Wealth management

Top stories from the past month in financial planning

Don't be afraid to serve the very, very rich

Odds have now turned against those hoping that the health care law passed in 2010 will "just go away."

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. has approved the organization's first-ever Sanction Guidelines, which will be used by the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission and staff when determining sanctions for particular CFP Board violations.

XBRL US launched on Wednesday its second annual XBRL Challenge, a contest to discover the top open source analytical tools that can mine XBRL-formatted corporate financial data from the SEC’s EDGAR database.

Senate Democrats, who are united in support of higher income tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, are paralyzed by disagreements on how to tax the estates of the wealthiest Americans.

An increasing number of business entities, including investment funds like the Carlyle Group, along with private hedge funds, private equity firms and venture capital funds, largely escape Internal Revenue Service audits due to the way they are organized, according to a new report.

Families who have prepared a personal financial plan report more success managing their money, savings and investments than those who have not, according to a new survey.

Many CPAs are passive in nature and afraid to ask clients to pay them extra for financial advice. Yet, often they are better positioned even than planners to suggest tax-efficient investment strategies.

Faced with possible dissent in their party, U.S. Senate Democrats are dropping estate tax language backed by President Barack Obama from their proposal to extend most George W. Bush-era tax cuts through 2013.

Approximately 86 percent of millionaires in the U.S. believe themselves to be self-made, according to a new survey by Fidelity Investments.

The recent IPO by Facebook founders led to their creation of grantor trusts to avoid paying taxes of at least $200 million. It underlined new uses of a technique that has been around for a long time. Grantor trusts, including defective trusts, are still the hot new thing.

Despite the slowdown this year of the economic recovery, financial professionals surveyed by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Institute of Management Accountants believe that business conditions in the U.S. are improving, but they worry about conditions abroad.

A pair of experts from accounting firm Rothstein Kass have helped write a new book that offers an introductory guide to the capital markets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has voted to require national securities exchanges and the Financial Institution Regulatory Authority to establish a market-wide consolidated audit trail to enhance the ability of regulators to monitor and analyze trading activity.

An eye-opening report sheds a harsh light on the growing trend of sales of property tax liens to unscrupulous profiteers, all too often forcing the elderly and impoverished out of their homes due to outstanding tax debts.

Capital markets executives at leading investment banks have conflicting views on the recently enacted JOBS Act, according to a new study by accounting and consulting firm BDO USA LLP.

The decision of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not going to make our conversations with our clients any simpler, even if it resolves some of the overall economic uncertainty that has made these conversations so difficult of late.

The Internal Revenue Service’s art appraisal experts are not subject to either a comprehensive quality review program or continuing education requirements specifically devoted to appraising art, according to a new government report.

Retiring Baby Boomers are driving development of new financial products