The Emergence of the Digital Elite
In a way, the pressure of real-time information is polarizing - the hard-working people are becoming harder to replace, while slackers and perhaps less knowledgeable people are just not needed. Continue Reading »
Wealthy donors say they don’t make a difference?
By Jeff Brooks
Something’s wrong with fundraising. At least, that’s one conclusion you could draw from a study reported in the Wall Street Journal Wealth Report blog at Why the Rich Give to Charity.
The survey, by the Center on Philanthropy and Bank of America, asked people with incomes of $200,000 or more or a net worth of $1 million-plus, about their motivations for giving to charity. Here’s the key finding: Continue Reading »
Comprehensive Estate Plans
By Hannah Shaw
Developing a comprehensive estate plan with an experienced legal professional can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Not having an estate plan in place and operational at the time of death can cost both time and money in the form of unnecessary complications and taxes for the estate’s heirs. Continue Reading »
High Net Worth Giving
By Hannah Shaw Grow, Russ Alan Prince
Despite the wide appeal of philanthropy, most of the wealthy don’t capture the benefits of planned charitable gifts.
… In an effort to understand how actively the wealthy are involved in the stages of the giving process, we surveyed 446 individuals with a net worth of $5 million or more and a history of giving at least $50,000 a year to non-profit organizations. Continue Reading »
The Future is in Charitable Planning
Here is a “must” read article about how working with charities and creating lasting situations of wealth is a “huge” opportunity. Here is the article “Donors Turning to Wealth Advisors”
Here is the closing comment: …My message to them will be that wealth advisors do not represent the enemy, but most of them need a lot of help to climb the philanthropy learning curve. It may not be the obligation of the nonprofit community to educate wealth advisors, but I think there is a huge opportunity available to those nonprofits that see the shift that is occurring and get out in front of the curve by working hard to educate the financial crowd.
IRS Targets Sale of Charitable Trust Interest Transaction
Taxpayers often use charitable remainder trusts to avoid current tax on appreciated property. This is usually accomplished by the contribution of appreciated property to a charitable remainder trust, and then the trust sells the asset. Since the trust is tax-exempt, no current income tax is due on the sale. However, under the tiered income rules, as distributions are made to the grantor, those gains will be taxable to the grantor. Therefore, such planning is usually a deferral mechanism, not a tax elimination mechanism. Continue Reading »
A Great Coach!
Excerpted from “The Man Who Taught Me Everything,” By Amby Burfoot, published in Runner’s World, March 2007.
2007 Tax Trends
I’ve attached the newsletter from Handler, Thayer & Duggan. Jarrett Bostwick is one of the principals of this firm.
Building Your Practice
Here is a great article that relates to building a tax-exempt practice.
By Bruce Shutan
12/5/2007
Retirement is one of some 65 life transitions from cradle to grave that fall into several categories that include personal and family, work and career, money and investments, and charitable and community activities. Continue Reading »
Market Security?
This is an ironically sobering look at the perils of stock market investment investing that was recently sent to me. Although we don’t endorse the conclusion, it makes an interesting point.
“If you had bought $1, 000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you have $16.50 of the original $1,000.00. With WorldCom, you have less than $5.00 left. On the other hand, if you bought $1,000.00 worth of Pepsi (the softdrink, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the soda, then turned in the cans for the 10-cent deposit, you would have $214.00.
Based on the above, some have chosen to drink heavily and recycle.”