Tag: Taxes
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Did You Know This About Tariffs?
Fewer than half of Americans even claim to understand how tariffs work. Do you? If not, please don’t feel bad. I sat through at least one class in graduate school (at Stanford) on the subject of tariffs. That’s more, I suspect, than most people. And yet, when President Trump put…
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Taxes – Still Time (Not Much) to Plan
Congress wants to lower your clients tax bill (it’s true)! For most high-net-worth clients, the best way to reduce their tax bill for 2024 is to employ one or more of the many tax-reducing techniques Congress has enacted to promote philanthropic activity. Ben Franklin said that only two things are…
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Taxation of Complex Trusts
A complex trust is any trust that does not meet the conditions to be a simple trust. Simple TrustsA simple trust is a trust that must distribute all its income in the same year it receives the income. A simple trust cannot accumulate income, cannot distribute out of corpus (also called principal), and it…
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Escaping the Generation-Skipping Tax Trap
Do you have any clients who might get tripped up by the generation-skipping tax? If you do, or aren’t sure, please read on. The generation-skipping tax is an estate tax on steroids. It is essentially a double tax. Generation-skipping tax is imposed on gifts or other non-exempt transfers (the rules…
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Money and the Making of America: The Secret Second Revolution
Happy (almost) Independence Day! We all know the Fourth of July as the date upon which the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, the official beginning of the United States of America.[1] History books emphasize the surprising fact that a ragtag band of British colonies gained independence from the British…
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Are Taxes Killing Your Compounding?
We were recently interviewed for a piece on CBS. We discussed the magic of compounding. Compounding is at the core of investing. One of the biggest enemies of compounding is taxes. Tax-Exempt AccountsYou know, and undoubtedly speak with clients, about the compounding benefits of tax-free accounts including IRAs, 401(k)s, in…
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Inflation Protection? Or Trap?
With inflation remaining “stubbornly high”[1] we today take a look at the usefulness, or lack thereof, of TIPS. Please don’t buy TIPS without reading this. TIPS stands for Treasury Inflation-Protected Bonds. The US Treasury describes TIPS thus (we added the “bold” fond for emphasis): Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are marketable…
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Does This Terrify You?
Does it terrify you that this man has the President’s ear in economic matters? Here is a video of President Biden’s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors trying to explain, well, you use your own judgment. I’m not sure what he’s trying to explain. Does it terrify you that…
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Why Doesn’t Your Client Act? 4 Factors to Guide Financial Decision-Making
Advisors can spend hours explaining a great solution to their clients, only to have those clients not act on the solution. There’s no magic bullet. But sometimes clients appreciate it when their advisor helps them identify what’s making the decision hard. What makes a decision difficult? Decision analysts have found…
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Are Your Clients Choosing to Pay $2.5 Million in Unnecessary Taxes?
Every week, we meet with advisors who have a client who is choosing to pay two and a half million in taxes that could be permanently and legally avoided. Before you say that none of your clients would ever make such a choice, you might want to see why we…