Wall Street does not like the term “junk bonds;” they prefer to refer to them as ”high yield bonds.” Junk bonds are debt securities rated below Investment Grade by the three major rating agencies (defined as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization such as S&P). Over the last 20 months investors have been investing a significant amount of money into [...]
Howard Hughes, worth billions at his death, did not have a properly executed Last Will and Testament. Though there were 30 purported Wills offered for probate, not one of these Wills was actually admitted to probate. As a result, state law determined how the wealth would be distributed, costing his estate hundreds of millions in state and federal estate taxes, [...]
One of the oddest parts of the American tax system was that the IRS relied on taxpayers to correctly report their realized investment gains. The fear driving taxpayers to correctly report those gains was the threat of an IRS audit. There was no automatic process for the IRS to confirm whether the reported cost basis [...]
A blended family is the result of an initial divorce and a subsequent remarriage of one or both spouses. This poses challenges from a tax, wealth transfer, insurance and investment perspective. Setting aside the psychological issues, below are some interesting points to consider when planning your affairs and coordinating between the various advisors (courtesy of Paul Hood): [...]
[Note: This blog is relevant for persons/entities falling under IRS jurisdiction. Comments below should not be considered tax or legal advice.] A triple witching hour describes a period occurring every three months when stock options, stock market index options and stock index futures expire. A recent release from Keith Buck and Fred Chang of Pacific Life Insurance [...]
The norm in estate planning, when considering transferring assets from an elderly person to the next generation, is to consider the age/health of the person, and the difference between the cost basis and the market value of the assets. The older and less healthy the person, and the larger the difference between market value and cost basis, the [...]
