The brilliant Grace Hopper once said, “The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘we’ve always done it this way.’” Reviewing the past nearly two years, many of us can safely say that very few things in both our personal lives and businesses had remained the same as they always were. We have all learned […]

Trust distribution standards may be very broad. In fact, the trustee could be given the authority to distribute to the beneficiary in the trustee’s sole discretion. This type of discretionary trust can provide asset protection if the trustee isn’t the beneficiary. However, if the beneficiary is the trustee, it would subject the trust assets to […]

Of all the pages on your law firm’s website, digital marketing experts agree that the About Us page is one of the most important. It often delivers the very first impression prospects have of your firm, so it’s safe to say that it’s vital to get it right. It’s probably also safe to say that […]

A revocable trust is usually treated the same as the individual who created the trust. For federal income tax purposes, a revocable trust is a “grantor trust” under section 676 of the Code. Therefore, all items of income and expense of the trust flow through to the grantor. However, for some purposes, a revocable trust […]

Estate planning attorneys see it all the time. Most clients avoid the funeral planning conversation, even though advance planning can reduce stress at a time of grief, save money and head off family conflict. We have ample evidence that humans have a 100% mortality rate. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when” and the […]

The Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act allowed accounts to help people with disabilities (and their families) save and pay for disability-related expenses. ABLE allows states to create tax-advantaged savings programs for eligible people with disabilities. Distributions from ABLE accounts are tax-free if used for qualifying disability expenses. Here’s a link to a comparison […]

How Firing a Terrible Employee Made Me a Better Manager Before I was your friendly neighborhood PBC, I spent a decade as a faculty manager for a test prep company. This meant that I was hiring, training, scheduling, supporting, and developing a staff of between 80 and 130 teachers as they helped about a thousand […]

The estate tax exclusion is currently at an all-time high of $11.7 million. This consists of the permanent exclusion of $5 million, adjusted for inflation from the 2011 base year, and then doubled by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. However, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which doubled the exclusion, only doubled it temporarily. […]

We celebrated our 28th Annual Spring Summit a couple of weeks ago, and when it comes to game-changing ideas this four-day event was packed with them: We learned about new ways to network, online marketing, engaging with prospects, preparing for the next chapter of your business, and even how to develop core values and redefine […]

The Heckerling conference in Estate Planning is the country’s largest professional gathering in Estate Planning. The conference examines many areas of interest to Estate Planning and Elder Law professionals. It pays particular attention to items of current interest. Last year’s conference was in January 2020, shortly before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. What a […]