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During this interview, attorney Jason Kohout shares the legal developments and highlights from his panel discussion on the regulatory, trust, tax, and estate planning update at the Family Office and Wealth Advisor Forum. Discover what to watch out for, what to stop worrying about, and what you should consider doing to protect your fa...

Irrevocable trusts are a great way to minimize estate taxes and keep more of your wealth in the family, but they require you to permanently give up ownership and control of the assets you place in them. For people who are hesitant about the irrevocable aspect of the trust, there is the spousal lifetime access trusts, or SLAT, that can be an excelle...

Simply because the instrument governing your trust states that it is irrevocable and cannot be amended does not mean it cannot be modified to serve your family’s needs in a better fashion. Delaware law offers an array of options—administrative amendment, decanting, a nonjudicial settlement agreement, consent modification, trust merger, and judicial...

Rather than viewing trusts as a mechanism to protect beneficiaries from the dangers of wealth, what if trusts were viewed as vehicles to “ignite a fire” within the next generation? Imagine a trust structure that is designed to cultivate a spirit of entrepreneurialism by making beneficiaries active participants rather than passive recipients of thei...

Beginning with the trustee fiduciary duties to the beneficiaries of a trust, attorney Abbey Magnuson of Foley & Lardner’s Estate & Trusts Practice Group discusses ways to mitigate trustee liability in this 10-minute interview with Brian Lucareli. Abbey also emphasizes the role Family Offices play in the administration of trusts and how they...

Choosing a trustee is a major decision—one that may impact you and your family in many ways for generations to come. Essentially, when you establish a trust for the benefit of others, you are handing down your values through the terms of the trust and your contributed financial assets. And with an increasing number of trusts lasting for multiple ge...

It may seem that there will always be time to address estate planning. However, a unique opportunity to maximize the amount of wealth that can be tax-efficiently passed to heirs will expire at the end of 2025. Furthermore, legislation could curb lifetime exemption limits even sooner. The opportunity is even more pressing because the current market ...

No matter your role – whether you’re a family business leader, family office executive, family member – how are you preparing your family for significant wealth transfer or liquidation events? Said differently, how can you make inheriting wealth less like being hit by a comet?

We can’t explore the future of the family office without first exploring the future of the family in a post-pandemic world. The next decade will increase the complexity enterprise families face and offer family offices new opportunities and challenges. And, as those enterprises grow more complex, the family office becomes more important to every fa...

At our Family Office Exchange (FOX) Rising Gen Leadership Programs held in February and June, we noticed developing themes from our next-generation attendees. It became clear their needs and concerns were coalescing around three emergent areas. In this article we’re presenting a simple engagement pipleline to guide families and rising gen on their ...

Your fellow FOX members have contributed these death and estate settlement tools and samples. Please note that these samples have been provided for illustrative purposes only, and may not represent the latest versions. If you have developed sample planning tools, templates, or practices that you think will be of interest to other families, pleas...

Your fellow FOX members have contributed these trust administration tools and samples. Please note that these samples have been provided for illustrative purposes only, and may not represent the latest versions.

As families and Family Offices look to increase future generations’ positive impact, high among their common goals, and common struggles, are delivering education and increasing engagement. Based on FOX’s thirty years of working with families, Family Offices, and Enterprise Families; conducting research; and engaging in consulting projects, FOX has...

There are many resources and games available for teaching children about different aspects of managing money, investing, and philanthropy. Starting financial literacy education with children and teens will be more successful when you make the activity fun, connected to their life stage and related to current interests. This includes gamifying learn...

The Importance of Family Learning: Developing Flourishing Families through Family Learning is an editable presentation featured in the FOX Family Learning Handbook designed to build a shared understanding of what family learning is and why it is important. Use it in a Family Learning Brainstorm Session to begin developing a family learning progr...