I’ve been reading Steven B. Gorin’s massive “book” (he calls the 1053 page PDF a “mere compilation of preliminary ideas”) titled Structuring Ownership of Privately Owned Businesses: Taxation and Estate Planning Implications. I’ve yet to do a deep dive–again, it’s 1053 pages of very dense, complicated reading–but I will. And I will because it’s chock […]
This is a little off topic, so please indulge me. When I’m not practicing law, I teach writing at Brigham Young University. Today in my Writing & Rhetoric 150 class, my students did what I refer to as Power of Words presentations. These are essentially 7-minute oral presentations about how words have affected the student’s […]
Yesterday I read an interview in the April 2016 issue of WealthCounsel Quarterly with Neel Shah, a business and estate planning attorney in Monroe, New Jersey. The last interview question was of particular interest to me, because occasionally I find myself wondering whether I’m simply selling something when I encourage people to do their estate and business […]
I’ve listened to Dave Ramsey. My wife owns a couple of his books. I get what he does, and I think he probably does a some good–in the debt area, at least. But he’s not always right. For example, I don’t care for some of his opinions about life insurance and much of his investment […]
Professor, attorney, and author of Business Planning: Closely Held Enterprises, Dwight Drake has some useful advice for would-be entrepreneurs: “When the entrepreneurial bug bites a group of charged-up business owners, they usually are focused on making the business succeed, maximizing revenues, and minimizing expenses. They have little interest in discussing potential breakups, the risks of the three big […]
From the article “Communicating an Estate Plan to Heirs,” posted at Successful Farming at Agriculture.com: “For some children, money equals love. Therefore, if they receive fewer dollars, they assume they are loved less. With farm distribution, there are times when the farming heir appears to get a financial advantage on paper. Sometimes this may be […]
As anyone who’s read my profile knows and as I’ve stated elsewhere on this blog, I once wrote for Bloomberg–for three Bloomberg magazines, in fact. One of them was Bloomberg Wealth Manager, which was later sold and then sold again. I continued to write for the magazine in all its iterations. The other day, I stumbled […]
Sometimes feel confused? Wonder why the left hand can’t understand what the right hand is supposed to be doing? Imagine what your family will feel like the day after you’ve passed on to the great beyond, then think about how a well-drafted trust might clear things up for them. I’ve written more than a few […]
“Family business succession planning is the cornerstone of any successful family business owner’s estate plan. As is often the case, however, planning for the inter-generational transfer of ownership and control of the business becomes complicated by the intra-generational conflicts of the business owner’s heirs. These onflicts among members of the second generation, if severe enough, can render the […]
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau