This white paper details strategies that take advantage of today’s favorable wealth transfer climate, and some important planning ideas designed to prepare your estate for the uncertainties of 2013.
Current U.S. fiscal policy, if not modified before year-end, is on track to deliver a $600 billion economic headwind in 2013 (the equivalent of 4 percent of U.S. GDP), while the 2012 presidential and congressional elections add another layer of uncertainty to an already complex and politically challenged situation.
The upcoming election is as much about how we address fiscal issues as it is about the pace of the remedy; at the center is the debate over taxes and the size of government.
Current law provides that on January 1, 2013, income tax rules revert to significantly higher pre-2001 levels. In addition, it appears that the new Medicare Hospital Insurance taxes for high-income individuals will go into effect in 2013 following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the majority of the Obama health care law. Congress is unlikely...
Over the past several months, private investors and their advisors have been pondering the wisdom of accelerating long-term capital gains in the 2012 tax year. This paper looks at why.
This paper reviews the expanded federal gift exemption that is set to expire at the end of 2012 and the tax differences that are set to occur on gifts given before and after December 31, 2012. Hemenway & Barnes also reviews various trust instruments, including a generation-skipping trust and a grantor trust.
The “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance & Job Creation Act of 2010” (TRA 2010) reunified the gift and estate tax systems and increased the amount a person can transfer to children and future generations during lifetime or at death to $5,000,000. As of the beginning of 2012, indexing puts that number at $5,120,000. The window on this...
The fourth quarter 2012 issue of Global Foresight features a discussion of the recent QE3 (quantitative easing) announcement by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the related inflation and market implications, along with a discussion of the current geopolitical overlay.
Modifications, reformations and decanting of a trust have all gained in popularity as a result of modernized trust laws, changes in family circumstances and/or a desire to change trust administration. This paper looks at some of the benefits of South Dakota's decanting, modification and reformation statutes.
The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (2010 Tax Act) reinstated the gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer (GST) taxes that were repealed earlier in 2010. The reinstatement comes with increased transfer tax exemptions and favorable rates for 2012. Get a closer look at the details in this white pa...
The term “family bank” grew from the idea that a Dynasty Trust can act much like a traditional bank by providing resources to fund particular needs of beneficiaries in successive generations, for instance, purchasing real estate and other large assets, funding business endeavors, providing family distributions to fund “health, edu...
Personal liability for family members serving individually as a trustee can result from improper asset allocation, lack of diversification, unacceptable due diligence and monitoring, environmental issues with real estate, and other distribution and/or investment issues. The directed trust and private family trust company (PFTC) are two great option...
With the International Monetary Fund and most analysts ratcheting down global growth forecasts, no end in sight for Europe’s fiscal and financial challenges, and a looming fiscal cliff in the United States, there is considerable hope that China, the world’s second largest economy, can remain an engine of global growth. Only Chinese growth his slowi...
This paper looks at the possibility of an upturn in housing and the headwinds most likely to impede a robust recovery.
Pension plan sponsors face significant challenges. Retirement obligations continue to increase, and the two major equity market set-backs in 2000 and 2008 have produced widening funding gaps. So what does the future hold? Will their plans be able to reliably achieve their stated return objectives? Unfortunately for plans relying solely on tradi...