Divorce. An unexpected death, disability, or retirement. An irreconcilable dispute. These triggering events may put your successful, stable business into a tailspin. Luckily, a buy-sell agreement can help you and your business be better prepared to handle these events. What Is A Buy-sell Agreement? A buy-sell agreement is a legally binding agreement between co-owners of a business that controls what happens if a co-owner leaves the business—think of it as a change management tool. What Should a Buy-Sell Agreement Consider and Include? We’ve created this checklist as a starting point…Read More
Often in estate planning, attorneys present the idea of guardianship and/or conservatorship as a bad thing – something to be avoided. In a perfect world, we could move through our lives from cradle to grave without such things as guardianships and conservatorships. But in order to achieve this perfect world, we have to do advance planning to provide for our own care if we become impaired or incapacitated, and we need trustworthy, responsible and financially astute family members who are willing and able to assist us. For some people, these…Read More
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act) was signed into law on December 20, 2019, and went into effect on January 1, 2020. It is the most impactful legislation affecting retirement accounts in at least a decade. If your estate plan distributes your retirement assets to your beneficiaries in trust, please contact us for a review of your plan to determine if updates are required to avoid the “conduit trust disaster,” explained below. The SECURE Act poses significant problems for clients who wish to protect retirement…Read More
Do you know what kind of estate plan your parents have, if any? And conversely, do your kids know what your wishes are in the event of your death or incapacity? Beginning a conversation with your elderly parents or with your children about planning to prepare for eventual incapacity and death can be a very difficult thing to do. The holidays can be a great time to begin the conversation and discuss wishes, desires, and completing a solid estate plan together. You may find out that your parents have a…Read More
RECOIL INTERVIEWS DR. JOHN LOT, JR. TO DIFFERENTIATE FACT FROM FICTION With so many experts on firearms-related topics — Diane Feinstein, Hillary Clinton, news reporters on CNN — we’re bombarded daily with “facts” we know aren’t quite right. Sometimes, these so-called facts are even absurd, but are nonchalantly paraded around by the media to support their gun control agenda. How do we, the responsible gun owners, prove the falsehood? Recognizing the difference between fact and fiction is one of the most important skills in the Second Amendment advocate’s arsenal. Read…Read More
Gone are the days when the law required Americans to be armed. Instead, we face a new bans on guns, ammunition, or firearms accessories every time we turn around. In fact, many people see no reason for civilians to have guns at all, let alone the weapons they view as designed specifically for the military. Because of this flawed viewpoint, too many Americans, including politicians, prefer to take machine guns, “assault weapons” and “large-capacity” magazines completely out of the hands of civilians. These gun control advocates have tried various ways…Read More
Making And Apprehending Criminals Through The Tax Laws A hand-processed, paper-intensive, firearm background check system that costs Americans millions of dollars annually to implement is no doubt an archaic way of doing business in the year 2017. But few, if any, people have ever suggested that government processes are the model of efficiency. Unfortunately, while change may be on the horizon, it’ll take much effort and many years to see improvement for the simple reason that far too many people still agree with the following statement: “A sawed-off shotgun is…Read More
Your home is your castle. That’s the underlying theme of castle doctrine laws, intended to allow people to defend their homes and lives without fear of prosecution. You may be forced to make a split-second decision on using deadly force; these laws are designed to prevent prosecutors from second guessing your life-or-death decision. Florida Leads The Way Have you read many news reports about Florida residents being prosecuted for shooting intruders inside their own homes? Probably not, because “those people just aren’t getting arrested due to Florida’s strong castle doctrine,”…Read More
Gun Owners Lost The Battle But May (Eventually) Win The War Most gun owners, particularly those in California, relished a fantasy in which the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear the case of Peruta v. San Diego and set the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals straight in its failure to protect the right to carry a firearm in public. These gun owners hoped that the SCOTUS would step-in, overturn the 2016 Ninth Circuit decision holding that the Second Amendment does not protect a right to carry a concealed firearm,…Read More
Picture a tiny, Christmas town filled with classic Alpine chalets and surrounded by mountains, with the citizens working dutifully to contribute to the common good, and you will envision Zermatt, Switzerland. Zermatt is a picturesque tourist town that would fit the typical political progressive’s idea of utopia on earth: modern, clean and government-controlled. Environmental preservation is key. Residents pride themselves on the pure, glacial water flowing through the town.Read More
