Resource Search

When you make more money than your friends, it can set up awkward and uncomfortable money dilemmas. However, there are ways to get around them by having a few good verbal comebacks and a dose of niceness to help you sidestep a lot of cringe-worthy money situations.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect on January 1, 2018, and some experts suggest there could be a significant impact on charitable giving. Kim Laughton, President of Schwab Charitable, sat down with Hayden Adams, CPA, Director of Tax and Financial Planning at the Schwab Center for Financial Research (and former IRS agent) to discuss the new tax law and implications for charitable giving. Hear their thoughts on the matter, including strategies to help donors give more efficiently in the new tax environment.

Hiring domestic staff such as nannies, personal assistants, and housekeepers can expose you to liability issues and danger from unscrupulous employees. It is important to understand your areas of vulnerability and take steps to protect your family and your finances. Whether you hire your own employees or the family office hires them, three often overlooked areas which can create liability for high-net-worth families are insurance coverage, background checks, and employment documentation.

A flexible operating model drives innovation and responsiveness to market changes.

Stories that are passed down from generation to generation are a way to create a family legacy that will be remembered long after we are gone. These stories are precious in understanding who we are and where we came from. Too often, the people who hold the keys to family stories lose details to memory loss or pass away before their histories can be recorded. Vacation time and the holiday season are ripe opportunities for families to seize the moment to capture family history across generations.

By temporarily increasing the federal exemption from $5.5 million to $11.18 million for the gift, estate and generation-skipping taxes, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Act”) has created estate tax and income tax planning opportunities as well as traps for the unwary. In this multipart series, we explore all of these in depth. First we will look at potential pitfalls, including the risks that the Act could thwart a goal to make your spouse the first priority under your estate plan.

Despite the easing of estate taxes on many taxpayers, many family-held businesses continue to be burdened with large potential transfer taxes. Using a real-life story of one family business, we show how the family successfully addressed this problem. While the names have been changed, and the figures and structure have been simplified, the example reflects the real-life facts and steps that the patriarch took to shift the ownership and wealth in a tax efficient manner.

Every year, thousands of property owners and their families are affected by natural disasters such as flood, fire, earthquake, tornado, wildfires and windstorms. In 2015 alone, there were 10 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included a drought, flooding, severe storms, wildfire and a winter storm. To help prepare and protect yourself against a flood, a checklist of practical steps is provided.

Taking cues from entrepreneurs, families with great financial wealth would be well-served to create environments where their children can fail and in doing so, learn invaluable lessons about finance and resilience. While the older generations may set the tone by sharing their own stories about overcoming adversity, the rising generations will learn best by making their own mistakes.

Wealth may be structured to either protect assets or make them harder to reach by creditors. While fraudulent conveyance with respect to existing claims is an unavoidable risk, steps should be taken sooner rather than later. Understanding the various asset protection techniques that are typically used and the “fraudulent transfer” rules that may undermine any asset protection structure is critical to examining what level of asset protection is best suited for you.