Donating appreciated securities to charities may provide tax advantages over making cash donations by reducing capital gains taxes. This report from Fidelity Investments explores the issue, providing assistance in calculating tax savings and explaining how a donor advised fund can reduce paperwork to make these donations easier.
Affluent Gen X households have markedly different attitudes about finances than other affluent families, investing more aggressively and owning more managed future funds, exchange-traded funds and socially responsible funds. This is according to Northern Trust's annual Wealth in America study, which examines topics for all age groups, such as asset allocation, investment strategy, philanthropy and retirement.
By limiting the deductibility of investment-managing expenses by trusts, the Supreme Court's decision in the Knight case increases the taxes on trusts that use professional investment managers. This article by Richard LeVine of Withers Bergman examines the ruling and notes the need for innovative relationships between trusts and assets managers to improve tax outcomes.
Pre-nuptial agreements and marriage agreements are not binding under English law, leaving the details of divorce settlements largely in the hands of judges. But decisions rendered in the past five years show that judges are now taking pre-nups more seriously. This article from Withers shows how an appeals court has interpreted the importance of a pre-nup in a particular case.
The purpose of this article is to support the argument that alternative investments belong in high net worth portfolios, analyze what the appropriate allocation is for them, and summarize some of the challenges associated with actually implementing more alternatives within portfolios of different sizes.
This article deals with the legal status of prenuptial agreements under English law.
Wealthy families struggle to find advice needed to launch a philanthropic foundation or to select charities to which to donate, according to a survey of wealthy individuals and family offices in Europe by U.K.-based New Philanthropy Capital. Other challenges include finding ways to network with other donors and measuring the success of donations.
China has become a prime source of malicious computer activity, according to Finjan, a California-based provider of Web security solutions. In its December monthly report, Finjan shows the network of connections between Chinese-based servers and how hackers use it to launch spyware attacks from legitimate, even government, Web sites in Western countries. The report also details how the attacks work – and what real-time action can be taken against them.
Online criminals are working through legitimate sites to place spyware or other malicious programs on the computers of ordinary users, according to Trends in Badware 2007, a report by StopBadware. Criminals can access users' private information through links and software placed on these sites. The report outlines current practices, lists compromised sites and offers security suggestions.
Absolute return funds deserve a place in anyone's investment portfolio, according to a research paper from Liberty Gateway Investment Management Co. Rather than trying to fit these and other alternative investments into a traditional portfolio, Liberty recommends looking at traditional and alternative investments simultaneously to create the best possible portfolio at a given level of risk.