Recently we've encountered several situations where clients own corporate shares that have made a subchapter S election. Electing to have your corporation treated as an S-corporation has some pros and cons. First, the pros. From the standpoint of taxation, the…
A very rare window of opportunity is closing, and it's closing very quickly. Currently, the federal gift tax exemption allows you to gift up to $5 million ($10 million for married couples) without incurring a gift tax. This applies if…
Life insurance trusts are typically irrevocable, non-amendable trusts that own one or more life insurance policies in order to keep death benefit proceeds outside one's estate and, therefore, avoid estate taxes. Avoiding estate taxes hasn't been an overriding concern for…
Some states recognize the common law asset protection doctrine of tenancy by the entirety. A tenancy by the entirety is form of ownership that can only exist between a husband and wife. The other attributes of this form of ownership…
We've had a lot of interesting call lately regarding unfunded asset protection plans. An asset protection plan--a Family Limited Partnership combined with an The Bridge Trust™--is only useful for protection against creditors if there are actually assets titled in the…
We all have difficulty with change. As an asset protection attorney I see this a lot. It's not atypical at all to see clients who are stuck in losing investments who hold their positions with the intention of getting out as…
This is a big week. The Obama Administration released a report detailing its proposed tax law changes, many of which are slated to take effect at the end of 2012. Among those changes are alterations to the current gift and…
The dust has largely settled on Bernie Madoff's media coverage. Outside of a few television specials on the subject, the perpetrator of the largest Ponzi Scheme in history is quietly serving his prison sentence, and he will probably never again…
Many recent conversations with our clients have revolved around investment strategy and the role it plays in asset protection planning. Like asset protection, investing is very much about identifying risks, deciding which risks are worth taking, avoiding other risks. In…
Recently we've heard a lot of rumbling from clients about banks that are just plain uncooperative and unwilling to adhere to any measure of reason with respect to asset protection trusts. Specifically, it seems that banks are succeeding at scaring…