Tax & estate planning: archive
Every Tax & estate planning story in Advisors, newest first. 184 stories
4 stories
Advisors weigh Trump accounts as a gifting tool
Accounts opened for contributions July 4, 2026, with a $1,000 automatic deposit for children born 2025–2028 and a $19,000 individual after-tax limit.
DST interests need four documents when the holder dies
Heirs take the interest at its date-of-death value, and the subscription agreement's titling decides whether a spouse's share avoids probate.
Itemizers face 0.5% AGI floor on 2026 charitable gifts
The top-bracket deduction benefit is capped at 35%.
Nationwide small-cap fund leads capital gains estimates at 57% of NAV
Columbia Select Large Cap Growth's A shares are estimated at 56% of NAV, versus 42% for its institutional shares.
2 stories
John Hancock-MIT longevity index stays at 60; caregiving lags at 43
Advised adults scored 67 overall versus 58 for those who never worked with a financial professional, John Hancock and MIT AgeLab found.
54% of US adults unaware of savings options after leaving a job
Empower's survey of 2,005 adults also found 47% delayed dealing with retirement savings because the process felt overwhelming.
3 stories
Beneficiary RMD math turns on death date and required beginning date
A 2026 death gives a non-eligible designated beneficiary a 10-year window running 2027 through 2036.
Some advisors find outside assets near 20% of client wealth
WealthManagement.com says legacy annuities and equity compensation may be reviewed less often outside advisory relationships.
Roth conversion arithmetic favors paying tax from taxable assets
A Journal of Financial Planning paper runs a $100,000 conversion at 25% to show what the payment source does to the Roth balance.
8 stories
Treasury and IRS replace retirement plan correction framework and create IRA correction program
Revenue Procedure 2026-34 is effective today; Revenue Procedure 2026-33 begins May 1, 2027.
Higher rates can cut closely held business valuations and open an estate-gift window
A lower supportable fair market value lets an owner move more ownership out of the estate while using less lifetime gift and estate tax exemption, though company facts still drive the appraisal.
Slott Report: HSA contributions fall to self-only limit when one spouse enrolls in Medicare
The same mailbag walks a 71-year-old through moving a Vanguard IRA to Fidelity and converting part of it, noting the RMD rule that applies later.
Allianz survey finds 34% of Americans expect Medicare to cover long-term care
The survey of 1,000 adults also found 23% believe Medicare is free; Fidelity projects $185,000 in retirement medical costs, excluding long-term care.
Taxable assets reach $66 trillion, nearly double retirement savings, H&W finds
The report counts 133.4 million U.S. households holding $102.4 trillion in investable assets, with the allocation decision most contested among households with $100,000 to under $3 million.
Musk's SpaceX share pledge can't enter an unclaimed Trump Account
Treasury opened the accounts Oct. 1, 2026, and until a parent claims one it can take only government and charity money plus the $1,000 pilot contribution.
NARSA survey: 73.5% of advisors say clients want early Social Security over cut fears
The August poll of 189 Registered Social Security Analysts also found nearly 59% say clients doubt Congress will fix the program's finances.
Healthspan Wealth opens early access to AI longevity planning tool
Founders Thomas C. West and Suzanne Schmitt started the company in 2025 and hold five patents on compliant information sharing.
10 stories
Tax-loss selling pushes record $5 billion into muni ETFs in week ended Oct. 14
Open-ended muni mutual funds lost $3.4 billion in the same week, their largest weekly outflow since June 2022.
Tax Foundation: bonus depreciation shifts corporate tax burden to economic profits
The Oct. 21 analysis says immediate expensing preserves a deduction's full value and removes the tax burden on the return needed to break even.
Treasury auto-opened Trump Accounts Oct. 1, 2026; parents must claim them
Until a parent claims, the account can accept only government and charity money plus the $1,000 pilot contribution for certain children born 2025 through 2028.
Tax Foundation says California billionaire tax pitch keeps shifting
An Oct. 16 op-ed focuses on advocate Gabriel Zucman's description of Proposition 40 as a one-time levy, without offering a new revenue figure.
Treasury and IRS put donor-advised fund guidance on 2026-2027 priority plan
WealthManagement.com reports the 6033 reference is new and may point to additional reporting for donor-advised fund sponsors.
WealthManagement.com guide lays out three paths and four questions for family business succession
The guide says many analyses value the coming shift of privately held U.S. businesses at $5 trillion or more.
IRS grants estate late opt-out from automatic GST allocation on GRATs
Private Letter Ruling 202633002, dated Aug. 14, 2026, allowed the elections after missed opt-outs surfaced at the taxpayer's death.
Ed Slott: same-property rule can void a 60-day IRA rollover
Returning a different asset of equal value instead of the exact cash or shares distributed makes the distribution taxable, Ed Slott writes in an IRAHelp column.
BofA study: 37% said incoming principal was very prepared when transition occurred
A quarter of the 355 U.S. family offices surveyed have had a leadership transition in the last decade.
US pension system graded C+ as sustainability score slips to 57.1
The 2026 Marsh CFA Institute index puts the US at 61.6 overall, behind six A-grade systems with near-universal coverage and funded structures.
5 stories
Stanford economists estimate California Prop 40 would raise $30 billion
The paper's authors say seven billionaires who left the state took $540 billion, or 30% of California's billionaire wealth, with them.
Devenir: 52% of HSA assets were invested by June 30
Accounts with invested assets hold 59% of all HSA assets and average $23,837 combined, nearly nine times the funded deposit-only average.
Nationwide survey: nearly three-quarters of Gen Z changed or considered changing portfolios
About 24% of Gen Z respondents said they moved money into more conservative or lower-risk investments before the election, versus 13% of boomers.
Tax Foundation says Florida Amendment 3 would cut the local property tax base
The analysis says the amendment would leave the cost of local public services in place while removing a significant portion of that base.
Betterment adds mega-backdoor Roth to its solo 401(k) platform
Advisers using Betterment Advisor Solutions get in-platform conversions, 1099-R reporting and automated tracking of contributions against annual limits.
3 stories
Average Social Security COLA adds $75 a month in 2027; Fidelity suggests a planning review
A Fidelity viewpoints article published the day after the confirmation outlines three policy approaches to the program's long-term funding gap.
Edward Jones: 81% of financial caregivers for adults 65+ would sacrifice own financial security
Among the 84% of caregivers not fully reimbursed, out-of-pocket costs average $8,737 a year, the Harris Poll survey of 3,223 adults found.
SoFi survey: women 25-45 rank investing 11th among money priorities
Thirteen percent of women named investing as a money priority versus 28% of men, and 45% chose paying down debt as their leading goal.
1 story
Morningstar research puts retirement shortfall risk at 40%-45%
Excluding long-term-care costs lowers that figure by about 25%, according to a Morningstar article and podcast excerpt.
2 stories
IRS starts automatic refunds for more than 50,000 adoption tax credit carryforward filers
Notices generally go out within 30 days of the account adjustment, and the agency says no amended return is needed.
Advised investors ask AI more and verify less, Evergreen.ai study finds
Among advised respondents who used AI for money questions, 41.9% acted without checking against another source or a professional, nearly triple the 14.4% rate among unadvised users.
2 stories
Focus Partners Wealth’s Jeffrey Levine tells advisors to keep college savings in 529 plans
Distributions from Trump Accounts are generally taxable at 18, while 529 withdrawals for college are tax-free, Levine says.
F&G survey: 75% of pre-retirees weigh delaying retirement
WTW's survey the same day found the share of U.S. employees who felt financially secure fell to 36% from 46% in 2019.