While many advisors implement conservative, guaranteed solutions in trust owned policy arrangements, this is not a universal practice. In a low interest rate environment, many policies that are held in trust may be under-performing and do not have the underlying guarantees to ensure that the policy...

Way back in time I had the good fortune to work in a firm whose in-house CPA happened to be the author of the joke column for a well-known accountant publication. He well understood the contradiction between the nature of his editorial role and the droll reputation his profession has concerning things...

The business world abounds with stories of the entrepreneurs who managed success building an undercapitalized venture largely because they made little or nothing in the early years, choosing rather to channel revenues back into the growth of the business. But there are often unsung heroes in these...

Climatologists can argue all day about which hurricane was the worst.  The fact of the matter is the “baddest” is the one that destroyed your home, the number of millibars notwithstanding.  And back in the old days they all were the baddest because you didn’t have any warning. Nowadays, sophisticated...

When the fat lady sings... As they say, “It’s not over until then.” There is a comedian who likes to inform his audience that it is his goal to live forever.  Looking out into the crowd he adds, “So far, so good!”  But the fact is that death is the one contingency everyone can be pretty...

In the most important episode of his life Paul Revere did not fire a shot.  But his willingness to spread the alarm averted what could have been an early military disaster for the revolutionists of Massachusetts Bay. Planners, too, in addition to fulfillment of their usual responsibilities must fill...

When discussing and designing executive bonus plans, too much time is lost talking about and describing “single bonus” and “double bonus” methods, and too many cases may be lost because they haven’t been discussed at all. Just a quick study of vanilla executive bonus: The employer, (ER) agrees...

There are three maxims that every trial attorney takes into the courtroom when going before a jury: If you don’t have the facts, then pound on the law; If you don’t have the law, then pound on the facts; And if you don’t have either, then pound on the table. Among the three (the facts, the law or the table)...

Let’s talk about federal estate taxes.  Back in the old days the first spouse to die had to use the lifetime estate tax exemption at death or lose it. In the discussion that follows assume a $1,000,000 exemption where the husband dies first. If the husband left everything to the wife protected...