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Analysis by Spring Mountain Capital shows that increased spending will profoundly jeopardize the long-term health of endowments. This paper proposes a framework for analyzing spending decisions that can be of use to endowments and other types of investors who need to balance long-term growth objectives with short-term spending needs.

Gifting may be the place to start in planning a long-term estate planning strategy, according to this paper from Wells Fargo. While gifting can be useful in transferring tax savings, it also can provide a real-time snapshot of the estate plan by allowing the giver to see how beneficiaries accept and respond to the gifts and then to change the estate plan in response.

These harsh economic times should induce beneficiaries, fiduciaries and their advisors to review trust distributions and portfolio viability. Whether investment and inflation conditions get worse or improve, if everyone takes a long hard look at the economic reality and works together, they can devise a deliberate and practical trust plan that will maintain trust assets and satisfy objectives.

This is the first in a series of three articles based on the notion that wealth planners have a unique opportunity to help client families succeed over multiple generations. In this installment, the author looks at the differences in thought and outcome between a transfer plan and a transition plan.

Following the sale of the family business, family members face the decision of whether to pool the sale proceeds and thereby continue as a family investment enterprise. There are many important and very complex tax, legal, financial, operational and accounting issues to consider, but successful implementation of such an enterprise can help family members achieve outstanding governance and investment results for generations.

Experiencing an investment loss is bad enough, but that situation is even worse when those losses cannot be used to reduce tax liability. Rothstein Kass explores the recent Garnett decision by the U.S. Tax Court, which broadened the rules used to determine whether participation in a business activity can be considered passive activity. This designation makes it more difficult to use a loss from the business to reduce taxable income.

Trustees often are required to invest the assets of a trust or estate. In doing so, they may delegate power to an investment advisor or securities broker. If the advisor's or broker's investments result in losses, the trustees need to find and pursue any viable claim to recover the losses. Stein, Stein & Pinsky offers suggestion to help with this task, including details of the five main causes that form the basis for fraud and negligence claims against brokers.

By thinking ahead and paying a long-term capital gain today, an investor can derive a net tax benefit in future years. This research brief from Parametric Portfolio Associates explores the tax-management strategy of realizing such gains in a portfolio of equities and quantifies how much this can add to after-tax performance. The authors evaluate the costs and benefits and consider the impact of fluctuating markets on this strategy.

A health and education exclusion trust may offer a way to preserve assets for younger family members and avoid harsh generation-skipping taxes, while still contributing to charity. In this article, Mela Garber of Anchin, Block and Anchin explains how a HEET can be a useful and effective estate planning tool that benefits family and a designated charity while shielding wealth from GST and gift taxes.

This paper explores the tax-management strategy of realizing long-term capital gains in a portfolio of equities and quantify how much it can add to after-tax performance. This approach is counter to the more common strategy of deferring the realization of capital gains as long as possible while only realizing capital losses.