What if, suddenly, you had enough money to buy something you’ve long desired, travel to a place you’ve dreamed of going, or make a real difference to a charity you’ve always admired?

Consider it a problem we’d all like to have. But consider it a potential problem nonetheless.

If we live long enough, we will most likely become caregivers. “Caregiving in the U.S. 2020” as published by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, stated about 1 in 6 Americans currently care for someone aged 50 or over. More than half of these caregivers are themselves aged 50 or over and 20% are aged 65 or older. According to AARP, 42% of caregivers have experienced a financial impact from this role.

Bitcoin values are down over 60% in 2022.

FTX, an offshore crypto exchange imploded/collapsed or just blew-up. It looks like another Bernie Madoff scheme in the making! Multi-billions of dollars are missing and likely will never be found! Oddly, the breaking news on FTX happened at practically the same instance that Elizabeth Holmes, formerly of the now defunct Theranos, was sentenced to over 11 years in prison for massive fraud.

Entity choice is important for many reasons. Asset protection and tax considerations are always near the top of the list. As a business progresses through the five (5) phases of a life cycle: start-up, growth, maturity, renewal/rebirth/decline and succession– the factors that earlier prompted a particular choice of entity may change. And, a new entity choice may become more appropriate.

You wondered at the time whether it was a scam, right? And now you regularly see news reports about ERC scams. Employee retention credit scams, that is. And so, two questions. Did you get scammed? And if so, what should you do at this point? Fortunately, you can probably answer this question pretty easily.

Chatting with an executor and/or beneficiaries of an estate is a common occurrence for us. In these meetings, one of my early questions is whether the decedent had any assets in tax-deferred retirement accounts such as IRAs. The answer may have far-reaching tax consequences.