administrator to a qualifying public charity.

With greater frequency, investors are wondering whether, and when, the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary money printing will cause rampant inflation. A review of the past century provides interesting insights, particularly between 1933 and the late 1940s when the Federal Reserve printed money at comparable levels to those of the Bernanke Fed.

Preserving and managing tangible wealth in a complex and uncertain world can be a challenge. However, the greatest challenge individuals and their families might face is defining, reflecting on and expressing what their wealth really means.

Amid the rapid development of more and increasingly sophisticated financial products and services, there is still a place in the market for what the author describes as traditional banks – those long-trusted institutions on which family offices and financial advisors count for straightforward deposit and loan services.

New Hampshire has a robust set of modern trust laws, which afford settlors broad flexibility and creativity in designing trusts well suited to their specific needs and wishes. Those laws facilitate the more efficient administration of trusts and, importantly, provide a high level of certainty concerning the rights, duties and powers of settlors, beneficiaries, trustees, trust advisors and trust protectors.

Wealthy investors are in a strong, positive frame of mind as the recession recedes and prospects for the economy and financial markets improve. Yet, despite this growing confidence, they face significant, unrecognized challenges in their investment and wealth strategies. This study reveals the risks wealthy individuals face as they adapt to a challenging investment climate and new tax rules.

While challenges in the past caused the field to focus on practices to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of philanthropy, current challenges require an even deeper demand of philanthropy’s ability to address the most pressing problems of our time, amid smaller endowment values and continued economic uncertainty, government budget restrictions and an increase in demand for services.

Entrepreneurs are, at their core, in the business of solving problems. They identify a problem, find a solution and build a business around it. At the same time, it’s hardly surprising that entrepreneurs are highly individualistic when it comes to philanthropy, applying the same creative thinking that made them successful in business.