Stites On Estates
Estate, Trust, and Tax Planning
Managing Abundance: Inheritance Strategies of the Upper Class
Broadly speaking, I have observed Upper Class families use three types of inheritance strategies: deferral, ad hoc gifts, and income streams.Deferral is a traditional strategy: pay to raise and educate your child, and then give...
How Inheritance Affects Adult Children: A Tale of Three Classes
Although class is discussed frequently and openly in Britain, it makes many of us on this side of the Pond uncomfortable. Even so, class in America has been covered humorously by Paul Fussell, and with...
The Advantages of Tennessee Trusts: Investment Services Act Trusts
Hello to everyone reading Stites on Estates. I recently joined Stites & Harbison as an estate planning attorney practicing in both Tennessee and Georgia. My inaugural blog post discusses Tennessee Investment Services Act trusts...
Overfunded 529 Plans: Avoiding Too Much of a Good Thing
The expense of college for children and grandchildren is a troubling issue for almost all of my clients.I think this is because at an instinctual level, long before crunching any numbers, clients know what the...
A Critical Look at Roth IRAs: The Marshmallow Is Not Always What It Seems
In the late 60s and early 70s at Bing Nursery School on Stanford's campus, Walter Mischel conducted the famous "Marshmallow Experiment" on delayed gratification. Preschoolers were offered a choice between one marshmallow or cookie right...
Exercising Stock Options and Selling Shares: May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor
If you have been working since the late '90s, you have probably collected some great stories about exercising stock options and other equity-based compensation.Some are unqualified success stories, like the time my college roommate's father...
Noncompetition Agreements and Your Career: On the Beach When You Don't Want to Be
Noncompetition agreements are a common fact of life for many of the mid- and senior-level executives I represent in estate planning, and for business owner clients with employees.Because noncompetes are such important features of the...
Business Startup Issues That May Find You – Even if You Don’t Go Looking For Them
In my practice, I have found that a majority of my clients who create significant wealth do so through ownership of a private business or a concentrated stock position in a publicly traded company.What that...