Wealth and Law: Recent Episodes
Wealth and Law
Brent chats with attorney Don Ford about how to set a family company up for successful succession. They talk about interpersonal aspects, managing expectations, corporate governance, creditor issues, divorce, trust planning, and more.
Mr. Ford is the managing partner of Ford + Bergner, a leading estate planning and probate firm with offices in Houston, Dallas and Austin. He specializes in estate planning and probate for high net worth clients and is Board Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, the state’s highest distinction available to an attorney practicing in this area. He is also one of the few attorneys in the state trained to conduct mediations in probate and guardianship cases. He also served on the Guardianship Certification Board, which creates policy and oversees the regulation of private professional guardians in the State of Texas.
He can be found at: http://www.fordbergner.com/
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to Team – Wealth and Law.
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Brent chats about the many challenges Americans face when they receive a foreign inheritance. He talks about the reporting requirements, issues with passive foreign investment companies, controlled foreign corporations, and foreign trusts. He also mentions options to ease the blow and make things a smoother transition.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about how health care documents, often overlooked, can be the most important documents in any estate plan. He discusses the available options, how they work and work together, and easy options that every adult (and parent) should consider.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about the importance of reviewing older trusts and corporate structures. As nothing stays the same, so it is with the circumstances that give rise to these structures originally. Changes in the law and in the family business dynamics often merit a fresh look at these structures. Brent discusses common issues, helpful considerations, and ways to make changes.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about why life insurance trusts still matter, even with a historically high basic exclusion amount. He talks about their mechanics, benefits to proper structuring, and important income and transfer tax considerations.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about the always challenging decision of who should be your trustee. He explains the options, the pluses and minuses to each, and how the role of a trustee need not be an all or nothing decision. He proposes some creative structures in difficult cases.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about what options might be available to avoid the application of the JCT’s Blue Book’s footnote 102. He discusses the distribution mechanisms, beneficiary deemed owned trusts, qualified subchapter s trusts, non-trust options, and charitable remainder trusts. He also talks about the unknowns of how footnote 102 will actually apply.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about footnote 102 to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Blue Book explanations of OBBBA. He explains how the JCT applies the 2/37 limitation on itemized deductions to the income distribution deduction for nongrantor trusts and estate, what that could mean, and what is still unknown.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Clay McKenna about how SLAT (Spousal Lifetime Access Trust) planning can be dangerous without precautions. They talk about reciprocal trust issues, community and marital property, and suggest taking a measured approach before jumping into the SLAT pool.
Clay is a Wealth Adviser and Executive Director in the Houston, Texas office of J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Clay earned her undergraduate and juris doctorate degrees at the University of Virginia. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan Private Bank, Clay practiced law at the law firms of Baker Botts and Winstead.
Clay and her team can be found here: Our Houston, TX Office | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Jennifer Lee about working with business owners to create a succession plan. They discuss some of the hurdles, ways to start the conversation, and important planning, family and tax matters to consider.
Jennifer Lee is the owner and founder of Modern Wealth.
Jennifer grew up in the world of financial advising by going on appointments with her father and to his office on weekends. Watching how he served his clients, she gained a solid understanding of the work ethic and values of a dedicated financial advisor. Today as Founding Partner of Modern-Wealth, Jennifer directs her financial acuity to helping those who are in financial transition – whether divorcing, recently widowed, buying or selling a business, retiring, inheriting assets or merging families after remarriage. Her goal is to be a trusted advisor who provides independent analysis, develops strategy, and walks clients through the process of understanding their financial lives.
Working collaboratively with clients and their other advisors, Jennifer and her team help clients cut through the noise and make sound financial decisions.
Originally from Maryland, Jennifer brings a wealth of experience to her work. Jennifer founded Modern-Wealth in Maryland 21 years ago, relocating to Lakewood Ranch in 2012. Since transitioning her practice into Florida, Jennifer has been involved various community programs (i.e. Manatee Memorial Women’s Action Committee, Chamber of Commerce, S.W.A.T.). She loves the area’s arts and culture and it’s gorgeous beaches as well as cooking, entertaining, and making jewelry in her down time. She also delights in one of the perks of her job – throwing the occasional “Retirement” or “Independence Day” party for clients.
Her most recent endeavor; Jennifer wrote a book entitled “Squeeze The Juice.” This easy to read, easy to understand book acts as a guide mixing her own life experiences, career expertise and through provoking passages that encourage you to be your best self.
Jennifer can be found at: Our Team – Modern Wealth
Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a registered Broker/Dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. Modern-Wealth, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Mark Zauderer about what it means to be an attorney and to be in a profession. Mark shares how the profession has changed during his career and how it can be maintained. Brent and Mark also talk about whether they recommend people attend law school, civility, giving back, and how reputation is a valuable asset.
Mark Zauderer is the author of Counsel, the Courtroom is Open, available here Counsel, the Courtroom Is Open | Book by Mark C. Zauderer | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster
Mr. Zauderer is a prominent New York trial and appellate lawyer who has represented major corporations, prominent individuals, and a Presidential cabinet secretary in significant business, financial and commercial litigation in federal and state courts throughout the United States. Areas of concentration include contracts, business torts, securities, real estate, legal and professional malpractice, shareholder rights, limited partnerships, defamation and fiduciary relationships in business, law firm and estate matters.
Mr. Zauderer frequently serves as an arbitrator and private mediator of significant disputes and is a member of the national roster of commercial arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association and its International Centre for Dispute Resolution. He is a past President of the Federal Bar Council and is a member of the Board of Editors of the New York Law Journal.
Mark can be found here Mark C. Zauderer – Dorf Nelson & Zauderer LLP
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Gary Pattengale about how clients can use after-tax strategies to improve their investing and planning outcomes. They discuss things like Roth IRAs, utilizing losses, counseling clients on the complexity, and helping people make informed decisions.
Gary Pattengale serves as a Senior Vice President, Advanced Planning Specialist and Wealth Advisor in Mesirow Wealth Management. Gary acts a centralized, specialized resource advising clients on tax implications and strategy considerations when building comprehensive financial plans.
Gary has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Mesirow in 2024, Gary helped individuals, families and entities with their investment and financial planning needs as well as helping corporate executives and key employees navigate their stock-based compensation plans at companies such as Corient and Northern Trust. He also served in various accounting and auditing roles.
Gary earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Northern Illinois University and has also earned his CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® designation and has previously held the Certified Public Accountant certification.
Gary can be found at: Gary Pattengale | Mesirow Employee Bio
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Darren Case about what planning looks like this year for ultra high net worth families. They discuss how “basic” planning is key, GST tax planning, using general powers of appointment, trust protectors, intentionally defective grantor trusts, structuring trust flexibility, family limited partnerships, and more!
Darren is a shareholder in the law firm Tiffany & Bosco, PA, in Phoenix, AZ. He assists families and individuals in the areas of estate planning, probate, and tax, and is the Co-Author (with Brent Nelson and TJ Ryan coincidentally) of the Arizona Estate Planning and Probate Handbook, published by Thomson Reuters – West. Darren is experienced in a broad range of planning techniques, including traditional wills and revocable trusts, along with more sophisticated planning strategies such as insurance trusts, residence trusts, “defective” grantor trusts, generation-skipping or dynasty trusts, charitable trusts, split-interest trusts, family limited partnerships and intra-family sales and loans, etc. He assists clients by providing tax and estate planning services specifically tailored to each individual client, whether it is a client who has amassed substantial wealth or those who are in the process of accumulating such wealth. Darren is also experienced in the area of probate and trust administration and litigation, having worked on simple to complex trust and estate matters, and everything in between.
Darren attended Arizona State University for his undergraduate studies, where he received his Bachelors of Interdisciplinary Studies in business and communication. He received his law degree from Chapman University, graduating with an emphasis in taxation, and was the Tax Law Emphasis Honors Graduate of his class. In addition to his law degree, Darren received his Master of Laws in Taxation, with a Certificate in Estate Planning, from Georgetown University.
Darren’s firm bio and contact information are available at https://www.tblaw.com/attorneys/darren-t-case/.This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Daniel Yoo about the ways that AI is (and is not) changing the world of wealth management. They talk about innovations, the current state of the AI market, how AI can be used in bespoke ways, and limitations of AI that are still yet to be solved.
Daniel Yoo is the founder and CEO of FinMate AI, a custom Agentic AI development platform automating back office work as well as an AI Notetaker specifically designed for financial advisors. With a unique combination of financial advisory experience and technical expertise, Daniel spent seven years as a financial advisor at major firms, including Equitable, TD Ameritrade, and Schwab, where he oversaw $800 million in client assets as a Senior Advisor. His educational background includes two bachelor’s degrees from UCBerkeley (Economics and Molecular Cell Biology with a specialization in Developmental Genetics) and a Master of Science from Johns Hopkins in Applied Economics, focusing on machine learning and AI for asset price predictions. After his advisory career, Daniel spent time in the fintech space before founding FinMate AI in May 2023. He continues to maintain his FINRA series licenses through FINRA’s MQP program and holds L&H and P&C insurance licenses.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Gray Edmondson about how debt can be a valuable tool in wealth transfers. They talk about recent tax court cases, how the AFR works, planning for cash loans, and then more complex transactions using debt to sell assets.
Gray Edmondson is a Partner at Edmondson Sage Allen, PLLC in Oxford, Mississippi. Gray practices in partnership, corporate, and individual tax planning; business transactions including mergers and acquisitions; business planning; tax controversy; estate and wealth transfer planning; probate; estate and trust litigation; asset protection; and charitable planning. Gray has conducted, authored, and directed numerous seminars for professional, academic, and civic groups on taxation, business, asset protection and estate planning.
You can reach Gray at https://esapllc.com/s-gray-edmondson/
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Brent Bowers about how he has strategically invested in land and built his real estate business. They discuss the tactics and address important risk management techniques to improve a real estate portfolio.
Brent Bowers is an investor and coach with a focus on buying and selling vacant land. As an Army Officer with over 8 years of service, Brent was spending a great deal of time away from his family, and he knew he needed to make some changes in order to be more present with his wife and children. Brent began investing in real estate as a way to support his family while having more time to spend with them. In a short period of time, Brent was able to expand his business, hire a team, and (most importantly) spend quality time with his family while still working hard and helping others. Brent now helps other investors learn the ins and outs of buying land.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Christine Alexis Concepción about how Americans in France can strategize around the thorny international tax issues they face. They talk about investing abroad, owning real estate in France, thinking about the cross-border tax world, and planning to succeed.
Christine Alexis Concepción is an international tax and estate planning attorney and partner at Concepción Global, with offices in Miami, Madrid, and Paris. She advises high-net-worth individuals, entrepreneurs, and businesses on complex international and domestic tax matters, including income and estate tax planning, U.S. pre-immigration planning, expatriation, FATCA compliance, and multi-jurisdictional reporting.
Christine has extensive experience advising individuals and families who have a connection between France and the U.S., guiding them through U.S.–France tax coordination, cross-border business structuring, real estate investing, and international estate planning. Multilingual in English, Spanish and French, Christine serves clients across the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. To learn more about Christine and her work, connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christineaconcepcion.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Elizabeth Garlovsky about the ways trusts can be used in prenuptial agreements and divorce. They talk about structuring the trusts, common issues, and the results divorce can have on revocable and irrevocable trusts.
Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) Garlovsky represents clients in matters related to estate planning and wealth transfer, probate, and estate and trust administration. She brings over 25 years of combined experience in private practice, the public sector, and as a wealth advisor for JPMorgan.
Lizzy assists clients in preparing and implementing estate plans for a wide range of individuals and families. She also helps both individual and corporate fiduciaries administer trusts and estates at any stage, including through controversies both inside and outside of court. In addition, Lizzy frequently counsels heirs, legatees, and beneficiaries of estates and trusts of all sizes to advocate for their rights under will and trust documents or when no documents exist.
In addition to her technical background and practical experience, Lizzy brings a unique holistic and human approach to every client matter through empathy and a commitment to understanding each client’s individual – and often very personal –situation before engaging in any representation. She recognizes the difficulty that clients routinely face when engaging a trusts and estates attorney, especially when emotions are high, and she is grateful for opportunities to make the difficult seem simpler for clients who are experiencing stress caused by trauma or grief, or by the anticipation of either.
Lizzy is an active member of the trusts and estates community, and her community at large. She is a Fellow of the prestigious national American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and is a member of their Fiduciary Litigation and Practice Committees. She also serves as the State Membership Recruitment Director for Illinois. Lizzy is a frequent lecturer and author on a wide range of trust and estate topics. She enjoys giving back to her peers by mentoring junior colleagues, both inside and outside of the firm. She served as an appointed Advisory Member of the Trust and Investment Committee for the Board of Directors of Chicago-based ATG Trust Company (acquired by Midland Trust Company) from January 2020 through May 2021 and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education. She is also a member of the Goodman Theater’s Spotlight Advisory Council.Lizzy provides pro bono legal services and supports related organizations and activities. She performs estate planning and related legal services for under-served individuals in her community and acts as a resource to various charitable organizations. In addition, from 2017 to 2021, Lizzy served as an elected member of the Board of Education for Township High School District 113 (Illinois). She served as President of the Board from May 2018 to May 2020, and served on the Board’s Policy Committee, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and as the Chair of the Human Resources Committee.
Lizzy can be found here: Elizabeth A. Garlovsky – Harrison LLP
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about various income tax considerations that arise in estate planning and are more important now with a $15 million estate tax exemption. He talks about retirement accounts, real estate, partnership interests, and shares in corporations.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about portability and how it needs to fit within broader planning considerations, including income tax, estate tax, generation-skipping transfer tax, and overall structure.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about where attorney-client privilege begins, ends, and unexpectedly disappears.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about how trusts may actually be the best IRA beneficiaries now.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about what lawyers and advisers should hear when clients ask for “simple” estate plans.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about the ways that beneficiary designations can quietly, and unintentionally, override carefully drafted documents.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats about why an unfunded trust is often a fixable planning gap and not an estate planning disaster.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Gary Fletcher about the upcoming FinCEN non-financed real estate transfer reports. The reports will make many professionals, including lawyers, subject to reporting obligations on many real estate transfers. This would reach into routine estate planning transfers. Brent and Gary discuss the details of the program, what transfers are caught in its net, and what to expect.
Gary Fletcher is a Senior Partner at Frazer Ryan Goldberg & Arnold LLP in Tucson, Arizona. Gary practices tax accounting and estate planning, and is a Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC).
Gary can be found here: Gary L. Fletcher – Frazer Ryan Goldberg & Arnold, LLP
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Elizabeth Garlovsky about the unique challenges in representing married clients. They discuss some of the ethical considerations, including how to handle conflicts, when financial goals do not align, and ways to navigate topics like divorce.
Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) Garlovsky represents clients in matters related to estate planning and wealth transfer, probate, and estate and trust administration. She brings over 25 years of combined experience in private practice, the public sector, and as a wealth advisor for JPMorgan.
Lizzy assists clients in preparing and implementing estate plans for a wide range of individuals and families. She also helps both individual and corporate fiduciaries administer trusts and estates at any stage, including through controversies both inside and outside of court. In addition, Lizzy frequently counsels heirs, legatees, and beneficiaries of estates and trusts of all sizes to advocate for their rights under will and trust documents or when no documents exist.
In addition to her technical background and practical experience, Lizzy brings a unique holistic and human approach to every client matter through empathy and a commitment to understanding each client’s individual – and often very personal –situation before engaging in any representation. She recognizes the difficulty that clients routinely face when engaging a trusts and estates attorney, especially when emotions are high, and she is grateful for opportunities to make the difficult seem simpler for clients who are experiencing stress caused by trauma or grief, or by the anticipation of either.
Lizzy is an active member of the trusts and estates community, and her community at large. She is a Fellow of the prestigious national American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and is a member of their Fiduciary Litigation and Practice Committees. She also serves as the State Membership Recruitment Director for Illinois. Lizzy is a frequent lecturer and author on a wide range of trust and estate topics. She enjoys giving back to her peers by mentoring junior colleagues, both inside and outside of the firm. She served as an appointed Advisory Member of the Trust and Investment Committee for the Board of Directors of Chicago-based ATG Trust Company (acquired by Midland Trust Company) from January 2020 through May 2021 and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education. She is also a member of the Goodman Theater’s Spotlight Advisory Council.
Lizzy provides pro bono legal services and supports related organizations and activities. She performs estate planning and related legal services for under-served individuals in her community and acts as a resource to various charitable organizations. In addition, from 2017 to 2021, Lizzy served as an elected member of the Board of Education for Township High School District 113 (Illinois). She served as President of the Board from May 2018 to May 2020, and served on the Board’s Policy Committee, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and as the Chair of the Human Resources Committee.
Lizzy can be found here: Elizabeth A. Garlovsky – Harrison LLP
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Natalie Perry about how non-grantor trusts can be used for income tax planning. They discuss the non-grantor trust tax rules, and how these trusts can be used to same both state and federal income tax by moving liquid assets to no tax states, using charitable deductions, and stacking qualified small business stock.
Natalie Perry is a partner at Harrison LLP. For more than two decades, Natalie Perry has advised clients on strategies for achieving tax-efficient estate planning and income tax planning. She focuses her practice on advising high-net-worth individuals and their families on how to structure their estate plans creatively to accomplish their goals for the transfer of their wealth.
As part of the process, Natalie helps educate clients on the importance of planning and the nuances of implementing the technique. As a registered certified public accountant (CPA) , Natalie brings a deep understanding of the complex and ever-changing tax laws her clients face.
As an extension of her deep concentration in estate planning, Natalie also has experience crafting settlements to resolve trust disputes and representing trustees and beneficiaries in contested proceedings, including through mediation. She also advises trustees, executors, and beneficiaries in trust and probate administration, including handling IRS audits.
Natalie started her career as a CPA before attending law school. For several years, she advised closely held businesses as tax consultant for a large public accounting firm.
Natalie is a frequent speaker at professional education events for attorneys and accountants. Natalie was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) in 2016. Her election to ACTEC was based on her outstanding reputation, exceptional skill, and substantial contributions to the estate planning community through lecturing, writing, teaching, and participating in bar activities. She is currently chair of the Communications Committee and an active member of the Business Planning Committee for ACTEC.
Natalie is also a member of the board of directors of the Chicago Estate Planning Council. From 2018 through 2019, Natalie was Chairperson for the Hinsdale Hospital Foundation.
Natalie can be found here: Natalie M. Perry – Harrison LLP
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Jenny Rozelle about what opportunities await law students interested in estate planning. They talk about their law school journeys, Jenny’s non-traditional entry into estate planning, the market and financial opportunities, and practicing in large or small communities.
As one of the Owners of Indiana Estate & Elder Law, Jennifer (Jenny) Rozelle serves in a leadership role focusing on firm management, strategic growth, team development, and speaking locally and nationally on various estate and elder law topics.
Jenny obtained her bachelor’s degree in both political science and history from Butler University and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
Jenny is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the Indiana State Bar Association, where she participates in the Elder Law Section and the Probate, Trust, and Real Property Section. She is also a member of Lawyers with Purpose and the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). Beyond her legal professional networks, Jenny dedicates time to Business Professionals of America, where she annually judges competitions for high school participants. Additionally, she serves as a Board Member for the Indiana Parkinson’s Foundation.
Jenny can be found here: Meet Jennifer ‘Jenny’ Rozelle | Estate Planning Attorney
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Anna N’Jie Konte about what financial planning moves people should consider before the end of 2025. They talk about contributing to retirement plans and determining whether to make Roth conversions. They also discuss tax loss harvesting, charitable giving, and other tax sensitive options for planning.
Anna N’Jie-Konte is a Certified Financial Planner and the founder of Poder Wealth Advisors. She is a wealth advisor, speaker, and entrepreneur dedicated to helping ambitious women build, enjoy, and protect their wealth.
You can find Anna at About and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/annanjie/.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with T.J. Ryan about important terms to make your trusts better. In this second part of that conversation, they discuss the importance of crafting the distribution provisions of a trust. They get into powers of appointment, spendthrift clauses, and what to do to anticipate incapacitated beneficiaries.
T.J. is a Senior Partner at the Phoenix law firm of Frazer Ryan Goldberg & Arnold LLP.
T.J.’s practice encompasses virtually all aspects of family estates, from estate and business planning, to probate and trust administration, to litigating contested estates – an area in which he has achieved a strong track record for positive results.
A Fellow of the prestigious American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), T.J. Ryan focuses his practice on personal and business planning, including estate planning, estate administration, business entity formation, and trust and probate litigation.
T.J. can be found here: T.J. Ryan, Trust & Estate Litigation and Estate Planning Attorney
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Eric Freeman about the real estate provisions in OBBBA. They talk about the importance of bonus depreciation, Opportunity Zone 2.0, New Market Tax Credits, and analyze what the industry could look like under this new tax regime.
Eric Freeman is a Principal for BeachFleischman, where he leads the Real Estate Practice and serves as a member of the Tax Department. Eric has spent most of his accounting career focusing on real estate transactions and partnership taxation. He consults with clients on complex transactions, including multi-asset exchanges, mergers, consolidations, buy-outs, cost segregation studies, and transaction formation. His client base includes real estate developers, property owners, and property managers who operate with 2 million to 7 million square feet of real estate, both multi-family and commercial. Eric has a depth of knowledge and experience with international issues related to inbound and outbound real estate transactions. Additionally, he has written articles and provided numerous presentations and consultations on qualified opportunity zone funds. Eric has worked in public accounting since 2012, and he is a Certified Public Accountant licensed to practice in Arizona.
Eric can be found here Eric Freeman | CPA | Principal
Eric’s YouTube channel is here: Eric Freeman CPA – YouTube
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent and John Strohmeyer chat about sham trust schemes. They explain what the structures and hoped for results are and then break down why they do not work. They also speculate about why people buy these schemes.
John Strohmeyer is the owner of Strohmeyer Law PLLC, in Houston, Texas. After earning his B.S. in Zoology from the University of Texas at Austin, John spent four years working for the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, primarily as the Night Manager, before beginning his legal education. He earned my J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 2009, then earned a Masters of Law (also known as an “LL.M.”) in Taxation in 2010 from the New York University School of Law. While John’s time at NYU was the end of his formal education (at least for now), he has gone on to become Board Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in both Tax Law and Estate Planning & Probate Law.
John has been recognized by his peers as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, named a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas Super Lawyers by Thompson Reuters in 2019, 2020, and 2021, a Rising Star by Texas Super Lawyers by Thompson Reuters in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019; “Rookie of the Year” in 2016 and Outstanding Substantive Committee Chair in 2017 by the State Bar of Texas Tax Section; a 2015-2017 Fellow of the Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law of the American Bar Association; and a Young Leader of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
John can be reached at john@strohmeyerlaw.com, (713) 714-1249. His show is available on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDaKULB-A6Ru4tKfpZl8ozg and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/strohmeyerlaw.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Naomita Yadav about the tax and planning challenges of high-net-worth individuals migrating to the United States. They talk about global mobility, how tax can cause unexpected issues, and how one might plan for that transition effectively.
Naomita Yadav is a partner in the private client and tax team of Withersworldwide. She has a diverse and well-rounded tax background, including experience in both income tax and estate and gift tax matters, which makes her particularly suited for families with existing complex trust structures. She also has experience with cross-border families as well as nuances of visa designations and the interplay with tax laws. Interestingly, her own family is situated in three continents.
Naomita advises families with generational wealth in the context of changing circumstances and passage of time such as multi-generation wealth planning for family members who are beneficiaries of trusts settled by prior generations. This particular mix of experiences and knowledge enables Naomita to act as a proficient adviser for the globally mobile high net worth family. She also advises clients on tax, estate and succession planning related to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Naomita received her bachelor’s degree from Yale, her MBA from the University of Michigan, and her juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School.
Naomita can be found here Naomita Yadav | Private client and tax attorney | San Francisco | Withersworldwide
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Michael Preis, Chief Investment Officer at TCI Wealth Advisors, about how federal policy in the United States can affect investment strategies. They talk about the importance of planning and how a client focused approach is different from just pure asset allocation. Finally, they talk about crypto and where it fits into the current investment landscape.
Michael Preis is the Chief Investment Officer at TCI Wealth Advisors, where his role is to help deliver an investment experience that gives their clients the greatest odds of success, anchored in long-term planning and rooted in time-tested principles. Michael is passionate about demystifying investment markets, but even more so about helping clients build the confidence that comes from a sound, disciplined approach.
Prior to finding a professional home at TCI, Michael spent 15 years with Dimensional Fund Advisors serving the independent advice industry. He earned my MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California. He is also a CFA® Charterholder.
Michael can be found here: Michael Preis, CFA® – TCI Wealth
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Tony Yu about the important differences between China, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam from a cultural, monetary, and planning perspective. They discuss how to adjust to those differences, understand where they may be coming from, and enjoy the rich tapestry of those nations.
Tony is the owner of DSG Wealth and Trust Law. He graduated cum laude from UCLA with degrees in Business–Economic, Communications, and Accounting. Tony is fluent in English, Mandarin, Spanish and Taiwanese. Tony was a Trust Attorney at Holland & Knight LLP, the largest trust law firm in the US and a former clerk at the Los Angeles Probate Court. In 2008 and 2012, the Southern California Super Lawyers Magazine recognized Tony Yu as a “Rising Star” in law (top 2.5% of attorneys).
Tony is also the 2nd Generation Owner of DSG Insurance, which was founded in 1986 by his father, Castor Yu. Utilizing Tony’s diverse legal, accounting, and financial planning background, DSG specializes in Business Protection, Tax & Business Planning, and Wealth Transfer.
Tony can be found here: http://www.dsgtrustlaw.com/
And here: https://www.dsgpcins.com/president/
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and its impact on estate planning for ultra-high net worth families.
He gets into the increased estate tax exemption, tactics for using and managing high exemptions, opportunity zones, and the increases to qualified small business stock exemption, and the SALT cap, among other things.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Wallis Tsai about how to avoid the many bad life insurance policies with objective analysis.
They discuss how to avoid those bad life insurance policies, war stories of nightmare scenarios, and good use cases for the right insurance.
Wallis Tsai is the founder and CEO of AboveBoard Financial. Wallis developed a passion for quantitative analysis (and let’s be honest, Excel spreadsheets) during her 10 year career at Goldman Sachs, first as an investment banker and then as an investor for an elite hedge fund group. At Goldman Sachs, Wallis was a member of a four-person team managing the multi-billion dollar Americas and European financials portfolio. She developed the fund’s perspective on financial regulation, US housing market, banking and capital markets.
As an expert in the insurance industry’s inner workings, Wallis often found herself advising friends and colleagues on personal finance matters. She was repeatedly appalled by how often they got terrible advice from the industries that she knew so well and decided to follow her dream to offer financial services the right way.
Wallis delights in making wonky financial topics engaging and accessible (like our “truth vs. BS” scale to rate insurance sales lines) and has taught classes on how to avoid insurance rip-offs at Harvard Business School.
Wallis enjoys taking in the wonders of New York City with her husband, two kids, and rescue dog.
Wallis can be found here: About Us | AboveBoard Financial
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Evan Unzelman about the many creative uses of charitable remainder trusts. They talk about modifying the trust, selling the income interests, contributing the income interests to new trusts, and using CRTs as IRA beneficiaries.
With 20 years of specialized experience with charitable remainder trusts (CRTs), Evan Unzelman is largely regarded as one of the nation’s foremost experts on CRTs. Over the last two decades, he has reviewed thousands of CRTs and worked with tens of thousands of CRT beneficiaries, their families and their advisors on all facets of CRT planning. From up-front design and CRT structure (Standard CRUT, NIMCRUT, CRAT) to complex CRT administration to CRT secondary planning, Evan provides unmatched insight at every stage of the CRT lifecycle.
Evan’s experience with CRT secondary planning – sales, gifts, and rollovers of CRT income interests – is particularly deep. Prior to forming CRT Experts, he was President of a charitable planning firm where he helped develop the secondary market for CRT income interests and personally oversaw the successful completion of sale transactions for thousands of CRT beneficiaries across the U.S.
Evan is a trusted resource for trust and estate attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors on all aspects of CRT planning (sales and exchanges of CRT income interests in particular) and structured CRT Experts’ service offering to be complementary to those of most tax, legal and financial advisors. CRT Experts does not manage or custody assets and does not provide tax, legal, financial or insurance advice.
Evan is a sought-after speaker (partial list of speaking engagements below) and writes frequently on CRTs for a variety of audiences. His articles have appeared in publications such as Estate Planning, the National Association of Estate Planners & Council’s Journal of Tax & Estate Planning, Taxation of Exempts, Atlanta Bar Association’s The Mortmain, Wealth Strategies Journal and Atlantic Trust’s Trusted Advisor.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Evan graduated from Pacific Lutheran University (summa cum laude) in Tacoma, WA, where he earned degrees in Finance and Economics.
Evan can be found here: About | CRT Experts
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Sasha Young da Silva about estate and tax planning for Americans who have relocated to beautiful Portugal. They talk about the tax challenges of cross an international border, surprises Americans find in the Portuguese system, and how to make the transition.
Sasha Young da Silva is a U.S. attorney with a practice focused exclusively on tax and estate planning for American private clients living in Portugal. Born in New Orleans and raised between Aruba and Atlanta, Sasha’s global perspective is shaped by a lifetime of international living, including time in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Mexico City, Bogota, Cartagena, Puerto la Cruz, Alexandria, and now Lisbon.
She began her legal career at White & Case and McGuireWoods, where she advised on complex project and asset finance transactions, including aircraft leasing, energy sector financing, and major infrastructure projects. She later transitioned to an in-house role at Amazon Prime Video, supporting production and licensing transactions across Latin America and advising on international tax, currency, and regulatory matters.
Sasha’s diverse background gives her a unique understanding of the challenges facing globally mobile families. She offers bespoke U.S. tax and estate planning solutions that account for the cross-border realities of American expats, with an emphasis on clarity, compliance, and long-term family security.
She holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Political Science from California State University, Northridge. She is licensed to practice law in Florida and Washington. She speaks English, Papiamento, Spanish, and Portuguese and takes her coffee cheio com açúcar.
Sasha and her firm can be found here Tax & Estate Planning for Americans in Portugal | Areia Global
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Nicole Davis, CPA, MBA — founder of Butler-Davis Tax & Accounting and a Forbes Top 200 CPA — about why today’s accountants can (and should) treat traditional compliance work as a choice, not a requirement. Nicole explains how technology, distributed workforces, great processes, and training clients can help accountants (and any other professional) find more time for high-value advisory work.
Nicole Davis, CPA, MBA, is the founder/CEO of Butler-Davis Tax & Accounting, BD Payroll, and Groundworx Contractors. A sought-after speaker and creator of “Tax Return Pizza Tracker,” she coaches accountants through The Modern Bookkeeper accelerator and keynotes national conferences on client experience, pricing, and firm culture.
Nicole can be found here Nicole Davis, Cpa, Mba
And here Nicole Davis, CPA
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Joel Revill about Private Trust Companies (PTCs). They explain the basics of PTCs and their structures. They explain what families would want to use a PTC and how the structure can solve issues of governance and management of family wealth. Finally, they discuss the unique position of PTCs with crypto assets.
Joel serves as CEO of Two Ocean Trust. Prior to co-founding the firm, he was a Portfolio Manager at Citadel, a $63 billion alternative investment manager. Joel began his career in the investment banking group at J.P. Morgan.
Joel chairs the Selection Panel for Wyoming’s Investment Funds Committee, overseeing the state’s $30 billion sovereign funds. Appointed by Governor Mark Gordon, he also serves on the Wyoming Blockchain Select Committee, which has pioneered over 30 laws on blockchain and emerging technologies. Additionally, he is on the Wyoming Stable Token Commission, managing the first state-issued stable token.
Joel’s leadership extends to numerous boards for private trust companies and non-profits organizations, including his current role as Investment Committee Chair for the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole.
He holds bachelor’s degrees in Finance and Japanese Language and Literature from the University of Oregon and studied at Obirin University in Japan. Joel also pursued graduate studies in the Master of Liberal Arts program at Stanford University.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent talks about what tax planning can happen AFTER the client has already signed the deal to sell a large asset.
He talks about the difference between income and estate tax planning. He then discusses terms of the deal, installment method, QSBS, charitable giving, and charitable lead annuity trusts. He closes it out with a discussion of how discounts may still be available on gifts, even after the ink is dry.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about five key questions relating to tariffs and planning in difficult market conditions. He gives answers to the following questions:
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What’s the real strategy behind these tariffs—and what is the administration hoping to achieve by imposing them now?
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How might these tariffs and the market’s reaction affect U.S. consumers and investors in the short term?
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How do currency exchange rates fit into this picture—and why does it matter if the U.S. dollar strengthens or weakens?
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How can volatile markets actually create opportunity for strategic estate planning?
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In times like this, what are the biggest estate planning mistakes people make—and how can they be avoided?
His answers cover what the stated motivations for the US tariffs are, how they might effect the markets, currency exchanges, and planning, and how to find silver linings from a planning perspective.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with T.J. Ryan about important terms to make your trusts better. In this first part of that conversation, they discuss the importance of settlor intent, HIPAA releases and incapacity determinations, determining the character of property of the trust as community property or separate property, holding property in lifetime spendthrift trusts with careful distribution provisions, and using special co-trustees strategically (drug testing anyone?).
T.J. is a Senior Partner at the Phoenix law firm of Frazer Ryan Goldberg & Arnold LLP.
T.J.’s practice encompasses virtually all aspects of family estates, from estate and business planning, to probate and trust administration, to litigating contested estates – an area in which he has achieved a strong track record for positive results.
A Fellow of the prestigious American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), T.J. Ryan focuses his practice on personal and business planning, including estate planning, estate administration, business entity formation, and trust and probate litigation.
T.J. can be found here: T.J. Ryan, Trust & Estate Litigation and Estate Planning Attorney
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
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Brent chats with Steven Zeiger about why life insurance products are so complex. Steven explains the mechanics of the products and how data can reveal which are best for our clients. Steven also shares his methodology and best practices for comparing life insurance options.
Steven Zeiger is a Managing Director of Wealth Management at KB Financial and is a recognized professional in applying prudent investor guidelines to life insurance product selection and portfolio management according to established and proven asset management doctrine. Prior to joining KB Financial, Steven worked for an Austin, Texas firm specializing in Private Placement Life Insurance for ultra high net worth families where he oversaw marketing efforts for the Northeast.
After graduating from the State University of New York at Albany School of Business with a BS in Business Administration and concentration in Finance, Steven received his advanced Insurance degree from the Wharton School of Business. His California Insurance License is #0C33107.
Steven lives in Chappaqua, NY along with his wife and sons and enjoys travel, tennis, skiing, and ping pong with his family. He is on the Board of the Kidney Cancer Coalition and participates in the MSK Cycle for Survival. He is currently training for next year’s 192-mile Pan Mass Challenge where he will be riding alongside his sister on her 15th annual ride.
Steven can be found at Steven.Zeiger@onedigital.com| onedigital.com & kbfcllc.com
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about how AI can be used in estate planning now. He discusses its current limitations and dangers associated with AI-Emboldened Advisers. He also discusses the future outlook of AI and how advisers can remain relevant.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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In this Live recording, Brent chats about the state of the tax bills in Washington, DC, an interesting fiduciary liability case involving foreign accounts, how to plan for an uncertain future, and what gifts volatile markets bring for private wealth transfers.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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[Transcript of Episode]
Good morning. This is the Wealth and Law podcast live. Basically, this is a little bit of an experiment because we haven’t done this before. So you have to forgive me if I have any sort of technical issues here. I’ll do my best.
But the intent is to record some of the podcast episodes that I’ll be doing in the future in a live format like this and then to uh hopefully put those up so you could you don’t have to catch them live so you can listen to them during the day or at your leisure whenever you want as separate episodes for the podcast but hopefully we’ll be able to have a little bit of a mix uh so there’s more ways to engage with and listen to the podcast and so this is this is round one of trying to figure out um some way of doing that and basically the podcast is me so if there’s any sort of technical issue or the sound isn’t right or it doesn’t get posted or something doesn’t happen, it’s all me.
This is how it gets done. And that also means that I have technological limitations. So if these sorts of things don’t work, it’s also on me. So, you have to hopefully forgive me for any issues that pop up. Just give you like the brief agenda here this morning, and then I’ll jump into it. I’m going to talk about current events, such as they are, current events that relate to sort of private wealth and tax and things like that, not all the current events.
We can talk about all the current events at a separate moment over drinks. That would be an appropriate time to do that. Then there’s an interesting case, I think, anyways, an interesting case right now out of the federal district court in Idaho about foreign accounts and particularly about the liability of a fiduciary for a deceased person’s foreign accounts and reporting. And then we’ll talk about some of the market volatility and what that means and some of the things that you could probably do to take advantage of some of the market volatility.
And then we’ll hopefully close out by just, I’ll just give you my thoughts on dealing generally with uncertainty, sort of market uncertainties and legal uncertainties. We know right now, for example, that in Congress, they are working on a spending bill to keep the federal government funded. Of course, this happens just periodically, so it’s not really anything new in every single Congress that goes through this same process. I don’t really think that It’s enormous news. They’re always threatening to not fund the government and then cause a shutdown and whichever party happens to be in power is the one trying to fund the government.
Whichever party is not in power is the one threatening to shut down the government. I am not seeing a whole lot of indication that they are going to shut down the government either because the Democrats don’t have enough votes to do it or because some of the Democrats will actually fall in line to keep funding the government because it might not be such a great idea for Democrats who are opposed to firing federal employees, for example, to then furlough a bunch of federal employees because they can’t agree to fund the coffers of the government to pay those employees to do their jobs.
I just don’t see that really happening. I think the really big ticket Item which has gone very silent in the last week or so is the reconciliation bill that may include both immigration reform and the tax bill. And I say may because there’s been some debate. I’m not a hundred percent certain that in Congress, they, as far as I can tell from the news that I’m reading that they are convinced that you’re going to have both things in one bill.
I know that there’s, there’s been some indication that that’s what they wanted to do, but I don’t know that we’ve gotten a final word on that, but let’s just assume that either of the two is going to be true. Okay.
They’re either going to, do the tax bill or they’re going to do immigration or both. I mean, both of these are going to be very big horse trading events because even members of the Republican Party are going to have things on their wish list that they want that are priorities for them that are maybe not priorities for other members of the Republican Party. And the Republicans have a very, very thin majority.
And so They really are going to have to have everybody in line, which means there probably is going to be a significant amount of negotiating. I’m already seeing the news reports come out of industry groups who are heavily lobbying Congress currently in this reconciliation process to make sure that they get the tax benefits they think they deserve. So all of the big ticket industries in the country, including tech and oil and gas, et cetera, are lobbying. And then I have seen some indication that there’s some negotiating going on as you would expect over like the state and local tax deduction, the SALT deduction.
So I think those things are really gonna dominate the news cycle once we get beyond the funding of the federal government, which again, I expect that’s just gonna happen. They’re gonna fund the federal government. There’s not gonna be a shutdown. I’m just not seeing enough of a collective voice advocating for a shutdown to indicate to me that that’s gonna happen, at least from my experience of watching these things play out. tax bill will be interesting and again the the news on the tax bill and the actual details of the tax bill has gone very very quiet in the last few weeks um I don’t think that means they’re doing nothing I think it just means that they’re not sharing there have been a couple of bills introduced to potentially get rid of the federal estate tax but I’m not I’m not convinced that’s a strong likelihood, although I’ve been wrong about these sorts of things in the past, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a huge appetite for that because of the price tag involved and all of the interests trying to get their share of the pot here. It’s a four and a half trillion dollar pot.
Do they really want to spend it on getting rid of the estate tax, which is going to be several hundreds of billions of dollars when they can take that money and spend it, so to speak, on something else by just extending the Trump tax changes from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in twenty seventeen? That feels like low hanging fruit. And then to negotiate on the edges of anything new, we know that it’s a priority for the White House to have things like no tax on tips. So they’re going to have to find room for that. Another priority of the White House, of course, is to have no tax on Social Security.
So they’re going to have to find room in that four and a half trillion for that. And just extending the current Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions is very expensive. So It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of room for them to wiggle such that they would want to spend it on the estate tax with the estate tax exemption so high that it affects very few people. It just feels like a nominal issue, but we’ll see. We’ll see. Maybe they’ll surprise us.
My expectation is that the estate tax is going to be extended at the current levels, index for inflation, of course. And we’ll just sort of carry on with what we’re dealing with now, which is technically set to sunset at the end of this year. But I don’t think it will sunset. Okay. There is a, I think there’s a very interesting… case out of Idaho that it’s not necessarily interesting in its result. The result is what I would expect it to be, really.
But it’s an interesting illustration of some of the perils that both taxpayers and then their family and the administration of their estate can face when they are owners of foreign accounts so if you have a foreign account as most people know that that or foreign accounts in general it can just be it can be more than one that in the aggregate during the year have a balance of more than ten thousand dollars u.s then you have to report all those accounts on a foreign bank account report or FBAR. And then if you meet other thresholds, you may have to file other forms. There’s the form eight, eighty nine, thirty eight, which is the FATCA disclosure. And there can be a whole host of other things, depending on what’s in that account that you have to file every year. And if you fail to file, then you can be penalized both civilly and criminally.
The civil penalties can be quite high. And in some instances, the IRS is very aggressive in going after taxpayers for failing to disclose these accounts properly and timely. In this case, the decedent was in the CIA and of course had been posted abroad and had foreign accounts that were undisclosed and then died. And that liability, what happens is it falls on the shoulders of the executor or there’s a trustee that’s basically administering the assets it falls on the shoulders of the executor or trustee and now that fiduciary basically steps into the shoes of the deceased person and the liabilities of that deceased person and in addition if now the fiduciary has in essence inherited these foreign accounts and the obligation of disclosure of the foreign accounts, that fiduciary also has to start disclosing the foreign accounts.
And they may have to go back and try to clean up undisclosed foreign accounts to try to avoid the worst of penalties by either utilizing the IRS streamline procedures, or if they can use the delinquent filing procedures, which are for, if you had a reasonable cause for not filing on time, these disclosure statements. And these disclosures, they’re really, the information that gets penalized is just information. It has really nothing to do with tax, although there can be tax owed, but the thing you’re getting penalized for is not filing an information form.
So it can be really harsh, but the fiduciary steps right into that role and they have to take that mantle and then they have to clean up anything that needs to be cleaned up and they have to start complying themselves as if they were the deceased person. And the estate can be held liable for not doing that. And then in this particular case that has come out of Idaho, that’s exactly what has happened. If that fiduciary then has a liability that’s owed to the federal government, they don’t clean it up, but then they distribute the property without paying the federal government first, the fiduciary can be held personally liable for that obligation that wasn’t paid to the federal government.
There’s sort of a federal priority statute that says that. And then if that, of course, the fiduciary transfers assets, now say the estate doesn’t have any assets, the transferees or the beneficiaries of the estate themselves can become liable for the debt that wasn’t paid to the federal government. So all the way around, everybody involved can be left holding the bag, especially when the debtor is the federal government. Because in a normal estate administration, there is a process where you can deal with creditor claims. And if a typical creditor doesn’t make a claim on a timely basis, then they may not be able to get paid. With the federal priority statute, that’s not the way it works.
The federal government takes the position that you cannot cut them off from a debt that’s owed to them without basically paying them or negotiating it away. So word to the wise, this case is an illustration of the challenge that can arise for an estate or a fiduciary that now is dealing with foreign accounts of someone else, the liabilities and the responsibilities for those foreign accounts do not just vanish if they haven’t been properly dealt with during the lifetime of the deceased person or during the administration of the trust, if it is a trust.
So you do have to be kind of careful about that. But that case is relatively recent, but it’s a very good illustration of this issue. It’s kind of a scary one. It comes up from time to time for me. And I wonder about the knowledge or the sort of understanding of some of the executors and trustees in terms of how to deal with these issues and even understanding that the issue exists. So now, now that I’ve told you, I guess, you know, so good or bad. All right. I want to talk a little bit also this morning about the volatility in the market. Of course, markets are down.
They basically have erased any gains that we’ve had since the Trump inauguration, which is a very short amount of time. It’s not really a significant amount of time, but the markets have been down. It’s always news when the markets are down, of course, because it’s easy to see red and green numbers on the screen. So it’s very easy to report on. And so it’s everywhere in front of your face. I’m usually not so hyper focused on the day to day activity and ups and downs of the market because it doesn’t really matter. It certainly doesn’t matter for most of my clients, but it can create an opportunity. particularly if you have clients that have positions in some of these companies that are subject to these market swings in a situation like this, where there’s an event happening that is driving the market down, you know, allegedly.
I guess nobody really knows what drives the market. Otherwise, we’d all be billionaires. But the Sometimes these events seem to have a correlation to what’s happening in the market and may, in some sense, artificially be driving the market down.
And you can see this in both equity markets and in, say, the crypto markets right now, where, say, the threat of tariffs are making enough people apparently uneasy that it’s causing the market to go down or it’s changing sentiments or whatnot, but it’s not really important. The important thing is to see this volatility and kind of the drop in the market, because from a planning perspective, then in the private wealth space, it opens up actually opportunities for doing some good planning at, in essence, a discounted rate.
Certainly, you can do grant planning if you have concentrated positions in public companies that are dropping in the market. When the price is low, that’s the right time to do grant planning. And I have some clients in that situation right now where I’m looking at the circumstance in the market thinking, well, maybe we’ll accelerate doing the grant planning that we were going to do say in the next month or two, maybe we’ll push that forward and do it quickly because we’ve got this volatility in the market that we can lean into and take advantage of. In addition, it can be a situation where when you have entities like trusts or say family partnerships that are trying to really grab highly appreciated property to push appreciation across the line.
You can kind of use this as a moment to buy those and push that appreciation across the line. And then in some sort of very more exotic transactions where you might be doing something like a private derivative or sort of private option transactions, if you can peg the price of the derivative or you can peg the price of the option to this lower market rate, then you may be able to shift more assets in the future if the markets go up and now you’re paying off that derivative contract, say to a family trust, or you’re paying off that option contract to a family trust, you may be able to pay it off in shares that have appreciated in value.
So the volatility is not always bad from a planning perspective. It can create some opportunities.
Of course, everything is a risk because you can never guess really properly about what’s going to happen in the future. We just don’t know. when there is some volatility that appears to, in a sort of reasonable best guess, it appears to give you a chance to grab something at a discount and possibly do some planning, it’s oftentimes worth a shot.
And GRATs are really great for that because with the GRAT, you, You either win or nothing happens because if the grant quote unquote fails because the asset doesn’t increase in value sufficiently to beat the hurdle rates that you have to beat in the grant, which is typically just like an interest rate that you need to cover in order to shift value from the grant over to family. If you don’t beat that, then what happens is the assets in the grant just come straight back to the grantor and they’re put back in the position that they were originally.
Well, That’s a pretty good bet. If you’re just trying to shift pieces of the estate off to family without having to use up any of the exemption that’s available from estate tax and gift tax and GST tax for the grantor of the trust, that’s a pretty good option. You can just bet, put something into the grant, see if it works. And if it does work great, you just shifted something off of their balance sheet without using up any of this exemption and If it didn’t work, they’re just gonna get it back and they’re in the same position that they would have been originally.
So it’s sort of no harm, no foul in many cases with those grad transactions. So the volatility really opens up interesting prospects for grad planning in normal circumstances, I’ll say. Again, we don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future. We have no idea what’s gonna happen with the markets and we really don’t even know what’s going to happen with tariffs from day to day, to be perfectly honest.
So that’s always the case. And you always have to go into the planning with that understanding. But if you can use techniques that give you an easy out, like a GRAT gives you an easy out, if you don’t get the result that you want, then you might as well take advantage of it because it’s there.
And I’m seeing that sort of, type of transaction that that sort of capping type transaction which is really what a grad is you’re trying to cap the value of the balance sheet of the grantor um for clients that are sort of in that like thirty to forty million dollar as a couple thirty forty million dollar range where they’re like they’re a little bit over existing exemptions if inflation helps you out in the next few years then you might you know you might catch up with available exemption, but you might not actually want to use up all of their exemption and making big gifts because then they’ll have no money left, then you have to kind of try to find ways to start nibbling away at the edges on that balance sheet to keep things down and maybe not expose too much to estate tax, if at all.
And this, you know, these can be useful ways to kind of try to nibble away at the edges and cap down the balance sheet a bit. So it’s a useful exercise when you have this kind of market volatility to start thinking about who has a balance sheet that fits into this and makes it easy to do the planning. And if a client has or they can purchase publicly traded shares of stock, that’s usually the easiest, especially in the GRAC context.
Finally, I want to just talk a little bit about uncertainty in general because we’re dealing with a lot of it or we have been dealing with a lot of it. And one of the challenges of uncertainty and trying to plan for uncertainty, of course, is that you’re making guesses today that are going to manifest themselves in some very concrete way in the future.
And your assumptions today could be wrong, obviously. And so in that scenario, what do you do? How do you do planning? Well, I think sometimes you have to kind of take a two-step approach, I’ll say. Step number one being that you do the planning with an eye towards the long-term, first and foremost.
So you don’t try to guess too much about the short-term, notwithstanding what I just said about the volatility of the market and using GRATs, but you try not to guess too much Um, about the short term, you try to focus more on the long-term planning, um, using reasonable assumptions.
If you, if you have to pick assumptions, then you use, you try to use assumptions that are based on like historic data and not necessarily guessing about the, the vicissitudes of what’s happening currently and the political news and economic news or whatnot. And so that’s sort of the first thing.
The second thing is that then you have to try to build into the structure a lot of flexibility where you can get it. And if you can add in the flexibility, then in anticipation of what could happen in the future, even if it’s some flexibility or some mechanism that you’re not gonna use today, and you have no reason to use today, you build in that flexibility in the plan.
So for example, I do a lot of planning with Q-tip trusts between married people, because with the Q-tip trust, When one spouse dies, I can put assets into the Q-tip trust. I can use the election for this Q-tip trust to create multiple trusts if I want, which is sometimes called a Clayton transaction. And all of that planning can be done after the fact, after the first spouse dies, for example. uh and it’s retroactive to their date of death but you get up to fifteen months to do it because it gets reported on an estate tax return and with an extension and state tax return can we do up to fifteen months after uh somebody dies so we use that fifteen month period to try to build in the flexibility to pick and choose the planning by using this q-tip trust tool that’s available to us and sometimes we only have the Q-tip trust.
Sometimes we don’t even have the Q-tip trust after the first spouse dies. And sometimes it’s a mix of the Q-tip trust and another trust, either called a credit shelter trust or bypass trust that we elect into. And just having that sort of base level flexibility is very, very handy.
And if you use it right, it can give you the ability to do retroactive planning after somebody dies. But to get that option, you have to create the terms in the documents that allow you to have that option in the future. So when I’m talking about long term planning, and then sort of thinking about having tools in the future, that’s really what I mean, you pick the tools that you want in the future today, put those into the documents, you pick the tools that have the most amount of flexibility, you put those into the documents, today.
And then in the future, when something happens, then you wrestle around in the toolkit, so to speak, and you pick out the one that works the best. In in many instances, if you’re going to have planning, for example, that involves irrevocable trusts, then you want to have flexibility in that irrevocable trust document. by permitting trustees to, for example, do a decanting if that’s needed, a decanting being a distribution from one trust to a second trust with slightly different terms, or you have to have someone like a trust protector who has the power to maybe amend the document, and how much amending power you give them is sort of in the eye of the beholder, and you decide what is the right amount for your clients to do that.
But having that flexibility built into the trust structure is important because in the future, there could be circumstances that arise that you didn’t anticipate. And so you don’t necessarily want the whole structure to crumble.
You want to be able to adjust and keep all the best parts of it and then get rid of any parts that might be detrimental in the future. And some of these structures, they’re very powerful. in the way that they operate.
They can have extremely powerful credit protection features to them that you wouldn’t necessarily want to just get rid of. They can have extremely powerful estate and generation skipping transfer tax planning features to them that you may not want to just get rid of. And they can have very powerful income tax planning optionalities to them that you also may not want to necessarily just give up on.
But to have the ability to pick and choose among options in the future, again, you have to build in these tools into the documents today in anticipation of what could happen in the future. So that’s what I’m seeing most of. And frankly, when I’m talking to other practitioners, that’s what I’m hearing from them as well.
They’re trying to anticipate the need to make changes in the future because things are always uncertain, of course, and we can’t predict the future, but it just feels like with the threat to increase or decrease, the estate tax or threats to change rules to certain trust planning structures and tax planning structures, which we get in these federal cycles of who happens to be in control.
In Washington, DC, you need to be as nimble as possible to make sure that you can adequately cover yourself from a planning perspective and have the option to make changes in the future should it be required.
And every client, of course, is different. Every family is different. States do things differently. And so every circumstance has to be really evaluated for its own merits.
I don’t really have perfectly good general advice that will apply across the board. You just keep yourself as flexible as you can. And keep flexibility in mind when you’re thinking about how to do the planning, how to create the structures.
All right, well, I’m going to leave it there. You’ve tolerated me here now for about thirty minutes, but I appreciate anybody joining here for the live events. We’ll keep trying to do these in live fashion. And, um, and then we’ll post them as separate episodes. As I said, I really appreciate it. Really, really appreciate all the comments and, and constructive criticisms that I get. So, you know, keep them coming, put comments in posts, or you just reach out to me directly. Let me know what you think. Um, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks for joining me.
[End of Transcript of Episode]
This is an episode from March 2022, where Brent talks about his history with Ukraine and Russia’s invasion. Although we are now almost three years removed, the content seems as relevant today as it was then.
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Brent chats about how adding leverage (or debt) to estate planning vehicles can increase the wealth transfer potential. He talks specifically about adding debt in irrevocable grantor trusts, GRATs, and family limited partnerships.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about how to move a trust’s income tax residence to a State with no income tax. He talks about what trusts can do this and when and why it might make sense. He also explains when the math does not favor that kind of move.
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Brent chats about the new administration, and news of tax proposals from Republican tax negotiators. He shares his thoughts on tariffs, lower C corporation tax rates, the SALT deduction, the 199A deduction, opportunity zone funds, and estate tax. He also discusses what some of these changes could mean for taxpayers trying to plan.
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Brent chats about how he’s thinking about using the 2025 Estate Tax exemption of $13.99 million. He discusses getting ulta-high net worth clients to act, the basic planning frameworks and numbers, and benefits of the full picture.
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Brent chats with Ryan Halvorson about how to make smart moves with equity compensation. They talk about different kinds of equity compensation, from RSUs, stock options, to deferred compensation. They then explain what issues to watch out for and how to make smart decisions from a financial planning perspective.
Ryan Halvorson is an advisor at TCI Wealth Advisors. With more than a decade of wealth management experience, he brings determination and passion as an advisor. He provides tailored advice to help individuals make informed decisions about their financial future. Prior to joining TCI, his professional journey included roles at Merrill Lynch, US Trust, US Bank Private Wealth Management and Morgan Stanley.
Beyond the numbers and charts, building relationships with clients is what Ryan enjoys most. These relationships go beyond transactions and are founded on trust and understanding. Ryan’s goal is to create connections that stand the test of time. He is honored to be a reliable and steady partner with his clients that will last for the next 20-30 years.
Ryan can be found here: Ryan Halvorson, CFP® – TCI Wealth
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Paul Hood about what the world looks like for buy sell agreements after the US Supreme Court’s decision in Connelly. They discuss how, if at all, the decision changes existing law, what business owners should think about for business succession planning, and where the case leaves us going forward.
Paul Hood obtained his undergraduate and law degrees from Louisiana State University and an LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. Paul has taught at the University of New Orleans, Northeastern University, The University of Toledo College of Law and Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law. Paul has authored or co-authored nine books and over 500 professional articles on estate and tax planning and business valuation. A frequent contributor to Leimberg Information Services since its inception, Paul is a highly sought after speaker and consultant due to his innate ability to see through complexities and explain difficult and even boring subjects in understandable and entertaining language. He minces no words in doing so. Along the way, Paul’s been a father, husband, lawyer, trustee, director, president, partner, trust protector, director of planned giving, expert witness, agent, professor, judge, juror and a defendant, and he uses his experience in these myriad roles to guide others.
Paul can be found here About | Paul Hood Services
A text of the case can be found here 23-146 Connelly v. United States (06/06/2024)
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Brent chats with Toni Ann Kruse about what it means from a practical and tax perspective to expatriate from the United States. They explain the difference in residency, covered expatriates, and significant tax considerations. They also talk about some of the day-to-day challenges of leaving the United States.
Toni Ann Kruse is a Partner at McDermott Will & Emery who has a broad-based estate and wealth transfer planning practice in New York. She advises ultra-high net worth individuals and families on estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax issues, trust and estate administration, state fiduciary income tax planning, and charitable gifting, as well as contested trust and estate matters. She has significant experience working with multinational clients on structuring efficient ways to benefit US persons as well as inbound and outbound planning opportunities. Toni Ann regularly works with family companies, advising on governance and succession issues between generations; drafts and administers complex estate plans; implements leveraged lifetime wealth transfer techniques; and counsels fiduciaries in complex trust and estate administration matters, often involving various asset classes across several jurisdictions.
Toni Ann has published articles in publications such as Trusts & Estates Magazine, Bloomberg Tax, Law360, and the New York Law Journal. She regularly speaks at estate planning conferences on various topics and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Reuters as an industry expert.
Toni Ann can be found here: Toni Ann Kruse – McDermott Will & Emery
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Geoff Grenert about how to help client understand complicated ideas as part of their planning. They discuss the challenge of explaining things simply, helping people overcome their own fears, and ultimately helping people make wise decisions. They also talk about their processes for creating and delivering the message their clients need to hear.
Geoff, Cypress Strategies founder, has worked with affluent families and businesses since 1997 in the area of legacy planning. He helps his clients crystallize their goals and objectives from a family, business and personal perspective. Together with his support staff and the clients advisors he creates a synergy of talent, education, and resources; providing a dynamic team approach in creating and implementing innovative and efficient planning solutions.
Geoff brings years of experience in the design and acquisition of large life insurance policies. Because of his knowledge, trust offices, accounting firms, and tax attorneys seek his advice.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent explains some of the challenges of planning when there is a non-US citizen spouse. He dives into the estate tax marital deduction, the gift tax marital deduction, Form 3520, income tax recognition events, and expatriation. He also explains how these issues arise at various generational levels of a family.
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Brent chats with Matt Hochstetler about the basics of irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs). They explain what these trusts are, why they are useful, Crummey provisions, and creative planning with life insurance.
Matt Hochstetler is a trusts-and-estates attorney practicing in Naples, Florida and Canton, Ohio. His practice serves wealthy families, family offices, and private trust companies across the United States. Matt counsels clients on estate planning and administration as well as matters concerning the structure and operation of family offices and private trust companies.
Matt is an ACTEC Fellow and earned his LLM from the University of Miami Heckerling Graduate Program in Estate Planning, where he was the highest-ranking student in multiple classes. He received his Juris Doctor magna cum laude from the University of Toledo College of Law.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about how to think about the US elections, reminds you the CTA beneficial owner reports are due by December 31, 2024, suggests planning based on the laws as they are not as we wish they would be, and spotting important red flags when there are non-Americans in the family tree.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about the basics of Remainder Purchase Marital Trusts (RPMTs). He explains how they work within the gift tax marital deduction rules. Then he compares them to QTIP Trusts and IDGTs (see our prior episodes about those). Finally, Brent walks through the mechanics of RPMTs and how they can be effective wealth transfer tools.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Steve Gorin about the Beneficiary Deemed Inheritor’s Trust (BDITs). They talk about the structure of these irrevocable trusts, their potential benefits in estate planning, and risks involved in these trusts. they give practical ideas about analyzing whether to use BDITs.
Steve Gorin in a Partner at Thompson Coburn LLP. Steve crafts estate plans for individuals, keeping in mind their financial security and desire to save income and estate tax. In his work for businesses, Steve helps owners plan for the eventual sale (to co-owners, employees, or third parties) or transfer (to family members), and provides a legal framework for an orderly transition while strategically saving income, transfer, and FICA taxes.
Drawing on his background as an accountant — and his still-current CPA license and Chartered Global Management Accountant credential — Steve structures businesses to achieve business objectives and save income or estate tax. He has helped fledgling businesses organize, thriving businesses restructure to save hundreds of thousands of dollars of income tax when planning a transition to the next ownership group, and mature multi-million or billion-dollar businesses plan tax-saving transfers to the next generation.
Over the course of his 30-year career, Steve has amassed a deep knowledge of nearly every aspect of tax strategy for privately held businesses and freely shares that knowledge with others in the field. His quarterly newsletter, “Business Succession Solutions,” is considered essential reading for hundreds of CPAs and attorneys, who describe it as “a fantastic contribution to the field.” Steve also maintains a blog, Business Succession Solutions, intended to help business owners — and those who advise or support them — consider smart tax strategies.
Steve is a highly visible member of the ABA’s Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section and the American College of Trust & Estate Counsel, which regularly directs its members to Steve’s quarterly newsletter. He has represented both groups in comments to the IRS, the U.S. Treasury, and tax lawmakers.
You can learn more about Steve here: https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/people/steve-gorin. You can sign up for Steve’s newsletter here: https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/insights/blogs/business-succession-solutions/about.
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Brent chats with Cody Cassidy about the importance of holding family meetings. They discuss why a meeting can set the tone for a family’s financial success. They also share tips and best practices for planning, holding, and following up on those meetings.
Cody Cassidy, CFP®, is an advisor and a Shareholder at TCI Wealth Advisors. He works with multiple teams to deliver research/analysis and strategic planning tools for clients.
Cody has worked across a number of sectors, both public and private, including politics, health care, higher education and finance. He earned his undergrad and graduate degrees from the University of Arizona, and is a proud member of the Wildcat family. By far the most rewarding part of his career has been to join TCI and having the opportunity to help people achieve their life goals.
Cody is passionate about his family, his life and his work. He enjoys spending time with his wife, Ava Clare, and their two children. He also enjoys Tae Kwon Do, weight lifting at the gym, running and reading.
Cody can be found here: Cody Cassidy, CFP® – TCI Wealth
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Justin Miller about Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs). They explain what these trusts are, how they can be used to save estate taxes, and when to consider one. They also dive into some of the planning challenges and how to select good assets for SLATs.
Justin Miller is a partner and the national director of wealth planning at Evercore Wealth Management, counseling advisors and clients on complex taxation, trusts and estates, charitable planning and family governance issues. He additionally serves as a senior wealth and fiduciary advisor at the San Francisco office of Evercore Wealth Management and Evercore Trust Company NA.
Prior to joining Evercore in 2021, Mr. Miller was a national wealth strategist for 10 years at BNY Mellon. He previously was a managing director at Wells Fargo and began his career as a tax attorney at Sidley Austin.
Mr. Miller is an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University School of Law, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He has served in leadership positions with the American Bar Association, California Bar Foundation, San Francisco Estate Planning Council and State Bar of California, and is a former editor-in-chief of California Tax Lawyer. Additionally, he is a past recipient of the Outstanding Conference Speaker Award from the California Society of CPAs and the V. Judson Klein Award from the California Tax Bar.
Mr. Miller earned a B.A. with honors from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. and LL.M. in taxation from New York University School of Law. He holds the accredited estate planner designation, and is a certified financial planner and a member of the State Bar of California.
You can find Justin here Justin Miller – Evercore
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent discusses the US Supreme Court’s Loper Bright case. In the case the Supreme Court overturned its own legal doctrine called Chevron deference. Brent talks about the case, what the justices said, and what the case might mean for tax regulation and planning in the future.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Naomita Yadav about all the ways S corporations are problematic. They commiserate about the shareholder limitations, trusts as shareholders, generational wealth planning, and real estate, among other things. They also offer insights and solutions to some of these common issues.
Naomita Yadav is a partner in the private client and tax team of Withersworldwide. She has a diverse and well-rounded tax background, including experience in both income tax and estate and gift tax matters, which makes her particularly suited for families with existing complex trust structures. She also has experience with cross-border families as well as nuances of visa designations and the interplay with tax laws. Interestingly, her own family is situated in three continents.
Naomita advises families with generational wealth in the context of changing circumstances and passage of time such as multi-generation wealth planning for family members who are beneficiaries of trusts settled by prior generations. This particular mix of experiences and knowledge enables Naomita to act as a proficient adviser for the globally mobile high net worth family. She also advises clients on tax, estate and succession planning related to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Naomita received her bachelor’s degree from Yale, her MBA from the University of Michigan, and her juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School.
Naomita can be found here Naomita Yadav | Private client and tax attorney | San Francisco | Withersworldwide
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Chris Siegle about Beneficiary Deemed Owner Trusts (BDOTs). They explain how these trusts work and what opportunities they present for planning. They also discuss the potential for future changes in the tax laws, what you might do to plan for those changes, and how BDOTs might fit into that picture.
Chris Siegle is a Managing Director and Senior Wealth Advisor in the Scottsdale, Arizona office of J.P. Morgan Private Bank. With his strong legal and tax background, he and his team provide successful individuals, families and organizations with creative strategies for investing, tax and estate planning, and family business succession issues. His focus on family circumstances and grantor intent adds depth to every conversation.
Chris’s advice on family dynamics, wealth preservation and individualized legal structures is sought throughout the West. He speaks and writes frequently on tax planning, charitable giving, investments and advanced estate planning strategies. He has presented to the Arizona State Bar Tax Section, the USC Tax Institute, the Maricopa County Bar Association, the Collier County Bar Association, Valley Estate Planners, Arizona Community Foundation, and he has appeared at numerous seminars and panels for professional groups.
Chris joined J.P. Morgan in 2010 after practicing law in Arizona for more than 13 years, during which he focused in trusts and estates, employee benefits and corporate transactions. His legal experience as a member of the State Bar of Arizona and the Maricopa Country Bar Association helps him collaborate with his client’s tax and legal advisors.
Chris earned his J.D. (with Honor), from the University of Tulsa College of Law, his M.S.S. from The United States Army War College, and an LL.M. from Villanova University School of Law. He received his A.B. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his study at the University of Tulsa Law School, he was an articles editor for the Tulsa Law Journal.
Active in his community and imbued with a strong sense of responsibility and leadership, Chris is a Captain (retired) in the U.S. Navy, having served from 1990-2020. He is a member of the Professional Advisory Boards of the Arizona Community Foundation and the Catholic Community Foundation in Phoenix. He also devotes time to the Maricopa County Bar Association, Central Arizona Estate Planning Council and other professional organizations.
Chris can be found here Chris Siegle | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S. (jpmorgan.com)
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Toni Ann Kruse about qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs). These trusts are popular in high-interest environments to transfer personal residences among family members. Brent and Toni explain how they work, the income and transfer tax rules, and give planning tips.
Toni Ann Kruse is a Partner at McDermott Will & Emery who has a broad-based estate and wealth transfer planning practice in New York. She advises ultra-high net worth individuals and families on estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax issues, trust and estate administration, state fiduciary income tax planning, and charitable gifting, as well as contested trust and estate matters. She has significant experience working with multinational clients on structuring efficient ways to benefit US persons as well as inbound and outbound planning opportunities. Toni Ann regularly works with family companies, advising on governance and succession issues between generations; drafts and administers complex estate plans; implements leveraged lifetime wealth transfer techniques; and counsels fiduciaries in complex trust and estate administration matters, often involving various asset classes across several jurisdictions.
Toni Ann has published articles in publications such as Trusts & Estates Magazine, Bloomberg Tax, Law360, and the New York Law Journal. She regularly speaks at estate planning conferences on various topics and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Reuters as an industry expert.
Toni Ann can be found here: Toni Ann Kruse – McDermott Will & Emery (mwe.com)
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about the many non-probate transfers. He explains the ownership rights, tax treatment, what happens at death, and issues during lifetime. He also explains pitfalls to plan for. In the episode, he describes joint accounts, joint tenancy with right of survivorship, beneficiary deeds, transferable on death, payable on death, and beneficiary designations.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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This is Episode 200!! Thank you to all the listeners, subscribers, guests, and friends who have made the podcast what it is!
In this episode, Brent talks about the importance of good writing. He offers tips on how to write well, and, in particular, how to edit well. He shares the importance of audience, levels of editing, and using lists. He then gives you a checklist to use in formal writing. Good writing is often a sign of good thinking. Learning this skill will help you in all types of communication.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
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Brent chats with Naomita Yadav about the basics of qualified terminable interest property trusts (QTIP Trusts). They explain the key features, how to use them in planning, and some important foot faults to avoid. Naomita also explains the difference between a QTIP Trust and a SLAT.
This is a continuation of our series about the alphabet soup of different irrevocable trusts that may be very important in the lead up to 2026.
Naomita Yadav is a partner in the private client and tax team of Withersworldwide. She has a diverse and well-rounded tax background, including experience in both income tax and estate and gift tax matters, which makes her particularly suited for families with existing complex trust structures. She also has experience with cross-border families as well as nuances of visa designations and the interplay with tax laws. Interestingly, her own family is situated in three continents.
Naomita advises families with generational wealth in the context of changing circumstances and passage of time such as multi-generation wealth planning for family members who are beneficiaries of trusts settled by prior generations. This particular mix of experiences and knowledge enables Naomita to act as a proficient adviser for the globally mobile high net worth family. She also advises clients on tax, estate and succession planning related to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Naomita received her bachelor’s degree from Yale, her MBA from the University of Michigan, and her juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School.
Naomita can be found here Naomita Yadav | Private client and tax attorney | San Francisco | Withersworldwide
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Chris Siegle about how to make non-grantor trusts income tax efficient. They talk about normal QTIP and Bypass Trusts, how those trusts might be made grantor trusts, what powers and authority to think about, and other planning tips.
Chris Siegle is a Managing Director and Senior Wealth Advisor in the Scottsdale, Arizona office of J.P. Morgan Private Bank. With his strong legal and tax background, he and his team provide successful individuals, families and organizations with creative strategies for investing, tax and estate planning, and family business succession issues. His focus on family circumstances and grantor intent adds depth to every conversation.
Chris’s advice on family dynamics, wealth preservation and individualized legal structures is sought throughout the West. He speaks and writes frequently on tax planning, charitable giving, investments and advanced estate planning strategies. He has presented to the Arizona State Bar Tax Section, the USC Tax Institute, the Maricopa County Bar Association, the Collier County Bar Association, Valley Estate Planners, Arizona Community Foundation, and he has appeared at numerous seminars and panels for professional groups.
Chris joined J.P. Morgan in 2010 after practicing law in Arizona for more than 13 years, during which he focused in trusts and estates, employee benefits and corporate transactions. His legal experience as a member of the State Bar of Arizona and the Maricopa Country Bar Association helps him collaborate with his client’s tax and legal advisors.
Chris earned his J.D. (with Honor), from the University of Tulsa College of Law, his M.S.S. from The United States Army War College, and an LL.M. from Villanova University School of Law. He received his A.B. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his study at the University of Tulsa Law School, he was an articles editor for the Tulsa Law Journal.
Active in his community and imbued with a strong sense of responsibility and leadership, Chris is a Captain (retired) in the U.S. Navy, having served from 1990-2020. He is a member of the Professional Advisory Boards of the Arizona Community Foundation and the Catholic Community Foundation in Phoenix. He also devotes time to the Maricopa County Bar Association, Central Arizona Estate Planning Council and other professional organizations.
Chris can be found here Chris Siegle | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S. (jpmorgan.com)
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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This is the first in a series of episodes about the alphabet soup of irrevocable trusts that will be critical pre-2026 TCJA Sunset.
In this episode, Brent introduces you to Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGTs). He explains the transfer tax context, how the trust is formed, its special income tax treatment, and the planning uses for IDGTs.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Griffin Bridgers about how non-residents of Colorado can plan when they own real estate there. They discuss the income and capital gains treatment of the property. They also talk about how to do proper estate planning in that context. Finally, they describe the relevant federal tax issues.
Griffin is a Wealth Strategist for Mosaic. Griffin uses his 13 years of experience as a tax and estate planning attorney at small, medium, and large firms to advise and educate Mosaic’s clients and advisors on the technical and interpersonal aspects of estate planning, tax planning, and business planning. This includes simplifying complex legal structures and documents, navigating the dynamics of the team which manages a family’s wealth, analyzing the interplay between complex trusts and business entities, and implementing both cutting-edge and traditional tax and wealth transfer strategies.
Griffin is also a member of the law firm Hutchins & Associates in Denver Colorado. His practice encompasses all areas of private wealth and family business. In addition to estate planning and estate administration, Griffin has specialized experience in taxation, asset protection, executive compensation, employee benefits, qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, nonprofit organizations, mergers and acquisitions, business transactions, franchising, and commercial contracts.
Griffin joined Mosaic in 2022. He holds a BB.A. from the University of Memphis, a J.D. from Samford University, Cumberland School of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law.
Griffin has a sub-stack that can be found here State of Estates | Griffin Bridgers | Substack
Griffin can also be found here Griffin H. Bridgers – Hutchins Law
Brent and Griffin wrote an article for the Colorado Lawyer in this topic that can be found here Tax and Estate Planning for Nonresident Real Estate Owners | Colorado Lawyer (cobar.org)
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about the many different Charitable Remainder Trusts, from CRATs, CRUTs, NICRUTs, NIMCRUTs, to Flip CRUTs. He explains the taxation, typical ways they are used, and how they function. He also explains some of their technical requirements so you understand what they can and cannot do.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about the challenge of large IRAs, especially for wealthy individuals. He discusses how to plan for estate tax on those accounts, the Secure Act changes, and the tax costs to understand. He then explains Roth conversions, when they make sense, and how traditional and Roth accounts might be stretched through a Charitable Remainder Trust.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats about the top things he is discussing with clients and projects he is working on currently. He discusses the Corporate Transparency Act, reviewing older trust documents and updating them, and reviewing older family entity documents. He talks about the merits of addressing those issues now. Then he shares projects he is working on currently, including the podcast, an Article being published in April in the Colorado Lawyer, and other articles and speaking engagement he is preparing.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Alicyn McLeod about all the bad tax advice circulating on social media. They talk about why it is appealing, though ultimately wrong, and what tax professionals can do to counter it.
Alicyn McLeod is a CPA, CFP®with 20+ years of tax experience. She is the co-founder and CFO of Agate CPA. She is a Georgia native and a graduate of Augusta University where she earned a Bachelors in Business Administration in Accounting and a Masters of Business Administration. Alicyn resides in the metro Atlanta area and is an active member of her local community and the financial services community through local and national groups.
Alicyn can be found on Twitter @atlantatax
She can also be found here: About – Agate (agatecpa.com) and here Alicyn McLeod CPA, CFP® | Atlanta Tax
Brent chats with Shauna A. Wekherlien (the Tax Goddess) about how to do income tax planning with the possible sunset of the Trump tax cuts in 2026. They discuss their thinking on the possibility of the sunset happening, how to view changing laws, and ways to try to have your cake and eat it too. They talk about the constant need to vigilance in tax planning and the frequency of change that makes it complex.
Shauna A. Wekherlien, CPA, MTax, CTC, CTS, Tax Goddess is a highly sought-after Certified Public Accountant and founder of Tax Goddess Business Services, PC, established in 2004. Tax Goddess is a global team of 65+ specialists that uses plain language (not tax code) to help business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs create plans of action to increase the business owner’s bottom line, reduce costs, significantly reduce taxes, increase cash flow, and perform what-if scenario options so that owners know what decisions to make and which paths are best suited to their particular situation. Shauna is a Certified Public Accountant (AZ) with a master’s degree in Taxation. She is ranked in the top 1% of Tax Strategists in the entire country (per AICTC). Before starting her own company, Shauna had garnered experience and sharpened her skills working with different leading corporations such as KPMG and American Express. With over 24+ years of experience in implementing innovative tax solutions, Shauna has continued to actively create tax strategies that, so far, have saved businesses and individuals to the tune of over $523 million.
Shauna can be found here: https://taxgoddess.com/tax-goddess-team/
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent discusses how the sunset of the estate tax exemption in 2026 will also effect non-citizen non-residents of the US significantly (NRAs). He explains how the estate tax treaties work and how the math under some of the treaties could change in 2026 in a way that makes an NRA who is currently safe from estate tax exposed to estate tax thereafter. He also gives an estate tax planning framework for US citizens, NRA’s in treaty jurisdictions, and NRA’s in non-treaty jurisdictions.
The math under the estate tax treaties is illustrated under the following hypothetical:
If a non-resident has a worldwide estate of $8M and $1M is their condo in Miami, and the 2026 exemption is $7M, their 2026 exemption is going to be $875,000 (1/8 x 7 = .875). Today they have plenty of exemption (1/8 x 13.61 = 1.7) under the treaty.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Karin Prangley and Ross Bruch about the details of crypto currencies in estate planning. They get into how crypto has changed over time, the challenges of managing it and administering it, and specific techniques where it is useful for planning. They also give real life examples and share tips from the trenches.
Karin Prangley is a Senior Wealth Planner in the Chicago Private Banking office of Brown Brothers Harriman. She has spent her entire career advising successful individuals and business owners on the preservation of wealth. Karin’s particular expertise ranges from saving income and estate taxes on the sale of a business, to assisting clients with the achievement of their philanthropic goals, to preparing the next generation to inherit liquid wealth or a going-concern family business. Karin also serves as a valued member of her clients’ advisory teams by coordinating the legal and tax structure of her clients’ assets and family offices.
Prior to joining the firm in 2014, Karin was a Partner in private legal practice at the estate planning and administration group of Krasnow Saunders LLP and an Associate in the trusts and estates groups of Arnold & Porter LLP and Winston & Strawn LLP. Karin is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, an elite trusts and estates organization where admission is based on professional reputation, expertise in tax law, and contribution to the legal field. She received a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Mount St. Mary’s University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and was published in the Virginia Tax Review.
Ross Bruch is a Senior Wealth Planner in the Philadelphia office of Brown Brothers Harriman, where he works with and advises successful individuals and business owners on the preservation, growth and transfer of wealth. Prior to joining the firm in 2017, Ross was in private legal practice at a large Philadelphia law firm where he focused on estate and gift tax planning, tax-exempt organizations and closely held business succession planning.
In an effort to enhance his ability to help his clients and their families thrive, Ross recently obtained a master’s degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, he received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated cum laude, an LL.M. in taxation from the Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Karin can be found here Karin Prangley (bbh.com)
Ross can be found here Ross Bruch (bbh.com)
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with John Stephens about how adding equities can de-risk an investment portfolio. They then talk about how that strategy can be used within the goals an investor has for their life. In the end, money is a tool to live, so they discuss how to think about using investing to support the life you want to live. They also talk about John’s unique journey from practicing physician to financial adviser and how to navigate transitions successfully.
John Stephens, MBA, CFA, CFP® is a Shareholder of TCI Wealth Advisers where he specializes in helping other doctors and senior level executives build and maintain their wealth, independent from their businesses, by providing the same professional quality of financial advice to his clients today as he did for his patients back when he was a physician. He can be reached at https://tciwealth.com/advisor/john-stephens/
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Brent chats with Ashley Francis about artificial intelligence and how it can be used to improve your business. They talk about its efficiencies, its limitations (so far), and how it can help take emotion out of difficult tasks. Ashley provides use cases and explains the current environment of AI.
Ashley Francis is the owner of the Francis Group, PLLC, a CPA firm that offers sophisticated, personalized tax and accounting services tailored to your needs. Its team of highly qualified experts will guide you on an individualized journey toward preserving your assets for future generations. Whether your goal is to protect your wealth for your family or make a positive impact through charitable giving, we can help you achieve it.
The Francis Group can be found here https://francisgroupsea.com/
Ashley can be found on Twitter @seattle_tax
You can also subscribe to Ashley’s newsletter about AI and ChatGPT here: http://Kitchentableautomations.Substack.com
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
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Brent chats with Gary Fletcher about the now effective Corporate Transparency Act. They talk about what the act requires in 2024 for existing reporting companies, how to comply, bugs in the system, and what might be next. They give useful tips on how to understand the Act and make sure you and your clients are fully compliant.
Gary Fletcher is an attorney and CPA at the firm Nystedt & Fletcher, PLLC in Tucson, Arizona. Gary practices tax accounting and estate planning, and is a Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). Gary can be reached at (520) 881-3900, gfletcher@nflegal.com.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
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Brent chats with John Briggs, who returns to the podcast to discuss his upcoming book, The 3.3 Rule: The New Workday Standard of Creating More by Working Less. They discuss how John has grown his team, tips on managing people to be effective operators, and how a more balanced day can increase outputs.
John Briggs, CPA, is the founder and CEO of Incite Tax and Accounting in Draper, UT. John graduated from Brigham Young University with a Master of Accountancy in Tax. He worked on corporate taxes and trusts in Orange County, CA with Deloitte & Touche, one of the four largest national accounting firms. With his educational background and work experience at Deloitte, John took a position as Controller for a Dish Network door to door sales company located in Provo, UT.
John’s new book can be found here https://33rulebook.com/#1002, and is available on Amazon here https://www.amazon.com/3-3-Rule-John-Briggs/dp/173317902X
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
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Brent chats with Victoria Richardson about all things art and collectibles. They swap fun stories about clients’ amazing collections, discuss how to properly value and handle these items, and dig into the IRS view of taxing valuable personal property.
Victoria is the Deputy Chairman, Americas Senior Vice President for Trusts and Estates at Bonhams.
Bonhams Trusts & Estates team assists fiduciaries with a variety of services including appraisals, auction sales, collection management.
Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house. Founded in 1793, it is one of the world’s largest and most renowned auctioneers of fine art and antiques, motor cars and jewellery.
Bonhams has a heritage and reputation for connoisseurship and bespoke service known throughout the world. Founded in London in 1793, we are the sole remaining international auction house that is privately owned and in British hands. We hold more than 400 specialist sales a year in 60 different categories at our flagship salerooms in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong.
The breadth of our reach means that Bonhams can offer items for sale wherever the works will attract the strongest interest and keenest bidding. Matching the item to the sale is an art in itself – and Bonhams has become a master at it.
With specialists in every major area of art, antiques, jewellery, motor cars and collectables, the depth of knowledge at Bonhams makes us a natural choice as the place to buy and sell.
You can find Victoria Richardson here https://www.bonhams.com/specialists/2660/victoria-r-gray/
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
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Brent chats with Julian Zebot about why families tend to fight. It isn’t always just about money. They explore the common reasons for fights, how to resolve them, and typical procedures when courts are involved.
Julian Zebot is a Partner at Maslon LLP. He focuses his legal practice on probate, fiduciary, and trust litigation as well as business and commercial litigation, and he chairs Maslon’s Trust & Estate Litigation Group. He has counseled and represented individual and business clients in both federal and state courts as well as arbitration proceedings, and he has handled matters for clients at all stages of the litigation process, including mediation, trials, and appeals.
Julian’s probate, fiduciary, and trust litigation practice has involved many different types of contested estate, trust, probate, and elder law matters, including will/trust contests (including claims of undue influence and diminished capacity), construction/interpretation disputes, accounting actions, breach of fiduciary duty claims, fiduciary removal actions, trust instruction proceedings, financial elder abuse claims, and creditor claims against estates. He has also developed a niche practice representing and counseling parties involved in complicated multijurisdictional trust litigation, often involving parallel lawsuits in different states, and has familiarity with associated trust situs, venue, and jurisdictional issues. Within his practice, Julian has represented both institutions and individuals in a variety of contexts, including corporate and individual trustees, personal representatives, attorneys-in-fact, beneficiaries, heirs, and creditors.
With respect to his business and commercial litigation practice, Julian has broad experience litigating and resolving claims of unfair business practices and competition, including breach of contract claims, business torts, breach of restrictive covenant claims, ownership disputes, litigation under the Minnesota Termination of
Sales Representatives Act (MTSRA), Lanham Act claims, class actions, and other complex commercial litigation, including litigation involving financial service businesses, manufacturers, companies with sales forces, and family and other closely held companies.
Julian is a fellow in The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), and when not litigating and resolving disputes, he is a frequent author and speaker on topics relating to probate,
fiduciary, and trust litigation, fiduciary risk management, and professional ethics. Among other board and bar committee responsibilities, he is president of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys Minnesota chapter and serves as cochair of the Ethics and Malpractice Committee of the ABA’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section. Julian has been recognized on the Minnesota Super Lawyers® list each year since 2018, and he was on the Minnesota Rising Stars list from 2010 to 2017.
Julian can be found here https://www.maslon.com/jzebot
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
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Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent discusses some of the hottest topics in tax and trust planning. He talks about oral arguments before the US Supreme Court in the Moore case, Senator Wyden’s proposed (again) billionaire tax, and trust planning options in light of higher interest rates. He also dispels a few urban legends relating to guessing about other people’s tax, not taking what others do as what you should do, and how to see things with fresh eyes.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent discusses passive foreign investment companies (PFICs). He explains what they are, how they can appear in surprising places, their complex taxation, and gives tactical ideas about how to deal with these assets.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
This is a throw-back to a past episode where Brent and Rachel Sass discuss the history, structure, mechanics, and incredible utility of trusts. They explain where trusts come from, why they are so helpful in our current system, and how they are used in estate planning.
Rachel is a Vice President and Trust Advisor in the Tucson office at Northern Trust. Rachel is a member of the Southern Arizona Estate Planning Council, the Morris K. Udall Inn of Court, and State Bar of Arizona. Rachel is a former Miss Arizona United States and enjoys serving her community. She is a graduate of the Greater Tucson Leadership LEAD program, Class of 2021, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Roots & Roads Community Hospice Foundation.
Rachel can be found here https://locations.northerntrust.com/us/az/tucson/3450-east-sunrise-drive/rachel-sass
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of Northern Trust or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent chats with Amy Vetter about using her Business, Balance & Bliss method to identify, manage, and overcome the negative effects of stress. The conversation is wide ranging and Amy provides specific insight into how these normal human challenges can help anyone–professionals and their clients. The lessons shared reach beyond professional life to give listeners a view of some of the life experience and behavior of their clients so that they can help them find success in their lives.
Amy Vetter, CPA, CITP, CGMA, is the CEO of the B3 Method Institute and an inspiring keynote speaker, yogi, technologist, accounting tech business executive, serial entrepreneur, and a well-known influencer and published author in the accounting and finance industry. Amy is also the host of her podcast called Breaking Beliefs.
Amy has been named repeatedly as one of the Most Powerful Women in Accounting by the AICPA and CPA Practice Advisor and one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today and named to the global Innovate Finance’s Women in FinTech Powerlist in the Senior Leaders Category. Amy is a key influencer who regularly shares her business and accounting insights via AICPA’s Journal of Accountancy, Accounting Today, CPA Practice Advisor as well as Inc. and Entrepreneur.com.
Amy is the creator of the B3 Method for Work-Life Harmony and author of the book Business, Balance & Bliss: How the B3 Method Can Transform Your Career and Life. In this book, Amy created a methodology, backed by scientific research on the brain, on how to live a more authentic life and achieve work–life harmony based on her own career journey as a CPA, entrepreneur, and corporate executive of 25+ years and the experiences of other successful business leaders.
To share her work–life balance message more broadly, Amy presented the popular TEDx Talk, “Disconnect to Connect: The Path to Work-Life Harmony.”
Learn more at http://www.amyvetter.com and follow @amyvettercpa on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of the speaker’s firm or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer: https://wealthandlaw.com/legal-disclaimer/
Brent talks about crypto and NFTs. He discusses the unique challenges of planning with these assets, including electronic asset laws, document preparation, taxation, valuation, and the fact they are bearer assets. He then discusses what he thinks the future holds, speculating about NFTs for physical things such as real estate rights, private equity, and trusts.
For extra reading, check out Stacy Singer and Fred Weber’s excellent article written for Bloomberg Tax here: https://www.northerntrust.com/united-states/content/dam/northerntrust/pws/nt/documents/wealth-management/2023/bloomberg-tax.pdf
Also, reacquaint yourself with my prior episode with Matt McClintock https://wealthandlaw.com/2021/09/01/wealth-planning-cryptoassets/
And, my episode with Joel Revill https://wealthandlaw.com/2022/04/20/crypto-currencies-and-trusts/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent and Rachel go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
In an era where the digital transformation has made its mark on every industry, how does it influence the realm of estate planning? This episode delves deep into the technological integration within distributed estate planning practices – those that span across multiple jurisdictions and even internationally.
What’s Inside:
- Expanding Client Reach: Discover how technology makes it easier than ever to cater to both multijurisdictional and international clients. We’ll explore tools that offer digital signatures, virtual notaries, and a breakdown of how to navigate varying estate laws across the globe.
- Economic Efficiency & Growing Your Practice: Understand how the digital shift can drastically reduce overhead costs and how cloud-based solutions can be a game-changer for scalability.
- Harnessing Global Talent: In the hunt for the best talent, geographical boundaries no longer limit us. Learn how distributed practices are tapping into global talent pools and ensuring effective collaboration.
But it’s not all smooth sailing. We also address some of the challenges, including:
- Ensuring utmost security and compliance, especially with sensitive client information.
- Navigating the complexities of communication in a digital age.
- Overcoming the learning curve and potential resistance to change.
Join us as we take a comprehensive look at the future of estate planning, understanding both its promising opportunities and the hurdles technology brings with it. Whether you’re an estate planning lawyer, accountant, or financial adviser, this episode promises insights that will help you navigate the digital frontier of your profession.
Stay ahead of the curve. Dive into the digital transformation of estate planning with us today!
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Legal Disclaimer
Brent chats with Jessica Goedtel about the unique challenges faced when doing financial planning for sex workers. They talk about building trust, creating a plan, managing volatile income streams. While focused on sex workers, many of the lessons relate to financial planning for any entrepreneurial individual.
Jessica is a seasoned financial planner at Pavilion Financial Planning with a passion for empowering individuals from all walks of life to take control of their financial futures.
With a career spanning back to 2013, Jessica honed her expertise in financial planning through roles at both large and small firms. Her commitment to excellence led her to earn the prestigious CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER designation in 2018, followed by the Enrolled Agent credential in 2022.
Jessica’s wealth of experience extends across diverse life stages, from recent graduates launching their careers to retirees enjoying their well-deserved relaxation. She is an active member of esteemed professional organizations, including the XY Planning Network, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), and the Financial Planning Association.
Jessica can be found here: https://www.pavilionfp.com/about/
She also co-hosts the Fleece Vests Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fleece-vests/id1692832079
Brent chats with Matt Schmidt about the causes and cures for stress in professional life. They discuss the factors that are causing you stress and how experts, and they personally, suggest taking action to reduce stress. Of course, there is no cure for stress. They point out how to therefore harness stress to make it more of a tool than a hinderance in your life.
Matt Schmidt is a partner at Schmidt, Sethi & Akmajian and graduated from the James E Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona in 2010. Matt’s primary interest in law focuses on serious personal injury, insurance bad faith, and police liability.
Prior to attending law school, Matt earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. During this time, his interest in travel sent him on two study abroad programs in Italy and Ireland. His passion for creative writing has not left him since then, having self-published two children’s books for his two older children – with a third book in the works. Matt’s writing talent even won him 2nd place in the Arizona Attorney’s creative arts competition in May 2011 for his fictional piece “The Taker.”
When he is not practicing law, writing or traveling with his wife, Matt enjoys participating in or watching just about any sporting event. He played rugby at the University of Arizona, played for the Old Pueblo Lions’ Rugby Club until recently, and still bleeds red and blue when it comes to the Arizona Wildcats. Now, Matt’s passion for sports, penchant for mentoring, and love of his family have combined as a coach for his sons’ baseball and soccer teams. Matt also enjoys staying active in the community and has been involved in various philanthropic and charity organizations such as the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Tucson program, as the President and Founder of the Engage Foundation, and being on the Board of Directors for the Empower Coalition, among many others.
Matt can be found here: https://www.azinjurylaw.com/Attorneys/Matt-Schmidt.aspx, and his email, as mentioned in the episode, is mschmidt@azinjurylaw.com.
Robert Waldinger’s TedTalk about Happiness and the Harvard Study of Adult Development can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness
Brent chats about the sovereign citizen movement and how federal courts treat their arguments (not well). He provides a TikTok example of their arguments and then shares language from federal court cases showing exactly how wrong the sovereign citizens are. Short story: you don’t want to be one and you definitely don’t want to play one in federal court.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent explains how to make good intrafamily loans, especially in a volatile interest rate environment. He discusses the relevant interest rates, how the length of a loan effects the outcomes, and how to use tiered loans for even better results.
Brent chats with Brad Barrett about the essence of retirement and the art of fostering positive and prosperous relationships with money. They delve into the complexities of redefining retirement in the modern context and provide insights into the strategies for creating meaningful financial relationships. They also talk about setting goals that are meaningful.
Brad is a Managing Director with One Capital Management. He advises private individuals and families on their personal investment and advanced planning needs. In addition, he oversees the firms Retirement and Corporate Services practice. Previously, Mr. Barrett spent four years as an Investment Advisor with a boutique private wealth management firm in Los Angeles. Brad was head of Corporate Services Business Development for American Financial Network for three years. His experience and knowledge as head of the firm’s Corporate Services division has allowed him to provide essential research, analysis, and strategy recommendations for high net worth individuals and the companies they own or represent. Brad earned his Bachelor degree in Economics and Political Science from Arizona State University.
Brad can be found here: https://www.onecapital.com/brad-barrett.html
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Brad Barrett about the essence of retirement and the art of fostering positive and prosperous relationships with money. They delve into the complexities of redefining retirement in the modern context and provide insights into the strategies for creating meaningful financial relationships. They also talk about setting goals that are meaningful.
Brad is a Managing Director with One Capital Management. He advises private individuals and families on their personal investment and advanced planning needs. In addition, he oversees the firms Retirement and Corporate Services practice. Previously, Mr. Barrett spent four years as an Investment Advisor with a boutique private wealth management firm in Los Angeles. Brad was head of Corporate Services Business Development for American Financial Network for three years. His experience and knowledge as head of the firm’s Corporate Services division has allowed him to provide essential research, analysis, and strategy recommendations for high net worth individuals and the companies they own or represent. Brad earned his Bachelor degree in Economics and Political Science from Arizona State University.
Brad can be found here: https://www.onecapital.com/brad-barrett.html
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Martin Shenkman about spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs). The discuss the many variations of these important estate planning options, from irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), traditional SLATs, special power of appointment trusts (SPATs), and domestic asset protection trusts (DAPTs). They explain the pros and cons of each and have lots of laughs in between.
In this episode, Brent has a compelling conversation with Sam Swift, delving into recent market developments and providing invaluable insights for making well-informed planning decisions amidst market volatility. They discuss the psychological aspects influencing decision-making, learn effective strategies to minimize errors, and discover ways to maintain goal consistency while adapting to the ebb and flow of the markets over time.
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp!
In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basics of estate planning. In this episode, T.J. Ryan chats with Brent about Wills, the oldest estate planning documents. They discuss what they are, how they work, and why they are important. They also explain how probate works, how Wills are structured, and planning options.
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basics of estate planning. In this episode, Jenna Rubin chats with Brent about durable powers of attorney for finances. They discuss what they are, how they work, and why they are ... Read more
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basics of estate planning.
In this episode, Emily Kile chats with Brent about possibly the most important estate planning document: the health care power of attorney and living will. They discuss what they are, how they work, and why they are so important, though often overlooked.
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basics of estate planning.
In this episode, Deborah Plum chats with Brent about the revocable trusts. She answers the what, how, and why questions relating to these prevalent estate planning tools. Deborah and Brent also discuss practical aspects of revocable trusts and when they are appropriate.
You will learn:
What is a revocable trust?
What is a Trustee?
What is a beneficiary?
How do revocable trusts work?
What are the benefits of revocable trusts?
When do I need a revocable trust?
How are revocable trusts taxed?
Why are revocable trusts used in estate planning?
Welcome to the 2023 Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basics of estate planning.
First up, Rachel Sass chats with Brent about the different fiduciary roles within estate planning, how they work, what they do, and how they interact. You will learn about the difference between a trustee, personal representative, agent under a financial power of attorney, agent under a health care power of attorney, and guardians.
Getting a handle on this different roles will then inform the discussions in the later four episodes about Wills, Revocable Trusts, Financial Powers of Attorney, and Health Care Powers of Attorney.
Brent chats with Anna N’Jie-Konte and Keith Beverly, owners of Re-Envision Wealth, to discuss the secrets to creating strategic generational wealth. They provide effective strategies essential to helping clients grow and keep their wealth across generations. Anna N’Jie-Konte, MBA, CFP® is the President and Director of Financial Planning for Re-Envision Wealth, one of the few ... Read more
In this episode, Brent talks to Darren Case, a partner at Tiffany & Bosco and a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). They discuss the challenges and opportunities for ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families in today’s complex and uncertain environment. Together, they explore intricate financial aspects like the trends around interest rates, the mechanics of Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs), Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs), and the intricacies of irrevocable trust planning. Their discussion illuminates the complexities of these strategies, providing listeners with a better understanding and actionable advice.
Brent chats about how discounts abound in transfer tax planning (estate and gift tax)! Although sometimes discounts come from ownership of entities, like FLPs, that is not always the case. Charitable Remainder Trusts, Charitable Lead Trusts, Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, Private Annuities, and Remainder Purchase Marital Trusts, all use discounts that are required in the Internal Revenue Code and the regulations. These discounts can be substantial and helpful depending on the 7520 rate. Brent discusses how that is so, how the regulatory discounts are calculated, and how they can be used to your or your client's advantage.
Brent talks about online estate and trust document services. He explains why it isn’t “planning,” the difference between these online services and actual legal services, and how they are deceptively marketed to the masses. Brent also describes the historical context for the current structure and the need for access to legal services. In a buyer beware world, this is a warning to not equate these document preparation services with planning.
You can learn more about Brent here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/brent-nelson/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent discusses buy-sell agreements for small or family businesses. He explains how they work, the different versions (buy-sell, cross-purchase, dual), who they should apply to, and how they can be structure for payments. These agreements help preserve generational wealth in small businesses by clearly defining the economics between owners and the owners’ families. They also protect against bad actors, divorce, death, and incapacity–all events that can be detrimental to any small business.
You can learn more about Brent here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/brent-nelson/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Ashley Francis about the emergence of ChatGPT and how it can improve your business. They discuss the technology, how to use ChatGPT, where they foresee it going, and whether it will replace professional service providers. They also offer practical tips on how to start integrating it into your business now.
Ashley Francis is the owner of the Francis Group, PLLC, a CPA firm that offers sophisticated, personalized tax and accounting services tailored to your needs. Its team of highly qualified experts will guide you on an individualized journey toward preserving your assets for future generations. Whether your goal is to protect your wealth for your family or make a positive impact through charitable giving, we can help you achieve it.
The Francis Group can be found here https://francisgroupsea.com/
Ashley can be found on Twitter @seattle_tax
You can also subscribe to Ashley’s newsletter about AI and ChatGPT here: http://Kitchentableautomations.Substack.com
You can learn more about Brent here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/brent-nelson/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
In this episode of our podcast, “How Financial Planning is Like Fly Fishing,” Brent is joined by seasoned financial advisor Doug Nelson. Brent and Doug dive deep into how different asset classes with varying time horizons can be key components of a successful financial plan, and how being flexible with different forms of investments can lead to financial success. Tune in now to learn how to navigate asset classes like a pro!
You can learn more about Doug here: https://tciwealth.com/employee-directory/doug-nelson/
You can learn more about Brent here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/brent-nelson/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
In this episode, Brent sits down with Kyla Denanyoh, the host of the successful podcast, You Are A Lawyer. Kyla shares her experience on how she built and sustained her audience while working. She provides tips on how to start and grow your own podcast, and overcome obstacles along the way. Tune in to learn from Kyla’s journey and gain insights on how to create a podcast that will attract and engage your listeners.
You can learn more about Kyla here: https://www.youarealawyer.com/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent discusses the latest topics in international estate planning. As an estate planner, it is crucial to keep in mind that your clients are human, with concerns about managing incapacity and death, regardless of their citizenship or residency status. However, for world travelers, the complexity of estate planning increases significantly. Brent discusses five things to keep in mind when planning for the international client:
- Remember you are dealing with a human. Adequate powers of attorney, trusts when appropriate, wills or other testamentary instruments are just as important for non-citizen non-resident clients as they are for citizens and residents.
- Don’t assume what works here will work in their home jurisdiction. The world is complex, and foreign legal systems are often sophisticated. It is crucial to consult with a competent professional in the client’s home jurisdiction.
- Check if there is a relevant tax treaty for income or transfer taxes. In some cases, tax treaties can rewrite the rules that ordinarily apply.
- Carefully review all property your client owns in the US. Some property here is not subject to estate tax for non-residents, while some is. It is important to understand the difference, which can often be illogical.
- Don’t forget to ask about where all relevant family members are resident. Estate planning for non-citizen non-resident clients often requires planning for the laws of multiple countries, which may require a team in multiple countries to properly plan and coordinate.
By keeping these five things in mind, estate planners can provide valuable advice to world traveling clients and ensure that their estate planning goals are achieved. As you plan for your clients, remember that estate planning for world travelers requires unique consideration and attention to detail.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Geoff Grenert, the founder of Cypress Strategies, about how to optimize your decision making process around personal wealth.
Geoff has been working with affluent families and businesses since 1997, helping them achieve their goals and objectives. He is a nationally-recognized expert in the design and acquisition of large life insurance policies, and he has helped many clients make informed decisions about their personal wealth.
During their conversation, Brent and Geoff discuss how to manage emotions when making decisions, especially around money. They also explore how having an objective investment plan can prevent costly mistakes and ensure long-term success.
Geoff shares his insights on decision-making, based on his many years of experience working with clients. He stresses the importance of understanding one’s goals and objectives, creating a plan to achieve them, and using a team approach to implement that plan.
Throughout the episode, Brent and Geoff offer real-life examples of how they, and their clients, have learned to manage the decision-making process for better outcomes. From success stories to challenges faced along the way, this episode offers valuable insights for anyone looking to optimize their decision-making process around personal wealth.
So, if you’re looking to improve your decision-making skills and achieve your financial goals, be sure to tune in to this episode of Wealth and Law with Geoff Grenert.
Geoff can be found here: https://cypressnv.com/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Join Brent and Mykail James as they discuss the art of being financially savvy. Together, they dive deep into the topic of mastering the art of being financially savvy. Mykail shares her expertise on budgeting and provides valuable insights on how to control your personal finances. Brent and Mykail also explore the psychology of money and the emotional barriers that can hinder financial success. Tune in to learn how to take control of your financial future and become financially savvy.
Mykail and her blog can be found at https://www.boujiebudgets.com/about
She is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoujieBudgeter
She can also be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theboujiebudgeter/ and Twitter @BoujieBudgeter
Her Facebook Group “Young, Rich & Responsible” is here https://www.facebook.com/groups/yrrcommunity/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Alex Sonkin about building and operating virtual family offices. They talk about how accountants can focus on their largest clients, provide high level planning, and leverage the unique relationships they have to growth strong family office services.
Alex Sonkin is the founder of The Due Diligence (DDP) Project and The Virtual Family Office (VFO) Hub, a revolutionary platform of vetted resources that supports hundreds of leading Tax-Focused CPA firms and the Family Offices around the country.
Mr. Sonkin has authored a book, called “The Due Diligence Project” and has been published in “Money Matters Volume #2”, both available on Amazon. Alex has been quoted in a number of articles regarding the evolution of the CPA industry published in “Accounting Today” and has been interviewed on popular radio programs, including “It’s Your Money and Your Life!” Alex also hosts The Due Diligence Project Podcast.
Highly sought after, Mr. Sonkin has been invited to provide thought leadership throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and Norway. Mr. Sonkin began his career as a derivatives (options) trader and market maker as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE).
Mr. Sonkin is a partner in San Diego Social Venture Partners, and actively supports a number of other charitable organizations around the country. Mr. Sonkin lives in San Diego with his wife Jola and their four children. Mr. Sonkin is a graduate of University of Michigan Business School, in Ann Arbor, where he received a Degree in Finance and the Branstrom Award, a prestigious designation assigned to the top 5% of each graduating class.
Alex can be found here: https://duediligenceproject.com/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats about bias in one’s analysis. He discusses how to spot it, gives reasons for why we all have bias in the way we analyze problems, and how to prevent it.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Reetu Pepoff about the ins and outs of international tax planning for cross border estate planning clients. They discuss the different income, gift, and estate tax rules and common ways to effectively plan.
Reetu Pepoff is an Assistant General Counsel and Senior Vice President within the Legal Department at Northern Trust Chicago. Her role includes all aspects of advising Northern’s fiduciary practice, with particular focus on avoiding conflicts of interest, supervising litigation involving Northern in its fiduciary capacity, and administering foreign and directed trusts. Reetu also dedicates a significant portion of her time to supporting Northern’s international fiduciary practice, working with partners to administer offshore trusts and deliver fiduciary services through Northern’s affiliate in the Cayman Islands, Northern Trust Cayman International, Ltd. She is also an adjunct professor of law at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
She can be found at rp176@ntrs.com, and (312) 444-4977.
This material is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the speaker as of the date noted and not necessarily of Northern Trust or its affiliates.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Rachel Sass about the U.S. Supreme Court case Bittner v. U.S., where the Court decided the non-willfulness penalties for FBARs is $10,000 per filing, not per account. This case changed the IRS’s long-time position. Brent and Rachel discuss the case, the reasoning, what it means for FBARs, and what they expect in the future.
Rachel Sass is an experienced estate and tax planning attorney in Arizona. Ms. Sass has helped clients throughout Arizona establish their individualized estate plans to ensure peace of mind for their families.
Her practice is concentrated in estate and tax planning, probate and trust administration, guardianship and conservatorship matters, and business law. Ms. Sass is well-versed and enjoys helping her clients prepare estate plans in a wide variety of circumstances, from simple plans to complex plans for high net worth individuals and families. She understands that the big picture must be looked at for long-term planning—including assisting business owners with developing succession plans, incorporating established charitable giving plans into an estate plan, and creating lasting family structures for generational wealth.
Ms. Sass is committed to helping her clients create a straightforward estate plan for their loved ones, plan for potential incapacity, understand and plan for federal estate and gift tax, and establish their legacies.
She is a distinguished speaker on estate planning. Ms. Sass appears regularly as a guest on the popular Wealth & Law Podcast, and frequently speaks and writes on estate and tax developments.
Ms. Sass is a Tucson-native and double Wildcat. She graduated summa cum laude and with honors from the University of Arizona in 2013 with her bachelor’s in political science, and later graduated cum laude from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law in 2018. Rachel additionally graduated in 2021 from the Greater Tucson Leadership program. She is a former Miss Arizona United States and enjoys serving her local community. In her spare time, she and her husband and can be found hiking around Southern Arizona with their son and three dogs.
You can find Rachel here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/rachel-sass/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats about whether having a podcast is a good idea.
He shares how to think about starting one, the equipment he uses, and generally gives you a how-to guide on hosting and running a podcast.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Tony Yu about estate planning for Chinese clients. They talk about the culture, what motivates investments in the US, and special considerations from a trust and tax perspective.
Tony is the owner of DSG Trust Law. He graduated cum laude from UCLA with degrees in Business–Economic, Communications, and Accounting. Tony is fluent in English, Mandarin, Spanish and Taiwanese. Tony was a Trust Attorney at Holland & Knight LLP, the largest trust law firm in the US and a former clerk at the Los Angeles Probate Court. In 2008 and 2012, the Southern California Super Lawyers Magazine recognized Tony Yu as a “Rising Star” in law (top 2.5% of attorneys).
Tony is also the 2nd Generation Owner of DSG Insurance, which was founded in 1986 by his father, Castor Yu. Utilizing Tony’s diverse legal, accounting, and financial planning background, DSG specializes in Business Protection, Tax & Business Planning, and Wealth Transfer.
Tony can be found here: http://www.dsgtrustlaw.com/
And here: https://www.dsgpcins.com/president/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent discusses some of the less wise “advice” circulating on TikTok recently, including MPI (maximum premium insurance), 401(k)s as a hoax, using trusts to shelter income, and LLCs as the business deduction savior. He digs into each, breaking down how they fall short of their promises.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Rachel Sass about alternative ways to use family limited partnerships (FLPS) beyond gifting and estate tax planning. They discuss (1) preferred partnerships, (2) holding companies, (3) family business governance, (4) cross-border bridges, and (5) income tax basis planning.
Rachel is an attorney at Rimon, P.C., and can be found here Rachel Sass – Rimon Law.
Brent chats with Doug Nelson about how financial planning is just like fly fishing. They analogize the two, including picking the correct fly, preparing your gear, and how to remain flexible in changing conditions. All these tools are essential for both activities, and Brent and Doug deliver the news with plenty of laughing and cajoling.
Brent chats with Alex Wells about how to start your new business. They discuss key issues like (1) deciding which business to start, (2) hiring great people, (3) creating good culture, and (4) scaling through marketing and business development.
Alex Wells is the Co-Founder of Imprint Digital. Over the last 13 years, Alex has been building a stack of experience in diversified business leadership including digital marketing, sales, account management, strategic planning, employee management and development, training, communication, operations, and customer service. He launched professionally with Press-One Customer Care back in 2010. Alex managed relationships with multiple publications throughout the states to help them implement and optimize their marketing, advertising, sales, and customer service at a much lower cost than in-house solutions. This was on the tail end of the recession and the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Many print publications were struggling to balance budgets and keep up with the push to digital which is where he made his impact.
In 2015 he decided to pursue digital marketing exclusively and accepted a role at a SaaS company. He started his role working directly with 100s of businesses to help them develop and scale their digital marketing strategies and reach their growth benchmarks. Alex quickly moved up to be a Director of Marketing where he managed a team of 45 digital marketing experts and was responsible for aiding the team to develop and execute successful marketing strategies. During his time there, the company grew from under 200 employees to just over 600.
Alex is also the co-founder of Grit Investments, a capital investment company in Northern Colorado.
The most important part of Alex is his life outside of work. Family and faith first. He has an amazing and successful wife Alyssa and a beautiful baby girl August. They live in Windsor, CO. They love their friends and family and the most important thing to them is relationships and helping people.
You can find Alex here: https://imprint-digital.com/about/alex-wells/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Ronnie Deaver about how professionals can grow their business through intentional marketing and sales. Though these aren’t skills learned in professional school, Ronnie explains how they can be learned, the importance of sales, and scaling to meet your business goals.
Ronnie is CEO of NoBull Marketing, a lawyer-exclusive marketing agency that specializes in generating leads and helping lawyers better convert more potential clients into paid retainers with Google My Business, Google Ads, and Sales Training.
Ronnie can be found here: https://nobullmarketing.co/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Now what happens? After the 2022 election split control of Congress, what’s next? Brent chats about possible tax law changes, what to anticipate, and where the most change is likely to happen before 2024.
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Rachel Sass about how to close out 2022 and make 2023 a success. They discuss 401(k) and IRA contributions, charitable giving, loss harvesting, and talking about money and finances with family.
Rachel Sass is an experienced estate and tax planning attorney in Arizona. Ms. Sass has helped clients throughout Arizona establish their individualized estate plans to ensure peace of mind for their families.
Her practice is concentrated in estate and tax planning, probate and trust administration, guardianship and conservatorship matters, and business law. Ms. Sass is well-versed and enjoys helping her clients prepare estate plans in a wide variety of circumstances, from simple plans to complex plans for high net worth individuals and families. She understands that the big picture must be looked at for long-term planning—including assisting business owners with developing succession plans, incorporating established charitable giving plans into an estate plan, and creating lasting family structures for generational wealth.
Ms. Sass is committed to helping her clients create a straightforward estate plan for their loved ones, plan for potential incapacity, understand and plan for federal estate and gift tax, and establish their legacies.
She is a distinguished speaker on estate planning. Ms. Sass appears regularly as a guest on the popular Wealth & Law Podcast, and frequently speaks and writes on estate and tax developments.
Ms. Sass is a Tucson-native and double Wildcat. She graduated summa cum laude and with honors from the University of Arizona in 2013 with her bachelor’s in political science, and later graduated cum laude from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law in 2018. Rachel additionally graduated in 2021 from the Greater Tucson Leadership program. She is a former Miss Arizona United States and enjoys serving her local community. In her spare time, she and her husband and can be found hiking around Southern Arizona with their son and three dogs.
You can find Rachel here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/rachel-sass/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
This week’s episode is a rewind of a popular conversation Brent had with Rachel Sass about planning for vacation homes. With so many people traveling for the holidays, this conversation reminds of the hazards and opportunities available when leaving a vacation home to family.
Rachel Sass is an experienced estate and tax planning attorney in Arizona. Ms. Sass has helped clients throughout Arizona establish their individualized estate plans to ensure peace of mind for their families.
Her practice is concentrated in estate and tax planning, probate and trust administration, guardianship and conservatorship matters, and business law. Ms. Sass is well-versed and enjoys helping her clients prepare estate plans in a wide variety of circumstances, from simple plans to complex plans for high net worth individuals and families. She understands that the big picture must be looked at for long-term planning—including assisting business owners with developing succession plans, incorporating established charitable giving plans into an estate plan, and creating lasting family structures for generational wealth.
Ms. Sass is committed to helping her clients create a straightforward estate plan for their loved ones, plan for potential incapacity, understand and plan for federal estate and gift tax, and establish their legacies.
She is a distinguished speaker on estate planning. Ms. Sass appears regularly as a guest on the popular Wealth & Law Podcast, and frequently speaks and writes on estate and tax developments.
Ms. Sass is a Tucson-native and double Wildcat. She graduated summa cum laude and with honors from the University of Arizona in 2013 with her bachelor’s in political science, and later graduated cum laude from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law in 2018. Rachel additionally graduated in 2021 from the Greater Tucson Leadership program. She is a former Miss Arizona United States and enjoys serving her local community. In her spare time, she and her husband and can be found hiking around Southern Arizona with their son and three dogs.
You can find Rachel here: https://www.rimonlaw.com/team/rachel-sass/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and leave a REVIEW, and if you want to learn more about Brent go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/.
Brent chats with Jonathon Morrison about how to optimize charitable lead annuity trusts. They talk about the mechanics, running the numbers, and the many tax benefits for charitable clients.
A senior partner and Best Lawyers® honoree, Jonathon Morrison’s practice is focused on tax, business and estate planning for clients with large or complex estates. Jonathon Morrison is licensed in both Arizona and California and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law in California. After a decade practicing with preeminent estate planning law firms in Silicon Valley, Jonathon gained a mastery of virtually every estate and tax planning strategy in existence. With his unique background, Jonathon enjoys a reputation for developing advanced estate planning solutions for high income and high net worth clients whose objectives include income tax and estate tax minimization, charitable and philanthropic giving, business exit and succession planning, and asset protection.
Jonathon is also a frequent speaker and nationally recognized expert with respect to a specific type of charitable vehicle: the “charitable lead annuity trust” (CLAT). Jonathon is routinely engaged by clients, advisors and attorneys around the country to implement and provide advice with respect to CLAT planning.
Before relocating to his hometown of Phoenix in 2015 to raise children near his family, Jonathon worked with Silicon Valley’s two largest estate planning law firms – most notably, the personal tax planning group associated with the preeminent venture capital law firm, Wilson Sonsini, which led IPOs for virtually every major Silicon Valley-based company, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pandora, and GoDaddy. During this time, Jonathon served as a trusted advisor to hundreds of the wealthiest individuals in the world, including founders, C-level executives, “Midas List” venture capitalists, and angel investors associated with many of the top tech companies.
Equipped with sophisticated tax and estate planning knowledge that is unique to the Arizona legal community, Jonathon quickly distinguished himself after his return to the Valley as one of the Phoenix area’s premier tax and estate planners.Continue reading
Brent chats with Bessi Graham about how businesses can provide meaningful change in the world while making a profit. They discuss finding meaning, working with intention, and building teams around your vision.
Bessi is the co-founder of Benefit Capital and The Difference Incubator (TDi).
As an investor, entrepreneur, business owner, company director, speaker and writer, Bessi’s passion for using business as an agent for change is internationally recognised.
For the past 20 years she has focused on unlocking capital to deliver positive social and environmental outcomes in Australia and the Pacific.
Recognised by the Australian Government with a ministerial appointment to the Committee for the Accelerating Commercialisation and Incubator Support Initiatives (Department of Industry, Innovation and Science); and advisory roles to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for the Emerging Markets Impact Investment Fund (EMIIF) and Pacific RISE. Bessi was also the architect of the first investment readiness fund for the impact investment space in Australia – now run by Impact Investment Australia (IIA) as the Growth Grant.
Bessi has a background in management consulting and training, was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Melbourne, is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Bessi was a finalist in the 2017 Telstra Business Women’s Awards.Continue reading
Brent chats with John Briggs about how companies can growth in a smart way. They discuss cash flow management, paying yourself, hiring, and how toContinue reading
Brent and Tracy Coenen chat about finding fraud in businesses and divorce, helping people in difficult moments, and red flags of fraudulent financial activities. Continue reading
Brent and Tracy Coenen chat about finding fraud in businesses and divorce, helping people in difficult moments, and red flags of fraudulent financial activities. Continue reading
Brent and Dror Futter discuss the numerous challenges family offices face when investing in private equity--from lack of understanding typical terms to inadequate measures of potential investments. They suggest ways family offices can improve their PE activities for increased success.Continue reading
Brent and Dror Futter discuss the numerous challenges family offices face when investing in private equity--from lack of understanding typical terms to inadequate measures of potential investments. They suggest ways family offices can improve their PE activities for increased success.Continue reading
Brent chats with Stacy Francis about helping women make strategic money decisions after a divorce. They also chat about her charity, Savvy Ladies, that helpsContinue reading
Brent and Randy Crabtree chat about how people can use energy efficiency tax credits that were expanded under the Inflation Reduction Act. Specifically, they focusContinue reading
Brent chats with Toby Mathis about strategies for business ownership. They cover the difference between corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. They also talk about howContinue reading
Brent chats with Toby Mathis about strategies for business ownership. They cover the difference between corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. They also talk about howContinue reading
Brent chats with Gary Fletcher about the soon-to-be-effective Corporate Transparency Act. The Act requires most business entities (old and new) to report the identity ofContinue reading
Brent and Rachel Sass discuss Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouniard, giving away his interest in the company to charity. They talk about gifts to 501(c)(4)s, theContinue reading
Brent and Rachel Sass discuss Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouniard, giving away his interest in the company to charity. They talk about gifts to 501(c)(4)s, theContinue reading
Brent chats with Kristopher Flammang about personal finance after the pandemic. They discuss what has changed, what is the same, and how to plan movingContinue reading
Brent chats with Kristopher Flammang about personal finance after the pandemic. They discuss what has changed, what is the same, and how to plan movingContinue reading
Brent chats with Nicholle Overkampe about how to make wise money and business decisions. They focus on creating good habits, implementing systems, and unique issuesContinue reading
Brent chats with Nicholle Overkampe about how to make wise money and business decisions. They focus on creating good habits, implementing systems, and unique issuesContinue reading
This week, Richard Claywell joins the podcast to discuss business valuations. He and Brent chat about the important elements to a good valuation report, howContinue reading
Brent chats with Gray Edmonson about business succession planning. They discuss how to plan for a change in ownership, common options, and how to structureContinue reading
Brent chats with Rachel Sass about the Inflation Reduction Act. They discuss the corporate minimum tax, stock buy-back tax, health insurance changes, and tax creditsContinue reading
Brent chats with Rachel Sass about the Inflation Reduction Act. They discuss the corporate minimum tax, stock buy-back tax, health insurance changes, and tax creditsContinue reading
August is National Make a Will Month! Only 48% of American adults have a will, so this week, Brent chats about the need for peopleContinue reading
August is National Make a Will Month! Only 48% of American adults have a will, so this week, Brent chats about the need for peopleContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome back to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basicsContinue reading
Welcome to the Wealth and Law Estate Planning Bootcamp! In this series of five episodes, Brent is joined by guests to discuss the basics ofContinue reading
Brent talks with Cary Stamp about the ins and outs of life insurance for non-Americans. They talk about special insurability, income tax, and estate taxContinue reading
Brent discusses how inflation is not a death knell to wealth transfer planning. He describes interest rate sensitive techniques, which perform better with higher interestContinue reading
Brent chats with T.J. Ryan about how to choose a trustee in a blended family. They discuss the challenges of those types of families, potentialContinue reading
Brent chats about estate tax (and some income tax) risks to foreigners owning real estate in the United States. He explains the strange rules aboutContinue reading
Brent chats with Penny Phillips about how she is building the modern registered investment advisory firm, what it takes to prioritize clients, and how advisorsContinue reading
Brent rewinds one of our most popular episodes with Kyle Larson and Lily Styrmoe of TCI Wealth Advisors. They go over their top tips forContinue reading
Brent chats with Deborah Plum about techniques to maximize wealth transfers in a low market, low interest environment. They talk about GRATs, sales to IDGTs,Continue reading
Brent discusses the proposed regulations under the SECURE Act. He explains the rules relating to trusts as IRA beneficiaries, how they change existing rules, andContinue reading
Brent chats with Amy K. Kanyuk about trust decanting. They get into the benefits and risks of decanting, how they happen, and how the rulesContinue reading
Brent and Joel Revill chat about crypto currencies and trust administrations. They dig into the regulatory environment, how crypto currencies perform in a traditional portfolio,Continue reading
Brent chats with Evan Unzelman about rolling over income interests in charitable remainder trusts. They talk about why these transactions can be tax beneficial andContinue reading
Brent chats with Doug Nelson about what has happened in the markets during the first few months of 2022, how to find the right advisorsContinue reading
Brent discusses the limits of Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs). He talks about existing statutory and case law limitations on their use and the IRSContinue reading
Brent talks with Gary Fletcher about Arizona’s SALT deduction workaround, how to plan for it, and the life and death of Proposition 208. They alsoContinue reading
Brent discusses some of the highlights from the 2022 ACTEC Conference, including Build Back Better, Secure Act, Smaldino, Levine, CCA202152018, Corporate Transparency Act, and racialContinue reading
Brent discusses the war in Ukraine, some of the issues and arguments that have arisen during the crisis, and how to help refugees from UkraineContinue reading
Brent chats with Patricia Annino about special considerations in estate planning for women. They discuss empowering women with education, getting them involved in the planningContinue reading
Brent and Reetu Pepoff discuss racial inequities in estate planning in the United States. They talk about the root causes of the issue, the wealthContinue reading
Brent chats with Frazer Rice about how to preserve generational wealth. They discuss strategies for communicating with clients about money, establishing a solid plan, andContinue reading
This week, Brent chats with Lily Styrmoe about sustainable investing and ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) investing. They discuss what these terms mean, changesContinue reading
This week Brent discusses charitable remainder trusts. He covers how they are structured, what types of assets can be contributed (or not), how they operate,Continue reading
This week on the podcast Brent discusses how volatile markets, combined with low interest rates, can be a terrific time for wealth planning. He explainsContinue reading
What’s happening in the markets this year? This week, Brent and Rachel sit down with Doug Nelson on the status of the investment markets overContinue reading
A new year calls for tuning up your finances! This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel sit down with Melanie Simons,Continue reading
With the hot real estate market, we’re constantly hearing from clients about investing in real estate. So this week on the Wealth & Law Podcast,Continue reading
This week Brent, Rachel, and Deborah get together to share a few New Year’s Resolutions that they suggest for anyone wanting to be better organizedContinue reading
Over the weekend, the Build Back Better Act was dealt a devastating blow when Senator Manchin announced that he would not vote on the ActContinue reading
The Britney Spears conservatorship is finally over…or is it? On this week’s episode of the Wealth & Law Podcast, we’ll catch you up on allContinue reading
There’s just a little more than three weeks left before the the end of the year–can you believe it? We know you’ve got a lotContinue reading
This week on the podcast we share a few of our favorite highlights from the past 88 episodes. You will hear about vacation homes, trustsContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel are joined again by Darren Case to discuss how they are planning around the proposed federal tax changes. There haveContinue reading
Brent and Rachel chat with Shauna A. Wekherlien, CPA, MTax, CTC, CTS (aka the Tax Goddess) about some of our favorite tax planning tips toContinue reading
Here we go again–another round of new tax proposals! The House recently released the newest version of the Reconciliation Bill (AKA the Build Back BetterContinue reading
This week Brent and Rachel chat with the incredible Carolyn McClanahan, M.D., CFP, about how to protect our loved ones and clients from Elder Abuse.Continue reading
Brent and Rachel discuss several themes circulating in the media (conventional and social). First, they discuss the proposed Billionaire Tax and how it appears toContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel chat with Doug Nelson on the status of the investment markets over the last quarter. Doug explains the nature ofContinue reading
This week Brent catches you up on what is happening in the news relating to the Reconciliation Bill, Democrat negotiations, planning for the year end,Continue reading
While Congress negotiates the terms of the Reconciliation Bill and what tax changes may be made this year, we (along with many other estate planningContinue reading
Jenna Rubin joins the podcast again to discuss Florida’s new directed trustee statute. She, Brent, and Rachel dig into the new law and talk aboutContinue reading
This week Brent joins John Strohmeyer on John’s show, Tax Talk, to discuss the House Ways & Means Committee tax proposals, changes to estate planning,Continue reading
It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for all year! On Monday, September 13, 2021, the House Ways and Means Committee released their proposed tax changes.Continue reading
We’ve talked a lot already about proposed tax law changes in the U.S. later this year. From potential changes to the federal estate and giftContinue reading
Cryptoassets are all the rage in 2021. From Bitcoin to NFTs (non-fungible tokens), many individuals and families now own cryptoassets–and depending on when they acquiredContinue reading
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok–there’s so many social media platforms these days, but how do you market yourself and your business on each one? This weekContinue reading
This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel sit down with Martin Shenkman to discuss how to build a modern estate planningContinue reading
Hit me baby one more time–it’s another Britney Spears episode! There’s been a lot of movement in the Britney Spears conservatorship since we last spokeContinue reading
We love talking about philanthropy and how individuals and families can incorporate charitable giving into their estate plans. As we’ve mentioned previously on the WealthContinue reading
Can you believe it that the year is already half over? This year, we’ve seen a lot of focus on a few main issues thatContinue reading
With the world starting to open up, individuals and families are starting to get out and travel again (finally!). So, this week on the WealthContinue reading
On this week’s episode of the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel sit down with Steve Gorin to discuss buy-sell and cross purchase agreements.Continue reading
Planning for retirement is one thing. But planning during retirement is another. This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel are joinedContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel bring back Shiraz Ahmed to talk about cross border investing and retirement planning. They discuss the similarities and differences betweenContinue reading
This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel are joined by Emily B. Kile to discuss Medicaid and long term care planning.Continue reading
This week, Rachel and Brent talk with Andrea Carr about tax planning in Hawaii. They cover the basics of Hawaii income tax and talk aboutContinue reading
This week Brent is joined by special co-host Gary Fletcher to discuss the Biden Administration’s “Green Book” (or budget proposal). They focus in on proposalsContinue reading
This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, the ladies take over the show! Rachel sits down again with Deborah Plum to talk about ourContinue reading
This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel sit down with Jamie Mendelsohn to discuss life insurance policies and the life settlementContinue reading
Sometimes, it just feels good to get something off of your chest. So this week on the Wealth and Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel areContinue reading
We hardly ever focus on a particular Internal Revenue Code Section on the Wealth & Law Podcast, but we think that Section 2104(b) deserves toContinue reading
The Biden tax plan has gotten a lot of attention lately as there are quite a few ambitious proposed changes to the tax laws thatContinue reading
We love talking about charitable giving on the Wealth & Law Podcast. In previous episodes, we’ve discussed how individuals and families can incorporate charitable givingContinue reading
This week on the Wealth & Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel sit down with Deborah Plum to go over the ins and out of NewContinue reading
One of the most frequently asked questions we get from clients is: How can I incorporate charitable planning into my investment and estate plan? WeContinue reading
Generational wealth has been a major talking point on the Wealth & Law podcast. In prior episodes, Brent and Rachel have talked about how toContinue reading
Can you believe that we are already wrapping up the first quarter of 2021 today? (Neither can we.) This week on the Wealth and LawContinue reading
This week on the Wealth and Law Podcast, Brent and Rachel talk with Matt Schmidt about attorney wellness. The legal and financial fields are infamouslyContinue reading
Cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly more popular with many investors saying that it is the way of the future. So on this week’s episode of theContinue reading
With a new stimulus package around the corner, you may be feeling anxious about whether you will receive a stimulus check. So on this week’sContinue reading
Oops, we did it again–we are talking about Britney Spears on the podcast. In the last couple of weeks, Britney Spears’ conservatorship has gained lotsContinue reading
After a year of sheltering at home, you are probably just as anxious as we are to get out and travel this summer (hopefully). WithContinue reading
This week Brent and Rachel answer the basic investment questions they hear from their friends and clients: What is an IRA or 401k? What areContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel chat with Rodrigo Castillo Cottin about US-Colombian cross border planning. Rodrigo explains the basics of Colombian tax and estate planningContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel are joined by Anna N’Jie-Konte. Anna has decades of experience in financial planning and was the perfect person to talkContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel chat about community property. They explain what it is, how it works, what its tax benefits are, and they explainContinue reading
The SECURE Act (remember that) has been around for one year now. To commemorate its first birthday, Brent and Rachel look back at the SECUREContinue reading
Americans across the country were shaken up by the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. On this week’s episode of the WealthContinue reading
It is probably no surprise to hear that one of the most common New Year’s Resolutions is to save money. To kick off 2021, BrentContinue reading
This week Brent and Rachel give their wrap up of the podcast in 2020. They discuss key events of the year, important topics they covered,Continue reading
Rachel and Brent are again joined by Fernando Barraza for Part 2 of their conversation about planning for families and businesses in the US andContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel sit down with Fernando Barraza to discuss challenges and opportunities for US-Mexico cross border families. In Part 1, they discussContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel sit down with T.J. Ryan to discuss the use of penalty clauses in estate planning documents. The three of themContinue reading
Brent and Rachel are joined by Olivia Roberts and David Joseph of Knockout Digital Marketing to talk about marketing trends for lawyers and financial advisers,Continue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel are joined again by Darren Case for Part 2 of their conversation about post-election estate planning. This is a rapidContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel are joined again by Darren Case to talk about post-election estate planning. They dive into what the election results meanContinue reading
With the 2020 federal elections now completed (well, almost completed), Brent and Rachel go into their three-step plan for how to reconcile after the electionContinue reading
Brent and Rachel dive into incapacity on this week’s episode of the Wealth and Law podcast. They explain what incapacity is, how Powers of AttorneyContinue reading
This week Brent and Rachel introduce family limited partnerships (FLPs). They discuss the basics, how FLPs have been used historically in planning for high netContinue reading
Brent and Rachel chat about how their business development options have changed due to the pandemic, how they have pivoted, and what seems to workContinue reading
On this week’s episode, Brent and Rachel sit down with Samuel Deane, MBA to discuss equity compensation packages, stock options, and tying it all togetherContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel sit down with Shiraz Ahmed to talk about common cross border tax issues that may arise for Americans moving toContinue reading
This week we discuss the recent New York Times article disclosing what it claims are President Trumps tax returns and tax information. Rachel and BrentContinue reading
Brent and Rachel sit down with S. Victoria Kahn to discuss Nevada’s favorable trust laws. They discuss the flexibility and asset protection features of NevadaContinue reading
Brent and Rachel speak with Doug Nelson, of TCI Wealth Advisors, on this week’s episode about the expected financial picture for the final quarter ofContinue reading
This week, Brent and Rachel are joined by A.J. Price, CPA, CFP, to discuss how families can introduce younger generations to family wealth. They discussContinue reading
This week’s episode is the Live recording from Friday, August 28, 2020. Rachel and Brent dive into ways to use the extra estate tax exemptionContinue reading
This week Brent and Rachel are joined by Kayla Bernays to talk about what happens before, during and after a divorce and what it doesContinue reading
This week Brent is joined by special co-host Darren Case to talk about how Covid-19 has changed estate planning and to prognosticate about the BidenContinue reading
This week’s episode is from the first ever live recording of the Wealth and Law podcast. Brent and Rachel dive into lessons that they’ve learnedContinue reading
This week Brent and Rachel are joined by Shawn Garner to talk about using revocable trusts in estate planning. We get into detail about howContinue reading
Brent and Rachel are joined by Mykail James to discuss financial planning for Generation Z and Millennials. We have a great conversation about financial literacyContinue reading
Brent and Rachel are joined by Eugenie George to discuss money stories, creating a financial wellness plan, and diversity and race in the financial advisingContinue reading
Brent and Rachel are joined by Ken Morris, CFA, CFP, to discuss investment management, the differences between financial planning and investment management, and the benefitsContinue reading
Brent and Rachel sit down with Kim Paskal to discuss how a step-up in basis at death can be used advantageously in partnerships and S-corps.Continue reading
Brent and Rachel chat with Allison Duffy, the President and CEO of Silverado Technologies, about transitioning to a distributed workforce in the age of COVID-19Continue reading
Brent and Rachel speak with the wonderful Nicole Harrigan about significant changes to the retirement account rules, the rules relating to qualified improvement property, andContinue reading
Brent and Rachel are joined by Doug Nelson, CPA, PFS, to discuss the challenges, strategies, and opportunities of financial planning during COVD-19. We get intoContinue reading
With everything that is happening in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, we want to make clear the Wealth and Law Podcast stance:
- Racism is wrong in all of its forms (direct or indirect)
- Racism exists in our society and should never be tolerated
- White privilege exists in our society and it supports racism in direct and indirect ways
- By listening to, learning from, and following the lead of wise leaders in the Black community, we can overcome racism and change our society to become fair and just
If you are interested in this topic, and learning about some of the social and thought leaders, please follow (among others, and in no particular order):
A. Kat Stafford (@kat_stafford), https://www.katreasestafford.com/
B. Aaron Ross Coleman (@arcwrites), https://www.thenation.com/authors/aaron-coleman/, https://nextcity.org/daily/author/aaron-ross-coleman, https://www.gq.com/contributor/aaron-ross-coleman
C. Paul Butler (@LawProfButler), https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/paul-butler/
D. Crystal Feimster (@cfeimster), https://afamstudies.yale.edu/people/crystal-feimster
If you are interested in donating to racial justice causes, here is a list for your consideration (again, among others, and in no particular order):
i. George Floyd Memorial Fund, https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
ii. NAACP Legal Defense Fund, https://www.naacpldf.org/
iii. Minnesota Freedom Fund, https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/
iv. BOLD, https://boldorganizing.org/
v. Dignity and Power Now, dignityandpowernow.org
vi. Reclaim the Block list, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLWGTQIe3967hdc9RSxBq5s6KKZHe-3_mWp5oemd7OA/preview?pru=AAABcpUiX3k%2AY6Q4I6UBtkH3lLz9GVLg0A
Want to know what happens after a loved one dies? Brent and Rachel are joined by Kristin Yokomoto to discuss just that–from an estate planning perspective. They cover the probate process, dealing with creditors, tax issues, and trusts.
Kristin Yokomoto is a partner in the law firm Albrecht & Barney, in Irvine, California. She is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. Her practice focuses on estate planning, trust administration, and probate. Kristin has been practicing for over twenty years and has a background in business litigation, venture capital transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. Find out more about her here: https://albrechtbarney.com/attorneys/
If you are enjoying the podcast please SUBSCRIBE and if you want to learn more about Brent and Rachel go to https://wealthandlaw.com/team/
We continue our conversation with Isaac Rothschild on Asset Protection planning in Episode 10. Part 1 of that conversation was Episode 9, but the discussion was so substantive and so good that we broke it into two parts so that you could hear the whole thing. In Part 2, we get into different asset protection planning techniques and their benefits and pitfalls.
Isaac is a shareholder in the law firm Mesch Clark Rothschild in Tucson, AZ ((https://www.mcrazlaw.com/attorney/isaac-d-rothschild/). His practice is focused on creditor-debtor matters, asset protection, and bankruptcy, where he helps businesses and business owners.
Isaac Rothschild joins Brent Nelson and Rachel Sass to talk about asset protection planning. The conversation was so good and so substantive that we broke it into two parts. Part 1 is Episode 9 and Part 2 will be Episode 10. We talk about the different views of asset protection planning from an estate planning and litigation perspective, bankruptcy, and transfer in fraud issues in this episode.
Isaac is a shareholder in the law firm Mesch Clark Rothschild in Tucson, AZ ((https://www.mcrazlaw.com/attorney/isaac-d-rothschild/). His practice is focused on creditor-debtor matters, asset protection, and bankruptcy, where he helps businesses and business owners.
Jenna Rubin joins Brent Nelson and Rachel Sass to talk about electronic wills, differences between the Arizona and Florida electronic will statutes, how these wills work, the current limitations of electronic wills, and to prognosticate about electronic wills’ future. If you know nothing about electronic wills, you will be brought up to speed quickly. If you know all about electronic wills, then you will get some nuanced insight about how they do or do not fulfill their purpose at this time.
Jenna is a partner at the law firm Gutter, Chaves, Josepher, Rubin, Forman, Fleisher, Miller P.A. in Boca Raton, Florida. She is a Harvard Law graduate, and a graduate of Northwestern University. She can be found at https://floridatax.com/lawyers/jennarubin/, and she blogs at http://home.rubinonprobatelit.com/.
Brent Nelson and Rachel Sass are joined by Kevin McMahon, CLU, ChFC, of WealthPoint (https://wealthpoint.net/our-people/), to discuss life insurance. They get into depth on different types of policies, evaluating a client’s needs for life insurance, the tax treatment of the products, and whether life insurance should be viewed as a separate asset class.
In Episode 6, host Brent Nelson is joined by Rachel Sass and special guest Dave Smitten (https://norterralaw.com/home/firm-profile/) to discuss the challenges of keeping Canadians in America safe from the American tax system. We do a deep dive into the intricate, and sometimes strange, way Canadian and American rules create traps for the unwary. Any advisor dealing with Canadian clients (on either side of the border) who have property or other interests in the States will get an education in some of those important areas.
Brent Nelson is joined by Rachel Sass to discuss the SECURE Act (remember that). They talk about Brent’s top 5 list of changes and get into the weeds on how trusts as IRA beneficiaries fit into the landscape now.
Brent Nelson and Rachel Sass discuss the basics of the Employee Retention Credit, a credit that was enacted as part of the CARES Act, in this Express episode. The basics of the credit are important for many family businesses struggling due to the impact of COVID-19.
Brent Nelson and Rachel Sass discuss the basics of the Payroll Protection Program, in an Express episode. The Express episodes will cover critical issues we think folks need to know now, and that cannot wait for our regular episode schedule. Enjoy!
Brent Nelson and Rachel Sass discuss trusts: their history, what they look like now, how they are and can be used effectively, and a few technical legal things lawyers will like, but for which other people will reserve massive eye rolls.
Welcome to the Wealth and Law Podcast. In Episode 1, your host, Brent Nelson, is joined by Rachel Sass to discuss their estate planning, family wealth, family investments, and business backgrounds, as well as the purposes of the Wealth and Law Podcast.