Retirement

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

No matter how much money your client has, it's crucial to have a basic estate plan simply because such a plan will then ensure that the financial goals of the client are met after the client dies.

The American Institute of CPAs found a range of responses when it surveyed Americans on how they intend to use their tax rebates.

With tax season now behind us, accountants can turn their attention to the clients who are on extension and provide advice to other clients to help them save money in the year ahead.

“Keeping Retirement Plans Qualified” in the March issue of Practical Accountant was written just prior to the U.S. Supreme Court decision, LaRue v. DeWolff, in which the Court held that a participant in a defined contribution pension plan may sue a fiduciary under ERISA Section 502(a)(2) when claiming that a fiduciary breach caused a loss of plan assets allocated to the participant’s 401(k) plan account. It was pointed out in the article that employee benefit plan audits have now become not only financial statements, but also compliance audits. The Supreme Court opinion is further indication of that.

It is my belief that despite the various newsletters, publications and sections on the AICPA Website, what the AICPA is doing that directly impacts its members can be publicized better by the AICPA.

Grizzled business veterans can pontificate about how successful enterprises are built from strength, character and luck. These elements, they say, together serve as the underpinning of business and of life beyond it. And it can be tempting to believe that earnest effort based on this foundation alone will be rewarded when the time comes.But when company owners look down the highway at the shimmering sale in the distance — the event towards which they have driven for decades — they should put those intangibles behind them. Planning, not fate, is the only real mechanism for ensuring the most value and the smoothest transition when a company changes hands.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have issued proposed regulations to provide funding guidance for single-employer defined-benefit plans.

Many clients of CPA firms are Boomers who will be retiring in increasing numbers over the next decade. What does that mean? Obviously that means firms will be looking to continue to retain many of those retirees as clients,and it will also mean there will be a need to find a steady supply of new clients.

On January 24, 2002, I gave a presentation, at the Large- and Medium-Sized Firms Practice Management Committee of the New York State Society of CPAs, entitled "Like the Energizer Bunny, the Enron Mess Keeps Going and Going." It seems I was right as Citigroup just settled a lawsuit in which it agreed to pay $1.66 billion to the Enron Bankruptcy Estate, which had filed bankruptcy and fraud claims against Citigroup in the United States Bankruptcy Court in New York.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a statement intended to improve financial reporting on derivative instruments and hedging activities.

Thomson Tax & Accounting has introduced an estate-planning notebook organizer that accountants can send to their clients as gifts.

Nonprofit software provider Serenic Corp., parent to the flagship Navigator product, okayed granting stock options to its directors and senior officers. The company granted 100,000 stock options to Bruce Saville, who joined the Serenic board last week; 85,000 to board members Don Caron, Ron Odynski, and chairman Dwayne Kushniruk; 50,000 to chief executive Randy Keith; 35,000 to corporate secretary David Tam; and 25,000 to CFO Paul Johnston.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a report warning public pension funds that they risk violating the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws if they do not have adequate compliance policies in place to prevent wrongdoing.

Fidelity Investments has released a report estimating that a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2008 would need approximately $225,000 to cover their medical costs in retirement, a 4.7 percent increase over the 2007 estimate of $215,000.

For investment property owners, the first and last concern in a Sec. 1031 exchange transaction should be safety. "Will my funds be secure?" is the most important question to ask a qualified intermediary before beginning a Sec. 1031 exchange.Recent events by a handful of disreputable qualified intermediaries have led to speculation on what is the true litmus test for security of funds in a 1031 exchange. In response, a few QIs and pundits have generated a rash of propaganda and half-truths.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the task of sorting through a multitude of mutual funds to offer clients? Think of narrowing down the appropriate funds as a funneling process.This technique works for Sean Bergin, managing director of Citrin Cooperman Wealth Management Co., based in Philadelphia. For him, the key is to slim the selection down via a handful of requirements.

The challenges for creating an effective executive compensation package are many. The executive wants more pay but less taxation, while the company wants incentive-based benefits that bind the executive more closely to the company.The traditional solution for these needs is a nonqualified stock-option program. The executive gets both a potentially high payout and the ability to time the taxation of the payout. The employer likes the program because stock options are a cashless, incentive-based package with vesting restrictions.