If you pre-order from Starbucks, buy a paper on the corner using Apple Pay, or use the free wifi at the gym to pay your bills online, before lunch you’ve shared multiple pieces of information that could potentially be accessed by cyber criminals. Security experts continue to familiarize themselves with the latest cyber-exposures, but so do criminals.
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Imagine trying to protect a multi-generational family with 15 households and 25 properties in multiple states—not to mention all their vehicles, collections and personal property. Then there’s liability exposure for dozens of individuals, each with their own unique set of risks. Providing insurance protection for this level of exposure is challenging and requires specialized expertise on many levels. This paper highlights the complex risks faced by multi-generational families and how proper risk management can successfully protect their wealth for future generations.
From a tax perspective, 2016 was a relatively calm year. But this relative calm shouldn't create complacency. Instead, it creates two significant opportunities for year-end planning. First, you can redirect the time and energy spent understanding new laws in years past toward a holistic look at your tax situation and plans for the future; you might just identify tax-saving strategies that were previously unnoticed. Second, you can devote that extra time to learning more about the new rules that did go into effect this year.
The new revenue recognition standard—set to go into effect in 2018 for public entities and 2019 for nonpublic entities—has been and continues to be a hot topic during our conversations with clients. Unlike most other accounting changes, the new standard will influence organizations not just at the financial-statement level, but also at the operational level. Although the deadline for implementation is a year or two away, organizations have already reached a fork in the road: they must decide whether to engage in proactive planning now, or face risky consequences later.
Lifetime gift planning can include gift to spouse, annual exclusion gift, UTMA accounts, 2503(c) Trust, funded Crummey trust, 529 plans, payment of tuition and medical expenses, gift to irrevocable life insurance trust, and gifts to qualified personal residence trust (QPRT). When it comes to the basic estate and gift planning, it helps to have an at-a-glance view of the types of gifts available and their benefits, tax consequences, restrictions and limitations, and requirements.
Gross domestic product per capita, a proxy for living standards, has slowed dramatically over the last 15 years. For equity investors, slower economic growth translates into reduced opportunity for revenue growth and increased risk for transitory shocks and market volatility. The biggest risk to the economy is that political leaders will respond to subpar growth in living standards by implementing anti-growth policies, including protectionist measures, higher taxes, restrictions on immigration and tighter government regulation of industry, which would likely slow growth even further.
Increasing data availability and shifting investor focus toward ESG integration has led to rapid innovations in the financial industry as demand grows for impact investing. Research suggests that ESG Tilt strategies can earn competitive returns, with particularly favorable results in emerging and European markets. Meanwhile, ESG Momentum strategies appear to provide the greatest probability of earning excess returns for impact investors by rewarding companies with improving “material” environmental, social and governance factors.
In recent years, investment professionals have identified a more nuanced category of diversification—specifically, gender diversification within workplace leadership. Data shows that leadership diversity tends to provide the same benefits as asset-class diversification: higher returns and lessened risk. Given this research, investors, particularly those committed to ESG investing are allocating funds to companies with strong female leadership.
Physical and cognitive changes are a natural part of the aging process, and in the case of Alzheimer’s disease—the sixth-leading cause of death in America—individuals and families face complex emotions and planning issues. Excerpted from a longer panel discussion, this Q&A format article provides insights on Alzheimer’s disease, its effect on diagnosed individuals and their families, and the important legal, medical and financial planning issues it raises.
Lower population growth and productivity growth will weigh on future GDP growth. These lower rates of growth, in turn, bring lower returns to many asset classes, including equities and fixed income. While this circumstance creates challenges for portfolios of any risk level, it is particularly challenging to build a low risk portfolio that generates much positive return after inflation and taxes. Adapting to this new environment may require some changes.