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To adapt to the unprecedented pace of change across the tax landscape, companies must focus on embracing a total tax liability mindset—a holistic understanding of the sum of all taxes across the entirety of the organization. Once viewed as a compliance-driven, back-office function, effective tax planning is now crucial to business perfor...

In periods of elevated volatility such as the fourth quarter of 2018—when we saw the largest quarterly decline in the U.S. market, as measured by the S&P 500, since the third quarter of 2011—investors have many opportunities to harvest losses. Preserving tax benefits by avoiding wash-sale violations becomes even more important durin...

The SECURE Act contains many changes for individuals with retirement plans as well as small businesses with retirement plans. Changes include distribution provisions of an inherited IRA, planning with trusts, a later start for required minimum distributions, and incentives for small business owners and employees. There are also other non-retirement...

By leveraging the power of your investment portfolio through securities-based lending, you can free up available cash by using a portion of your eligible portfolio holdings as collateral. While there are potential risks in borrowing against your portfolio, they can be managed for a host of needs, ranging from asset purchases to wealth planning...

The IRS recently released the April 2020 interest rates used for estate planning purposes. As expected based on recent market conditions, these rates are at or near all-time lows. These low rates, combined with potentially-depressed asset prices and temporarily-high estate and gift tax exemptions (currently over $23 million for a married coupl...

After the death of a retirement plan participant or IRA owner, non-eligible designated beneficiaries of a retirement account (other than a Roth) will experience an acceleration of taxable income and the loss of tax-deferred growth that was available before the enacted SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement). This is the t...

Black swan events—like the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID pandemic—often come with high velocity and are slow to recover. While these events are difficult to predict, the best way to get ready for the next crisis is with extreme preparation. Looking ahead with intentional risk management, here are 8 ways to prepare your business, family enterp...

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act ("CARES Act") was signed into law. The CARES Act provides emergency assistance to individuals, families, and businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act is divided into two divisions: Division A includes programs to benefit individuals, companies, an...

While today’s health, economic, and market concerns have created a challenging environment, there is a silver lining for wealth and estate planning opportunities. Compelling opportunities include gifting assets with depreciated value; using the low interest rate environment to your advantage through vehicles such as grantor retained annu...

In this Part Four of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act), we take a look at the use of qualified charitable distributions (OCDs) that impacts estate planning. For the full planning series, see also Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

As we learn to cope with the unprecedented changes to our daily lives imposed by the COVID-19 crisis, many are rethinking about the steps to take to confirm that their affairs are in order. Now is the time to perform an estate plan wellness check-up and learn about the opportunities to implement planning techniques geared toward economic downturns.

Through the evolution of the family journey, it’s clear that family structures have become more complex and estate planning needs to shift to a new model that focuses on multiple aspects of wealth. By adapting to the changes and taking a holistic approach that go beyond financial goals, this wealth planning magazine provides thoughtful insigh...

The CARES Act was signed into law on March 27, 2020. The Act provides relief to individuals and families in the form of direct payments, relaxed restrictions on retirement accounts and new guidelines on cash donations to public charities.

Tax alpha is a measurement of tax efficiency that attempts to isolate the value of active tax management by comparing a manager versus a passive benchmark. This metric is preferred over alternative measures of tax efficiency because it shows the investor’s actual tax experience and uses a custom benchmark to put the results in perspective. Th...

Taxable investors are right to be concerned with measuring performance on an after-tax basis. However, to put after-tax performance in perspective requires a benchmark, just as pretax performance measurement does. Yet unlike pretax performance, after-tax performance is unique to each investor’s tax situation and asset flow patterns.