Changes in the tax code have doubled the standard deduction, meaning that clients who donate money to charity may not see the tax benefits to which they are accustomed. Advisers can help by encouraging clients older than 70½ to use qualified charitable distributions and having younger clients use gift clumping strategies. Volume 1 of The Adviser's Guide to Financial and Estate Planning has several chapters ...

CPA financial planners name charitable giving, business structure and estate plans as the areas of clients' financial plans they have had to adjust most frequently after passage of the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Planners can tap into their technical expertise to evaluate how different tax strategies would align with a client's overall financial picture, said Robert Westley, CPA/PFS. Ultimately, ...

Help Clients Kick-Start Their Charitable Efforts Here is a look at questions to ask and tactics to consider while working with clients who want to engage in charitable giving.  Among other strategies, clients may want to consider making multiyear gifts or donating to international causes.  The Adviser's Guide to Financial and Estate Planning, Volume 1, has an entire chapter dedicated to helping you learn ab ...

Affluent Americans aren't Getting Inheritance Help, Survey Finds Even the richest Americans aren't getting professional help and creating plans to pass wealth on to the next generation, according to a survey by RBC Wealth Management.  Less than a third have a comprehensive plan, the survey found. To read the full article in InvestmentNews, click: Many Wealthy Americans haven’t Planned for the Transfer of th ...

The IRS announced that it is withdrawing proposed regulations released last September that would have allowed charities to file information returns with the IRS and donors instead of providing contemporaneous written acknowledgments of charitable donations (REG-138344-13).  Charities that elected to use the new procedure would have been required to obtain donors’ Social Security or other tax identification ...