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  • Who We Are
    • Meet Carter Ruml
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Category: Financial Planning

Kentucky Estates: articles on financial planning

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“Emerging Adulthood” and Life Cycle Planning

April 10, 2016

It was exciting and gratifying last weekend when the New York Times published a really excellent article by Jeffrey J. Selingo in its “Education Life” section that wove together several themes we’ve written on during the last two years and cited many of the same sources you’ll find in our life cycle planning bibilography. I encourage you […]

The Demographic Context for Asset Sales by Baby Boomers

March 19, 2016

My practice, and the practices of most colleagues and friends who are also trust and estate attorneys, has become busier than any of us ever expected after the 2010 tax act made high estate tax exemptions an (allegedly) permanent part of the landscape.  I think one issue, more than any other, has been the key […]

Customizing a Trust to Reflect Your Own Investment Philosophy

March 13, 2016

One of the most fascinating aspects of my practice is working with clients who expose me to so many different case studies of how wealth is grown, maintained, or dissipated. What I’ve seen demonstrates that different investment approaches, over time, carry dramatically different potential and risks, and produce substantially different results. Along those lines, this […]

Sidestepping Risks From Job Loss After Age 50

October 3, 2015

When people in their 30s and 40s think about their earning trajectory through a normal retirement age, they should take into account the tendency for income growth to taper after age 40 in many fields, and the risks of unplanned early retirement, caused by health problems, corporate downsizing, or otherwise. Job loss after age 40 […]

Design Factors For Your Family’s Trust

August 9, 2015

These are interesting years in estate planning for families in the Upper Middle and Lower Upper Classes. As a high estate tax exemption has reduced the tax-driven imperatives for using trusts to hold inheritances, non-tax applications of trusts come to the fore. As non-tax issues in trust design assume greater relative importance, what factors should […]

Design Options for Education Trusts

July 18, 2015

I often work with “Wealth Creators” who have built substantial wealth themselves, most notably as founders of companies or early-stage employees at startups. I also work with “Inheritors” managing wealth built in prior generations for the benefit of descendants. Although every instance has unique aspects, in general, I find that Wealth Creators have conflicted feelings about what being […]

Regional Economic Risk and Your Personal “Plan B”

June 14, 2015

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what a “Corporate Event” at Humana might mean for Louisville. A rosy analysis I’ve heard suggests that Aetna might buy Humana, and then move its headquarters here. We’d all love that outcome (sorry, Hartford). Other Humana transactions may have collateral effects on our city that are, to put it […]

Managing Risk: Inheritance Strategies for the Upper Middle Class

June 8, 2015

Several months ago I read Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times by Marianne Cooper, a Stanford sociologist. Cooper’s chapters on the extremely professionally successful upper middle class and their project of “doing security” were particularly interesting. These families were operating an increasingly unstable career and social environment, and devoted tremendous energy to enhancing their own financial security. […]

Managing Volatility: Inheritance Strategies for the Lower Upper Class

May 23, 2015

This week I’ve been reading Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen: A Life. That’s risky for me to admit, as surveys show the female/male ratio of “Janeites” runs about 25:1. Mockery from readers may be unavoidable, and even deserved. I think one of the most interesting aspects of Tomalin’s biography is how it shows the Austens and […]

Managing Abundance: Inheritance Strategies of the Upper Class

May 16, 2015

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 them not very much (if anything) until they inherit as your survivor. Ad hoc gifts are transfers for a […]

How Inheritance Affects Adult Children: A Tale of Three Classes

May 9, 2015

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 great color and insight by the New York Times. Because I am a trust and estates lawyer, my practice offers a fascinating […]

Overfunded 529 Plans: Avoiding Too Much of a Good Thing

May 3, 2015

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 charts below show: college costs have gone truly exponential in the last one and a half generations, far outstripping increases […]

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