ESTATE PLANNING COUNCIL OF NORTHERN NEVADA

The Robert G. Alexander Webinar Series

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 provided sweeping changes to individual, business, and estate, gift, and GST taxes. This legislation is a doubled-edged sword.  It appears to eliminate transfer tax planning for 99.7% of the population but, on the other hand, creates significant practice opportunities for both UHNW and HNW clients as well as the mass affluent.

The opportunities are threefold.  First, more sophisticated planning at the high end which demands - and benefits - from a multidisciplinary approach.  Second, for the rest of the population there’s often ignored compliance and record-keeping challenges which require greater collaboration among the advisory team.  Third, at all levels of wealth there is an opportunity to provide clients with what many seek but can’t find:  purposeful planning that includes legacy, philanthropic, and relational goals.  More and more advisors are waking up to these opportunities but don’t fully understand what’s possible or what’s needed to provide what clients both need and want.

Taxes never should’ve been the primary driver of estate planning objectives and solutions. The nature of the “Act” has created tremendous uncertainty and polarization in the planning world.  This webinar will address those concerns, and focus on practical but overlooked opportunities which surveys are suggesting clients want. 

Attendees will learn:

• Purposeful planning for meeting the client’s challenges and objectives - how to ask the right questions and engage planning team members to address this task.
• Increased awareness about the interactions, interdependencies and interrelationships between and amongst all of the professionals and their respective disciplines, as well as how actions we take today have different consequences over the short and long term, and in different parts of the system.
• Tax compliance issues for estate planning for estates that may not be burdened by federal wealth transfer taxes. This would include gift tax compliance, record keeping for basis, and recommended appraisal of family assets.
• Trust planning A-Z - matching the acronyms with client solutions.

Trusts & Estates has applied for continuing education credit for CFP®, CIMA®, CPWA®, and AEP® designees.

About the speakers:

S. Mark Alton has been advising multigenerational families of wealth and family enterprises since 1991. He currently serves as president-elect of the NAEPC, is a past chair of its Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Conference and Multidisciplinary Teaming and Professional Collaboration Committees, and is currently chair of the Synergy Summit, a unique organization whose delegates come from the leadership of the major legal, accounting, and financial service organizations.   

Theodore “Ted” Kurlowicz is the Charles E. Drimal Professor of Estate Planning at The American College of Financial Services where he teaches and prepares text materials and courses in estate planning and planning for business owners and professionals. He also is an adjunct associate professor at Widener University in the Master of Science in Taxation and Financial Planning Program. Ted publishes a client tax and estate-planning newsletter franchised by many life underwriters and financial planners, has participated in developing state insurance agent licensing examinations for numerous states, is a frequent speaker at professional associations, and is an author or co-author of several books, and has appears on numerous television programs.  

Blake Melton is a Sr. Wealth Strategist with Synovus Family Asset Management in Columbus, GA and a frequent speaker at professional and educational programs.  He is chairperson of the Fiduciary Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia and serves on the Trust Code Revision and Legislative Committees.  He led the Sections efforts responding to power of attorney legislation in the 2017 legislative session and drafting a corrections bill that passed in 2018 session.  Blake also serves on NAEPCs Multidisciplinary Teaming and Professional Collaboration Committee.  In 2018, he was named to Family Wealth Report’s shortlist for recognition as the Best Leading Individual.  Blake also serves his community in numerous capacities, including board membership for Trees Columbus and Bicycle Columbus and treasurer for the Chattahoochee Valley Area chapter of the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association where he led the charge to construct a 25-mile multi-use trail system within Columbus city limits, which is on track to be completed by 2021.

Until 2009 John A. Warnick was a partner in the Denver office of a large regional law firm where he chaired that firm’s Private Client Services Group. In early 2010 he launched the Purposeful Planning Institute, a community of estate planning attorneys, financial planners, CPAs, trustees, wealth psychologists, and family business consultants who want to insure that the impact of their technical planning will be a positive force in the lives of each generation of their client families. John A. is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, serves on NAEPCs Multidisciplinary Teaming and Professional Collaboration Committee, and speaks frequently to estate planning councils, bar associations, financial planning audiences and family business centers.

Moderator John T. Midgett is a Shareholder in the Law Firm of Midgett Preti Olansen where his practice concentrates on estate planning, administration and taxation, estate and trust litigation, and family business planning.  John is a dynamic speaker who is also actively involved in the Hampton Roads Estate Planning Council and the Duke University Estate Planning Council, on the board of directors of NAEPC and on its Multidisciplinary Teaming and Professional Collaboration Committee, served as chair of the Trusts & Estates Section of the Virginia State Bar in 2008-2009, and is currently chair of the Virginia Bar Association Wills, Trusts & Estates Section and serving on its Legislative Committee. John is also a past president of the Hampton Roads Gift Planning Council, the Hampton Roads Estate Planning Council, the Tidewater Chapter of the International Association of Financial Planners (now known as the Financial Planning Association) and the Hampton Roads Chapter of the Society of FSM™ Financial Service Professionals.