By Todd A. Stewart, Founding Partner Recently, Joe Hernandez talked with our Vistage group about “High Level Negotiation.” One key takeaway for me runs counter to something that you hear a lot. His point is that you should use anchoring (i.e., the idea that people rely heavily on an idea or number they’ve heard recently) to your benefit and be the person who makes the first offer. Our informal class exercise supported this and the final negotiated value for most groups clustered around the first offer, whether it was near $20,000 or three times this amount. For more information: https://www.lionsharenegotiations.com/. *Intended as […]
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By Todd A. Stewart, Founding Partner On May 20, 2019, I was in a program with author Kevin W. McCarthy where he talked about his book, Chief Leadership Officer: Increasing Wealth So Everyone Profits. Many good takeaways and I particularly like the idea of aligning your three bottom lines: Financial, People and Purpose. If you want more information, the website is: http://chiefleadershipofficer.com/. *Intended as general guidance only and not as legal advice.
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Want to pass more wealth to grandchildren? An idea to consider while exemption amounts are high for estate tax and Generation Skipping Transfer (GST) tax is to protect old trusts from the application of the GST tax that can take a big portion of a trust’s assets before they pass to a skip person, like a grandchild. A common example of such a trust is an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) that was set up when exemption amounts were lower. Since the exemption amounts were not as generous, the advisors may not have recommended using “precious” exemption amounts to protect […]
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Many of our clients who come in to prepare or update their Will ultimately decide to include a Revocable Living Trust (RLT) in their estate plan after learning about the benefits it can provide. These benefits include privacy, avoiding or reducing probate fees and delays, and aiding in the management of their assets during periods of incapacity. If you decide to implement an RLT, you’ll want to fund it by moving assets to it after it’s in place. For an RLT, which is the type of trust that operates as kind of a “Super Will,” you should be adding other […]
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Saving self-employment (SE) tax on the business earnings of a partner or sole proprietor can be significant, with rates from 2.9% to 15.3%. Partners in some cases have avoided this SE tax on their distributive share for an interest as a limited partner in a limited partnership (LP). Today, however, LLCs are in much more common use than LPs for business and investment purposes. This makes it unfortunate that it’s still not clear that a passive member of an LLC can avoid the SE tax. Recently though, the Tax Court allowed limited partner treatment to a passive member of an […]
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“When is the right time to create an estate plan?” “Am I too young to write a Will?” “Do I have enough assets?” These are a few common questions clients ask when inquiring with our team. Simply put, regardless of age and assets, every adult benefits from having the proper estate planning techniques in place. While the motives of creating an estate plan may vary for each individual, taking the time to create one should be a top priority at every stage of life. Deciding what age you should be when you are ready to create a Will is a […]
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