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It is often thought that financial success comes with a certain level of financial freedom: the freedom to pursue passions, to take risks, to give back, and to make an even bigger impact. In the 2018 U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth® survey, the results revealed that only half of high-net-worth individuals have a plan to optimize the opportu...

This handbook is designed to support families connected through wealth understand the importance and value of family meetings. It provides the concepts, tools, and resources with the intention of helping them optimize their family meetings and build towards a more cohesive, resilient, adaptive family.

Talking about wealth is every bit as important as creating a technical wealth plan—if not more so. Preparing a wealth transfer plan for your assets “on paper,” but failing to help your loved ones understand how to manage those assets in their lives, leaves the true process of sharing wealth incomplete and subject to real, but avoi...

Over the next 15 years, the youngest of America’s Baby Boomers will turn 65, and waves of small business owners across the country will get ready to cash out. Sales of Boomer-owned small businesses and wholesalers are expected to reach an apex by the end of the decade. And finding time to plan for the future can be hard—especially for w...

Under 35s are creating more companies, with higher headcount and greater profit ambitions. They show strong interest in the new economy, but not exclusively, and prefer diversification across their investments. Dubbed as the “Millennipreneurs,’ these are business starters from ‘Generation Y,’ born between 1980 and 1995, also...

A volunteer position with a nonprofit organization can be an incredibly rewarding experience—both for the volunteer and for the organization. But the path to key leadership roles with such organizations can be tricky to navigate. While the process inevitably will vary from organization to organization, there are a few things that can help with maki...

Marie Tillman was thrust into the spotlight on April 22, 2004, when her husband, former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman, was killed in a barrage of friendly fire in Afghanistan. Only a week after Pat’s death, as donations from strangers poured in to support the Tillmans, family and friends decided to establish The Pat Tillman Foundation ...

At the start of a family enterprise journey, there is often a patriarch (or matriarch) who was both an entrepreneur and a leader who overcame uncertainty or adversity to create something very special with the potential to last for many generations. For the families seeking to sustain their legacies, there will come a time for the patriarchs to move...

Like many families, you may be involved in running businesses or other types of investments together with other family members, but is this necessarily the right choice? Should you consider breaking away and creating your own path. The decision on whether to stick together or unbundle collective assets into separate ownership and investment structu...

Poorly structured family meetings that lack a clear purpose and agenda can do more harm than good. Failing to get buy-in from all family members can cause irreparable damage to relationships, despite the best of intentions. There are five key tips for holding a successful family meeting, which is an essential ingredient for managing wealth across g...

A family constitution—the rule book that defines the vision and principles of a family’s wealth strategy and acts as an operating model—should be as unique as the family itself. The key to developing an appropriate family constitution is not in the ultimate output, but in the collaborative process of developing it. In working together, families oft...

Avoiding the issue of succession planning is much easier than starting a conversation about handing over the reins to other family members. But avoidance does not defer the inevitable, and it puts family harmony and wealth at risk. As patriarchs and matriarchs of wealth families confront the issue of succession planning, there are seven questions f...

When you think about family dynamics, very often there’s a lack of that home team concept and feeling of unity. Establishing that home team within your family early on offers the greatest opportunity for generational success and healthy family governance. The need to prepare the family for the future is particularly important for families tha...

For years, owners of family-controlled companies have taken advantage of applicable valuation discounts to advance their objectives in transferring wealth and company ownership to future generations in a tax efficient manner. On August 2, the Treasury Department issued proposed regulations under Internal Revenue Code Section 2704 to curb the use of...

Recently the IRS released proposed regulations under Chapter 14 of the Internal Revenue Code that would severely limit—if not eliminate—the application of valuation discounts, including lack of marketability and minority discounts, to interests in closely held family entities for gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax purpos...